John Kerry is wrong on Africa

Last month during the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit, which was held here in Washington, Secretary of State John Kerry admonished the 45 African heads of state. A hot item of discussion during the summit was the need for increased agricultural production. This item seemed to concern Kerry, who stated, “Certain agricultural processes can actually release carbon pollution and help contribute to the problem of global warming in the first place. Rather than convert natural areas to new farmland — a process that typically releases significant amounts of carbon pollution — we can instead concentrate our efforts on making existing farmlands more productive.”

How shocking! He is telling a continent that is constantly fighting famines to not increase their arable land use and produce more food. Greenhouse gas emissions are a concern of many, but I don’t know of anyone other than Kerry accusing the continent of Africa as being a leading air polluter.

{mosads}First of all, and more importantly, Kerry is very wrong about farming “[releasing] significant amounts of carbon pollution.” I learned in elementary school that animals and plants have an interchange of four gases. These gases are good for the earth and important to the lives of both animals (including humans) and plants. These four gases are carbon dioxide, oxygen, nitrogen and water vapor.

Carbon dioxide is the least abundant gas. Plants extract carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to form proteins, sugars and carbohydrates. Then animals add essential minerals to turn these into protein, fat, etc. The carbon from carbon dioxide is the building block for all life on earth and for organic material including oil, gas and coal.

Oxygen is vital to animal life. We absorb oxygen with every breath and cannot exist without it. Animals take in oxygen and let out carbon dioxide, which is vital to plant life. Plants take in the carbon dioxide and emit oxygen, which completes a very important life cycle.

Nitrogen is an essential building block of amino acids present in all proteins. It is vital to growing plants. It is in the soil and can also be taken in via the atmosphere.

Water vapor is a very vital gas also. Water evaporates (vapor) into the atmosphere and is returned as water via rain and snow. No animal or plant life can survive without water.

Kerry needs to understand that agriculture is the key to civilization. The more African countries develop their agribusiness activity, the more stable and economically viable they will become. Instead of accusing African nations of helping to pollute the atmosphere, he should be setting his crosshairs on China, India, Brazil, Russia and other major air polluters who seem to have little conscience about this subject.

He should be focusing on the lack of energy that is being produced by the continent. Nigerian Minister of Energy Chinedu Nebo stated during the summit that “Africa should be allowed to develop its coal potential. This is very critical. Africa is hugely in darkness.” No area in the world has a bigger energy challenge. The 910 million people living in sub-Saharan Africa use less total electricity than the 5 million people living within the state of Alabama.

Agribusiness must expand in Africa and the need for energy will grow with that. Forty-eight percent of the developing world’s power comes from coal and coal is something Africa has plenty of. Through carbon capture and other new and environmental friendly technologies, Africa will become energy efficient through the use of its own coal. Secretary Kerry, leave their farming alone and think about investing in their new coal-powered energy plants. That’s what a friendly nation would do.

Alford is the CEO and president of the National Black Chamber of Commerce.