In early June 2020, the International Panel of Experts in Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-Food), in collaboration with Biovision and the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), released a report that analyzes the important financial flows in food and farming system research that go to sub-Saharan Africa, and why so little of this financial support goes to research in agroecology. Titled “Money Flows: What is holding back investment in agroecological research in Africa?”, the report presents data that shows that only a fraction of agricultural research funding in Africa is being used to bring transformative change to food and farming systems:
• as many as 85% of projects funded by the Gates Foundation, the world’s biggest philanthropic investor in agricultural development, especially in Africa, are limited to spreading the industrial agriculture model, or increasing its efficiency;
• 13% of projects by Kenyan research institutes are agroecological. Another 13% focus on replacing synthetic inputs with organic alternatives;
• as many as 51% of Swiss-funded projects have agroecological components, but only a handful are truly systemic.
Despite these discouraging numbers, approximately 30% of farms around the world are estimated to have redesigned their production systems around agroecological principles. The report finds that support for agroecology is now growing across the agricultural development community, particularly in light of climate change, but this hasn’t yet translated into a meaningful shift in funding flows. The report argues that change can’t come soon enough. Biovision president Hans Herren said “Most governments, both in developing and developed countries still favor ‘green revolution’ approaches, with the belief that industrial agriculture is the only way to produce sufficient food. The same goes for the Gates Foundation and its development agency AGRA. But these approaches have failed. They have failed ecosystems, farming communities, and an entire continent.” Herren added: “With the compound challenges of climate change, pressure on land and water, food-induced health problems and pandemics such as COVID, we need change now. And this starts with money flowing into agroecology.”
To accelerate this shift, the report calls on donors to shift toward long-term, pooled funding models; require projects to be co-designed with farmers and communities; increase the share of funding going to African organizations; and increase transparency in how their projects are funded, monitored, and measured for impact. All of these steps are key elements for doing agroecology.
Olivia Yambi, co-chair of IPES-Food, said about the report: “We need to change funding flows and unequal power relations. It’s clear that in Africa as elsewhere, vested interests are propping up agricultural practices based on an obsession with technological fixes that is damaging soils and livelihoods, and creating a dependency on the world’s biggest agri-businesses. Agroecology offers a way out of that vicious cycle.”
Our journal seeks research that uses agroecological principles and processes to promote transformative food and agricultural system change. Obviously, significant amounts of the financial support that currently flows to industrial agriculture must be channeled to agroecology. This is not only true for Africa but is also the case for food and farming systems in the rest of the world.