{"id":23837,"date":"2020-06-10T14:24:00","date_gmt":"2020-06-10T12:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biovision.ch\/story\/forschungsgelder-fliessen-groesstenteils-in-industrielle-landwirtschaft\/"},"modified":"2022-09-20T15:20:11","modified_gmt":"2022-09-20T13:20:11","slug":"sub-saharan-africa-most-research-funding-supports-industrial-agriculture","status":"publish","type":"story","link":"https:\/\/www.biovision.ch\/en\/story\/sub-saharan-africa-most-research-funding-supports-industrial-agriculture\/","title":{"rendered":"Research funds flow largely into industrial agriculture"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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\"Only
Only a small proportion of research funding for Africa goes to African institutes - another finding of the study<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>
\"Mary
Agroecology is a knowledge-intensive field, which requires a lot of research to develop solutions adapted to local conditions. <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>
\"Applied
Applied knowledge is power - and it fills stomachs. That's why agroecology is committed to knowledge transfer. <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div> <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
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Leached\u00a0soils, endangered biodiversity,\u00a0a\u00a0hotter\u00a0climate: in the medium term, industrial agriculture will destroy its own basis for food production. Nevertheless, the major donors in\u00a0international\u00a0development cooperation continue to\u00a0support\u00a0food production based on monocultures, synthetic pesticides and artificial fertilizers. A\u00a0new study<\/a>\u00a0by Biovision\u00a0with\u00a0the international expert panel\u00a0IPES-Food<\/a>\u00a0and the\u00a0Institute of Development Studies (IDS)<\/a>\u00a0shows that 85\u00a0per cent\u00a0of the agricultural\u00a0development cooperation funds\u00a0from\u00a0the powerful\u00a0Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation<\/a>\u00a0flow into\u00a0industrial food production.<\/p>

The situation is not much better for agricultural research institutes in Kenya:\u00a0only 13\u00a0per cent\u00a0of projects\u00a0are linked\u00a0to\u00a0agroecology,\u00a0an agricultural method\u00a0based on sustainable production and a holistic approach that\u00a0considers\u00a0social\u00a0issues\u00a0and political\u00a0contexts.\u00a0<\/p>

The big promise has not delivered<\/h2>

50 years after the “Green Revolution<\/a>” in sub-Saharan Africa\u00a0introduced\u00a0widespread industrial agriculture,\u00a0its effects are\u00a0sobering. Hans R. Herren, World Food Prize winner and President of Biovision,\u00a0says:\u00a0\u201cThe industrial approach has failed across the board\u00a0\u2013\u00a0for\u00a0ecosystems,\u00a0for\u00a0farming families,\u00a0for all of\u00a0sub-Saharan Africa.\u201d\u00a0Despite all the ecological damage\u00a0caused, it has not fulfilled its\u00a0promise of ending hunger. On the\u00a0contrary:\u00a0world\u00a0hunger has been\u00a0increasing\u00a0in recent years.<\/p>

Numerous initiatives and projects around the globe demonstrate that\u00a0agroecological\u00a0approaches work in practice (see\u00a0Beacons of Hope<\/a>), but they are knowledge-intensive.\u00a0Agroecology\u00a0does not\u00a0deliver\u00a0uniform,\u00a0globally\u00a0applicable\u00a0remedies; rather, it\u00a0requires\u00a0the development of locally adapted solutions.\u00a0This makes it\u00a0all the more\u00a0important to redirect research funding\u00a0from industrial to\u00a0agroecological\u00a0research.\u00a0<\/p>

Positive approaches in Swiss development cooperation<\/h2>

Switzerland is, in this regard,\u00a0ahead of the game: the\u00a0Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC)<\/a>, like its German and French counterparts\u00a0and\u00a0the\u00a0FAO<\/a>\u00a0(the UN Food and Agriculture Organization), has officially recognized\u00a0agroecology\u00a0as a key method for establishing sustainable food systems. The study shows that 51\u00a0per cent\u00a0of projects financed\u00a0by\u00a0Swiss development funds contain elements of\u00a0agroecology, and 41\u00a0per\u00a0cent\u00a0also\u00a0support\u00a0systemic components\u00a0like\u00a0fair working conditions and gender equality. The study sees potential for improvement in projects\u00a0that\u00a0Switzerland co-finances, of which\u00a0only a handful\u00a0include\u00a0systemic approaches.\u00a0<\/p>

Positive approaches\u00a0exist, but time is running out.\u00a0Herren\u00a0<\/a>warns,\u00a0“With the multiple challenges of climate change, economic pressure on land and water, nutrition-based health problems and pandemics such as Covid-19, which exacerbate the problem of food insecurity in sub-Saharan Africa, we need change now. And in order to make it happen, significantly more research funds must flow into\u00a0agroecology.\u201d<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Biovision and research<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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In the project “More Research for Agroecology<\/a>“, Biovision pursues through policy dialogue & advocacy the goal of increasing investments for sustainable agriculture in Africa but also globally.<\/p>

In a study<\/a> published in 2020, Biovision investigated how research funds are currently distributed between industrial and sustainable agriculture and formulated recommendations for ways out of the impasse of industrial agriculture.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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A new study by Biovision, IPES-Food and IDS shows that international donors are not focusing on sustainability in development cooperation. And it shows ways out of the impasse.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":20826,"template":"","exclude-from-search":[],"newsletter":[],"region":[231,228],"projektthema":[548],"themen":[253,251],"class_list":["post-23837","story","type-story","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","region-international-en","region-sub-saharan-africa","projektthema-finanzierung-von-agraroekologie-en","themen-knowledge","themen-politics"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-10-25 02:33:59","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"newsletter","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biovision.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/story\/23837","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biovision.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/story"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biovision.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/story"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biovision.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/story\/23837\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biovision.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biovision.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"exclude-from-search","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biovision.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/exclude-from-search?post=23837"},{"taxonomy":"newsletter","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biovision.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newsletter?post=23837"},{"taxonomy":"region","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biovision.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/region?post=23837"},{"taxonomy":"projektthema","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biovision.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/projektthema?post=23837"},{"taxonomy":"themen","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biovision.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/themen?post=23837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}