Food Aid in Africa. Thoughts from the Field
Diana Buja, known to many of you on this list, offered this long comment on foreign aid in response to one of my posts on Michael Pollan’s Farmer-in-Chief. Because it is the result of years of work and reflection on food in Africa, I am posting it in full. Public Law 480, just as a reminder, has been the guiding US government framework for food aid since it was passed in 1954.
“Yes, food/farming = war/foreign policy = food/farming…
I have been on the ‘receiving’ end of PL480 (Public Law 480) for a number of years. I.e., projects that I have been / am involved with that *must* use left-over crops from the US in order to qualify for very much needed food aid assistance for seriously starving folk. Often times the products are not what local folk can eat (hey, but can beggars be choosers?! – goes the bureaucratic response…).
Over decades, without local compliance, ‘we’ have been gradually changing local food preferences from indigenous and highly (disease/drought) resistant food crops – such as colocasia, millet and sorghum – to highly refined and fragile crops – primarily maize & milk powder & corn oil – the staples of PL480 and, in the case of the European Union, powdered milk food-dumping.
However, it is now becoming increasingly understood that this food-dumping has deleterious effects on production and marketing of local crops – both in areas undergoing crisis as well as in neighbouring areas where humanitarian organizations could purchase foodstuffs that not only are more agreeable to local palates and (if grown) to local climates, but as an important by-product also stimulate production & marketing in these areas.
Some NGOs – OXFAM and others – are now encouraging this latter strategy and are also actively lobbying Washington Powers to completely de-link food aid from crops grown in the US.
For decades, food has been used as an often (locally) disagreeable carrot to promote Western foreign policy goals.
My first experience with PL480 was in SE Egypt / NE Sudan, in the Red Sea Hills & Red Sea area, where I had a project working with Beja and Ababdi tribes in the region. This was a USAID funded project, and one stipulation of the grant was the necessity of quarterly distributions of PL480 foodstuffs – enriched cornmeal and corn oil.
Getting some 100s tons of these products from Cairo down to the project area every 3 months – a minimum of 18 hours driving and most over rough and roadless desert – was daunting in itself. Lack of fuel, repair and security meant that I had to truck down fuel and mechanics, and parley with local military to provide guard duty. Once, a fully-loaded lorry simply disappeared into the desert. We never did find out what happened [imagine explaining *that* to a bureaucrat back in Washington!).
Then, the distribution process. I’d get the word out several weeks before anticipated distribution, because folks coming from distant camps would need about 20 day’s roundtrip [via camels]. Because of distances and lack of accessibility, one or a few men would come with camels to take back supplies for a number of families, bringing their ‘ration’ cards. Of course, there was no way to know what was eventually distributed to whom. In the end, the food distribution process served to strengthen the power and authority of tribal elite and enrich the pockets of local entrepreneurs, as mentioned below.
And how about the food itself? The maize meal was ‘enriched’, meaning that it had ‘funny brown things’ (as the locals said) mixed in the meal. People were really horrified because also, it was yellow maize, and only white maize had ever been consumed (and, not very much of that!).
Trying to convince local shaykhs and religious imams that the meal really was fit for human consumption was an ongoing task and much did go to the livestock because of local fears. (This is when the esoteric came in very handily: reciting Qasidas from the Mu’allaqaat – famed pre-Islamic poetry that I’d learned while a grad student – proved an important entree in convincing locals that at least my own motivations were based on some understanding of local conditions…).
Ah, but the corn oil was also viewed suspiciously, though not as gravely as with the meal. Over the months, I saw how local entrepreneurs manipulated these fears to pay very small sums to purchase these commodities – which they resold in the the markets in Aswan or in Sudan.
Little mention is made, in the discourse on food aid, about its disquieting political underbelly. And that’s where an important component of food aid politics and its links back to food aid foreign policy are to be found. Helping ‘poor people’ is a very political process.
If at all possible, I do not support PL480 food assistance and its EU-counterparts (which often = dairy products, little use for populations that are highly lactose intolerant), but favour helping to develop more robust local food and livestock production and marketing practices together with supportive local policy formulation.
Pollan and others active in the emerging local food system movement might do well to bring subsistence-oriented farmers and herders from Africa as consultants to the new administration in order to train policy makers, educators and others involved in agricultural matters about the realities of food aid as well as local-level food production and marketing – especially the political and economic aspects – from an African perspective..”
Diana’s comments are spot on.
I agree wholeheartedly. But I do have one question for Diana. It seems to be a well-founded historical generalization that any time people can switch from rooty things to grains and from the lesser grains to the more prestigious grains they do. Diana, do you envisage a two stage change in Burundi, first to a more plentiful supply of traditional foodstuffs, then as incomes increase as one hopes they will a shift to imported foodstuffs of their own choice?
A passionate and well-expressed piece, by Diana (as usual).
The situation she describes also reminded me of this story about stove design in The Economist.
If the shoe doesn’t fit, it won’t be easily worn.
Thanks for posting this Karen. It was a very interesting article. Traditional processing and cooking methods so often look simple but are adjusted to all kinds of complexities that outsiders don’t see. Grindstones are a perfect case in point. Enormously varied to fit different local resources and different local foodstuffs. Ditto pestles and mortars.
Ji-Young – Thanks – and thanks for featuring these remarks, Rachel. To address your question, which is a very good one:
1. Switching from root crops to grains is certainly the most important crop (and thus nutritional shift) that followed basic domestication of crops (which is thought to have been root crops). This change made possible accumulation (of crop products) and thus also accumulation of ‘wealth ‘- and was linked also to work specialization and related technological developments that are associated with both gender and strata differentiation. Not an easy or speedy transition, in historical terms, but so key!
2. I think that in Burundi and some other areas, as the importance of traditional crops are more clearly realized both by donors and well as by agricultural research institutes (primarily those who are part of the CGIAR system) more funds and research efforts will be directed to enhancing improvements to these crops. To date, ‘we’ have operated in a colonial – post-colonial mindset that has promoted primarily northern hemisphere crops and livestock which are thought to be more productive-bigger-better-etc… Perhaps, *but* better a crop or strain that may not produce so much per plant or animal, that one that simply is too fragile to produce in erratic tropical conditions (maize being a prime suspect). Now, IITA, ILRI and other international research arms of the CGIAR system are promoting indigenous breeds and strains and working to identify and promote-improve germplasm from these crops and livestock (URLs are given below). These are the important Forgotten Crops that the National Research Council has helped to center-stage (see Google for this work). So that’s a long answer to the first part of the question, on increasing production of local crops.
3. And yes, as local-indigenous food and livestock products become more plentiful and communities and their country economies enter more fully into regional and international markets, choice will (and does) expand. For example, just in the last couple of years here in Burundi white bread, in the form of large soft rolls that cost about 8 cents each, is becoming quite popular as a stack and as part of meals. A great boon for people on the move who can’t go home to eat and-or who don’t have a couple of hours to prepare a meal!
CGIAR – http://www.cgiar.org/ (Consultative Group on International Agr. Research)
IITA-http://www.iita.org/ (International Institute for Tropical Agr.)
ILRI – http://www.ilri.org/ (International Livestock Reserch Institute)
ETC …..
Thanks, Diana. I especially appreciate all the links. And just to continue free associating, I would assume that along with improving local crops and breeds, attention had to be paid to ways of improving the processing of the crops in particular. Most of the mechanized ways of processing have been worked out for wheat, rice and belatedly maize. Traditional processing of other crops so often remains time consuming, tedious, and very hard work indeed. Making this less laborious would also encourage people to continue eating their traditional foods, if that is what they want to do.
Thanks for your comments & interesting article, Karen. Yes, so often what is thought to be appropriate technology turns out to be highly inappropriate, for various and sometimes not very obvious reasons (to the inventors), as Rachel suggests.
As for improved processing of traditional crops, this is indeed an area that is lagging in Africa compared to other regions, and here I’m thinking of India and some of the micro-processing innovations that have been developed.
A few other thoughts on the topic:
First, I didn’t mean to sound quite so negative – in fact, some very interesting R/D is now being implemented at several of the CGIAR centers. See especially the links on these two pages from IITA (International Institute for Tropical Agriculture):
Roots & Tubers:
http://www.iita.org/cms/details/root_tuber_details.aspx?newsid=272&zoneid=70&activity=Roots%20and%20Tubers%20Systems&a=188
Cerials & Legumes:
http://www.iita.org/cms/details/cereal_legume_details.aspx?newsid=269&zoneid=67&activity=Cereals%20and%20legumes%20systems&a=185
About 15 years ago I was invited to conduct several training courses at IITA with about 30 plant and agroforestry scientists from across Africa, on methods to develop research protocols such that the perspectives of *farmers* are given top priority. At the time, this was an entirely new concept and was met with considerable skepticism; scientists with whom I worked had all been trained in European and North American universities and had inculcated the notion that ‘good science’ stays in the lab (or research field plots). Even farmer-managed field trials were, at that time, actually planned and directed by the researchers!
I was invited to conduct similar training – or received grants to better understand local systems of production – from other members of the CG system – namely IFPRI, ILRI, and ICRAF. And was also invited to conduct related activities with the National Academy of Sciences and with the World Bank’s (then) Environment Division for Africa. In nearly all cases, the concept of designing (applied) research problems or evaluations to take into acount *a local pespective* was often viewed with suspicion and sometimes outright contempt.
Really, it is a pleasure to see that quite a change has been taking place-!
As for how traditional diets differ from those of the northern hemisphere, here is an interesting excerpt from travellers in Africa from the early 19th.C.:
“Travels of Richard & John Lander, into the Interior of Africa, for the Discovery of the Course & Termination of the Niger… ” by Robert Huish. London 1836.
The present inhabitants, though possessing abundance of cattle and corn, eat without scruple rats, moles, squirrels, snakes, locusts, &c. The attendants of Mr. Park were one evening invited to a feast, where making a hearty meal of what they thought to be fish and kouskous, one of them found a piece of hard skin in the dish, which he brought away with him, to show Mr. Park what sort of fish they had been eating. On examining the skin, it was discovered they had been feasting on a large snake…
…In the afternoon, they arrived at Sooseta, a Jallonka village, in the district of Kullo, a tract of country lying along the banks of the Black River… With much difficulty they procured huts to sleep in, but could not obtain any provisions, as there had been a scarcity before the crops were gathered in, during which all the inhabitants of Kullo had subsisted upon the yellow powder of the _nitta_, a species of the mimosa, and the seeds of the bamboo, which, when properly prepared, tastes nearly similar to rice. As the provisions of the coffle were not exhausted,
kouskous was dressed for supper, and several villagers were invited to partake…
And, on the genetic superiority (survival-wise) of indigenous breeds, here is a nice comment from Speke on his travels in Somaliland in the early 19th.C.:
Speke-“What Led to the Discovery of the Source of the Nile ”
I was very much struck with the sleekness of the sheep, considering there appeared nothing for them to live upon; but I was shown amongst the stony ground here and there a little green pulpy-looking weed, an ice plant called Buskàlé, succulent, and by repute highly nutritious. It was on this they fed and throve. These Dumba sheep–the fat-tailed breed–appear to thrive on much less food, and can abstain longer from eating, than any others. This is probably occasioned by the nourishment they derive from the fat of their tails, which acts as a reservoir, regularly supplying, as it necessarily would do, any sudden or excessive drainage from any other part of their systems.
Diana, sorry, I let your comments slip somehow on the journey back from the United States.- As usual, I learned a lot. And no, I did not think you were overly negative before. I remember vividly when I was in Nigeria how agronomists trained in England would turn up and advise on how to improve the farming. It struck me even then as just a tad idiotic that people who had never clapped eyes on cassava or yams were nattering on about how to grow them.