By Milliam Murigi
Two decades after the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) promised to transform African agriculture through improved seeds, synthetic fertilisers and better market access, a new report says hunger has instead increased across the countries targeted by the initiative.
The report dubbed, The Green Revolution Has Failed Africa: Twenty Years of Evidence and What Works Instead, finds that the number of chronically undernourished people across AGRA’s 13 priority countries increased by 58 per cent between 2006 and the latest available data. This is nearly twice the 31 per cent increase identified in an earlier assessment published in 2020.
These countries include Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Ghana, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Malawi, Mozambique and Zambia.
“The issue is larger than whether AGRA met the targets it announced in 2006. It is whether two decades of increased fertiliser use, public subsidy, commercial seed promotion and policy reform accelerated productivity, used land more efficiently, strengthened resilience and improved food security,” reads part of the report prepared by the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA).
Further, the fertiliser use more than doubled across the countries during the period, while the area under cultivation expanded by 46 per cent. Despite this expansion, growth in staple-crop yields slowed compared with the 12 years before AGRA was established.
Much of the increase in food production therefore came from bringing more land under cultivation rather than significantly increasing productivity on existing farmland.
“This is not an argument against improved seeds, fertiliser or new technology. Farmers need science, finance, infrastructure and strong public support. The question is what kind of food system these investments are building, who controls it and who benefits,” reads another part of the report
The expansion also came with a shift towards maize monocultures, while traditional drought-resilient crops such as millet and sorghum lost ground. Malawi provides what the report describes as a striking example of the disconnect between agricultural productivity and food security. The country recorded the strongest yield growth among the countries studied, yet the number of people facing hunger increased by 61 per cent.
The findings suggest that producing more of a single crop does not necessarily make households more food secure, particularly when farming systems are vulnerable to drought, high input costs and other shocks.
“The shift displaced crops important to nutrition, local food cultures and resilience under dry conditions, while increasing dependence on maize, commercial seed and purchased inputs,” reveals the report.
AFSA identifies Senegal as a contrasting example. The country was not among AGRA’s priority countries but reduced hunger by about half over the same period, bringing the prevalence of undernourishment below five per cent of the population.
At the same time, millet production increased by 85 per cent and sorghum production by 75 per cent. The report attributes Senegal’s progress partly to maintaining diversified farming systems rather than relying heavily on a single crop and an input-intensive production model. It also notes that Senegal used substantially less fertiliser than countries such as Zambia.
“The agroecological alternative isn’t theoretical. Farmers are already building it. Restoring soils, protecting their seeds, diversifying their farms and reducing dependence on expensive external inputs. It’s time to fund what works,” said Dr. Million Belay, AFSA General Coordinator.
The report argues that agroecology including farmer-managed seed systems, soil restoration and diversified farming offers an alternative to approaches that make farmers increasingly dependent on purchased seeds, fertilisers and other external inputs.
The findings are particularly relevant for Zambia, where agricultural policy has heavily prioritised subsidised inputs and maize production.
Mutinta Nketani, National Coordinator of the Zambia Alliance for Agroecology and Biodiversity, said Zambia allocates up to 72 per cent of its agriculture budget to subsidising a single input package. Yet maize yields increased by only 14 per cent while the amount of land under cultivation nearly doubled.
“After billions poured into AGRA-aligned policies, farmers have only grown hungrier and more in debt,” Nketani said.
The AFSA report comes as African governments prepare a new 10-year agricultural strategy under the Kampala CAADP framework. The strategy is expected to guide billions of dollars in agricultural, development and climate financing across the continent.
AFSA is cautioning governments and development partners against repeating what it describes as the shortcomings of the previous agricultural development model.
The organization says there is now an opportunity to redirect agricultural financing towards approaches that strengthen farmers’ resilience rather than increasing dependence on external inputs.
“Africa does not need another Green Revolution. We need a food systems transformation rooted in our people, our biodiversity, our knowledge and our right to determine our own agricultural future,” adds Belay.
The organisation recommends shifting 10 per cent of existing agricultural financing towards farmer-managed seed systems, soil health and diversified production by 2028. It proposes increasing this to 25 per cent by 2030 and 33 per cent by 2035.
Six African countries already have national agroecology laws, while another five are developing similar legislation, according to the report.
For AFSA, the issue is therefore not whether Africa needs to invest more in agriculture, but where that investment should go.
“African farmers must stop being treated as beneficiaries of someone else’s transformation,” Belay writes in the report’s foreword. “They must be its authors.”
Source: news.scienceafrica.co.ke/
