African civil society, faith groups, and farmer leaders will demand an end to the 'failing' Green Revolution ahead of the African Green Revolution Forum (AGRF), which is held annually.

Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA) claims that Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) has exacerbated the continent's dependence on expensive imported inputs and diminished the robustness of its food systems.

Businesses, governments, and funders will assemble in Kigali for the AGRF event from September 5 to September 9 under the theme "Bold Action for Resilient Food Systems."

However, AFSA and its supporters are firmly pushing a move away from imported fertilizers made from fossil fuels and toward self-sufficient, ecological farming that regenerates soil and safeguards ecosystems. This was stated in a letter from the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa that was submitted to AGRA's donors last year and signed by more than 200 groups.

In a letter copied to JoyNews' Mahmud Mohammed-Nurudeen, the demand, according to AFSA, comes after AGRA and its funders (such as the Gates Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, USAID, etc.) disregarded urgent pleas to change course.

"Furthermore, a recent AGRA donor-commissioned evaluation has confirmed that the programs have failed to increase farmers’ yields, incomes and food security. Despite the evidence from their own evaluation, AGRA continues enriching fertilizer multinationals with record profits while hunger in Africa surges to alarming levels," the statement said.

The African Development Bank is among the international financial institutions that AFSA claims are using the current food crisis to transfer public funds to businesses and promote the use of chemical agriculture and monocrops in Africa.

Community leaders will discuss how dependence on foreign inputs weakens Africa's ability to adapt to the climate crisis, why AGRA's initiatives harm crop/diet diversity and ecosystems, and how they are now producing environmentally friendly alternatives to synthetic fertilizers during the virtual press conference.

Speakers will include Anne Maina, biodiversity and Biosafety Association of Kenya, Anuradha Mittal - Oakland Institute, Gabriel Manyangadze - Southern African Faith Communities Environment Institute, Ferdinand Wafula - Bio Gardening Innovations and Leonida Odongo - Haki Nawiri.

The Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA) is the largest civil society organization in Africa, uniting farmers, pastoralists, fishermen, indigenous peoples, faith organizations, women's movements, youth organizations, and consumer associations to advocate for food sovereignty on the continent. It is a network of networks with 200 million people operating in 50 African countries.

On September 7, 2021, the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA), which represents 200 million small-scale food producers, and 160 international organizations, release an open letter calling on donors to stop funding the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA).

In a letter sent to AGRA's donors in June of that year, the Alliance urged them to offer proof to counter studies claiming that the 15-year-old industrial agriculture effort failed to increase the incomes and food security of the millions of small-scale food producers it sought to assist. Few answers and no reliable proof, according to AFSA.

Agroecology, an African food system that is wholesome, robust, sustainable, and culturally acceptable, was the focus of AFSA's challenge to funders.

174 worldwide organizations have now endorsed the open letter, which was started by the 35 member networks of AFSA and five allied organizations. AFSA issued a direct challenge to AGRA donors after outlining its demands at a news conference on September 2.