What Is the Focus of the Green Revolution 20 Which Is Once Again Increasing Crop Productivity?

Since the 2007-8 nutrient crisis, when spikes in prices for global commodity crops raised the specter of nutrient shortages, Africa has seen a surge in funding to help local food producers grow more of the region's food. African governments raised spending on agricultural development, supported by international donors who recognized, for the commencement time in decades, that developing countries needed to grow more of their ain food and that their pocket-sized-scale farmers could exist a crucial office of that attempt rather than a drag on economic development. ⁱⁱ For several years, high international crop prices drew individual investment into agriculture. Global philanthropies, newly endowed with billions of dollars in technology profits, led the charge. The Beak and Melinda Gates Foundation established a well-funded program on international development and partnered with the Rockefeller Foundation in 2006 to launch the Alliance for a Greenish Revolution in Africa (AGRA). AGRA eventually ready the ambitious goals of doubling crop productivity and incomes for xxx million small-scale-scale farming households while halving nutrient insecurity in twenty African countries by 2020. ³

That Dark-green Revolution project is declining. My research has shown that as the Light-green Revolution project reaches its 2020 deadline, crop productivity has grown slowly, poverty remains high, and the number of hungry people in the 13 countries that take received priority funding has risen 30% since 2006. Few small-scale farmers have benefited. Some have been thrown into debt as they try to pay for the loftier costs of the commercial seeds and constructed fertilizer that Green Revolution proponents sell them. This disappointing track record comes in spite of $1 billion in funding for AGRA and $1 billion per year in subsidies from African governments to encourage their farmers to buy these loftier-priced inputs.

African governments accept a choice to make, a choice that volition make up one's mind the continent'south food future. For the terminal 14 years, governments and donors have bet heavily, and almost exclusively, on the Green Revolution formula of commercial inputs, fossil-fuel-based fertilizers and agro-chemicals. That gamble has failed to generate agronomical productivity, fifty-fifty as the continent has seen a strong period of economic growth. Rural poverty remains high. Hunger is rampant, with the United nations warning that Africa could meet a 73% surge in undernourishment by 2030 if policies don't alter. ⁴

Africans tin cull a different path, 1 offered by innovative small-scale farmers all over the continent. Many turn down the Dark-green Revolution as the failing policies of past, pointing to long-term damage to farming communities and the environs in India, target of the first Light-green Revolution fifty years agone. They have demonstrated that agroecology, with its innovative combination of ecological scientific discipline and farmers' knowledge and practices, can restore degraded soils, make farms more than resilient to climate change, ameliorate food security and nutrition by growing and consuming a diversity of crops, all at a fraction of the cost — to farmers and to African governments — of the Light-green Revolution approach. ^v

To the Green Revolution, they say: Time'due south up. You've had your take chances to show what difference you tin can make. Equally we face climate change and rising hunger from the COVID-19 pandemic, it is time to take a different path. The future is agroecology.

Background

AGRA, initiated in 2006, heralded a new campaign to bring the kind of input-intensive agronomics to Africa that had failed to take hold on the continent when the first Dark-green Revolution swept through much of Asia and Latin America in the 1960s and 1970s. Now, argued Light-green Revolution campaigners, science had adult the seed and other technologies to requite Africa its ain Green Revolution, 1 tailored to the specific ecological and climatic weather across the continent. While the technologies may have evolved, the basic approach was the same: promoting the adoption of so-called loftier-yield seed varieties fed with inorganic fertilizer. ⁶

With the Gates Foundation and donor governments providing almost $1 billion in contributions and disbursing $524 million in grants, AGRA initially focused its piece of work in 18 countries, presently reduced to 13. ^vii AGRA worked with governments to speed the development of high-yield commercial seeds designed for Africa's broad range of soils and climates and to facilitate the delivery to farmers of those seeds and the inorganic fertilizers that would brand them grow.

Far more of import than AGRA in this endeavor were subsidies provided by African governments to their farmers to buy these Green Revolution inputs. Of AGRA's 13 focus countries, only three — Mozambique, Niger and Uganda — do not have meaning input subsidy programs. The resources expended by national governments on such programs, often heavily supported with donor funds, generally dwarf those invested by AGRA. Where AGRA grants $twoscore-50 meg per year in its supported countries, aggregate regime expenditures on input subsidies approach $1 billion per year, ^eight more twenty times AGRA'south funding.

These Green Revolution policies have always been controversial with Africa's farmer organizations. Many warned that information technology was seeking to impose Western technologies inappropriate for the continent's soils, farmers and food systems. Some decried the lack of consultation with African farmers on the nature of the interventions. ⁹ Others pointed out the serious flaws in the commencement Greenish Revolution: water supplies depleted and contaminated with chemical runoff; farmers indebted due to high input costs while yields declined later their initial increases; and the loss of ingather and diet diversity as Green Revolution crops took over the countryside. African farm groups similar the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA) also warned of the loss of food sovereignty, the ability of communities and nations to freely choose how they wanted to feed themselves, every bit large commercial firms could come to dominate local markets backed by new authorities policies designed to ensure market access.

These early on warnings take on new weight in light of new research by historians on the myths and realities of the first Light-green Revolution. ¹⁰ Their accounts, grounded in empirical data, much of it from Bharat, suggest that crop yields for wheat and rice did not increase significantly faster after Dark-green Revolution innovations than they were already rising. Agriculture was not brackish, and the new technologies did non appreciably increase yield growth. Some historians suggest that even in the short term the new technology package may take had merely a negligible touch on on hunger in India. There is also evidence that high-yield seed genetics were non the nearly important input responsible for the yield increases Indian farmers observed, nor was inorganic fertilizer. The most important input was irrigation, according to contempo studies, as the Indian government and donors supported the widespread installation of tube wells. In any case, the long-term environmental toll on Republic of india's farmers and landscapes has been severe. Fifty-fifty long-time advocates of the Greenish Revolution approach acknowledge the damage caused past the technologies and practices it promoted. ¹¹

Neither AGRA nor the Gates Foundation has published an evaluation of the impacts of its programs on the number of smallholder households reached nor the improvements in their yields and household incomes. ¹² Periodic reports merely highlight intermediate objectives — number of new seed varieties released, tons of seed produced in-country by domestic seed companies, number of farmers trained in new agronomic practices and number of ingather breeders trained. ^xiii This lack of accountability represents a serious oversight for a program that has consumed so much in the way of resource and driven the region'south agronomical evolution policies with its narrative of technology-driven agricultural development. ¹⁴

Our inquiry squad at Tufts University set out to fill that accountability gap using the best data and data to which we had access. AGRA declined our request to provide data from their own internal monitoring and evaluation of progress. In the absence of more than specific data from AGRA, we used national-level data on productivity, poverty and food security as strong indicators of the impacts of Dark-green Revolution policies. AGRA claimed information technology would double incomes and productivity for 30 million smallholder households, nine million directly and 21 1000000 indirectly. Depending on the estimates used, the total represents a clear majority of smallholder households in AGRA countries. ¹⁵ Thus, national-level data seems an appropriate indicator of AGRA'due south progress. ¹⁶

Limited number of casher farmers

From the available information, it is difficult to determine how many farmers are benefiting from AGRA and who those farmers are. AGRA's own reports suggest very express accomplish in terms of "direct beneficiaries." Annual country reports refer to farmers "committed," without defining what that means. AGRA'southward most recent progress study, for the period 2007-xvi, is indicative of the reporting gap. Most detail focuses on seed varieties developed and commercialized or tons of fertilizer sold. Farmers are listed mainly as benefiting from grooming in ISFM techniques — Integrated Soil Fertility Management — AGRA'due south term for its technology package. The written report lists "5.3 million farmers with knowledge of ISFM" and "1.86 million farmers using ISFM." Only there is no accounting for what technologies they are really using and what benefit is accruing to those farmers. ¹⁷

For a billion-dollar program with the goal of reaching nine million farmers directly and another 21 meg indirectly, a written report of fewer than 2 1000000 farmers "using ISFM" is a poor consequence.

Evidence would suggest that the principal beneficiaries are likely not the poorest or most nutrient-insecure farmers but rather a growing number of medium-scale farmers who have access to more than land and are already integrated into commercial networks. Merely a fraction of such farmers come from the ranks of smallholders; many are new investors in farming from urban elites. One written report showed that a tiny fraction of smallholders is likely to become commercial farmers. ^xviii

Express productivity improvements

Table 1 shows the pct growth in product, harvested area and yield aggregated for the 13 AGRA countries over a 14-year period. Because three-yr averages smooth some of the annual fluctuations common in agriculture due to weather and other variations, we employ averages from 2004-half dozen as a pre-AGRA baseline, compared with the most contempo available data, 2016-18 averages, to estimate progress. We care for the period under review as a 12-year span of fourth dimension from a pre-AGRA baseline in 2006 to one that goes through 2018. We include production, area and yield because all are relevant to any evaluation of agronomical intensification, which is intended to increment product on existing lands by increasing productivity.

Over the 12-twelvemonth menstruum in which AGRA operated, from 2004-half dozen to 2016-18, maize production in the 13 countries increased 87%, but that product gain was due more to a 45% increase in area harvested than information technology was to yield increases, which improved merely 29%. We highlight the yield column because that is the metric AGRA and related Green Revolution programs promised to double by 2020. (To be on rail to achieve a 100% increase in yield by 2020 the growth through 2018 would need to be 85-90%.)

At that place is no sign of impressive productivity growth in whatsoever major nutrient crops sufficient to encounter AGRA's goal of doubling yields. Rice, a staple in simply a minority of AGRA countries, showed large production increases, but every bit with maize this owed less to productivity improvements, which grew only 41%, than to bringing new land into rice production. Overall, cereals production grew 55%, but yields grew just 27%.

Tabular array i: AGRA: Limited Signs of Green Revolution % Growth, selected crops, 13 AGRA Countries 2004-half-dozen to 2016-18
	Production (MT/year)	Area (hectares)	Yield (MT/hectare)
Maize	87	45	29
Rice (paddy)	163	87	41
Wheat*	93	28	51
Millet	-24	-five	-21
Sorghum	17	13	iii
All Cereals	55	22	27
Cassava	42	51	-six
Roots/tubers (all)	42	51	-seven
Pulses (all)	80	19	51
Groundnuts	17	52	-23
Soybean**	58	35	eighteen
Sources: FAOSTAT for 13 Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa countries: Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Twanda, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia *excluding Burkina Faso and Ghana **excluding Ghana, Mozambique and Niger

Weak productivity growth in maize is stunning given the back up the crop has received from AGRA and input subsidies. Several of Africa's tiptop maize producers take shown surprisingly weak productivity improvement: ¹⁹

• Nigeria, the largest maize producer among AGRA countries, saw only a vii% increment in yields nether AGRA, less than 0.5% per year, compared to 2.v% annual yield growth before AGRA. ²⁰ Production increased significantly primarily because of an 81% increase in country planted to maize.
• Kenya, the fourth largest maize producer, saw yields actually decline nether AGRA, afterward posting ane.7% average annual yield growth in the nine-year flow before AGRA's inflow.
• Tanzania, the 3rd largest maize producer, likewise showed tepid yield growth of just 15%, barely more than than 1.0% per year.
• Zambia, AGRA's sixth largest maize producer, posted simply a 27% increase in maize yields, an annual average of 2%; yield growth before AGRA was much higher, iv.2% per year.

This means that amongst AGRA's superlative six maize producers, just Ethiopia and Mali showed significant yield growth that surpassed pre-AGRA yield growth rates. The Light-green Revolution technology packet often simply doesn't pay for farmers. The African Center for Biodiversity estimated that in Malawi seeds and fertilizers cost three times the value farmers could gain from the minor maize yield increase, assuming the farmer tin afford to sell all the added production. ²¹ Many can't; their families demand to eat. For many smallholders, the Light-green Revolution packet is just besides expensive. That is why input subsidies have been critical to achieving what limited adoption has been achieved, but it is striking that even with all those subsidies, yield improvements in maize have been so poor.

Failure to intensify production

These information suggest that Green Revolution programs have not produced a productivity boom through intensification merely rather an extensification onto new lands. The promotion of extensification is a serious contradiction for Green Revolution proponents. The explicit goal of "sustainable intensification" is to minimize pressure on land and water resources while limiting further greenhouse gas emissions. To the extent Greenish Revolution programs are encouraging extensification, they are at odds with national and donor authorities commitments to mitigate climate alter. Depending on private countries' land endowments, extensification can exist a serious problem. Rwanda, for example, is densely populated and does not have vast tracts of uncultivated abundant state.

Decline or stagnation in nutritious food crops

I of the negative consequences of the Green Revolution focus on maize and other article crops is the failing importance of nutritious and climate-resilient crops like millet and sorghum, which take been key components in healthy diets. These are rarely supported by African governments or AGRA; meanwhile, input subsidies and supports for maize and other favored crops provide incentives for farmers to decrease the cultivation of their own ingather varieties. As Table ane shows, millet production barbarous 24% in the AGRA menses, with a 5% drop in expanse planted and a 21% decline in yields. Sorghum, an aboriginal grain that is a staple of many African foods, has besides languished nether the Dark-green Revolution. Production grew just 17% as yields stagnated (3%) and area harvested increased only 13%.

Before AGRA nearly twice every bit much state was planted in both millet and sorghum than was planted in maize. Now, maize dwarfs both due to the many incentives to produce the ingather despite the demonstrated climate-resilience of these crop varieties. In this sense, Green Revolution programs are undermining farmers' power to arrange to climate change.

Other disquisitional food security crops suffered also. Cassava, a key staple in Nigeria, Mozambique, Uganda, Tanzania and many other AGRA countries, saw a 6% turn down in yields. Overall, roots and tubers, which include nutritious crops such as sweet potatoes, experienced a 7% pass up in yields. Groundnuts, another critical staple source of protein in many countries, saw an alarming 23% driblet in yields.

Measuring productivity gains comprehensively

To amend assess the overall touch of Light-green Revolution programs on the productivity of staple crops every bit a whole, not just the favored crops such as maize, we used national-level information to estimate the yield growth during the AGRA years for a basket of important staple crops. Nosotros included maize, millet sorghum, and the broad category of "roots and tubers," which includes cassava, sweet murphy and other key staples. For countries in which some other grain is a key staple (e.grand., teff in Ethiopia, rice in Nigeria and Tanzania), we used "cereals, total" with "roots and tubers." We created one alphabetize past weighting the yield growth for each ingather based on area harvested (in 2017), a skilful measure of the prevalence of the crop. The resulting "Staple Yield Index" gives a more than comprehensive moving-picture show of overall productivity growth for a range of cardinal food crops over 12 years of Light-green Revolution programming.

No land is on track to reach the goal of doubling productivity. Only Federal democratic republic of ethiopia and Republic of malaŵi show staple crop yield growth as high as 50% for the AGRA catamenia. Three countries — Burkina Faso, Kenya and Nigeria — show declines in productivity for this basket of staple crops.

Rwanda, which AGRA touts as one of its greatest success stories, registers staple yield growth of just 24%, less than ii% per year. This is because Rwanda'southward relative success in raising maize yields (+66%) is kickoff by stagnant yields for sorghum (0%), which earlier AGRA was a more important staple than maize. Yields too declined for rice. Possibly near meaning, yields for "roots and tubers" increased simply half-dozen% over the 12-yr AGRA catamenia. The Staple Ingather Index shows that Rwanda'due south apparent success in maize has come at the expense of more comprehensive food crop productivity.

Tabular array 2: AGRA: Productivity & Undernourishment
	% Alter 2004/six-2016/18
	Staple Yields Index	Number Undernourished
AGRA Total	18	31
Burkina Faso	-ten	15
Ethiopia	73	-29
Ghana	39	-20
Kenya	-7	43
Malawi	l	-3
Mali	nineteen	-14
Mozambique	30	half dozen
Niger	36	71
Nigeria	-8	181
Rwanda	24	13
Tanzania	22	29
Republic of uganda	0	155
Republic of zambia	twenty	29
Source: FAO; writer's calculation of change in number undernourished between iii year averages 2004/half-dozen-2016/18 Staple Yield Index: weighted yield increases for maize, millet, sorghum roots/tubars. For AGRA total, Ethiopia, Nigeria, and Tanzania - cereals plus roots/tubers

No bear witness of doubling incomes or halving food insecurity

AGRA offers picayune evidence that beneficiary farmers' incomes are increasing, never heed whether they are doubling. There is no comprehensive mensurate of farmer or rural incomes, and data on rural poverty is spotty from country to state. The all-time bachelor mensurate of farmer welfare is U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) data on food insecurity. Information technology indicates whether those yield increases are improving the lives of the poor.

Table 2 shows the staple yield index and pct change in the number of undernourished for AGRA countries. The results are alarming. The total number of undernourished in AGRA's xiii countries has increased from 100.5 million to 131.three million, a xxx% increase, from earlier AGRA to 2018. Just Ethiopia, Ghana and Republic of mali report a significant decline in the absolute number of chronically hungry residents. Nigeria and Uganda account for a large share of the increase in undernourishment, with the number more doubling in each country over the 12-year period. Several AGRA countries posted improvements in the share of their populations suffering undernourishment, indicating progress in reducing the rate if not the number of hungry. Just in iv countries — Kenya, Niger, Nigeria and Republic of uganda — the share every bit well as the number increased. 22

AGRA'southward Balance Sail

Failure to yield, little benefit for small-calibration farmers

On balance, as AGRA reaches its 2020 deadline for doubling the productivity and incomes of 30 meg smallholder farm households while cutting hunger in half, the evidence shows that AGRA and the Green Revolution campaign of which it is a part are failing Africa'southward smallholder farmers.

Figure 1 shows the two nigh revealing measures of productivity and welfare. The blue bars correspond the Staple Yield Index, with the blue line at 100%, AGRA'southward goal of doubling productivity. The cherry bars indicate the progress in reducing the number of undernourished people, with percentage reductions in undernourishment — improvement — above the ten-centrality and increases in undernourishment beneath information technology. Only i country, Federal democratic republic of ethiopia, shows annihilation resembling the combination of yield growth and hunger reduction Green Revolution proponents promised, with a 73% increase in productivity and a 29% subtract in the number of hungry. Note, however, that neither of these is on track to meet AGRA'south goal of doubling productivity (100% increase) and halving the number of hungry (which would be a l% decrease). Republic of ghana is the only other AGRA land that shows decent productivity growth with some decrease in hunger. Malawi accomplished relatively strong yield growth simply only a small reduction in undernourishment.

For AGRA countries equally a group, the moving-picture show is grim through 2018: pocket-size yield increases for staple crops (+xviii%) and rising levels of hunger (+30%). 9 of AGRA's 13 countries show ascension hunger levels. In Rwanda, a supposed Light-green Revolution success story, the number of hungry increased 13% on mediocre productivity increases of 24%.

Alternatives to the Green Revolution

Since AGRA's founding in 2006, scientific discipline and policy have avant-garde significantly, bringing to light the limitations of the input-intensive Green Revolution model of agronomical development and the viability of alternative approaches. This new literature was summarized and analyzed well in the report, "From Uniformity to Diversity," past the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Nutrient Systems, founded by former U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Right to Nutrient Olivier De Schutter. ²³ Equally the expert report makes clear, a range of sustainable agronomical practices that move away from chemic-intensive monoculture cropping can abound all the food the earth needs to feed a growing population. They warn of "lock-ins" that are preventing the changes called for by a broad range of experts, from the IPCC to the FAO. They place 7 central lock-ins, including "path dependency," the tendency of economic systems to follow prescribed development paths which are then difficult to change.

AGRA seems to be feeding Africa's worrisome trend toward locking in path dependency on input-intensive agriculture, much to the detriment of smallholder farmers. A recent article in the periodical Nutrient Policy surveyed the results from seven countries with input-subsidy programs and found little evidence of sustained — or sustainable — success. "The empirical record is increasingly clear that improved seed and fertilizer are not sufficient to accomplish profitable, productive, and sustainable farming systems in most parts of Africa," wrote the authors in the conclusion. ²⁴

The vast majority of smallholders on the continent are non nevertheless heavily reliant on such inputs, nor are they locked into production for value chains that require the large-calibration production of uniform bolt. Unlike industrial-scale farmers in developed countries, their path has not yet been determined; at that place remain opportunities to chart paths different from the high-input agronomics model promoted by AGRA.

Agroecology is i of the systems giving farmers the kinds of innovation they need, farming with nature to promote the soil-building practices that Light-green Revolution practices often undermine. Building on farmers' noesis of local atmospheric condition and nutrient cultures, multiple nutrient crops are grown in the aforementioned field. Compost, manure and biofertilizers — not fossil-fuel-based fertilizer — are used to nourish fields. Biological pest control decreases pesticide use. Researchers work with farmers to amend the productivity of their seeds rather than replacing them with commercial varieties farmers need to buy every year and dunk with fertilizer to make them abound. ²⁵ AFSA has documented the effectiveness of agricultural ecology, at present widely promoted amid its fellow member organizations as a key step toward food sovereignty. ²⁶

Such initiatives also achieve productivity increases more impressive than those accomplished past Light-green Revolution programs. 1 University of Essex study surveyed nearly 300 large ecological agriculture projects across more than than 50 poor countries and documented an average 79% increase in productivity with decreasing costs and rising incomes. ²⁷ Such results far surpass those of the Greenish Revolution.

Determination: Time to change course

Since AGRA'southward founding, scientists and world leaders have gained growing awareness of the limitations of input-intensive agricultural systems, especially to mitigate and conform to climatic change. A 2009 interagency written report by a large number of scientists showed that industrial agriculture was ill-suited to the climate, soils and needs in developing countries, arguing forcefully that "business as usual is no longer an option." ²⁸ The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2019 documented the contributions of industrialized agriculture to climatic change, calling for profound changes to both mitigate and assistance farmers adapt to climate disruptions. ²⁹ An proficient console from the FAO published a detailed assay in 2019 of the contributions ecological agronomics could make to food security and long-term sustainability. ³⁰ As onetime FAO Director Full general Jose Graziano da Silva had earlier indicated, "We demand to promote a transformative modify in the way that we produce and consume food. We demand to put forward sustainable nutrient systems that offer healthy and nutritious food, and as well preserve the surroundings. Agricultural ecology can offering several contributions to this process." ³¹

The Gates Foundation, AGRA and African governments have had 14 years to show results from their Greenish Revolution for Africa. The evidence indicates information technology is failing to raise productivity, incomes and food security. In fact, it is taking Africa downward a dangerous path toward greater dependence on external inputs and worsening crop and diet diverseness. These are the failed policies of the past failing once more now in Africa. It is fourth dimension for international donors and African governments to alter course, to shift their agricultural development funding toward the kinds of low-input sustainable farming that many small-scale farmers in Africa are pioneering under the banner of agroecology. With substantial support, like that provided to Green Revolution programs, agricultural ecology tin be Africa'due south nutrient hereafter.

The study "Fake Promises: The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA)" can be downloaded here: www.rosalux.de/en/agra . It is published by: Biba (Kenya), Staff of life for the World (Federal republic of germany), FIAN Germany, Forum on the Surroundings and Development (Germany), INKOTA (Germany), IRPAD (Mali), PELUM Zambia, Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung (Frg and S Africa), Tabio (Tanzania) and TOAM (Tanzania). Timothy A. Wise'southward working newspaper, published by Tufts University's Global Development and Environment Institute, is available at: https://sites.tufts.edu/gdae/files/2020/07/twenty-01_Wise_FailureToYield.pdf

Endnotes

1. This policy brief is based on Timothy A. Wise's working paper, "Failing Africa's Farmers," published by Tufts University's Global Development and Surround Institute, and available at: https://sites.tufts.edu/gdae/files/2020/07/20-01_Wise_FailureToYield.pdf.

   The study, "False Promises," is bachelor at: www.rosalux.de/en/agra. Wise is grateful to Melissa Gordon and Rachel Gilbert for invaluable research assistance on the background paper. The research was funded by Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung.

2. Loftier Level Console of Experts on Nutrient Security and Nutrition of the Committee on World Food Security, "Investing in Smallholder Agriculture for Food Security," HLPE Report 6 (Rome, Italian republic: Commission on Globe Nutrient Security, June 2013), http://www.fao.org/fileadmin/user_upload/hlpe/hlpe_documents/HLPE_Reports/HLPE-Report6_Investing_in_smallholder_agriculture.pdf.
3. AGRA web site, "What Nosotros Do: Grants," https://web.archive.org/spider web/20190406032154/https://agra.org/grants/, accessed May 18, 2020. AGRA's stated goals have evolved over time. Recently information technology has removed this explicit goal statement from its grants web page. Some statements weaken the goals, stating that AGRA will "contribute to" doubling yields and incomes, or reducing them to simply "increasing" yields and incomes. Some documents extend their timeline to 2021, though many still refer to the original 2020 deadline.
4. FAO, "The State of Nutrient Security and Diet in the Globe 2020: Transforming Nutrient Systems for Affordable Wellness Diets," July 2020, http://www.fao.org/3/ca9692en/online/ca9692en.html#.
5. See, for example, the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA): https://afsafrica.org/gathering-evidence-for-the-transition-to-agricultural ecology/
6. Thus far, AGRA has not promoted genetically modified seeds, though aught in the Light-green Revolution campaign excludes that possibility in the future.
7. AGRA, "AGRA Annual Progress Written report, 2007-2016" (AGRA, March 2017), https://agra.org/AGRAOld/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/2016-AGRA-Progress-Report-Final.pdf; AGRA, "AGRA 2017 Annual Report" (Nairobi, Kenya: AGRA, 2018), https://agra.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/AGRA-2017-Annual-Report0708201802.pdf; Calculated from AGRA reports: AGRA, "AGRA 2018 Almanac Written report" (Nairobi, Republic of kenya: AGRA, 2019), https://agra.org/ar-2018/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/AGRA-Annual-Report_v18_FINAL_Print-Ready_LR.pdf.
8. Data are from 2010 and 2011 from T.S. Jayne and Shahidur Rashid, "Input Subsidy Programs in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Synthesis of Recent Evidence," Agricultural Economics 44, no. 6 (November 2013): 547–62, https://doi.org/x.1111/agec.12073.
9. InterPares, "Coalition Cascade La Protection Du Patrimoine Génétique Africain (COPAGEN)," Inter Pares, accessed March 23, 2020, https://interpares.ca/content/coalition-pour-la-protection-du-patrimoine-k%C3%A9n%C3%A9tique-africain-copagen.
10. For a good overview, run across: Glenn Davis Rock, "Commentary: New Histories of the Indian Green Revolution," The Geographical Journal 185, no. 2 (June 2019): 243–50, https://doi.org/10.1111/geoj.12297; Kapil Subramanian, "Revisiting the Green Revolution: Irrigation and Food Product in Twentieth-Century India" (Ph.D., England, Academy of London, King'southward College (United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland), 2015), https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy.library.tufts.edu/docview/1837038837?pq-origsite=primo.
11. Run into, for instance, the chapter on India'south Punjab in Joel 1000 Bourne, The Terminate of Plenty: The Race to Feed a Crowded World (West. W. Norton & Company: W. W. Norton & Company, 2015).
12. At that place are unconfirmed reports that the Gates Foundation conducted or deputed an internal evaluation of AGRA in 2016. If so, the foundation has not released any information to the public.
13. AGRA, "AGRA Almanac Progress Study, 2007-2016."
14. Nosotros could find only partial evaluations of individual programs or interventions, which are detailed in Footnote 13 of the groundwork paper, "Declining Africa's Farmers."
15. Sarah K. Lowder, Jakob Skoet, and Terri Raney, "The Number, Size, and Distribution of Farms, Smallholder Farms, and Family unit Farms Worldwide," Globe Development 87 (November 2016): 16–29, https://doi.org/ten.1016/j.worlddev.2015.10.041.
16. Some African governments conduct out household surveys that can offer more useful data. But considering not all AGRA countries do such surveys, with consistent time-series data, we simply utilise such data to supplement this analysis.
17. AGRA, "AGRA Almanac Progress Report, 2007-2016."
18. T. S. Jayne et al., "Africa'south Irresolute Farm Size Distribution Patterns: The Rise of Medium-Scale Farms," Agricultural Economics 47, no. S1 (2016): 197–214, https://doi.org/10.1111/agec.12308.
19. Country-level data for all crops is available in the appendix of the background paper, "Declining Africa's Farmers."
20. Pre-AGRA menstruum compares three-year periods 1997-99 and 2004-6, calculating compound almanac yield growth from FAOSTAT data.
21. "Running to Stand Still: Minor-Scale Farmers and the Green Revolution in Malawi" (Melville, Southward Africa: African Centre for Biodiversity, September 2014), http://acbio.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Malawi-running-to-stand-still.pdf.
22. The full table of undernourishment and moderate food insecurity for AGRA countries is bachelor in the groundwork paper, "Failing Africa's Farmers."
23. IPES-Food, "From Uniformity to Diversity: A Paradigm Shift from Industrial Agriculture to Diversified Agroecological Systems" (International Console of Experts on Sustainable Food systems, 2016), http://world wide web.ipes-nutrient.org/_img/upload/files/UniformityToDiversity_FULL.pdf.
24. Thomas S. Jayne et al., "Review: Taking Stock of Africa'due south 2d-Generation Agricultural Input Subsidy Programs," Food Policy 75 (Feb i, 2018): 1–14, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodpol.2018.01.003.
25. For a range of analyses, run across: "Special Issue on Agroecology Transformations," Agricultural ecology Now!, February 24, 2020, http://world wide web.agroecologynow.com/new-special-upshot-on-agroecology-transformations-connecting-the-dots-to-enable-agroecology-transformations/; IPES-Nutrient, "Breaking Away from Industrial Food Systems: Seven Example Studies of Agroecological Transition" (IPES-Food, October 2018), http://world wide web.ipes-food.org/_img/upload/files/CS2_web.pdf.
26. For a robust gear up of case studies from across Africa, see: AFSA, "Case Studies – Agroecology," AFSA (blog), Apr 24, 2019, https://afsafrica.org/case-studies-agroecology/.
27. J. Due north. Pretty et al., "Resource-Conserving Agriculture Increases Yields in Developing Countries," Environmental Science & Engineering 40, no. iv (February 2006): 1114–xix, https://doi.org/10.1021/es051670d.
28. IAASTD, "Major Agronomical Written report: 'Business as Usual Is Not an Choice,'" 2009, https://www.globalagriculture.org/fileadmin/files/weltagrarbericht/IAASTDBerichte/IssuesBriefTrade.pdf..
29. IPCC, "Special Report on Climate change and Land: An IPCC Special Written report on Climate Change, Desertification, Land Degradation, Sustainable Land Management, Nutrient Security, and Greenhouse Gas Fluxes in Terrestrial Ecosystems" (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2019), https://world wide web.ipcc.ch/srccl/.
30. HLPE, "Agroecological and Other Innovative Approaches for Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems That Enhance Nutrient Security and Nutrition" (Rome, Italian republic: High Level Console of Experts, FAO, 2019), http://www.fao.org/3/ca5602en/ca5602en.pdf.
31. FAO, "Agroecology Tin can Help Change the World's Food Product for the Better," April iii, 2018, http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/1113475/icode/.

---

---

Download a PDF of the policy cursory.

Téléchargez un PDF de la traduction française de Le Choix de L'Afrique : La révolution verte en Afrique a échoué, il est temps de changer de direction.

Watch a recording of a webinar hosted by HOMEF in collaboration with AFJN on August 6, 2020 on which Timothy A. Wise discusses his research and the report.

steckerswee1941.blogspot.com

Source: https://www.iatp.org/africas-choice

Share this post