Skip to main content

How can we resist the New Cramble in Africa? By Stopping the corporate takeover of african food

A landmark G8 initiative ' The New Alliance for Food Security' to boost agriculture and relieve poverty has been damned as a new form of colonialism after African governments agreed to change seed, land and tax laws to favour private investors over small farmers.


The alliance is being paid with hundred's of millions of pounds of our taxpayers'money to help the corporate like Unilever, Monsanto and Diageo to take over African land, seeds and agriculture.

It is quite shocking to hear that this is the way the UK is spending Aid budget rather than supporting the African farmers who produce 70% of the countries food.

Yesterday evening at the Christchurch on Clarendon Park Road in Leicester, I had the chance to assist to an event organised by the World Development Movement where I learnt more about this particular issue. Two speakers were present and below is a summary of the elements they cover.

1) Christine Haigh, Food Policy Officer from World Development Movement gave an extensive presentation where she highlighted throughout history how organisations through various initiatives 

- AGRA, The New Vision for Agriculture by the World Economic Forum, Grow Africa and now the New Alliance for food Security and Nutrition -

push farmers out of their land, control seed breeding, encourage chemical input which deepen environmental degradation but also make farmers more dependent and more at risk of economic struggle. 

Whilst companies profit of cheap labour on the ground, most of the food produced do not benefit the locals as it is for export.

Companies such as Unilever, Sab Miller, Diageo, DFID, Monsanto are all involved in this controversy.

More were said about how deep the issue and how important it was to promote Food Sovereignty which cover the 6 following principles:
1) Focuses on food for people - food should be a right not a commodity
2) Values food providers
3) Localises food systems
4) Makes decision locally
5) Builds knowledge locally
6) Works with nature

And finally, how important it is to write to our MPs!

The following link offer some very nice infographic about the historical role of developed countries in Africa :http://www.wdm.org.uk/new-scramble-africa-food-monsanto-syngenta-yara/


2) The second speaker was Dr Ola Ogunyemi, principal lecturer in Journalism at the University of Lincoln and President of the Shepherd Food Ministries
He introduced his initiative from Lincolnshire 'Shepherd Food Ministries' . The initiative aligns with the Millenium Development Goal 1 from the UN whereby poverty and hunger should be alleviate by 2015. 89 countries signed up to this goal. Unfortunately, we are in 2014 and the issue is still present.
Regardless, Lincolnshire residents donated money to buy 103 acres of land in Osun State, south-western Nigeria to create a hub for farmers to store and process the food they produced. This type of infrastructure is need as unfortunately 70% of the food being produced in such country will be wasted in the 3 weeks after production rather than with the consumers. 
The project chose a model based on membership whereby members can donate what they think the structure is worth after use of the infrastructure and sale of produces. The project want to ensure to remain a not-for-profit organisation for the commons.
The organisation also strives to nurture the young as Nigeria is experiencing an ageing farming population, and empowering widows with skills and knowledge. The organisation is also involved with the Lincoln Food Bank as hunger is also present here in the UK.
For more information: 

If you are all for food sovergnity, start with your back garden, it is where it all starts ;)

x


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

People & Money – The real problem is to not act

A quick extract of an article I wrote after an event I've organised in Leicester with the support of Positive Money and Transition Leicester.  You can access the full article on  Positive Money Blog . ''In the last few months, I contemplated the idea of organising an event in Leicester about Money and the financial system. I first started by looking for a supportive group of individuals to do it with but after few unsuccessful  attempts in recruiting people and ensuring continuous involvement, it became clear that speaking was not enough but that I had to take action. I was letting go of my passive consumer shield to be more of an active citizen. With the full support of Transition Leicester and Positive Money, 5 knowledgeable key speakers were invited. 40 people managed to attend the event. Food, hot and cold drinks were available for everyone to share. The evening turned out not only to be fun and interesting but also educating. This was a moment we travelled in a l...

What did I learn from analysing my expenditure after a year

In the following blog post, I share the results of two analysis. The first one is an analysis of my spendings by categories after a year, the second is analysis of what I want to achieve by category. The analysis contribute to my main aim which is to achieve financial independence. I am currently trying to pay a debt - 12K for a student loan. To do the first analysis, I downloaded all the statements from my current account in an excel format. I assigned a category to each entry. What are the results? I  allocated 18% of my resources to my loan and the same amount to travel to France and have a couple of trip in the UK. I spent more money on conspicuous consumption than food. I did not have many outings that involved financial expenditure. What am I missing? I haven't got a good idea of what all the cash I have taken out was used for. A part of it must be to commute to work, then it is a mix of food shopping, outings, shopping and more outings. For the second analyy...