Digging Africa Deeper into HungerAnnual Green Revolution Forum ignores widespread failure of its push for industrialized agriculture

Women share nutritious diverse local crop varieties at 2022 Djimini seed fair in Senegal. The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa is helping rewrite African laws and policies to favor conversion to hybrid and GMO maize seeds. Credit: AFSA or Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA)By Timothy A. WiseCAMBRIDGE, MA., Aug 29 2023 (IPS) As the adage goes, when you find yourself stuck in a hole, stop digging. As African leaders and their philanthropic and bilateral sponsors prepare for another glitzy African Green Revolution Forum, convening September 5-8 in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, they are instead handing out new shovels to dig the continent deeper into a hunger crisis caused in part by their failing obsession with corporate-led industrialized agriculture. Instead of cutting food insecurity in half, as the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) promised at its founding in 2006, the continent has spiraled in the opposite direction. The number of chronically “undernourished” people in AGRA’s 13 focus countries has increased nearly 50%, not decreased, according to recent hunger data from the United Nations. AGRA’s corporate cheerleaders will try to blame the continent’s deepening cavern of hunger on disruptions from the COVID pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war, but chronic hunger had already risen 31% by 2018 in AGRA countries, as I documented in my 2020 Tufts University study. The hole was already getting deeper. Summit host Tanzania is a case in p...
Source: IPS Inter Press Service - Health - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Tags: Africa Armed Conflicts Climate Change COVID-19 Development & Aid Food and Agriculture Food Sustainability Green Economy Headlines TerraViva United Nations IPS UN Bureau Source Type: news