African Food Systems in Crisis

Part Two: Contending with Change

Rebecca Huss-Ashmore, Solomon H Katz

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9780367275839
• eBook ISBN: 9781000124316
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

Originally published in 1991. Commissioned by the Task Force on African Famine of the American Anthropological Association, this the second part of a project examining the causes of food system failure in Africa and the effects of attempts to remedy the situation. It evaluates the often-retrogressive results of foreign aid to African nations and offers an anthropological perspective on how to reverse this trend. The contributors emphasize integrating all development programs with the regional customs and traditions already in place that have thus far allowed its people to cope with food and water shortages. In the past, various strategies have failed due to misunderstandings and incorrect assumptions concerning gender roles, food consumption habits, social relations, kinship networks, land use and government function. New understanding of the culture must be complemented with multifaceted programs incorporating education, a concern for grass-roots opinion and control, attention to production and consumption patterns, and various forms of broad-spectrum integrated development.
The uniqueness research is recommended for all who are concerned about worldwide malnutrition and those who understand the need to recognize local traditions as resources that must be included in any successful development program.

Part II

STRATEGIES FOR INCREASING FOOD SECURITY

Curriculum Development in the Study of African Food Issues at a U.S. Land Grant University

Della E. McMillan

Institute for Developmental Anthropology
Binghamton, New York 13902

Introduction

It is increasingly obvious that any long-term solution to the root problems of poverty and hunger in Sub-Saharan Africa will require the collaborative efforts of scholars, researchers, politicians, and civil servants to go beyond existing models of food policy and food policy analysis. While the production and extension of suitable technology is obviously a key aspect of this process, there is increasing recognition that the policy environment in a particular country can be of equivalent or even greater importance (Bates 1981; Busch 1981; World Bank 1981; F.A.O. 1982; Timmer, Falcon and Pearson 1983; Pinstrup-Anderson, Berg and Forman 1984; Eicher 1984; Murphy 1983; U.S.D.A. 1984; Bryant et al. 1985; MacNamara 1985; O.T.A. 1985; Mann 1986; Asante 1986; Fleuret and Fleuret 1986; Hansen and McMillan 1986; Lemarchand 1986; Mellor 1986).

To date, however, the traditional approach of U.S. universities to research and instruction on African agriculture has been fragmented (Russell 1982). Agricultural scientists in fields such as agricultural engineering, agronomy, horticulture, forestry, and soil and animal science have focused on technical problems of production while issues of distribution, nutrition and the wider policy environment have been left to the agricultural social scientists (sociology, economics, home economics and increasingly political science and anthropology). Each discipline has generally carried out its work independently of the others. A similar subdivision is apparent in textbooks and until recently the majority of technical assistance programs.

While specialization is an essential part of agricultural research and training, it is, by its very nature, associated with the loss of a certain “generalist’ perspective. This generalist perspective includes the capacity to see how new interventions relate to one another and to the wider ecological, economic, political, and social environment within which agriculture takes place.

If U.S. land grant universities are to equip students with academic backgrounds that will enable them to make intelligent, rational, and sensitive decisions regarding the policies that affect world food supplies and the more specific food problems that face African and other Third World developing countries, they must design a curriculum that will give to students specializing in the agricultural sciences the intellectual framework necessary for articulating their technical expertise within the wider development picture (York 1984). At the same time this curriculum must provide students in the agricultural, social and policy sciences with some basic understanding of the technical issues that are involved in ameliorating food production and consumption.

There is also the need to address the more specific concerns of individual target groups.¹ One target group includes the African students pursuing graduate training in U.S. universities. A second target group is U.S. graduate students who have chosen to concentrate on Africa. A third target group includes faculty who are involved in the teaching and the administration of the University’s overseas development projects. A fourth target group that is less directly affected includes students who are involved in Bachelors, Masters and Ph.D. training programs in the African universities with which a particular U.S. university may have joint development projects.

What we are faced with, then, is a series of questions about the tradeoffs between academic training that promotes technical specialization versus a more generalist understanding of African food policy. Is there any way that both concerns can or should be addressed within the framework of a single university curriculum?

The present chapter argues that the concept of a thematically focused interdisciplinary center or program can be usefully employed to bring about a more integrated program of university involvement in training and research on African food issues. The point is raised, however, that any long-term success of such a program must be linked to the development of a strong base of department and university-level support for interdisciplinary research on developing country agricul ture. The study focuses on the analysis of a specific case. More specifically, the chapter provides a brief history of the University of Florida’s involvement in overseas agricultural projects, the growth of direct university involvement in African agriculture, and recent attempts by the African Studies Center to develop an area focus on African food issues. In the final section, I present a list of practical suggestions for the design of similar types of interdisciplinary programs on developing country agriculture and the more specific development problems of Sub-Saharan Africa.

African Studies and Development Research at the University of Florida

Background Interest in Developing Country Agriculture

The University of Florida has a strong tradition of interdisciplinary collaboration in overseas agricultural development focused primarily on Latin America and the Caribbean. In 1976, the Office of International Programs in the College of Agriculture (the Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences or IFAS) was instrumental in the development of a formal Certificate in Tropical Agriculture in which students could follow a recommended curriculum of technical and social science courses related to tropical agriculture. This Certificate was awarded in conjunction with a masters or Ph.D. degree in an agricultural science or social discipline. This was followed by the development of an informal network of faculty and students interested in small farm development programs in 1977. As part of the formation of this group, meetings were held with Deans and Department Chairs to develop a list of interested faculty and relevant courses. The faculty-student group became known as SAFS (Social, Agricultural and Food Sciences) and continues to meet bi-monthly for informal bag lunch seminars on rural development.²

Although SAFS’s development is very specific in that it did not include the creation of any formal institutional or academic structures, the activities of the group did contribute to the development of a separate Farming Systems Research and Extension (FSR/E) Program. The Farming Systems Program began in 1979 with an initial focus on North Florida. Since then the program has developed a core course on farming systems research and extension methods and a follow-up course on development administration. Students also have the option of earning a minor degree in Farming Systems. The FSR/E program has maintained a high level of faculty involvement through a network of interested faculty from the social and agricultural sciences who serve as student advisors. The program was given a tremendous boost in 1982 when Florida signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the USAID—funded Farming Systems Support Project (FSSP) and joined an international group of Farming Systems Associates.

A more specific area of crossdisciplinary concern in developing country agriculture relates to the special needs and constraints of women food producers. Although there was a strong interest in Women in Development issues at the University throughout the 1970s, an independent program did not develop until 1984. The University of Florida Women in Agriculture Program (WIA) sponsors a bi-monthly speakers program that meets opposite the SAFS speakers. Unlike SAFS, the WIA program has developed a formal administrative structure that includes both a steering and advisory committee. The program has also successfully sought outside funding for special activities including speakers, bibliographic materials development, and a major international conference on gender issues in farming systems in 1986.

A number of related interdisciplinary University programs and speaker series were started during the same time period of the late 1970s and early 1980s. These include Humanities and Agriculture Program, (with support from the W. K. Kellogg Foundation), the Certificate of Pest Management and Plant Protection, the Center for Tropical Animal Health, the Agroforestry Seminar Series, the International Health and Nutrition speaker series, and various tropical studies curriculum and networking groups. One example of these programmatic changes can be found in anthropology where an Anthropology and Agriculture Program was created that recognized the right of the student to organize an interdisciplinary committee, and to take courses in agriculture, and later encouraged them to pursue a degree minor in one agricultural discipline. The period was also associated with an increase in the number of agricultural and social science courses dealing with tropical agriculture, Third World development and food policy.³

Growth of Interest in Africa

Table I. Major USAID funded projects in the College of Agriculture at the University of Florida

1.	Malawi Research and Extension Program (1979 planning; 1980-1986 funded)
2.	The UF/USAID/Cameroon Agricultural Project (1980 planning; 1982-1991 funded)
3.	USAID Farming Systems Support Project (FSSP) (1982-1987 funded, 50% of activities in Africa)
4.	UF/USAID/Heartwater Research Project (Zimbabwe) (1985-1992 funded)

In the wake of the 1972-1974 drought, there was a substantial growth in development assistance of all sorts for Sub-Saharan Africa. In response to this, the IFAS Office of International Programs made a deliberate decision to shift from their earlier focus on Latin America and the Caribbean to bid on large African projects. The four projects they received involved agricultural research, teaching, and extension as well as the coordination of an international farming systems network of scholars and training programs (Table I). Although each of the grants was very different in terms of goals and funding, the four projects share certain characteristics in terms of their relationship to curriculum, faculty, and student development. In each case, the UF/USAID (United States Agency for International Development) projects have been associated with some amount of graduate training for faculty, researchers and administrators from the affiliated African institutions (this was especially the case for the University’s collaborative programs with the Ministry of Agriculture in Malawi and the University Centre at Dschang in Cameroon). In only one case, the University Centre at Dschang, however, did a UF/USAID project actually work with curriculum development in an African university setting. In the case of the Malawi and Cameroon projects, there were opportunities for faculty travel in connection with supervising students. All four projects involved faculty—many of whom had never been to Africa before—in short-term technical assistance and consulting. Other funds from USAID through the Title XII program provided opportunities for University of Florida faculty and students to engage in research related to the development of future Africa contracts. Travel funds through the Center for African Studies, as well as speciai grants from USAID, the Ford Foundation, the United States Information Agency (USIA)/Fulbright, and the American Association of University Women were also used.

It was in recognition of this growing level of departmental and interdisciplinary involvement in research and teaching on African agriculture and food issues, that the Center for African Studies shifted the emphasis of its programs to rural development in 1981. The Center was started as an area research center within the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences in the late 1960s to coordinate university-wide research, teaching and extension activities related to Africa. The Center does not award a degree but offers a Certificate in African Studies in recognition of an area concentration on Africa in conjunction with a Bachelor’s, Master’s or Ph.D. degree. As such, the Center for African Studies, like the other area studies centers at the University of Florida—the Center for Latin American Studies and the Asian Studies Program—provides a mechanism for area studies coordination across the administrative boundaries between budgetary units. At Florida these include the three budgetary units that receive separate funds from the State Board of Regents: the Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (IFAS), the Health Center, and the General Education Budget. By the late 1970s there were numerous faculty from different colleges, schools, departments, and programs in each of these three funding units with Africa-related research and teaching activities as well as funded projects with participants from two or more units.

The Center’s development of a programmatic focus on development included a deliberate attempt to attract faculty and students through public events programs. In addition, Center funds from the University, the Department of Education Title VI Foreign Language and Area Studies Program, and other sources provided administrative and financial support for visiting African and U.S. scholars. Center funds were also used to “seed” new faculty positions and to sponsor special conference, workshop, and publication projects.

In 1982 the decision was made to focus the spring interdisciplinary seminar in African Studies on rural development. The course included readings from a wide range of disciplines as well as four guest lectures from visiting African scholars. In 1983 there was a dramatic change in the organization of the course into a faculty-student seminar with a series of weekly guest lectures by faculty involved in overseas research on African agriculture and food policy. As such, the seminar provided a focus for the emerging multi-disciplinary concern with African food issues on campus. There were a number of spinoffs from the seminar including rekindling an active research and teaching interest in faculty who may have worked in Africa in the past but who had more recently been involved in domestic agriculture. One of the more immediate responses was the organization, with Center support, of an August 1983 conference, “Overcoming Constraints to Livestock Production in Africa” and the publication of an edited volume by the same name (Simpson and Evangelou 1984). The book includes contributions by African, European and U.S. scholars from agricultural economics, economics, anthropology, animal science, and range management as well as veterinary medicine. The development seminar was repeated in 1984 and 1985. By 1985 when many of the guest lecturers were presenting for the third time, the presentations had evolved into a series of 25 page chapters and recommended readings. It is this group of solicited chapters/guest lectures, recommended readings, reprinted and revised articles that was produced in the text...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Title Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• I. Changing African Food Systems—Issues in Anthropology and Development
• II. Strategies for Increasing Food Security
• Index