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n the face of empty granaries, Niger’s people have begun to develop a strategy for survival. ‘In Niger, women cover a desert-like environment in search of anthills in order to dig up and retrieve grains of millet, corn and other crops that the ants have collected,’ tells Charles Bambara, in charge of communications for Oxfam GB in Dakar. In the north of Mali, farmers, keen to allow their livestock to drink, have taken to using the water points actually intended for elephants (in a bid to protect the last pachyderms alive in the country).

The disorder of the world food crisis in 2008 did not become hazy, and this new peak comes to remind us that, in the Sahel, the crisis results from an endemic problem. This is a problem that, as the thrust of recurrent fever testifies, is more a question of structure than conjuncture, that these are the failings of agricultural policies that impose their own tough realities, and that the recommended solutions are not different from those pushed in the 1980s with the establishing of structural adjustment programmes (SAPs) which sounded the death knell of Africa’s agricultural policies.

The reduced investment imposed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank had then destroyed the base of an agriculture geared towards food sovereignty. Industrial cultures were promoted which washed the soil (leading to greater soil erosion, the use of pesticides and chemical fertiliser) and disrupted the balance of the systems of production behind subsistence and the generation of complementary revenues on the strength of access to local markets. From this point it was a question of food security, no matter where stocks came from. This was the period in which food aid poured in. Africa was to produce no longer, with African stomachs wagered on agricultural surpluses from Europe, the US and elsewhere. As a result, since 1980 sub-Saharan Africa has been the only region of the world where average per capita food production has continued to decline over the last 40 years.[3]

African agriculture has suffered a series of difficulties which, over 30 years, have left it vulnerable to the smallest of changes on both the international market and climatically. Agricultural policies applied by states, under donors’ pressure, have in effect turned their back on policies which, formerly, assured technical assistance to producers, backed up by a price-stabilisation mechanism and subsidies for commodities.

We could go even further towards the worst of it and look at the development of biofuels and the extent to which more and more land is being diverted away from food production. Essentially, we will be growing to power cars rather than fill granaries. And in July this year, Burkina Faso has inaugurated its first industrial unit of production, while the country remains vulnerable in the face of a food crisis.

‘Today, in the smallest village, people eat bread, milk and coffee… This wasn’t part of our customs; we used to eat maize-based dough, sorghum and millet. But when you can’t live anymore from your field and you’re reliant on others (neighbours, food aid), you eat what you’re given.

The foundation of real food sovereignty lies in the promotion and consolidation of family agriculture, as well as the development of an agro-ecology which offers the best antidote to the wasting-away of fragile ecosystems at the mercy of deregulation.

At the moment, the grabbing of Africa’s land is shrouded in secrecy and proceeding at an unprecedented rate, spurred on by the global food and financial crises. GRAIN, a non-profit organisation that supports farm families in their struggles for community-controlled and biodiversity-based food systems, works daily to try to keep up with the deals on its farmlandgrab.org website.[vi]

Apart from the African governments and chiefs who are happily and quietly selling or leasing the land right out from under their own citizens, those who are promoting the new wave of rapacious investment include the World Bank, its International Finance Corporation (IFC), the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and many other powerful nations and institutions. The US Millennium Challenge Corporation is helping to reform new land ownership laws – privatising land – in some of its member countries. The imported idea that user rights are not sufficient, that land must be privately owned, will efface traditional approaches to land use in Africa, and make the selling off of Africa even easier. GRAIN notes the complicity of African elites and says some African 'barons' are also snapping up land.

another big plan is buffeting Africa’s farmers. It’s the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), which claims it is working in smallholder farmers’ interests by 'catalysing' a Green Revolution in Africa. Green Revolution Number Two.

The villagers in Sauri are understandably happy with the results, but off the record they have criticized the non-inclusiveness of the top-down approach.[i] UN officials and scientists have also been reluctant to speak against Sachs on the record for fear of retribution.

The Millennium Villages siphon off money better spent elsewhere, and draw attention away from creative, grassroots approaches to local problems. Long-term solutions require sustainable low-tech methods that farmers can control, such as permaculture, seed banks, and green manure; as well as redistributive land reform and marketing boards to provide some security.

Millennium Challenge Corporation (no direct relation to the Millennium Villages project). Created in 2004, the MCC is a U.S. Government aid organization that has spent $5.5 billion since 2004 awarding contracts to private businesses in target countries. The MCC's focus on raising the overall GDP is being pursued with the same failed policies as the IFIs: aggressive privatization, foreign direct investment (predatory capital), and global integration.  One of the more contentious aspects for small farmers are land grabs by foreign investors, facilitated via MCC contracts for "Systematic Land Regularization and Improvement of Rural Land Allocation." A recent report by GRAIN reveals that the MCC has been using "Land Regularization" to change land ownership rules and gain access to tens of thousands of acres of land in three of the ECOWAS countries: Benin, Ghana, and Mali.

The alternative, smallholder-driven agroecological agriculture, was recognized by the IAASTD as the best strategy for rebuilding agriculture, ending rural poverty and hunger, and establishing food security in the Global South. To be given a chance, however, this strategy requires a combination of strong political will and extensive on-the-ground agroecological practice to overcome opposition from the well-financed Green Revolution.