Can Africa feed itself?

Bertholt Brecht has pointed out that famines don’t just happen; they are organised by the grain trade. Today we are asking ourselves whether Africa can feed itself. I believe that nature has provided Africa with enough resources to feed not only itself, but also large parts of the world.

In order to understand why this is not happening, we have to look at the situation with Brecht’s eyes. We have to examine the issues of power and politics.

Many people believe that my job as Minister of International Development is looking after Norway’s public charity programmes. That I’m some sort of Mother Theresa in trousers. They couldn’t be more wrong.

I am a politician through and through, not a charity-worker. All that we do in development cooperation, in the fight against poverty and in our efforts to contribute to statebuilding is based on political analyses. Poverty is not coincidental. Famines don’t just happen. Wars are not unfortunate accidents. Repression and abuse of power are not due to bad lack.

I think this should be our point of departure when we try to come to grips with the situation in Africa.

The issue of hunger
About a year ago, I established a working group to study the issue of hunger. In my discussions with the group I have come to realise that while recurrent food crises have multiple causes, the main issue is not lack of food, but lack of access to food.

It is technically possible to double or even treble food production in Africa. But the import of heavily subsidised cheap food from rich countries make it impossible for many African farmers to compete even in their home markets.

So the leaders of rich countries play a key role through the policies they adopt. Subsidised exports of surplus agricultural produce from heavily subsidised production in rich countries are destroying markets in poor countries.

Another problem is that political leaders in poor countries do not always respond (OK?**) to the needs of the poor, and some even show utter indifference to the plight of their citizens.

Lessons learned
Maintaining food security at both national and household level is a major challenge for many developing countries. At the same time, food security is crucial both for the welfare of the people and for political stability. Developing countries have adopted various strategies to increase production: intervention in markets, public distribution of food and maintenance of national food security stocks. Food aid, in the form of both short-term emergency relief and programmes to address medium-term food “deficits”, is often a major component of these food security strategies.

The World Bank Institute has recently compared food security in four major recipients of food aid (India, Bangladesh, Ethiopia and Zambia) over the past four decades. These are countries that have been at the centre of much of the food aid debate.

Both India and Bangladesh have dramatically increased food production and reduced the need for food aid. In contrast, food aid has accounted for a major share of food supplies in Ethiopia for more than thirty years, and in spite of some increases in grain production since the mid-1990s, emergency food aid appeals are still an almost annual occurrence. In Zambia, food aid has only occasionally, in severe drought years, been a major supplement to domestic supplies, although maize production has declined steeply since the late 1980s.

Developments in Asia suggest that food aid that 1) helps to build up production and markets, 2) is timed to avoid adverse price effects on producers, and 3) is targeted to food-insecure households, can play a positive role in enhancing food security. Most important is a balanced, mutually-reinforcing mix of policies that reduce production and market constraints and raise the real incomes of the poor.

Norway’s approach to food crises
Food aid is necessary in certain crisis situations. But food distribution schemes should be based on food bought locally or regionally. Therefore Norway gives money, not food in response to humanitarian crises. The distribution of food can undermine local production and markets and should not form part of long-term development programmes, with the exception of school-for-food-programmes. And these programmes should also be based on food bought locally.

I would like to urge NGOs receiving food from the US authorities to distribute or sell at a low price, to stop doing so. Ninety per cent of all humanitarian aid comes with strings attached. And behind the scenes, a whole industry is profiting from the export of cheap food to developing countries.

A green revolution
There is an urgent need for new policies, but these must be comprehensive policies that take account of the whole chain from production to consumption.

Agriculture obviously has a crucial role to play in producing food, generating jobs, improving livelihoods and increasing economic development. Revitalisation of agriculture is vital if we are to succeed in reducing poverty and hunger.

It may be that Africa needs a green revolution to increase its food production, but it should be based on an ecological approach and include extensive support for local farmers who supply their own families and local markets. Neither technology nor chemical fertiliser alone can solve Africa’s food insecurity.

I am glad that the Norwegian fertiliser producer Yara is cooperating with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation in the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, which is taking a holistic approach to increasing food production and availability in Africa. Norway may take part in the alliance in one or two African countries through the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad) and Norfund. I hope this cooperation will be successful in targeting the real issues, and I urge civil society to engage in these efforts. 

Climate change
The world has finally realised that climate change is a serious threat to our survival. The paradox of global warming is that it is mainly a bi-product of the developed world’s wealth, but it hits the poorest countries hardest – those that have done the least to cause it. The poorest countries’ contribution to global warming is marginal, but the very fact that they are poor means that they are least equipped to take adaptive measures.

Some will have to adapt to farming in a dryer climate, others to wetter conditions. Some will have to increase preparedness for natural disasters in the form of more frequent floods and hurricanes.

Assisting developing countries to adapt to climatic change should be among our top priorities. I recently visited Zambia. The Zambian Minister of Agriculture said: “Climate change is already here – we have to adapt in order to secure long-term sustainable agricultural production.” We have decided to provide support for Zambia’s very promising adaptation programme amounting to NOK 145 million over a five-year period.

The need for a blue revolution
There is much talk about green revolution these days. But we should perhaps also be talking about the need for a blue revolution.

World production of fish has grown recently, mainly due to increases in aquaculture production. However, the consumption of fish in Sub-Saharan Africa has decreased.

The reasons for this are not fully understood, but poverty itself, less availability of fish – possibly due to lower water levels and higher levels of pollution in lakes – and increased international trade in fish are believed to be factors.

However, studies have shown that food security, including the consumption of fish** (OK?**), has improved in countries with good resource management and good governance in the fishery sector. Hence, funding that encourages and supports good governance and resource management and pro-poor policies is an important tool for increasing food security.

Although Africa has considerable potential for aquaculture, production is still low in most African countries. The reasons are very similar to the reasons for the continent’s low agricultural output. They include lack of local buying power, lack of institutional and physical infrastructure, lack of expertise and technology.

Norway has extensive experience and expertise to offer on all aspects of aquaculture from stock management to processing and marketing, and we are now looking into how we can increase our development efforts in this field.

Norway has made the UN Millennium Development Goals the centrepiece of its efforts to fight poverty. These goals cannot be achieved without an increased effort from the whole international community, with governments, and civil society working together. Developing countries must take the lead in this process. In countries where there is little commitment, civil society has a key role to play in pressing governments to take action. I believe this conference will stimulate these efforts, and I hope your discussions will be fruitful.