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In the absence of a co-ordinated approach, the
push for a Green Revolution in Africa will not benefit millions of
farmers but will instead severely affect their resiliency even as it
realises a boom for big-bucks biotech corporates, a new report says. "Despite
assertions to the contrary, there is a real danger that the Green
Revolution will turn into a corporate biotech boom and the destruction
of rural resiliency - and diversity - in Africa," says Green Revolution
2.0 for Africa? This time the '"silver bullet' has a gun."
Prepared by the Canada-based Erosion Technology
and Concentration Group - a respected research and conservation
organisation - the report predicts that the mistakes made during the
first Green Revolution will be repeated in the second one. It
criticises the introduction of "simplistic" strategies and policies
that are not suited to the continent. "The last Green Revolution
imposed 'big-box' science institutions and a simplistic
'one-size-fits-all' plant breeding strategy that had little relevance
for Africa." It says that the major undoing is
that "green revolutionaries" in the first one "didn't talk with
farmers' organisations and dismissed farmers' knowledge as irrelevant." Since
the late 1990s, Africa has received attention from so many quarters,
all claiming to be committed to its development. What have been
conspicuously missing are declarations on what is in for those pushing
the "revolution" agenda (Western governments, big agribusiness and
private foundations). The report questions the
difference between the approach adopted during the first Green
Revolution and the Alliance for a Green Revolution for Africa (Agra)
and other initiatives adopted by those driving the second one. If
it is cash, the first green revolution had lots of it. For instance,
the report says that between 1971 and 2000, Africa received between
$7.9 billion and $10 billion in terms of public research and
development funding. The report cites five
major initiatives to jump-start the Green Revolution on the continent
this time around. Starting with Agra, it tabulates the cash pumped into
the initiative by both Bill & Melinda Gates and the Rockefeller
Foundations, which have invested $100 million and $50 million,
respectively. But even with such funds, Agra
is yet to receive widespread acceptance on the continent. The report
says that besides the 70 civil society groups on the continent who came
together to condemn the initiative at the World Social Forum held in
Kenya in January 2007, the Mali-based Nyeleni Foundation rejected Agra
altogether. The problem, it seems, is the
company that Agra keeps. "When Agra hired two key players formerly
connected to Monsanto's biotech division, it further guaranteed anger
from the entire anti-globalisation movement," adding that the alliance
with Monsanto entrenches suspicions that it will ultimately introduce
genetically modified organisms to unsuspecting African farmers. Bill
Gate's fondness for all things technological reinforces this suspicion.
However, the Gates and Rockefeller Foundations have denied this claim. Besides
Agra, the G8, in 2003, pledged to finance the construction of four
centres of excellence to advance agricultural sciences in Africa. These
included Canada's $30 million commitment to the construction of the
Biosciences Centre for Eastern and Central Africa in Nairobi and the
French pledge to fund a bioinformatics centre in Senegal. On their
part, the UK and the US had agreed to set up similar labs in South
Africa and Egypt, respectively. Other Green
Revolution initiatives include Syngenta Foundation's partnership with
the Kenya government to set up a $12 million biosafety greenhouse at
the headquarters of the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute and
Google Foundation's pledge to offer Tanzania $300 million as
development funds during last year's World Economic Forum in Davos,
Switzerland. There is also the Jeffrey
Sachs-led Millennium Villages initiative that has been assisting 12
villages in 10 African countries to achieve the Millennium Development
Goals through health, education, community infrastructure and
agricultural development and marketing.
But, says the report, lying at the heart of the
initiatives is a silent merger between business agendas pushed by the
private sector and what Western governments want to achieve in Africa. "It
is also indicative of a growing trend toward privatisation of foreign
aid, and the fusing of the private sector with governments. These days,
where Bill Gates goes, so goes government," it says. In
addition, big private companies have been gaining increasing influence
over such publicly funded international research bodies as the 15
centres that operate under the Consultative Group of International
Agricultural Research (CGIAR). |
