AGRA Content Hub - AGRA

The humble sweet potato can help power Africa in the face of climate change

Posted on March 20, 2019 by AGRA Content Hub

Forest fires during a record-breaking warm winter in Europe, Arctic cold in the US and melting glaciers are clear signals that climate change is impacting all of us but it is in Africa where such extreme weather is having the most significant impact.

More intense conditions are hitting the continent harder than anywhere else on the planet, bringing with it severe droughts, heatwaves, and at times, flooding.

This is only likely to get worse in the years ahead, posing a threat to food production and security at a time when hunger and malnutrition continue to blight many African communities.

Experiencing it first-hand

My late husband Kofi Annan and I saw first-hand the potential that sweet potato – a fast-growing crop rich in vitamins and micronutrients – has in improving diets, fighting malnutrition and increasing the incomes of smallholders farmers in Ghana. It was one of the inspiring stories we highlighted as part of the Kofi Annan Foundation’s Combatting Hunger programme.

Now, the ability of this simple staple food crop to support climate adaptation is becoming increasingly important.

And I believe we must fully exploit the potential of Africa’s staple crops for greater climate resilience, in particular the sweet potato and its orange-fleshed varieties rich in vitamin A.

Promising Results

In countries like Ghana, sweet potato is the fourth most important root crop after cassava, yam, and taro. Yet it is the staple root that offers the quickest nutritional returns in the face of increasingly challenging weather conditions. Instead of waiting up to a year for yam or cassava to mature, sweet potato – with all its nutritional benefits – is ripe and ready in as little as three months.

Making the most of these qualities to ensure good harvests, rising incomes and nutritious food in ever hotter and dryer environments is not easy, but efforts by the International Potato Center (CIP) and partners have shown promising initial results.

Climate-smart practices

For example, CIP scientists have developed climate-smart sweet potato farming practices, which protect valuable sweet potato roots and planting material in drought conditions so that farmers continue to have vines for early planting when other resources are limited.

One method, known as “Triple S”, involves storing small sweet potato roots in dry sand after harvest and then planting out the sprouted roots two months before the rainy season to produce more seed vines for early planting and harvests.

Combined with the use of good agricultural practices, this method can boost yields and help provide food during periods when food stocks are low and other crops have not yet been harvested.

Profound benefits

The valuable qualities of sweet potato, from high levels of vitamin A to its short harvest time, can be further enhanced through breeding to produce more drought-tolerant varieties that compensate for tougher climatic conditions.

This can have profound benefits for household food and nutrition security at a time when an estimated 100 million people in sub-Saharan Africa are at risk of blindness from vitamin A deficiency. Not only then does sweet potato offer a resilient, consistent source of food in harsher climates, it is also highly nutritious, providing an incredible value for health in an otherwise challenging environment.

Just 125 grams of orange-fleshed sweet potato provides the daily intake of vitamin A needed to avoid illness, blindness and stunting, while its edible leaves are a rich source of lutein, essential for preventing sight degeneration.

Finally, harnessing the versatility of sweet potato to meet consumer demand for a whole range of different products – from breads and cakes to chips and biscuits – can also generate an additional source of income for millions of smallholder farmers and create employment opportunities for young entrepreneurs.

Just 125 grams of orange-fleshed sweet potato provides the daily intake of vitamin A needed to avoid illness, blindness and stunting, while its edible leaves are a rich source of lutein, essential for preventing sight degeneration.

Steamed and mashed orange-fleshed sweet potato can replace up to 60 per cent of wheat flour in various baked products, and given that most African governments import the majority of their wheat flour, the benefits of an orange-fleshed sweet potato flour substitute should clearly resonate with policy makers.

Africa Climate Week

As Africa Climate Week lays out the continent’s priorities ahead of the UN Secretary-General’s Climate Summit and the UN Climate Conference, decision-makers and donors should be paying close attention to the impact of rising temperatures on hunger, poverty and equality.

The challenges will become even more difficult as climate change intensifies, but some of the most effective solutions for addressing food and nutrition security may lie in simple staples.

To this end, I hope decision-makers recognise the need for more investment dedicated to research into breeding the most nutritional and resilient varieties of sweet potato, as well as developing initiatives that get them into the hands of farmers and families.

Supportive policies, such as nutrition counselling and vouchers for pregnant women, sweet potato included on school lunch menus or reduced barriers to markets for sweet potato products, can help generate a consumer demand for these valuable crops. Africa’s ability to feed herself in a warmer world could depend on it.

This article was originally written by Nane Annan and published in the Telegraph.

Nane Annan is a board member on the Kofi Annan Foundation

Hope in South Sudan as AGRA joins international community to plant a seed of peace

Posted on March 15, 2019 by AGRA Content Hub

YAMBIO, South Sudan (PAMACC News) – Since 2013, South Sudan has never known peace, and the country has been a beehive of foreign media reporting all manners of stories that depict a desperate, helpless and a bleeding nation.

However, a recent Job Fair, and event organized by the State Government of Gbudue in Yambio, some 430 kilometers west of the capital Juba depicted a totally different spectacle. It was a picture of thousands of enthusiastic women and youth – most of them ex-rebel fighters, but have a lot of hope for their future, a picture of a resilient society, and a community that is eager to produce own food to become self reliant.

“Gbudue is a peaceful state, and its citizens are mediators of peace. They come up with homegrown solutions to their own problems,” Governor of Gbudue State Hon. Daniel Badagbu told a UN mission at the Job Fair, who had come to interact with local partners and beneficiaries of UNDP’s multi-dimensional support to recovery and resilience in the State.

The mission, which consisted of UN Assistant Secretary-General and Director, UNDP Regional Bureau for Africa Ms. Ahunna Eziakonwa Onochie and UN Assistant Secretary-General and Director, UNDP Crisis Bureau Ms. Asako Okai was also joined by the Kingdom of the Netherlands Director-General for International Cooperation H.E. Reina Buijs, and high-level delegations from the Embassies of Japan, the Netherlands, and Sweden.

“Now that peace is here in South Sudan, we need to create jobs, especially for the youth, we need to empower the women and the youth, and include these groups in decision-making,” added the governor.

AGRA is already on the ground planting the seed of hope by introducing smallholder farmers – most of them women and the youth to profitable agriculture to make them food secure and have a source of livelihood.

At the Job Fair, Global Agriculture Innovation and Solutions (GAIS), a local seed company working with AGRA in South Sudan showcased different types of improved seeds for drought tolerant crops, fast maturing and crops that cope well with climatic conditions in Gbudue State.

The company is working closely with local smallholder farmers to multiply the seeds so that they can be planted by thousands of women and youth who have returned home from the battlefields.

The event which was hosted with support from the Kingdom of Netherlands brought together women entrepreneurs of Masia Market and is supported by the Government of Japan, youth benefitting from economic empowerment projects to boost re-integration, and peace committees.

“If you see the energy among the youth and women here, you will realize that they all yearn for development in their communities. Their hard work shows that they are ready to join entrepreneurships and fend for themselves,” said Pia Philip Michael, the Gbudue State Minister for Education, Gender and Social Welfare.

Previously “the government could apprehend and imprison all the ex-fighters returning from the bush,” added Michael.

According to the minister, the government learned that nearly all the returnees had joined the rebel groups because they were promised a constant salary of 200 dollars every month, and “this points to a livelihood issue,” he said.

And now, AGRA is determined to offer them sources of livelihoods they all yearn for, through agri-entrepreneurship.

“It all begins with seed,” said AGRA’s Dr Jane Ininda, who is a plant breeding expert. “If we have to make a difference, then we need to avail certifiable seed to all famers, and it should be compatible with the prevailing climatic conditions,” she said.

With support from AGRA, GAIS has trained 7,200 smallholder farmers in Gbudue and Lakes States on seed multiplication.

“In the two states, we concentrate on improved seeds of fast-maturing maize varieties, groundnuts, sorghum and cowpeas, which are the most appreciated food crops in these two states,” said Rahul Saharan, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) for GAIS

In Gbudue State alone, over 1,900 ex-fighters have been taken through rehabilitation programs, and have been released to join vocational training and engage in agribusiness, with others being integrated into organized forces.

“Guns cannot be used to win the war,” said Governor Badagbu. “All we need is to create jobs, especially for the youth by introducing them to agribusiness and giving them livelihood skills through vocational trainings,” he told thousands of residents and the UN delegation at the Yambio Job Fair.

According to Reina Buijs, it is only by taking action that peace will prevail in South Sudan. “It is good to see the government, the private sector, the civil society, the clergy, and the people come together for the sake of peace,” said Buijs. “There can be many nice words on paper, or spoken, but if it does not translate in concrete actions, people cannot believe any more.”

“It feels great to see the donor support being translated into future hope for the people and in implementing the peace agreement,” she said, adding that the Netherlands would be proud to continue supporting such initiatives in South Sudan.

Africa’s farmers urgently need climate-proof investment for food security

Posted on March 14, 2019 by AGRA Content Hub

The world is letting down Africa’s smallholder farmers – and governments across the globe urgently need to more than double their spend on helping them adapt to the brutal daily realities of a climate that is already changing.

Small-scale farmers, herders and fisher-folk, who produce the majority of the world’s food, are living with increasingly extreme weather. From unpredictable seasons and violent droughts, to floods and storms wreaking havoc on their crops and harvests, they live on the frontline of a crisis they did the least to cause.

The price of the world’s top polluters failing to curb their emissions of greenhouse gases is greater poverty and loss of life among the most vulnerable. Greatly increased spending on adaptation measures can help small-scale farmers in Africa and across the world to strengthen the resilience of their communities. A decade ago, world leaders promised $100 billion per year by 2020 to help developing countries combat global warming. Yet today adaptation receives under 20 percent of the total funds given – and in the case of the poorest nations even less. We need all countries to follow the World Bank’s example and dedicate at least 50 percent of their public climate finance to adaptation, to build more resilient communities for a better world. Adaptation is a life-saving necessity for many small farmers. It covers solutions that might draw on traditional knowledge of hardier seed varieties or on new technologies like solar-powered water pumps, to offer practical solutions for climate-hit smallholders.

Investment in adaptation doesn’t just avert crisis; it builds a stronger economy and greater food security. This is critical in regions such as Africa, where small and medium-sized farms produce up to 77 percent of all nutrients. Globally hunger is once again rising – close to a decade of progress has been wiped out in the last three years – with new climate extremes a leading cause. Climate change could force up to 122 million more people worldwide into extreme poverty by 2030, as well as make it impossible for agriculture to meet the needs of a world population predicted to reach 9.6 billion by 2050. The alarm bells are ringing, but still not enough is being done. Africa’s smallholder farmers have adapted to changing weather for generations. In many ways they are the definition of resilience. But the scale and severity of today’s challenge has moved them beyond what they can do alone. We need a global response to a global problem.

RISKS WORSE FOR WOMEN

Critically that response must put women’s rights at the centre. Women make up nearly 50 percent of the agricultural labour force in sub-Saharan Africa, and around 43 percent globally, as well as providing hours of unpaid care work – from fetching water to raising children. They are the backbone of our food system and yet they face the gravest risks in a changing climate.

In many countries, women are denied the right to own or inherit land, meaning they are less likely to be able to access capital to invest in adaptive measures. They may be forced to waste yet more precious hours walking further to collect water. When droughts strike, we know it is nearly always women who are last to eat. The Global Commission on Adaptation is rising to this challenge. Over the next 18 months we will be working to make the case for a massive increase in support for adaptation to climate change in Africa and around the world.

We seek to reduce fragmented adaptation efforts, supporting countries to access the funding needed for national strategies, and to press those with the responsibility for causing the crisis and the capacity to help to step up with new commitments.

We are determined to give adaptation to climate change the priority it needs among politicians and business leaders worldwide. We are convinced there are opportunities to capture in building a more resilient global economy.

But we also know that if we do not act now, climate change will super-charge the global gap between the haves and the have-nots. Africa’s smallholders are critical to building more resilience into our food system. It’s time they receive the support their contribution demands.

Winnie Byanyima is Executive Director of Oxfam International and Dr. Agnes Kalibata is President of the Alliance for a Green Revolution (AGRA). They are also Commissioners for the Global Commission on Adaptation.

Originally published on Thomson Reuters Foundation News

Agricultural technologies enable farmers to shift the business of agriculture from subsistence to profit

Posted on March 13, 2019 by AGRA Content Hub

For smallholder farmers in Kaduna State, Nigeria the new currency is knowledge, and it is changing the business of local agriculture. The 270,000 farmers enrolled in the AGRA-supported project to upscale the maize, rice and soybean value chains can now peg their livelihoods to markets rather than subsistence.

The Kaduna Maize-Rice-Soybean Consortium is amongst the best expressions of the Partnership for Inclusive Agricultural Transformation (PIATA) that is stimulating agricultural development in at least 11 African countries. Priority nations include Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Nigeria, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda.

The focus of the US $280 million initiative led by AGRA, USAID, Rockefeller Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is an integrated delivery system within agro-economic zones and across value chains that enhances in-country coordination to leverage wider investments and deliberate engagements with private sector to build sustainable systems capable of transitioning agriculture from subsistence into profitable businesses.

Under PIATA, the partners commit to delivering impact against a shared results framework aligned to each country’s overall vision and national agriculture plan. It is an important collaboration between development partners in both the public and private sectors that support countries in delivering on the Malabo Declaration and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) agreed to by African heads of state and governments at scale.

According to Prof. Rufaro Madakadze, AGRA Program Officer for Capacity Building, providing farmers with new high-yielding seed varieties is an important part of the solution for Africa’s agricultural development and transformation.

A combination of public and private interventions is one of the approaches undertaken by AGRA to address crop challenges, support breeding programs to develop new crop varieties and establish an effective system that guarantees farmers quality seed for staple food. These partnerships extend to private companies to meet the demand for seed and networks of agro-dealers to make the seeds available as close to the farmers as possible.

Brown Field days are normally organized when the crop is fully dried in the field and ready for harvest. The aim is to showcase the matured crop and demonstrate to farmers ideal harvest and postharvest procedures and technologies with a view to encouraging them to employ mechanization in their farming activities.

The farmers, many of them women and youths, attending the Brown Field Day last November were appreciative of the efficiency of both rice and maize threshers on display and other technologies showcased to improve on-farm efficiency and profits. This generated a conversation on the opportunities available to farmer groups to source mechanized solutions for the benefit members. This approach could also be extended to making quality inputs and extension support available and accessible to meet a growing demand.

Abdullahi Musa, a farmer said that while he appreciated the performance and yield of Farro 44, an improved rice variety on the demo plot, he was keen to know from the seed company representatives if he could access the seed closer home, prompting a deeper discussion about linking farmers to agro-dealer networks in Kaduna State. Another farmer, Sule Makadi, was concerned about the risk of crop failure and if there were avenues for compensation given the requisite farmer investment in certified seed and fertilizers against the uncertainties posed by climate change. This conversation led to the issue of linking farmers to credit facilities as well as provisions for crop insurance – an area that many farmers felt was still too complex for them.

Dr Esther Ibrahim, the AGRA Associate Program Officer called on the farmers attending the event to make use of the knowledge acquired for the betterment of their businesses and communities. She also observed that the impact of adopting improved farming and post-harvest practices ought to be visible across the entire value chain.

Aminu Muazu and Engineer Moshood Suleiman from Sasakawa Africa Association (SAA/SG2000 Nigeria Country Program), a member organization of the Consortium, were on hand to moderate the discussions and questions generated by farmers attending the event. One of them, Mrs Faiza Dahiru, who belongs to a group of local food processors asked Engineer Suleiman the cost of the two threshing machines, and if there were preferential terms available within the Consortium. To which the engineer explained that while the cost of the rice and maize threshing machines was N150,000 (US $416) and N75,000 (US $208) respectively they could be fabricated from artisans trained to construct them.

SAA/SG2000-Nigeria works through the Agricultural Development Projects (ADPs) established in participating states to assign State and Zonal Coordinators and Extension Agents to implement field programs. They provide hands-on training for farmers, ensuring a successful technology transfer process, at the same time assisting them in obtaining inputs and solving the day-to-day challenges in food crop productivity.

US$5m SIPMA project to benefit 143,000 smallholder farmers

Posted on March 12, 2019 by AGRA Content Hub

About 143,000 smallholder maize and soybean farmers are expected to benefit from a social intervention project – ‘Smallholder Inclusive Productivity and Market Access’ (SIPMA) – aimed at improving food security and livelihoods.

The US$5million project will support development of the maize and soybean value chains including input mobilisation, extension services, and access to finance, crop protection, aggregation and value addition. It is aligned to government’s ‘Planting for Food and Jobs’ programme.

The five-year SIPMA project is targetting farmers in the Savannah, North-East, Northern, Bono, Bono-East and Ahafo Regions. It is being implemented by the African Fertiliser and Agribusiness Partnership for (AFAP), a social enterprise with funding from the Alliance for a Green Revolution for Africa (AGRA).

As part of the project implementation by AFAP, a three-day capacity building training has been held at Techiman for about 100 agro-input dealers in the Bono-East Region. The training sought to help raise the bar in advisory service by agro-input dealers, for them to be able to assist farmers with basic but critical extension advice; this is meant to improve soybean and maize productivity.

The training was supported by the Ghana Agri-Input Dealers Association (GAIDA), International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), CABI, CropLife, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the Plant Protection and Regulatory Services Directorate (PPRSD) of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA).

The training’s scope included safe use and handling of agro-chemicals, correct application of fertilisers, implementation of good agronomic practices for maize and soybean – including management of fall army worm and aflatoxins – and best business management principles to help the agro-input dealers increase profitability to sustain their business.

The Country Manager of AFAP, Nana-Aisha Mohammed, urged participants to make the utmost use of knowledge acquired so as to improve their service delivery to farmers. “If you apply them, farmers will stay in business and you will stay in business as well. Avoid the sale of fake agro-inputs as this will destroy your business; it will affect yield, and will affect the health of humans and harm the environment,” she said.

She therefore challenged GAIDA to revive the association and position itself to play its advocacy role and police its members to help the fight against fake and adulterated agro-chemicals.

The Deputy Director of EPA in charge of Pesticides, Joseph Edmund, in an interview revealed that dealing with counterfeited agro-chemicals in the country is quite complicated – saying the Agency has been battling to identify how such fake chemicals find their way onto the regulated market.

“Most of these counterfeit products are generally difficult to identify unless they are opened or put to use. Some people re-label certain products to mimic certified ones; others collect empty containers and re-fill them with unknown substances, then sell it to unsuspecting farmers as original. It is only through post-licence inspection and market surveillance that we are able to ascertain the situation, but inadequate personnel has been the challenge. We need enough personnel and logistics to move around in order to sanitise the system,” he said.

He urged the general public to help by volunteering information for the EPA to deal with the situation. He further entreated farmers to buy agro-inputs from licenced and recognised shops in order not to fall prey to fake products, adding: “Anytime you apply an agro-chemical and you are suspicious of its efficacy, report to the appropriate quarters for immediate action”.

Farmers are smart and want to become businessmen

Posted on March 12, 2019 by AGRA Content Hub

From the lab to the masses: Maria Andrade bred varieties of biofortified sweet potatoes which are now widely used all over the continent. She sets her hope on the transformation of African agriculture.

Dr. Andrade, you are wearing an orange dress today. Are you marketing sweet potatoes?

Maria Andrade: Of course, we are on a mission every day, and I advocate for sweet potatoes by displaying their orange colour. Growing these vegetables is a powerful tool against hunger. For that reason, I wear orange clothes so often that, when I don’t, people keep asking me what’s wrong with me today.

This vegetable made you famous. In 2016, you won the World Food Prize for developing the single most successful example of micronutrient and vitamin biofortification – the orange-fleshed sweet potato. As an agronomist, why did you choose to work on these vegetables?

When I was a child, my father had a small farm on Cape Verde where we planted some sweet potatoes, as they are very resilient to drought. Hence, when I came home after my Master’s studies in the USA to start a vegetable planting programme, my supervisor wanted me to work on maize. I looked around the island and said, ’This is a desert; you won’t get much out of growing maize.’ Then they suggested working with tomatoes – but how do you feed people with tomatoes? Instead, I had the idea to breed sweet potatoes because they are rich in complex carbohydrates and fill the stomach.

What did you find out?

I immediately recognized that they grow fast and that they are easy to crop; I had found my PhD-project. I was deeply influenced by American culture, too: In the US, they do a lot with sweet potatoes; they even have festivals. In Africa, sweet potatoes were not as prominent.

What did the people say when you arrived with your sweet potatoes?

I started a project in Mozambique in 2001. Mothers and children were malnourished; they lacked vitamins and the UN distributed pills against it. The local residents were not familiar with the orange sweet potato, a vegetable containing a large amount of vitamin A. We began with a social market strategy in order to convince people of the benefits of the sweet potato. We dressed in orange colours, came up with slogans and theatre plays – even my car was orange. Farmers are always reluctant when it comes to introducing new crops, but we succeeded in introducing sweet potatoes in the country and saved many lives. We had biofortified our bred crop: It was now more drought-tolerant and had more vitamins than traditional ones.

In other cases, ideas never leave the labs. Why is it difficult to realize them?

Sweet potatoes are considered to be poor vegetables. In Mozambique, people usually hid the fact that they ate sweet potatoes because it carried the stigma of being poor. As a scientist, I had sorted out my newly bred crop but it was much more difficult to convince others to use it. When I arrived in Mozambique, nobody talked about sweet potatoes. Today, it is considered the main staple food.

Background: Biofortification

Biofortification is the idea of breeding crops to increase their nutritional value. This can be done either through conventional selective breeding, or through genetic engineering. Biofortification differs from ordinary fortification because it focuses on making plant foods more nutritious as the plants are growing, rather than having nutrients added to the foods when they are being processed.

Why did you join AGRA?

I joined AGRA in 2011 because I believe in the agricultural transformation in Africa. AGRA is an African organization led by Africans. There is a lot involved in this transformation.

Why is there a need for transformation?

Agriculture in Africa is mostly done by smallholder farmers, but their productivity is very low. To increase yield, you need good seeds, which can only be derived from research. When you look at the green revolutions that took place in India and in Far East Asia, you will discover that they were driven by new fertilizers, irrigation and tractors. These items are missing in Africa. Therefore, AGRA steps in, looks at the seed, at the post-harvest loss, at the use of fertilizer and means of financing. We have to improve our value chain in order to become self-sufficient on our continent. Isn’t it a shame that we must import so much food from outside? We are the continent with the most arable land and with huge masses of unemployed youth.

You have the market, the land, the youth. What is missing?

Our farmers are no businessmen. If this mentality changes, agribusiness, provided by smallholders, would create jobs.

What is the problem with traditional agriculture?

Take climate change, for example. Due to scarcer rainfalls, the farmers need seeds that can adapt to the new conditions. Accordingly, this requires a broader approach: the cooperation of farmers who have access to the fruits of research. All this will be part of the revolution to feed a growing population. We don’t have another planet. Therefore, we need to think and change.

This is not an exclusive challenge for Africa …

… no, the other continents can also learn from us. Take the production of meat in South America, the US or in Europe, for example: too much land has been deforested only for that quite expensive purpose. With the water required to produce one kilogram of meat, you can produce 300 kilograms of sweet potatoes.

AGRA also focuses on the use of chemical fertilizers and hybrid seeds. Do you see a problem with that?

Hybrid seeds did not cause any problems- they only increased the productivity. Chemical fertilizer was a key driver for the green revolutions in India and Far East Asia. Africa is the continent with the lowest use of fertilizers. It would take a long time for it to cause any major ecological concerns. That could then be dealt with at a later stage.

When a farmer decides to use hybrid seeds, he must buy them from season to season. Is that forming a threat of financial dependence that did not exist before?

The farmer will gain more benefits from the new seeds. If a farmer can’t afford to buy them, he can continue with his own old seeds.

AGRA is promoting to create laws regulating seeds. Is there a risk of excluding farmers from markets when they don’t work within the new parameters?

AGRA is not acting alone, but in cooperation with the governments, which means that nothing will take place overnight. Plus, the system is not that rigid. When local seeds are of a good quality, there will be never a problem with selling them. Farmers are smart: they adapt quickly when it helps them. They want to survive. Now, we will help them to become businessmen.

Originally published on weltohnehunger.org

Seed System Development multiplies staple crop productivity for smallholder farmers in Nigeria

Posted on March 12, 2019 by AGRA Content Hub

Assisting smallholder farmers to confront the constraints to food crop production and the emerging threats brought on by climate change calls for experience, expertise and the strength of partnerships to scale up the delivery and adoption of improved seed and fertilizers.

AGRA supports both public and private sector partners to develop the systems capable of sustaining the availability, delivery and adoption of improved seeds and fertilizers. Within the Partnership for Inclusive Agricultural Transformation (PIATA), an initiative that aligns with the 2014 Malabo Declaration on Accelerated Agricultural Growth and Transformation for Shared Prosperity and Improved Livelihoods, AGRA, USAID, Rockefeller Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, are collaborating for the agricultural transformation in Africa.

The interventions are in tandem with the African Union’s (AU) promise to end hunger by 2025, and complement national economic strategies by ensuring a seamless implementation of the various initiatives. Thus, the deliberate focus on a market driven, business agenda that encompasses the entire food system beyond agricultural production.

Led by AGRA and the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) in line with the Seeds Systems Development interventions to increase staple crop productivity, food and income security for smallholder farmers in Nigeria, a recent training was held to upgrade the skills of technical staff in partner seed companies, specifically those directly involved in field, processing and storage activities.

Among them were production managers, technical staff, young breeders, factory managers and outstanding out-growers. The 45 beneficiaries included 37 technical staff from 15 seed companies and 8 seed certification officers from the National Agricultural Seeds Council (NASC), Nigeria’s regulatory body in seed systems.

With a focus on seed production techniques for quality maize, rice and soybean seed production technique, trainees learned how to plan, establish and manage seed fields and post-harvest products to produce and distribute good quality foundation and certified seeds for maize, rice and soybean. Special attention was given to hybrid seed production and maintenance of hybrid parental materials which require more complicated techniques. The local seed companies also benefitted from technical and operational skills to improve their competitiveness in a field dominated by multinational seed companies. hybrid certified and foundation seed production and maintenance techniques (field and post-harvest activities). They were also introduced to seed certification regulations and standards as well as seed production planning.

Three categories of seed companies were given priority: those involved in Kaduna and Niger Consortia respectively, those that recently received rice breeder seeds from AfricaRice for the production of foundation and certified seeds and young registered seed companies with little experience.

The seed companies selected were from Kano State, Kaduna State, Niger State, Zanfara State, Katsina State and Plateau State respectively. Among the beneficiary seed companies were Premier Seeds, Value seeds, Tecni Seeds, Da-Allgreen Seed, Manoma Seeds, Goldagric, Maina Seeds, Ideal Agro Seeds, WACOT, GreenSpore Agric, Nagari Seeds, Savannah Seeds, Maslaha Seeds, Rahama Seeds and Jamy Nagari Seeds Ltd.

The focus on a market-driven, business agenda that encompasses the entire food system is deliberate.

Participants learned how to computerize their record keeping, data management and seed business analysis. This is in addition to being able to store short-to-long-term data such as geographic coordinates of out-growers, pre-planting data, planting data, quality assurance data, harvest data as well as post-harvest data as well as generating information for performance evaluation, planning, tracking seed volumes and the evolution of productivity.

Targeted Investments Support Market Entry for Women Rice Processors in Kaduna State, Nigeria

Posted on March 11, 2019 by AGRA Content Hub

The potential for agricultural development and transformation in Nigeria is immense with targeted investments in specific value chains. Under supportive conditions, a clear policy framework catalyzes private sector investments, supports smallholder farmers, and builds a coalition with civil society and development partners.

Although Nigeria is the world’s largest cassava producer, the West African nation is also Africa’s largest rice importer. This inability to export at the levels required for market success coupled with the inability to meet domestic food requirements calls for the identification of measures to capture international markets for cassava on the one hand, and for import substitution for rice on the other hand.

Drawing heavily from AGRA’s past investments in Nigeria valued at US $15 million, the Partnership for Inclusive Agricultural Transformation in Africa (PIATA) comprising AGRA, USAID, Rockefeller Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has invested US $280 million over a five-year period to stimulate agricultural development in at least 11 priority African countries. They are: Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Nigeria, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda.

To increase food security and income levels for 30 million smallholder African farm households by 2020, PIATA advocates for increased linkages between smallholder farmers and agribusinesses to create economic opportunities. Specifically, the program seeks to reduce food insecurity in at least 20 countries by 50 percent, double the incomes of 20 million smallholder farmers and spark a green revolution in at least 15 countries.

A recent training session sponsored by PIATA for women rice processors in Kaduna State is in line with the Government of Nigeria’s Agricultural Promotion Policy (APP 2016-2020) also known as the Green Alternative which aims to achieve national food security goals, import substitution, job creation, and economic diversification. This is a five-year intervention with a strong emphasis on gender inclusion and equity targeting 1.9 million smallholder farmers in Kaduna and Niger states respectively.

Drawn from three women groups in Maikarfi, Giwa and Kauru Local Government Areas (LGAs), 15 women representing Ungwan Makaranta Meyere Women Multi-Purpose Credit Society (MPCS) Ltd., Kaya Sa’a Women MPCS Ltd., Ungwan Daki Women Rice Farmers Credit Society Ltd. were introduced to modern rice processing technologies. They were particularly excited to learn that their products could compete favourably with imported rice if they replaced the more cumbersome and laborious traditional processing methods with modern processing techniques including using tarpaulins to dry the grain, de-stoners, good packaging and labelling.

The PIATA partners have been involved in-country, supporting the governments of Kaduna and Niger States to translate the Green Alternative into action through improved policy formulation and implementation, enhanced coordination with agribusinesses as well as increased budget allocations to the sector.

The partnership has also designed system and farmer-level development for public-private partnerships (PPPs) to tackle structural constraints hindering the uptake of new technologies and the creation effective agricultural systems.

By strengthening the capacity of farmers in Kaduna and Niger states to tap into existing and new market opportunities, AGRA’s focus is on increasing their yield to produce surpluses and meet the quality requirements of selected market segments. The intervention also involves de-risking smallholder farmers and other value chain actors to enhance their access to credit from financial institutions.

Beyond the Bumper Harvest: Kaduna’s farmers embrace business with a difference

Posted on March 11, 2019 by AGRA Content Hub

Increasing food security and income levels for 30 million smallholder African farm households calls for doing business differently. Africa’s agricultural transformation requires a deliberate focus on a market-driven business agenda beyond agricultural production, that encompasses the entire food system.

The Partnership for Inclusive Agricultural Transformation in Africa (PIATA), an initiative of AGRA, USAID, Rockefeller Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, supports and drives an inclusive agricultural transformation as a tool for poverty reduction. It is an important collaboration between development partners, governments, farmers and the private sector that support countries in delivering at scale on the Malabo Declaration and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) agreed to by African heads of state and governments and signals an enduring commitment to Africa’s transformation.

The partners commit to delivering impact against a shared results framework that aligns each country’s operation to the overall vision and national agriculture plans. It is also an innovative partnership for an integrated delivery within agro-economic zones and across value chains with enhanced in-country coordination to leverage wider investments and deliberate engagements with private sector that build sustainable systems capable of transitioning agriculture from subsistence to viable and prosperous businesses.

In line with PIATA initiative in Nigeria, the Kaduna Maize-Rice-Soybean Consortium, has been supporting farmers in the adoption of contemporary agricultural technologies, inputs support and improving access to markets. Last September, 2018, a Mega Field Day organized by the Consortium in Salauwa Village, Ikara Local Government Area (LGA) in Kaduna State showcased the use of improved soybean variety VSS 4875 promoted by Value Seeds Nigeria Limited. Farmers observed the recommended planting pattern suited to 0.25 hectares, the average size in farmer practice. They also learned the recommended planting space of 10 cm between stands. Attended by over 200 farmers, the event was co-hosted and supported by the PIATA implementing partners including SG2000, Value Seeds Ltd., Premier Seeds, National Agro-Input Dealers Association (NAIDA), OLAM Nigeria Limited. Also in attendance were officials of the Kaduna Agricultural Development Agency (KADA), community leaders, extension agents and Community-Based Facilitators.

Impressed by the good performance of crops in the demonstration field, the farmers relived their experiences from an earlier Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) training, and discussed what they had learned about plant density, number of pods per stand, field hygiene and the absence of disease infestation. They also shared their experiences of replicating the trainings in their fields and the promise of a bumper harvest. The event will be complemented by 80 Mini Field Days scheduled across Kaduna State to demonstrate the performance of maize, rice and soybean.

The OLAM Nigeria Ltd. representative at the event expressed his company’s readiness to purchase all the grains produced by the farmers at a competitive price. Although the company navigates the supply-demand dynamics for food staples as producers and also through long-standing relationships with local farmers, OLAM’s requirements still exceed the aggregated output of soybean by all the farmers in Kaduna.

This points to the production and food crop marketing challenges that AGRA and the PIATA partners are addressing by leveraging the the full complement of tools, systems, knowledge, and partner resources to the common goal of sustaining an inclusive agricultural transformation in Africa. It includes

strengthening the policy environment, increasing youth and women’s empowerment and participation in the processes as well as securing public-private partnerships to support farmer capacity to increase staple crop productivity with an expanded access to national and regional markets. It also seeks to prepare smallholder farming households and agricultural systems to adapt to the shocks and stresses brought on by climate change.

The PIATA initiative in collaboration with the Kaduna Maize-Rice-Soybean Consortium adds a valuable improvement to the livelihoods of smallholder farmers, who include women and youth, to commercialize food staple production that impacts selected crop value chains. Taking a holistic approach to strengthening the extension advisory services provided to farmers, the Consortium actively promotes technology dissemination and adoption. Through a more holistic approach, it has introduced a market-driven, value chain approach to extension that works back from proven sources of market demand towards production that focuses on improving productivity in both crop production and post-harvest handling and storage.

Open for Business: Nigeria Tackles Youth Unemployment through SME and Agribusiness Development

Posted on March 11, 2019 by AGRA Content Hub

That youth and women are an essential component in Africa’ agricultural transformation is no longer debatable. Although they form the majority among poor, rural smallholder farmers, they hold the key to ending hunger and poverty.

In Kaduna State, Nigeria, 250 youth drawn from six Local Government Areas (LGAs) across the state recently underwent training in the safe use of crop-protection chemicals to not only support smallholder farmers against crop pests and disease but also to prepare young people for self-employment.

This is one of the interventions supported by the Partnership for Inclusive Agricultural Transformation (PIATA), a program involving AGRA, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Rockefeller Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to stimulate agricultural development by linking them to agribusiness opportunities that ignite the spark for job creation, food security, sustainable livelihoods, economic advancement and poverty reduction for 30 million smallholder African farm households.

The $280 million PIATA program is stimulating agricultural development in 11 African countries, including Nigeria, by advocating for increased linkages between smallholder farmers and agribusiness to create economic opportunity. It further embodies the principles of the 2014 Malabo Declaration on Accelerated Agricultural Growth and Transformation for Shared Prosperity and Improved Livelihoods where the African Union (AU) pledged to end hunger by 2025. PIATA also corresponds to the AU’s national economic strategy, ensuring seamless implementation of the initiative.

The critical link in these efforts are investments in improved seeds, machinery, technologies, knowledge and training that increases productivity and opens up access to markets. For the newly trained youth in Kaduna State, intervention has led to an immediate windfall for them. Although 45 of the youth trainees received spray-kits and other equipment to start them off, farmer groups in Kaura LGA purchased additional spraying kits, creating a demand for spray-agents across several LGAs guaranteeing the youthful entrepreneurs of an assured livelihood as they work with local farmers to ensure their crops are well protected, at the same time securing human and environmental health. They have also been linked to agro-dealers and village level stockists for business partnerships.

At this point in time, the lessons generated from PIATA are that the technologies, practices and policies necessary for the required transformation are known and ready to be taken to scale. To complement the moment, is the broad sustained economic growth being experienced across the continent that has led to significant increases in public and private investments with firm commitments from African leaders to take ownership of their own national agricultural plans for broader economic growth.

PAITA’s strategic objectives for an inclusive agricultural transformation include increased staple crop productivity as well as strengthening and expanding access to national and regional markets for smallholder farmers. In increasing the capacity of smallholder farming households and agricultural systems to be better prepared and adapt to shocks and stresses, some outcomes are inevitable such as the importance of strengthening the policy environment for public-private partnerships and increasing youth and women’s empowerment. All these efforts call for strengthened multi-sectoral coordination at the continental, regional and national levels that support mutual accountability in the agricultural sector.