With announcements on agriculture expected from the G8 today, Farm-Africa’s new chairman, Martin Evans, tells Liz Ford what Africa’s subsistence farmers really need
Asked what he would like the G8 to do for African farmers this week, the new chairman of Farm-Africa, Martin Evans, doesn’t hesitate to offer a list. Top of that list is money for research into new disease-resistant seed varieties, improved animal healthcare, particularly in those areas vulnerable to climate change, and help for farmers to access new technology and markets.
“What we’d like to see is basically the same thing as African farmers. We need to look at what they want and how the G8 can help supply these things,” says the agricultural economist.
“Money from the G8 that is put into agriculture research systems can have huge benefits. Fund additional research into improved seeds and animal disease prevention and you will offer a safeguard for years ahead. If they [G8] are really paying for agriculture, let’s see some money go into research.”
Farm-Africa is working with the African Medical and Research Foundation (Amref) on improving livelihoods in Katine, north-east Uganda, as part of the Guardian’s three-year development project in the region.
Working with 18 farmers groups in the rural sub-county, the project has seen the introduction of new disease-resistant, high-yielding cassava, which has just produced its first harvest, and plans are underway to build a storage centre for crops, which will allow farmers to sell in bulk and hopefully get a better deal. Mobile phones are increasingly being used by farmers to find the best place to sell their goods.
Crisis talks
After more than 20 years of neglect from the international community, the world food crisis has pushed agriculture if not to the top, then certainly high up on to the G8 agenda this year, which could mean real benefits for farmers. Today a new initiative to fund farming and to tackle global hunger are due to be announced by leaders meeting in Italy, which reportedly could entail an investment of $12bn over the next three years.
The UK’s Department for International Development (DfID) has already laid out its commitment to revitalising agriculture and improving food security in its white paper, published on Monday. What it promises is not dissimilar to Evans’ wishlist. The paper, Building our Common Future, talks about helping subsistence farmers to get seeds and fertilisers, credit and access to markets, and of supporting agricultural research. It mentions “doubling agricultural production in Africa over the next 20 years” and calls on the international community to deliver the $20bn of new funding for food and agriculture promised last year (perhaps an inauspicious sign for any further cash pledges).
“We are just waking up to the fact that agriculture has been neglected and we’re seeing the impact of that. It’s absolutely true that the volume of aid and financial flows going into agriculture has been in decline over the last two decades,” says Evans, who took over as chairman this week.
The wake up call was triggered by the spike in food prices in 2007-08. Although prices for staple crops have now stabilised, DfID is still predicting long-term problems in producing and procuring food for nearly 1 billion people. The alarming rise in food prices coincided with the publication of the World Bank’s World Development Report 2008, which for the first time in more than 25 years focused on agriculture. The report said agriculture was “a vital development tool” for achieving the Millennium Development Goal to halve poverty by 2015. “The World Development Report refocused everyone’s attention,” says Evans.
Of course, helping farmers involves more than handing out seeds and discussing how new technologies can increase yields – it’s about making farming viable. “Food security is more than growing more food in your own backyard, it’s more of everything. Food security is about making farming more productive and more profitable. You need to improve access to markets. [Subsistence farmers] really don’t have good access to markets. You need investment in roads and communication technology to ensure trading conditions are right. Some money can usefully and sensibly be put into basic things like that.”
He adds: “It’s very difficult for poor people to amass any savings, so we can help them a lot by giving a bit of capital. I’m not suggesting that things are handed out on a plate. But we need to help to create the conditions that make things accessible and ensure farmers are encouraged and convinced that benefits outweigh the risks, and to take an entrepreneurial approach to things. It’s not about us turning up in our 4x4s, dumping things and leaving, it’s about working with farmers to identify problems and come up with plans. It’s very much about people helping themselves.”
He adds that farmers, the majority of whom are women, need educating on new technologies, such as how to conserve water and better irrigate land. But they also need to be convinced these new ideas are going to work. In Katine demonstration farms were set up to allow villagers to do just that.
Passing on the benefits
But with any new money promised by the international community comes the question of how it will get to farmers. Evans admits implementation is the hard bit, but that’s where NGOs like Farm-Africa step in. Donors are increasingly channelling aid through governments, but there has also been an increase in cash filtered through NGOs in recent years. “Assuming money is allocated by the G8, we hope a lot of it will come the way of good NGOs. We can do things neither governments or the commercial sector can do. But we need both.”
Looking to the future, Evans, who has more than 35 years experience working in agriculture, rural development and agribusiness, would like Farm-Africa to explore how large-scale business can benefit smallholder farmers, with whom the charity works throughout east Africa. “There are good examples where large-scale business can connect with small farmers by buying their products under contract, processing them for them and providing advice and seeds and technical support,” he says. “We can’t do these for all crops in all places, but I would like to see Farm-Africa exploring more opportunities for merging large scale agriculture and business to benefit small groups.”
“Like it or not, large-scale business is a fact. It can be a threat, but can also be a great way to look to see how Farm-Africa can open up these opportunities for the benefit of small farmers.”
The anti-aid agenda
If Berlusconi sets the tone at next week’s G8, it will be a disaster for a cherished Labour goal
The G8 is less than a week away but already the Italian presidency is seen as having a disastrous impact on aid. Uninterested, disorganised and short is likely to be the summary of the summit by the end of next week: the G8 leaders, according to the latest plans, will have only three hours sitting down together.
While the developing world reels from the economic downturn, Italy has shown no ambition for the aid agenda. It is falling dramatically behind on its own commitments made in 2005 at Gleneagles and is instituting draconian cuts of 56% in its aid budget this year. Italy will end up with the lowest rate of aid – less than 0.1% of GDP – in the G8, despite its reiterations of commitment to the European agreement to reach 0.51% by 2010.
Italy’s lamentable performance is prompting a crisis of identity for the G8. Accusations of summit ceremony with no substance have always dogged the event, but given that it no longer represents all the biggest economies (China is not a member), or the biggest populations (such as China or India), its one last claim to world leadership has been as the world’s biggest aid donor. But even that claim now looks fragile in Italy’s hands. Spain has overtaken Italy in GDP per capita and now has one of the highest aid rates in the EU, handsomely ahead of Italy. The question of whether Silvio Berlusconi has forfeited his right to a place at the top table is likely to hover over events next week.
But the failures of Rome are only one aspect of how to ensure the survival of one of Labour’s most cherished achievements over the last 12 years: pushing increased aid up both the international and domestic agenda. By 2010 Britain is on track to have increased its aid budget to 0.62% of GDP, one of the highest in the EU and not far short of the totemic 0.7% set by the UN in 1970. While many departments are braced for cuts, aid is to increase – and the Tories have promised to abide by the increases. Labour has established a new political consensus on aid domestically, and an international profile on the issue which is widely admired. But can it hold?
That is part of the impetus behind the white paper expected next week from Department of International Development (DfiD). It indicates a growing unease across many parts of government that now is the time to lash the legacy down, to make it as difficult as possible for the Tories to unpick. The aim is to make aid analogous with the NHS or the BBC, a significant part of British identity. That means that a lot more people need to know what DfiD does, and this is what lies behind proposals to rebrand with a logo of UKaid.
It’s all laudable stuff, but difficult. At heart, aid is a moral argument about interconnectedness in a small world, and Labour has doggedly championed that message under the likes of Clare Short, Hilary Benn and, now, Douglas Alexander. The Tories have bought into that, because as one observer put it: “It’s a cheap way to detoxify the brand, aid represents only 1% of government spending.” But the concern is that the Tories might dilute the primacy of poverty reduction – diverting money into Foreign Office objectives, perhaps dismantling Dfid, as John Major and Douglas Hurd suggested recently. So the new white paper will try to buttress the moral argument with an awareness of self-interest: African economies, if strong enough, offer huge potential markets.
With energy draining away at an international level and a critique of aid gathering strength with the likes of economist Dambisa Moyo, it’s a vulnerable moment for the aid agenda. The fear is that achievements are hard won – involving huge effort in mobilising people on to the streets – and can easily fall apart: commitments dropped, and targets missed when everyone thought the job had been largely done.