The African Green Revolution and the Food Sovereignty Movement: Contributions to Food Security and Sustainability A Case-study of Mozambique

ABSTRACT Although there is consensus among academics and policy makers that how we grow and distribute food needs to be more sustainable, the most appropriate ways of doing so remain unclear and are at times deeply contested. Over the last decade, two vastly different approaches to food security and sustainability have become increasingly prominent in Sub-Saharan Africa. One is the African Green Revolution, implemented by a consortium of partners comprised of African governments, the private sector, philanthropic donors, and multilateral institutions. The other is the African food sovereignty movement, headed by Africa’s peasant unions and civil society organizations. The ontological backgrounds of these two agrarian models inevitably influence their respective approaches to food security and sustainability in the different regions of Sub-Saharan Africa. The African Green Revolution is bent in favor of modern rationalist notions about structural transformation and development. The food sovereignty model is inspired by historical structural theories that tackle issues of power and (in)justice embedded within global political and economic structures. These diametrically opposed ideological foundations help to explain the polarization and tensions that exist between the two models. Such tensions, however, also hinder fruitful discussion about how to effectively address key concerns in Africa’s food systems. To advance the academic debates, this dissertation explores the following question: in what ways can sustainability assessment frameworks give insights into the potential contributions of the African Green Revolution and food sovereignty approaches to food security and sustainability in rural Mozambique? This study had three research objectives: (1) to refine conceptually and apply a sustainability assessment framework that merges key food security and sustainability goals in southern Africa’s food and agricultural systems; (2) to better understand the perspectives of stakeholders implementing the African Green Revolution and the food sovereignty models as well as the farmers that they serve to determine what each model offers in terms of food security and sustainability; and (3) to tease out the implications of the two models’ activities on the ground, including their potential impact on food and agricultural policies. In 2014 and 2015, fieldwork was conducted in Mozambique, where both agrarian models are being implemented by two organizations. The African Green Revolution is supported by the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), and the food sovereignty model is represented by the National Union of Mozambican Peasants (UNAC).The field-research was designed to comparatively assess how the activities of these two organizations contribute to food security and sustainability from farmer perspectives. Various techniques were used to gather data, including a comprehensive literature review, semi-structured interviews with key informants (n=71) and participant observations. The research identified five interrelated sustainable food system indicators that were informed by farmer perspectives and sustainability assessment literature: access to quality seeds, activities to improve soil health, income opportunities, land rights and policy engagement. Taken together, these indicators can help to address both the technical aspects of meeting food security (issues of production) and the policy and political economy issues that facilitate (or hinder) the means to achieving food security. The research finds that the African Green Revolution and food sovereignty models respond to the needs of Mozambican smallholder farmers in more complex and nuanced ways than mainstay discussions in academic and public forums reveal. While some scholars and actors contend that the African Green Revolution and food sovereignty models are incongruent, Mozambican smallholder farmers utilize some of the resources that the models offer in complementary rather than competing ways. Neither model addresses critical components of food security and sustainability in their entirety. Where possible, farmers engage both models—taking from each what helps them to meet these two goals. The conflicting interplay between the African Green Revolution and the food sovereignty movement at the broader political-economy level, versus farmers’ complementary engagement with the two models, illustrates that meeting food security and sustainability objectives is, in some contexts, messy. This realization suggests a need for further research, particularly on options that may serve broad-based sustainability goals in Africa’s food systems

Systemic barriers to scaling private sector driven climate-smart agricultural innovations in East Africa’s potato, sesame and common bean value chains

The CRAFT project (2018-2023) promotes a bottom-up market-driven scaling agenda that supports inclusive business models to enhance climate-resilient farming systems through sustainable intensification along selected oilseed, pulse and potato agricultural value chains. The selection criteria for these crops includes sufficient private sector interest and capacity for coinvestment; adequate domestic consumption to drive market development opportunities; and ample evidence of climate change risks projected to face the value chains. Across East Africa, unfavorable climate change patterns involving rising temperatures, increased variability of seasonal rainfall and a higher frequency and intensity of extreme weather events such as droughts and floods are aggravating food insecurity and pose further challenges for rural development (Government of Kenya 2018)

Growing Out of Poverty: Does Urban Agriculture Contribute to Household Food Security in Southern African Cities?

Abstract The literature on urban agriculture (UA) as a food security and poverty alleviation strategy is bifurcating into two distinct positions. The first is that UA is a viable and effective pro-poor development strategy, and the second is that UA has demonstrated limited positive outcomes on either food security or poverty. These two positions are tested against data generated by the African Urban Food Security Network's (AFSUN) baseline food security survey undertaken in 11 Southern African cities. At the aggregate level, the analysis shows that (1) urban context is an important predictor of rates of household engagement in UA-the economic, political, and historical circumstances and conditions of a city are key factors that either promote or hinder UA activity and scale; (2) UA is not an effective household food security strategy for poor urban households-the analysis found few significant relationships between UA participation and food security; and (3) household levels of earnings and land holdings may mediate UA impacts on food security-wealthier households derive greater net food security benefits from UA than poor households do. These findings call into question the potential benefits of UA as a broad urban development strategy and lend support to the position that UA has limited poverty alleviation benefits under current modes of practice and regulation

ICT4Scale in smallholder agriculture : contributions and challenges

This article presents the main findings from a study of 15 agricultural development projects that employed a diversity of information and communications technology (ICT) tools. Interactivity in the use of ICT tools and platforms between project teams and beneficiaries are helpful for improving the quality of agricultural extension services and for teaching farmers to better manage predicted agricultural risks. Overall, the study finds that interactive ICT tools can help smallholder farmers better manage risks in the agriculture sector. Lasting and meaningful change requires a thorough understanding of specific smallholder agricultural system dynamics

Leveraging Climate Finance for Agribusiness SMEs to Scale Up Climate Resilient Agriculture in East Africa: Recommendations for Policy and Practice

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) play an important role in supporting sustainable development and increasingly towards building adaptation and resilience in Africa's food and agriculture sectors. However, most agribusiness SMEs operating in small-scale agriculture are in dire need of business finance to help them flourish and climate-proof their value chains as variable weather increasingly threatens their supply sources of raw materials, disrupts their operations, and increases costs of maintenance and materials. Climate-related risk hazards not only increase the risk and unpredictability of SMEs' revenue streams but also reduce private sector investments into the sector even further. Financial institutions such as banks may avoid the risk by not financing agribusiness SMEs or increasing the cost of financing, such as enforcing more stringent collateral requirements or higher interest rates (Csaky et al., 2017)

Building transformative change in Africa’s smallholder food systems: Contributions from climate-smart agriculture and agroecology

Transforming food systems under a changing climate entails amplifying solutions that build sustainability along multiple interconnected principles—i.e., diversity, resilience, equity, economic viability, health and renewability. Two different approaches are engaged in this transformational work in Africa: climate-smart agriculture (promotes participatory multi-stakeholder collaborations and climate-informed sustainable agriculture innovations) and agroecology (prioritizes co-created diversified livelihood strategies). Together, their contributions highlight the urgency of reconfigurations that balance technology transfer with realigning human values to support inclusive processes and principles of transformation. Taking to scale this critical work will require significant support: donors and policy makers can help by diversifying their investments to create a balance between projects focused on technological solutions and those implementing more agroecological components. Agricultural research for development organizations can help to build the evidence base for agroecology and climate-smart agriculture based on data metrics associated with yields, income, and socioeconomic performance, and on the significance of their holistic approaches to tackling climate change adaptation and mitigation by ensuring strong, resilient social foundations

State of index-based crop insurance services in East Africa: Findings from a scoping study to establish the state of index-based crop insurance services in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda

Index-based insurance is increasingly recognized as an important risk management tool against the impacts of climate change and variability. Index-based insurance differs from traditional insurance because compensation is done based on the losses of a specific client. The insurance avoids costs related to assessing and validating policyholder losses and minimizes moral hazard and adverse selection problems, given that policyholders cannot affect the distribution of payouts ex ante and the historical distribution of the index is observable to both the insurer and the policyholder (Miranda and Farrin 2012). For these reasons, index-based insurance offers a potentially cost-effective means of managing smallholder production risks and has the potential to strengthen resilience by cushioning the risk of losses and debt. However, the uptake of index-based insurance is still low among farmers in developing countries. Is this the case in East Africa? This study sought to answer the question by assessing the state of index-based crop insurance services in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. The study was conducted as a requirement for the Climate Resilient Agribusiness for Tomorrow (CRAFT) project, under strategic objective four which aims at increasing incomes for smallholder farmers and small and medium enterprises (SMEs) through increased adoption of climate-smart practices and technologies

Potential for climate change adaptation and mitigation in crop production in East Africa: Findings from a scoping study on opportunities and barriers to adaptation and mitigation in crop value chains of Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda

Agricultural production in East Africa is mainly rain-fed, making it highly sensitive and vulnerable to increased climate variability arising from climate change (EAC 2017a). Climate vulnerability is also exacerbated by reduced produce quality, land degradation, declining soil fertility and imperfect insurance and credit markets. Smallholder farming systems in the region are characterized by low productivity and commercialization (EAC 2017b)

Scaling Up Fodder Innovations to Catalyse Agricultural Systems Transformation in Southern Ethiopia

This InfoNote shares project experiences of scaling up fodder production in southern Ethiopia as an entry point to catalysing agricultural systems resilience and landscape transformation. • The fodder innovations build on 20 years of experimentation on soil & water conservation work in the region by Inter-Aide and various development partners to refine the design and delivery of the technology. • Earlier versions of the technology, however, saw low adoption in part due to limited engagement with social relations to translate innovation into a perceived relevant opportunity for end-users. • Over time, Inter Aide leveraged and strengthened the capacity of various local stakeholders to stimulate community ownership of fodder innovations work and to ensure consistent implementation at watershed levels. • The process has empowered local actors to champion the scaling of fodder innovations and more, in ways that leverage the agency of beneficiaries to catalyse action on systems change in the management and preservation of natural resources