Category: Policy

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A puzzle of African farming

I’m puzzled by a report on SciDev.net about last week’s 3rd African Green Revolution Conference in Norway. Two speakers told the conference that although new technologies have been developed that can increase yields, farmers are not adopting these technologies. The speakers said one reason is that there is no funding to promote these new technologies to farmers, and a Vice-President of AGRA told the conference that AGRA was spending US$50 million to fund a network of agro-dealers that will make the technologies available closer to the farmers and arrange for demonstrations.

Here’s the puzzle: is a network of agro-dealers really the solution? Or would an equal investment in extension services be a better use of the money? Countries tend to be neglecting extension right now, possibly because they are lured by technological solutions that are more glamorous than spreading best practices. What if there were a transnational service that put an army of barefoot extension workers into the countryside? Equip them with a bicycle and some communications technology. Give them access to one another’s experience and a global network of experts. Give them access, too, to those technological developments, if they think those are worthwhile. Maybe even give farmers vouchers that they can exchange for advice.

If the result is improved yields, stability, nutrition and all the rest of it, wouldn’t that be more sustainable than new technologies that — for whatever reason — languish on the shelf?

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Putting words in the minister’s mouth

ACCORDING to the Minister for Agriculture, Food Security and Cooperatives, Mr Stephen Wasira, more than 90 per cent of farmers in the country use recycled seeds, which invariably have very low production.

I wonder where he got the idea that farm-saved seed is “invariably” low yielding?

Mr Wasira said this last week, when he was opening a workshop on the seed industry development in Tanzania.

‘Nuff said.

Read the whole report in Daily News Online.

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Fishy business

I missed this when it came out a couple of days ago, but a study by Daniel Pauly at the University of British Columbia shows how small-scale fishers ((Don’t blame me; that’s the acceptable gender-neutral term.)) are short changed by “well-intentioned eco-labelling initiatives and ill-conceived fuel subsidies”. I’d expect no less from Pauly, who has always been a champion of artisanal fisheries. Industrial fishermen ((Yes, industrial giants are gender-specific.)) receive 200 times higher fuel subsidies than artisanal fishers, who also discard far less fish as waste. Campaigns to persuade shoppers to buy eco-friendly fish have not paid off either, according to Pauly.

“For the amount of resources invested, we haven’t seen significant decrease in demand for species for which the global stocks are on the edge of collapse,” says Pauly. “Market-based initiatives, while well-intentioned, unduly discriminate against small scale fishers for their lack of resources to provide data for certification.”

Fish really does represent the ethical frontier of food. Farmed pollutes and wild destroys the stocks. What’s a piscivorous person to do? Get rid of the subsidies, say Pauly and his colleagues. Without subsidies, large-scale fisheries would not survive, small fishers would thrive supplying local markets, and global fish stocks would have an opportunity to rebound.

So we can overfish them again?

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Ugandan fair offers farmers and politicians a chance to talk

There’s a fascinating article in yesterday’s Uganda Monitor about a trade show for the agricultural sector at Jinja. Fascinating for all sorts of reasons, one being the disconnect between what farmers want and what politicians think they want.

President Yoweri Museveni opened the show on July 22 and although his speech dwelt more on politics and complaints against FM stations, he was there to inspire farmers, and acknowledge that they contribute more to the GDP.

However, farmers wanted to hear that the President would reduce the interest rate on Bonna Bagagagawale (sic) funds to 1 percent. That rural roads would be fixed so that produce gets to the markets easily and that taxes on farm implements can be waived and that the government will set up tractor hire services in villages for farmers who cannot buy tractors to hire them.

Animal farmers wanted to hear that the government has banned export of unprocessed food so that by-products used to make animal feeds can be available.

I’m not saying that the farmers should get everything they want, but their demands certainly deserve consideration. Then there’s the question of why farmers want those things.

From Mbarara, Mr Moses Turyamanya learnt that matooke cost between Shs5,000 and Shs20,000 in urban areas. “We brought a lorry full of matooke and it sold out,” he said. “At our farms, we earn between Shs500 and Shs2,000, per bunch of matooke. Now we know that we have to market our produce to get better money.”

But the biggest discovery for Mr Turyamanya is when he learnt that matooke can be processed into food products.

He says a few years ago, Farm Africa exhibited solar driers which can dry matooke and other types of bananas.

“I secured a drier and now we are able to dry matooke and process it into powder, juice, chips and other products,” Mr Turyamanya said. “The government is planning to build a factory so that we can process food and sell to the World Food Programme.”

And there’s a lot more of interest, like a plea from Kabaka Ronald Mutebi for better demonstration farms (and, by extension, better extension services), a joint Uganda-Iran tractor company, and local seed companies. We know farmer field schools are a good thing; this kind of fair sounds like a giant farmer field school and may contain the seed of a politician field school too. If they listen.