Gates-Funded 'Green Revolution' in Africa Has Failed, Critics Say

Climate change confronted African farmers with back-to-back seasons of drought. The director of agricultural development at the Gates Foundation says that's one reason they've fallen short of their goals of helping the continent achieve a "green revolution". But while the foundation contributed much of $1 billion spent to date on the effort, "Money doesn't necessarily produce results," notes the Seattle Times:As an annual African farming summit takes place this week in Rwanda, activists, farmers and faith leaders from Seattle to Nairobi are calling on the Gates Foundation and other funders to stop supporting an effort they say has failed to deliver on promises to radically reduce hunger and increase farmer productivity and income. Worse, critics say the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, founded in 2006 with money from the Gates and Rockefeller foundations, has promoted an industrial model of agriculture that poisons soils with chemicals and encourages farmers to go into debt by buying expensive seeds, fertilizers and pesticides. As a result of that debt, some farmers have had to sell their land or household goods like stoves and TVs, said Celestine Otieno and Anne Maina, both active with organizations in Kenya advocating for ecologically friendly practices. "I think it's the second phase of colonization," Otieno said. A donor-funded evaluation last December offered gentler criticism, concluding the alliance had achieved mixed success over the past five years, with increased corn yields in half the countries it examined. Most notably, though, it found "AGRA did not meet its headline goal of increased incomes and food security." Peter Little, director of the global development program at Emory University, puts it another way: "I don't think it's come close to what it promised to do...." [C]ritics claim the real drivers are multinational corporations selling fertilizers, pesticides and seeds that farmers have to buy every year. AGRA's grants go to dealers of seeds and various agricultural products, as well as African governments, research institutions, farmers' groups and other organizations deemed capable of implementing a "transformative agenda." The solution to Africa's hunger problem, some say, is redirecting money to millions of small-scale farmers on the continent and using methods that are both effective and ecologically friendly, like fertilizing with manure.

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