Aid to African agriculture: working for poverty reduction

Agriculture is central to meeting poverty reduction targets in Africa, but financial aid for agriculture is decreasing. Africa is the only continent where the Millennium Development Goals are unlikely to be met by 2015. It is vital that aid for agriculture is used more effectively.

Research by Practical Action, UK, and theParticipatory Ecological Land-Use Management (PELUM) Association argues thatAfrican agriculture is in crisis. Productivity is falling, poor people lackaccess to land and there is low investment in research. Climate change anddisease make this situation worse. More than 7 million farmers have died ofAIDS in the 25 countries most affected by the pandemic.

The current pattern of European Union(EU) aid to agriculture, delivered through programmes managed by the EuropeanCommission (EC) , aims to stimulate economic growth. It is expected that, ifeconomic growth is achieved, there will be a ‘trickle-down’ effect benefitingall social groups. For example, in existing country support strategies, 7.5percent of resources are allocated to food security and rural development,against 35 percent for transport and 28 percent for macro-economic support.Where resources are focused on agriculture, there is a heavy emphasis onprivatisating agricultural services, economic integration and export cash-cropsupport.

The report contrasts this approach withwhat African farmers say they need to change their situation.While farmers askfor a greater focus on the needs of poor and marginalised people, EC aidbenefits wealthier people and undermines poorer farmers. For example, farmersemphasise the need to achieve long-term food security over food aid, butreforms to EC aid (due to begin in 2007) will undermine existing food securityprogrammes. Farmers want locally delivered agricultural development programmesthat focus on poor people, but EC aid predominantly funds nationally-runprogrammes that are focused on commodities.

The research shows:

• Thereis no clear evidence of a poverty impact for EC aid to agriculture, despitepoverty reduction being one of the three ‘pillars’ of EC aid.
• Thereis no evaluation of the effectiveness of the EC aid programme in reducing  poverty.
• Sectoralsupport focuses on commodity crops, not staple crops. These are usuallycultivated by wealthier farmers.
• Privatisingextension services usually means that only profitable services are provided.This often reduces services to poor farmers in remote areas.
• Althoughthe EC’s humanitarian programme has made bold steps to deliver food aid in waysthat do not undermines local production systems, this is very difficult toachieve in practice.

Raising the output of small and marginalfarmers is necessary for eradicating rural poverty in Africa. This will, in thelong term, reduce the need for humanitarian programmes to address hunger. Italso has a larger ‘multiplier’ effect in the rural economy than increasingproductivity in commercial farming. The research recommends:

• TheEC should redirect agricultural support to reach small farmers in deprived,food insecure areas.
• TheEC should increase investment in successful community-based programmes.
• TheEC should strengthen its programme funding to agriculture, rather than phasingit out in favour of direct budget support to governments.
• Decisionson EC resource allocations that have not involved civil society as an equalpartner should not be considered legitimate.