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Introduction

The Rural Women’s Assembly (RWA) wants to respond to ongoing issues that are part of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) of the African Union (AU). CAADP, established in 2003, meant to improve food security, nutrition, and increase incomes in Africa’s largely farming-based economies, by raising agricultural productivity and increasing public investment in agriculture.

RWA is part of a large network of self-organised women small-scale producers, associations and NGOs across eleven countries of the SADC region (Zimbabwe, Zambia, Swaziland, South Africa, Mozambique, Malawi, Madagascar, Mauritius, Namibia, Lesotho and Tanzania). We work with both smallholder women farmers and with those still struggling to access land for food production. In making this submission to the AU Commission (AUC) we want to bring out the voices and lived experiences of grassroots women smallholder producers from RWA in the SADC region and to lobby for their inclusion in decision and policy making.  

We know that it is women in Africa who produce most of the food – “according to the FAO, women produce between 60 and 80% of the food in most developing countries and are responsible for half of the world’s food production, yet their role as food producers and providers—and their critical contribution to household food security—is only recently being recognized ……. while women are essential to small-scale agriculture, farm labour and day-to-day family subsistence, they experience greater difficulty than men in accessing land, credit, as well as productivity-enhancing inputs and services”.   The same applies to the SADC region, where women are the main producers of food and labour providers, producing 60 to 80 % of food both for household consumption and for sale, while women and children constitute the majority of those experiencing hunger

Since the formation of the SADC RWA in 2009, the overarching collective objective has been to build local, national and regional formations in defence of food sovereignty, small-scale farming, agroecology and biodiversity. Ecofeminist analyses and approaches have increasingly become integrated in our collective work,

being inspired by the work of different ecofeminists, particularly of black (e.g. bell hooks) and African ecofeminists such as the late Wangari Maathai’s who challenged both patriarchal and neo-colonial structures that undermine Africa’s latent capacity to feed itself and solve its own problems: “it is this work of women as carers of nature that brings alive an alternative ethic towards nature that is non-destructive, collective and in solidarity.”  We seek justice and equity by looking at issues through an intersectional ecofeminist lens, interlinking gender, class, race, sexual orientation, ethnicity, age, disability and other forms of human difference, including other species and ecosystems and understanding dynamics of power, privilege and oppression.   To be and live as ecofeminists implies that one has to question and expose daily overt and hidden forms of human oppression and our relationships with the environment. To end hunger and malnutrition we believe that the world urgently needs major restructuring and different conceptualisation of global and local food systems within the current dominant patriarchal capitalist system. 

RWA’s understanding of CAADP

• As smallholder farmers, from the start, our analyses of CAADP showed it was guided by a neo-liberal agenda, which promoted and supported the industrialisation of African agriculture, including the adoption of Green Revolution technologies. These technologies were NOT and are not meant to support the small-holder farmers associations in Africa and continue to be rejected by RWA and others.   Several recent evaluations have shown that AGRA (Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa) has failed African farmers (please refer to the Text Box below – RWA’s concerns and recommendations). 
• Some other commitments made in terms of CAADP and some of the indicators used in the CAADP Biennial Review Process (BRP) are also NOT in the interests of small producers but favour agri-business (both national and international).  Nevertheless, there are some CAADP commitments that RWA, as farmers, must examine and monitor as they affect our lives, our livelihoods and those of our communities and impoverished peoples. The BRP allows us to have access to some information that is very hard to access otherwise. However, some of the indicators used in the BPR report lack clarity – and it would be important to get a better understanding of how they are assessed.

The latest 4th CAADP BRP (2015-2023) report indicates that “the implementation of the Malabo Declaration in the continent remains largely off-track to achieve the Malabo targets by 2025”. Data for countries in the SADC region in this BRP report do indeed show us that commitments made in the 2003 Maputo Declaration and 2021 Malabo Declaration (allocation of at least 10% of national budgetary resources to agriculture and rural development policy implementation within five years and the 2021 additional commitments to end hunger in Africa by 2025 and to halve poverty by 2025) were far from being met. RWA women’s experiences show that the situation has in fact deteriorated. This is in the context of increasing Gender Based Violence (GBV) throughout the region, and the post-Covid increasing poverty, hunger, land displacements, violent conflicts and wars.

Post Malabo, moving towards the Kampala Declaration in 2025 – some of SADC RWA’s concerns and recommendations 

With the implementation of the Malabo Declaration coming to an end in 2025 and the launch of the development of the Post-Malabo Agenda for the next 10 years  in the Kampala Declaration, SADC RWA wants to join other civil society voices and also submit some proposals – not only to address unfulfilled CAADP commitments but to also deal with omissions and some of the challenges that RWA women face – to change the current unsustainable, destructive, unjust industrial agriculture and corporate controlled food systems, towards a more sustainable and climate resilient agricultural production based on agroecology and more just food systems. Collectively we remain committed to practicing agroecological production as well as being guided and implementing its core political principles.” To practice agriculture, we need to start off by talking about land. 

RWA’s concerns and corresponding recommendations over the CAADP programme

1. Land and water – dispossession of the essential bases for food production 

Land and water are the essential bases for food production, food security, livelihoods and life itself for millions of people in rural areas across the world – yet, land in Africa is being grabbed by investors and dispossessing locals. Gender inequity in accessing land and land tenure insecurity also remain an obstacle for rural women in the SADC region. RWA has undertaken to challenge patriarchal rule at all levels of society and particularly in relation to women’s access to land and control of their livelihoods in the region.  The BPR (p. 142- 146) states: “Governments resolved that to ensure equitable land access for all land users and improve access and security of land tenure for women as key priorities…… Acknowledging  the importance of land in Africa’s agricultural dispensation, the CAADP implementation framework underperformance on ending Hunger, has set a target for member States to ensure 100 of farmers and agribusiness interested in agriculture have right to access the required land by 2020. (p. 142).
A.1 Gender discrimination in accessing and owning land – In a review paper on land in the SADC region the Sam Moyo Institute (2023) governments in the SADC region have, in general, been trying to address the problems of gender discrimination and inequity in accessing and owning land through Constitutional reforms, progressive legislation and policies to address the marginalisation of women, improve their status in all spheres of life and prohibit gender discrimination). However, a big gap remains between policy and practice. In addition, while some traditional authorities are embracing greater gender equity and equality in land allocation, there are still contradictions between patriarchal customary law and the Constitutions. In addition ”while in general, women’s marriage and inheritance rights are subject to the statutory land rights in most of the countries, customary laws reign supreme in the allocation, succession and transfer of land upon divorce or death …… despite Constitutional provisions” in countries where RWA works. 

There is also no gender balance in land policy formulation and administration and gender land inequalities are being reinforced by the land titling and registration programmes and investment programmes underway in several countries, which emphasise male land ownership (ibid; Institute for Trade and Agriculture Policy, 2022). RWA countries and other countries are often signatories to but not complying with several international rights conventions that seek to uphold the property rights of women.

A.2 Women’s land tenure (in)security: The CAADP report also states (p. 144) that despite efforts made, there are still significant disparities in land held by women on the continent (ranging between 5 % to 67%). Gender inequality in securing land rights in some countries in the SADC region is confirmed by data from the 4^th CAADP BRP (Table 1 below). That report also states that “as at 2022 Botswana, Liberia and Seychelles were the countries that have achieved the target (of securing land rights for their agricultural populations) as all their agricultural populations had secure land rights”. Some countries (e.g. Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Cabo Verde, and Benin) “made significant strides toward achieving the target of securing land rights for the agricultural population”.  Limited land redistribution in South Africa led SA RWA to adopt a “One Woman – One Hectare campaign”.  

A.3 Ongoing land dispossession and increasing land grabs: Besides the issue of gender inequality in accessing land, RWA is well aware and concerned that colonial land dispossession patterns continued post-independence and are still affecting people in Africa.  Post-2008 food and economic crises saw a new scramble for land in Africa and the global South in general, for agriculture and mining projects, by both international and national capital. 

In a recent report titled Land Squeeze: What is driving unprecedented pressures on global farmland and what can be done to achieve equitable access to land?’ the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-Food- 2024) identifies as the main drivers: 

1. Land grabbing: investors “calls” for governments to deregulate land markets and adopt pro-investors policies, with parallel ’water grabs’ and ’resource grabs’; powerful actors (agricultural investment funds agricultural commodity traders financial derivatives) are flooding into increasingly financialised land markets; and digitised land registers that although might intended to strengthen land tenure, they are potentially feeding financial markets with data and exacerbating land grabs.  
2. Green grabbing: since international environmental agreements identify land as an important carbon sink, governments and large corporations are appropriating huge swathes of land through top-down conservation schemes that exclude local users and small-scale food producers (those bearing the brunt of climate change) for carbon and biodiversity offsets, “biodiversity net gain”’ initiatives and large-scale (non- biodiverse) tree planting schemes’ (ibid, p. 5). Governments have pledged to allocate land areas equivalent to total global cropland – almost 1.2 billion hectares of land – for ’carbon removal”” initiatives alone (p. 6).
3. Under the guise of ’nature based solutions’ business – as-usual investments and top-down conservation schemes are being advanced. The governments of Kenya, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Zambia and Liberia have already signed agreements with an asset based creation firm based in the UAE (ibid – p.6)
4. Biofuels and green energy production are also leading to land and resource appropriation, including water-intensive “green hydrogen”. 
5. Expansion and encroachment: extractive industries and mega-developments are damaging the land of food producers, with governments passing ‘dubious investment laws that protect polluters”,; in addition prime farmland continues to be lost to rising urbanisation and mega-infrastructure developments (p. 6-7)
6. Food Systems configuration: The rampant agri-food sector and the ongoing spread of industrial agriculture are degrading land and eroding framers’ and communities’ control of their land and how it is used. …. integrating smallholders into corporate value chains often lock farmers into unsustainable land use and precarious livelihoods., systematic economic precarity and increasingly techno-centric, capital-intensive and chemical input-intensive models of agriculture (p. 7) 

RWA submits “No to land, water and resource grabs”. Smallholders must be protected and given priority (over agribusiness) to land, especially women and youth. 

RWA wants gender equity in land access.

We urge member states of the AU to ensure that the ongoing land grabs in Africa do not displace smallholder producers and communities. 

We urge the AU member states not to be complicit with the ongoing land, water and resource grabbing in Africa by corporate investments and the pursuit of a ‘’western’’ model of development. It was this model that led us and the world to where we are today – facing major environmental, energy, financial and food crises where millions of our people are facing immense suffering, displacement, hunger and death.

We urge AU member states to  follow the recommendations and proposals put forward by international Panel of Experts on Food Systems (IPES -2024, p. 11-12; p.59-61) 

1. Build integrated land, environmental and food systems governance to halt green grabs and ensure a just and human rights-based transition.
2. From commodity to community: get speculative capital out of land markets and get land into the hands of farmers.
3. Forge a new social contract, and a new generation of land and agrarian reforms.  

IPES (2024) warn us that “these outcomes could reach a tipping point over the coming years- create a dangerous interface between small-scale farmers and huge institutional investors, fossil fuel

companies and real estate developers ….. exacerbating rural poverty and livelihood pressures on small-scale food producers ….. etc’’ (p. 8-9).   

Transform the rural areas move towards a just, healthy and culturally compatible food system.

We urge the AU to ensure that the plan towards post-Malabo includes a path towards  

transforming the dominant food system, currently controlled by corporations. 

Support for AE, women and other smallholder farmers would contribute to this transformation, start address poverty and hunger. 

We draw the AUC’s attention to the research being done in parts of Africa, such as a study illustrating a “Symbiotic Food System: ‘An ‘Alternative’ Agri-Food System Already working at scale”, in Tanzania (Wegerif and Hebinck, 2016), which shows complex networks of interdependent rural producers, urban consumers and traders who participate and collaborate without “large vertically or horizontally integrated corporate structures” and to some extent respond to the food needs of people trapped in poverty.

1. Lack of clarity on data and statements on “Proportion of rural women involved in agriculture”:

The BRP uses as an indicator “Women participation in agri-business”. 

The BRP (2024) also states: The Proportion of rural women that are empowered in agriculture “varied significantly across Africa: i) unusually higher values for Morocco (99.9 percent); Gabon (82.3 percent); Ghana (76.8 percent) ; Kenya (74.2 percent) and Rwanda: (63.9 percent); ii) unusually low values for Benin, Mauritania, Niger, South Africa, Togo and Togo; and iii) 21 countries with missing values were wrongly given zero scores (p. 25). Recognise the role and contribution of women in agriculture with the relevant support. 

RWA is concerned that the focus of the BRP is on women’s participation in agri-business and that is its measure of women’s “success”, rather than recognise and value women’s contribution to food production.  

Recognise the role and contribution of women in agriculture with the relevant support. 

1. The model of agriculture adopted by CAADP- Green Revolution projects by international funders and donors and industrial agriculture:

The following are some of recent evaluations of the Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA):

a) AGRA is making no significant progress toward its original goals of doubling yields and incomes for 30 million small-scale farm families while halving food insecurity by 2020. It is even failing to achieve its scaled-back goals “to increase incomes and improve food security for 30 million smallholder farm households in 11 African countries by 2021.”

The evaluation, if anything, confirms rather than refutes the findings from our comprehensive review of AGRA’s progress toward its goals using national-level data.Recommendations: AGRA’s donors should reconsider their support for such an unsuccessful and unaccountable initiative. They should shift their funding to agroecology and other low-cost, low-input systems. These approaches have shown far better results, raising yields across a range of food crops, increasing productivity over time as soil fertility improves, increasing incomes and reducing risk for farmers by cutting input costs, and improving food security and nutrition from a diverse array of crops. (FAILURE OF AGRA – AGRA: Still failing Africa’s farmers. T. Wise, March 2022 – Institute for Trade and Agriculture Policy). 

RWA says “No to AGRA” and an industrial agriculture model.

We urge the AU to reassess and suspend acceptance of Green Revolution projects by international funders and donors. It is important to note that one of the evaluations of the AGRA programme presented was reportedly carried out by consultants commissioned by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (AGRA’s major funder).

( Community Alliance for Global Justice, April 2022).

In addition, our own farmers on the ground have had negative experiences with AGRA, and government extension officers distributing genetically modified seeds and other inputs associated with industrial agriculture. 

1. Insufficient promotion and recognition of agroecology (AE)

 AE is not part of CAADP’s model as a way of farming and agricultural production, and its potential to overcome hunger, environment destruction and the loss of biodiversity.

The BRP report mentions in 2010 the AU took a decision (at Longwe) on implementation of Ecological Organic Agriculture in Africa. However, this has not been pursuit adequately and the BRP makes some recommendations, including: a) disaggregate the parameters that differentiate between conventional and EOA/AE practices to inform policy and investments; b) The AU framework for harmonising seed systems in Africa should be adapted along with the Farm Managed Seed Systems (FMSS) road map. Initiative.

RWA thinks that lack of support for AE also means that besides governments not implementing the commitment of public spending of 10% of the budgets into agriculture, also means that there was no specific financial allocation to AE.  

RWA wants to point out that even the funds allocated for Farmer Input Subsidy Programmes (FISPS), meant to support small-holder farmers, have failed to support women smallholder farmers throughout the SADC region. FISPS underwent some elite capture, despite several RWA and small-holder farmers’ mobilisations and advocacy interventions.
On the total spending in agricultural research as a share of GDP (BPR, 2024 – p. 40): ’This indicator aims to increase the level of Investments in Agricultural Research and Development (R&D) to at least 1% of the Agricultural GDP from 2015 to 2025. R&D investment across countries varies over time and there are qualitative differences in research performance across countries’. Countries that were seemingly on target include ’Cabo Verde, Egypt, Ghana, Mauritius, Morocco, Sierra Leone, South Africa and Tunisia’

RWA’s adoption of AE: Since its inception RWA has been promoting food sovereignty and agroecology (AE) and capacity building in the farming and socio-political principles of AE.

RWA promotes inclusion of AE in education curricula: AE should be taught at all levels of education -from primary to tertiary.  This would also ensure that government extension services have the relevant AE capacity and AE orientation when doing field work.  

Allocation of public expenditure on agriculture to support and promote AE: AE requires immediate support to reverse the interconnected hunger, social and ecological crises. Support needed includes: ensuring access to water and irrigation; access to improved infrastructure (processing facilities; rural transport and roads; cold storage; etc). Focus must be on smallholder farmers, especially women, who are the ones who produce most of the food in Africa including in the SADC region, but continue to be marginalized. 

Funding of research relevant to the needs of women and other AE smallholder farmers, especially to deal with challenges of climate change. The BRP (2024) report states that a few countries are seemingly on target, including SA where R&D has long been in support of industrial agriculture. This focus needs to change in SA and elsewhere. 
RWA says “NO” to the harmonisation of seed systems in Africa: This is happening across SADC countries and other economic regions, to meet requirements of corporate seed companies. Harmonisation of feed laws goes against the principles of preservation of seed and environmental diversity as inherent in AE. This also does not comply with the rights incorporated in the 1918 United Nations declaration on the Rights of Peasants and People Working in Rural Areas, which most African countries supported. (please see also RWA’s comments below under “Access to seed and Biotechnology). 

Lack of involvement and consultation of smallholder farmers in the formulation of agriculture and trade in agricultural products policies.

Adopt food sovereignty: While AE focuses on soil conservation and regeneration, biodiversity and social justice, it includes other broader principles that underpin food sovereignty: what food should be produced, how that food is produced and how resources (such as land, water and seeds) should be managed, and this requires consultation of smallholder farmers and effective participation in policy making.

This will facilitate greater food and agricultural trade between African states, whose boundaries were defined and set by previous colonial rulers.   Many smallholders are part of cross border trade networks. Capacity building in Safety and Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) standards will enable small-holder farmers and their networks to be involved in intra-Africa trade.

Access to Seed and Biotechnology (p. 35; p. 41- 42): 

To end hunger the BRP states that “a new indicator includes tracking improved seeds of livestock and crops, including biofortified seeds. It also includes Livestock seed for the livestock sector aimed at tracking and reporting the trends of locally evaluated and certified livestock seed used in Member States. The livestock strategic aim is to promote wider use of locally adapted livestock breeds to sustainably improve livelihood security and resilience in Africa.

The BRP report also states that South Africa is one of the countries that are said to “have a vibrant private sector involved in key activities in the seed system. South Africa is also one of the countries that has a vibrant private breeding programs that complement the national programs. These countries also have authorized the private sector to engage in quality assurance services including seed inspection, seed testing, and seed analysis, to augment public seed inspectors. South Africa (together with Zambia, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Nigeria and Malawi) is one of the leading seed producers of maize and of soya.

The BRP (2024) mentions that there has been partial recognition of Farmer Managed Seed Systems and also states that the AU framework for harmonising seed systems in Africa should be adapted along with the FMSS road map developed by the EOA Initiative.

RWA urges the AUC to comply with UNDROP and respect the rights of smallholder farmers to save, reuse, exchange and sell their seeds managed though Farmer Managed Seed Systems (FMSS).

RWA thinks it is a matter of concern the increasing penetration of the private sector into the seed systems of Africa and intrusion into the role of the state. 

Abuja Declaration (2006) – Fertilizer Consumption in Africa – Fertilizer for a Green Revolution (p. 135):  The initial resolution urged African countries’ governments to work towards a sixfold rise in fertilizer utilization, elevating it from the yearly average of 8 kilograms of nutrients per hectare (10% of the global average at that time) to a minimum of 50 kilograms per hectare by the year 2015, with financing by the African Development (AfDB) and with the assistance of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA).  The BRP report states that fertiliser consumption is growing but will not reach the 2025 targets. It recommends “an aggressive resource mobilisation campaign, enhance fertilizer consumption to improve soil health and for member states to prioritise the development of local capacity for national consumption rather than exports to other continents”

RWA urges the recognition, new research and capacity building in technologies to produce AE fertilisers to enrich and protect our soils are alternatives to fossil-fuel and corporate-manufactured fertilisers.