Sachs says "Green Africa Now!"

Jeffrey Sachs in Oslo for the Yara Prize Award Ceremony

Development expert Jeffrey Sachs is urging donor agencies and the international community to support African agriculture as the key catalyst in reducing hunger and poverty through economic growth and halting destruction of the environment. Addressing African Fertilizer Summit participants in Nigeria, Sachs advocated rapid action to get fertilizers and high yielding-seeds to African farmers.

In an emotive keynote that became one of the talking points of the Summit, Jeffrey Sachs, Special Advisor to the UN Secretary-General, urged participants to move on from the “market liberalization and emergency aid strategies of the past 20 years,” and to commit to subsidizing African fertilizer supplies. He was equally adamant on the necessity for the rich countries to use the $25 billion promised to Africa at the 2005 Gleneagles G8 meeting for “fertilizers, inputs and extension services – not for conferences on markets or surveys by US consultants.”

With all of tropical sub-Saharan Africa in extreme food crisis and stricken with mass hunger and debt, Sachs underlined that there is no time to lose. “Nutrient-depleted soils mean rain forests are being cut to clear land to grow food. If you want to save lives and the environment, you’d better get fertilizer to Africa, and quickly.”


A Green Revolution
In a resounding critique of the prevailing development practices of market liberalization and emergency aid, Sachs described the use of food aid as “a completely unsustainable, band aid approach.”  And with much of the donor community having moved away from investments that drive long-term economic development, such as agricultural research, roads, and training extension workers, Sachs emphasizes that leaving the job to the markets alone will not work either.

“The market liberalization experiment has been tried for twenty years and it’s failed – lets dump it! I’ve seen the poverty trap in villages across Africa. Everyone is hungry, everyone is poor and children are dying. I visited a Tanzanian community that had no cash income at all. Don’t tell me the market will save them – that’s a myth. Lets get our priorities right – markets can help Africa, but not before its poverty trap is broken. Africa has tens of millions of impoverished farmers. All the market reforms in the world won’t reach them.”

Citing the case of Asia, Sachs claims that a Green Revolution is the answer to Africa’s plight. “Forty years ago theorists said India would starve, now it’s one of the fastest growing economies in the world. A conscious, agriculture-driven effort – a Green Revolution – broke the poverty trap there. Africa needs its Green Revolution and it can’t wait. Africa can feed itself if farmers get the inputs they need – what theory are we waiting for?”


Smart Subsidies
According to Sachs, Africa’s Green Revolution should first raise staple food production to feed farmers communities and provide local food security; this would then allow gradual development of marketable cash crops and commercial agriculture. He advocates use of ‘smart subsidies’ to provide smallholders with improved seed, fertilizer, small-scale water management, and agricultural extension services. Fertilizer subsidies are essential, he says, and must be backed by donors.

“Theorists argue the cost effectiveness of fertilizer subsidies while millions die, wars break out triggering aid streams, and the cycle goes on. The World Bank said subsidies destroy markets, but the Asian Green Revolution countries, which are some of most vibrant economies today, all got subsidized fertilizer.”

A Green (agricultural) revolution is merged with two other revolutions – a Health revolution, and a Connectivity (infrastructure) revolution – in Sachs’ strategy for ending extreme poverty. Supported by microfinance and the introduction of contract farming, Sachs claims an African green revolution will help to raise farm incomes and household savings, reduce population growth rates, and bolster urban demand and jobs.

Confident that the continent can put aside ideology and focus on the needs of its people, Sachs asked African governments to make a commitment to providing their smallholder farmers with basic inputs and agriculture extension.  He also challenged the international community to use part of the USD 25 billion commitment for Africa made at the Gleneagles G8 meeting to support this effort, concluding, “Let us spend this money on seeds and fertilizers, not to ship food aid to dying people.”

The Africa Fertilizer Summit 2006 was the largest and most comprehensive effort to tackle Africa’s soil fertility crisis to date. Expert speakers highlighted the potential productivity gains from even modest fertilizer use combined with improved seeds and small-scale water management.

The Summit culminated in the Abuja Declaration, a series of resolutions signed by Heads of state and governments from more than 40 African nations. It included an agreement to lift all cross-border taxes and tariffs on fertilizer, the designation of mineral and organic fertilizer as a “strategic commodity, and a commitment to establish an African fertilizer financing mechanism within the African Development Bank to boost the availability and access to fertilizer.

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