Africa is a continent where, at least outwardly, we like to celebrate our diversity—the rich variety that can be found in our many cultures, languages, fashions, flora and fauna. That’s why it’s perplexing to see such a large segment of the African population depending on a very small number of food crops, like maize, rice and wheat. And it’s more than just boring to the palate. It’s severely diminishing the quality of our diets and making our farming systems more vulnerable, especially during severe droughts like the one that hit Southern Africa this year.
Meanwhile, there has been a lot of talk lately about how Africa’s agriculture sector is primed to become a new economic engine for a continent that has become too dependent on commodities like oil. This week, Heads of State and top officials from across Africa and around the world are coming to Nairobi for the African Green Revolution Forum, where there could be millions of dollars in new commitments for Africa’s smallholder farmers.
But Africa is unlikely to achieve its agriculture potential, or be prepared to deal with challenges like drought that climate change will make more frequent, unless we change our thinking about crop diversity.
For the last two decades, my work has revolved around developing and promoting nutritionally enhanced sweet potato. It has convinced me that, with the right approach, farmers will cultivate a wider variety of crops and consumers will embrace the new additions to their dinner table.
Africa is actually blessed with a wealth of crop diversity. Much of it – including sorghum, yam and cowpea – is native to the continent. But many other crop types have arrived via trade, like banana, pigeon pea and wheat from Asia, and beans, cassava and maize from the Americas. But rather than capitalize on this full basket of food options, we’ve bet too heavily on just a few crops.
Take the case of maize in Eastern and Southern Africa. Yes, it can grow in different farming environments and supply large amounts of calories. But the crop has weaknesses. It’s susceptible to drought and pests and its nutritional quality is mediocre.
And while recent research has delivered more resilient and nutritious maize varieties, these are not sufficient. The fact remains that in many regions, rising temperatures and increasingly erratic rainfall will cause maize yields to fall—by up to 22 percent in many areas and up to 60 percent in South Africa and Zimbabwe, according to a 2015 report from the Montpellier Panel.
There is a strong body of research showing that farmers are much less likely to suffer catastrophic losses from pests, disease or drought if they plant a broader array of crops. Today, the devastation caused by outbreaks of lethal necrosis in maize and stem rust in wheat is greatly intensified by the lack of alternative crops. In Malawi, while drought ruined maize and bean crops this year, farmers growing naturally hardy, nutritional crops like chickpea and sweet potato fared much better.
If the benefits are so clear, then why don´t farmers just spontaneously diversify? The answer is that they may want to diversify, but often don’t due to policy and institutional barriers. When crops like maize started to dominate, governments and the private sector accelerated their take-over by providing subsidies, research and other support. Meanwhile, other potentially useful crops like cassava and sorghum were neglected, sometimes acquiring derogatory labels like the “poor man´s crop” or “crop for marginal lands.”
It doesn’t have to be this way. I’ve learned from my work with sweet potatoes that we can turn Africa´s “Cinderella crops” into the belle of the ball.
First, we need research that is focused on adding value to these crops and further enhancing their already natural resilience. In the case of sweet potato, we bred for higher levels of beta-carotene (the chemical precursor of vitamin A), better drought tolerance and virus resistance.
A second critical task: farmers need a reliable source of healthy seed. This is not easy for crops typically ignored by local and multinational seed companies, especially if they are propagated with bulky and perishable plant parts like sweet potatoes. For sweet potato, we worked through local farmer networks and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to achieve large-scale multiplication and dissemination of improved planting material.
Finally, marketing and branding, not something that comes naturally to researchers like myself, have to be part of the picture. We employed a variety of marketing and communications tools to make consumers aware of the many benefits of the sweet potato – as a staple food, animal fodder, snack and ingredient in processed foods.
The theme for the upcoming African Green Revolution Forum is “Seize the Moment” and I can’t think of a better time for influential leaders attending this meeting to make crop diversity a central part of their plans for African agriculture. Just as many will admire the colorful dress of West African attendees, they should also be embracing a larger mosaic of food crops for our farmers. I’ve already seen the good things that happen when a big colorful splash of orange-fleshed sweet potato is added to African farms and African diets.
Maria Andrade, a plant breeder at the International Potato Centre, is among the four winners of the 2016 World Food Prize. She is a member of AGRA’s Board.
Global attention at the ongoing World Water Week in Stockholm shifted to Africa today as the continent launched its trail-blazing web-based monitoring and reporting framework on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Touted as one of the most ambitious attempts at tracking progress on the attainment of the SDGs as they relate to the water and sanitation sector as well as the Africa Water Vision 2025, Agenda 2063 and other high level commitments, the Pan African Monitoring and Reporting System represents Africa’s readiness to learn from the mistakes in tracking the progress and implementation of the MDGs.
Developed by the African Minister Council on Water (AMCOW) with support from the African Water Facility (AWF) and the African Union, the Pan African Monitoring and Reporting System (http://www.africawat-sanreports.org:8081/IndicatorReporting/home) highlights the harmonised monitoring and reporting indicators for the whole of Africa while linking with other global monitoring and reporting processes.
Tanzanian Water and Irrigation Minister and President of the African Ministers Council on Water, Engr. Gerson Lwenge said “this launch demonstrates AMCOW’s commitment to aligning both our monitoring and reporting and various global processes in a way that better targets efficiency, effectiveness and greater impact. That way, we support harmonisation of efforts to monitor Sustainable Development Goal targets and other high-level commitments.”
“We are therefore linking the monitoring and reporting processes from Member States to sub-regional, continental and even global levels to reduce the burden and duplication of monitoring efforts at various levels. It is our hope to simplify for all stakeholders, the generation, assessment and dissemination of information on water security and sanitation across the continent of Africa,” Engr. Lwenge added.
Water Ministers from Benin, Sudan, Nigeria, Ghana, Ethiopia, South Africa, Burkina Faso, Uganda, Senegal, Egypt and Zambia who graced the Stockholm launch hailed the framework as “a timely response to making credible information generation, assessment and dissemination available to all stakeholders on the continent.”
Also present at the launch were representatives of AMCOW’s international development partners including the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Global Water Partnership (GWP), USAID/WALIS, and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
The need for action on the implementation the Sustainable Development Goals as well as tracking progress on water-related SDGs is one of the main talking points at the 2016 World Water Week that is ongoing in Stockholm, Sweden.
“It is time to turn commitment into action.” With these words, the Swedish minister for foreign affairs, Margot Wallstrom, reaffirmed the sense of determination that characterized the opening plenary. According to her, the significance of water issues stretches far beyond being just question about water but also about the potential benefits for women and girls, in terms of health aspects as well as freeing up time for school work and employment.
“I would very much like to see more men in developing countries take part in fetching water as that will start changing things and speed up development” Wallström added.
In his premiere address at the global water event, Engr Gerson Lwenge, Tanzanian minister for water resources and irrigation and President of the African Minster’s Council on Water (AMCOW) drew parallels between the theme of this year’s World Water Week, “Water for sustainable growth” and the outcome of the recently concluded 6th Africa Water Week which firmly established Africa’s roadmap to achieving the SDG-8 as well as other interlinking SDGs connected with water resources management and improved sanitation delivery.
“Our commitment to achieving an Africa where there is equitable and sustainable use and management of water resources for poverty alleviation and socio-economic development, regional cooperation and the environment remains unwavering and that is why we have established a Pan African monitoring and reporting system capable of informing policy and tracking progress on the SDGs in Africa,” Engr Lwenge said.
The AMCOW president who led a delegation of African water ministers to Stockholm declared that “Africa is already linking the monitoring and reporting processes from member-states to sub-regional, continental and even global levels to reduce the burden and duplication of monitoring efforts at various levels by making information generation, assessment and dissemination easy for all stakeholders in the continent.”
The Executive Director of the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI) and organisers of the World Water Week, Torgny Holmgren, noted that 2015 was a year of several global decisions and agreements that will guide development efforts for decades to come.
“With a Sustainable Development Goal dedicated to water and sanitation, several other goals, which depend on reliable access to water to be achieved and also the Paris climate agreement, water will not only be an integral part of both mitigation and adaptation efforts but will continue to determine the parameters for inclusive, sustainable growth, full and productive employment,” Holmgren says.
Holmgren believes that this year is when efforts to put words into action start as all initiatives, large and small, from all actors, will need to be considered.
“We must be open to unconventional alliances. We can only reach the goals we set for ourselves if we are serious about collaboration, about doing it together and breaking new ground. This is what I hope to see at World Water Week: the creation of new partnerships, the seeds for innovative solutions, the welcoming of out-of-the-box thinking,” the SIWI Executive Director added.
Angel Gurria, the Secretary General of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) touched on financing during his speech, taking the opportunity to introduce his organisation’s recent reports and initiatives, many of them addressing water financing. He also commended the lengthy work leading to water being recognised as a universal concern, most notably as part of the SDGs but stressed that agreeing on that something have to be done is far from satisfying. On what should be the next step, Angel Gurria declared: “implementation, implementation, implementation – although not necessarily in that order.”
Hosted and organized by SIWI, World Water Week in Stockholm is the leading annual global event for concretely addressing the planet’s water issues and related concerns of international development. The 2016 World Water Week which explores the theme “Water for Sustainable Growth” will end on the 2nd of September 2016.
Ouverture ce matin au Centre Togolais des Expositions et Foires de Lomé (CETEF) au Togo de la première édition du Salon International des Savoirs Traditionnels et Bioéconomiques en abrégé SISTRA-BIOECO.
SISTRA-BIOECO se veut un cadre d’inspirations, et de transfert de connaissances écologiques, technologiques, socioculturelles et sanitaires pour l’innovation et la réinvention du modèle de croissance économique et industriel.
Cette première édition est placée sous le thème « Innovation et Promotion du modèle de croissance bioéconomique », ce salon est initié par le Centre Omnithérapeutique Africain (COA). Il a pour entre autres objectifs de contribuer à la vulgarisation et à la valorisation des savoirs traditionnels bioéconomiques et des innovations compatibles à la sauvegarde de la planète, offrir une opportunité d’affaire dans le domaine bioéconomique et technologique, élargir et renforcer les relations d’ affaire entre les différents exposants nationaux et internationaux.
Le ministre Togolais de l’Enseignement Supérieur et de la Recherche, Octave Nicoué Broohm en ouvrant les travaux ce matin, a martelé : »chacun individu sur notre planète doit contribuer à la sauvegarde de notre patrimoine commune de manière responsable «
Les participants sont venus d’Allemagne ,d’Amérique ,de la France ,du Niger ,du Ghana ,du Bénin, du Burkina Faso ,du Sénégal et du Togo ainsi que les institutions de formations et de recherches, les sociétés de productions et de transformations, les institutions économiques, politiques et financières, les organismes ou associations de protection de l’environnement, de la culture, des acteurs de la santé, des chercheurs ,inventeurs ,des entrepreneurs ,des industriels.
Au total 256 exposants et plusieurs conférences, ateliers et projections seront également animés par d’éminents chercheurs au cours de cette période. Des rencontres d’affaires, des soirées culturelles, des jeux concours meubleront aussi le salon dont l’apothéose est fixée au 31 Août 2016 à Lomé au Togo.
Le Centre Omnithérapeutique Africain (COA) est un établissement d´enseignement supérieur à caractère scientifique, culturel et professionnel, fondé sur la collaboration et l´interdisciplinarité entre chercheurs universitaires, médecins, pharmaciens, agronomes, religieux, juristes, des acteurs de la santé et de l´écologie.
