No.
Approximately two-thirds of Africa’s population labors on small, dusty farms, frequently failing to produce enough food to feed their families. Europe, North America, and Asia got their “Green Revolutions” and the ensuing productivity growth allowed small farmers to send their kids off to school in the big cities. Africa completely missed the boat.
A long article in the New York Times Freakonomics blog by Dwyer Gunn asks “Will the Green Revolution Ever Hit Africa“? It’s long, and very straightforward. While giving the naysayers a hearing, the article is firmly on the side of GMOs, fertilizer and irrigation. Oh, and forward contracts to supply the Gates Foundation’s ((And labelling it thus rather tells you where the story is coming from.)) Purchase for Progress program, cooked up so that the World Food Programme can buy emergency rations locally, injecting some cash into local economies. Because the two thirds of Africa’s people who labour “on small, dusty farms, frequently failing to produce enough food to feed their families” are going to be entering into forward contracts with WFP? Do me a favour.
I started reading the article in full optimistic flood; here was somebody who understood the issue, really understood it. I finished very, very disappointed. Round up the usual suspects. Luckily there were only three comments, and only two really annoyed me, ((Sturgeon’s Law: 95% of everything is crap really makes itself felt in large-traffic blogs)) so here’s my suggestion. Go there, but leave your comments, if you have any, here. Or, at the very least, in both places.
Apparently, opponents of the Gates Foundation “argue for sustainable, organic farming methods and worry about genetic seed biodiversity and dependence on foreign companies for seeds and other inputs.” What the hell is “genetic seed biodiversity” when it’s at home?
And not a single word on strategies for the reduction of food wasted due to poor conservation and lack of adequate post-harvest management in Africa, I guess.