a model for Africa's green revolution - Push-Pull

26 Planting for Prosperity
Number of
farmers
1200000
1000000
Assuming current
rates of dissemination
continue, over one
million farmers will be
growing push–pull by
2020.
800000
600000
400000
200000
0
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020
Years
If these problems can be tackled, the
Push–pull Project Leader, Zeyaur Khan talking with members
of the Yenga Push–Pull Farmers’ Group, whose efforts
have been recognised through winning several awards
and shown on international television. Current rates of
adoption suggest the target of one million push–pull
farmers by 2020 is achievable.
The Royal Society of
the UK champions
push–pull in its 2009
publication.
push–pull technology will make a substantial contribution
to the ‘uniquely African green revolution’
called for by Kofi Annan, former United Nations
Secretary-General. Furthermore, in its October
2009 report ‘Reaping the benefits: Science and the
Sustainable Intensification of Global Agriculture’,
the UK’s Royal Society has identified push–pull as
a readily available technology that could do much
to achieve the massive increase in food production
required by 2050 to meet Africa’s food demands
without damaging the environment and without
bringing additional land into cultivation.
Global opinion is now united in the belief
that efforts to improve Africa’s agricultural productivity
must be based on technologies that are
highly environmentally friendly and people-centred,
in comparison to those that fuelled the Asian
green revolution. Push–pull is one of these technologies:
it is a new and much healthier approach
to pest management; it teaches farmers how to
become food-secure and build a livelihood on just
a small piece of land, without demanding inputs
of cash or labour that are beyond their resources;
in providing forage for livestock it contributes
directly to poverty eradication, since it enables
farmers to meet Africa’s rapidly rising demand for
milk and meat; and in protecting and enhancing
soil fertility it tackles what is perhaps the most
fundamental constraint of all to the development
of African agriculture.
As push–pull continues to spread and
achieve a positive, long-term impact, it will start
to play a vital part in helping African countries
reverse their backward slide and set themselves
on the path towards achieving the Millennium
Development Goal of halving poverty and hunger
by 2015. Push–pull also contributes to the MDGs
relating to health, education and nutrition. Continuing
to work towards and beyond these goals,
Khan and the icipe team have set themselves the
target of one million push–pull farmers by 2020,
and that target looks completely achievable.