From Craig Black
Your editorial about the need for a “rainbow” revolution in African agriculture misses the root cause of Africa’s inability to feed itself (3 July, p 3).
As your editorial and the brief article (p 5) point out, African agriculture is extremely diverse and African farmers are skilled at exploiting their environment. Africa has a generally low population density, but even in highly populated Rwanda and Burundi extremely efficient methods of agriculture have evolved, which can adequately feed their populations.
The main, perhaps even the only, reason Africa cannot feed itself is political mismanagement. Zimbabwe is a case in point. It was once a major regional food exporter, but deliberate mismanagement of the economy and cynical government manipulation of food supplies have created famine and food shortages in the last three seasons, despite higher than usual rainfall.
Ethiopia today is synonymous with starvation, but until Mengistu’s Derg government nationalised 97 per cent of the farmland there was no widespread famine in that country. After nationalisation, that 97 per cent of the land was producing only about 4 per cent of the country’s food. Unsurprisingly, starvation ensued.
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At the other end of the spectrum is Botswana, a country which is almost entirely desert but where, thanks to a stable, sensible system of governance, famine does not occur.
Rather than squandering money on trying to improve systems of agriculture, organisations wanting to help would be better advised to spend their money trying to improve the governance of African countries. There are many ways to do this but the most important is improving Africans’ access to information about what is happening in their country. Helping to fund independent newspapers and especially radio stations would have a huge impact on some of the appalling governments in Africa by throwing a spotlight on their nefarious activities.
Until the real cause of Africa’s problems is acknowledged, they cannot be addressed.
Crowborough, East Sussex, UK
