Akin Adesina, vice president of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (Agra), talked to AllAfrica about the work of the young, Nairobi-based institution and how its priorities and programs are evolving to improve food security across Africa. Agra was founded in 2006, with initial support from the Rockefeller Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and Bill Gates recently announced that the foundation will give another $15 million to enhance Agra's effectiveness. Here is part two of the conversation.
How do you address the impact that climate change is having on agricultural output?
We are going to be looking at environmental policy and climate-change policy. With climate change, the shocks and vulnerabilities that farmers face will increase disproportionately in Africa compared to the rest of the world. We will be supporting the development and scaling up of weather-indexed and affordable crop insurance for farmers, allowing them to get benefits even when there are rainfall failures. We are also going to be supporting policies that will encourage farmers to plant trees so they can protect their land and water-management systems better, as well as grow leguminous crops that fix nitrogen.
All the predictions show that most parts of Africa are going to be dry, because of a lack of enough rain and the poor distribution of the rainfall. That means the farmers will need a lot more drought-tolerant crop varieties and, at the same time, they need to be able to access those crop varieties very quickly.
Right now, we have drought-tolerant maize for east and southern Africa. We are helping to develop the release of hybrid sorghum varieties that are drought tolerant in Mali and other countries.
That's why seed policy is very critical. If the length of time between the development of these varieties and their release is significantly shortened, that will guarantee that farmers get these new technologies and put them to work. Our seed policy work is also going to support the harmonization of seed laws and seed regulations across countries, so that seed can move relatively easily within the African sub-region.
We are going to be supporting work on fertilizer policy to help governments look at how to make those support systems better targeted to farmers - and more efficient, by working with the private sector. We are also going to be looking at how to procure fertilizer on the continent in a more cost-efficient way, through regional procurement.
And we will be looking at the whole issue of fertilizer taxes. Africa taxes fertilizers too high. On the other side, we subsidize it. It doesn't make sense. Fertilizer use on the African continent is the least in the world; it's only about 8 kg per hectare.
Moving beyond that, we are going to be looking at market and trade policy. Farmers must be able to get good prices for their commodities and benefit from new technologies when they adopt them. But they face a number of challenges. First is lack of access to market information; the transaction cost is too high. Second, the price of their crop is unstable, and price volatility is a challenge. The third problem is that they lack access to processing technologies.
How does Africa's production of food for local consumption compare with the production of crops that are grown principally for export?
The total value of staple food crops in Africa is about U.S. $150 billion dollars a year. I'm talking about rice, cassava, yams and sweet potatoes. That amount alone far exceeds the total value of cash crops - tea, coffee, cotton and so on, which only add up to about U.S. 8.7 billion. The problem with staple food crops is that we don't have enough processing equipment for farmers to process them - and we therefore lose 50 percent of the harvest.
Let me give you just two examples. Nigeria is the largest producer of cassava in the world, but it accounts for zero percent in terms of value added to global cassava trade. Uganda is the second largest producer of bananas in the world, but it sits at number 75 in terms of export. It is critical to find policies that will (1) lower the cost of agro-processing by farmers and (2) that will support companies to locate processing centers closer to where these crops are grown, so that the cost of transport can go down, and (3) that will create a lot of jobs that will benefit a lot of women. Our work on market policy will focus on these fiscal policies - and also investment policies that will promote agro-processing policies for African staple food crops.
On the market side, there is the issue of regional trade. Less than three percent of the total trade in Africa actually occurs between the regions. That is because of tariff barriers, lack of customs harmonization and inconsistent grades and standards between countries. The Agra policy program will work with national and regional bodies to [develop] better standards and also look into harmonization of the customs laws, so that goods and services can easily flow across our borders.
On the issue of land policy, what about women's rights and the impact this has on food output?
Women form the majority of the producers of food crops in Africa -- they account for between 70 to 80%. Many of the women don't have access to land [or] they don't have access to secure land rights or property rights. At Agra, we want to make sure that the Green Revolution supports women, empowers women, and significantly benefits women. But that cannot happen unless they can have access to secure land rights.
On the policy front, we'll be supporting national governments to look at their land laws and land policies to make them women friendly; to improve the inheritance laws that make it easier for women to actually inherit land.
Do you see a role for micro-lending institutions in promoting agriculture and women farmers in particular?
We are currently developing a syndicated risk-sharing facility that will work with many banks in Africa, with the goal of leveraging a billion Euros in the next two-to-three years into small-holder agriculture. This will increase the volume of lending to small-holder agriculture, make lending more affordable and ensure that the banks themselves are competing in meeting the needs of small-holder farmers.
What role do you see for bilateral and multinational assistance programs and for international institutions?
The Obama administration's focus on supporting African agriculture is coming at a very good time. The promised support from the G8 of U.S.$20 billion support for Africa is also welcomed. The World Bank is increasing its support for African agriculture, and so are the African Development Bank and the International Fund for Agricultural Development.
However, one thing we have to get right: African development plans have to be developed on the continent. Multilateral donors should focus a lot of their attention on infrastructure, infrastructure and infrastructure. Africa badly needs rural roads, rural electrification, irrigation and storage facilities, and communication facilities in rural areas - and, in the current context of climate change, also on low-cost and efficient energy sources and environmentally friendly energy sources in rural areas. This will make a big, big difference.
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If you look at irrigation, for example, less than five percent of arable land in Africa is under irrigation. That is not acceptable. The area under irrigation has to be expanded. Equally important - we talked about the issue of women processing food - if they don't have energy sources to be able to that, and to do that in ways that are environmentally friendly, it is going to be very difficult for them. Again, the bilateral and multinational donors should do massive investments in infrastructure.
To sum up, what would you say drives your agenda at Agra?
One thing that drives our agenda is to have home-grown policies. Africa needs to move away from abandonment of farmers to comprehensive support for farmers. With the right policies in place, there is no reason why African farmers cannot be productive, efficient, and competitive like many other farmers in the world. They've been abandoned for so long - and that has to end now.
Africa should not be the world's largest museum of poverty. We can't let that happen. The whole agenda now is to make Africa a breadbasket for the world and not a basket case. In Rwanda, because the government is supporting farmers, the agricultural production growth rate, which was seven percent two years ago, was 15 percent last year. Malawi four years ago was on the verge of starvation. Today they are a net exporter of food, four years in a row. Africa can be a breadbasket to the rest of world, and I don't see why it shouldn't be.
You have taken on a wide range of projects. Do you think you can implement them successfully?
I think we are making good progress, even if some of the challenges ahead are daunting.
See Part One of the conversation.
