Interview with FAO Country Representative George Mburathi

George Mburathi is the country representative of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in Ethiopia, which has an annual budget of about US $20 million. He told IRIN about the FAO's role in tackling Ethiopia's severe food crisis, and how a poor international response to appeals for non-food items means the country could face a similar crisis next year. QUESTION: What does the FAO believe is the most pressing issue facing Ethiopia today? ANSWER: Land degradation. In my view, land degradation and deforestation can be related to the food problem we are facing here. We have various interventions and we are doing work in irrigation, conservation, when to plant, what kind of seeds to plant and crop rotation. Q: Do you think Ethiopia will face this scale of food crisis next year? A: Most likely. If it rains, and there are enough seeds going to rural areas it may be less, but every year there are between four and six million who are food insecure. Unless the problems of land degradation and water management are tackled properly, not only next year but for the next five or ten years, we will face this. Q: Do you think there are signs of hope? A: There is hope, particularly bearing in mind the words of the Prime Minister Meles Zenawi recently, where he urged long-term types of interventions like soil conservation, water catchment improvements and these types of things. There is no reason why places like Oromiya [Regional State] that are suffering today cannot produce more in my view. Q: So do you think Ethiopia can feed itself? A: Oh yes. In 2001 there was a problem: there was a surplus, prices went down, so the farmers did not get as much and could not buy fertilisers, so the problem has come back again. Q: Why, if the country can feed itself, are five million people chronically food insecure? A: Because these people do not have access to the inputs we are talking about. And if you look at the rural areas, the type of land-holding they have, unless they have crop rotation etc introduced, there is no way that some of those people will be able to feed themselves. Q: Do you think the farm extension package [whereby farmers can take out loans] is working? A: To a certain extent. Q: What do you think are the problems with it? A: It tends to generalise for a particular group or area, whereas it should be, lets say, land-specific or area-specific to farms or villages. Q: What about problems like farmers not being able to pay back loans? A: Maybe some kind of farmers association would help, so that there is collateral or peer pressure for payments etc. Mobilising the community in terms of farmers associations probably may help. Or utilising what they have been given - like fertilisers - more effectively. Q: What if the crops fail and they then have no money? A: If the crop fails, there is no way the farmer is going to be able to pay back anyway. So there has to be some form of encouragement or guarantee that if something happens, you would face paying a minimum of X, and if you don’t pay that then you are defaulting. That is the kind of approach. Q: Do you think agricultural-development-led industrialisation is the way forward? A: Oh yes. There couldn’t be a better strategy in my view for a developing country like this one. You have to emphasise agricultural production first, then comes the surplus and then the processing. When you are talking about 80 percent of the people being land-based, agriculturally-based, then what else could be a better philosophy of developing agriculture first. Q: Is there enough land in the country to farm? A: There are many areas with high potential that are not utilised. So there is enough land in my view to produce enough for the people here. That I have no doubt about. Q: But people talk of plot sizes being ‘starvation plots’? A: If you produce in a particular area and don’t have a strategy where agricultural industrialisation will take place, or of adding value to what you are producing, people are going to stay in the same kinds of areas, dividing and sub-dividing. There needs to be ventures where some of these people get out of these small plots of land. Q: Do you think privatising the land could improve quantities? A: I believe, in my own personal opinion and not just the FAO's, owning a piece of land and making it yours would be more productive - you would put more effort into improving it on a long-term basis than just doing it for the short-term. I believe some of these areas have seen so much deforestation and degradation that if some of these people owned these pieces of land, they would have some incentive to improve it. Q: Why are we facing a seed crisis - why was it not addressed earlier? A: When we made an appeal, if enough had been pledged through the UN or through the government, we would not be talking about this sort of crisis. If the government has only a certain amount for their disposal on seeds, there is nothing else they can do. People did not react on time or optimally. Q: But this is the role of the FAO, to push people? A: We have. We have done that. In fact in every forum with the donors group I have said you can talk about the food shortage in the country, but if you don’t do something about the seed availability in the country, fertilisers, hoes for ploughing the land etc, extra oxen for these people, then next year it will be the same thing. Q: So why do you think your warnings have been ignored? A: Most of the donors have their own priorities here. I keep saying, if people are really serious about this country we should think about recovery and development, not just emergencies. Look at the livestock sector. We had a large crisis in August. We didn’t get the donors pledging anything towards the livestock sector except the Canadians. If you lose 40 percent of your livestock because of this kind of drought, it will take five years before you get back to the same situation. Q: Do you think this seed crisis should have been avoided? A: If I say in December we have emphasised the importance of non-food items... We have been saying if they are not pledged or supplied on time, we are likely to have a problem. We hope if there is another crisis, we can avoid these kinds of issues and not repeat the same kind of mistakes. Q: So you think a mistake has been made in not getting the seeds out. A: I can say it was a mistake, but most people will not understand the magnitude of this kind of mistake. If more was pledged, say $10 million to the FAO for example, by this time we would be guaranteeing before the farmers plant such and such a 'woreda' [district] that the seeds would be there. The time is running out. The kind of programme we are undertaking at the FAO, it would already be too late.