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September 1, 2008
Linda Nordling,
SciDev.Net
Agricultural research advances in
Africa are not reaching farmers in the field, top African
scientists have warned.
Speaking at the third African Green Revolution Conference in
Oslo, Norway, last week (28 August), they said that although
research institutes have developed seeds that can improve crop
yields, these have had no effect on the ground.
"The continuing puzzle for us is that the adaptation of these
technologies is very limited. We cannot see yield improvement in
our countries," said Mpoko Bokanga, executive director at the
African Agricultural Technology Foundation.
Bokanga said that a large number of improved seeds and planting
technologies are implemented to great success in targeted
development projects like the UN's Millennium Villages (see
Ending poverty one village at a time) but fail to scale up.
While the money for research has increased, funders have ignored
the deployment of new technologies, says Florence Wambugu, chief
executive of the Africa Harvest Biotech Foundation.
"I believe we need to have a better focus on strategic research,
but we also need to focus on deploying the research to
smallholder farmers. We need to plug the gap between the lab and
the field."
But Akinwumi A. Adesina, vice president of the Alliance for a
Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) told SciDev.Net that his
organisation was starting to address the funding gap.
"Within AGRA, we are spending roughly US$50 million to develop a
rural network of agro-dealers. These will be rural input shops
that carry seeds and fertilisers to rural areas. So that is
helping to reduce the distance that farmers travel to find farm
inputs." Agro-dealers are also starting to do demonstrations of
new technologies, he said.
Agro-businesses used the conference to pledge support to improve
technology transfer in Africa. The Norwegian fertiliser company
Yara will improve port facilities in Africa to improve access to
fertilisers and other inputs. Seed companies vowed to develop
local seed distribution systems.
"I would say, both from the public sector and from the private
sector, that there is a realisation of the importance of getting
technologies off the shelf," said Adesina, adding that if the
bottleneck could be eliminated the benefits would be huge.
"If we are able to get all the technologies off the shelf, and
improve incentives for farmers to use them, we can triple yields
of maize, and many of the other crops in Africa in less than
three years." |
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