Q is for quotes
Date: 5 October 2014
The latest in our A to Z of food sovereignty in Africa is: Quotes.
“It is not about bread. It is about making money.”
Nigerian agriculture minister Akinwumi Adesina, telling government and business leaders that the best way to spark an agriculture boom is to focus on profit. March 2014.
“Multinational companies are simply here to expand their business. GMO is not a solution to famine.”
Abdallah Mkindi, Coordinator of the Tanzania Alliance for Biodiversity, a coalition of environmental and organic-farming groups. October 2013.
“Africa has to move away from agriculture for food in the stomach to agriculture for wealth into the economy and into the pockets of farmers.”
Martin Bwalya, Director of The Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP), an African Union (AU) initiative. August 2014.
“In many African countries women are major producers of food and the ones who sustain households and communities, yet their role is not always recognised. Despite all their efforts, women remain poor and voiceless. Rural women still face many constraints and problems. For example, as far as land ownership is concerned, women’s rights to land are usually limited by cultural practices. Women also do not have power to influence agriculture policy decisions.”
Mercia Andrews, convenor of the South African branch of the Rural Women’s Assembly, a regional network of rural women. August 2014
The A-Z of Food Sovereignty in Africa shows the positive alternatives to corporate-led agriculture. A new letter was posted each day in the lead up to World Food Day arrived on 16 October 2014.
Africa’s small-scale food producers already know how to produce enough food sustainably to feed themselves but the political and economic rules which govern the food system are set against them. These rules are written by and for multinational companies and political elites, in support of a global food system that benefits them rather than the millions of smallholders and family farmers who produce the food and get little in return.