'Masiyiwa played a central role in the Gates Foundation-funded Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), which promotes a destructive model of US-style industrial agriculture.'
." After stepping down, he was appointed co-chair of Grow Africa, a platform for private sector investments that are made as part of the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition. Although both AGRA and Grow Africa claim to benefit small-scale farmers, they actually help corporations likegain access to new markets, consumers, and profits in Africa.
Masiyiwa, like Bill Gates himself, is fundamentally a tech opportunist. A Zimbabwean billionaire who made his money through telecommunications, heand has advocated for drone use in farming. As is clear in his work and writing, he views African agriculture as a vast and as-yet largely untapped frontier for tech investment and profit.
Contrary to the IT-influenced"solutions" proposed by Masiyiwa and Gates, the small-scale farmers that both of us have worked with in our respective careers tend to demand more grounded and practical interventions: more resources and support for agroecology ; infrastructural support from national governments; assistance with desalinating soils; and the creation of locally-run processing or preservation facilities and networks to get value-added products to viable markets.
This is not to deny that some digital innovations can be beneficial. For example, extension services are increasingly using text messages to communicate rainfall data and planting advice, with.
Masiyiwa might represent African entrepreneurs, but he doesn't represent or serve the hundreds of millions of small-scale farmers who produce