AGRICULTURE IS NOT CHARITY: FROM MINDSET SHIFT TO SYSTEMIC TRANSFORMATION — THE HGN & FPI APPROACH

 

Agriculture has long been misunderstood, misrepresented, and mismanaged by being framed primarily as a humanitarian concern rather than what it truly is: a productive economic system. This misconception, though often driven by compassion, has entrenched dependency, weakened rural economies, and stripped farmers of their rightful identity as entrepreneurs and producers of wealth. The assertion that agriculture is not charity is therefore not rhetorical—it is structural, economic, and deeply strategic.

Charity exists to alleviate immediate suffering. Agriculture exists to generate continuous value. When these two are confused, the outcome is predictable: short-term relief replaces long-term development, handouts replace investment, and survival replaces growth. Food aid may save a season, but it cannot build irrigation infrastructure, processing plants, storage systems, export pipelines, or financial resilience. It cannot retain youth in farming, empower women as economic actors, or create intergenerational wealth. Only systems can do that.

When agriculture is treated as charity, planning collapses. Farmers plant without market intelligence, harvest without storage, and sell without negotiating power. Risk is unmanaged, yields remain low, and climate shocks become disasters instead of variables. Over time, this approach institutionalizes poverty by removing incentives for efficiency, reinvestment, and innovation. Dependency becomes normalized, and dignity is quietly eroded.

Conversely, when agriculture is treated as an economic system, everything changes. Decisions are driven by data—soil health, water availability, input-output ratios, market demand, and price cycles. Finance replaces aid. Investment replaces sympathy. Profit is no longer viewed with suspicion but understood as the engine that sustains productivity, resilience, and food security. Farmers become entrepreneurs. Farms become enterprises. Rural communities become production zones rather than relief destinations.

This reframing is especially critical for Africa. The continent possesses land, labour, sunlight, and biodiversity in abundance, yet agriculture continues to underperform economically because it is rarely treated with the seriousness accorded to other sectors. While mining, manufacturing, and finance are supported through policy incentives, infrastructure, and capital, agriculture is too often supported through consumptive assistance. No nation has ever achieved prosperity through food parcels. Nations grow by financing production.

It is within this context that Hunter’s Global Network (HGN) and Farmer’s Pride International (FPI) have positioned themselves deliberately and unapologetically as system builders, not relief actors. Their work is guided by a clear philosophical and operational stance: farmers are not beneficiaries; they are economic actors.

HGN and FPI move people from a charity mindset to a business mindset by changing both identity and structure. From the outset, farmers engaged through their programmes are trained to think in terms of costs, revenues, margins, risk, and reinvestment. Inputs are not distributed as gifts but planned as investments. Training goes beyond agronomy to include enterprise development, financial literacy, governance, compliance, and market access. The question shifts from “What can we receive?” to “What can we produce, process, and sell profitably?”

A cornerstone of this transformation is the Agriculture-Based Clusters (ABCs) model. Under this approach, farmers are organized into structured production and business units rather than operating as isolated individuals. Clusters coordinate planting calendars, aggregate volumes, standardize quality, and link farmers directly to processors, exporters, and financiers. This alone dismantles the charity mindset. Where contracts, coordination, and cash flow exist, dependency disappears.

HGN and FPI further reinforce this shift by introducing finance instead of handouts. Farmers are supported to develop bankable documentation—business plans, cashflows, balance sheets, and risk assessments—and are trained to engage confidently with banks, insurers, and investors. Capital is positioned as something to be repaid from productivity, not forgiven through pity. This builds discipline, credibility, and independence.

Value addition is another deliberate intervention. Rather than trapping farmers at the farm gate, HGN and FPI integrate processing, storage, packaging, and branding into their programmes. Anchor crops such as Moringa are positioned as multi-industry commodities spanning food, nutraceuticals, cosmetics, animal feed, and climate-linked markets. When farmers understand that a single crop can generate multiple revenue streams, agriculture ceases to be subsistence and becomes strategy.

Women and young people are not treated as vulnerable groups but as central economic drivers. Charity models often reduce them to recipients of support; HGN and FPI position them as managers, processors, trainers, and leaders within clusters. Youth are retained in agriculture not through rhetoric but through visible income pathways, technology integration, and professional identity. Women transition from unpaid labour to ownership and decision-making across value chains.

Climate resilience is also reframed as a business imperative rather than a moral appeal. Through regenerative agriculture, water harvesting, renewable energy, and soil restoration, farmers are shown that sustainability lowers costs, stabilizes yields, and unlocks climate finance. Environmental stewardship becomes profitable, not punitive. This is how resilience is scaled—through incentives, not slogans.

Importantly, HGN and FPI challenge institutions—governments, donors, NGOs, and financiers—to redefine success. Impact is not measured by the number of people assisted, but by enterprises created, incomes increased, exports generated, and jobs sustained. Relief has an expiry date; systems do not. Their advocacy consistently calls for a shift from consumption support to productive capacity, from aid metrics to economic outcomes.

My firm and considered position is this: as long as agriculture is treated as charity, poverty will remain structural; once agriculture is treated as an industry, prosperity becomes achievable. Food security is not delivered by donations but by productivity, markets, and reinvestment. Dignity is not given; it is earned through participation in functioning economic systems.

Agriculture is not charity.
It is economics rooted in the soil.
It is industry expressed in the field.
It is dignity realised through production.
It is sovereignty built through systems.

Through the work of HGN and FPI, this truth is no longer theoretical. It is practical, visible, and replicable—planted through mindset change, harvested through systems, and reinvested into a future where farmers are no longer waiting for help, but leading growth.

Written by: Elfas Mcloud Zadzagomo Shangwa(Hunter) 

Executive President and Founder Hunter's Global Network & Farmer's Pride International

Mobile phone number: +267 73 269 606