SA's fields of plenty stand out in hungry Africa
- From: "zakanaka" <lalapansi@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: 14 Jul 2005 23:06:16 -0700
Freehold tenure, keeping politicians/politics out of agriculture and
leaving production to those who know "first world" agriculture = plenty
of food for all !! Which part of this do most African leaders not
understand? Oh yes they do !
It seems that Africa's politicians don't understand things like
critical mass, economies of scale, business nouce, agricultural
knowledge/experience, climate, fertiliser, hybrid seed, genetics,
animal husbandry, plant breeding, seasonal finance and lots more. What
they do is exactly the opposite to everyone else, for good reason. They
want smallholdings where the state owns the land so that farmers cannot
finance their uneconomic farming operation. That way, they eliminate
the troublesome middle class and make sure that the people remain
peasants dependent on the state, forever. That way, the ruling class
remains in power forever. It's that simple. Control food supply through
donor aid and you control the people.
SA's fields of plenty stand out in hungry Africa
Peter Apps
Reuters
AFRICA may seem incapable of growing enough food to feed its starving
millions, but in the fields of Free State, farmers are taking in more
maize than they know what to do with.
While most African countries run at a substantial food deficit, with
millions dependent on food aid and malnutrition rife, South African
maize yields per hectare are the highest on record - and farmers say
it is not just down to good weather. "If you look at rainfall
patterns, a lot of other African countries get more than we do," says
Laurie Bosman, president of commercial farming union Agri SA.
"Only 14% of our country is suitable for agriculture." This
year's rains were good, but even in a bad year SA produces a surplus.
This year, farmers say, improved seed types - some genetically
modified - have helped the white-dominated commercial farming sector
to the highest yields on record, and prices are so low farmers fear
they may go bankrupt.
But across most of Africa, food production is dominated by small-scale
subsistence farmers, much less sophisticated in technique and much more
vulnerable to climate shocks such as sudden rain failure.
>>From Niger to Zimbabwe, Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia, crop failure
leaves millions hungry.
In southern Africa, the World Food Programme says 10-million will need
aid after rains failed.
Climate is not the whole story. In Malawi, well-irrigated sugar
plantations sit next to villages that have seen almost their entire
harvest shrivel up and die.
And only a short distance from full silos and healthy fields in Free
State, Lesotho's maize production continues to dwindle, with yields
falling to 450kg-500kg a hectare, against 1400kg in the 1970s.
With almost a third of the population HIV positive, many farmers have
died or are too sick to tend their fields properly. AIDS and crop
failure lead to an increasing cycle of poverty that leaves them unable
to buy seeds or tools.
While HIV is the dominant issue in southern Africa, elsewhere war and
locust plagues have done damage. In Eritrea, landmines left over from a
border war with Ethiopia prevent cultivation, while conscription takes
workers from the land.
In Angola, weather is almost irrelevant if farmers cannot get their
crops to market because roads have been destroyed by war and neglect.
Angolan farmers produce about 5000 tons of coffee a year, but 2000 tons
of the crop rots on the farms.
In the worst-affected countries, war, illness and poverty combine with
ever-worsening drought - which environmentalists fear could become
worse as climate change bites. "Yearly rainfall rates have been
decreasing since the late 1990s, falling from about 500mm to nearly
200mm," said a United Nations report on Eritrea earlier this year.
Two thirds of the population now rely on food aid.
Teaching new techniques to minimise soil erosion and protect crops may
help.
Farmers can be told not to simply scatter seeds but to dig a hole for
each seed, and dig more holes around the seedling, in order to retain
moisture.
Across Africa, aid workers say growers should also consider
diversifying from maize to crops such as sorghum and millet, which are
more drought resistant and might help prevent serious shortages.
"When the right crops are grown in the correct ecology they should do
well to resist a normal drought," said Nancy Matuga, of US-funded
famine monitor FEWS NET in Kenya. "I don't think it is just a
question of climate change."
But sometimes, it is the weather. Agriculture experts are unwilling to
blame the latest food shortages in southern Africa on "drought" -
they say annual rainfall may be little different from normal - but
the lack of rain in February and March as crops ripened was
devastating.
Zambia was widely praised after it bounced back from serious shortages
in 2002 after distributing seeds and fertiliser to subsistence farmers,
but the rain failure undid the good work and the country will again
need large volumes of food aid.
"This year, you can't say it wasn't the climate," said Catholic
Relief Services' Zambia country representative, Michele Broemmelsiek.
"Up until the early part of the year we thought it would be a normal
year," said Broemmelsiek. "Then the rain just stopped."
.
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