HARARE According to agricultural experts from the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA), it is imperative that Africa revamps the system through which agricultural research is conveyed to smallholder farmers if the continent hopes to achieve its goal of increasing food production levels by 45 percent by 2035.
Speaking at the 22nd CAADP Partnership Platform in Harare, Anselme Vodounhessi, Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Lead Specialist at FARA, said that Africa's main challenge was not a lack of innovation, but rather the delivery systems that were in place.
"Africa has innovation. The challenge facing Africa is the way in which the innovations are organized and financed."
FARA noted that when it comes to agricultural technologies, there exists a wide gap between their development and practical application on the ground. The forum indicated that in a cross-country analysis that was conducted in sub-Saharan Africa, many crop varieties had been released, but only a small fraction had reached farmers.
The Kampala Declaration led FARA to design a four-part framework comprising the following components: deliberate commodity selection; alignment of research and development agendas with the overall continental priorities; development of integrated distribution systems facilitating seed transfer from producers to extension workers; and establishment of effective mechanisms for monitoring the uptake of new technologies and their impact on nutrition.
The funding of agricultural projects has always remained very problematic. Indeed, conventional project cycles usually terminate already after the technology has been successfully showcased, thus leaving funding desserts for commercialization, seed multiplication, and mass adoption. Moreover, some underprivileged groups like youth and women encounter considerable difficulties in obtaining funding.
As a result, FARA highlighted the idea of the Abuja Clarion Call initiated by the recent meetings of ministers dedicated to the funding issue.
The Clarion Call is expected to promote an African fund-based initiative that will ensure a steady flow of domestic and private funding for further scientific research.
FARA has urged the member states, the African Union Commission and financial partners to implement these targets into legally binding actions. The ofurmn recommended limiting the scope of the work for the next five years only to the best technologies that proved their implementation effectiveness by 2028 and also to work out reliable sources of financing for the project. The methods of achieving all these objectives should be included in the Harare Deliver Compact so that specific milestones are met in 30, 90 and 180 days.
Source:FARA