We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Thursday, April 28, 2011

The War on Africa’s Family Farmers

Click here to access article by Joan Baxter from Food Freedom. (Joan Baxter is a journalist, development researcher and award-winning author. Her book: Dust From Our Eyes – An Unblinkered Look at Africa)

While the world is looking ahead at food shortages, agribusiness, food distributors, and retailers see this as another opportunity for profit and plunder in Africa using a strategy that will only bring more poverty, dependency, and ecological damage to the continent.   
The ‘experts’ at the World Bank meeting spoke of boosting ‘the productivity of Africa’s farm sector, creating jobs, improving livelihoods and alleviating poverty’. You’d swear that they were kind, compassionate people sincerely interested in the welfare of Africa’s family farmers and food security on the continent. Until, that is, you examine who they are and what it is they really have in mind for African agriculture.