Research program to improve agriculture sector

The Minister of Agriculture and Land Affairs, Lulu Xingwana, welcomed the initiative at the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA) in Johannesburg on 14 June.

The minister said: “As the name of this five-year program implies, it focuses on working with national and regional institutions in order to improve their capacity to get new research into use.”

The RIU was jointly unveiled by the minister together with John Karim-Sessay, the Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Food Security in Sierra Leone, and in absentia, Gareth Thomas, the United Kingdom Minister for the Department of International Development (DFID).

The program is designed to promote the widespread use of past DFID's and other donor investments in agricultural and natural resources research to help achieve sustained growth and poverty reduction.

“I am fully convinced that there is an urgent need for innovation in agriculture in order to address the chronic food deficiencies which still affect two-thirds of the people in Africa,” Xingwana stated. “Also, Africa will need innovative approaches to address the 6% growth target in agricultural production agreed on by the African Union's [AU] New Partnership for Africa's Development [NEPAD].”

The program will also aim to improve the lives of the poor, by enabling some of the best agricultural technologies to reach them.

“Virtually no country in history – be it China, India, the United States or Britain - has achieved economic progress and improved the welfare of its people without first achieving gains in agriculture,” said Minister Thomas. “The path to agricultural and economic growth is long and hard, but the UK is committed to doubling our spending for agriculture, fisheries and forestry research in poor countries to £80 million a year by 2010.”

The RIU technologies will be selected on their potential to make money for farmers, stop environmental damage, reduce poverty for the community, and increase the supply of food.

Lessons from the program will be shared to show how fishing, farming, responsible forestry, and livestock rearing combined with new, useable technology can help reduce poverty.

Sierra Leone has also welcomed the program to improve its agricultural development.

“We in Sierra Leone look forward to welcoming the RIU program activities to our country as the issue of both appropriate information and the ability to utilise it are key to the development of our agriculture - and agriculture is central to our development,” said Deputy Minister Karim-Sessay.

The RIU program builds on past DFID research successes, for example, in India research on controlling a pest that attacks cotton plants costing the country US$1 billion (approx R7 billion) a year in lost income has resulted in 100,000 farmers using fewer pesticides but increasing their production by 11% with an overall increase in profits of 75%.

Dr Monty Jones, Executive Director of FARA added, “I believe that this is one program that will take technologies to the farmers and take farmers' products to the market.

“This program is also complementing the innovations system approach that FARA is advocating. I personally hail DFID for bringing this to Africa.”

Article published courtesy of BuaNews