Nairobi, Kenya
June 9, 2015
Source: AGRA
By Agnes Kalibata.
I spoke last week at EU Development Days in Brussels about the need to bridge the gap between the private sector and farmers. What do I mean by this?
I recently returned from a trip to visit several African countries. And those meetings left me extraordinarily hopeful: countries like Mali, Burkina Faso, Tanzania and Mozambique have made great progress in providing their farmers with a wider set of options: better seeds and the right nutrients for soils that are boosting food production.
But I also heard several stories that remind me why agriculture development efforts can falter without the support of the private sector. Let me give a few examples:
- In Tanzania, I heard stories of how improved access to seeds and fertilizers generated a bumper crop of maize last year. And farmers who recently gained access to modern storage facilities were able to connect with buyers, but too many saw their crop rot on the ground because they had neither.
- In Mali, the owner of a local seed company told me she quickly progressed from producing 100 to 1000 tons of seed annually, but then stalled. The problem was not a lack of demand but a lack of financing.
- In Burkina Faso, the head of the national agrodealer association estimated farmer demand for seeds at about 200,000 tons a year, but local companies—struggling to find capital— can only produce about 13,000 tons a year.
None of these challenges are insurmountable, but they all point to the benefits that could accrue to Africa’s smallholder farmers and it’s promising new agriculture oriented businesses if we strengthen market opportunities and improve all aspects of the agriculture production system—from seeds to the soils to markets and policies. Sometimes, when we focus on agriculture mainly as a “development” project, we focus too narrowly on just the production aspects. But growing more food in the field by itself can be a dead end without the private sector partnerships that can sustain those gains and build on the success.
For example, it's immediately clear to most people that it would be absurd to build modern storage and processing facilities and develop national commodities markets unless farmers were equipped to produce a surplus. Less obvious is the fact that the reverse can be equally absurd.
In a piece posted on the Guardian last week, I wrote further about the important connection between the development community and the private sector. As I wrote in that piece, “My experience as minister of agriculture in Rwanda and my recent travels across Africa have made it abundantly clear that if we link development assistance with market opportunities – if we combine the spirit of the European Development Days with that of the World Economic Forum – we can accomplish great things.”
I hope you’ll share the message that Africa’s farmers are, in fact, a great investment.
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