Print This PageGrowing Hope in Africa
Working with Partners To Accomplish More
There are many different crops, farm sizes, and agronomic conditions across Africa. Monsanto has been working in agriculture in Africa for more than 50 years.1 We have a number of different commercial business models that effectively provide customers large and small with relevant products. These include maize seed and technology in South Africa, vegetable and maize seeds in East Africa, and crop chemicals in West Africa.
But many African farmers have needs that can’t be met today by commercial channels. Subsistence farmers, as well as those who produce enough to provide for themselves and a little to sell in most years, remain vulnerable to poverty and hunger when crops fail. Achieving true food security and sustained prosperity in Africa’s diverse rural communities requires partnerships among private companies, public agencies, and nongovernment organizations (NGOs). Each group has unique strengths and expertise to contribute.
Siaya is one of the poorest districts in Kenya. The district is 600 square miles, but has only 56 miles of paved roads. Subsistence farmers in Siaya have plots ranging from 1/8-acre to 1-acre; grow corn, sorghum, beans, and other crops for household consumption. Most farmers who produce a surplus one year are unable to process or store it until they can get the best prices in the local market. Even if they were to generate additional income and wished to invest in high-yielding hybrid seeds, there are only a few dozen trading centers in the district with few supplies.
Achieving true food security and sustained prosperity in Africa’s diverse
rural communities requires partnerships.
One partnership tackling the local challenges in Siaya is the Business Alliance against Chronic Hunger (BAACH). In December 2006, a group of international, regional, and national companies collaborated with the government of Kenya and nongovernmental organizations. They agreed on a single focus: to apply all available private-sector expertise to develop new strategies to increase food production, nutrition, and incomes.5
The participating companies wanted to leverage their expertise and capabilities to improve value chains — from production, processing and packaging to retailing and marketing — through business development and market linkages. Companies implement these solutions in partnership with governments, NGOs, international agencies, and local communities. In Kenya, the BAACH action plan is to improve production of staple and high-value crops and to strengthen entrepreneurship.
One action that has already had an effect is a pilot voucher program for agricultural inputs. It has provided more than 10,000 farmers in the Siaya district with access to their choice of maize seeds and fertilizer.5
A key feature is that smallholder farmers are issued vouchers that can be redeemed for discounted seed and fertilizer at their local input dealers (stockists). Stockists are often the most sustainable and effective distribution channel to serve smallholder farmers in rural areas, so this program reinforces food security and local businesses at the same time. A business model for packaging, storing, selling, and processing surplus maize has also been developed. It could benefit up to 12 percent of the district population.5
Monsanto is an active partner in the BAACH program in Siaya, Kenya, as well as in other partnerships across Africa that are making a real difference for thousands of farmers, their families, and their communities. A few of these joint projects are described below.
MILLENNIUM VILLAGES
The Millennium Villages Project is an arm of the Millennium Promise organization. Monsanto has made a commitment to the program, through 2010, to donate 240 tons of high-quality hybrid maize seed each year to villages in Malawi, Tanzania and Kenya, enough to reach 24,000 smallholder farming families.6 The Millennium Villages Project ensures that the seed is coupled with effective development efforts, so that resource-poor farmers have access to all the tools they need for successful agriculture: quality seeds, fertilizer, extension services, credit, markets, and knowledge of best management practices from their local environment. In the past year, Monsanto’s vegetable seed company, Seminis, also donated vegetable seed to the Millennium Village Project in Malawi to help diversify farm production and nutrition.
HUNGER PROJECT MALAWI
The Hunger Project Malawi (THP-Malawi) works in five sections of the country to improve food security, water supply and sanitation, microcredit, education, and health services for a population of 85,000. For the last several years, THP-Malawi has procured hybrid maize seed from Monsanto on behalf of farmers in the program because they expressed satisfaction with the products. In addition, Monsanto field representatives provide farmers in the program with training and advice about how to get the best yields from the seed.
CLINTON GLOBAL INITIATIVE
Monsanto is a member of the Clinton Global Initiative. Monsanto’s commitment to support African agriculture is renewed annually and put into action through the projects described in this section.
NETWORK FOR THE GENETIC IMPROVEMENT OF COWPEA FOR AFRICA (NGICA)
The cowpea, also called the black-eyed pea, is a staple grown across western Africa. It is essential for the nutritional health in the region. Unfortunately, up to 90 percent of the crop can be lost to insects. Monsanto researchers are working with NGICA scientists, USAID, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the African Agricultural Technology Foundation to develop insect-resistance technology for the cowpea. Early results are promising, and confined field trials are planned for 2008.
MONSANTO FUND
The Monsanto Fund is our company’s philanthropic foundation.7 One of its focus areas is to improve nutritional well-being through agriculture. The Monsanto Fund supports several projects in Africa. In 2006, the Fund announced a $15 million gift to the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center. Half of the gift will support work on high-yield crops for Africa, including c assava resistant to mosaic virus. More information on Monsanto Fund grant recipients is available in this section and at www.MonsantoFund.org.
