A theologian and activist who’s worked across West Africa for decades is challenging churches to reckon with how colonialism and Christianity arrived on the continent together, fundamentally reshaping not just land and politics but the African soul itself. Michael Tettey’s conversation with Dr. Million Belay on the Battle for African Agriculture podcast explores what was lost when indigenous spirituality gave way to imported religious systems, and what might be recovered.
The episode, released Friday as the tenth installment of the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa podcast series, delves into how sacred groves, seasonal taboos, communal farming, and harvest rituals once guided everyday life across Ghana, Sierra Leone, Benin, and Togo, where Tettey has spent his career. These weren’t just agricultural practices but expressions of a worldview that saw land, community, and the divine as inseparable.
The podcast launched in August 2025 and releases new episodes every Friday on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and RSS feeds, examining colonial legacies in African food systems while amplifying agroecological solutions. It’s supported by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency and TROCAIRE.
Tettey reflects on what was lost when Christianity arrived as part of the colonial package: self-belief, shared leadership, and respect for nature. He challenges the interpretation that faith gives humans “dominion” over nature, arguing that true power comes with responsibility to protect, restore, and care for land. This theological reframing has practical implications for how churches engage with environmental issues today.
The conversation touches on something that’s often overlooked in discussions about African agriculture and food sovereignty. Before colonization, farming wasn’t just about producing crops but maintaining relationships with the land, with ancestors, and with communities. Seasonal taboos weren’t arbitrary rules but ecological wisdom passed down through generations, preventing overfishing or allowing soil to rest.
Historical context matters here. Prominent African leaders like Kwame Nkrumah and Julius Nyerere were products of mission schools, their education helping them articulate visions of political freedom, yet they also inherited systems that divorced them from indigenous ways of knowing. Jomo Kenyatta reportedly lamented that when missionaries arrived, Africans had the land and missionaries had the Bible, and after learning to pray with eyes closed, Africans opened them to find the situation reversed.
Tettey’s call for churches to use their influence to rebuild dignity and reconnect people with African spiritual and ecological wisdom isn’t just nostalgia. He’s advocating for practical changes: decolonizing language and rituals, valuing local bread and wine instead of imported communion elements, and embracing agroecology as both spiritual and practical renewal.
African theologians like John Mbiti and Kwame Bediako argued that Christianity in Africa must not be divorced from African traditions. Mbiti, often called the “Father of African Theology,” emphasized integrating African religious thought into Christian theology, believing that traditional African beliefs in a supreme being, ancestral veneration, and communal values could enrich Christian teachings.
The podcast episode comes at a moment when African food systems face mounting pressures from climate change, corporate seed laws, and trade policies that often favor industrial agriculture over traditional practices. AFSA’s work through the podcast aims to shift narratives from deficit-based thinking toward recognizing existing strengths and innovations.
Tettey’s message to young people is practical and direct. He urges them to free their minds from colonial thinking, blend faith with indigenous knowledge, and embrace farming as skilled, modern, and viable work. But he doesn’t stop at individual action, pressing governments to create the policies, funding, and incubation systems that make this possible.
The theological dimensions of agriculture might seem abstract, but they’re deeply connected to how people relate to land. If farming is just extracting resources from dirt, that’s one relationship. If it’s stewarding creation or honoring ancestors through cultivation, that’s something else entirely. These aren’t merely philosophical differences but worldviews that shape whether people treat soil as a commodity or a living system.
Walter Rodney argued that Christian missionaries were as much part of colonizing forces as explorers, traders, and soldiers, whether or not they saw themselves that way. This historical reality complicates easy narratives about Christianity’s role in Africa. Missionary hospitals provided healthcare but often prioritized Christian converts. Mission schools educated future leaders but also disconnected them from traditional knowledge systems.
African Pentecostals have sometimes seen traditional culture as custodians of idolatry and the occult, though recent evangelicals have begun wrestling with developing Christian theology that has African context in mind. This tension between embracing indigenous wisdom and maintaining theological orthodoxy runs through contemporary African Christianity.
Tettey’s closing message carries weight in its simplicity: recovery begins with remembering who we are. That’s not a retreat into the past but recognizing what was valuable about pre-colonial African systems before deciding what to reclaim, adapt, or transform.
The Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa represents over 200 million people across 50 African countries through farmers’ organizations, consumer movements, and small-scale producer networks. Dr. Million Belay, who hosts the podcast, co-founded AFSA and serves as general coordinator, advocating for agroecology, food sovereignty, and the rights of small-scale food producers.
Previous podcast episodes have featured seed law expert François Meinberg discussing how international frameworks like UPOV 1991 undermine farmers’ rights, legal scholar Dr. Carlos Correa on seed sovereignty, and Professor William Moseley on decolonizing agricultural practices. Episode eight highlighted Nigerian environmentalist Nnimmo Bassey’s critique of genetically modified organisms and corporate seed systems.
What makes Tettey’s perspective particularly relevant is his decades working at the grassroots level across multiple West African countries. He’s not theorizing from a distance but speaking from experience with communities navigating the tensions between inherited colonial systems and persistent indigenous knowledge.
The conversation about sacred groves and seasonal taboos isn’t antiquarian interest. These practices encoded ecological knowledge about watershed management, soil regeneration, and sustainable harvest levels. When they were dismissed as superstition and replaced with industrial agricultural methods, communities lost not just spiritual practices but practical wisdom about living sustainably in specific ecosystems.
Tettey challenges churches to recognize that their current positions on environmental stewardship often reflect Western theological frameworks rather than indigenous African understandings. By valuing local communion elements, churches would support African agriculture while making theological statements about what matters. It’s both symbolic and economic.
His call for governments to create supportive policies acknowledges that individual choices and church initiatives aren’t sufficient. If young people embrace farming but can’t access land, credit, markets, or fair prices, cultural shifts accomplish little. The structural changes need to match the spiritual and cultural renewal.
The podcast’s broader project aligns with Tettey’s message. AFSA Chair Hakim Baliraine emphasized that the platform allows them to engage thought leaders and grassroots voices, connecting dots between biodiversity loss, climate crisis, and industrial food models while spotlighting agroecology as the path forward.
For listeners interested in the intersection of faith, ecology, and food sovereignty, episode ten offers more than historical analysis. It’s a challenge to examine whether accepted systems truly serve African communities or simply replicate colonial patterns with different packaging. Tettey’s decades of work across West Africa lend authority to his call for churches to lead in reconnecting people with ecological wisdom their ancestors knew intimately.
The full conversation is available on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and RSS feeds, with additional content on AFSA’s social media platforms. As the Battle for African Agriculture continues releasing episodes every Friday, it’s building a resource that documents not just problems but alternative visions rooted in African knowledge and experience.
Whether churches will heed Tettey’s call to decolonize their practices and embrace agroecology as spiritual renewal remains to be seen. But the conversation itself represents progress, acknowledging that recovering sustainable futures might require remembering what was discarded as Africa was told to modernize on terms set elsewhere.
