South Africa
February 22, 2007
South Africa’s Minister for
agriculture says food security is not possible without improved,
appropriate, locally enhanced bred cultivars of some indigenous
grain crops such as sorghum, millet and other staple food crops.
The Minister, Ms. Lulu Xingwana
also said the South African government will support
African Biofortified
Sorghum (ABS) Project in conducting its research in South
Africa and the continent.
Addressing the ABS Open Day
Conference at the Agricultural Research Council (ARC)
headquarters in Pretoria, South Africa, the Minister said “The
South African government supports the ABS project in its
research and the hard work that it has put into this venture.”
Ms. Xingwana said in order to
avoid food insecurity, it is important to explore various
options that will enhance the micronutrient content of staple
foods such as supplementing people’s diet.
Other dignitaries at the
conference included; Dr. Florence Wambugu, CEO Africa Harvest,
Dr. Gatsha Mazithulela, Executive Director CSIR Biosciences and
Dr. Paul Anderson, International Grain End-Use Manager, Pioneer
(a Dupont Company). The three are members of the ABS steering
Committee.
Dr. Florence Wambugu applauded the
involvement of the Government of South Africa in endorsing a
20-year biotechnology action plan by Africa’s Heads of State at
the AU summit in Ethiopia.
She called on the South Africa
government to use its influence as a leader on the continent to
convince other African countries to enact laws that create
enabling environment for biotechnology. “I call upon the
government of South Africa to use its influence on the continent
and help other African countries to enact laws that govern the
biotechnology sector,” said Dr. Wambugu.
Dr. Wambugu noted that policies on
the continent were not at the same level with new technologies.
She urged African governments to keep on updating policies to
meet the challenges of new technologies that are emerging.
Dr. Gatsha Mazithulela said the decision by the heads of state
to endorse a 20-year biotechnology action plan enforces African
governments’ position on the development of biotechnology on the
continent.
“In the ABS project we, as
Africans, have pooled our resources to address an African
problem. Funding from primarily the Bill and Melinda Gates
Foundation has put the objective of improving the nutritional
value of an African crop, within our reach. Because we are
realistic about the limitations of Africa’s infrastructure
capacity and human resources capacity in the science domain, we
have made it our mission to weave capacity building into every
fibre of this project. In addition to our African partners, we
are collaborating with some of the developed world’s leading
scientists in this domain”, Dr. Mazithulela said.
Ms. Xingwana, the Minister for
agriculture acknowledged that micro-nutrient malnutrition was a
public health problem of considerable significance not only in
South Africa but the continent at large. She said sustainable
approach to enriching staple foods with micronutrients is to
develop improved varieties or cultivars through research and
development and applauded the ABS project for doing this.
“The goal of the ABS project is to
develop transgenic sorghum varieties that will overcome most of
the nutritional deficiencies affecting the continent. We hope to
do this by substantially improving grain digestibility and
making the vitamins and micro-nutrients more available,” Dr.
Paul Anderson noted.
The minister encouraged the ARC
and the ABS project to use the best that science has to offer in
addressing agricultural problems unique to SA and Africa. “In
particular, you should explore the possibilities of broadening
the food base to reduce dependence on a small basket of foods,
improving the inherent nutritional quality of food at source and
identify integrated approaches to maximize impact and adoption
of new technologies,” she noted.
The African Biofortified
Sorghum (ABS) Project is part of the Bill and Melinda Gates
Foundation-funded Grand Challenges in Global Health initiative,
a major effort to achieve scientific breakthroughs against
diseases that kill millions of people each year in the world’s
poorest countries. Announced in mid 2005, the grants totaling
US$436.6 million covered a broad range of innovative research
projects involving scientists in 33 countries. The ultimate goal
of the initiative is to create “deliverable technologies” –
health tools that are not only effective, but also inexpensive
to produce, easy to distribute, and simple to use in developing
countries. |
