Nairobi, Kenya
May 12, 2014
Source: AGRA
Mr. Strive Masiyiwa - AGRA Board Chair
AGRA was created in response to the urgent need to reduce poverty, hunger and malnutrition across Africa. We believe that the key to overcoming these persistent problems is to dramatically increase agricultural productivity and profitability – to literally transform the African agricultural sector.
Agriculture provides the livelihoods for about 80% of all Africans, and is dominated by millions of small-scale farmers who struggle against long odds to feed, clothe, shelter and educate their families. These smallholders rarely benefit from the kinds of government subsidies and other support programs commonly seen in developed countries. They also usually lack access to modern crop varieties, affordable fertilizers and other agri-inputs, effective agronomic practices, efficient markets for their produce, and financial credit for improving their farming operations.
We badly need a sustainable green revolution in Africa. Four decades ago, an agricultural revolution swept across Asia and Latin America, and transformed the lives and livelihoods hundreds of millions of desperately poor people. We need something similar here in Africa, but our revolution must fit Africa’s unique and very diverse agroecological and socioeconomic circumstances. AGRA’s job is to spark this uniquely African green revolution, and to be successful we need many different partners – governments, farmers, financiers, corporations, development organizations, and multilateral bodies – all working together in coordinated and collaborative ways.
Some key achievements
AGRA’s achievements over its brief 7-year history make me – and the whole Board – proud to be associated with the organization, its leadership (past and present), its dedicated teams of technical experts, and its many grantees – those who convert AGRA’s financial and technical support into farm- and community-level impacts.
We have many leading scientists working at AGRA who have facilitated the training of hundreds of scientists across Africa at the MSc and PhD levels. We have trained thousands of smallholder farmers in modern agronomy to increase their productivity and created more than 80 African-owned and operated seed companies that together now produce more than nearly 100,000 metric tons of improved seed each year – more seed than is produced by all the multinational seed companies currently operating in Africa combined. We have also empowered numerous agricultural entrepreneurs who are now providing small-scale farmers with better access to modern agricultural inputs, such as fertilizer and higher yielding, disease- and pest-resistant crop varieties.
How do we move forward?
First, we need to reframe the narrative about smallholder farming in Africa. Agriculture is the largest enterprise on the continent. Smallholder farmers need the same tools as any other business. They need money to buy inputs; they need to receive fair market prices for their products; and they need to be paid on time.
Second, we need to stop looking at agriculture as development; we need to see it for what it really is – an industry and a business enterprise. It is, after all, the biggest employer in Africa and accounts for a very large share of Africa’s annual GDP.
Third, we need to support smallholder farmers to do things differently. How?
By working with others to make needed inputs, such as improved seed and fertilizer, available when needed and at more affordable prices. By helping farmers and rural communities improve the health of their soils in sustainable ways. By making new market opportunities available to smallholders. And by advocating for better, smallholder-friendly agricultural policies that empower farmers to become more productive and commercially viable.
A good example on the policy side is the modernization of seed policies, such that seed businesses are encouraged and enabled to be more responsive to farmers’ needs – to become more vibrant, efficient and effective. We want to support government efforts to reform outdated policies and regulations so that agriculture can become more productive and profitable. This will help attract young people into agriculture – not just as producers in rural farming systems but as important players in agribusiness value chains. Young people don’t see backbreaking subsistence farming as very attractive. We have to expose them to the diverse opportunities available all along the agriculture value chain.
The view through my crystal ball
Twenty years from now, when our green revolution has been achieved, I believe the typical African smallholder farmer that we see today will be very different. She will be working on a parcel of land that she actually owns. The land will be much more productive than it is today, because of improved soil health techniques. She will have better access to higher yielding seeds and fertilizer. She will have access to mechanization for tilling the land. She will have better access to markets for her produce, and she will command much better prices for her produce than she does today. I believe Africa’s future farmers will be young, highly skilled, and above all prosperous.
A revolution starts small and gathers momentum. The progress made by and through AGRA is encouraging others to act, and to operate differently. Africa’s green revolution won’t be just about farmers, but also about agribusiness – seed producers, fertilizer producers, agroprocessing and marketing. By making highly focused investments all along the continent’s agricultural value chain, AGRA can achieve its mission to transform African agriculture, making it more productive, more profitable, and more sustainable.
Mr. Strive Masiyiwa is founder and chairman of Econet Wireless, a global telecommunications group, and serves as the Chairman of AGRA’s Board of Directors (succeeding Mr. Kofi Annan in that role). His connection with AGRA goes back to its beginnings more than seven years ago. At the time, he was a Board Member of The Rockefeller Foundation, which along with the Ford Foundation and others was responsible for triggering a Green Revolution in Asia through the work of the late Dr. Norman Borlaug. Mr. Masiyiwa saw the urgent need for sparking a Green Revolution in Africa, and he readily accepted the invitation to help lead the founding and development of AGRA.
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