AGRA at 20: Hunger rises 58% in focus countries as green revolution model comes under fire

By Mashe Umaru Gwamna

Two decades after the launch of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), new reports have raised fresh questions over the effectiveness of the agricultural model, alleging that the number of undernourished people across its focus countries has increased by 58 per cent since 2006.

The findings, contained in two reports by the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA) and Tufts University researcher Timothy A. Wise, challenge the progress claimed for the Green Revolution approach and argue that increased spending on fertiliser and other industrial agricultural inputs has failed to deliver the promised reduction in hunger.

The reports are being released as AGRA, formerly known as the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, marks its 20th anniversary with a continent-wide celebration.

According to the reports, staple crop yield growth has slowed since AGRA’s launch compared with the 12 years preceding its establishment, despite fertiliser use more than doubling across the region.

The researchers further contend that much of the growth in agricultural production resulted from the expansion of cultivated land rather than significant improvements in productivity, with cropland allegedly increasing by 46 per cent since 2006.

AFSA said the findings raise concerns over the sustainability of a model that promised to achieve increased food production through improved yields and greater use of modern agricultural inputs.

The reports also point to Senegal as an example of a different trajectory, noting that the country, which was not an AGRA focus country, achieved what AGRA had set as a target for its programme countries—cutting hunger by half over the period under review.

Mutinta Nketani, National Coordinator of the Zambia Alliance for Agroecology and Biodiversity (ZAAB), said the findings showed that African farmers could no longer afford to continue with policies that increased their dependence on costly external inputs.

“After billions poured into AGRA aligned policies, farmers have only grown hungrier and more in debt,” Nketani said, urging a shift in agricultural policy.

AFSA General Coordinator Million Belay said the alternative to the Green Revolution model was already being demonstrated by farmers across the continent through agroecological practices.

He said farmers were restoring soil health, protecting indigenous seeds, diversifying production and reducing dependence on expensive external inputs.

“The agroecological alternative isn’t theoretical,” Belay said, arguing that governments and development partners should redirect funding towards approaches already delivering results at community level.

The controversy comes as AGRA marks 20 years of efforts aimed at transforming African agriculture through increased productivity, improved access to inputs and stronger market linkages.

The new reports, however, contend that the outcomes in several of AGRA’s focus countries fall short of the organisation’s original ambitions, particularly its goal of reducing hunger.

Wise’s assessment, Requiem for Africa’s Green Revolution, was published on August 17, while AFSA’s report, The Green Revolution Has Failed Africa: Twenty Years of Evidence and What Works Instead, is scheduled for release on August 24.

The reports’ findings and the experiences of farmers will form the basis of a virtual press conference scheduled for Monday, August 24, where researchers and African farming leaders are expected to examine the impact of the Green Revolution model and present agroecology as an alternative approach to improving food security.

The session will be moderated by author, filmmaker and academic Raj Patel.

Speakers will include Belay; Mariama Sonko, a Senegalese farmer and women’s rights activist and chair of the Pan-African movement Nous Sommes la Solution; Nketani; and Wise, a senior research fellow at Tufts University’s Global Development and Environment Institute and author of Eating Tomorrow.

The organisers said the briefing would also highlight farmers already adopting agroecological methods across Africa and call for greater investment in locally driven approaches to food production and food sovereignty.