Tech is Africa food woes cure: experts
Dr Ousmane Badiane, the chair of the African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF). Photo|File
What you need to know:
As climate change imperils food production, senior officials from the lending agencies and development partners meet in Addis Ababa to end the innovation ‘droughts’ on the African farms.
Arusha. A right mix of technologies and investments can tackle the food crisis in Africa and sustainably accelerate production.
Experts contend that it could be attained by pursuing public-private-partnerships (PPPs) to produce technologies targeting the needs of Africa’s smallholder farmers.
“We need to move decisively to disrupt the status quo that is denying African farmers access to potentially transformative technologies,” said Dr Ousmane Badiane, the chair of the African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF).
He spoke in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia yesterday in a meeting convened to take stock of the just-ended global climate change summit in Katowice, Poland.
A report released by COP 24 said stressful climate conditions have reversed progress against hunger and malnutrition in Africa and that it will intensify in the coming years.
AATF hosted the event in Addis Ababa in collaboration with the Ethiopian government, the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB), the African Union Commission and donor countries. The high level group of African agricultural experts is meeting to device ways under which farmer access o innovations in Africa can be accelerated in order to increased food production. They are discussing new options for generating public-private- partnerships (PPPs) that can deliver innovations, like disease and drought resistant crop varieties to the African farmers.
A partnership led by AATF, a Nairobi-based organization, is developing maize varieties that are both drought and pest resistant so that they are accessed to the farmers.
“While these are times of great challeges, they are also filled with promising opportunities for African farmers,” said Dr. Denis T. Kyetere, AATF’s executive director, according to a dispatch to The Citizen.
According to the World Bank, with the right mix of technology and investments, Africa’s farmers and agri-businesses could create a trillion dollar food market by 2030.
One such initiative is the AfDB’s Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation (TAAT) that is providing $ 1 billion to make new technologies widely available to African farmers.
