Professor Jeffrey Sachs, director of the UN Millennium Project, is in Nairobi, and The Nation reported yesterday that he “said … giving farmers high yield seeds, fertiliser and mosquito nets to prevent malaria infection would accelerate the country’s economic growth.” He quoted the experience of the Millennium Villages: at Sauri in Siaya District, for example, cases of malaria have dropped by half since the distribution of free mosquito nets and last year the harvest was four times bigger than two years ago. I have no issue with the malaria interventions, but does anyone really still think that “high yield seeds” and fertilizer are the sole answer to agricultural development in Africa? Couldn’t Prof. Sachs have said something about the importance of diversity too?
Alas, Luigi, it is just as we feared. The New Deal for Africa, the Gates proposals, the Rockefeller, they are all based on the old model of agricultural development. I’m sure that all those foundations are getting the best advice that money can buy, but it is old advice. It didn’t work then, and it won’t work now. But I hope I’m wrong.