LAURIE LEE
October 08, 2012
At the end of September, in the shadows of the majestic Mount Meru in Arusha, Tanzania, people came together from across Africa and the world to talk about how an agricultural revolution in Africa could achieve food security and improve the incomes of millions of families who farm small plots of land.
At the African Green Revolution Forum, the question of how the private, public and charitable sectors work together to make a positive impact on farm families was not theoretical – the answers were hammered out by 1,000 people, in big and small groups, in workshops and side meetings, from breakfast to long into the night.
As AGRA’s Jane Karuku stated, farming is a business. It is part of the private sector. The question we addressed was how to ensure that private investment in agriculture can make a profit, while helping farm families grow their businesses and helping Africa achieve food security and nutrition for all – especially children. And how can African governments, as well as donor governments, philanthropy, and civil society help ensure that poor people benefit the most from this progress?
There was no single simple answer. Farming is a local business. It depends on the local climate and soil, as well as local market conditions. But, even better than one answer, there were lots of answers. Lots of partnerships were formed, deals struck, and lessons shared and learned.
- On Wednesday, Melinda Gates and Kofi Annan visited farmers in the Usa River district near Arusha. Farm Concern International, a Kenyan NGO which works in several countries in Africa, with financial support from AGRA and the Gates Foundation, was helping a village to move from hunger to food security, to resilience, to commercial farming.
- At the AGRF, Carter Coleman ofAgrica.com presented the work that his company is doing with neighboring farm families in Tanzania, more than tripling the yield of their rice farms in 1-2 seasons.
- The Nigerian Agriculture Minister, Akin Adesina, announced that the Government of Nigeria would be giving away 10 million mobile phones to farmers in Nigeria to strip corruption out of the system for subsidizing fertilizer for small farmers. The private sector has created the platform for this move and the farmers will benefit in so many different ways from having access to a mobile phone.
- Emerson Zhou and Salum Shamte exchanged the lesson they had learned from establishing agricultural growth corridors in Mozambique and Tanzania respectively. They were both exploring several answers to the question of how to ensure that private sector development benefits the smallholder farmer most.
So, don’t wonder about whether development is about the private sector or governments or charities. It’s about how they work together to ensure that the benefits of economic growth reach the poorest people first. And the African Green Revolution Forum in Tanzania last week was producing concrete answers. We look forward to hearing more about the results at the next forum.
