Steve Kretzmann
Tired of seeing prices for their crops undercut by US and European producers who receive billions of dollars in government subsidies each year, African governments appear to increasingly favour implementing their own subsidies.
The message from state representatives from numerous African countries attending the AgriBusiness Forum 2009 held in Somerset West which ran from Sunday to Wednesday this week, was that international donor demands for ‘free markets’ no longer held sway in the face of a drive for an African ‘green revolution’.
And they were being backed by international agricultural development NGOs, with even private Agribusiness companies seemed to accept the logic.
Speaking during a press interview at the forum, which was attended by about 400 high-level international government and private sector delegates, Uganda’s state minister for Agriculture, Bagire Henry, said: “The US and Europe are saying ‘don’t subsidise’ and (yet) they (continue) subsidising (their own farmers), why? The World Bank is saying ‘don’t subsidise’, we’re telling them ‘you go away, this is our country’.”
Henry said in a push to develop export crops and increase yields, farmers were being merged into co-operative groups to create economies of scale and his ministry was also identifying farmers who engaged best practice in the farming of export crops, providing technical input and subsidising their farming practices.
Henry said Uganda had already started subsidising 30 000 farmers who headed up identified agricultural nodes in Uganda’s parishes.
He said a further 30 000 farmers would receive subsidies this year and the numbers would increase until there would soon be “a million farmers” receiving state subsidies.
He said Uganda was spending $70 million annually through the National Agriculture Advisory Services in order organise small holder farmers and provide extension services.
The African statesmen may be emboldened by Malawi’s success over the last four years in substantially increasing their maize yields through government subsidies to reduce farmers’ costs for fertilizers and high-yielding seed.
The UN Department of Public Information publication ‘African Renewal’ reported that within the first season Malawi’s maize harvest more than doubled, to 2.7 mn tonnes.
“It rose again in 2007 to 3.4 mn tonnes – enough to feed the nation and sell 400,000 tonnes to the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) and hundreds of thousands of tonnes more to neighbouring countries, generating $120 mn in sales. The formerly aid-dependent country even donated 10,000 tonnes of maize to the WFP’s nutrition programme for people living with HIV/AIDS,” reported Michael Fleshman in the online publication.
President of the Kenyan-based Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) Namanga Ngoni, said: “Only in Africa is the word subsidy a sin.”
Ngoni said targeted subsidies could be used to reduce the costs of production for farmers having to compete in world markets skewed by their European and US counterparts.
However, Director of the Rainman Landcare Foundation Raymond Auerbach said wholesale subsidies were not the answer.
Auerbach said subsidies were needed but should perhaps rather be targeted at farmers who engaged in best practice models.
Another way to do it, he said, would be to penalise farmers who were using inefficient or polluting agricultural practices, rather than handing out subsidies which would distort the market.
He said one ways to get around the demands of donors and the World Bank would be to simply find another word for subsidies.
“If we can find another word for it perhaps the WTO would not have such a problem with it.” – West Cape News
Copyright 2009 West Cape News
