Religious Leaders in South Africa Concerned About Industrialized Agriculture in Africa

He says it is time that the donors of AGRA started “listening to the smallholder farmers in Africa and rather fund initiatives that seek to work with local farmers and help make them more resilient.”

In the statement, SAFCEI officials say a recent green revolution evaluation done by Mathematica shows that AGRA has failed to achieve its goals.

“Despite reaching over 10 million smallholders through its systems development work, AGRA did not meet its headline goal of increased incomes and food security for 9 million smallholders,” members of the multi-faith organization that include representatives of the Southern African Catholic Bishops Conference (SACBC) say in reference to the evaluation. 

They add that the evaluation found that “typically younger males benefitted from the AGRA model, instead of the women the program claims it would benefit.” 

SAFCEI officials say the evaluation is “strengthening the position of faith leaders who are questioning why donors, such as USAID and the Gates Foundation continue to invest large amounts of resources into a process that has not been shown to benefit smallholder farmers nor the environment.”

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In the March 30 statement presented before the U.S. congressional aides on AGRA and its impact on smallholder farmers, and ultimately on food systems and food security in Africa, SAFCEI Executive Director says agroecology should be encouraged in place of green revolution methods. 

“Agroecological models respect local knowledge systems and ecosystems – these are the models we should look to support, rather than erode good systems that are already in place,” Francesca de Gasparis says. 

She adds, “We should be looking at how to value the seeds that are familiar to local farmers, who are often rural women, rather than come along with ‘special’ seed, which costs lots of money and which they have to buy each year.”

“We believe that African farmers and governments need the kind of resilient, low-cost alternatives that techniques like agroecology and other low-cost, low-input approaches offer,” says the SAFCEI Executive Director.

Magdalene Kahiu is a Kenyan journalist with passion in Church communication. She holds a Degree in Social Communications from the Catholic University of Eastern Africa (CUEA). Currently, she works as a journalist for ACI Africa.