Africa needs 'green revolution'

Submitted by white down under:

Former UN head Kofi Annan has called for a "green revolution" to solve the food crisis threatening Africa.

"A genuinely African green revolution could lead to a doubling or tripling of food production," he told the BBC.

Africa needs direct, immediate help for farmers to stop food imports including new seeds and fertilisers, he said.

But political analyst and South African beef farmer Moeletsi Mbeki said the heart of the crisis was property rights - as most farmers do not own land.

"The farmers in Africa have no secure property rights -their land doesn't belong to them it can be taken away from them just about any time," Mr Mbeki, brother of South Africa's President Thabo Mbeki, told the BBC.

Zimbabwe had a green revolution

Political analyst Moeletsi Mbeki

Mr Annan said he wanted to see Africa become responsible for its own food security, and to eventually end the continent's food imports.

"If you help them [farmers] all along the value-chain, they are more likely, not only to improve production, but to sustain it," he told the BBC's World Today programme.

Mr Mbeki, who is deputy chairman of the South African Institute of International Affairs, said that this vision would only be feasible as long as land ownership and political accountability were addressed at the same time.

He cited Zimbabwe, where President Robert Mugabe's government has seized most of the country's commercial farms in the last eight years, as an example.

"We've seen the consequences of the farmer not having property rights in the destruction of agriculture in Zimbabwe," he told the BBC.

"Zimbabwe had a green revolution - for example their maize is hybrid maize, it wasn't just traditional seed they were using but the Mugabe regime took away the land."

Source Url: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/7376957.stm

Posted By: JoAn
*AfricanCrisis Volunteer*

Date Posted: Saturday 03-May-2008
Both Kofi Annan and Moeletsi Mbeki obviously don't understand Africans in spite of being members of that blighted race themselves. In Rhodesia, the white racist government tried for years to educate the African farmers in modern farming methods, and to bring them into the modern productive economy.

Government specialists would go into the tribal areas and supply the African farmers with free seed, fertilizer, and mechanised equipment, and show them how to farm correctly. Then the African farmer would get a magnificent crop, and make a ton of money when he sold it, and the specialist would say, "now use this money to buy yourself a tractor, seed and fertilizer, and next year you will be able to grow another crop."

But, when next year came, and the specialist checked up on the African farmer, he would find him sitting under a tree drinking beer instead of working his farm. When asked why, the African would say, "because last year I made enough money to last me for the next 5 years, so why should I work in the fields?"

And that is why Africans will never be self sufficient in farming, or in anything else for that matter. It doesn't matter who owns the land, or how much aid or training you give them, Africans simply haven't got enough intelligence to realize that you have to work today so that you can eat tomorrow.

The classical example of this is Zimbabwe, The Africans have stolen all the white farms, but what have they produced, NOTHING, absolutely NOTHING. And the same goes for the rest of Africa. Show me one single country in the whole of Africa that is self sufficient in food production. Even the mighty South Africa is already having food riots in the cities.

Bernie Boshoff
Perth
Australia