Newsletter No. 291
News-Analysis
June 2, 2006

 

JAPAN AIMS AT FOOD SELF-SUFFICIENCY IN THE GAMBIA

Two stories have recently appeared in the Daily Observer of The Gambia regarding a Japanese donation of rice to the people of that country. On May 23rd, the Japanese Food Aid Program for The Gambia handed over 3814 tons of rice.

The Japanese side was represented by Councilor Hisanobu Hasama of the Japanese embassy in Banjul, and the Gambian side was represented by Secretary of State for Agriculture Yankuba Touray. During the ceremony, Hasama made comments to the effect that Japan wanted to help The Gambia in its efforts to reach complete food self-sufficiency as soon as possible. For his part, Touray thanked Japan for its support and noted that this was the third time in recent years that such a donation has been given.

In April, it was reported that the National Assembly of The Gambia had ratified the Gambia-Japan Cooperation Agreement (see Shingetsu Newsletter No. 251).

COMMENTARY

1) From John Edward Philips of Hirosaki University on June 2, 2006.

More information about this story is available at http://allafrica.com/stories/200605250668.html

This is a very strange report. A quick search of Google News and AllAfrica.com didn't turn up any news about a drought, locusts or famine in the Gambia this year. This is still early in the growing season there, anyway. It is too early to know how the Gambian rice crop is doing this year. The rice is apparently from Japan, where the cost of rice is artificially high by world standards. Had it been intended as famine relief it would more logically have been bought in other West African countries, or at least in Thailand, a major rice exporter. The story is fishy, to say the least, especially in light of the following report from:
http://allafrica.com/stories/200605050598.html

"most of the rice is sold to Government civil servants and ruling party militants"

These civil servants and ruling party militants will presumably be free to resell the rice and/or distribute it to family and clients.

Even stranger is the Japanese comment that they want to help the Gambia develop self-sufficiency in rice. Dumping 3814 tons of rice in the market of such a tiny country would hardly encourage more local production. Training Gambians in modern methods of rice production, and supplying agricultural production equipment, might. Has there been any information about such training in the news, or does anyone know about such training being conducted at any agricultural institutes in Japan? I haven't met any Gambians in Hirosaki yet.

A bit of background information on African agricultural policies may be in order. During colonial times prices of food were artificially kept low to feed urban populations, which were kept small by strict control of movement of people. Independent governments removed the hated colonial controls on people moving to the cities, resulting in rapid urban growth beyond the capacity of the economy to support. No one wanted to stay on the land while prices for agricultural products were so low, but there were no jobs for most of these people in the cities. Governments that wanted to raise agricultural prices found themselves confronted with urban unrest, riots and eventual overthrow by new governments willing to continue cheap food to the urban populations. The result is a vicious circle of agricultural decline and urban unrest that no one knows what to do about.

Farmers, including African farmers, are not stupid. If you offer them sufficiently high prices for a crop, they will grow it to surplus, especially if you guarantee that price with subsidies. We can see that in Japan, the US and the EU. If you keep the price artificially low they will stop farming and do something else, unless you threaten them with deportation to a Siberian gulag. Even if you have gulags for "dissidents" you cannot force agricultural production, as the sorry experience of the Soviet Union showed. That's how economics works, in Africa or anywhere else.

Ghana has been perhaps the most successful country in west Africa in reforming its agricultural sector, and the Rawlings administration won re-election in 1996 with solid support from farmers for raising agricultural prices. Most of the people in all West African countries are farmers, and really democratically elected governments would put the interests of farmers foremost. In 2000, though, Rawlings' party was turned out of office as the economy went sour. The economic troubles in Nigeria during the "oil bust" also had the effect of raising food prices and stimulating agricultural production. Several retired generals, such as the current president, Olusegun Obasanjo, went into commercial farming, and the Obasanjo administration is considered to be sympathetic to farmers.

The really sad part about this story, to my mind, is that many Japanese will think that Japan is generously donating to starving Africans, who are either too stupid or too incompetent (or both) to even feed themselves. Even more than in Western countries, Japanese will understand this story against a background of starving, drought-afflicted Ethiopians and Somalis from the opposite end of the continent several years before.