REPORT ON STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE AFRICA’S AGRICULTURE, FOOD SECURITY PRESENTED AT UN HEADQUARTERS

REPORT ON STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE AFRICA’S AGRICULTURE,

FOOD SECURITY PRESENTED AT UN HEADQUARTERS

Comprehensive strategies -- particularly advances in research and development -- are needed across Africa to harness the power of science and technology in ways that not only boost agricultural productivity, profitability, and sustainability, but ultimately ensure that families become food secure and obtain the full range of nutrients that they need every day, says a new report launched today at United Nations Headquarters in New York.

Members of the InterAcademy Council (IAC) joined Secretary-General Kofi Annan today to present their report and recommendations on how best science and technology could help Africa overcome deepening food insecurity by producing higher crop yields and more nutritious foods from thinning soils, making food both affordable and accessible to increasing numbers of people.  They also discussed the larger socio-economic and political conditions necessary for the effective use of science and technology in both the public and private sectors continent wide.

Two years ago, Mr. Annan had challenged the IAC -- a Netherlands-based non-governmental organization (NGO) created by 90 national science academies to provide expert advice to international bodies -- to engage leading scientific, economic, and technological experts from around the world to identify how best to realize the promise and potential of African agriculture.  The report, officially titled: “Realizing the Promise and Potential of African Agriculture:  Science and Technology Strategies for Improving Agricultural Productivity and Food Security in Africa”, is the result.

Today, Mr. Annan hailed the report for targeting a particular continent and a specific urgent problem facing millions of children, women and men in Africa who were suffering from hunger and malnourishment.  The report should be the cornerstone of an international strategy to break the pattern of food insecurity and bring about a “green revolution” for Africa.

Africa was perhaps the only region that had been bypassed when agricultural and biological advances took hold in other parts of the world.  The long-term approaches needed to address that critical issue required action from a broad array of African and international experts, scientists, farmers and institutions to translate the report’s recommendations into concrete actions.

Presenting the report to Mr. Annan, one of the panels’ co-chairs, Dr. Speciosa Wandira Kazibwe, past Vice-President of Uganda and former Minister of Agriculture, Animal Industry, and Fisheries, said it was important to clear up some misconceptions -- namely that Africa had “so many problems” and that it was “so complicated”.  Africa did not have problems -- its leadership had problems.  Africa was not complicated; it was diverse.

So the real challenge was for the continent’s leaders to show the political will to do something about persistent food insecurity -- which affected so many other things, she added -- particularly as the target dates for the near-term Millennium Development Goals were fast approaching.

Since there was no single technological solution for the many problems facing agriculture in Africa, the report offers a number of concrete steps that the scientific community -- working closely with farmers and representatives from governments and private industry -- could take to avert famine and relieve suffering for millions of Africans in the future.  The report was drafted by an IAC study panel that included 18 experts, many of them from Africa.

Mark Malloch Brown, Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), who moderated the discussions, said the report was a major contribution to the broader international effort to “get the investment, get the science, and get the political will to break the back of this problem and get a green revolution under way in Africa”. The stars were in relative alignment, he added.

Another Panel co-chair, Dr. Rudy Rabbinge, Dean, WageningenGraduateSchool, and Professor of sustainable development and systems innovation, Wageningen, the Netherlands, said the Panel had held numerous consultative workshops and expert consultations to determine why the green revolution that had swept the globe following the Second World War had bypassed Africa.

The panel had learned that, among other things, Africa faced irregular rainfall and irrigation systems; low investment in agriculture; a wide variety of crops, and a lack of knowledge -- largely due to brain drain, with some 50 per cent of the people qualified to make decisions and promote innovations towards alleviating food insecurity had left the country.

But the situation was not hopeless, he continued, citing the particular need to create policies that reversed land degradation, as well as increasing labour productivity, driving investment in the research and development spheres.  He highlighted the four farming systems which showed the most promise for the continent, including the maize-mixed system, cereal/root crop mixed system, the tree crop-based system, and the irrigated system, based on rice, cotton, vegetables, rain-fed crops, cattle and poultry.

Dr. M.S. Swaminathan, past President of the National Academy of Agricultural Sciences of India and a member of the Royal Society of London, United States National Academy of Sciences, Russian Academy of Sciences, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, whom Mr. Malloch Brown called the “the father of India’s green revolution”, highlighted Africa’s science and technology “bright spots”, including biological advances to control pests, the demystification of technology under way in many regions, increasing support and investment in agriculture and more cooperation and farm management between both men and farm women on finding solutions.

He stressed that what Africa really needed was an “evergreen revolution”, which would only come about when green revolution initiatives were linked to ecological advances promoting food security and sustainable development.  He added that there was also a need to create a Web-based AfricanVirtualAcademy focused on sharing information on agricultural best practices, as well as on advances in science, technology and biology.  He also encouraged government officials to raise the profile of scientists and the sciences in their respective countries.

Among other things, the experts recommended designing and investing in national agricultural science systems that involved farmers in education, research and extension.  They also suggested encouraging institutions and mechanisms to articulate science and technology strategies and policies; cultivating African centres of agricultural research excellence; increasing support for agricultural research and development, and strengthening international agricultural research centres.

The experts said they envisioned an African future where increased agricultural productivity, improved food security and an enhanced sustainability of agro-ecosystems could be achieved.  Agricultural research and development investments were among the most crucial determinants of agricultural productivity.  The near stagnant economies in parts of Africa were, to a large extent, a reflection of a stagnant agriculture.  Science and technology could directly contribute to food security not only by introducing improved crops, labour-saving technologies and better communications, but also through an improved quality of food storage, processing, packaging and marketing.

According to the report, though Africa is rich in both natural and human resources, nearly 200 million of its people are undernourished because of inadequate food supplies.  But, food security means far more than having sufficient food to meet human needs on a national basis.  In fact, it often has less to do with food availability than with access to food.  Access is a hugely elusive and complex problem, a problem complicated not only by low family incomes, but also by lack of roads and the distribution infrastructure needed to move food swiftly from place to place.

The report says that more than 60 per cent of malnourished Africans live in eastern Africa, with more than half of the populations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Mozambique affected.  Similarly, Angola, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania and Zambia show malnutrition prevalence rates between 40 and 50 per cent.

On the other hand, West Africa, as a whole, has countered the trend in the rest of the continent, with its malnutrition falling dramatically in recent years.  This good news shows that, with a concerted effort, movement away from hunger and an inadequate diet is possible.  The nations that have made progress are Benin, Ghana and Nigeria.  Nigeria’s prevalence rate is low, but because of its large population, the country nevertheless accounts for 22 per cent of the food impoverished poor in West and Central Africa.

The guiding principles for African agricultural research and development institutions should be productivity, profitability and sustainability, the report says.  Those principles should apply both to the conduct of the institutions and to programme for smallholders.  The study Panel is also of the view that involving farmer’s groups and other stakeholders more closely in the governance, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of agricultural research requires the building of strong links among these various partners.  However, some realism was needed regarding the relative strength of these partners and their ability to participate.

The study Panel was also convinced that Africa deserved a dramatic and sustained increase in the resources devoted to agricultural research and development.  It, therefore, recommended that the expenditure on agricultural research as a proportion of agricultural gross domestic product rise to at least 1.5 per cent by 2015.  That would represent a doubling of current average research intensity levels.  Those added resources should mostly be allocated to strengthening national agricultural research systems.

When the floor was opened for questions, several government representatives stressed the importance of the provision of financial resources, and investment in the agricultural sector.  But Dr. Kazibwe said it “was a shame” that so many people in Africa wanted to be on the receiving end of international assistance, but did not want to undertake the minimum amount of change to make themselves better.

While sporadic rains were a problem in many regions of Africa, she said by example, there were many other places where it rained regularly.  So, how could you wake up and drink water every day, but not water your crops and then hold your cup out for maize from the United Nations? she asked.  It was time for Africans to take some serious and significant steps on their own behalf.  She also stressed the need to address critical matters related to women and land ownership, and the need for United Nations agencies to better harmonize their work on the continent.

Dr. Rabbinage stressed that overall it would take five to ten years of intense rehabilitation work to upgrade the soil on the African continent before any steps could be made towards a “green revolution.”  The report was optimistic in that, while it recognized the problems with African agriculture, it also pointed the way forwards by addressing key research needs, ways to enhance productivity and ways to reduce Africa’s dependency on industrialized countries for agricultural machinery and equipment.

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