The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) has released a new report titled “Enhancing Food Security in Africa Through Science, Technology and Innovation” reiterating its secretary general Dr. Supachai Panitchpakdi’s previous calls for “a new green revolution for Africa” and putting forward twelve key recommendations for reforms “built on Africa’s own indigenous technology and knowledge requirements, and the nutrition and food security needs of its people”.

According to the report, reforms should be based on “the capabilities of Africa's millions of smallholder farmers … to cope with the continent's varying climate conditions. Building capabilities for science, technology and innovation of relevance to local agriculture are the only path to achieve this”.

“Smallholders make up over half the population in most developing countries and their farms are often efficiently run and enjoy significant growth potential,” it notes.

Uwe Hoering, a trade and agriculture expert from World Economy and Development in Brief, dismissed the UNCTAD report as “yet another collection of not particularly inventive suggestions”, which deliberately fails to mention the “the greatest enemies of the small African farmers”, which according to Hoering are “the agro-industrial sector; unsteady prices for food at the world markets caused by speculation; and so-called free trade agreements”.

“The agro-industrial sector dominates the research and technology development for the agriculture,” said Hoering. “All these factors drive agriculture at the local and the global level in the opposite direction as the one the UNCTAD calls for — towards monocultures, and towards more private seed patents and other expensive farming inputs.”

Marita Wiggerthale, an agriculture expert for Oxfam in Germany, also stressed that the agricultural policies of the EU are the key factor in hampering African smallholder farming. “Instead of promoting food export (towards developing countries), the industrialised world should be supporting fair trade,” she commented. “When Europe exports more agricultural goods to the poorest countries of the world, especially in Africa, it is not helping the people there. Quite the contrary — such exports crowd out local food production.”

Source:

• IPS-Inter Press Service