FAO Conference Is Set: UN Unit Follows African, Asian Answers to Famine Problems

ROME – From the abandoned, barren farmlands of Africa, the fields of Asia have begun to look irrepressibly fertile – almost otherworldly.

As Africa has battled drought and mismanagement of its agriculture, with accompanying massive famine, Asia has managed the made the threat of famine a thing of the past.

The different histories of African and Asian agriculture have prompted officials at Rome’s UN World Food Council to organize a major food policy conference to be held in China next spring.

The conference will bring together African and Asian agriculture experts to examine systematically the Asian agricultural “success story” and to propose policies which may help Africa reverse its current agricultural problems, on the basis of the “Asian model,” according to conference organizer Maurice Williams, executive director of the World Food Council (WFC).

“Africans are intrigued by the way Asian countries have tackled their food problems,” Williams says. ‘They think, ‘If they could do it, perhaps we can too.’”

What the Asians have done is dramatically reverse their status as food importers to become agriculturally self-sufficient. China even provided 120 tons of food aid to Africa in 1984, though a decade ago China was not producing enough food to feed itself.

“Africa policy planners are thinking that maybe in fifteen years, Africa can be on top of its food production problem too,” said Williams, who negotiated the meeting between the African and Asian countries, and the host country of China.

One underlying theme of the China conference will be the need for African governments to follow the Asian example in upping their budget allocation for the agricultural sector, Williams said. The precise date and site in China for the conference have not yet been set.

Despite the setting of the conference in a communist country, the director stressed that discussion would not focus on ideological debates over whether state-run farms are more productive than farms in free-enterprise systems.

But he noted that China’s new private-profit agricultural scheme, which allows Chinese peasants to grow and market crops privately is a key factor in the “tremendous increase” in agricultural production in the past four years.

China’s new “household responsibility system,” together with better prices paid for crops grown for the commune, resulted in a coarse grave harvest of 400 million tons in 1984 – a record crop for China.

Williams visited China two years ago to see the impact of the reform. In meetings with peasants, many expressed their pleasure at being able to “control their own time,” he said.

“One farmer told me, ‘Gee, I don’t have to get up in the morning to meet with the brigade leader about my farm activities for the day. I get up when I want to – when there’s something I have to do,” Williams related.

Williams noted that when the state gets too heavy, and farmers have to punch cards like factory workers, the effects on food output are negative.

“The Russian system is like that,” said Williams. But he asserted that farming could flourish under socialist regimes as well as capitalist – as long as the right incentives are provided.

“Hungary and Yugoslavia are two communist countries which, in the past ten years, have invested more in their rural sectors, and gotten results,” he said. “The recent extraordinary changes in China’s socialist economy, which have generated the record harvest, have been noted by many UN officials.

“It’s nothing short of an agricultural revolution,” said US Ambassador to the UN food agencies Millicent Fenwick this spring.

Williams said the “free market vs. socialist” debate would not be a part of next spring’s conference. He said participants would examine policies to increase food production that could apply to any country.

“Farming is independent of ideology. If the farmer gets incentives to produce, he’ll produce, regardless of whether he’s in a free market or socialist country,” said the 65-year-old Canadian director.

One theme underlying discussion at the China conference will be the need for African governments to allocate a greater portion of their budgets to agriculture,” Williams said.

Asian countries have doubled their investments in agriculture in the past fifteen years, while most African countries have reduced theirs, said Williams, whose agency’s mission is to analyze and recommend food policy to governments and food- and agriculture-related agencies.

“The reality to solving the food problem is the budget,” Williams noted. “Most Asian countries have increased their investment in agriculture from 6% to 12-18%. The results have been remarkable. On the other hand, African investment still averages around 6%. Most African governments have pumped resources out of the agricultural sectors, and poured them into cities. Recent exceptions to this trend include the Ivory Coast, Malawi, and Ghana. Asian countries like India had also neglected their agricultural sectors, but learned from their errors sooner. The major food shortages that generated the world food crisis in 1974 came from Asia.”

China proposed to host the conference last year, after a World Food Council conference on national food policy was held in Abidjan, Ivory Coast. According to the Chinese delegate to the UN food agencies, the communist country invited Africans to confer in China and “visit its fields” because China had undergone agricultural problems in the past like those facing Africa today.

“We’ve had the same bitter experience as Africa,” said Chinese representative Kong Candon, referring to droughts and flooding that had caused hunger in the country of over one billion. “Even though we’re a developing country, we think developing countries should help each other.”

China, which has periodically provided funds and technicians for African agricultural projects before, assisted Africa this spring when it pledged $1 million for agricultural rehabilitation projects it will administer over the next three years in Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Kenya, Mauritania, Niger and Somalia. China currently has a ten-member medical team working in Ethiopia, and has offered to send agricultural technicians to the continent’s drought-affected countries if requested.

Williams said Africans attending the conference would learn about the Asian experience in cutting out the middlemen who “paid the farmers too little while making the consumer pay too much.”

He cited the example of India, where state-run “fair price shops” have been set up in the past five years to compete with cut-throat private retailers to lower the cost of food across the market.

Subsidies to farmers and very poor consumers would also be discussed from the Asian perspective.

“Pakistan, Bangladesh and India have all realized that to get subsistence farmers to grow for the market, their governments have to provide fertilizers and capital. As the farmers get accustomed to growing for the market, these inputs are reduced. The farmer takes them over himself,” Williams said.

Asia’s rapid build-up of reserve grain stocks from the village to the national level will also be discussed.

“Asians use almost every kind of storage now, from the very modern to the simple. When I was in China, I visited attics where families kept their own reserves in big wooden crates.”

The director added that technical factors related to the production of rice and wheat, as well as irrigation and fertilizing techniques would also be presented to the African participants for discussion.

“Much more research needs to be done to see what Africa and Asia have in common in terms of crop types, soil, climate. We’re really breaking new ground.”

He added that Asia’s “success story” had not been free of problems. Most notably, it had increased the numbers of landless people, and aggravated poverty in some regions.

“I don’t think the Asian countries will be too willing to point these things out,” he said.

The World Food Council will also sponsor a workshop on food policy in South America next March. South America currently imports one-half of its food. The workshop will be held in Argentine, and will be funded by the Inter-American Bank.

The International Courier
18 July 1985