It may not be surprising for those of you who spend their days meeting farmers that 67% think today's smallholders' situation is the same or worse than ten years ago! This figure should be alarming to all, but primarily to decision-makers and stakeholders in relevant countries. ONCE IN A BLUE MOON It is rare, but sometimes you get a report that reflects the success or failure of a particular business model. Luckily this just happened a couple of weeks ago. The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) recently released a report with field results presenting the effectiveness and impact of its model of operation. This is an excellent opportunity to jump in and learn about AGRA, which is serving as a pan-African arm to bring change into Africa by fighting hunger and poverty in its agro-sector. AGRA's numbers are staggering - established in 2006, it has been active for 16 years in 11 African countries (originally 13), involving 30 million smallholders, with an annual budget of ca. $2B! This long history seems more than enough to learn and analyze AGRA's fighting hunger and poverty model. Don't you think so? AGRA's list of donors includes the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (B.M.G.F.); the U.K. Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office; the Rockefeller Foundation; the U.S. Agency for International Development (U.S.A.I.D.); and Germany's Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development. AGRA'S CHARACTERISTICS The living spirit behind AGRA is Bill Gates. His approach was to solve hunger and poverty by helping farmers grow more food, meaning staple crops, mainly maize and rice. Let’s have a look at AGRA's background, main characteristics, and goals: • AGRA's original goals: to double yields and incomes for 30 million smallholder families while cutting food insecurity in half. • AGRA's updated goals: “to increase incomes and improve food security for 30 million smallholder farm households in 11 African countries by 2021.” • Interim goals: increasing staple crops yields. • Population and Countries: 30 million, 11 countries. • Way of increasing yield: providing stallholders with an advanced Package of (mainly) “advanced” seeds and fertilizers. • Crops: mainly maize and rice (two cereal staple crops). • Target Market/s: self and local consumption of the production. • Funds and subsidies: annual ca.$2B. • Primary beneficiaries: wealthier male farmers. • Ability to copy-paste to other crops: limited to none • Business model: donations and subsidies! • Sustainability without donations and subsidize: None. REPORT’S MAIN FINDINGS In short, the media outlet Devex, chose to present the report findings under the headline, “AGRA has failed to improve Africa's food security, report finds.” The investigating reporter, Mr. Timothy Wise, working for Institute for Agriculture & Trade Policy (I.A.T.P.), chose to present the report and his investigation findings under "AGRA: Still failing Africa's farmers.” From the titles to the actual findings, following AGRA's fifteen years (15) of activity: • The yield is up only by 30%.
• No increase in income. • More smallholders live in hunger. • The program-wide use of fertilizers creates a negative environmental and greenhouse gas (GHG) impact. • Soil quality degraded. The bottom line, after 15 years and tens of $ billions in investment and subsidies, if AGRA were a standard business operation measured in terms of R.O.I. or according to its own original goals, then it would be considered a colossal failure. One can’t find a significant positive development or change from 15 years ago until now, and not between farmers in and outside the program. Furthermore, the program has a negative impact in some fields, e.g., environment and sustainability. EVERYTHING MUST BE MEASURABLE Let’s remember the simple facts of Africa and its smallholders: The starting point of yield and income per hectare is very low! Going down from the already low starting point is nearly impossible. However, there is a vast opportunity and margin for going up. Under such circumstances, and after 15 years of activity with an annual budget of ca. $2B, one would expect: (1) Immense progress for each of the smallholders under the AGRA program. (2) To find a massive difference between farmers and countries under the program to those left outside. (3) A successful program would make all smallholders and countries wish to become part of the initiative. Anyone who walks around Africa talks with its farmers and sees with their own eyes the current state of smallholders knows well the answers to the above three points of expectations. In short, the flagship of Africa's agricultural program has failed its farmers and the continent population. In my view, it is of particular concern that the updated goals are vague, without any specific target or metrics, as if to prevent anyone from measuring and evaluating the program - “To increase incomes (by how much and in what time frame N.I.) and improve food security (by how much and in what time frame N.I.) for 30 million smallholder farm households in 11 African countries by 2021”.YES, by 2021 !! Targets to "increase income" and "improve food security" wouldn't survive any criticism of a first-year M.B.A. student or any actual life business operation. Would you invest a single dollar in any enterprise that would declare that its goal is "to make the air cleaner" or "make transportation more efficient" without seeing any concrete numbers and deadlines? I'm sorry to say, but it seems as if AGRA's attitude changed from "Fighting hunger and poverty" to "Fighting criticism." In my opinion, fighting hunger is the result of fighting poverty by creating economic prosperity. Surprisingly, someone like Bill Gates doesn't manage to measure the exact results of his flagship program in agriculture. More surprising and disappointing is the lack of transparency. THE AFTERMATH Africa and its hundreds of millions of smallholders need an immediate income increase of 50% every year for the next 20 years! A yield increase of 18% or even 30% in 12 years is far from Africa's leadership goals. Hence, AGRA's model failure is not something to celebrate. People worked hard to make a change that never came. Now is the time to pause, self-reflect, be brutal with ourselves, analyze, evaluate, and conclude WHAT and WHY happened. This has one purpose – to change for a better future for all. More importantly, hundreds of millions of smallholders are waiting in vain to see the change they expect and promise by their leaders, who put their trust in AGRA's model. While farmers of developed countries make giant steps into a far more developed agro-industry, smallholders are held back by unsuccessful models and leadership too afraid to admit the reality that everybody sees and knows. We can't change the past, but we must ensure the future will be better. It is in our hands. THREE PILLARS We all want a better future for smallholders and fast-growing economies for the emerging economies. These are three practical activities we can do to ensure this change: 1) Aim high, not low! When we aim to stop hunger and poverty, one may think that above 1.9$ per day, say 1.91$ per day, people are no longer in poverty. Or is it that one calorie above the hunger level, you are healthy and fine? That is not sufficient. We should aim toward a level enabling decent life level and better future for our children. To that end, we need to strive for an income much higher than $ 1.9 per day. Hunger - “when the population… quite literally does not have enough to eat.” (Link) Poverty – “living on less than $1.90 a day.” (Link) Since the link between hunger and poverty is clear, i.e., when you have enough money, you are not hungry; then the focus should be on – creating stable and secure prosperity. Think about this; you send your child to school to be the best version of himself with the best grades. You wouldn't send your child with the goal of "not being lazy." Why don’t we follow the same line with smallholders? I mean, to be the best version of themselves, reaching prosperity. "Not being poor" is the equivalent of “not being lazy." Is this what we want to wish our children and farmers? We should have positive goals, such as "Be prosperous" and "Be more diligent and educated." 2) Business model. Timothy Wise (link below) emphasizes the importance of MODEL when saying, “Time to change course away from a failing model.” What 15 years and tens of billion dollars didn’t do, more money and time wouldn’t change. |