April 2011 - Centre for Civil Society - University of KwaZulu-Natal

Because the wealth of the existing biodiversity is the basis for the future
of agricultural Africa, it is essential that those who care about this wealth,
and work toward improving its potential for use, are acknowledged. The
‘African Biodiversity Stewardship Recognition Award’ (ABSRA) proposes to
fulfill this goal, as an African initiative for recognizing those who make
contributions towards the conservation and sustainable use of African
biodiversity wealth.
A component of the award will finance the sharing, across the continent,
of the knowledge and processes for which the award was granted. Other
African communities learning about appropriate responses to particular
agricultural threats will stimulate replication and mainstreaming such
practices and systems – successful alternatives to the ravages of industrial
monoculture.
ABSRA is a continental response to yet another outsider intervention
bringing inappropriate high-cost technology under the auspices of AGRA.
The logic, goals, and economic and legal premises of the two could not be
more different.
AGRA's approach focuses on increasing yields above any other agronomic
characteristic, while ABSRA promotes the idea that food biodiversity can
provide more nutrition than monoculture. AGRA works to privatise
knowledge as quickly as possible through the patenting of processes as well
as end products. Its ‘green revolution’ mentality refuses to honour farmers
as plant breeders or scientists, while ABSRA encourages smallholder
farmers, recognising both their farmers' rights to exchange and propagate
seeds and their scientific innovations for sustaining biodiversity.
Outdated and disproven ways from 20th century agriculture continue, for
they profit those with scientific and financial power. African smallholder
farmers, however, are already demonstrating what a recent international
assessment of agriculture stated in rejecting green revolutions: ‘Business
as usual is no longer an option.’[11] African agronomists and scientists
have answers for how to feed growing numbers of people nutritious food,
rather than feeding cars or corporate profits. What industrialised countries
need is ‘aid’ from Africa, in the form of shared knowledge and technology
to preserve global food biodiversity for future generations.
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Carol Thompson is professor of Political Economy, Northern Arizona
University, USA.
Andrew Mushita is the director of the Community Technology
Development Trust, Zimbabwe.
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Pambazuka News.
Reference
[1] InterAcademy Council (2003) 'Realising the Promise and Potential of
African Agriculture: Science and technology strategies for improving
agricultural productivity and food security in Africa', Amsterdam, p. xviii.
http://www.interacademycouncil.net
[2] GRAIN (2007) 'The New Scramble for Africa', Seedling – Agrofuels