Africa’s small-scale revolution against big agriculture: five farmers talk greener, better food

Devotees of agroecology tell the Guardian about their rejection of chemicals and fertilisers to create diverse and thriving crops

From degraded fields being brought back to fertile life to community gardens flourishing as food co-operatives, a growing revolution is happening in countries across the African continent.

The climate crisis, conflict and the dominance of multinationals with industrial-scale production for export have popularised the concept of agroecology – promoting small-scale farming and farmers, protecting biodiversity and adapting traditional methods that do away with the need for chemicals and expensive fertilisers.

The Guardian spoke to five devotees of greener, better food.

Asmelash Dagne, Ethiopia

In a single year, a farm boasting little more than a pair of forlorn-looking coffee trees was transformed into a lush place of thriving and diverse crops, all playing a role in the mini ecosystem. Fennel protects the salad leaves from pests while sweet potato plants hold water in the soil. Soon, neighbouring farmers came knocking to find out what the secret was, says Asmelash Dagne, who trains farmers in Ethiopia in agroecology.

An environmentalist with a science background, Dagne believes balanced environments that do not draw excessive water, pollute or need costly chemicals or energy supplies are crucial. He says the lack of fertiliser supplies, as a result of stocks being delayed by the Ukraine war, was a lesson in how vulnerable farmers can be unless they adapt.

“Big companies give seed, fertilisers, pesticides and this becomes the business. Governments tell farmers: you need to use this, you need to do it this way to feed ourselves better. But we already have existing practices which feed from generation to generation,” he says.

Dagne is proud that farmers he works with have been able to avoid the need for pumping water for irrigation by collecting rainwater. A traditional method has been adapted using a system of intersecting trenches.

He says that over time the water seeps into the soil, adding to the groundwater that helps crops to flourish.

“The feedback from farmers is these methods are productive. They can feed their families. They can eat more diverse food. They are resilient because the soil is so rich with organic matter that it can hold water for longer, so the drought seasons are not affecting them that much,” he says.

Themba Chauke, South Africa

In Limpopo in north South Africa, everyone ate what they could grow. Now the supermarket reigns supreme with convenient, longlife produce. But that costs money and Themba Chauke saw many of his neighbours become indebted purely trying to feed their families on low salaries.

“We also learned our lesson during Covid to produce our own food because people were told to stay at home and they didn’t have access to food,” Chauke says.

Chauke had been working with community radio for his Tsonga ethnic group, but moved into creating community gardens that provide education and space for people to grow quality food.

They largely use traditional farming techniques, with some adaptations, moving from growing just one crop a year to using the winter season for cash crops such as spinach, tomatoes, cabbages and onions.

Everything is planted together, a traditional method of intercropping that he says helps the gardens thrive, with some crops warding off pests and others enriching the soil.

Ska Moteane, Lesotho

Beans had always been a staple of the Basotho kitchen but Ska Moteane found they were steadily being replaced by meat and fast food. Her people were even forgetting their own recipes.

Despite being a chef, she did not know how to cook the dishes she had grown up on, and her education at culinary school in South Africa had focused on European cuisine. So she decided to document what was at risk of being lost.

Now Moteane serves those dishes herself and encourages others to cook them, sourcing ingredients directly from the farmers growing beans and crops such as sorghum that are central to Basotho culture but not bought by supermarkets, which stock their shelves with imported products seen as superior.

“Sorghum is considered for poor people. You have people who still have that mindset. That’s what we are fighting against,” she says.

She does see progress and believes that promoting Basotho culture helps to save traditional crops and allows local people to grow them.

“We used to see that the farmers would have bales and bales of sorghum or maize until it would go bad. Now they are able to sell pretty much everything. So there is a shift, and it can only get better.”

Stephan Katongole, Uganda

When Stephan Katongole’s father returned to Uganda in the early 2000s after decades abroad, he planted coffee trees on the family’s hitherto abandoned farmland with the aim of commercial production.

Despite having no agricultural experience, Katongole took over the land 13 years ago, when his father was too old to manage it. He saw that the old ways were not working – coffee on the commodity market earned very little money for producers, but speciality coffee, grown through agroforestry, would be more successful.

Katongole slowly transformed the vast lines of coffee trees to a more diverse space, where they coexist with other plants. He says monocropping – large farms producing a single crop – should no longer be seen as a solution.

“We have to try to mimic what was there before we came into the system. We brought nature out of balance with what we were doing. So my advice would be, try to do everything you can to mimic those forests which were already there by planting trees.”

Edie Mukiibi, Slow Food International

A drought showed Edie Mukiibi the shortcomings of industrial scale agriculture. He was part of a trial that encouraged farmers to invest in a breed of maize that they were all told would be drought resistant with the help of the fertilisers they were sold. Then drought came and they lost everything.

Mukiibi grew up learning traditional farming methods, but at university he was taught that technology and large-scale agriculture were the solution for Africa.

Now he is pushing back against “big agriculture”, promoting more time-tested and diverse methods of farming.

Mukiibi farmed in Uganda but is now the president of Slow Food International, promoting more sustainable production and consumption globally.

There have been challenges, he says, with agriculture giants claiming agroecology cannot deliver at scale. He believes this message is undermining and unwelcome, and that the agroecology movement is having success across Africa.

“I’ve travelled to more than 30 African countries, meeting farmers in the communities, and many express the fear and worry that they cannot catch up with the seed system controlled by big business,” says Mukiibi.

“It is so important not to lose the argument because then we hand our future to the corporations and their intention is not to feed anyone.

 

Cover photo: By The Guardian