The African Green Revolution

African governments and multilateral institutions stand firmly behind the AGR. Agriculture is now higher on the African political agenda and more financial allocations are forthcoming, from inside and outside the continent, than in several decades. Yara’s advocacy of the AGR builds on Africa’s own strategies and priorities, be it on a regional or national level.

Regionally, the African Union (AU) has championed agriculture through the New Economic Partnership for African Development (NEPAD) and its Comprehensive Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP), adopted in 2003. Locally, governments have developed agricultural policies and strategies, and signed CAADP compacts.

African organizations and governments were represented at the AGR Conferences hosted by Yara in 2006–2008, and the Oslo declaration adopted in 2007 explicitly supported the CAADP. The public-private partnership and value chain approaches advocated by Yara are also in line with African policies and priorities.

At a high-level seminar in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in 2004, then UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan called for a genuine African Green Revolution. Annan challenged African governments and world society – including the private sector – to combat poverty through developing agriculture.

The seminar was entitled "Africa’s Green Revolution: A Call to Action," and focused on innovative approaches to meeting the Millennium Development Goal on hunger in Africa. Yara was present in Addis, and we were the first private company to respond with concrete action, establishing the Yara Prize and hosting the African Green Revolution Conferences – of which the first was entitled "Catalyst for Action."

Annan highlighted two specific initiatives: the Inter-Academy Council’s plan for the strategic development of strong scientific and technical institutions for agriculture, and the work of the Millennium Project Hunger Task Force in supporting African countries to adopt national action plans for hunger abatement. Yara was the only company to be part of the Task Force.

In Asia, Latin America and the Middle East, a green revolution tripled food productivity and helped lift hundreds of millions out of hunger. Africa lacked its revolution, despite some attempts to replicate Asia’s.

A major precondition for the AGR is that it must be tailored to the specific challenges and conditions of Africa’s complex agro-economic systems. This has been emphasized by African experts and decision-makers, and is a fundament of the key document outlining the strategy towards the AGR, the CAADP. The CAADP addresses policy and capacity issues across the entire agricultural sector and continent.

In 2009, several key institutions, including the African Development Bank (AfDB), launched the African Agriculture Fund in response to the 2008 food crisis. Priority interventions will be in cereals, livestock farming, dairy production, fruit and vegetables, fertilizers, seeds, oils, rural credit institutions and agricultural insurance. The AfDB and the World Bank have both given increased priority to agriculture, the AfDB in 2010 presenting its Agriculture Sector Strategy 2010–2014, supporting CAADP in promoting increased agricultural productivity.

In their joint "Economic Report on Africa 2009," the AU and the UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), highlight the importance of regional value chains in developing African agriculture. By creating linkages with other sectors, market developments and economic diversification would be strengthened and food security and poverty reduction achieved. Promoting public-private partnerships at the national as well as regional level is a key path in developing value chains according to the report.

African leaders adopted the Maputo declaration in 2003, committing member countries of the AU to increased resources for agricultural development, allocating at least ten percent of national budgets to the sector by 2008/09. Although a minority of African governments have achieved this goal so far, the CAADP and the Maputo declaration have helped increase public spending on agriculture in recent years.

African ministers of agriculture and international stakeholders, including Yara, convened for the Africa Fertilizer Summit in Abuja, Nigeria, in 2006. The goal was to trigger an AGR by building consensus around key issues in increasing fertilizer use in Africa, and agreeing on a strategy for developing an Africa Fertilizer Action Plan to accelerate poor farmers’ access to fertilizer and other agricultural inputs. It its final declaration the Summit stated that African farmers need to shift from low-yielding, extensive land practices to more intensive, higher-yielding ones, with increased use of improved seeds, fertilizers and irrigation.

Considering Africa to be trapped in a fertilizer crisis, it declared fertilizer a strategic commodity, calling for targeted subsidies, with special attention to poor farmers. One of the major agreements resulting from the Summit was the establishment of an African Fertilizer Financing Mechanism (AFFM).

Spurred by the call for action and the food and fuel crises in 2008, agriculture is now high on the political agenda, and investments are on the increase, from public and private, national and international, sources alike. Several successful examples from recent years demonstrate opportunities to enhance productivity.

Malawi has been hailed as the first AGR country, due to its subsidy scheme. Making seeds and fertilizers available to farmers – in combination with favorable weather conditions – resulted in strong yield increases. The same effect of making inputs and extensions readily available to smallholders is seen on a local scale in the Millennium Villages. Increasing investments in agriculture has to be targeted at both smallholders and larger units, aiming to transform the entire sector into a profitable business.