Latest / U.S. Right to Know articles / Bill Gates promised Africa a farm productivity revolution. The data show sluggish yield growth and rising hunger.

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Bill Gates promised Africa a farm productivity revolution. The data show sluggish yield growth and rising hunger. · U.S. Right to Know articles

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  Bill Gates promised Africa a farm productivity revolution. They
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  data show sluggish yields growth and rising hunger. Twenty
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  years ago, the Gates and Rockefeller Foundations launched they Alliance for a
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  Green Revolution in Africa, Agra, promising agricultural transformation from improved seeds,
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  synthetic fertilizers, mechanization, and commercial markets. These interventions, the said, would
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  double crop yields and farmer incomes and cut food insecurity in half
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  in one of the
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  world's hungriest regions. To achieve these goals, they urged African governments to
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  subsidize inputs, reform policies, and court private investments. Bill Gates became
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  one of the idea's leading promoters. He argued that the technologies behind
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  the original green revolution, particularly magic seeds and the magical innovation of
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  fertilizer, could lift millions of
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  people out of poverty. He described the approach as creative capitalism, using
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  business incentives, corporate investment, and government support to create new markets than
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  raise farmer incomes and thereby reduce hunger. African could avoid many of
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  the problems of the earlier Green
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  Revolution in Asia by pursuing what Gates called a Green Revolution one
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  guided by small, holder farmers adapted to local circumstances and sustainable for
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  the economy and the environment. Many African groups disagreed from the start,
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  arguing that agroecological approaches would reduce hunger more by rebuilding soils, cutting
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  farmers dependence on expensive inputs, diversifying crops, and making farms more resilient
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  to climate and economic shocks. That does AGRA record show? Now nearly
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  twenty years of data are in, and Agra's results fall far short
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  of its promises. The
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  raise fundamental questions about AGRA, the Gates Foundation, and their influence on
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  African governments and institutions. The AGRA effort drew more than 1.5 billion
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  in donations, two-thirds from the Gates Foundation, as African governments spend an
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  estimated 1 billion a year in subsidies for fertilizer and other inputs
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  in Agra's target countries. The Green Revolution has failed Africa, the Alliance
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  for Food Sovereignty in Africa said in a new report. Twenty years
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  is long enough to judge the Green Revolution model by its results.
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  The evidence does not justify another decade of the same priorities at
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  greater scale. The report is based on
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  an August 2026 working paper by Timothy A. Wise, Senior Research Fellow
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  at Tufts Global Development and Environment Institute, that reviews 18 years of
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  United Nations and World Bank data from 2006 through 2024. The analysis
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  finds that across they 13 countries that where
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  the focus of the Agra effort, fertilizer use more than doubled and
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  cultivated land expanded by 46. Yet yields for major staple foods increased
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  by only 25, far less than AGRA promised doubling. Staple crops yield
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  growth was one point two percent, slightly slower than in the twelve
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  years prior to Agra, which saw one point three percent yield growth.
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  It slowed even further in the most recent six years, to roughly
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  zero point four percent a year. Most troubling, the number of chronically
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  undernourished people increased by an average of 58 across agro countries, the
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  Gates Foundation did not respond to requests for comment on the Tufts
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  report Agra's spokesperson Humphrey Chola told U.S. Right to Know that the
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  report and underlying data raise important issues about Agra's 20-year record, accountability,
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  and future direction. AGRA
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  own 20-year review concedes that hunger has risen, farmers are not yet
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  prospering, and the gains of The past two decades have not added
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  up to transformation. But the
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  executive summary of the Agra Review, released August 31, says the past
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  20 years have brought real gains to Africa's agri-food systems and pitches
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  for more investments in the same market-based logic. Transformation is about more
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  than just producing more food. It is the shift from low productivity
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  farming methods towards a productive, market oriented agri food economy, the executive
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  summary states. The full report is coming soon, Agra said. Losing ground
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  on crop diversity. As agri and government subsidies steered farmers toward commercially
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  oriented crops such as maize and rice, indigenous crops such as nutrient
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  dense millet and sorghum lost ground. The trade-off is especially consequential as
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  the climate warms. Many traditional crops are more tolerant of sought heat,
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  and poor soils, even as the provide more diverse diets. In Zambia,
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  where the number of undernourished people rose 33, and devoted to nutrient-dense
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  millet fell 42 and sorghum production declined 62 since 2006. Fertilizer
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  use where increased 155, reaching the highest levels among agri-countries, yet maize
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  yields rose just 14. Senegal, which was not an agri-country, offers
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  a notable contrast. The country supported a
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  more diverse array of crops and a less fertilizer-intensive development strategy. Senegal
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  cut the number of undernourished people in half, while its staple yield
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  index rose 73. Agra Perspectives in its 20-year review,
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  Agra cites a larger productivity gain, about a 40 increase in cereal
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  yields, though it is measuring a
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  narrower set of crops. Tufts 25 figure use a broader index of
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  staple foods grown across AGRA focus countries, including roots and tubers as
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  well as grains, to capture what happened across the food crops people
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  depend on. Africa’s agricultural GDP accelerated from about 2.4 in
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  prior decades to over 4 after 2000, while farm output roughly doubled
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  in real terms after 2005, states the AGRA report summary, citing a
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  2021 book chapter. Those measures show Africa's agricultural sector producing more economic
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  value, but not how those gains were distributed or whether the translated
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  to better incomes for farmers. In its press release, AGRA
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  claims a doubling of farmer incomes, But provided no methodology to back
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  that up. The executive's summary of the report does not make that
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  claim, and they full report was not published as
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  this article went to press. The claim runs center, to household surveys
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  showing persistently high rural poverty. Wise called the claim wildly misleading, and
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  said Agra seems to be misinterpreting the data showing a rise in
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  total farm revenues, which exclude farmers raising costs, and failed to account
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  for the prevalence of farmers with small landholdings and limited resources. Major
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  global shocks are a factor. There has been progress, there has not
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  enough, but it's an improvement, said Andrew Cox, Agra's Director of Strategy,
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  Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning. Obviously, the challenges of transforming agriculture is a
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  major difficulty. If it was easy, it would have happened already. Agra
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  leaders stress that their group is only one actor in a complex
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  food systems, shaped by governments, markets, donors, farmers, and global events. The
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  great tragedy, Cox said, is that malnutrition has increased in Africa in
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  recent years. He cited major shocks, including political conflicts, the COVID-19 pandemic,
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  and rising food and fertilizer prices. He also acknowledged that some production
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  growth has come from expanding cropland rather than raising yields on existing
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  farmland, the sustainables intensification Agra has long sought to promote. Cox
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  called that expansion a major environmental hazard that Agra and its partners
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  have been trying to
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  address for the past 20 years. Recent peer-reviewed research helps explain why.
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  Expanding cropland can drive deforestation and habitat loss, reduce biodiversity, and release
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  large amounts of carbon as forests, grasslands, and other ecosystems are converted
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  to firms
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  Those risks are especially acute in tropical Africa, where any areas suitable
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  for agricultural expansion are also rich in biodiversity and carbon. Data undercut
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  the Green Revolution's theory of change. The data call into question a
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  central premise of the Green Revolution's model that boosting agricultural productivity is
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  a reliable path to reducing hunger. Malawi, one of Agra's strongest performers,
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  recorded a seventy eight percent increase in staple crop yields between two
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  thousand six and twenty twenty four, yet the number of chronically undernourished
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  people there rose sixty one percent. Population growth accounts for part of
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  the increase in hunger, but the stark divergence underscores a larger point
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  that critics of the Green Revolution have raised from the start. Producing
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  more food does not necessarily translate into less hunger when people cannot
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  afford or access it. In Kenya, home to Agra's headquarters, farmers describe
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  a punishing cycle: rising spending on fertilizer and commercial seeds, even as
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  heavy fertilizer use contributes to soil acidification. Wise's analysis finds that staple
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  crop yields there have fallen 8 since Agra began, while the number
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  of undernourished Kenyans has more than doubled. Time for a new approach?
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  The data and new analyses reinforce long-standing criticism that Africa's input-intensive green
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  revolution model is poorly suited to the region's ecological and economic realities.
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  Agra didn't fail because of want of funding. It is a well-funded
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  demonstration that hunger was never a shortage of technology. It is a
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  shortage of power, and bags of hybrid seed don't redistribute power. They
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  concentrate it, said Raj Patel, research professor at the University of Texas
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  at Austin and the incoming co-chair of the International Panel of Experts
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  on Sustainable Food Systems. Both AGRA and its forum rebranded in twenty
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  twenty two to retire the Green Revolution label. But its central development
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  model remains unchanged. To transform African agriculture through commercial inputs and technologies,
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  private sector value chains, policy reform, and investment in agribusiness. Agra
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  is a well-funded demonstration that hunger was never a shortage of technology.
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  It is a shortage of power, and bags of hybrid seed don't
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  redistribute power, they concentrate it. Raj Patel, IP's co-chair. But as the
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  AGRA-sponsored Africa Food Systems Forum convenes this week in Kigali, market-oriented approaches
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  to solving Africa's food crisis are front and center. As AGRA continues
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  its 2026 reflection and celebration tour, pitching African agriculture as the next
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  big investment opportunity. All the investment that went into the agrochemicals and
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  improved varieties didn't work, said Million Belay, General Coordinator of the Alliance
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  for Food Sovereignty in Africa. But this model is expanding despite the
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  evidence. Gates vision for transforming African agriculture became, over time, more than
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  just a philanthropic experiment. It became the dominant model for agricultural development,
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  shaping government policies and attracting billions of dollars from national governments, foreign
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  aid agencies, and multilateral institutions. Agra played a key role, Belay
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  said, in the African Union's latest 10-year agricultural plan, which seeks to
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  mobilize 100 billion and sharply increase food production through 2035. Although
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  the African Union found that no country was on track to meet
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  the foo, food, and agriculture targets set under the previous plan, the
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  new strategy continues to emphasize the same productivity and market-driven approach instead
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  of supporting agroecological methods. We should not spend the next decade rediscovering
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  what the last 20 years have already taught us. The Food Sovereignty
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  Alliance argues in its report. Public investment should support healthy soils, farmer-managed
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  seed systems, diversified production, farmer-led extension, local processing, and territorial
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  markets. Where has the accountability for philanthropy gone wrong? For years, Africa-based
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  groups have criticized AGRA and called on the Gates Foundation to scale
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  up research and support for agroecological food systems. In 2022, African faith
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  leaders asked the Gates Foundation to stop pushing the green revolution model
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  they said is deepening the humanitarian crisis. In 2024, they demanded reparations
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  from the Foundation for the ecological and social damage caused. The Gates
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  Foundation has offered no public response. The AFSA Coalition has written, written
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  to the Gates Foundation and other Agra donors, raising concerns about Agra's
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  influence over African food systems and Af African government policies. When they
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  finally did meet, Gates Foundation representatives came to convince us of the
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  value of their approach, instead of listening to us and looking at
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  the data and changing pathways, Belay said. When firms get things wrong,
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  markets will discipline them. And when governments get things wrong, voters will
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  kick them out. Philanthropy doesn't have any of those pressures, said Raj
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  Patel, the incoming IP's co-chair.