African smallholders squeezed out by the Green Revolution, hunger remains unsolved, transnational alliance pushes for food sovereignty

The agricultural "Green Revolution," which emphasizes high yields, came to Africa under the banner of ending hunger, but it did not bring vibrant life. This ancient continent remains dark, and more than 200 million people in sub-Saharan Africa are still malnourished.

Million Belay, a researcher from Ethiopia at Stockholm University in Sweden and founder of the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA), said the problem lies in the measurement indicator tied to the Green Revolution, "Food Security," which "focuses on output and does not care how it is produced or who produces it."

The approach to solving hunger ignores the situation of small-scale producers, like searching only where there is street lighting and never groping into the dark, so the lost key can never be found.

During the second "Agroecology" symposium held at the Rome headquarters of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Belay said in an exclusive interview with The News Lens reporters that although food security also covers sub-indicators such as storage, transport and distribution, it still does not get to the crux. The concept of "Food Sovereignty" must replace it: "Only by incorporating environmental, cultural and human rights dimensions and promoting agroecology can Africa's hunger problem possibly be solved."

Ignoring food sovereignty, free trade leaves one at the mercy of others

With rapidly advancing technology and the international trade architecture shaped by neoliberalism, agricultural products flow freely across national borders. Promoting agricultural trade according to local endowments and each country's comparative advantage is more in line with the efficiency advocated by economics. Is emphasizing the food self-sufficiency rate of local production not outdated?

Belay first clarified that "although food security includes the food self-sufficiency rate, it is limited within national borders. By contrast, food sovereignty is a broader concept. Moreover, the food self-sufficiency rate does not touch on issues of the quality and rights of agricultural products."

Although, when analyzed through the concept of food security, excessive reliance on imports and a suppressed food self-sufficiency rate are also full of risk. "The definition of food security mentions 'at all times,' meaning not only in peacetime." Belay asked in return: "Once there is any crisis, and the original exporting countries refuse to supply or no longer produce, what will importing countries do?" Major grain-exporting countries usually also control pricing power, enough to influence economic trends. "In other words, importing countries have placed food sovereignty in the hands of others."

Even for the same agricultural product, producing it abroad also makes quality and the production process harder to control, raising the cost of monitoring.

There is also a cultural cost. "Countries that rely on agricultural imports often also lose their food and agricultural culture. Many modern children think milk comes from the supermarket and cannot imagine that it comes from dairy cows." Belay believes that under this mindset, not only is culture destroyed, but it also becomes easier to damage nature. In his analysis, food sovereignty is not closed-door protectionism, but rather making clear that under the current free trade structure, the weaker side often has no freedom at all and ends up being carved up at will.

As the saying goes: "To win a man's heart, first win his stomach." Applied to the global food and agriculture system: "Win a country's stomach, and you win the country."