Feed Africa, Feed the World

            In a video that I watched in one of my agriculture classes, I saw many interesting points about a polyculture in agriculture.  Hugh Grant, the CEO of Monsanto Inc. said that a monoculture would produce the most food.  But Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma, said that a polyculture would be a more sustainable practice for African nations trying to establish a food economy.

            In my opinion, a monoculture of food is a step that is too big for Africa.  Africa is a nation that has been based on its old agriculture styles.  Pollan believes that the farmers are already there, so it would make sense to utilize them.  An increase in local food market is the key to a successful community.

The next thing to do would be to support the market for these foods.  While the farmers are in competition with the import commodities, they cannot win the consumer.  Especially in the places of extreme poverty, the people can only get cheap food.  In order to support these farmers we should only import food only while the local farmers are not producing food.  This way, the farmers can make a profit and not starve while waiting for it to grow.  BUT, in a complete model, the truly sustainable model should be able to produce food year round.  There are ways to grow food for the summer months as well as for the winter months.  In addition, one can preserve food for the winter months as well.

In this model however, the farmers must be able to save seeds (to keep expenses down) and to raise livestock.  The African farmers already know how to farm in a sustainable farm but farmers must have access to information and resources.  Secondly, it would be good if they had competition that they could truly compete with (more than one market and more than one buyer).

I feel that Hugh Grant’s method could work, but it would be too hard on the African nations.  Firstly, because the corporate nature of the industrial farming.  Some farmers would industrialize and begin growing more crops thereby becoming “successful”.  However this would create even more hardship on the farmers who do not follow the industrial process as Monsanto Inc.  Local agriculture would die out and the only food source would be in supermarkets at higher prices than before.  You must remember that the people in these areas are poor and were buying commodity food at low prices.

            Michael Pollan’s model, would help the people to slowly fix the food problem in Africa.  By producing local food, Africans can have cheap, quality food.  So it just seems logical to me that when the world begins supporting local agriculture that it simply fixes many problems in one sweeping blow.