By Witness Radio team
As the African Food Systems Summit kicks off today in Kigali, Rwanda, a group of African faith leaders has written a letter to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and other funders of industrial agriculture to make reparations for the ecological and social damage caused by their interventions in Africa’s food and farming systems.
In an open letter dated August 27th, 2024, the African Faith leaders assert that the Green Revolution initiatives, heavily supported by the Gates Foundation through the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), have failed to deliver on their promises and have instead exacerbated food insecurity, poverty, and environmental degradation across the continent.
“We, a collective of faith leaders from Africa, are calling on the funders of Industrial Agricultural practices, known as the Green Revolution, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (the Gates Foundation), to acknowledge that their interventions in Africa’s food and farming systems have failed. As a result, we are demanding reparations for the ecological and social damage caused,” the letter reads in part.
The Green Revolution, an approach to agriculture that emphasizes synthetic fertilizers, high-yield seeds, and industrial farming practices, was supposed to double the yields and incomes of smallholder farmers in Africa and halve the number of people suffering from hunger, but it has not helped. AGRA, founded in 2006 by the Gates Foundation and other donors, has been at the forefront of this effort, with nearly $1 billion invested in its programs.
This open letter demands that the African Food Systems Summit, which kicks off today and will run from September 2nd to 6th, 2024, in Kigali, Rwanda, not be used to entrench further agricultural models that do not align with the needs and realities of African farmers.
However, the faith leaders argue that AGRA’s interventions have done more harm than good. They highlight several key concerns, including dependence on costly inputs such as fertilizers and seeds, which leaves smallholder farmers vulnerable to volatile global prices and reduces their resilience to external shocks, Soil degradation and environmental harm, ecosystem collapse, and loss of food sovereignty.
“AGRA and the Gates Foundation, as well as seed and agrochemical companies, are false prophets of food security. They claim to be messiahs for the hungry but have failed to deliver. Their industrial approach degrades soils, destroys biodiversity, and places corporate profits over people. It is immoral. Gates and big agribusiness are playing God,” said Bishop Takalani Isaac Mufamadi, who endorsed the Southern African Faith Communities Environment Institute (SAFCEI) letter.
The letter calls for an immediate halt to funding for AGRA and similar programs. Instead, the faith leaders demand reparations through the support of agroecology, a sustainable approach to farming that emphasizes local knowledge, organic inputs, and community-led initiatives.
They urge international funders to respect and support locally defined, holistic approaches to agriculture that prioritize the well-being of African communities and the environment. The faith leaders’ demands are backed by a 2020 independent review of AGRA’s performance undertaken by Tufts University researchers, who used national-level data from 13 target countries of the AGRA program.
The review found little evidence of increased incomes or food security among small-scale farmers and an average increase of 30% in the number of hungry people in AGRA’s target countries. Furthermore, productivity gains were minimal; in some cases, yields declined due to soil degradation caused by the continuous use of synthetic fertilizers.
The review also highlighted the adverse effects of monoculture planting and the erosion of soil health, which leads to long-term damage to farming soils. The focus on market-driven agriculture has created a dependency that many smallholder farmers need help affording, leading to increased debt and a reduction in the diversity of food available in their communities.
In their letter, the African faith leaders emphasize their role as custodians of the Earth and their responsibility to advocate for just and equitable sharing of resources. They call on the Gates Foundation and other funders to transition towards agroecology, supporting efforts that center on local knowledge systems and communities with the belief that this approach will help restore the relationship between humans and the Earth and ensure the sustainability of Africa’s food systems for future generations.
“The Green Revolution has failed to increase food security in Africa and inflicted deep ecological and social wounds. As faith leaders, we have a responsibility as custodians of the Earth to call out this injustice.” — Gabriel Manyangadze of Southern African Faith Communities Environment Institute (SAFCEI) said.
