Africa far from ending hunger, poverty —AATF boss

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2 years ago

COLLINS NNABUIFE speaks with the Executive Director of African Agriculture Technology Foundation (AATF), Dr Canisius Kanangire, on improving African agriculture using technology and the activities of AATF in Africa.

THE deadline for the attainment of the AU Malabo declaration which emphasizes the desire of Africa to end hunger by 2025 is almost here yet most African governments are still far from reaching the target. Is there still hope?

We are far from ending hunger, and still far from ending poverty, but we have made a lot of progress. Africa has made a lot of progress and we have some countries that have even implemented most of the targets that were set by the Malabo Declaration. I’m very keen to follow every two years what is called the scorecard of the African continent in agriculture.

Yes, as Africans, I feel that we should be doing much more, but we have been quite progressive in doing it. What we need to do in the two years, I think the pace of transformation should not be a uniform type of speed. We should accelerate and adopt the changes that are needed to really revolutionise the agricultural sector.

And if we do, we can leapfrog towards what we want. I think the two years, we can make some progress and have a stronger foundation when we will be evaluating what the 25 years we have brought to Africa and take new commitments on the basis of strong lessons that we will have learnt from this period and strong commitment that we will have taken from different summits and different high level meetings that our leaders have been taking.

I will take this opportunity to urge our decision makers or policymakers and also private sector people because it can’t be done by only one sector, I want to ask them to use the two years to really ensure that we expedite the transformation that we need.

We put together the ingredients that will make changes and that we will charge our batteries for the next 20 years or so to make a greater difference in the agricultural sector. I believe that unless we develop agriculture and make it an economic sector, Africa’s development will be very difficult to attain.

Remember, more than 60 percent of our people are into agriculture. And unless we change, we will not be able to develop our content. Remember, women and youths are not very much empowered unless we manage to equip them with the right technology and the right knowledge and the right access to production factors that would not be able to change this content. That is my appeal to the leaders of this continent.

It was celebrated in the sub-region last year when Ghana approved the PBR Cowpea. What is the situation with the crop in Burkina Faso?

When we talk with the sector leaders in Burkina Faso, what we hear is very encouraging. They are not saying we are not open to this technology, they are open but I think Burkina Faso has also had some slowing down factors in the last few years. But the new leadership that is there is very much willing. Our determination at AATF is to work very closely with them and provide our support in whatever will be required. I have no doubt that soon we will have another good news from Burkina Faso to celebrate when they will also do the same. So I would say that with Nigeria and Ghana, West Africa and soon Burkina Faso, one of the effort we are developing is to ensure that the subregion harmonises the policies and regulations. For example, in the policy it is said that when a seed is registered by two or three countries, they think it can be harmonised to the whole economic region. That is one of the discussions that we will undertake with the ECOWAS leadership soon, and then see if that can be facilitated and expedited; because if it does, it means that after Burkina Faso, any other country in West Africa that would like to adopt PBR cowpea will do it almost spontaneously. And also, another effort that we are making and I talked about sometime ago is the little frustration which comes from lack of consistency and policies talking to one another. For example, the new initiative of having intercontinental trade, embracing agriculture as part of that new move so that seeds, agricultural products, agricultural technologies, can cross the borders without any problem. The farmers will be the greatest winners of the situation if it happens, but also countries I think, will not be hampered by issues of food access or seed access if we’ve managed to do that. So, discussion with different bodies, including African Union, AUDA-NEPAD, etc will be geared towards that harmonisation of policies that we need.

So that good success registered in one country and one region can be easily adopted by others. Also, achieving the deregulation of one product takes a lot of time and a lot of money to actually do some tests. But one would question why something which was tested thoroughly in Nigeria here should be again tested thoroughly in Ghana, Burkina Faso, Niger and elsewhere. Can’t we trust our institutions? I’m saying if they planted it and they produce five kilos, we should believe in that. We should believe in that and then take for example what Nigeria did and then move it. That is what we call transportability of data that we are also working on, which we hope will ease the adoption because we can focus on what is very particular to another agro ecological zone, rather than doing it from A to Z and take the time that we have taken the full scope.

Africa is still crawling when we talk about Mechanisation. Is AATF implementing any strategy to fast-track or enhance the rate?

Mechanisation actually s one area where Africa is not doing well. Sometimes, as Africans we are frustrated when we see things happening the way we saw them when we were young more than 50 years back. We know that the hoe and machete cannot feed this growing population. We absolutely need to mechanise. I come from a background of smallholder farmers. It was rare to see my parents resting; every time they had something to do on the field. If they had mechanised agriculture, I think they would have rested sometime. So now, mechanisation is critical to achieving food security, and prosperity through agriculture. We are encouraging it in different ways at AATF. A decade ago, we piloted what was called the Cassava Mechanisation and Agro-processing Project (CAMAP) which was active in Nigeria, in Zambia, in Uganda, and Tanzania. Piloting to show that it is possible that it can improve things. What comes from the cassava sector with mechanization is that it is not that only the farmer could cultivate a bigger space because they are using tractors, it is also that it improves agricultural technology in a way of agronomic practices and improves the productivity from seven to nine tonnes per hectare to 25, even more times per hectare.

So using mechanisation, to prepare the land, plant and harvest was very beneficial. And it reduced the time spent by the family on the farm. Here in Nigeria, we have continued that same initiative that we started with CAMAP, we have what we call Agridrive; it is a company which provides mechanisation services to farmers, including the smallholder farmers who cannot buy their own tractors. And this is also to show that actually we can change the lives of many by having this type of service and from the result that we will achieve, encourage the private sector to invest in the same area so that they can help change the lives of the farmers.

And here we are integrating different services. With those tractors, we are ploughing, harrowing, and planting and harvesting which is very good at weeding even. So, all the services can be mechanised.

And we have another processing which can allow the farmer to take the produces and put them into the processor and produce flour for human consumption and for animal consumption.

With this, we can reduce the post harvest loss that we normally have with a produce like cassava. So we consider the whole value chain and we hope that from that even now the agro processors, the small business will be developed around to the cassava value chain and change the lives of men. What we need is to continue that initiative and provide more successful examples to our private sector and bring them our demand, our proposals, to the big people that we have, who have resources to support mechanisation.

And actually supporting Mechanisation means also to reduce the costs of the equipment, which is very high today. If our private sector, philanthropists and rich people could invest in producing agricultural equipment, I think it would make a lot of progress.

Where do you think Nigeria has done well in the PBR cowpea and where do you think they should measure up?.

I think in general, Nigeria has done so well, in policy, advocacy, communication, scientific research and adapting the technology to the need. Nigeria, has been a real big brother on the African continent producing very good things to emulate.

But still this technology and its adoption is new. One of the key areas is the seed production, the putting in place of seed systems, that is very critical. Because it is good that we scientists and other technocrats and media people will work together to bring the good message to people and then say we need productivity. We need to be shielded against these insects. And that is why we need to work very shortly to put in place a very high quality and very effective and efficient seed system. That is what we are working on with all our partners in Nigeria, including all these authorities and the IAR that is spearheading the adoption of this technology.

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