The Rt Hon Justine Greening MP

Secretary of State

Department for International Development

1 Palace Street

London

SW1E 5HE

Date: 12^th August 2015

Dear Justine,

I’m writing on behalf of my constituents to ask you to end the UK’s support for the New Alliance and instead support agroecology and approaches based on food sovereignty, which enable small-scale farmers to build sustainable food systems and keep control of their livelihoods.

The evidence against the G7 New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition, to which the UK has contributed £600 million of aid money, is growing.  For example, a new report published by Oakland Institute, Greenpeace Africa and Global Justice Now, shows how one of the New Alliance’s flag ship projects in Tanzania has led to debt and displacement for local communities.  

In May 2015, the Independent Commission for Aid Impact criticised DfID’s close relationship with big business in projects such as the New Alliance, saying that it was “little more than a means of promotion for the companies involved and a chance to increase their influence in policy debates”.

The New Alliance has also come under attack from a wide range of civil society groups for pushing commercialised seeds on small-holder farmers in Ghana and for supporting a land grab in Nigeria.

The recent statement on the DFID website in response to the campaign has not adequately addressed my constituents’ concerns, which I share. I would like to press you on several specific points.

(1) The focus on investment commitments as a measure of success: would you accept that not all investments are positive, for example, where they depend on major policy reforms that undermine development? Global Justice Now explain that the countries involved in the New Alliance have committed to over 200 policy changes via their respective country frameworks. These range from land reform in Malawi, which has paved the way for ‘land grabs’, to new seed laws in Ghana which, if passed, will impede the abilities of farmers to breed, save and exchange seeds. While substantial investments are being channelled via the New Alliance, to ignore all the evidence of the problems and to imply that these are automatically beneficial and should therefore be used as an indicator of success, is a somewhat disingenuous way to measure impact.  

(2)A second success measure: could you please explain what the criteria are to classify a smallholder farmer as ‘reached’?  Also, it would be helpful to have an explanation of where DfID’s 8.6 million figure has come from, given that less than 12 months ago the New Alliance progress report stated 3 million smallholders had been reached since 2012.

(3) I would also like to know whether the jobs figures factor in the problem of low pay, job insecurity and poor working conditions. Global Justice Now given the example of an investigation into Wilmar’s investment in Nigerian palm oil.  Although the company created 5,000 jobs, most of the employment on offer was “non-permanent, unskilled, and lacking basic remunerations and incentives such as health insurance…poor working conditions are serious enough to have warranted the intervention of the state’s Agricultural Labour Union." In order to properly assess improvements to nutrition and food security I would like to know what consideration DFID has given to alternative models, such as food sovereignty and agroecology.

(4) DFID has not adequately addressed concerns around the policy reforms as mentioned briefly above.  I am concerned that support for UK aid could be seriously undermined when it appears to be helping big business rather than local communities – especially when there are links to corporate land grabs, displacements, mounting debt, and lost access to vital resources of land, water and seeds.  I am deeply concerned that the Independent Commission for Aid Impact found the New Alliance serves as “little more than a means of promotion for the companies involved and a chance to increase their influence in policy debates.”

 (5) The Leadership Council, which is supposed to represent farmers’ organisations and civil society, is merely advisory and, moreover, is dominated by multinational corporations and non-African states. I understand that Oxfam left last year describing a flawed, undemocratic process that failed to adequately integrate the voices of farmers’ organisations.

 (6) The focus on increasing production, profitability and links to markets does not address hunger if the focus is on crops with low nutritional value, crops destined for export, or commercial crops such as tobacco or biofuels. I understand there is a New Alliance project in Ghana where farmers began producing cassava for beer production, leading to increased prices for this staple crop and making it increasingly unaffordable to the local population.

(7) ActionAid have recently documented a number of instances where the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests are being violated, in particular that much of the land reform taking place via the New Alliance is in direct contradiction to the guideline’s position that investment should not result in “large-scale transfer of tenure of rights to investors”, yet this is happening across the New Alliance countries.

To conclude, the evidence is mounting that the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition will benefit multinational companies at the expense of small-scale farmers and is likely to increase poverty and inequality in Africa.  I urge you to end support for the New Alliance and embrace an approach based on food sovereignty and agroecology instead.

Thank you in advance for your reply and I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours sincerely,