Africa's Turn: Green Revolution, here we come!

She runs a farm, raises and home schools her kids, cooks, is an avid photographer but best of all, she blogs about her experiences to 23 million followers. Her name is the Pioneer Woman and ladies and gentlemen, I want to be her when I grow up!



Why Zanele, you ask? Well, apart from the 23 million strong following, revenue of a million US dollars, a creative site, a cook book and a movie deal, this woman makes a living from being on a farm.Yes, A FARM! Nevertheless, her story is the making of a Harvard Business School case study for at heart it is a story of a successful business woman.

Her story resonates with me simply because I too want to own my own farm one day. Don’t get me wrong, this is not so that I can pursue a charming Pollyanna type lifestyle in the countryside. No sir. I’m a city girl with a deep love for creature comforts that only a metropolis can offer. That said, I genuinely believe that Africa needs an agricultural revolution. I want to be part of a movement that develops commercially viable, socially responsible value chains of high nutrition food for local and regional marketplaces.



Many African countries have seen farmers been forced to migrate to cities as a result of it becoming increasingly difficult to survive on farms. The picture on the ground is grim: farmers are often trapped into inefficient technologies, poor cereal yields and shrinking farm sizes. What’s worse is many of these farmers do not find work in the cities thus perpetuating the poverty cycle and Africa’s dependence on concessionary food imports.



So what’s the solution? Well, whilst I’m no specialist on this topic and I certainly welcome debate, I believe the solution is fairly simple. Simple because it’s a solution that has been tried and tested in other regions of the world. Many Asian economies in the 60s wanted to industrialize quickly but also faced severe food shortages and slow agricultural growth. What was done? Well, the governments simply made use of their large agricultural workforce and viewed agricultural growth as a key step along the path to industrialization.



I was shocked to learn during my trip to Vietnam in 2010 that an overwhelming 70% of the country’s economy is still based on agriculture. Two thirds! What they do right: they support farm credit systems, they subsidise inputs, they intervene in markets to stabilise prices. Most importantly, they ensure that their interventions help both small and large farms.



Action plan for African governments? In a nutshell: improve technologies, increase public investment in agri-research, support food grain markets and improve market access for small scale farmers.

Oh, and get more city snobs like you and me into the countryside. Get us blogging, exchanging innovative ideas and investing skills and time in agricultural development. Let’s all be the Pioneer People! Idealistic? Of course, but aren’t all revolutionary ideas?