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Africa’s leading crop breeders meet in Kigali, Rwanda, to discuss strategies for increasing food production and securing the next generation of plant breeders


Kigali, Rwanda
November 10, 2014

A two day meeting kicked off today in Kigali Rwanda bringing together 52 African Crop Breeders to deliberate on how best to ensure African farmers get the best of their breeds. Coordinated by the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), the meeting brought together over 100 stakeholders in Agriculture drawn from over 17 countries in Africa, represented were the donor community, governments, the private sector, breeders, researchers and seed companies amongst others.

“Green Revolution for Africa starts with the seed,” said Dr. Joe DeVries, Director for Program for Africa’s Seed Systems (PASS) at AGRA. Under the title, “Modern and Visionary African Seed Breeders” the meeting’s main agenda is ensuring sustainable seed breeding and effective public-private partnerships in the African Seed breeding sector.

Just last week, the Africa Union’s (AU) Agribusiness Forum held a meeting in Kigali which also delved a lot into how to create and sustain effective partnerships in African Agriculture. Transformation and strengthening of the entire Agriculture system in Africa is key especially when a question lingers in many minds as to how the 9.5 billion mouths will be fed by 2015.

Rwandan Minister of Agriculture, H.E. Dr Geraldine Mukeshimana, said the gathering is a landmark one in Africa’s efforts towards becoming food secure. “I appreciate the different specializations here today who represent these unusual partnerships that we are creating and strengthening to turn science into action, in ways that matter to Africa’s farmers,” she said.

In a speech read by Dr. DeVries on behalf of AGRA’s President, Dr Agnes Kalibata, she asked the attendees to answer one question: “How do we feed Africa and feed the world, in a manner that is environmentally sustainable and inclusive for all players in the agricultural sector?

“The ingredients to doing so are all available within Africa’s borders; world-class technical manpower in agricultural and related fields, sizeable tracts of arable land, a readily available work force and an ever-growing consumer base,” Dr Kalibata said.

“We need to harness all these ingredients to achieve a total transformation of Africa’s agricultural sector, and for a business-like approach to agriculture – one grounded in science and evidence,” she added.

Through the PASS program AGRA invests in breeding, training, seed production and seed marketing in 17 countries throughout Sub-Saharan African, including Rwanda. These efforts are all geared to ensuring farmers have access to the best seed they can to produce their crops, feed their families and contribute to making Africa food secure. Through PASS African has had over 400 new crop varieties released.

“We need to figure out how to get these high yielding crop varieties to the farmers who need them,” posed Dr. DeVries. The two day meeting help identify the characteristics of high impact breeding programs in Africa; identify priorities for modernizing plant breeding in Africa; help understand how to scale up public-private seed partnerships in Africa and identify priorities for educating and mentoring Africa’s next generation of plant breeders.



More news from: AGRA (Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa)


Website: http://www.agra-alliance.org

Published: November 10, 2014

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