Day: September 26, 2021

New farming technologies have the potential to improve livelihoods and food security in Sub-Saharan Africa. Better seed varieties, soil fertility practices and pest management can all increase productivity. A United Nations Development Programme report says growth in the region’s agriculture is more effective than other economic sectors when it comes to ending hunger and reducing poverty.

Steps have been taken over decades to enhance farmers’ access to improved seeds and technologies that are essential to stimulate agricultural transformation on the continent. The efforts were at both local, national and regional levels by government and donors.

But studies continue to show that the adoption rate of modern technologies is low among the region’s farmers. This situation has resulted in poor agricultural productivity, high-levels of food insecurity and rural poverty. Over 65% of the households in Sub-Saharan Africa are mainly smallholder farmers, many are poor and vulnerable.

Smallholder farmers in the region have a common problem. They tend to lack access to the finance they need to adopt modern technologies. Finance could be in the form of loans or credit.

Using the case of rice farming in Ghana, we conducted a study to understand the challenges smallholder farmers face in accessing loans. We wanted to find out if this was preventing them from adopting modern technologies, and whether these technologies would improve their productivity and incomes.

We found that banks and financial institutions don’t trust smallholder farmers. They relay their mistrust by, for example, requesting outrageous collateral, a high sum of savings capital, and a high-interest rate for agriculture loans. There are also usually long delays in accessing any funds.

We suggest mechanisms to improve access to finance that would help farmers produce more rice.

Our research

We interviewed 100 smallholder rice farmers in the Shia-Osuduku district in the Greater Accra region of Ghana. In focus group discussions and interviews, we asked about access to credit and loans, and how this influenced their use of modern production technologies.

We focused on rice farmers because rice is the second most important food crop in Africa. Rice is also a significant source of income for rural farmers. In Ghana, rice is the second most important cereal and is fast becoming a cash crop for many farmers. Rice demand in Ghana is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 11.8%.

At the moment, most rice farmers are planting old rice variety seeds using broadcast seeding. These give poor yields compared to those using modern technologies. Such technologies include new rice varieties, a high-capacity thresher for rice, a mobile application called RiceAdvice that provides tips on rice farming, mechanical weeders that could reduce labour in rice production, and localised farmer advice for nutrient management.

These farmers are optimistic that if they can access these technologies, they will obtain better yields and improve livelihoods but said during a focus group discussion:

We are poor farmers and cannot afford these technologies unless we get some financial support from government or we get loans from banks to invest in these technologies.

Another farmer said:

If you are lucky and you get money from the bank on time, and you invest it in modern technologies, you are sure of a good yield.

Our study revealed that the greatest obstacle to access loans from banks and village savings companies by farmers is the inability of smallholder farmers to pay back loans when the harvest fails or they suffer post-harvest crop losses. A situation that is likely to be reduced to near zero when farmers adopt modern rice technologies that have been proven to be climate-smart as well.

These financial institutions, usually village savings and loan group, microfinance companies or rural banks don’t trust that farmers will be able to repay loans. So they use certain tactics to avoid granting loans. For example they are unwilling to share information about innovative financial products. Or they insist on farmers having huge amount of saving capital before borrowing. Some financial institutions demand outrageous collateral and multiple guarantors for credit. Others impose high interest rates beyond the 31% average interest rate set by the Bank of Ghana in 2017.

Some institutions erect unnecessary bureaucratic delays to process loans for smallholder farmers.

Microfinance companies and rural banks are more willing to approve credit facilities and loans to non-agricultural sectors than to smallholder farmers. Nevertheless, our study shows that farmers who invest in modern technologies such as improved seeds and fertiliser see an increase in yields and household income, and are able to pay back their loan on time.

Overall, 88% of the rice farmers interviewed said their inability to adopt modern technologies to improve productivity and achieve household economic well-being was connected to their lack of access to loans to invest in these technologies.

What we recommend

To improve smallholder farmers’ access to loans, government must provide support for the sector. It can introduce agriculture insurance policy systems to reduce the risk of non-payment of loans if harvests fail. This is essential to addressing mistrust by financial institutions of smallholder farmers.

Smallholder farmers should also develop a saving culture and join farmer group associations for collective bargaining for loans from financial institutions.

Innovative solutions such as a warehouse receipt financing system that allows farmers to deposit their harvest in a certified warehouse and then be issued with a document called warehouse receipt that they can use to access loans from financial institutions, would address two barriers: lack of savings and lack of collateral and guarantors.

The banks and other financial institutions must employ innovative ways to reduce the bureaucracy in processing loan facilities. They should make more effort to educate farmers about their processes and requirements to acquire loans before the onset of the rainy season. This is critical to enable smallholders to prepare adequately before applying for credit.

Source: The Conversation Media Group Ltd

Several thousand demonstrators rallied Sunday in the Tunisian capital to protest President Kais Saied's seizure of power, calling on him to step down in the biggest show of public anger since his intervention.

Saied this week brushed aside much of the 2014 constitution, giving himself power to rule by decree two months after he sacked the prime minister, suspended parliament and assumed executive authority.

"The people want the fall of the coup," chanted the crowd on Tunis's Habib Bourguiba Avenue, a focal point of the demonstrations that ended the rule of former President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali on January 14, 2011. "Step down."

Police maintained a heavy presence around the demonstration and set up barricades.

The crisis has endangered the democratic gains that Tunisians won in the 2011 revolution that triggered the Arab Spring protests and has slowed efforts to tackle an urgent threat to public finances.

Saied has said his actions, which his opponents have called a coup, are needed to address a crisis of political paralysis, economic stagnation and a poor response to the coronavirus pandemic. He has promised to uphold rights and not become a dictator.

Nadia Ben Salem said she traveled 500 km (310 miles) from the south to express her anger.

"We will protect democracy … the constitution is a red line," she said, holding up a copy of the constitution.

Support for Saied

Saied still has wide support among many Tunisians who are tired of corruption and poor public services and say his hands are clean. Dozens of his supporters appeared at the demonstration. Police separated the two camps.

"We support Saied because he declared war against a corrupt political class," said a man who would only give his first name, Ahmed.

Saied has not put any time limit on his seizure of power but said he would appoint a committee to help draft amendments to the 2014 constitution and establish "a true democracy in which the people are truly sovereign."

Teacher Abdelfattah Saied said it was time for the president to go.

"He is acting like he is the sun that is rising on the country, the general prosecutor, the president, the parliament, the government. Like he is everything," he said.

Clear escalation

Political analyst Slaheddine Jourchi said the protest was a clear escalation against the president and that there was a risk of further divisions among Tunisians if the doors of political dialog remained closed.

Tunisia's largest political party, the moderate Islamist Ennahda, called for people to unite and defend democracy in "a tireless, peaceful struggle."

Ennahda has been the most powerful party in Tunisia since the 2011 revolution that led to the ousting of Ben Ali, playing a role in backing successive coalition governments.

But Saied's actions have left it facing a split. More than 100 prominent officials of Ennahda, including lawmakers and former ministers, resigned on Saturday in protest at the leadership's performance.

After the intervention, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt, which have long mistrusted Islamists across the Middle East, indicated their support for Saied.

Tunisia's influential labor union on Friday rejected key elements of Saied's actions and warned of a threat to democracy. The first protest against Saied since his intervention on July 25 took place last week.

Source: Voice of America

Colonialism — and, more specifically, decolonization — is a sensitive societal issue. Statues have been pulled down so as not to celebrate the legacies of slave traders or politicians deemed offensive; student activists from Canada to South Africa want to rid themselves of Eurocentric reading lists; and museums are wrestling with how to represent African and North American Indigenous Peoples.

Questions are also bound to be raised about the occupation of Afghanistan now that the international community has withdrawn and the Taliban have taken over. There can be little doubt that for the past 20 years, Afghanistan has been a colonized state.

Observers both within Afghanistan and outside the country fear the Taliban’s return to power will erase 20 years of human rights progress, particularly for Afghan women. There have already been reports that the Taliban have revelled in sabotaging critical road and infrastructure built by American forces.

Punishing the Taliban for harbouring al-Qaida

The 2001 invasion of Afghanistan by the United States was motivated by no other purpose than to end the Taliban’s sanctuary to al-Qaida terrorists who were responsible for the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center. Indeed, with the exception of the destruction of sixth-century Buddhas and the attention New York Times journalist Bob Herbert paid to the treatment of women under Taliban rule prior to the U.S. invasion, Afghanistan was largely ignored by the international community.

American intervention had nothing to do with human rights and everything to do with U.S. self-interest. Only once the Taliban were removed did President George W. Bush boast: “We continue to help the Afghan people lay roads, restore hospitals and educate all of their children.” This is often a convenient rationalization for colonial rule.

While the West paid lip service to Afghan traditional political institutions, such as the Loya Jirga — an assembly established to select leaders and air the day’s grievances — they could not have operated in the absence of American power, as the U.S. withdrawal has now made clear. This is the unavoidable irony — sustaining local institutions required outside power.

Afghans and non-Afghans alike rightly despair about the future. “It all stands to be lost,” Khaled Hosseini, the author of The Kite Runner, recently told the CBC. Many mainstream news organizations have accused Canada and the West of abandoning and betraying Afghanistan.

But how can we reconcile these competing claims that colonialism of any kind is detrimental with this more specific view that Afghanistan has been “failed by the West?”

Progress was made

Several Canadian diplomats warned against the 2001 invasion of distant, culturally unfamiliar states. Canadian diplomat Robert Fowler, who spent 130 days as a hostage of al-Qaida in West Africa, argued that a more effective approach is to punish the terrorists rather than engage in too much social engineering.

Intervention cannot be about turning states “into Saskatchewan or Nebraska,” he said in reference to Mali. “And it won’t be about exporting our social safety net or funding a government or anything else.”

There’s no doubt progress was made in Afghanistan, at least initially. Schools were open for everyone, a democratic process was established, the rights of women were acknowledged and women served in the government.

But these rights and gains do not represent self-determination if they are dependent on American power.

So what’s to be done? There have been signs that ordinary Afghans are prepared to take risks of their own in order to protect a way of life more in line with liberal-democratic norms. That’s a positive outcome in terms of the well-being of Afghan women, in particular.

But it would be almost impossible for local forces to take down the Taliban again in the absence of American military power, and it would require further conflict. It’s ironic that with the American withdrawal, the total collapse of the U.S.-backed government and the Taliban victory, Afghanistan is now closer to peace than it has been in decades.

Animosity towards the West

Westerners shouldn’t delude themselves that Afghans were unreservedly grateful for the American presence over the past 20 years.

As much as they hate the Taliban, many Afghans also hated the corrupt warlords recruited by the West to impose order in a state with no consolidated political infrastructure.

In many cases, the mere presence of western forces elicited animosity. Indeed, portraying the occupation as an invasion from the West has been an effective way for hardline groups like the Taliban to gain power.

While liberal democracy may be the only acceptable form of government in western countries, it can be a hard sell in Muslim states that were themselves once colonized by those same liberal democracies.

Contrary, then, to what’s been said about Afghanistan being a “failed state,” the country under the Taliban was, and perhaps is again, relatively viable, although theocratic. It was Afghanistan as a liberal democracy that proved to be a failure.

Democratic and human rights often depend on power that can only come from outside. But those who want change only through intervention should also be clear about the moral implications — and the long-term costs — they’re willing to assume in sustaining Afghanistan as a colonial state.

Instead, maybe those concerned about the well-being of Afghan citizens should not be fearful of standing aside and letting them sort out for themselves the kind of country they want.

Source: The Conversation Media Group Ltd

Sudan's military said on Sunday it had repelled an attempted incursion by Ethiopian forces in the border area between the two countries.

The Ethiopian forces had been forced to retreat from the Umm Barakit area, a military statement said, without giving further details.

The head of Sudan's military, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, told reporters the incident took place on Saturday. He said it showed how the military was protecting the country in the wake of a coup attempt in Khartoum last week.

Colonel Getnet Adane, Ethiopia's military spokesperson, did not immediately respond to request for comment.

Tensions along the border between Sudan and Ethiopia have escalated since the outbreak of a conflict in Ethiopia's northern Tigray region last year that sent tens of thousands of refugees into eastern Sudan.

The tensions have focused on an area of fertile farmland known as al-Fashqa, where the border is disputed.

Source: Voice of America