Foreign Affairs Committee on Feb. 1st, 2007

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Bernard Patry]

Good morning, everyone.

This is meeting number 39 on the orders of the day. We are continuing with the study of democratic development.

As witnesses this morning we have Mr. Stuart Clark, who is a senior policy advisor for the Canadian Foodgrains Bank; with him as individuals are Mr. Malex Alebikiya and Mrs. Fidelis Wainaina.

Welcome to all of you.

Mr. Clark, will you please start?

[Stuart Clark, Senior Policy Advisor, Canadian Foodgrains Bank]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank all of you for making time in your first week back at the House to hear from us.

I have particular thanks for the chair and those of you around the table who have been particularly supportive of giving more attention to the role of small farmers in the business of reducing hunger and poverty.

We come before you today to communicate two messages. The first is that we want to make it clear that appropriate aid to agriculture is an effective—in fact many people say the most effective—investment in reducing hunger and poverty.

Canada made a promising start in providing aid for agriculture a few years ago, but more recently we fear that this is falling off the map. So we took the opportunity to see what Canadian efforts have already achieved, and that's the substance of what we want to say this morning.

The second message we want to send, which clearly is very germane to the question of good governance, is that local communities, civil society organizations, and farmer-based organizations and NGOs are especially important as the starting point for any aid for agriculture. They should not only be the final point; they need to be part of directing what kind of agricultural development takes place.

Those two messages are coming to you from the food security policy group, which is a network of Canadian NGOs working in international development that also includes some farm organizations in Canada.

We say food security is our business, but we're talking to you about agriculture, because we think that particularly in Africa attention to agriculture is essential to doing anything about food security.

Eight months ago, we started a project to give a voice to African civil society on the question of aid for agriculture—its importance and what kind of direction it should take. We therefore engaged consultants in each of three CIDA priority, sub-Saharan African countries: Ghana, Ethiopia, and Mozambique. I believe that you or your staff received the summary report of that research.

Tomorrow morning, we are going to host a half-day workshop at CIDA to discuss the particular findings of that report. But let me say that generally it was very positive about the start Canada has made in this area. The important thing is that this start shouldn't falter.

I mentioned that we wanted to give voice to civil society, so I'm about finished saying what I wanted to say.

I would like to introduce two visitors from Africa. First is Fidelis Wainaina, who won the 2006 African Green Revolution Yara Prize, is an agriculture teacher and the founder of Maseno Interchristian Child Self Help Group. This self-help group seeks to work with local communities to help their AIDS orphans and at-risk young people become strong, viable farmers. So most of her work is spent working with small farmers.

The second person we have with us is Mr. Malex Alebikiya, who is the executive secretary of the Association of Church Development Projects in northern Ghana. This is a network of 40 church-based NGOs that work in the area of agriculture, nutrition, health, and rural livelihoods. Malex is an agriculturalist and has worked in northern Ghana for the past 30 years. He was particularly important in our study, since he oversaw the work we did in Ghana.

I'm now going to invite first Malex and then Fidelis to make brief presentations to you, and then we look forward to your questions.

Malex.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Bernard Patry]

Thank you very much, Mr. Clark.

Before asking Mr. Alebikiya to give us his brief, I just want to recognize and welcome to our hearings this morning Her Excellency the High Commissioner of Kenya, the Honourable Judith Mbula Bahemuka. Welcome.

Thank you.

Mr. Alebikiya, the floor is yours.

[Malex Alebikiya, As an Individual]

Thank you very much, chairman of the committee, distinguished members of Parliament, and distinguished members of this committee. On my own behalf, on behalf of the farmers in northern Ghana, on behalf of the more than four million people who cannot feed themselves, I would like to thank the committee for the opportunity to meet with you and to bring our voice. We appreciate it because by spending this time with us, it shows that you care, it shows that you understand us, and it shows also that you have an ear for what we are going to say. It's particularly encouraging for us, and that's the reason why I have been able to brave this journey and this winter to come at this time to make this presentation.

First of all, I think we are talking here about poverty. We are talking here about four million people who cannot feed themselves. I'm standing here on behalf of the farmers and I'm standing here on behalf of civil society organizations in the north and the south, to add our voice to the many voices that you've already heard, to encourage you, and to ask you to support the agricultural sector particularly and food security for the poor in particular.

When I talk about small-scale farmers, I'm talking about them particularly in the context of northern Ghana. I'm talking about farmers who cultivate three to four acres, farmers who live off these three to four acres. From that land, they are feeding their families, they are paying their school fees, they are taking care of their medical care. That is their livelihood.

The reason why I'm particularly encouraged to come and make this presentation is also that if you talk about development in northern Ghana—and it's not a question of flattery—clearly CIDA has made an impact in the development of northern Ghana. It has made an impact on the side of the poor. I'm talking here about water particularly and its implications in terms of health, Guinea worm eradication, and small-scale agriculture.

Consequently, for northern Ghana, when we got the information that CIDA was going to intervene in agriculture, we were very happy, because that takes the input of the Canadian government further than water and tackling the basic needs and the basic lives of the people.

I have been part of the CIDA farmer project steering committee. Unfortunately for us now, it's very worrying that agriculture and small-scale production for the poor is, as Stuart said, dropping off the agenda. It is widely recognized that we cannot achieve the millennium development goals without supporting small-scale farmers and pastoralists. This is recognized in the millennium development goals, it's recognized in the documentation of the Canadian government, and it's also recognized in the document by the African heads of state.

In the comprehensive African agriculture development program, it is clearly articulated that agriculture is going to lead to development, lead to growth and to food security, equitable distribution of wealth, poverty reduction, and rural development in Africa. So it is also an agenda. It is not just the farmers who are saying so, because the African governments are also putting small-scale production on their list of priorities.

We believe that focusing on agricultural development for small-scale production is not just a responsibility, it's the first step to building the basic foundations for economic growth. It's also the first step in meeting the poor at their point of need.

Clearly, to attain the millennium development goals of halving poverty, meeting food security, and meeting the poor at their point of need, to meet the production of small-scale farmers, we are basically asking that the Canadian government show the way, in the ways it has always done. We think there is an alternative agricultural development approach, a proper approach. Once the Canadian government has been able to do this in the area of water, to do this in other areas, it should be able to show the way as far as proper agricultural development is concerned.

We are basically asking the Canadian government to stand on the side of the poor, to stand by small-scale producers, and to demonstrate an alternative agricultural development approach. In sum, we are asking that the Canadian government put small-scale agricultural production, put food security, as the number one item on its agenda.

Let's think about 70% of the rural population in Africa being able to feed themselves, being able to pay their children's school fees from the income they earn, being able to improve their nutrition and improve their health, and being organized in a way that they can articulate their views to the government. As far as we are concerned, organizing the 70% small-scale producers and supporting them to produce will then have a number of impact points other than just in agriculture.

There are many ways in which we can do this. One of the things that we want to believe—and this has been said before—is that it can also be done when we have a long-term agricultural assistance strategy. I think we have said this before.

Talking about proper agricultural development, one of the things I want to believe is that the civil society organizations, the farmer organizations, the NGOs, have been in this field for more than thirty years. We are saying that in doing this we have to consult with and work with these civil society organizations and farmer organizations that have the experience and with the farmers who feel and know what they want to do. We are talking here about looking at sustainable agricultural production strategies that take care of a number of pillars: poverty, food security, and the environment.

Honourable members of Parliament, Mr. Chairman, this is our message. At this point, I would like to thank you again and open the floor to wait for any questions for clarification.

Thank you very much.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Bernard Patry]

Thank you.

Before having questions, we'll go to the presentation of Mrs. Wainaina, please.

[Fidelis Wainaina, As an Individual]

Thank you.

Honourable MPs and Mr. Chairman, I am very grateful to be here this morning to reiterate what my brother has said here.

I would like to shift our thinking more to what the African small-scale farmers have to bring to the table, if we allow them. In working with small-scale farmers for the last 10 years of my life, one thing I have realized is that they are great stockholders of the problem facing us today.

I have spent about two weeks in Canada, and I've been asking myself this. What is the leadership of the Canadian government struggling with at this moment?

I have talked to various people, farmers, and members of Parliament. I have had a little interaction with some members of Parliament. I gather that their biggest question is how we solve the problem of global warming. This is at the top of their agenda.

I may be mistaken, and I may be taking this too far, but if we are thinking about global warming and Africa is not thinking about global warming, then we are leaving out a big proportion of our stakeholders, the people who are able to bring a solution to this problem.

In my work in western Kenya, I have realized that small-scale farmers live among the wetlands, the soils that we would very much like to preserve. We would very much like to see that they do the right thing.

My appeal is that as we think about solving this problem, we realize that by investing in agriculture we are in a real sense investing in ourselves. We are investing in the lives of Canadians, because we are one world, and what the Africans do at the grassroots level does in fact affect what happens here in Canada.

I would like to illustrate this. I have been working with communities that would not think of planting trees, for example, because they are thinking about putting food on the table. But in trying to solve this problem of putting food on the table, we are able to engage with them to the extent that they are able to see why they should set aside their land to plant trees.

We have seen orphaned children and orphaned young people, people you would call the least of the least, engaged in such an important agenda as global warming, in a way that they may not know, by planting as many as a thousand trees, after overcoming what is really holding them back. And those are issues to do with food and putting food on the table.

I would like to say that as a result of this we have been able to mobilize our communities to plant as many as 50,000 trees in western Kenya in the last year.

I am not sure there is an option for us to leave out these people who have such a big contribution to make in solving that which is holding us and that which is facing us. In doing this, I would propose a few other things.

We need to begin to see ourselves as partners. We need to be not only increasing aid to African agriculture, but rather we need to change our thinking on where it should go. We are saying that it matters.

If it ends up in the grassroots, we would be able to solve problems that we have struggled with in the last many years, and that is leadership of the African people. We will be able to engage the majority of the farmers, and these are women. We know they form 80% of the farming population. We know their votes count. But if they are preoccupied with putting food on the table, then they are not thinking about good governance.

We will be able to change the way the people engage their own governments by not passing the money just through their governments but by making sure it goes to the people who deserve it, and who then can hold their governments accountable. In this we are also bringing up healthy children. We have seen this. I have worked with malnourished children and mothers, and we have seen that an increase in agricultural production and the way the mothers engage with available resources does indeed reduce malnutrition. So if we are talking about healthy nations, if we are talking about health—I know there are doctors here—we'd rather work prophylactically rather than curatively. So we are saying that in engaging with agriculture with a majority of the people, especially women, we will be able to solve the primary problems that face us.

Finally, I would just urge us to understand that when we bring our resources to Africa, that is not all that is needed to solve these problems. Therefore we know that an increase in Canadian aid to agriculture is an important step, but it is not all that is needed. We are calling for greater involvement of the African people. We are calling for a greater voice for the African people in determining their future, in determining and developing and bringing forth the biodiversity and the strength that Africa brings to the globe, which is so needed because we are one world. I feel that when Africa is happy, Canada is happy, because you will not be so cold.

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Bernard Patry]

Thank you very much. We will now move to questions.

It will be for seven minutes. We will start with the Liberals.

Mr. Eyking.

[Mark Eyking, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Guests, thank you very much for coming here today.

Before I got into politics I worked with small farmers in Central America with the same sorts of problems. They were small farmers, and they were barely feeding themselves and they needed to go that next step. I helped with irrigation, varieties, and things like that.

There was a big success in Asia—I don't know if you mentioned it—with its green revolution in the 1960s and 1970s. It helped Southeast Asia become an economic powerhouse in a way because they could feed themselves.

Definitely Africa has a bigger challenge. Asia was mostly rice and dealing with varieties, and it was mostly wetland production. One thing about Africa, and you're well aware of it, is it has many different types of crops and livestock, and it's a vast continent, so each region has different needs.

There are many private foundations helping also, or wanting to help, in Africa. We have the Gates, the Rockefellers, the Soros, and the Buffetts.

My question would be, how are we going to be successful with this green revolution? The wish of the western world is to help, but to roll it out, because each region is different and has different needs—different types of irrigation, different types of crops, societies are different, some are more cattle farmers—how do we organize that aid? Do you see this going mostly toward the governments? Should we be going more to the UN? How should we organize our aid in these regions?

Those are my two questions. How do we have different types of approaches throughout Africa, and what kind of vehicle can we use with our aid if other private NGOs want to help?

[Fidelis Wainaina]

Thank you.

I would say yes, Africa has challenges because of its diversity, and that could also be its strength. I don't know the whole answer to this, but I feel that if we involved the people and concentrated on identifying leaders—because you have partners here who are also based in Africa. If we could network, do things like identify best practices, that would be one way that we could engage the people.

Africa is known to be a cultural country. There's nothing we can do about that; we are just cultural beings. A lot of what we do is affected by our cultural way of doing things. If we engage with African people, they would be able to help us think about their culture and how it affects farming.

I would say that a lot has to come from us, the Canadian people, to understand that Africa has resources. Its greatest resource is in its people. How you see us as solving the problem together with you, and positioning yourselves to be facilitators of this process, rather than fixing us, might be one way that we could begin to solve these problems.

The other one is to channel, to see that the information pathways to grassroots people are developed in such a way that aid can end up touching the people we are targeting.

I would like the input of other people on this.

[Mark Eyking, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

Very briefly, because I have another question.

[Malex Alebikiya]

Okay.

For me, the starting point, taken from what she has said, is to consult the people. Before we even say we are going to come with a green revolution, given that diversity, what would the people themselves say they want? Is that the entry point to agricultural development for Africa? I think that is the primary question, before we even decide whether a green revolution is required or not.

I would say, what has the experience been of the green revolution? Africa has also had its share of green revolution experiences, in Ghana for sure—I know we had that experience in the 1970s. We are sitting here saying that despite the green revolution in the 1970s, it hasn't worked. What are the lessons that we have picked up from there that are going to make this one different? For me, that is the issue that I think we need to discuss or contest.

One of the things that small farmers in African agriculture have talked about is the issue of subsidies, the issue of liberalizing our markets to the extent that we get dumping and farmers cannot produce. I think these are the structural issues that we need to discuss before we even look at the technological issues.

Thank you very much.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Bernard Patry]

Thank you.

Mr. Dosanjh.

[Ujjal Dosanjh, Liberal, Vancouver South, BC]

I have a very brief question.

I can tell you my experience. I grew up on a farm in Punjab in the late 1940s and 1950s, a six-acre farm with 19 members of the extended family. The green revolution happened shortly after I left India, or it was happening then. There is now salinization of the soil, the chemical fertilizers, and all of that.

One thing that struck me in having gone back to India many times is that as you intensify agricultural production you are losing the trees, because people want to reclaim the land. They don't want trees because trees have shade, there are all kinds of other problems, and you have less land to grow food on. When you are talking about agricultural production and at the same time talking about growing more trees, how do you reconcile these for agriculturalists?

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Bernard Patry]

Ms. Wainaina.

[Fidelis Wainaina]

Yes, thank you.

Well, it's because we've seen it work. There is a way that you can mix the two if you are able to commercialize tree products. That's one way.

Bring in interventions that people can buy into and that don't affect the environment much. I'm thinking about issues like honey production. In working with orphaned children, I have found that giving an orphaned child two or three beehives is like giving them one great cow, in terms of how much income they can bring in.

Therefore, we're not recommending wholesale planting of trees everywhere, but we are saying that among these African farmers, there is a lot of land that is not put to use. And that's what happened in my case, when I started showing them how to grow trees and discussing indigenous knowledge with the people. They realized they had other places they hadn't used where they could put trees. They also began to experiment a little bit with the kinds of trees needed that wouldn't negatively interfere with crop growth. So with that on the ground, they would be able to sort that out. But it does work.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Bernard Patry]

Thank you. Ms. Lalonde, you now have the floor.

[Francine Lalonde, Bloc, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Patry. I will be sharing my time with Ms. Barbot.

Thank you very much for coming today and for sharing your extremely important opinion with us.

When preparing last year's Doha Round, agriculture and small farmers were discussed intensively. We realized, after hearing various groups speak to us about the conditions there, that it was absolutely necessary to protect some African farmers against rules that would restrict their market access, and imports that could destroy their livelihood.

We also discussed agriculture when Canada's new foreign policy was presented, which contained nothing about agriculture. We discussed it because there was no reference to it in the document. And so we have embarked on this. We need to draft a new policy, we need to work on this.

I realize that we need to consult the people concerned, but I think that there is one decision that we must make now and that is to increase agricultural assistance for small farmers, especially in Africa, because that is how we will be able to tackle poverty and disease—as you mentioned—for undernourished bodies are more vulnerable to diseases. That is also how we will be able to tackle desertification. Trees are being planted in order to prevent desertification because desertification is what makes farming impossible. I also think that small farmers would benefit from cooperatives. Small farmers selling their crops individually cannot negotiate acceptable prices on their own.

Various measures could be used, for example, giving women access to funding. Canada, however, has to restore adequate funding. In this document it says that from 1990 to 2000, Canada's agricultural support in sub-Saharan Africa went down by more than 57%.

Of course, various players must be consulted. But there has to be a commitment to increase and sustain assistance in order to give communities the opportunity to prepare.

[Fidelis Wainaina]

Yes.

[Francine Lalonde, Bloc, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

You could speak in your first language, I also understand English.

[Stuart Clark]

What exactly was the question?

[Francine Lalonde, Bloc, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Do you think we should start by increasing aid?

First we should decide to increase aid and then we can consult on everything.

[Fidelis Wainaina]

I think we need to be thinking about these things simultaneously. The fact that we increase aid does not stop us from thinking about design and implementation. I feel it is up to all of us, as partners, to think of where we want our aid to go and take small steps towards achieving the goal. It may be a logistical issue, but we need to increase aid, because that affects the cutting edge and it facilitates the process.

Also, realize that for farmers to get out of poverty, they will never really do that from small-scale farming. Therefore, there will be growth of other outgrowth activities that link the urban and the rural.

All that you have said about developing cooperatives would be good, because they will be farmer-led, as opposed to what has been there. They have been formed out of model structures without incorporating the voice of the farmers. Therefore, they would be able to control this. They would be able to develop local domestic market linkages within Africa, if need be.

My experience is that even bringing our products here is a real problem. We are exposed to double standards. We'd better think about trading with our neighbours first before we think about bringing them into Canada. I was here two years ago and I had the same story.

I would say let's increase the aid, but in the meantime, let's work at changing our thinking, in knowing that there are available resources in Africa that contribute to a bigger proportion of what is needed to solve these problems. What we are doing is positioning ourselves to facilitate that process of making it possible for all of us.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Bernard Patry]

Thank you.

Mrs. Barbot, you have time for one brief question.

[Vivian Barbot, Bloc, Papineau, QC]

Rather than ask a question, I would like to tell you about a community group in my riding, an urban riding, in the neighbourhood called Villeray. These people are involved in food security in urban areas. There are poor people in those areas and they decided to start a collective kitchen in order to tackle that poverty. They got the idea from peasant farmers in Peru who also do this. In order to ensure food security, they began buying collectively and planting trees. They planted orchards; when they realized that there was a significant amount of unused land in their riding, they decided to use it.

Their current project involves planting trees in urban areas, in school yards, near public buildings, and so on. They're doing this for the same reason you raised, that is to find a way to tackle poverty.

I think that you have clearly expressed what it means to think globally and act locally. When you request more aid, I understand that it is to enable you to do what you do very well and what you know how to do very well. You lack the means, however. I want to tell you that in this struggle, you have people on your side all around the world.

For example, we are facing the same global warming problems you are. It's simply the opposite problem. I think that what you are saying is extraordinary. And I would simply like to ask you this: given that it is women who often have not been the recipients of aid, can you tell us how we could ensure that aid will be put directly in the hands of the people doing the work, that is women?

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Bernard Patry]

Thank you.

We will now move on to Mr. Obhrai and Mr. Goldring.