‘Why AATF is promoting stewardship for innovative technologies in Africa’

AFRICA has joined the league of continents adopting cutting edge technologies in advancing agricultural production by encouraging institutions to research and develop innovative technologies such as biotechnology that improve crop production beyond current harvest per hectare.

The African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF) is in the forefront, leading this development and within two decades of existence, AATF can count gains and benefits that farmers are already celebrating across the continent.

As farmers are celebrating these innovative technologies, the next important question is how would these gains be sustained in view of climate change and other vulnerabilities that agriculture on the continent is subjected to?

As part of long-term strategy to not only answer the sustainability question but to ensure that farmers joys are not cut short, AATF introduced and is championing the introduction of Product Stewardship as a critical component of technology delivery to the farmers.

Dr Onyekachi Nwankwo; Lead, Product Stewardship at AATF in a recent interview with Nigerian Tribune, explained that for sustainability of and monitoring of the agricultural technologies, a stewardship programme becomes pertinent.

Dr Onyekachi was appointed to lead a global stewardship programme for AATF in Kenya after recording some successes in his previous role in Nigeria. Currently, he is in other committees, research teams for products not even developed by AATF but because of the value he brings from a stewardship standpoint.

In Nigeria where two transgenic crops (Bt Cowpea and Bt Cotton) have been commercialised, the AATF deployed the stewardship programme in order to guide farmers and seed companies on the best way to handle the crops in order to get the desired result.

“For every technology that comes in every field, if it is not managed properly, it will not give the desired outcome especially overtime. For instance, if particular anti-malaria is being used over and over again without anybody checking what’s going on, at some point, even the parasite will develop resistant to that particular anti-malaria.

“If the parasite develops resistance because it has been used and abused, it will no longer work in that person. So, which means that the anti-malaria has a timeline because you are dealing with biological organisms, even as human beings, we have a way of adapting to the environment.

“So, if you are developing a product that is targeting at a particular disease, as long as those disease-causing organisms are around, its biology naturally keeps developing resistance to that product. If it is against insect pest, the same thing will happen, if it is against mycotoxins, the same thing will happen, and you will not know when it happens if you are not monitoring,” Onyekachi said.

He explained that stewardship is about looking at what are the inherent characteristics of a particular technology, and a monitoring mechanism needs to be developed so records of whatever is going on could be kept.

Onyekachi said the AATF is preaching stewardship in agriculture because of its relevance, and the Foundation has been able to put it together as an area of focus that agricultural products should begin to investigate especially when it comes to new agricultural technologies so that the technology can be managed properly for the benefit of the consumer, the farmers and even the technology owners.

Significant milestones have been recorded since AATF started the stewardship program; at the seed company level, things are beginning to improve, all players are falling in place and at the farmer level, there are great compliance.

Onyekachi said the AATF conducted a survey at the end of 2021 planting season and discovered that the compliance level was very high. He said that a similar survey was carried out at the end 2022 planting season, and from preliminary analyses, the compliance level was also very high at the level of the farmers.

“We formed a stewardship committee at the national level. So, this committee involved all the players along the seed delivery chain up to the farmers. For instance, the classes of seeds, we have the breeder seeds, which is developed by the breeder, then we have the second level which is the foundation seed which is also part of an early generation seed, then we the third aspect is the certified seed which is what is planted by farmers.

“As we have these three classes of seeds, we also have three classes of seed producers, for example in the case of this PBR Cowpea, the Institute of Agricultural Research (IAR), Zaria is the breeder, so they produce the breeder seed which is usually in small quantity but of extremely high quality. So IAR is involved in that committee to make sure they follow the guideline to ensure that the quality is seed is of good standard.

“Then the next level is the foundation seed, we don’t need too many people producing the foundation seed, so in this case, the IAR seed unit is producing foundation seed and Eco Basic, a private seed entity is also producing foundation seed and Eco Basic is also represented in that stewardship committee. Beyond Eco Basic for the production of certified seed, we have licenced a total of ten seed companies”, he explained.

Onyekachi also said that the stewardship program has been active in tackling the issue of fake seeds through educating the farmers on how to differentiate fake seed from authentic seed.

“Now, what we are trying to do is since we have seed companies that follow the normal way production, processing and packaging, of course the National Agricultural Seed Council (NASC) is involved in that process, and NASC before now has developed what is called Seedcodex where for every seed that is certified, they put a code in it, and we now put in the hands of the farmers the power to verify, because part of our communication is before you buy seed, just check the scratch code, text the number that you find there, just follow the instruction.

“If it is authentic, you will get a feed back immediately, if it is not authentic, you may probably not get feedback, or it will tell you that it is not authentic.

“Now, where the responsibility is now is for everyone to educate the farmers and make the farmers to be serious about it because sometimes people buy seed without verifying if it is authentic, but it is always very good to verify and be sure that what you are planting is the PBR Cowpea, because if it is not the PBR Cowpea, when you plant it in the field, you will know, and if you plant it in place of PBR Cowpea, we have a way of coming to verify, even in your presence we just collect the sample and do a quick test and see if the gene of interest is there, if it is not there, then we will know it is not the PBR Cowpea”, he further explained.

“There is no alternative than to invest in technology to improve agriculture and food supply, and research will continue because we want to solve as many problems as possible, we might not solve all of them but keep on solving the problem”, Onyekachi added.

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