| WHY Hunger, Food and Water Watch, and the NYU Wagner School co-hosted an event last Thursday in NYC called "Exposing the Green Revolution: Myths, Realities, and Community Responses," featuring Josphat Ngonyo of the Kenyan Biodiversity Network, Bronx community gardener and food justice leader Karen Washington, and Brother David Andrews, recent Senior Advisor to the President of the UN General Assembly. I had the pleasure of meeting Josphat recently, so it was a real thrill to hear what he had to say once he visited Madison, WI and arrived in New York City. You can listen to the podcast of this event here or read my brief summary below. |
| The overriding theme of the event was "Not About Us Without Us" - in other words, don't do something to help a people without including their input in every step of the way. Don't take a top down paternalistic approach to philanthropy.
Jos told an example from Africa. A philanthropic western group came to Africa to help out. They found a town that needed water, they found water, and they drilled a well. It was a wonderful well. A year later they came back but nobody was using the well. They asked the African people why, and the people responded: You built the well in our graveyard. If the westerners had actually involved the local people, they would have been able to actually help and dig a well that the Africans would use. That's what we risk doing with Green Revolution-style projects.
Jos compared the small holder polyculture style of farming with the large scale monoculture of the U.S. In Kenya, where he is from, small landholders grow a variety of crops all in the same spot: corn, cassava, sugar cane, bananas, sweet potatoes, and more. They don't want American monocultures and the environmental problems that come with them. The problem, he says, is not that they need our style of agriculture. Rather, he says, they need help with irrigation projects, with transportation, and (in some cases) with women's rights. Most of the small farmers in Africa are women, but in some places women cannot legally own land. In other cases, they have a lot of food in one place and no way to transport it to where it is needed.
This is in line with an anecdote I recently heard from a friend. He has a friend from Africa (I forget which country) who was accused of genocide. The African nation had a lot of grain in the north, but none in the south. They had other food in the south, just not grain. And in a few months, the grain would grow and they would be OK once again. All they wanted was to transport grain from the north to the south. They asked the U.S. for help. The U.S. refused, but offered to give them U.S. corn instead. The African man said yes, but only if the U.S. would grind it first. Otherwise, he was afraid Africans would plant the GM corn, introducing an unapproved variety of GM corn in their country. The U.S. refused to grind the corn, so the African nation did not accept it. And the newspapers all said that the African man who made the decision was guilty of genocide.
Whatever style of agriculture you favor, this message makes sense. The people that we wish to help ought to be involved in the process of helping them, otherwise the help will not be very good. Let's not dig anymore wells in graveyards. |
