A Perspective on the Prospects for a Green Revolution in Africa

Peter HazellProfessorial Research Associate

Centre for Development, Environment and PolicySchool of Oriental and African Studies

London University

Some lessons from Asia’s Green Revolution in food staples

The primary problem is that Africa is lagging behind in the application of high-yielding seeds, fertilizer and irrigation water for growing food staples, especially among small farmers.

The same problem in Asia in the 1960s led to massive state led interventions to make these inputs accessible and affordable to small farmers, and to provide market outlets at “fair”: and stable prices -- leading to the so called Green Revolution.

Few attempts to bring the same GR approach to Africa have worked on a sustained basis.

Two decades of hybrid maize “revolution” based on the Asian model with improved varieties, state supplied and subsidized inputs, and state controlled markets. But inefficient and corrupt marketing boards, escalating fiscal costs, and soil degradation due to specialized maize cultivation led to eventual collapse of the system

The Sasakawa SG2000 program has provided free seeds and fertilizers to farmers in pilot areas in several countries to demonstrate the benefits of GR technologies. But because there was no parallel effort to develop markets and input supply systems, the input subsidies could not be removed and rapid growth in food staples production soon overwhelmed available market outlets causing prices to collapse in good years.

What has worked?

Building on Successes in African Agriculture

Edited by Steven Haggblade

2020 Focus 12, IFPRI, 2004

Full book forthcoming as:

Building Successes in African Agriculture: Lessons for the Future

Steven Haggblade and Peter Hazell (Editors)

(Johns Hopkins University Press for IFPRI?)

Case Studies Reviewed

• Maize: Kenya, Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe

• Cotton: Mali

• Cassava: Nigeria, Ghana, Malawi, Zambia

• Horticultural exports: Kenya, Ivory Coast

• Dairy: Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda

• Conservation farming: Burkina, Zambia

• Improved fallows: Kenya, Zambia

Key lessons

While the details vary, in each case success occurred when:

Agricultural research provided farmers with more productive and sustainable technologies, and

Policies were in place that created positive market incentives for farmers to increase production

Seven pillars for a Green Revolution in Africa1. Building policy support and GR champions. Early successes badly needed.2. Investing in R&D and extension to develop and disseminate appropriate

GR technologies for small farms3. *Given the lack of rural infrastructure and the huge cost of building it,

priority should be given to identifying potential bread basket areas where the GR can be launched and creating the critical levels of rural infrastructure needed to enable the GR to take off in these areas

4. Developing market and intra-regional trade policies that can provide farmers with good access to markets at competitive and stable prices

5. Developing input policies to accelerate small farmers’ adoption of GR technologies. Need for agricultural credit and ‘smart’ subsidies

6. Ensuring secure access to land and water for small farmers, including women farmers

7. *Developing national GR strategies to coordinate all the pieces. This needs to be backed up with investments in building human and institutional capacity for policy analysis and dialogue

Identifying potential bread basket areasPotential breadbasket areas should have good

agricultural potential and market access. This is not as simple for Africa’s rainfed agricultural systems as it was in irrigated Asia, but GIS offers a powerful new aid

Development Domains (Ag,Mkt,Pop)

High,Low,High

Low,Low,High

High,High,High

High,High,Low

High,Low,Low

Low,High,High

Low,High,Low

Low,Low,Low

Not Suitable

Population Density

Market Access

Agriculture Potential

LGP

Days

0

1 - 73

74 - 89

901 - 119

120 - 149

150 - 179

180 - 209

210 - 239

240 - 269

270 - 299

300 - 329

330 - 364

365 - 365500 0 500250 Miles

¯Agriculture Potential

Not Suitable

Low

High 500 0 500250 Miles

¯

500 0 500250 Miles

¯Market Access

Value

High

Low 500 0 500250 Miles

¯

Population Density>10

10-50

50 - 100

100 - 500

>500500 0 500250 Miles

¯ Population

Low

High500 0 500250 Miles

¯

Development Domains

Source: Agricultural Development Policy in ECA: Strategic Investment Priorities for Growth & Poverty Reduction, IFPRI/ASARECA 2005

Seven pillars for a Green Revolution in Africa

1. Building policy support and GR champions. Early successes badly needed.

2. Investing in R&D and extension to develop and disseminate appropriate GR technologies for small farms

3. *Given the lack of rural infrastructure and the huge cost of building it, priority should be given to identifying potential bread basket areas where the GR can be launched and creating the critical levels of rural infrastructure needed to enable the GR to take off in these areas

4. Developing market and intra-regional trade policies that can provide farmers with good access to markets at competitive and stable prices

5. Developing input policies to accelerate small farmers’ adoption of GR technologies. Need for agricultural credit and ‘smart’ subsidies

6. Ensuring secure access to land and water for small farmers, including women farmers

7. *Developing national GR strategies to coordinate all the pieces. This needs to be backed up with investments in building human and institutional capacity for policy analysis and dialogue

Developing national GR strategies

Given the complexity of developing and implementing a GR, each country will need to develop its own national GR strategy to guide its activities over a period of 10-15 years.

Asian countries developed top-down government controlled GR strategies and plans. This is less relevant for Africa given its very different institutional landscape, and the challenge is to create a different and softer kind of entity that can successfully catalyze, guide and coordinate the activities of public, private and civil society agents.

Ideally, the CAADP process would provide the needed entity, but this has become too encumbered with process, too top down and has a much broader agenda than a GR for food staples.

What may be needed are GR policy hubs that link policy researchers with key decision makers in the public, private and NGO sectors, and which lead through evidence based policy analysis and dialogue.

Such hubs could also support the CAADP process

Capacity

building

Monitoring and

Evaluation

Learning and feedbackLearning and feedback

National GR strategyPolicy dialogue

Enabling environment

for bread basket areas

Farm level incentives for adopting GR technologies,

including access to land

and water

Implementation and IMPACT

Policy research

Markets and intra-

Regional trade policy

Formation of national GR policy teams Proposed AGRA Policy

Agenda for Enabling the African Green

Revolution