MED-Amin network

Mass dispossession of smallholder farmers is not a side effect of the ‘African Green Revolution’. It is the whole point.

With the passing of the United Nations’ highly contested Food Systems Summit last month, the task of “feeding the world” has taken on a newfound urgency.

But one point apparently lost on the summit’s attendees is that the project of “agricultural modernisation” which many of them have supported for decades is only making food insecurity worse in recent years, especially in Africa.

The rules governing pitkala middlemen who auction farmers’ produce are set to be overhauled after tensions boiled over last month. 
The government plans on contracting these middlemen, previously self-employed, to provide the auctioning service for farmers twice a week.  
In April, Times of Malta reported how all of Malta’s registered pitkala had their licences suspended after they refused to put a guarantee in place to stop farmers from being left in the lurch.