WORLD RURAL FORUM: FAMILY FARMING WORLD CONFERENCE

Theme:

Feeding the World, Caring for the Earth

Venue:

Bilbao, Spain

Date:

5th to 7th October 2011

Contact details Philip. Macharia Kiriro President - EAFF Vice patron KENFAP P.O.Box 13747 00800 Westlands, Nairobi Tel: +245-20-4451691 Email: info@eaffu.org philipkiriro@yahoo.org

INTRODUCTION I take this opportunity to thank you most sincerely for inviting me to this meeting and for the opportunity to make this presentation. Before I give an overview of the producer organizations in Africa, I would like firstly to make a quick reflection of the Agricultural Sector and the food situation in the continent. Agriculture is the most important sector in Africa and especially the Sub-Saharan Africa and therefore considered the engine of growth in Africa. It is not possible to achieve economic growth, alleviate hunger, overcome poverty, overall enhancement of food security and even attainment of other aspirations i.e health, education, industrialization, employment and others, without fully investing and getting agriculture performing. As I have already alluded, agriculture is the primary activity of the majority of people in Africa and especially the small and medium scale family farmers. In my region COMESA (21 countries in Africa and a population of 400million people), agriculture contributes 32% of regional GDP on average supply 65% of raw materials to industry and employs 80% of the population. Unfortunately growth in the agricultural sector in Africa in the last 3 decades has been regrettably low. Mr. Chairman allow me to apply the information I have on food security in the COMESA region to demonstrate the serious situation in the entire continent. STATUS OF THE AGRICULTRAL SECTOR In the last three decades we have witnessed a very slow rise in Agricultural production of approximately 1.9% (Common Markets of Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) and has been declining. To further illustrate the seriousness of food insecurity in the SubSaharan Africa it is important to note that the countries that constitute IGAD Region (The Intergovernmental Authority on Development) covering Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somali, Sudan and Uganda, is the most food insecure in Africa and the world. Over 40% of world food aid goes to this region and yet the region constitutes 3% of world population. Over 1 million metric tones of food is imported every year. To understand the seriousness of food insecurity in the COMESA region an analysis of five food imports i.e Rice, Maize, Wheat, Beans and pulses representing 92% of food imports demonstrates that the region is increasingly reliant on imported food to meet its food security. Data on intra and extra regional imports for the five staples, extra regional trade grew at an average of 31% as compared to only 11.7% for intra regional trade. On average food imports in the COMESA region has been increasing by 13% annually. Importation of food aid has even tripled since 2000, and the cost of food aid is
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now in excess of $17.2 billion per year. This level of dependency on food imports and food aid in a region (COMESA) of 400 million inhabitants with a population growth of 2 to 3% per year is not sustainable and poses a serious food security concern. WHY FOOD INSECURITY IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA \ COMESA REGION Reasons for inability of SSA and COMESA region to feed itself are known. The major factor is stagnant production, worsened by rapid population growth, increased urbanization and rising incomes, character of agriculture which is small scale and poorly organised and supported, drought (over 60% of the land), conflict, policies around agriculture and land all worsened by low investment in agriculture by National Governments. Unless action is taken immediately it will be difficult for SSA and COMESA with the current low production levels and an increase in population (2.5%) to break its dependency on imports and food aid. POSITIVE TRENDS There is goodwill now and actions aimed at supporting the agricultural sector in developing countries. This is not only driven by desire to support agriculture in developing countries, but the global food crisis as witnessed in 2008 and future projections of food demand. It is estimated that by 2050, the world population will be approximately 9.1 billion and to feed this population, agriculture will have to grow by 70%. There is also the expected growth in commodity markets in Africa. The commodity trade is expected to rise to $60 billion by 2030. The export trade potential to farmers will be on average $4.5 billion whereas growth in domestic and cross-border trade in Africa will be $30 billion per year. Goodwill and support to agriculture has improved. African Governments through the Comprehensive Africa Agricultural Development Programme (CAADP) have committed themselves to investing in agriculture. As a principle, they are committed to an agriculture led-economic growth as their main strategy of achieving the Millennium Development Goal No1 on hunger and poverty reduction. Under Maputo Declaration of 2002 the African heads of States and Governments committed themselves to a 10% national annual budget allocation to the agricultural sector and agreed to explore regional complementariness and cooperation to boost growth to at least 6% on average annually. Development partners have also aligned their cooperation with the AU on agriculture with the CAADP agenda. A number of multi-donor funds have been established to support agriculture in Africa. This is in line with the Paris and Accra declaration on five principles of AID effectiveness.

FARMER ORGANIZATIONS Although for many years agriculture has been a priority for governments in developing countries, agriculture has not worked for the small farmer. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, developing countries in Africa were subjected to Structural Adjustments dictated to them by IMF and the World Bank. The reforms were hostile to the agricultural sector. This led to total collapse of the Agricultural sector and were all faced with a terrible situation with over 1 billion people hungry and starving and all of them below poverty line. The SAPs did not resolve the equity problem that has been getting worse overtime. In all our development efforts, the point we missed is the organizations of producers and especially the small farmer. We never bothered to properly understand the characters of our agriculture and an understanding of the people involved before putting together policies in agriculture and rural development. It is now evident that producers have been able to organize themselves at National level and within the countries themselves through networks that link farmers at all levels. Through organization farmers are now recognized as key players in food security and development. With the establishment of the regional economic communities (RECs) such as ECOWAS, COMESA, SADC, EAC discussion issues and even policies around agriculture started changing location to regional level. With policies formulated and approved taking priority over National policies. Farmers organizations meeting in Tunisia in 1994, recognized and even commended governments for taking regional integration seriously by putting together regional economic communities to expand trading space and enhance political solidarity. Through Tunisia declaration farmers committed themselves to establishing regional farmer networks to enhance the voice of farmers. We now have regional farmers organizations i.e ROPPA for Western Africa, PROPAC for Central Africa, SACAU for Southern Africa, UMAGRI for Northern Africa, and EAFF for Eastern Africa. On November 27th 2010, all these networks were able to come together accompanied by AU and launched the Pan-Africa Farmers Organization that will be based in Nairobi, Kenya. We have witnessed benefits emanating from organization of farmers. We have been able to contribute to policy formulation and implementation. The CAADP Agenda has now been well established at the AU level and National level.

Most of the National governments agricultural policies and strategies are already aligned to CAADP. Formulation of regional agricultural policies aligned to CAADP is on course. Although our producer organizations previously mainly targeted lobbying and advocacy, there has now been a shift in their operations dictated by the current changes and trends in the Agricultural sector. As producer organizations, we have committed ourselves to modernization and transformation of small scale agriculture. Our goal in addition to lobbying and advocacy is to address law productively in agriculture through trade. Our focus is now on Regional Markets and commodity trade. Commodity trade is expected to expand tremendously in Africa between now and 2030, significantly beyond export markets. There are reforms and harmonization processes taking place in regions to facilitate regional trade i.e customs union, common markets (EAC), monitory unions, and policy processes to address standards and other trade barriers. The regional farmer networks are working closely with Regional Economic Communities to address these issues. We farmer organizations now have to assist our farmers and especially small holders understand and engage in all processes around regional trade and regional integration and in addition, help them overcome challenges and identify opportunities. To participate in commodity trade, our farmer organizations have to organize themselves and even operate differently. We have to instill entrepreneurship in our small farmers for them to do agriculture/farming as a business. This implies that organizations that have been involved in lobbying and advocacy and campaigns have in addition to provide economic services as a capacity to members for them to be successful entrepreneurs. We should also not only encourage, but also demanded that our farmer organizations establish business clusters within themselves to enable them address the current challenges in production and trade in commodities. Our members want to see tangible benefits coming from their organizations. Benefits that will help change for the better their economic situations and improve their livelihoods. We have also put our development partners on notice regarding this reality and all the projects we are negotiating in support of farmer organizations at National and Regional levels are on institutional development, policy and economic services/entrepreneurship. Our second phase of our project with EU- IFAP Agricord, Agriterra will be in these areas. Taking the case of EAFF, we are providing capacity to our members to enable them ensure that our farmers produce along commodity lines and ensure that they become key players by strengthening their position along value

chains. This is the only way we can ensure that farmers have power at the market place and access profitable markets. On business clusters, EAFF has developed a MODEL regional policy framework on cooperatives that will ensure their autonomy. A reform in the producer cooperatives at all levels will enable farmers establish credible business clusters. EAFF is therefore seriously involved in Agribusiness clusters establishment. In identifying commodity chains and undertaking full analysis we are profiling the entire chain both input and export i.e business development services, financial and insurance series, logistics etc. In the process we identify missing gaps i.e missing chain actors, capacity challenges, infrastructure and policy issues. Overall we identify where we farmers should be strategically positioned along the chain to ensure that we are strongly positioned as opposed to our current linkages which is at the bottom of the chain. CONCLUSION I would like to thank all those that have provided support to producer organizations, through financial support and capacity building. Government bilateral i.e The Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Belgium, Germany, USA, British, Canada, and France their through the development agencies. I also acknowledge our National governments and Regional Communities for their goodwill and support. Regional institutions such as FARA, ASARECA, other international Institutions EU, IFAD, FAO, AU, UN etc. The AriAgencies Agriterra and many others through Agricord. Development NGOs i.e VECO OXFAM, ACTION AID, ACORD, CSA, EU-AFRICA etc and professionals who have provided us with enormous capacities and even assisted us implement programs. Now we are organized, our challenges is to continue strengthening ourselves, manage our members expectations and be current on their demands. Our approach to business must change. Our long term focus on problems created by the World Bank, IMF, through SAPs must change. These institutions including our governments and development partners have already taken stock of their previous actions and acknowledged failures. They have reformed themselves to be able to address current realities and issues and better focus on wayforward. We farmers organizations have to do the same to be relevant and of benefit to our membership. We definitely need a lot support to succeed. Finally I thank the organizers for this opportunity to make this presentation.

Philip M. KIRIRO EAFF President

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