Rwanda's Green Revolution

 

Rwandan landscape (Ansoms 2020)

Green revolutions have been the headline policies of sub-Saharan African politics throughout the 21^st Century. They have been implemented in the wake of the south Asian green revolutions of the 1960s and 70s (Dawson et al 2016). Urgency and necessity for such policies has manifested itself through food insecurity worries being hyped by growing populations, producing a Malthusian style crisis narrative that has swept across media and politics. The revolutions of Asia however, which focused on small holder farmers, has been altered to longer term macro-economic policies that alleviate poverty over longer timescales through trickle down methods (Dawson et al 2016).

Case Study: Rwanda

Rwanda is a sub-Saharan landlocked country whose agricultural industry is at the heart of the country, with 89% of the labour force involved in this industry. Rwanda is the most densely populated country in Africa, and as such the average national land ownership per household is only 0.76ha (Dawson et al 2016). Historically the country has often been struck by famine, with major famines including the 1940s’ Ruzagayura famine which killed approximately 300,000 people. More recent tragedy includes the 1994 genocide, where over a million were killed. In the aftermath of all this farmers have tended to focus on a subsistence farming approach, where starvation risks can be minimised by overlapping crop cycles and growing many different varieties (Ansoms 2020). Subsistence farming at this time contributed to 61% of sweet potato harvests, 63% of Banana harvests and 68% of bean harvests (Dawson et al 2016). But the Rwanda government, which was turning into a new authoritarian development state, implementing policies to kick start a green revolution to reduce poverty and create food security.

In 2004 the government implemented the Rwanda Land Policy, starting with a centrally organised land registration scheme. The scheme brought about a change of land tenure, whereas before you could own land, now the government owned all land and the previous land owners are only leaseholders (Dawson et al 2016). In this way the government were able to seize land if owners failed to align with the new rules. Subsistence farmers were accused of ‘not caring for conservation and improvement of soil production capacity.’ They saw no future for subsistence farming in their new improved economically driven country (Dawson et al 2016). In 2006 their plans progressed with the Crop Intensification Programme, which designated the growth of certain crops to different areas. They required modern seeds be used, which required chemical fertilisers. Farmers who couldn’t afford the fertilizers had to take them on credit that was paid back after harvest (Huggins 2009). The crops grown were to be viable for sale in new large international markets, including cash crops such as tea for targeted export. The policies were implemented through the use of “imihigo”s, local performance contracts. This gave local authorities specific targets that if weren’t reached would result in those authorities careers being ruined (Huggins 2009). As such they enforced the rules vigorously with fines, destroying of non-regulation crops and expropriation (Dawson et al 2016).

Instead they and others are sticking to the narrative of national economic statistics that cover up the cracks in the programme. The Guardian 2015 claimed Rwanda was now food secure as a direct result of access to fertilizers and profitable markets that the government had created. They declared that between 2005/6 and 2010/11 average agricultural output had risen from 18% to 25%, and GDP per capita grew by 62% in this time, from $333 to $540. Whilst the population living below the poverty dropped from 59% in 2001 to 45% by 2011, the world bank stipulating that 45% of this decrease  can be attributed to Agriculture development. The Financial Times, however, claimed that national statistics had possibly been manipulated by President Kagame's government. Quoting the study by the Oxford Policy Management who found poverty actually increased by 6% from 2011-14, which directly contradicts the national statistics. Having invested $4bn into Rwanda since 1994, the World Bank are not surprisingly keeping the positive national statistics, which helpfully defends their investment plan.

Even if the statistics are accepted though they are still hiding the increased inequalities that the programme has created. Rwanda’s Gini coefficient (a measure of inequality) had been increasing since the start of the scheme, placing it in the top 15% of the world, in terms of Gini coefficient (Huggins 2009). Only 16% of landlords, the relatively wealthy, have been able to comply with the standards, increasing their income and production substantially. Economy of scales means that it is this change that has been captured on most of the positive statistics (Ansoms 2020). Meanwhile the poorest farmers are the ones taking the greatest risk when taking fertilizer on credit. Fear of low production and expropriation has forced many to sell up, this is termed ‘control grabbing’ of land by the government (Dawson et al 2016). Many Landless farmers then become farm labourers, dependent on sporadic jobs. These jobs do push household incomes up, as subsistence farming is seen as zero. However, growing only specific crops in an area mean people in that area are reliant on outsourced produce, which the sellers can then inflate prices off, due to demand (Ansoms 2020). So the poorest sector are effectively no better off.

Finally it is worth considering the social implications of this radical change to the rural community. Studies have shown wellbeing of small scale farmers is attributed to land ownership, food sovereignty and the social links brought about from farm labouring, crop trading etc associated with small subsistence farming (Dawson et al 2016).  

The Green Revolution of sub-Saharan African countries isn’t stopping anytime soon, governments are encouraged by the big improvement statistics and eager to adopt these techniques. But if countries are trying for a holistic improvement they need to take into consideration of  all the needs of every sector of society. Including social and environmental wellbeing as well as economic wellbeing of the poorest subsistence farmers, who have been previously neglected by top down authoritarian schemes. Which has in the case of Rwanda failed to bring a JUST green revolution.