Africa can learn from India’s ‘Green Revolution’
SUB-SAHARAN Africa has huge potential to become a global food basket, but this is far from being realised. The region is estimated to have 60% of the globally available and unexploited arable land, yet it remains food deficient.
Even when arable land is cultivated, hurdles such as limited irrigation, small-sized farms, lack of fertiliser and modern agro-technology has kept productivity low.
Currently, Africa’s shortfall in agricultural output is met by food imports expected to grow from $35 billion in 2015 to about $110bn in 2025.
Low productivity and increasing food demand – due to a 3% per year population growth rate – requires that food production be increased by 60% over the next 15 years.
India’s “Green Revolution” could be a useful model, if adapted to African conditions. Fifty years ago, the country also had an underdeveloped agriculture sector. In the mid-1960s and early 1970s, India faced serious food shortages. Severe famines from 1965 to 1966 in eastern India compelled the country to look to food aid.
The severity of the crisis gave birth to a new approach to agriculture.
The Green Revolution policy involved improvements in technology, combined with state-led initiatives to support farmers. Less than 10 years later, India was self-sufficient in cereals. Although imperfect, this model offers important lessons for countries in the sub-saharan region.
It underscores the importance of government support for agriculture and investment in technology, such as irrigation, mechanisation and inputs to improve yields.
India began to increase budget allocation to the agriculture sector, when it realised that excessive dependence on food imports wasn’t viable. In 1961, at the outset of the Third Five Year Plan, it set about increasing agricultural productivity with limited land.
Interventions focused on modernising the agricultural sector by: Introducing high-yield varieties of seeds, making fertilisers and insecticides more widely available, manufacturing farm equipment, upgrading irrigation practices and providing institutional support to farmers. The latter played a critical role. It included government subsidies for inputs, research and development to produce new varieties of seeds and provision of irrigation facilities. Access to credit and markets, extension of minimum support prices and good infrastructure were key to the success of the Green Revolution.
A combination of increased investments and institutional support led to an increase in productivity. Today, India is self-reliant in food grains. It has shortfall in agro-commodities, mainly oilseeds and pulses, which are imported from sources including African countries.
In 2015, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi called for a second Green Revolution, with new strategies to revitalise the sector. Weaknesses India’s Green Revolution came with its own limitations. Its effects were selective, as only a few pockets in the country benefited. Only irrigated areas benefited, while water scarce drylands lagged behind. The states of Punjab and Haryana, suited to wheat cultivation, with access to irrigation, flourished. The rice producing areas in the south and east trailed behind.
The Green Revolution also exacerbated the rural divide. Most agriculturists were smallholder subsistence farmers, who could not afford expensive inputs and capital investments. This segment of farmers couldn’t access credit in the same way as large farmers, who are generally landowners from the higher caste.
As a result, rich farmers were the main beneficiaries of increased productivity and profits.
Other problems emerged, too. The capital intensive technology led to soil erosion, reduced genetic diversity and soil fertility, displacement of small farmers, rural impoverishment and increased conflict in rural settings. Lessons for Africa African countries could benefit from India’s “triple A” approach – “appropriate, adaptable and affordable” – technology for equipment and irrigation. With adaptation to local rural conditions, the “triple A” technologies could benefit large numbers of smallholder farmers who depend on income from agriculture.
African countries could also avoid the shortcomings of the Green Revolution by planning ahead and ring-fencing pitfalls from the outset. This would include managing the high costs of inputs and the negative effects of excessive use of chemical fertilisers. It needs to be recognised that the shift is towards organic farming.
Political will, state and institutional intervention are essential.
This is to ensure that farmers with small farms and meagre incomes can also be part of the Green Revolution.
The crucial questions African governments should ask are: Should the agriculture sector be viewed solely as a “business sector”? What approaches should be adopted for financing smallholder agriculture?
How can smallholder farmers with limited collateralaccess credit to combine agriculture and entrepreneurship and be able to add value to agricultural products?
One key lesson is that governments need to work with the private sector by providing incentives to invest in agriculture and allied industries. This partnership will ensure that small farmers enjoy access to markets, price stability, minimum post-harvest losses and value-addition to their agricultural products.
Modi is a lecturer in African Studies, University of Mumbai. This article has appeared in The Conversation.