Open Letter to USAID: Fund Sustainable Food Systems in Africa, Not Another Industrial 'Green Revolution'

We are dismayed to learn that the US Agency for International Development (USAID) recently solidified its relationship with AGRA (formerly the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa) and committed to working with AGRA to transform African food and agriculture systems.

The agricultural model promoted by AGRA ramps up the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, privatized seed varieties, and exploitative market and credit systems, and it hurts farmers while benefiting private companies (including large foreign corporations). Using taxpayer money, USAID has funded AGRA and AGRA-funded projects that largely benefit the private sector at the expense of small farmers and the environment. Independent studies have demonstrated that AGRA has failed to improve food security in the countries where it operates, and an evaluation commissioned by a major AGRA funder, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, has found that AGRA’s PIATA program has failed to meaningfully increase farmers’ yields or incomes as promised.

Last year, our organizations worked together and independently to demand that USAID break ties with AGRA. Hundreds of African organizations and allied international organizations have called on USAID and other donors to stop funding AGRA and other Green Revolution-inspired industrial models of agriculture on the continent. As a key leader in this international movement, the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA) is Africa's largest civil society network, representing 200 million farmers. AFSA met with members of Congress to address the issues surrounding AGRA and its adverse impact on African communities and food producers and to call on lawmakers to ensure that USAID funding is no longer used toward AGRA initiatives.

The agricultural model promoted by AGRA ramps up the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, privatized seed varieties, and exploitative market and credit systems, and it hurts farmers while benefiting private companies

Acting in solidarity, CAGJ/AGRA Watch led a campaign in which over 1300 people sent letters to USAID representatives, echoing AFSA’s demands and concerns about the flawed and failing “Green Revolution” in Africa. In August 2022, we informed you personally about the status of the letter campaign, urging you and USAID to break ties with AGRA, engage in wider consultations with African farmer associations and civil society groups, and devote more funding to community-based agroecological initiatives, best practices, and research in Africa.

At the same time, we have been communicating our concerns about USAID’s relationship with AGRA through congressional avenues. We wrote about these concerns to members of Congress, including Senators Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.); Reps. Adam Smith, Pramila Jayapal, and Derek Kilmer (D-Wash.); Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee; and Senator Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.).

USAID’s renewed commitments to working with AGRA indicate an unwillingness to change course and the continuation of practices that further business interests while damaging the natural resource base of local communities, eroding their diverse indigenous food systems, and undermining their resilience to withstand multiple challenges, including the climate crisis.

You cannot claim to be providing “aid” to Africa while partnering with AGRA. This continued relationship reflects and reinforces neocolonial relationships, in which many of the economic benefits are actually redirected and reinvested back into powerful and wealthy institutions in the US and Europe, rather than in Africa.

There are many problems with AGRA, including:

• AGRA is a neocolonial entity, not a homegrown African organization. It began as an initiative of the Gates and Rockefeller Foundations, and it is registered as a 501(c)3 in the United States, with its legal office based in Olympia, WA. It has progressively embedded itself within Africa by bringing on African staff and board members, but its origins are rooted in the US. And it serves foreign business interests rather than being accountable to African farmers or members of the wider public.
• After 15 years of operation, AGRA has failed to improve food security in Africa. Hunger increased by 30 percent in AGRA countries since 2006, and yield increases were on par with rates of increase pre-AGRA. Furthermore, AGRA’s programs have benefited larger, wealthier, and more commercial farmers, who are typically men—this is in direct conflict with USAID’s commitment to empowering women farmers.
• The one area where AGRA has demonstrated the most impact is in pressuring African governments to change laws, regulations, strategies, and policies in favor of corporate and foreign interests. This undermines communities’ ability to participate in the policy formation process, impeding democracy and food sovereignty and violating people’s rights to a nutritious, sustainable diet and a healthy environment.

USAID must change course and prioritize funding agroecology, as hundreds of millions of African smallholder farmers demand. Multiple international bodies have emphasized the need for an agroecological food system transformation to address climate change and systemic inequality. Agroecology applies ecological principles to food production, as well as addressing issues of equity, social justice, and fair distribution. Funded projects should fulfill all of the key principles of agroecology as outlined by the High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition.

This continued relationship reflects and reinforces neocolonial relationships, in which many of the economic benefits are actually redirected and reinvested back into powerful and wealthy institutions in the US and Europe, rather than in Africa.

If USAID is to have any place in a future centered on African sovereignty and self-sufficiency, you must:

1. Immediately stop funding AGRA and other Green Revolution programs.
2. Devote more funding to support community-based agroecological farming practices, promote agroecological initiatives and entrepreneurs, advance agroecological participatory research, and strengthen territorial markets. There are myriad examples of programs that meet this definition, including Bio Gardening Innovations (BIOGI) in Kenya, the Tanzanian Department of Agriculture’s work implementing agroecology, the Project for Adaptation to Climate Change in Benin (PAda-Clim-Benin), and associations of women and youth farmers in Casamance, Senegal — among many other initiatives.
3. Immediately stop promoting changes to national and regional policies and legislation concerning biosafety and seed laws aimed at advancing GMO crops, expanding markets for chemical inputs, privatizing seeds, fostering chemical fertilizer use, and encouraging significant corporate and banking investments in the agribusiness sector.
4. Institute a transparent, democratic, accountable, and inclusive consultation process with various stakeholders, including national and community-based farmer associations, civil society organizations, agricultural research institutes, academia, and social movements, ensuring their valuable input directly influences the design and implementation of USAID programs.

Sincerely,

Heather Day
Executive Director
Community Alliance for Global Justice / AGRA Watch

Million Belay
General Coordinator
Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa