HARROWING images of starving children have become synonymous with Africa. And in the coming days, expect more of the same as the refugee crisis continues to unfold in the Darfur region of western Sudan. This time, civil war rather than crop failure is to blame, but instability is not going to go away in a continent where 200 million people 鈥� almost 1 in 4 Africans 鈥� are undernourished.
Finding a solution will not be easy. For decades, governments and companies from the developed world, along with international institutions, have thrown aid, money, products and platitudes at the problem 鈥� especially platitudes. Their attitudes have tended to be prescriptive, urging political reform within African states and the widespread adoption of practices such as growing cash crops, and technologies such as genetic modification.
But Africa is not Europe, Asia or South America, where a green revolution featuring high-yield rice and wheat varieties has boosted the food supply. Whereas people in Asia have 30 per cent more food per capita than in 1990, and South Americans 20 per cent more, the people of Africa have 3 per cent less. Here a green revolution will never work, because African agriculture is different: it relies on a multitude of diverse farming systems, not the ubiquitous rice paddies of Asia or wheat prairies of the Americas, where a one-size crop fits all.
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That鈥檚 why a report launched last week by Kofi Annan, the UN secretary-general deserves a warm welcome (see 鈥淧lan for plenty鈥�). Two years in the writing, the report is the work of a panel appointed by the InterAcademy Council, an alliance of 90 scientific academies. Rather than a green revolution, the report calls for a series of discreet 鈥渞ainbow evolutions鈥� within Africa. And it is a message worth listening to for one simple reason: most of the authors are Africans, who know better than anyone what will work for Africa and what will not. They stress the importance, for example, of putting farmers at the heart of decision making on which pilot projects to pursue.
The report lists four agricultural systems best suited to alleviating malnutrition and turning a profit, including mixed cereal and root crops, such as maize, millet, cassava and legumes, and planting tree crops such as cocoa side by side with field crops such as yams. The report also calls for each country to create its own agricultural centre of scientific excellence, and to find ways to retain the 50 per cent of the continent鈥檚 trained scientists who emigrate.
It all takes money, of course, and we can only hope that Annan鈥檚 words fall on receptive ears when he formally presents the report next Monday, 5 July, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
The indications are that African leaders like what they have seen of the report. Western donors should also take note. Every night, 33 million African children go to bed hungry, and for them Africa鈥檚 rainbow evolution can鈥檛 begin soon enough.