Aiding development: Food security Paul Richards Technology & Agrarian Development Group Wageningen University

Food Security Revolutions Agricultural Revolution: mid-19 th century food security land enclosure, mechanization of farming, peasants displaced to towns; also food imports from Australia, US etc Green Revolution: mid-20 th century food security in South and South-east Asia based on public sector science, improved (non-hybrid) seeds, agro-chemicals, in situ intensification for peasant farmer Exceptions – Africa and Asia

China Soviet-style collectivization failed and caused massive famine China pursued its own seed-based food security revolution This was a bottom-up knowledge-intensive initiative based on peasant capacity Successful F1 hybrids for rice were developed Scope was created for local adaptation A new seed revolution is planned around genetic modification (but stalled, due to international pressure)

Africa GR never took off Too many crops Too many diverse environments Africa is ruled by mercantile elites who make money out of food imports Agriculture remains embedded in social systems oriented towards basic subsistence Food security was once work for slaves; it remains work for women

Africa remains the most food- insecure continent Development agencies removed support for African agriculture in the 1990s Damage was especially severe for research into appropriate technologies African political elites followed the anti-agrarian fashion in aid thinking India and China continued to invest in appropriate agricultural science For Africa, agribusiness is supposedly the answer

Why agribusiness is not the answer Private seed companies cannot penetrate the peasant food security sector A vicious circle of hunger and poverty = market failure Africa has land, and is of interest for biofuel developments These are controversial – government land grants are not authorised by peasants There is a strong possibility of social unrest

Solving African agrarian problems – Plan A Low productivity of land and labour Investment in soils and investment in labour- saving technology is needed External large farms lack the social knowledge to address problems of impoverished peasantry African elites (including returning diaspora elements) have social knowledge There is no where for the peasantry to be displaced; locally-owned large farms will have to be based on ethical commitments to the poor

Solving African agrarian problems – Plan B Basic requirement is for a knowledge-led agrarian revolution “from below” (the Chinese model) Desiderata: Mass mobilization of peasantry and peasant knowledge Strong public sector science partnering peasants Willingness to assert some trade protection (to hold cheap food imports at bay)

Why the GR and Plan B are incompatible Plan B requires locally-adapted solutions, not external technology packages GR depends on supervised learning – e.g. dissemination of “superior” seeds via extension Plan B implies unsupervised learning (policy shaped by intense feedback from farmer networks) This implies enlarged scope for local invention and adaptation + decentralised science

Conclusion All the world apart from Africa has made progress towards food security Africa requires a different approach based on (Chinese-style) simple adaptive solutions Mass mobilization by the African agrarian poor will be resisted by the political elites Existing aid programmes should be abandoned - peasant populations require smart technologies for unsupervised learning

References/reading 1. Mitra, Sugata 2005, Self-organizing systems for mass computer literacy: findings from the 'hole in the wall' experiments, International Journal of Development Issues 4(1), Richards, Paul, De Bruin-Hoekzema, M., Hughes, S. G., Kudadjie-Freeman, C., Offei, S. K., Struik, P. C., Zannou, A Seed systems for African food security: linking molecular genetic analysis and cultural knowledge in West Africa, International Journal of Technology Management 45, Shen, Xiaobai 2010, Understanding the evolution of rice technology in China: from traditional agriculture to GM rice today, Journal of Development Studies 46(6),