I have told this story a million times, but I'm going to tell it today again so that it can help you connect with the 500 million farmers, smallholder farmers that are out there.
I grew up on a small farm in Uganda where my parents were refugees from Rwanda. My parents farmed. They grew cassava, maize and potatoes. My mom dug the land and fed us. My dad never touched the hoe even once, and my mom never complained because she felt it was her responsibility to feed the family.
Fast-forward, I got out of there at the age of around 14, thanks to the fact that my dad had been a teacher in Rwanda. But I was the exception, not the rule. And I'm here today to tell you that empowering smallholder farmers can change their lives, can nourish people, improve economies and actually help them deal with the current challenge of climate change.
When I finished school, I worked in research in Uganda, and a friend of mine gave me two kilograms of seed to take to my parents. This was an improved variety. When my mom planted it, she got 10 bags in a place where she would have usually got three bags. She sold some to fellow farmers and bought herself a traditional dress. She did not have to ask my dad for money. That was the first time, and I still remember the excitement and the joy in her face like it was yesterday.
But of course she needed more seed, and she wanted more of the same seed. In my mind, I was like, if I can empower my mother, like I did with one sack of seed, I can definitely empower whole villages. I can help send more girls to school.
I still remember the pain I felt when I was told that my best friend had been married at 15 because her parents could not keep her in school. I still think of all the girls that did not make it out of my village because they didn't have the opportunities I had. And it gives me a certain yearning that actually keeps me grounded in the realities of my world.
The opportunity came 15 years later when I joined the leadership of Ministry of Agriculture in Rwanda, ultimately as the minister. This is not a country where you want to wake up as a minister.
(Laughter)
Farmers’ land holdings are the smallest in the world, at least in Africa. The country is mountainous. Farmers lose land every season. And the country was just coming out of a genocide, and everybody was struggling. But this did not water down my excitement. In my mind, I was served lemons, and I needed to make lemonade. I took advantage of the fact that Rwandan farmers owned their land, and we designed a program to consolidate land and synchronize how farmers farmed without worry of land boundaries. My government put in place policies to ensure that farmers had access to seeds and to fertilizers. We put in place extension for every 500 hectares. The first season of farming was a lot of preaching and campaigning. And why would farmers want to use seeds and fertilizers they had never seen? But by the third season, farmers were demanding that seeds and fertilizers be delivered in good time for planting. Three years in, we had a bumper harvest, and it was my worst nightmare because we had not prepared for market. I had not thought about storage. And maize was everywhere. Went back to government and my government helped me. Working with World Food Program and government procurement agencies, we were able to buy farmers' produce, and we worked with the private sector and set up more long-term solutions through the storing and processing capacity. Once farmers had a market, the transformation was palpable.
I remember feeling as I walked around the country, feeling that the air around me was vibrating with energy and excitement. My people were happy, my country was proud. And in the period of six years, Rwanda was recording poverty reduction levels that were not being seen in the region, and the World Bank attributed 65 percent of that poverty reduction to what was happening in the agricultural sector, and related value addition.
Here is the thing. 2.5 million farmers, some of the smallest in the world, were feeding 12 million people, and they were creating wealth for themselves. To me, this is what empowering smallholder farmers looks like. But a new challenge lay ahead. Climate change.
By 2013, crop failure was becoming clear because rains were coming too late or stopping too early. I vividly remember when I went on a field visit with my president, and clouds started gathering, like to rain. Fertilizers were on their way from Ukraine and seeds were on the way from Zambia because we hadn't yet figured out how to produce seeds ourselves. It was two months before the rains, and my heart started beating in my chest. I was like, what am I going to do? Here I am, I'm going to let these farmers down again, because then every drop of rain mattered.
Climate change has taken away the ability of farmers to understand seasons. Farmers don't know when rains are going to come or when to plant. Farmers don't even know what crop to plant anymore. I see this in every country of the 15 countries where I now work as AGRA's president. Right now, as we speak, Southern Africa is going through one of the worst droughts ever. Zimbabwe has just lost 70 percent of their maize crop yield because of a scorching heat wave. The first ever in 40 years. Kenya has just experienced a flood that has left the land barren after farmers had planted.
But our hands are not tied. There must be something we can do about it. We have tools that we can deploy. There are so many things in our capacity, in our ability, that we can do to empower farmers to take back their lives and be part of feeding the world.
One, we need to stop climate change in its tracks. Top emitting countries need to stop emitting, or be prepared to pay farmers every time they lose a crop, livestock or property. Two years ago, farmers in East Africa lost everything after six consecutive seasons of drought. Today, we should be able to pay those farmers using now the loss and damage fund that was launched last year at COP28.
Reversing climate change is going to take some time. In the meantime, we need to ensure that farmers have access to improved varieties of seed that need less water, good fertilizers, extension services, soil health information, climate information and crop insurance that can help them know when to plant, plant early or not to plant at all and save that seed if rains are not going to happen. Most important, we need to ensure that farmers know that disasters are coming so that they can get out of the way.
Third, we need to invest in post-harvest losses so that we save everything that comes from every season. PICS bags designed out of Purdue University and now commercialized in most of East Africa, are actually ensuring food security because they are allowing farmers to store grain for longer periods.
Lastly, we need to rethink markets and how farmers access trade, especially how African farmers engage in African food markets. You recently saw European farmers demonstrate because they were worried that they were losing their market share. African farmers lost their market share in the 80s and have never regained it. As a result, Africa produces what it does not consume and consumes what it does not produce. The African Continental Free Trade Area that has just been launched is an opportunity for us to start advancing intercontinental trade in Africa in ways that can work for African smallholder farmers.
Everywhere you look in the world today, farmers are often poor. And I get it. We want food to be cheap and affordable. But we can't do this at the expense of smallholder farmers. They are businesses too, and we want them to be successful. We want them to be successful because in Africa, and parts of Asia, 70 percent of the food we eat is grown by smallholder farmers.
So I would like to flip this. I would like us here, consumers, businesses, politicians to recognize the place and role of smallholder farmers and how when we empower them, they can feed themselves, improve their livelihoods, be part of feeding 10 billion people while nourishing the planet. See, we do not recognize that farmers are the best custodians we have of this planet. They till the land and understand it. They know it's what they are going to pass on to their children. They treasure it.
Empowering smallholder farmers and ensuring that they are able to advance the lives of their children. Give them a shot at education like my dad did is what I work towards and it's what keeps me awake every night.
Thank you.
(Applause)
