Originally published on cgiar.org by:International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) on Oct 23, 2007
The International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), and other international agricultural research centers, in collaboration with their national counterparts in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) have in stock enormous technologies that could lead to green revolution in Africa. What is required is the political will and mind change of African leaders to achieve a green revolution in the continent in the nearest future.
Professor Pedro Sanchez, a world class soil scientist and former Director General of the International Center for Research in Agro-forestry (ICRAF), Kenya, while speaking at a seminar at the IITA headquarters, says what rural African farmers need is empowerment. "They need the right quantity and quality of fertilizer at the right time, credit support to enhance and expand their holdings, efficient crop processing capabilities to add value to farm produce and good market outlets to sell crop harvests."
Pedro Sanchez who is Director of Tropical Agriculture and Senior Research Scholar at the Earth Institute, Columbia University, New York, also serves as co-chair of the Hunger Task Force of the Millennium Project, an advisory body to the United Nations Millennium Development Goals. The MDGs are the world's time-bound and quantified targets for addressing extreme poverty in its many dimensions - hunger, disease, lack of adequate income and shelter, poor water, while promoting gender equality, education, and environmental sustainability. They also include basic human rights-the rights of each person on the planet to good health, basic education, shelter, and security. The eight MDGs are aimed at eradicating extreme hunger and poverty, achieve universal primary education, promote gender equality and empower women, reduce child mortality, improve maternal health, combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases, ensure environmental sustainability, and encourage a global partnership for development.
According to Professor Sanchez, The MDG is currently working with 78 villages in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and affecting the lives of about 400,000 people in 12 agro-ecological zones. Two of the villages are currently located in Nigeria. The main objective of MDG villages is to impact on the lives of people in 100,000 villages of about 5000 people each in the hunger spots of sub-Saharan Africa. "We have discovered that once these communities are empowered, they can begin to achieve the millennium development goals quickly," says Sanchez. The villagers will start with food production, getting out of hunger, controlling malaria with the use of the treated bed spread and transiting from subsistence farming to small-scale entrepreneurs by growing many crops.
Professor Sanchez gives an example of the success of the MDG's intervention in Malawi, a country with food deficit for several years but now with food surplus and even donating maize to neighboring countries of Lesotho and Swaziland; all within two years. He says Ethiopia is another good example of a country doing the right thing and on the path to agricultural development. "If Malawi and Ethiopia can do it then, any other democratic countries in Africa such as Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, Mali, and Senegal whose leaders care to do the right thing can achieve self sufficiency in food production," he said. Malawi may be an example of Africa's first green revolution because the leadership is committed and willing to change from extreme poverty line to becoming a major food producer. The Malawian President is the country's minister of agriculture, and so he is able to focus all attention on practicing agriculture the right way. "The rural farmers are willing to work hard…they are committed and determined to change their orientation and become liberated from poverty and malnutrition," says Sanchez.
Speaking on the sustainability of the MDG village projects, Professor Sanchez maintained that sustainability was an essential part of the projects from the beginning. According to him, in Western Kenya, fertilizer and improved maize seeds were subsidized to the tune of 80% value for the villagers in the first year. In the second year the subsidy was dropped to 40%, and now it has been reduced to 20%. Next year it would be zero. Before the MDG exits from the villages in Western Kenya, a farmer has decided on his own to switch by opting out of the subsidy plan. "I have made good money from marketing onions and tomatoes…so I do not need your fertilizer…I know what to do and I know how to enter the market," says the small holder farmer with half an acre plot of land. Professor Sanchez enthusiastically described the farmer as number one out of the 400,000 people in the millennium villages. He hopes that by 2015, farmers in sub Saharan Africa would make similar comment as that farmer in Western Kenya
Pedro Sanchez has extensive experience in the CGIAR system. First, as a post graduate student at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), the Philippines; Program Leader at the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), Columbia; and later, Director General at ICRAF , Kenya for 10 years. Going down memory lane to his student days in the Philippines, Sanchez could picture similarities in the conditions preceding the Asian green revolution and the present situation in sub-Saharan Africa. In those days in the Philippines, farmers used to complain, like in Africa today that, "We do not have improved technologies… we lack essential services…nothing positive has happened… we are going down here." But when technologies came, the governments of Asia stood behind the farmers. This is the kind of political will Professor Sanchez spoke about - not only the scientific discoveries would make things happen.
During a separate interview after the seminar, Professor Sanchez narrated a dialogue between him and Dr. Norman Borlaug, the father of green revolution some years ago. He had asked the Nobel Laureate: "Tell me what you did in India to make the green revolution happen?" Dr. Borlaug replied. "Two things…First, set the grass root on fire, get everybody going…, and second, push the politicians hard, so they get the job done." To Sanchez it is a similar situation that exists today in Africa. The grass roots are getting on fire. Though the setting around the millennium villages may be a drop in the bucket…they are already being set on fire in Malawi and in many parts of Africa. "What we are doing in the millennium villages in Malawi, Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana, Ethiopia, and all other places where agricultural production has tripled has demonstrated that the research findings must be used for the peoples' development," says Sanchez. Research for development is a continuum, where the work of the scientists becomes known and not just in research journals but translated into concrete achievements in development. He concluded by saying that "there are fantastic technologies at IITA, and other IARCs operating in sub-Saharan Africa, and of course the NARS… they must be pushed out to benefit people and not be kept in book shelves."
Sanchez is also Professor Emeritus of Soil Science and Forestry at North Carolina State University, and was a visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley. In April 2006 he was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He was named a MacArthur Foundation Fellow in 2003, and received the World Food Prize in 2002.
A national of Cuba, Sanchez received his BS, MS and PhD degrees from Cornell University, and joined the faculty of North Carolina State University in 1968. His professional career has been dedicated to improving the management of tropical soils through integrated natural resource management approaches to achieve food security and reduce rural poverty while protecting and enhancing the environment.
Pedro Sanchez is author of Properties and Management of Soils of the Tropics (rated among the top 10 best-selling books in soil science worldwide), and currently writing the second edition of the book. He is author of over 200 scientific publications, and a Fellow of the American Society of Agronomy and the Soil Science Society of America. He has received decorations from the governments of Colombia and Peru and was awarded the International Soil Science Award and the International Service in Agronomy Award.