Western Donors Support Big Agriculture in Africa
The West has a little more than altruism on it’s mind when it comes to supporting African agriculture, according to a new report.
Western Donors Support Big Agriculture in Africa
The West has a little more than altruism on it’s mind when it comes to supporting African agriculture, according to a new report.
Western donors, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, are putting their money and power behind promoting a market-based, pro-agribusiness model for developing countries through a World Bank program, Enabling the Business of Agriculture (EBA), according to the report released earlier this year, titled “The Unholy Alliance: Five Western Donors Shape A Pro-Corporate Agenda For African Agriculture” from the Oakland Institute – a progressive California-based policy think tank.
The EBA project was developed in 2013 by the World Bank as a benchmarking tool aimed at fostering “policies that facilitate doing business in agriculture and increase the investment attractiveness and competitiveness of countries.” The project, which is being bankrolled by the governments of the U.S. – through the federal USAID program – U.K., Denmark, the Netherlands, and the Gates Foundation, looks at a variety of areas, including seeds, markets, machinery, transport, and finance, to determine if a developing country’s laws “negatively affect agriculture and agribusiness markets.” The World Bank and its donors say this will help boost agricultural production in an effort to feed a world population that is estimated to be 9.6 billion people by the year 2050.
Unlike in Western industrialized countries, traditional small-scale farming is still a predominant livelihood in most African nations. Such an approach to agriculture may put food on a villager’s table, but it does not engage the macroeconomic levers of trade and high finance that characterize first-world economies. The World Bank and its allies in the halls of government and corporate boardrooms stress that pushing African agriculture in that direction offers the best hope of alleviating rural poverty – improving yields, creating jobs in food processing and agricultural technology, and offering smallholder farmers the opportunity to scale up – in a “rising tide lifts all boats” kind of way.
The Oakland Institute’s policy director Frédéric Mousseau, an economist who is the lead author of the report, sees such an approach as a capitalist delusion about how best to solve the problems of Africa’s rural poor, and one that is shamelessly couched as “foreign aid.”
“At the end of the day this is not serving the interests of the poorest countries, it’s serving the interests of the better-off countries and their corporations,” Mousseau tells Modern Farmer in a phone conversation.
The report makes the case that in its effort to “enable the business of agriculture,” the EBA is effectively enabling a “race to the bottom” as these countries try to outdo each other in loosening trade restrictions in a bid to attract more investment money from the Western world. Governments in countries such as Kenya, Malawi, and Ghana, are spending hundreds of millions of dollars on fertilizer from Western corporations, says Mousseau, funding that could go to support more sustainable options for Africa’s small farmers, instead of pushing them into the endless cycle of buying patented seeds and chemical inputs.
One of the biggest concerns raised by the report is the phenomenon of “land grabbing” in Africa – where foreign corporations buy up enormous tracts of land to install monoculture plantations, or merely for the sake of real estate speculation. The Oakland Institute has for years worked to expose such schemes, which are typically enabled by corrupt local governments and often result in farmers being evicted from their traditional lands to make way for “more productive” agriculture. The land grab story has been sensationalized in the international media, but as with any situation where outside groups wage campaigns on injustices against marginalized groups in far-off places, it can be hard to parse what’s fact and what’s myth.
An investigation by Foreign Policy, for example, revealed that several widely circulated stories about alleged African land grabs have centered on proposed real estate transactions – the prospective buyers drastically scaled back or abandon their plans entirely once they realized that turning a profit from parched land with little to no transportation access or other infrastructure available would be less feasible than they thought.
But there is ample evidence that such unscrupulous practices do occur, even if it’s not at the scale that is often depicted. It’s all the more worrisome if seemingly well-intended aid organizations are involved. The Oakland Institute’s report may sound like conspiracy theory, but there are some facts worth considering.
The Gates Foundation has long been accused of encouraging unsustainable industrial agriculture practices through its philanthropy, and even of having financial ties with agribusiness giants like Monsanto. The foundation has indeed employed a number of former agribusiness executives, lobbied for the introduction of GMO seed varieties in Africa (most African countries still ban the use of GMOs) and once held Monsanto stock. But they also fund programs that directly benefit small African farmers and the environment, such as an initiative to empower female farmers to have more equitable roles in agriculture and an ecological monitoring program that encourages small farmers – which are often driven by poverty to overgraze the land and engage in slash-and-burn style agriculture – to be better stewards of the environment.
In defense of their support of the EBA program, Brantley Browning, the senior program officer for global policy and advocacy for the Gates Foundation, tells Modern Farmer that the EBA generates “robust evidence about the nature and extent of the laws and regulations” national governments in developing nations need to attract investment for agriculture, from small farmers to medium-sized agribusinesses. “We welcome responsible international investment in agriculture in developing countries where there are demonstrable and sustainable net benefits to smallholder farmers, local agribusinesses and the wider economy,” Browning says in an email. “Alongside our investment in the EBA, we support governments in their efforts to improve R&D, extension and input delivery activities that promote sustainable productivity, income growth and food security for smallholder farmers.” (The EBA did not respond to emails seeking comment for this story.)
However, Bill Gates is an unabashed advocate of using biotechnology to improve yields while reducing the environmental impacts of agriculture, telling the Wall Street Journal earlier this year that he believes GMOs are an essential tool in his foundation’s mission to help end starvation in Africa.
The Gates Foundation is the primary benefactor of the Cornell Alliance for Science, a group founded to “depolarize” the GMO debate in the media and in popular rhetoric. Gates and the Cornell group promote GMOs and other modern agricultural technologies as a boon to social and environmental causes, but their ties to profit-motivated corporations tend to create a different image in the public eye. The Oakland Institute report points to several GMO research projects in Africa that have been undertaken by either non-profit academic insitutions or civil society groups, yet are supported by the Gates Foundation, USAID and Monsanto (among other philanthropic, corporate and governmental entities), as evidence of a conflict of interest.
The Water Efficient Maize for Africa project, for example, aimed at developing genetically engineered corn that is more productive than traditional varieties, yet less dependent on irrigation, has received royalty-free donations of technology from Monsanto, along with $85 million from the Gates Foundation in support of its work. Anti-GMO activists see such “non-profit” GMO projects as Trojan horses for persuading African countries to relax their restrictions on biotechnology.
Sarah Evanega, director of the Cornell Alliance for Science, downplayed the Gates-Monsanto connection in a conversation with Modern Farmer, however. She explained that the Gates Foundation once owned Monsanto stock, but that, technically, it was the foundation’s “asset trust” which held the stock. “It’s a completely separate entity,” says Evanega, “there is a firewall between the two. The foundation itself does not have any financial relationship with Monsanto – that’s an urban legend.” Firewall or not, the association between the two is evidence enough for the anti-GMO camp to lay guilt on the world’s largest philanthropy.
The political climate in Africa has not allowed the use of patented GMO seeds to vast extent that has occurred in North America, which folks like Mousseau think is a good thing. He’d rather see the focus of international aid shift to less expensive and more sustainable approaches than those being promoted by Western interests. There are inexpensive and effective ways to increase yields without relying on expensive chemical fertilizers and pesticides, he says, pointing to the System of Rice Intensification (SRI), an agroecological growing method focused on managing the plant, soil, water, and nutrients, as an example. In Timbuktu, Mali, the SRI method is being used to grow up to nine tons of rice per hectare with very little fertilizer and irrigation.
“You need government policies, mechanisms, and institutions, like we have in Europe and the U.S., that can aid farmers and protect them when they have big problems, and help them sell their crops when they’re doing well. Expecting that by having Monsanto and other corporations come in the solutions are going to follow just isn’t going to work,” says Mousseau. That may be true, but folks like Bill Gates are not afraid, or ashamed, to use the tools of capitalism in pursuit of high-minded goals. Hopefully they can stay high-minded as they befriend such strange bedfellows.
Follow us
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Want to republish a Modern Farmer story?
We are happy for Modern Farmer stories to be shared, and encourage you to republish our articles for your audience. When doing so, we ask that you follow these guidelines:
Please credit us and our writers
For the author byline, please use “Author Name, Modern Farmer.” At the top of our stories, if on the web, please include this text and link: “This story was originally published by Modern Farmer.”
Please make sure to include a link back to either our home page or the article URL.
At the bottom of the story, please include the following text:
“Modern Farmer is a nonprofit initiative dedicated to raising awareness and catalyzing action at the intersection of food, agriculture, and society. Read more at <link>Modern Farmer</link>.”
Use our widget
We’d like to be able to track our stories, so we ask that if you republish our content, you do so using our widget (located on the left hand side of the article). The HTML code has a built-in tracker that tells us the data and domain where the story was published, as well as view counts.
Check the image requirements
It’s your responsibility to confirm you're licensed to republish images in our articles. Some images, such as those from commercial providers, don't allow their images to be republished without permission or payment. Copyright terms are generally listed in the image caption and attribution. You are welcome to omit our images or substitute with your own. Charts and interactive graphics follow the same rules.
Don’t change too much. Or, ask us first.
Articles must be republished in their entirety. It’s okay to change references to time (“today” to “yesterday”) or location (“Iowa City, IA” to “here”). But please keep everything else the same.
If you feel strongly that a more material edit needs to be made, get in touch with us at [email protected]. We’re happy to discuss it with the original author, but we must have prior approval for changes before publication.
Special cases
Extracts. You may run the first few lines or paragraphs of the article and then say: “Read the full article at Modern Farmer” with a link back to the original article.
Quotes. You may quote authors provided you include a link back to the article URL.
Translations. These require writer approval. To inquire about translation of a Modern Farmer article, contact us at [email protected]
Signed consent / copyright release forms. These are not required, provided you are following these guidelines.
Print. Articles can be republished in print under these same rules, with the exception that you do not need to include the links.
Tag us
When sharing the story on social media, please tag us using the following: - Twitter (@ModFarm) - Facebook (@ModernFarmerMedia) - Instagram (@modfarm)
Use our content respectfully
Modern Farmer is a nonprofit and as such we share our content for free and in good faith in order to reach new audiences. Respectfully,
No selling ads against our stories. It’s okay to put our stories on pages with ads.
Don’t republish our material wholesale, or automatically; you need to select stories to be republished individually.
You have no rights to sell, license, syndicate, or otherwise represent yourself as the authorized owner of our material to any third parties. This means that you cannot actively publish or submit our work for syndication to third party platforms or apps like Apple News or Google News. We understand that publishers cannot fully control when certain third parties automatically summarize or crawl content from publishers’ own sites.
Keep in touch
We want to hear from you if you love Modern Farmer content, have a collaboration idea, or anything else to share. As a nonprofit outlet, we work in service of our community and are always open to comments, feedback, and ideas. Contact us at [email protected].by Andrew Amelinckx, Modern Farmer
October 18, 2016
Modern Farmer Weekly
Solutions Hub
Innovations, ideas and inspiration. Actionable solutions for a resilient food system.
ExploreExplore other topics
Share With Us
We want to hear from Modern Farmer readers who have thoughtful commentary, actionable solutions, or helpful ideas to share.
SubmitNecessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and are used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies.
Your progrmme is very interested when i read it. I have form a coommittee to and told them let’s form an association which will deal with food security to alleviating povery and hunger in the whole states of south sudan in the furue.
very much interested in your programs
1. Brief Description of the Organization The name of the organization is Women Agricultural Project and is located in Bo District, and it implements eligible activities in agricultural farming. The Organization is registered with the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Food Security. The organization is also a registered member with National Famers Sierra Leone and Bo District Council respectively. The Project is established to develop Agriculture in cassava, sorghum cotton, rice, and vegetable Farming in the rural in Bo District. The Organization is expected to benefit the disable, widows, rural women, Youths and children in Bo district in cassavas, sorghum… Read more »
Your program is very interesting.
Hence,I’m therefore looking forward for partnerships with your Organization to empower poor rural communities, economicaly. The Association aims at improving food production security in the whole State to alleviate poverty, hunger and nuturstion.
Mision:To produce more food so as to eradicate poverty, hunger, nutrition ete, With in the rural poor communities in the state.
We want help
I am interested in your organization. Can your organization help our organization with some money for us to buy with a tractor for our association? Our association deals with agriculture food security and it called Dream Farmers Development Association (DAFDA)
Your program is very educative and interesting to me when I read about it.i have form a group that deals in watermelon farming of about 4hecters to improve on household incomes and eradicate food insecurity in my area and I will be happy if I can get a support to engage in large scale farming.am located in kasese district Western Uganda Uganda.
We are farmers and we need a financial support from you so we can develop our agriculture in our rural areas in West Africa Sierra Leone.