Debattartiklar och brev
- Detaljer
- Publicerad onsdag, 09 maj 2012 14:30
by Ronald Wesso, Researcher Surplus People Project, Cape Town, and Agnes Nygren, Information officer, Africa Groups of Sweden, Cape Town.
Read the full article on NAI Forum where it was published May 9 2012
Sweden’s Minister for International Development Cooperation has stated that aid to agriculture in Southern Africa should focus on supporting industrial agriculture through the group called the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, AGRA.
Industrial agriculture has many and massive problems. Mono-cropping involves covering huge areas of land with a single species, destroying all other species, disrupting the ecological balance and closing off possibilities of using the lost organisms in future for medicinal or other purposes.
Small-scale farmers know what it means to be exposed to the industrial agriculture pesticides, or how artificial fertilizers deplete the soil. They also know that conventional agriculture in the long run will reduce their space of life when climate change worsens.
Is Swedish aid now to promote the interests of multinational corporations and limit local farmers’ self-determination? Our concern is that Sweden, being a leader in the development aid field, will guide the way for other countries channelling agricultural aid in a similar problematic manner.
The debate in Sweden throws interesting light on crucial issues for agriculture in Africa. The debate was sparked by the Minister for International Development Cooperation, Ms. Gunilla Carlsson, who made it clear that Swedish aid to agriculture in Southern Africa would focus on supporting industrial agriculture through the group called the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, AGRA.
AGRA is an agricultural project initiated by predominately American interests. According to AGRA claims, the project is African led. This claim is contested by the US based group AGRA Watch who see American agribusiness corporations such as Monsanto being the real agenda setters within AGRA. These corporations have encountered serious resistance in Africa, from governments, consumers and local farmers, and much of AGRA’s philanthropy is nothing but public relations efforts to overcome this resistance. The African Centre for Biosafety is particularly concerned that AGRA is using a philanthropic pose to pave the way for the general commercialisation of genetically modified crops.
India’s “Green revolution” is sometimes referred to when talking about developing countries and food insecurity. Methods used included high-yielding crop varieties, intensive use of pesticides and other chemicals, mono-cropping to exploit economies of scale and massively increased used of machinery both in production and in the transport of crops. The large scale model promoted exports and elites in the agricultural industry. However, small scale farmers increasingly found themselves indebted due to higher input costs and even more dependent on external factors.
Read the full article on NAI Forum where it was published May 9 2012