Without reforms, outsiders may determine how Africa grows food
Maize farmers in Naiberi in Uasin Gishu County dry their produce before delivering it to the National Cereals and Produce Board in Eldoret on January 2, 2015. Most marketable surplus is sold within three to four months of harvest, when prices are lowest. PHOTO | JARED NYATAYA | NATION
What you need to know:
- Brazil sees opportunity in Africa, and it is looking into acquiring large chunks of land to produce for export as well as to develop new industries in Africa.
- When civil society organisations went through the agreement, they discovered that it was very much in favour of the Brazilian multinational enterprise and would disenfranchise the people of Mozambique.
- In the absence of capital and technology, Africa must devise better ways of democratically negotiating for better deals and exploit the emerging opportunities.
Any right-thinking African should by now be firmly aware that we need radical transformation in virtually every aspect of our lives.
Of great importance is how we can sustain ourselves into the future, and food ranks up there as the number one item on the agenda. To achieve the goal of food security, we must transition from smallholder agriculture to large-scale commercial agriculture.
Continued promotion of smallholder production is akin to committing suicide. There is no economic justification for tying 80 per cent of the population to agricultural production to meet 50 per cent of the demand while other countries have less than five per cent of their population in food production and produce enough for themselves and extra for biofuels, animal feed and export.
For example, greater grain productivity in Africa would unlock many latent industries and create jobs.
Most poultry products in Africa are imported from Brazil and Europe, simply because our input cost makes production here uncompetitive.
As such, Brazil sees opportunity in Africa, and it is looking into acquiring large chunks of land to produce for export as well as to develop new industries in Africa. Their push into Africa has met challenges that would eventually derail their plan.
A leak from a controversial economic development plan in Mozambique to transition from smallholder farming to large-scale commercial farming reveals that Brazil does not have good intentions for Africa, and it shows how inadequately prepared we are to negotiate international deals.
Although I detest land-grabbing by rich nations, the idea of converting Africa’s subsistence farming into commercial production was great. If you did not catch the story, let me briefly sum it here below.
In 2013, the governments of Japan, Brazil and Mozambique entered into an agreement to promote agribusiness investment in the Nacala Corridor of northern Mozambique. The three governments came up with a master plan dubbed ProSAVANA, with programme details.
This plan would cover an area of over 10 million hectares in 19 districts within three provinces of northern Mozambique – Nampula, Niassa, and Zambézia – largely to grow soy to feed the insatiable Asian market. Over four million people live and farm in this area.
When civil society organisations went through the agreement, they discovered that it was very much in favour of the Brazilian multinational enterprise and would disenfranchise the people of Mozambique. They scuttled the plan.
In democratic countries, the least that would have happened after such a crime would have been the resignation of the government. This being Africa, it will not happen, simply because there is no credible opposition continent-wide and the people would not be inclined to throw them out.
GOOD THINGS FROM BAD EVENTS
We cannot continue to be helped to rescue our resources from greedy leaders all the time by foreign-sponsored civil society in a similar fashion to the rescue of endangered species and halting of environmental degradation.
We must get to a point where we are all embarrassed enough by our actions to begin to build our value systems. The absence of a value system and a strong ethical opposition means that we are far from a normal democracy.
When the government and civil society fight, it is like two bulls fighting. The grass, however, suffers, and no one sits to think of how good things can come out of bad events.
Several opportunities have opened up in the foiling of what could have amounted to a land grab in Mozambique. The first is the fact that we can leverage the information to reform our agricultural systems through mechanisation of the farms in the Nacala Corridor to grow soy for Japan and cut out the middleman, Brazil.
There is no sin in hiring the same consultants who developed the master plan to implement the project on African terms, and in the process, build local capacities.
The second opportunity is for the leaders in Mozambique to repent, and seek partnership with the civil society to create a public private partnership for developing the Nacala Corridor into a modern oasis of success in Africa.
DISTRUST OF CIVIL SOCIETY
I have no doubt that civil society has the interest of the people at heart and will want to see their poverty status changed. Civil society as a “third sector” of society must adopt new strategies of providing alternative proposals aimed at helping the poor realise the benefits of their resources. It adds to nothing if the role of civil society in Africa does not go beyond civic values.
If, in the long run, nothing happens in the Nacala Corridor, civil society will have lost a chance to prove that their work is truly in the interest and will of citizens and not the proxies of colonists afraid that emerging economies like Brazil and China are taking their place in Africa.
It is no secret that virtually all African governments view the civil society as the hand of neo-colonial powers bent on destroying positive steps that they are making. But one common fact, whether it is the colonists or the emerging nations that are involved, is that their interests take precedence. This is perhaps why Africa must develop capacities to negotiate and act in the interest of her people.
In the absence of capital and technology, Africa must devise better ways of democratically negotiating for better deals and exploit the emerging opportunities.
If not the Nacala Corridor, other countries should transparently invite willing organisations to co-create a new Africa where people have shares in global multinationals to enable local wealth creation.
LOW SALE PRICES
The irony of Africa is the fact that we continue to experience poverty in the land of plenty. It is a fact that much of the arable land globally is in Africa, yet we are not thinking how we can feed the entire world and in the process improve the livelihoods of our people. Instead, it is Africa that faces food insecurity.
The International Food Policy Research Institute says productivity in Africa remains below potential due to low input usage and limited crop rotation. There is significant post-harvest loss of 15 to 30 per cent of production, primarily on-farm.
National maize commercialisation rates are low, at approximately 20 to 30 per cent. Most marketable surplus is sold within three to four months of harvest when prices are lowest due to farmers' cash needs and risks associated with pest infestation and other storage losses. Smallholders are vulnerable as producers and consumers to food safety concerns from aflatoxins.
Further, there is a lack of a fully functioning maize market, reflecting a weak industry structure. Four inter-linked issues have been observed as primary contributors to this situation:
(i) price volatility, with intra-annual price swings up to 40 to 50 per cent;
(ii) lack of a year-round market, with most trading activity occurring three to four months after harvest; and
(iii) lack of depth, or sufficient supply, especially for quality maize and
(iv) few large, downstream buyers and limited processing activity, with on-farm consumption being the largest source of demand.
STEM THE TEMPTATIONS
With such statistics, Africa must wake up to the fact that reforms in the agricultural sector are overdue. In the next decade, more than two billion people will join the middle-income ranks, putting pressure on available resources.
It is such information that should be jolting Africans into changing their cultural practices, from thinking small around subsistence, sub-dividing their land into uneconomical pieces, and a culture of dependence, into modern agribusiness enterprises.
In the process, we shall have taken care of food security and stem the temptations by others to exploit the unexploited opportunities Africa presents.
Deng Xiaoping said, “Reform is China's second revolution.” It is perhaps time for Africa to reform.
The writer is an associate professor at the University of Nairobi’s Business School and a former permanent secretary in the Ministry of Information and Communications. Twitter: @bantigito
