Civil society is calling on the Tanzanian government and agri-business for a frank discussion on the objectives and benefits of the ongoing Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor of Tanzania (Sagcot) project, which forms part of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (Agra). Agra is considered by activists fighting poverty as a means to destroy small-scale farming in Africa and introduce large-scale, mechanised agriculture producing genetically modified crops, with disastrous results for food security on the continent. Critics argue that the government’s version of green revolution is fundamentally flawed, as it seeks the participation of large-scale, mostly foreign, investors, while conveniently ignoring the fact that agriculture in the country is overwhelmingly small-scale, sustaining about 80% of the population. The fate of these farmers is uncertain. As the implementation of most of these projects also seems complex, lacks transparency and raises accusations of land grabbing, civil society organisations are also calling on coordinators of the project to explain the nature of partnership with key international partners, some of whom have controversial commercial and agricultural undertakings. The ensuing discussions should address issues such as how local societies will be key players in farming, technological advancement and value addition.
Poverty and health
In the last decade, enough agricultural land has been sold off to grow food for a billion people, which is equivalent to the number of people who go hungry in the world each night, according to Oxfam. Over 60% of investments in agricultural land by foreign investors between 2000 and 2010 were in developing countries with serious hunger problems. However, two-thirds of those investors plan to export everything they produce on that land. While Oxfam supports greater investment in agriculture and to small-scale producers, it argues that the unprecedented rush for land has not been adequately regulated or policed to prevent land grabs. This means that poor people continue to be evicted, often violently, without consultation or compensation. Many lose their homes and are left destitute, without access to the land they rely on. Oxfam calls on the World Bank to temporarily freeze investments involving large-scale land deals so it can review its advice to developing countries, help set standards for investors, and introduce more robust policies to stop land grabs.
Food security in Central Africa has been worsening over the last two decades. To address this challenge, Central African states have embarked on a process to develop a common agricultural policy and to put the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) into practice. Farmers’ organisations from all member states are now shaping up to influence these policy-making processes at national and regional level in the coming months. The main challenge for them is to identify proposals that respond to the needs and priorities of all the farmers they represent, and to ensure that policy makers will take them into account during negotiations. In doing so, they could learn from their counterparts in West Africa, argues the writer of this blog, the Deputy Programme Manager for Food Security at ECDPM. West African farmers managed to play an important role in the formulation of the region’s common agricultural policy through their regional farmers’ network ROPPA. Key to ROPPA’s success was its participation in decision-making organs and meetings, but more so, its preparations for these events, which included consultations of ROPPA’s members at regional, national and local levels, analytical work to check and back their arguments, and a continuous search for allies among national and regional authorities and non-state actors.
During the recent years of economic decline in Zimbabwe, many of the formal processes for land transfer have been weakened or even abandoned, local government has faced a rolling crisis of sustainability and the collapse of the national currency has ascribed a greater value to urban land as a commodity, according to this report. At the same time, there are signs now emerging of community-driven innovation and participation in urban management. The need to revive and renew human resources within local government has been widely supported, while UN-Habitat has recommended that the Town and Country Planning Acts should be reviewed, and various external funders are considering future assistance to the reform of legal and policy frameworks for urban development. There is thus a strong probability that fundamental changes to the systems and structures of urban land governance in Zimbabwe will be implemented in the foreseeable future, the authors argue. In this scoping study on urban land markets in Zimbabwe, they investigate and identify opportunities for practical partnerships in the field of urban management and land studies, and propose a potential programme of work that could contribute to the more effective functioning of Zimbabwe’s urban land markets.
This cross-sectional community-based nutrition survey was conducted in Northwest Ethiopia with 356 urban residents (71.3% female and 28.7% male). Subjects were selected by random sampling. Socio-demographic data was collected by questionnaire and body measurements taken. Results indicated that, of the sample, 12.9% were undernourished, 21.3% were overweight and 5.9% were obese. Men were taller, heavier and had a higher waist-to-hip ratio compared to women. Fish, fruits and vegetables were consumed ‘less frequently’ or ‘never at all’ by a large proportion of the subjects. Mean energy intake fell below the estimated energy requirements in women, but was significantly higher in men. Protein intake was inadequate in 11.2% of the participants whereas only 2.8% reported carbohydrate intake below the recommended dietary allowance. Significant micronutrient deficiencies were also noted. The overall risk of nutritional inadequacy among the study participants was high, along with their poor dietary intake. The authors call for nutritional programmes in urban settings to address the micronutrient and macronutrient deficiencies identified here, to help prevent nutrition-related diseases later in life.
In 2010, Urban LandMark undertook a survey of 568 households in two peri-urban sites in Maputo, Hulene B and Luis Cabral, to understand how ordinary urban dwellers access, hold and transact land. Although they are both located in the suburbs of Maputo city, Luis Cabral was established as a settlement for workers from the Maputo harbour, and has a longer history of urban settlement than Hulene B. Hulene B houses mainly internally displaced people from the civil war and floods. While most the plots in Luis Cabral have been surveyed, have wider roads and are generally better planned, Hulene B is largely unplanned. Despite the differences between the two neighbourhoods, the study found no variations in the nature of land ownership and tenure. In both settlements, the vast majority of households do not have formal title. Most land is acquired through mechanisms that are outside the formal land registration system. These findings challenge conventional understandings of the formal and informal sector in African cities. First, informal systems are not always the chaotic mess they are perceived to be. Secondly, although much of the land is accessed and secured verbally or through agreements with social networks, state agents are often critical to lending credibility to informal practices. Thirdly, despite the fact that few households in the study areas have formal title to land or documentation, 68% of households reported that their sense of rights to place were strong because the local land practices had social legitimacy.
For this report, researchers interviewed 200 farmers in Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Malawi and South Africa about their experiences of changes in climate. They found considerable agreement between farmers across countries that they are observing changes in climate. Climate change is likely to reduce yields and increase food prices, with serious effects on both farmers and consumers. But farmers are already actively experimenting and changing agricultural practices and pursuing ways to diversify livelihoods in light of both the new changes to their climate and other multiple stresses. In some cases, these changes can be considered actual or potential successes in adapting to climate change; in other cases they may be simply coping or using maladaptive strategies, particularly where they create environmental degradation. Furthermore, whereas large-scale farmers, in the main, have access to the resources needed to adapt, small-scale farmers face major obstacles. These obstacles may not only prevent adaptation but also lead farmers into maladaptation, for want of other choices. Major new resources must be raised from domestic, regional and international levels to focus on and build the adaptive capacity of small-scale farmers and sustain levels of food production into the future, the report concludes.
According to this paper, in Ghana, alcohol consumption and unwanted pregnancies are on the ascendancy. The authors examined the association between alcohol consumption and maternal mortality from induced-abortion, as well as the factors that lie behind the alcohol consumption patterns in the study population. They extracted data from the Ghana Maternal Health Survey 2007, identifying 4,203 female deaths through verbal autopsy, among which 605 were maternal deaths in the 12 to 49 year-old age group. Alcohol consumption was significantly associated with abortion-related maternal deaths. Women who had ever consumed alcohol, frequent consumers and occasional consumers were about three times as likely to die from abortion-related causes compared to those who abstained from alcohol. Maternal age, marital status and educational level were found to have a confounding effect on the observed association. The authors recommend that policy actions directed toward reducing abortion-related deaths should consider alcohol consumption, especially among younger women. Policy makers in Ghana should also consider increasing the legal age for alcohol consumption. In addition, information on the health risks posed by alcohol and abortion be disseminated to communities in the informal sector where vulnerable groups can best be reached.
Despite being a critical component of interventions to reduce child mortality, exclusive breastfeeding practice is extremely low in South Africa. This paper investigates why. The authors conducted a sub-group analysis of a community-based cluster-randomised trial (PROMISE EBF) promoting exclusive breastfeeding in three South African sites between 2006 and 2008. By 12 weeks postpartum, results showed that 20% of HIV-negative women and 40% of HIV-positive women had stopped breastfeeding. About a third of women introduced other fluids, most commonly formula milk, within the first three days after birth. Antenatal intention not to breastfeed and being undecided about how to feed were most strongly associated with stopping breastfeeding by 12 weeks. Self-reported breast health problems were also associated with a three-fold risk of stopping breastfeeding. The authors conclude that early cessation of breastfeeding is common amongst both HIV-negative and positive women in South Africa. There is an urgent need to improve antenatal breastfeeding counselling taking into account the challenges faced by working women as well as early postnatal lactation support to prevent breast health problems.
Speaking at the World Congress of Rural Sociology, the Director-General of the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) José Graziano da Silva challenged academics to get involved in essential and politically important research into rural poverty and the food and agriculture business as it pertains to small-scale producers. He identified the most pressing issues in the fight against hunger and rural underdevelopment as food insecurity, nutrient deficiencies and unsafe food, as well as unequal competition between small-scale and large food producers. He singled out large-scale investments in agriculture or ‘land-grabbing’ as a politically important area where universities could conduct research into principles for responsible agricultural investments. Such research could feed into the work of the Committee on World Food Security, the leading global forum for discussions on food security issues, he said. How to integrate small-scale farmers into the agricultural and food chains should be another area of academic concern. Academics should look into the issue of governance of the food and agriculture sector, both at global and local levels, and how to achieve a fair distribution of benefits.