Sommaire - Performances Group

Semaine 47 – du 21 au 28 novembre 2011
N° 201
Sommaire
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Africa Can Feed the World . . . African agriculture is held back by Western scientific
illiterates whose well-paid jobs involve frightening people about biotechnology. ...... 2
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Tunisie : Monoprix lorgne vers le marché libyen ...................................................................... 4
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 Africa Can Feed the World . . . African agriculture is
held back by Western scientific illiterates whose wellpaid jobs involve frightening people about biotechnology.
By GILBERT ARAP BOR
Kapseret, Kenya
The world now has seven billion people in it, but population growth won't stop there. Demographers at
the U.N. Population Fund said the big milestone came on Oct. 31, when a Philippine mother gave the
world its seven billionth human life. In Kenya, the Daily Nation newspaper highlighted a Kenyan mother
and her newborn, also born on the last day of October at Kenyatta National Hospital. That same hospital also delivered five other babies that day.
By the 2020s, the world's population is expected to pass eight billion. By the 2040s, it will top nine billion.
That's like adding two Chinas between now and the middle of the century, as Robert L. Thompson of the
Chicago Council on Global Affairs put it recently.
The greatest challenge of our time will be to figure out how we're going to put food in all of these
mouths. Over the next four decades, farmers everywhere will have to boost their production by a total of
70%.
African agriculture must play a major role in any viable solution, and here in Kenya, we understand the
dilemma firsthand. Kenya's population is growing quickly, and almost everywhere I go, I see the effects
of a population surge. In cities such as Nairobi, Mombasa, Nakurua, Kisumu, Eldoret and Thika, the streets
are so crowded that it's getting hard to walk down them. Our urban slums are mushrooming. On the outskirts of cities, real-estate developers are chewing up coffee and tea plantations, turning them into residential estates. What used to be little market centers along the highways have turned into big towns.
Thankfully, Kenya is beginning to take positive steps. Last year, our government approved the commercial planting of genetically modified crops, becoming the fourth African country to do so after Burkina
Faso, Egypt and South Africa. This will give our farmers access to one of the world's most important hunger-fighting tools. We can also draw upon tremendous resources in human capital, from the scientific
expertise at the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute to the business know-how of the Kenya Seed
Company.
Associated Press
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The corn harvest in Bomet, Kenya.
Yet every African nation must do more. The continent holds tremendous agricultural potential, if only
because its farming is so woefully unproductive right now. On my visits to the United States, I've witnessed
many of the technologies and practices that could represent a bright future for Africa: genetically modified seeds, minimum tillage, conservation agriculture, irrigation, post-harvest storage. These are some of
the practices that contribute to sustainable farming and food security.
Africa could also better feed itself by easing access to its markets and by promoting high-value crops.
Such changes would need to be accompanied by improvements to the overall business environment in
several African countries, namely improved property rights, more independent courts and greater accountability among government officials. The rest of the world could also make it easier for African farmers to enter their markets and link their products to global trade. Until these changes come about, Africa will continue to lag. Many farmers remain wedded to primitive forms of agriculture that were hardly
adequate in the 20th century, to say nothing of the 21st.
Then again, many of them have no choice. Their governments currently follow the woefully misguided
example of European countries that refuse to accept biotechnology, including genetically modified
crops. This stance has been richly fed for more than two decades now by activists and lobbyists, who
oppose modern agriculture on the incorrect premise that engineering a tomato seed to be more pestresistant or a corn seed to yield more crops makes the tomato or corn dangerous to human health.
The result is that the billions in aid that Europe sends to Africa every year do nothing to encourage the
use of agricultural technology, and often discourage or prevent it. Africa's farmers and their would-be
customers are being held hostage by scientific illiterates whose well-paid jobs involve raising money by
frightening people about biotechnology.
The U.S.-based advocacy group, Truth about Trade and Technology, which supports free
agricultural technology, recently calculated that farmers around the world have planted
three billion acres of genetically modified crops. These acres have been mostly in North
America, but genetically modified food is now also feeding mouths in Australia, India, the
South Africa and elsewhere.
trade and
more than
and South
Philippines,
This is a remarkable achievement, but until more of Africa starts applying science and technology to
agriculture, it's an incomplete one. Western charities and politicians who claim to want to help Africans
could do no better than to get out of the way of this.
At a recent conference in Britain, Dr. Felix M'mobyi of the African Biotechnology Stakeholders Forum put
the matter bluntly. "The affluent West has the luxury of choice in the type of technology they use to grow
food crops, yet their influence and sensitivities are denying many in the developing world access to such
technologies which could lead to a more plentiful food supply. . . . This kind of hypocrisy and arrogance
comes with the luxury of a full stomach."
The challenge of our new century is to fill everyone's stomachs, and African farmers can help. European
leadership in this area would be tremendously helpful, but first Europe must get over its irrational position
on the technology that is feeding and will continue to feed the world.
Mr. Bor grows maize and vegetables and raises dairy cows on a 25-acre farm in Kapseret, Kenya. He is a
lecturer at the Catholic University of Eastern Africa's Eldoret Campus in Gaba, and is a member of the
Truth About Trade and Technology Global Farmer Network.
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 Tunisie : Monoprix lorgne vers le marché libyen
A l’occasion de la communication financière sur la société Monoprix organisée par
l’Association des Intermédiaires en Bourse (AIB), M. Adel Ayed, directeur général de
ladite société a annoncé le démarrage des activités de Monoprix en Libye.
« On compte démarrer notre activité en Libye au début de l’année prochaine avec
l’ouverture de 3 magasins à Tripoli », a précisé le DG en ajoutant que « Monoprix et son
partenaire libyen prévoient également au cours de 2012 l’ouverture d’autres magasins
à Benghazi ».
En ce qui concerne les prévisions de 2011, le directeur général de Monoprix a indiqué que son entreprise
réalisera au 31 décembre prochain un chiffre d’affaires aux alentours de 410 millions de dinars, soit en
régression d’environ 5% par rapport à celui réalisé en 2010 : «Malgré une légère baisse prévue du chiffre
d’affaires, nous comptons réaliser au terme de cette année un bénéfice net de 5 à 10 millions de dinars
».
M. Ayed a également évoqué les perspectives de 2012, en indiquant que Monoprix prévoit une hausse
notable de son chiffre d’affaires de 20 à 25% avec notamment l’ouverture de 10 nouveaux magasins
outre la réouverture de 8 magasins parmi les 11 qui ont été détruits durant la Révolution.
H.M
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