Cover image courtesy of AP
–by Claire Funk and Jacob Klenke–
Despite the promise of increased food security and economic development in Ethiopia, the Feed the Future initiative may be “updating” traditional farming practices as a shroud to advance the desires of Western donors.
Abstract
To avoid widespread famines and food insecurity in developing countries, Feed the Future (FtF) was created by the Obama administration under the umbrella of USAID. By emphasizing industrial farming, introducing foreign crops, and exacerbating economic disparities, this initiative makes little progress towards obtaining domestic food security and sacrifices something even more critical in the process: food sovereignty. Food sovereignty is the right of people to have access to nutritious, culturally appropriate food that is produced in accordance with a community’s land management values. FtF funding is largely directed toward promoting economic growth of already viable agricultural communities. These communities are prodded to focus on exportable cash crops, not native crops traditionally used for subsistence within Ethiopian borders. Furthermore, areas with purportedly barren soil are precluded from most agricultural developments, as FtF hopes that subsidies in regions with richer soil will spur economic development in other areas. FtF identifies the importance of empowering women in agriculture; however, they fail to create meaningful change that allows women to challenge existing power structures. These aspects of FtF indicate that it is not truly feeding the future of Ethiopia.
Introduction
It has been evident through the history of humanitarian aid in Africa that the intended outcome may be spoiled by unforeseen effects. In aiming to combat food insecurity in Ethiopia, Feed the Future (FtF) is no exception. Even if effective, FtF’s plan to reduce food insecurity will likely cause a sharp divide between geographical regions. Its proposed introduction of industrialized farming will irreversibly alter the agricultural sphere, and focus on cash crops suggests a preoccupation with exports over food security. Questions are also raised in whether or not the food is nutritious and if the people are achieving food sovereignty. Finally, women’s empowerment is raised as a key objective for FtF, but its true efficacy must be evaluated. Ultimately, FtF policy may lead to higher crop production in Ethiopia, but its commitment to food security is dubious.
What is Feed the Future?
Regions within Ethiopia are known to suffer from undernourishment, due to lack of food security, and extreme poverty. For children under the age of five who reside within the FtF zone of influence in Ethiopia, over half are stunted and 12% exhibit signs of wasting according to a 2013 publication.[1] Additionally, over 30% of adults in the zone of influence are living in poverty, where poverty is defined as a daily income of less than $1.25 USD.[2] Beyond these metrics, other socio-economic issues exist in Ethiopia that are related to food security, such as lack of female empowerment and markets that are unconducive to both farmers and farm suppliers.[3] Although there have been intergovernmental initiatives to combat these problems in the past, FtF is an initiative by USAID that combines donors and outside states together with the government of Ethiopia (GoE) to holistically address all of these items.
FtF’s targeted approach recognizes three agricultural regions of Ethiopia: Productive, Pastoral, and Hungry, as defined by their past agricultural performances.[4] Previously, resources have been used to provide direct food aid in times of crises, specifically to Hungry and Pastoral regions. FtF will redirect those efforts to increase the output of Productive Ethiopia. Specifically, FtF will introduce new biotechnology, namely fertilizer and improved seeds; provide training and credit; and engage the private sector with the government to create more viable markets.[5] However, the emphasis will be in Productive Ethiopia, which is already largely food secure. Although a method for implementation is not specifically stated, FtF intends to use the increased output from Productive Ethiopia to increase jobs and food availability in the other two regions.
Methods of Evaluation
Because FtF has many shareholders, quantification of both the problem and the results is imperative. At its outset, FtF provided for a baseline survey to document the problem, but they explicitly stated that future surveys were not scheduled or funded.[6] This implies a reduced interest in the long-term welfare of the program recipients. Furthermore, the initial survey was conducted on contract by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), which is based in Washington, D.C., and the survey was completed using USAID questionnaires.[7] Although the survey contains many metrics regarding nutrition and household wealth, it glosses over any mention of cultural impacts and other items of anthropological concern. It is of critical importance that no readily available large-scale surveys have been published since the original baseline report in 2013.
From a holistic standpoint, there are a myriad of metrics which were not surveyed that may have a detrimental impact on the program. Although the end result of poverty reduction and food security are well quantified, information regarding biotechnology development, roadway infrastructure, and farmer training are seemingly nonexistent. Of these, roadway infrastructure is the most imperative for the success of the Pastoral and Hungry regions; if farm crops cannot travel from the Productive region to the other areas for distribution and processing, the program will be rendered moot in developing the food-insecure regions.[8] Interestingly, one minor report of FtF holistic progress, released in 2016, indicates that the introduction of fertilizers in some farms caused growth in previously unresponsive soils.[9] This small mention potentially invalidates the stratification of Ethiopia into three agricultural regions, as fertilizer could have similar impacts in Pastoral and Hungry regions.
History of Food Security in Ethiopia
FtF is not the first initiative for food security in Ethiopia, so it arrives in an environment where there are expectations about its benefits and its shortcomings. The Ethiopian government began a program entitled Agriculture Development Led Industrialization (ADLI) in 1996 to combat food insecurity by diversifying food inputs for individual households and providing direct food aid in times of exceptional famine. A survey of the Tigray region in Northern Ethiopia before FtF was launched showed a 32% decrease in the food deficit from 2000-2008; this end was accomplished by increasing credit lines to farmers and by bolstering agricultural training extensions.[10] ADLI and its component programs appear effective at improving food security.
Simultaneously in Ethiopia existed the Productive Safety Net Program (PSNP), which was funded from outside donors, such as World Bank, UN, and USAID. PSNP is much like the current FtF program, as it took a holistic approach to food security and economic development; in fact, because it attempted to tackle so many problems, it was accused of being technocratic and overly sophisticated.[11] PSNP involved financial aid and a voluntary land redistribution program, both of which were intended for the poor. However, when the program was implemented, local authorities typically gave the direct financial aid to better-off villagers, but forced the poorest into relocation programs. Local authorities were incentivized to relocate as many people as possible, implicating politics and social stratification in aid.[12]
PSNP showcases a floundering implementation of foreign aid in which the poorest are trampled by the other beneficiaries. FtF seems to be on the cusp of a similar situation; by funding Productive Ethiopia and trusting that the other regions will eventually benefit, many avenues are opened that would completely bypass aid to the regions that need food security.
Land Management and Farming Practices
Land utilization manifests itself as one of the largest unresolved problems of FtF. Between the FtF strategy and other literature, there is a disagreement regarding farm size: large farms are more productive, yet they ultimately reduce food security and local income.[13] Large scale agriculture by foreign investors has demonstrably harmed food security in one region of Ethiopia; although FtF does not necessarily propose foreign investors, the large-scale farming is still a looming specter. Most jobs created by large farms are only seasonal, and the farms take over traditional grazing lands. Furthermore, there exists the question of land ownership, as the Ethiopian government owns the vast majority of rural land. Ultimately, Western donors to programs such as PSNP and FtF wish to see free market forces at play in the creation of large, efficient farms; however, the GoE controls land, seed stock, and credit, so any “free market” may just be a façade for Western exploitation of farms.[14]
Farming practices, too, seem aligned with Western goals and poorly thought out from a pragmatic standpoint. An IFPRI study correlates farm size with mechanization, saying that larger farms are more likely to be mechanized; this concurs with the Western goal of boosting farm size to increase productivity while overlooking poorer regions.[15] Additionally, crop focus is on varieties that are common to Westerners; maize, wheat, coffee, honey, livestock, and dairy are the six value chains emphasized by FtF, but there is no plan for certain regional crops, such as teff, barley, and sorghum. More investigation regarding culturally appropriate crops could have been warranted.[16],[17]
Transnational Corporations: Who does FtF Work For?
Although Ethiopian citizens struggle with food insecurity, the country continues to sell hundreds of thousands of hectares of its land, taking resources from small-holder farmers and consolidating them into the hands of a few transnational companies, all while exporting the majority of its food.[18] The emphasis of the six value chains specified above that heavily favor crops important to Western diets and corporate interests poses an important question: is FtF serving the needs of Ethiopians or its corporate donors? Interestingly, the Multi-Year strategy notes that a seventh value chain for chickpeas was being considered, pending “a unique public-private partnership opportunity with PepsiCo,” the parent company of the popular hummus brand, Sabra. While the Multi-Year strategy seems to convey its support for small-holder farmers in Ethiopia, massive land grabs and public-private partnerships that focus on exportable cash crops threaten the existence of this livelihood, one which 80 percent of citizens participate in and rely on; it’s important to note that this statistic appears in the Multi-Year strategy report not to highlight the importance of investing in these farmers because they comprise a large portion of the population, but to paint them as an impediment to the progress of Ethiopia’s Growth and Transformation Program within the private sector.
Food Security vs. Food Sovereignty
FtF aims to increase household income through agriculture in order to improve nutritional outcomes and promote food security.[19] This pathway assumes that diverse, nutritious foods are accessible and affordable, and that people will purchase food in order to maximize nutrition, not caloric adequacy or to satisfy a specific cultural or individual preference.[20] Many small-holder farmers in Ethiopia currently rely on communally available grazing lands for their livestock or on land they own to grow crops for their livelihood.[21] As land is purchased by transnational corporations, a model of agriculture that FtF promotes, families lose land that was used for grazing and cultivation of crops; this translates to a 15-25% loss of gross annual income and increases the incidence of food insecurity by 23%.[22] Furthermore, households that experience loss of land are 9 times more likely to display severe coping mechanisms such as borrowing food from neighbors, which is culturally shameful.[23]
Often, food security is perceived to be a problem with the quantity of food available; thus, corporations that can efficiently produce large amounts of food are favored over small-holder farmers. The term food security, particularly when utilized by corporations and government initiatives like FtF, undermines the importance of the local food economy, instead favoring a globalized solution that has proven ineffective. Food sovereignty, in contrast, emphasizes the importance of being able to produce food in a way that is in accordance with a community’s land management values and supports access to food that is nutritious and culturally appropriate. Models of food security are what allow for transnational corporations to participate in neocolonial land-grabs at the bequest of government aid organizations, exporting crops to feed other countries but neglecting those who need it locally; however, the food sovereignty framework insists on the right of all people to be nourished and have access to the food grown on their land.[24]
Perpetuation of Economic Stratification
As an illustration, the current food systems within Mozambique and South Africa are quite relatable to the future of FtF in Ethiopia. Like Ethiopia, Mozambique is a recipient of FtF aid, and 95% of its farmland is used by small-holder farmers.[25] However, FtF in Mozambique wishes to centralize the farming power in larger, more efficient industrial farms, just as FtF intends to do in Ethiopia. South Africa, conversely, exports a large amount of wheat to Mozambique, so South Africa seems food secure with a cursory glance. Closer inspection, however, shows that centralized farms in South Africa are eager to sell to foreign markets, but because small-holders were forced off their land, locals struggle to access food. Furthermore, South African grain travels to European markets and manufacturers, where it is transformed into high-priced, processed food that is resold in South Africa. Accordingly, unemployment is rampant in South Africa, and the processed food is prohibitively expensive.[26] Food security may be apparent, but in reality the rich grow richer through exports, and the poor are locked in a stalemate without local food or employment. Without checks and balances on the Ethiopian food system, development into a large-farm scheme may follow the South African model.
Women’s Empowerment
There is a direct relationship between agricultural productivity, reduction in poverty, nutritional outcomes, and the status of women; thus, women’s empowerment is a critical component of FtF’s strategy in Ethiopia.[27] The Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI) was created to assess levels of empowerment to produce better outcomes for women, who comprise 70 percent of the labor performed on farms in Ethiopia.[28],[29] While the WEAI quantitatively measures women’s agency, or “power to,” perform a task or access a space, it lacks a crucial metric for evaluating empowerment: an assessment of the “power within” that women feel, or the perception that women have of being able to access resources or of being entitled to existing in a space.[30] Technically having access to a resource is not empowerment, but feeling able to access a resource and being confident in doing so is; so long as this discrepancy exists in FtF’s evaluation of women’s empowerment, they may report advances in the status of women on the criterion that more programs exist but not have actually changed the perception of gender and power in a meaningful way.
In fact, as O’Hara and Clement note, many of the initiatives to empower women, such as the creation of women’s microfinance and farmers groups, “do little to raise women’s critical consciousness and critically challenge oppressive political-economic structures and social norms.” This happens because these groups keep them “entrenched in female domains”; while a woman can hold a leadership position in one of these targeted groups, she cannot achieve the same power that men are perceived to hold or penetrate traditionally male dominated spaces, such as politics.[31] The WEAI confers legitimacy to the “power to” by including it in their metrics, and erases the importance of the “power within” by excluding it from their metrics; perceptions of power and gender are deeply entrenched in a society’s social and cultural norms, and by handing women roles that reinforce their current relationship to power without giving them the tools to evaluate their position in a hegemonically masculine space, they will be unable to achieve critical consciousness in evaluating their position in society, thus stymying the possibility of social change that truly empowers women. Beginning to include
a method for measuring women’s “power within”, rather than simply their “power to”, is an important first step towards understanding how women perceive their relationship to power and implementing solutions to address structural problems of inequality.
Conclusion
Although Feed the Future was created with the goals of bridging the divide between the Three Ethiopias by bolstering agricultural activity, supporting small-holder farmers, improving nutritional outcomes, and increasing the status of women, the initiatives overwhelmingly cater to the patterns of Western economic development and the United States’ interests.
This post may have been edited by admin for clarity and length.
Works Cited
Primary Sources
“2016 Feed the Future Progress Report.” Feed the Future, 2016, feedthefuture.gov/progress2016/. Accessed 23 Feb. 2018.
Bachewe, Fantu, et al. “Feed the Future (FtF) of Ethiopia – Baseline Report 2013.” Ethiopia Strategy Support Program of the International Food Policy Research Institute, Aug. 2014. essp.ifpri.info/files/2014/12/FTF-baseline-report-FINAL-for-website.pdf. Accessed 10 Mar. 2018.
Berhane, Guush, et al. “Synopsis, Agricultural Mechanization in Ethiopia: Evidence from the 2015 Feed the Future Survey.” ESSP II Research Note 48. International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and Ethiopian Development Research Institute (EDRI), Washington, D.C. and Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 2016. ebrary.ifpri.org/cdm/ref/collection/p15738coll2/id/130142. Accessed 23 Feb. 2018.
“Ethiopia Feed the Future Multi-Year Strategy.” Feed the Future, 30 Nov. 2011, feedthefuture.gov/resource/ethiopia-feed-future-multi-year-strategy. Accessed 23 Feb. 2018.
Secondary Sources
Bishop, Carly, and Hilhorst, Dorothea. “From Food Aid to Food Security: the Case of the Safety Net Policy in Ethiopia.” The Journal of Modern African Studies, vol. 48, no. 2, 2010, pp. 181-202, www.jstor.org/stable/40864714. Accessed 23 Feb. 2018.
Cochrane, Logan. “Food Security or Food Sovereignty: The Case of Land Grabs.” The Journal of Humanitarian Assistance, 5 July 2011.
Du, Lidan, et al. “Leveraging Agriculture for Nutrition Impact through the Feed the Future Initiative.” Advances in Food and Nutrition Research, vol. 74, 2015, pp. 1–46. Science Direct, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/bs.afnr.2014.11.001.
O’Hara, Corey, and Floriane Clement. “Power as Agency: A Critical Reflection on the Measurement of Women’s Empowerment in the Development Sector.” World Development, vol. 106, June 2018, pp. 111–123., DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2018.02.002.
Shete, Maru, and Rutten, Marcel. “Impacts of Large-Scale Farming on Local Communities’ Food Security and Income Levels – Empirical Evidence from Oromia Region, Ethiopia.” Land Use Policy, vol. 47, Sept. 2015, pp. 282–292.
Van der Veen, Anne, and Gebrehiwot, Tagel. “Effect of Policy Interventions on Food Security in Tigray, Northern Ethiopia.” Ecology and Society, vol. 16, no. 1, Mar. 2011, www.jstor.org/stable/26268835. Accessed 23 Feb. 2018.
Other Sources
Burns, Rebecca. “‘Feed the Future’ Plan Repeats Mistakes of the Past.” Common Dreams, 15 Sep. 2010, www.commondreams.org/views/2010/09/15/feed-future-plan-repeats- mistakes-past#. Accessed 23 Feb. 2018.
Mellor, John, and Dorosh, Paul. “Agriculture and the Economic Transformation of Ethiopia.” ESSP2 Working Paper 010. International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), Washington, D.C., 2016. http://www.ifpri.org/publication/agriculture-and- economic-transformation-ethiopia. Accessed 23 Feb 2018.
[1] Fantu Bachewe, et al. “Feed the Future (FtF) of Ethiopia – Baseline Report 2013.” Ethiopia Strategy Support Program of the International Food Policy Research Institute, Aug. 2014.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
[4] “Ethiopia Feed the Future Multi-Year Strategy.” Feed the Future, 30 Nov. 2011.
[5] Ibid.
[6] “Ethiopia Feed the Future Multi-Year Strategy.” Feed the Future, 30 Nov. 2011.
[7] Fantu Bachewe, et al. “Feed the Future (FtF) of Ethiopia – Baseline Report 2013.” Ethiopia Strategy Support Program of the International Food Policy Research Institute, Aug. 2014.
[8] John Mellor and Paul Dorosh. “Agriculture and the Economic Transformation of Ethiopia.” ESSP2 Working Paper 010. International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), Washington, D.C., 2016.
[9] “2016 Feed the Future Progress Report.” Feed the Future, 2016.
[10] Anne Van der Veen and Tagel Gebrehiwot. “Effect of Policy Interventions on Food Security in Tigray, Northern Ethiopia.” Ecology and Society, vol. 16, no. 1, Mar. 2011.
[11] Carly Bishop and Dorothea Hilhorst. “From Food Aid to Food Security: the Case of the Safety Net Policy in Ethiopia.” The Journal of Modern African Studies, vol. 48, no. 2, 2010.
[12] Ibid.
[13] Maru Shete and Marcel Rutten. “Impacts of Large-Scale Farming on Local Communities’ Food Security and Income Levels – Empirical Evidence from Oromia Region, Ethiopia.” Land Use Policy, vol. 47, Sept. 2015.
[14] Ibid.
[15] Guush Berhane, et al. “Synopsis, Agricultural Mechanization in Ethiopia: Evidence from the 2015 Feed the Future Survey.” ESSP II Research Note 48. International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and Ethiopian Development Research Institute (EDRI), Washington, D.C. and Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 2016.
[16] “Ethiopia Feed the Future Multi-Year Strategy.” Feed the Future, 30 Nov. 2011.
[17] Fantu Bachewe, et al. “Feed the Future (FtF) of Ethiopia – Baseline Report 2013.”
[18] Logan Cochrane. “Food Security or Food Sovereignty: The Case of Land Grabs.” The Journal of Humanitarian Assistance, 5 July 2011.
[19] Lidan Du, et al. “Leveraging Agriculture for Nutrition Impact through the Feed the Future Initiative.” Advances in Food and Nutrition Research, vol. 74, 2015.
[20] Ibid.
[21] Maru Shete and Marcel Rutten. “Impacts of Large-Scale Farming”
[22] Ibid.
[23] Ibid.
[24] Logan Cochrane. “Food Security or Food Sovereignty: The Case of Land Grabs.” The Journal of Humanitarian Assistance, 5 July 2011.
[25] Rebecca Burns. “‘Feed the Future’ Plan Repeats Mistakes of the Past.” Common Dreams, 15 Sep. 2010.
[26] Ibid.
[27] “Ethiopia Feed the Future Multi-Year Strategy.” Feed the Future, 30 Nov. 2011.
[28] Ibid.
[29] Fantu Bachewe, et al. “Feed the Future (FtF) of Ethiopia – Baseline Report 2013.”
[30] Corey O’Hara and Floriane Clement. “Power as Agency: A Critical Reflection on the Measurement of Women’s Empowerment in the Development Sector.” World Development, vol. 106, June 2018.
[31] Ibid.
