AGRA ‘fails to deliver on promise to double yields’

ABSTRACT

Speed read Undernourishment up 30 per cent since AGRA began in 2006 Income from larger yields lost to higher cost of fertiliser, industrial seeds Programmes lack input from communities they are meant to help, reports find Large agricultural development programmes have done little to reduce hunger while pushing farmers into debt, food security experts say, as they warn that such schemes risk failure if they do not move away from industrial fertilisers and seeds. [...]researchers used country-level production, yield and land data to assess whether AGRA programmes had significantly raised agricultural productivity. Hunger vs yields From AGRA’s launch to 2018, the number of people suffering undernourishment increased by 30 per cent across the organisation’s 13 focus countries, the report’s data shows.