Ecological organic agriculture & Africa's new Green Revolution
1. Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa
‘CAADP Research Pillar: Expectations on
Ecological Organic Agriculture Research in
Africa’
Nelson K. O. Ojijo
Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA)
Accra, Ghana
Presented at the ProEcoOrganicAfrica Workshop, UGL, Ghana , 6 November 2013
2. Outline
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Africa’s and conventional agriculture
Drivers determining future agriculture
Scenarios for action
CAADP & FARA – last & next 10 years
The S3A and ecological organic agriculture
Expectations on ProEcoOrganicAfrica
3. Conventional agriculture
• The “Green Revolution” and aftermath
– Highest achievement of conventional agriculture
– Populations fed but at great health and
environmental costs; also, cannot feed the future
– Widening cereal yield gaps between GR countries
and Africa parallel fertilizer use intensity
– Thus, low resource endowment (poverty) culpable
for poor performance of Africa’s agriculture
– Paradox: that Africa’s poverty reduction strategies
should be linked to gains in conventional
agriculture
4. Africa’s agriculture
• Characteristics:
– Predominantly on smallholdings
– inputs (material and knowledge), and
unpredictable yields, soil degradation and
nutrient replenishment, labor intensive
• Consequences:
– Widespread food & nutrition insecurity, poverty
– low linkages of agriculture with other productive
sectors hence the dismal results with populist
‘agriculture-led economic growth’ policies
5. Africa’s agriculture
• Why Green Revolution by-passed Africa - lack
of key pre-conditions (the 5 ‘I’s):
– Institutions
– Inputs (including water, fertilizers, mechanization)
– Infrastructure
– Incentives
– Information
• Perhaps a silver lining in Africa’s cloud –
lessons to avoid
6. Drivers for future agriculture
• Demographic factors:
– population growth rates - pressures on land yet
more mouths to feed
– Youth bulge; women/men ratios; morbidity
proportions in populations providing agricultural
labor
• Structural transformation and urbanization:
– More people deserting agriculture to other
sectors to be fed by dwindling remnants practicing
agriculture in rural areas
– Africa’s urban population to outstrip rural
population by 2030
7. Drivers determining future agriculture
• Changing food systems
– Traditional foods abandoned in favor of ‘Western’
convenience foods; nutrition transition
8. Drivers determining future agriculture
• Uncertainties – climate change, natural
disasters, conflicts and political upheavals
– Displacement, destruction, disillusionment
• Environmental degradation – some of which
are consequences of conventional agriculture
9. Scenarios for action
• Axioms:
– Africa needs an increase in food production and
supply to meet current and future needs
– Africans must do something to achieve desired
increase in food production and supply
• Contentions:
– What to do to increase food production (“sibd”)
– How to do what we must do to increase food
consumption (“isw”)
10. Scenarios for action
• On the “What”:
– More units of food output per unit of inputs –
hence ‘intensification’
– Ensuring more food continues to be produced to
met future demands – hence ‘sustainability’
– Sufficient food produced for current and future
demands with minimal damage to the biophysical
environment (ecosystem services) – hence
‘conservation’
– The panacea framework: intensification with
conservation and sustainability
11. Scenarios for action
• On the “How”:
– A workable mixed model approach with sound
theoretical basis (cf: ‘theory of balanced,
unbalanced growth’ type) to help target
investments
– Aggregation of efforts – challenges transcend
geographical and political borders; hence the need
for a supranational approach to actions,
interventions; agricultural innovation systems
– This
underscores
existence
of
regional
organizations like NPCA, FARA and SROs – pooling,
positive contagion, economies of scale, ….
12. Regional actions
• CAADP in last 10 years:
CAADP
Land & water
management
Rural
infrastructure &
markets
Food supply and
reducing hunger
Research,
technology
dissemination &
adoption
Pillar Lead
Institution 1
Pillar Lead
Institution 2
Pillar Lead
Institution 3
Pillar Lead
Institution 4
Achieve at least 6% sector growth in all countries by 2015
13. Regional actions (CAADP …)
• FARA as PLI for CAADP Pillar 4:
– FAAP (ratified in Banjul in 2005); an advocacy
tool to help address challenges under Pillar 4
– CAADP Pillar 4 Strategy (2011 – 2013) to help
reform and strengthen national knowledge
nodes for greater efficiency and effectiveness
– Formation of CAADP Country Core Education
Groups (3C Edu Groups) – CAADP Pillar 4 Expert
Pools – to mainstream TAE issues in CAADP
– Formation of CAADP Pillar 4 institutions
15. CAADP in next 10 years
(Sustaining the CAADP Momentum)
16. Sustaining the CAADP Momentum
Knowledge and knowledge support for public and business stakeholders, including
farmers and commodity associations – to strengthen analytical skills, relevance and
quality in policies, decision-making, programs and competitive edge
Knowledge
Information &
Skills
(Learning
networks,
expert pools, knowledge
networks
linking
available
information
and data to policy
design; SAKSS, think
tanks)
Agriculture
Science
Agenda
(Research
capacity,
research issues, link to
knowledge
networks,
facilitating & supporting
innovation, policy and
social
research
in
agriculture)
ICT in
Agricultural
Transformation
(Information support to
farmers
and
practitioners,
information packaging
and dissemination on
communicating CAADP)
Agricultural
Education &
Training
(Vocational
training,
private public sector
drive in competency
development, curricula,
tertiary
educationresearch
links,
internships)
17. The Science Agenda for Africa’s Agriculture
Food systems
and value chains
Sustainable
productivity in
farming systems
Sustainable
intensification
Agrobiodiversity
and natural
resources
management
S3A
Modern genetics
and genomics
Megatrends and
challenges for
agriculture
Foresight
18. The S3A and sustainable intensification
• Sustainable intensification is one of the
underpinnings of the S3A;
• Montpellier Panel perspective on sustainable
intensification (alleviating adverse effects of
conventional agriculture through):
• targeted delivery (e.g. micro dosing, drip
irrigation, fertigation)
• precision agriculture (e.g. for fertilizer or
pesticide application)
19. The S3A and sustainable intensification
• Three
components
intensification:
of
sustainable
– Genetic intensification
– Socio-economic intensification
– Ecological intensification (perhaps
ProEcoOrganicAfrica project)
basis
for
• S3A does not mention organic agriculture
explicitly
• Current policy positions (indeed even the S3A)
are predicated largely on conventional
agriculture
20. Expectations on ProEcoOrganicAfrica
• Missing the bandwagon of ‘Green Revolution’
was perhaps good for Africa – we have lessons to
avoid and, in the era of the electronic
superhighway, we have cutting edge technologies
at the tap of a button to leapfrog Africa’s
agriculture in a non-conventional direction
• Paradigm
shift
from
conventional
to
intensification
with
conservation
and
sustainability needs buy in by policy makers
• Sound scientific evidence to inform policy shift
21. Expectations on ProEcoOrganicAfrica
• Work by ProEcoOrganicAfrica likely to provide
such evidence
• Need for foresighting to provide a systems
perspective on future scenarios under new
agricultural paradigms
• A conceived unified framework for
intensification with conservation and
sustainability would be necessary a priori
22. Expectations on ProEcoOrganicAfrica
• Can a green revolution occur through
intensification
with
conservation
and
sustainability
(ecological,
organic
intensification)?
– Perhaps “a greener revolution”: ProEcoOrganic Africa
should tell us
• Builds on age-long traditional practices pushed
to the periphery in the “Green Revolution” wave
• More adaptable to smallholder systems
23. Expectations on ProEcoOrganicAfrica
• Ecological Organic Agriculture currently viewed as a
niche or specialty area meant for the crème de la
crème NOT for the masses of world’s food insecure
• More skeptics (even Norman Borlaug!) than
supporters, especially at policy level: the
ProEcoOrganicAfrica must therefore have an
effective communication strategy
• Africa a strategic continent for future world agrofood industry – 60% of world’s uncultivated arable
land; Africa’s agriculture must be done the ‘right
way’
24. Expectations on ProEcoOrganicAfrica
• FARA’s mandate is promoting collective vision for
Africa’s agriculture and convening stakeholder
platforms around such visions
• Thus, need to involve FARA and sub-regional
constituents in the ProEcoOrganicAfrica project to:
– Help influence regional policies using project
outcomes
– Promote regional innovations around project
outcomes
– Gain efficiencies by promoting collective actions
and synergies with other similar initiatives within
Africa
25. Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa
Thank you
for the attention
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