AGRA

Nairobi / Basel, February 27, 2020. Seven local seed companies from across Africa have won the inaugural Seeds for Impact Program (SIP) competition. They will receive financial and technical assistance to help them supply improved seed to more smallholder farmers.

SIP is implemented by the Africa Enterprise Challenge Fund (AECF) with funding from the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) and the Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture (SFSA). The competition addresses challenges faced by smaller seed companies in their efforts to produce improved seed of staple crops, including publicly bred varieties.

The seven winning companies displayed an impressive range of appropriate strengths. They are LCIC in Ghana, Afritec Seeds (Kenya), MUSECO (Malawi), Oruwera (Mozambique), Beula from Tanzania and the two Nigerian companies DA-Allgreen Seeds and Value Seeds Limited. Africa urgently needs better seeds. Crop yields for the continent’s smallholders are the lowest in the world, due partly to a lack of good varieties suitable for local conditions. As a result, Africa currently imports up to $35bn worth of food annually, an amount predicted to rise to $110bn by 2025.

AECF’s Interim Portfolio Director, Ashley Onyango, underlines her institution’s strong support for SIP. “Agricultural transformation has huge potential to improve food security and rural livelihoods, while contributing to Sub-Saharan Africa’s wider economic transformation.

AECF is committed to helping the private sector to produce more and better seeds for smallholders”, she declares. “SIP perfectly fits that objective. Through the program, we hope to reach over 50,000 farmers and improve the lives of 275,000 people.”

“Many local companies face funding challenges when they want to produce seed for food security crops,” explains Sunil Hemdev, the SFSA manager leading Technical Assistance to competition winners. “To serve smallholders properly, it’s crucial that smaller seed companies can easily access finance and expert advice.” Technical Assistance makes a crucial contribution to business sustainability.

In the last 15 years, the number of local seed companies in Sub-Saharan Africa, excluding South Africa, has grown from two to 119. These companies so far produce seed for about 15 million farmers. “However, a lot more needs to be done”, says Dr. George Bigirwa, Head of Seeds Systems Development at AGRA. “That’s why the SIP competition is so important. It identifies companies with the greatest potential for growth and helps them improve their business and service to smallholders.”

The six-year, $6m program funds four key aspects: improving how the seed market serves smallholders, supporting greater availability of ‘in-demand publicly bred varieties’ of food crops, increasing access to other inputs that maximize farmers’ benefits from improved seed, including appropriate finance, and providing extension services, technologies and links to output markets.

Contact for further information

John Kavilu
Senior Programme Officer
JKavilu@aecfafrica.orgg

About AECF

The Africa Enterprise Challenge Fund (AECF) is a non-profit institution that supports early and growth stage businesses in the agribusiness and renewable energy sectors to reduce poverty, promote resilient communities and create jobs through private sector investment. AECF invests in businesses that strive to find innovative solutions to tackle development challenges across Sub-Saharan Africa. Our aim is to transform lives, one business at a time by funding early and growth stage businesses that improve the lives of rural communities and display potential for credible commercial viability and growth. www.aecfafrica.org

About AGRA

Established in 2006, the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) is an African-led and Africa-based institution that puts smallholder farmers at the center of the continent’s growing economy by transforming agriculture from a solitary struggle to survive into farming as a business that thrives. Together with our partners, we catalyze and sustain inclusive agriculture transformation to increase the incomes and improve food security for 30 million farming households in 11 African countries by 2021. www.agra.org/

About SFSA

The Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture creates value for small farmers in developing countries through innovation in sustainable agriculture and the activation of value chains. We help small farmers become more professional growers through science-based know-how, better access to good inputs, and link to profitable markets. In the input area, we focus on seeds. www.syngentafoundation.org

Kiambu County’s rustic charm is matched by the warmth and friendliness of its hard-working people. Several kilometers from Kenya’s capital of Nairobi, improved agricultural practices are improving the livelihoods of families. The smallholder farmers’ determination stands firm at the odds they are up against, which includes declining soil fertility, increasingly poorly distributed rainfall as a result of climate change, and outdated agricultural methods caused by an inadequate extension.

There is a story of Public and Private Partnership working wonders and is proof that anything is possible when people work together. Optimism and teamwork are visibly forging the people of Gatundu sub-County closely together. 

An Alliance of Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) is partnering with the County Government of Kiambu, seed companies, and fertilizer companies, to make the proceeds of agriculture brighter than anyone could imagine. 

Before the project, most stakeholders were indifferent to one another but are encouraged by the results of the partnership; the stakeholders are expanding their impact far and wide. 

Grappling with the challenges of hunger and poverty, all the stakeholders have ventured into a successful collaboration. To assist with the “last mile” Extension service delivery, County Government Extension Staff selected and trained self-employed Village-based Advisors (VBAs) who demonstrate improved earlier-maturing maize varieties and teach farmers on Good Agronomic Practices (GAP). 

Partner seed and fertilizer companies have provided seed of improved earlier-maturing varieties and improved fertilizer blends for Mother demonstrations on VBAs’ farms and supplied small 25g-50g packs of the seed of new, improved varieties for farmers to experiment with the improved technology on small plots of their farms. They have also supplied these inputs through Agro-dealers to enable farmers to access them locally. 

Rachel Mwangi, the Sub-County Agriculture Officer, says, “We in the County Government are working along with the National Government of Kenya to tackle one of the four main Agendas of the Government, fighting hunger. Through our partnership, I have witnessed an end of hunger through improved farming. I have seen an income increase through farming. I have seen change through farming.”

“Before these changes, Agriculture was viewed as a burden and never thought of as a way out of poverty. Apart from that, the partnership has enhanced harmony and unity in the community,” concludes Rachael.

AGRA believes that agricultural technologies and practices can only have a positive effect if they are communicated and implemented by farmers and end-users. Extension is the mechanism by which this process is achieved. Within our five-year strategy, one of the biggest challenges is how to further the reach and impact of government extension agents and create demand for improved seeds, fertilizers, and other yield-enhancing inputs. The ratio of extension staff to farmers in most of our target countries is 1:5,000. We aim to improve this ratio to 1:500.

Recognizing the growing role of the private sector in the lives and livelihoods of Africa’s farmers, our extension approach involves identifying and training self-employed village-based advisors (VBAs). VBAs are ‘lead farmers’ who are selected to share technologies and knowledge locally with fellow farmers. With connections to input companies, they help to promote quality seeds and fertilizers, together with good agricultural practices. This model has been particularly successful in Kiambu County, Kenya.

AGRA works through the Partnership for Inclusive Agricultural Transformation In Africa (PIATA). This is a unique strategic partnership launched in 2017 that enables African agriculture actors to do business differently as they support leaders to drive an inclusive agricultural transformation. PIATA members include the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) the UK Department for International Development (DFID) and the German Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development, BMZ.

Our food systems must change to achieve the goals of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development

Agnes Kalibata is the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for the 2021 Food Systems Summit. Since 2015 she has served as President of AGRA

Food is more than what we eat.

It’s more than what satisfies our hunger. It’s more than what nourishes our bodies and our brains. It’s more than a cultural centerpiece or even an Instagram picture.  Food is water, land, culture, labor, technology, economics, and policies.

In a word, food is everything.

Today, our relationship with food is strained. The way we produce, process and consume food – what experts call “food systems” – is a paradox.

Over the last 50 years, our ability to produce food has gone up by nearly 300 percent thanks to our incredible ability to innovate. Despite this progress, the number of people going to bed hungry each night has increased to 820 million over the last three years. Yet, we waste 35 per cent of all the food we produce equivalent to a loss of US$936 billion annually.

Additionally, we are not eating well. About 2 billion people are obese or have food related diseases. Fruits and vegetables account for only 11 per cent of global food production, despite recommendations that they should make up around half of our diet.

As a result, for every dollar spent on food, society pays back double that in health, environmental, and economic costs. Surprisingly, these costs – which amount to $5.7 trillion per year globally – equal those related to issues such as obesity, diabetes, and malnutrition.

Climate change is challenging our food systems event further with droughts, floods, and massive fires around the world. For example, in East Africa and across the Middle East and South Asia, locust are destroying crops in biblical proportions. A swarm covering one square kilometer is eating as much food in a day as 35,000 people.

Our current food system is part of the problem. Today’s agricultural supply chain, from farm to fork, accounts for around 27 per cent of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

The food systems of today must change to achieve the ambitious goals and targets we have set for ourselves in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. This transformation will require an unprecedented degree of cooperation if we are to succeed.

That is why this week, on behalf of the UN Secretary General António Guterres, I joined Prime Minister Erna Solberg of Norway and President Nana Akufo-Addo of Ghana in the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard, Norway. We announced the Arctic Call to Action on Food Security and Climate Change along with 17 SDG Advocates from communities around the world, recognizing the importance of agricultural biodiversity and transforming food systems for the future of our nutrition, health, and resilience to climate change.

I know that rethinking food is ‘complicated’. We know many approaches and recommendations that seem to provide benefit.  But ‘knowing’ something does not mean that things change. So what really is the problem that we must solve? 

UN Secretary-General Guterres has announced that he will host a Food Systems Summit in 2021 to raise food system transformation to the highest level, affirming its centrality to the achievement of the majority of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The Summit will raise global ambition, increase our understanding of the problems we must solve, and set a course to radically change the way we produce, process, and consume food. 

We need to harness all innovative ideas and develop deeper partnerships to make this happen. As the Summit’s Special Envoy, I will steward a global conversation to define the food systems we want for our future. This will be done by learning from each other, particularly smallholder farmers, indigenous peoples, and those who deal with food systems every day. 

I am determined that this will not be ‘just another conference,’ particularly because we have come to a crossroads and we are running out of time.

I look to the Summit as an opportunity to fast-track and commit to ambitious ways of coming through on the SDGs by bringing global consensus on what our future food systems should be, given the challenges; agreeing and aligning on the dramatic shifts that we know must happen; and delivering an ambitious and game-changing action plan for this decade of action. Only then shall we eliminate hunger, commit to more inclusive and healthier food systems, and safeguard the health of our planet.

Every one of us has a role to play. Often, we think other people have to change, or that our individual contribution is too small to matter. But really, everything and everyone must change; change the way we produce, the way we shop, the way we eat, and more.

Let us make use of our great creativity and human spirit, and listen to everyone, not just those who agree with the popular point of view.  Make sure your voice is heard!

Hundreds of plant species around the world were backed up today at a “doomsday vault” in Svalbard, Norway, the first big deposit to the Arctic facility since an upgrade to future-proof it against climate change.

The seeds of onions from Brazil, guar beans from central Asia and wildflowers from a meadow at Prince Charles’s home in the UK are among the species being safeguarded at the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, housed in a mountain cavern about 1200 kilometres from the North Pole. Around 60,000 new seed samples were added, taking the total to more than a million.

In twilight on the mountainside where the vault’s iconic entrance juts out, the first seeds were delivered to a backdrop of a male choir singing. As the snow came down, teams at seed banks from Portugal to Mexico walked their valuable cargo into the entrance tunnel, their names read out by one by one.

Norwegian prime minister Erna Solberg attended the mass deposit, the single biggest since the opening of the facility in 2008. “The deposit event is especially timely,” she said ahead of the event, because this is the year by which countries should have safeguarded the genetic diversity of crops to meet the United Nations goal of eliminating hunger by 2030.

Speaking in Svalbard, the president of Ghana Nana Akufo-Addo said of the vault: “It is the great insurance policy for food security.” Agriculture in Ghana is already under pressure from climate change, he added.

The vault is designed as the ultimate insurance policy for restoring crop diversity to smaller seed banks around the world after extreme weather, conflict, fire and other events. The first withdrawal from the bank took place in 2015, to help conservationists who lost access to a major seed bank in Aleppo in the Syrian civil war.

However, the resilience of the vault itself has recently come under the spotlight. The permafrost on Spitsbergen, the island in the Svalbard archipelago where the bank is located, means the seeds should stay frozen even if the cooling system that keeps the vault at -18°C is hit by a power failure.

Yet in October 2016, the entrance tunnel to the facility was flooded due to a combination of heavy rainfall and permafrost melting. While the vault itself was untouched, that year the Arctic experienced record heat that scientists say was almost certainly due to human-made climate change.

The latest deposit marks the first time the vault has opened its doors to new seeds since a €20 million upgrade that includes a new waterproofed access tunnel, plus measures to prepare it for a world on track to be several degrees hotter by the century’s end.

Solberg told New Scientist that the fact the facility had required upgrading so soon after its opening was a symbol that climate change is coming more rapidly than expected. “Now we have planned for worst case scenarios in a better way,” she says.

Seed collectors from 36 banks around the world – eight for the first time – brought seeds for accessions, the term used for new samples entering the bank. The Svalbard facility is effectively a backup of the backups.

Among the seeds that made the three-hour flight north from Oslo are those from the Cherokee Nation, the first US indigenous tribe to deposit seeds at the vault. Corn that is sacred to the Cherokee people, bean varieties and a squash that can stay fresh for a year without refrigeration are among their crops being backed up.

The UK’s Kew Gardens brought 27 wild plant species from Prince Charles’s residence in the west of England. These include wild carrot (Daucus carota) and some forage species such as perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne), red fescue (Festuca rubra) and clover (Trifolium sp.), as well as five species of orchid. “It’s more urgent than ever that we act now to protect this diversity before it really is too late,” the prince said in a statement.

The Indian seed bank ICRISAT is brought more than 2800 accessions, adding to the more than 110,000 it has already deposited.

Others like the Julius Kühn Institute in Germany brought their first seeds, including the European crab apple (Malus sylvestris), a wild relative of domesticated apples. Seed banks in Morocco and South Korea are also made their first deliveries.

The vault will still have plenty of space after the new arrivals, as it has capacity for around 4.5 million samples.

Hannes Dempewolf at the Crop Trust, one of the partners that runs the vault with the Norwegian government, says that although today’s deposit takes the samples past the milestone of one million, Svalbard is “not just a numbers game” but is instead about prioritising unique species.

It is best practice to have a double backup of global seed banks, he says, both at the Svalbard vault and in other seed banks. Maintaining plant diversity is “incredibly important” for developing new, more productive crop varieties, he says.

But Dempewolf says seed banks are increasingly being called on to help farmers adapt to a warming world, too. “As we see the climate heating up and places looking for [crop] varieties to use in more challenging conditions, these seed banks are being more actively used.”

Safeguarding a diversity of crops is considered vital to humanity being able to feed itself as climate change takes hold.

Justify Shava at the SADC Plant Genetic Resources Centre in Zambia, a regional seed bank for 16 African countries, says farmers have called on it to provide varieties of sorghum – a type of grass used for flour – that can cope with very little water and grow rapidly.

Seed banks in poorer countries also face their own challenges. In some cases, the biggest short-term obstacle is a lack of funding, because they aren’t a political priority, says Dempewolf. But he says they should also “expect the unexpected”, such as the impact of conflict.

The seeds in Aleppo were also backed up across 11 seed banks globally, but withdrawing them from just one – the Svalbard vault – was the cheapest option, says Ahmed Amri, the head of genetic resources at the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA).

“Surprisingly, they are in top shape,” he says of the seeds recovered from the vault to replenish ICARDA’s collection, which was moved from Aleppo, Syria, to escape the civil war and is now in Lebanon and Morocco. He says the withdrawal shows the Svalbard vault is of practical use as well as of importance for long-term conservation.

ICARDA began depositing seeds in Norway in 2012, as the situation in Syria began deteriorating. It is impossible to say what condition the seeds left behind in Aleppo are in, says Amri, because the only thing he knows is that it had electricity to keep cooling systems running until 2017. The Syrian army has since entered the premises, but hasn’t let experts in to assess the seeds, he says, though he hopes to one day recover them.

Originally published

The Plant Variety Protection (PVP) Act provides patent-like rights to Breeders, Developers and Owners of plant varieties. The absence of the PVP law in Nigeria has led to stealing of intellectual property of Seed Breeders, marketing of fake seeds leading to low productivity for farmers and the loss of millions of dollars on foreign export of Seeds. The PVP Bill is currently at the senate and has passed Second Reading, which seeks to protect Seed Breeders and Farmers.
In the Netherlands, the Plant Variety Protection (PVP) Act enabled them generate $2.6 Billion from seed export annually, while Kenya generates $1.8 Billion annually from flower export.

In this documentary, the National Agricultural Seeds Council (NASC), the regulatory body for the national seed industry and other stakeholders advocate for the passage of the Plant Variety Protection (PVP) Bill into law. Stakeholders discuss the impact of the lack of the PVP law on the seed sector and farmers. They talk about the benefits of the PVP law in resolving food security issues and the economic opportunities if passed into law. Support the National Agricultural Seeds Council (NASC) advocacy to pass the PVP Bill into law.

Leading scientist and director general of the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA), NTERANYA SANGINGA, speaks to IPS correspondent Busani Bafana about how the institute is leveraging its successful research to push for greater investment in agricultural research.

BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe, Feb 11 2020 (IPS) – Africa needs to invest in agriculture by putting more resources into innovative research and development that can boost food and nutritional security, according to leading scientist, Nteranya Sanginga.

Sanginga, Director-General of the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA), based in Ibadan, Nigeria, says Africa comes short on leveraging its huge resources when it comes to transforming agriculture for economic growth.  

“Investment in research in Africa is poor, less than one percent and when it comes to agriculture, it is worse because the leaders do not understand the importance of research,” Sanginga told IPS.

“Today if you kill IITA in Africa then you have killed agriculture research in Africa.”

Sanginga, a national of the Democratic Republic of Congo, has specialised in agronomy and soil microbiology. He has been involved in agricultural research and development, particularly in applied microbial ecology, plant nutrition and integrated natural resources management in Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia.

Africa, Sanginga says, should build capacity for research in order to innovative its food systems to beat hunger and poverty.

Young people hold the key to the continent’s food future, says Sanginga who launched a Youth agriprenuers programme at IITA to help young African create profitable agribusinesses.

Speaking at a meeting of the African Leaders for Nutrition in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia last week, African Development Bank (AfDB) President Akinwumi Adesina said Africa should invest in skills development for the youth so the continent’s entrepreneurs can leverage emerging technologies to transform Africa’s food system to generate new jobs.

• Africa’s population is projected to double to 2.5 billion people in 40 years putting pressure on governments to deliver more food and jobs in addition to better livelihoods.
• The good news is that Africa’s economic growth is rising and expected to register 3.9 percent in 2020 and 4.1 percent in 2021, according to the AfDB’s 2020 African Economic outlook report.
• According to the World Bank, African agriculture and agribusiness could be worth $1 trillion in the next ten years. But Africa must overcome several barriers to agricultural development from poor infrastructure, limited credit access for farmers and low use of improved inputs and mechanisation.

The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) has estimated that Africa needs to invest up to $400 billion in agriculture over the next ten years to meet its food needs.

To date, 44 African countries have signed the Comprehensive African Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) Compact to spend 10 percent of their budgets on agriculture and increase their productivity by at least 6 percent. This follows the Maputo Declaration on Agriculture and Food Security made by African Heads of State in 2003.

Under Sanginga’s leadership, the IITA won the 2018 Africa Food Prize for its cutting-edge agricultural research and innovations that have boosted nutrition and incomes. Since its founding 50 years ago, IITA has developed new, improved and high-yielding varieties of cassava, cowpea, maize, banana, soybean and yam. Overall, for Africans, the value of the crops developed by IITA and its partners now stands at over $17 billion, underscoring its contribution to Africa’s agriculture and economy.

Excerpts of the interview follow:

Inter Press Service (IPS): How is IITA leveraging its successful research to push for greater investment in agriculture research?

Nteranya Sanginga (NS): Our legacy is starting a programme to change the mindset of the youth in agriculture. Unfortunately [with] our governments that is where you have to go and change mindsets completely. Most probably 90 percent of our leaders consider agriculture as a social activity basically for them its [seen as a] pain, penury. They proclaim that agriculture is a priority in resolving our problems but we are not investing in it. We need that mindset completely changed.

Akinwumi Adesina, a colleague we worked together with at IITA, and I had a discussion that one day we would change the way agriculture has gone. This happened when I became DG and when he became Minister of Agriculture in Nigeria. We managed to change the way agriculture was perceived in Nigeria but he never succeeded in getting the government to invest more that 3 percent in agriculture in Nigeria. So agriculture is to be considered an investment and two countries in Africa have made that happen: Ethiopia – which is investing about 20 percent of its budget in agriculture – and Rwanda. 

We must invest in agriculture in the same way we invest in mining. For example, Nigeria imports $5 billion worth of food per year, buying food from outside such as rice from Thailand and wheat from the U.S. You know the significance of this is that we are exporting jobs instead of creating jobs here, we are creating jobs in Thailand for rice [producers/farmers] and the U.S. for wheat [producers/farmers]. We have proven that we can produce rice and wheat. Again and again that mind-set of the leaders who basically do not understand that all the other continents developed through agriculture. We have to make the case for agriculture.

IPS: IITA has places a strong emphasis on approaching agriculture as a business. What are the policies needed that will create an opening for this?

NS: I think we are not going to create a miracle in Africa. We have to follow what other people have done. Adesina started smart subsidies in Nigeria and instead of giving money like you would do in the U.S. or Europe, he started buying equipment and fertilisers and other inputs for the farmers, that is working.

I do not see another way of helping agriculture in Africa if we do not facilitate and subsidise. Mind you, in the U.S. or Europe if you stop subsidies all those farmers will leave agriculture so you need to ensure that you find some way of helping our farmers invest in agriculture. It is leadership and policies that are needed.  Why would we allow someone to steal $10 billion from a country and not make an effort to invest this in something useful?

Besides, most banks in Africa consider agriculture risky but some have started initiatives to help farmers. In Kenya, Equity Bank has understood that agriculture is a business. In Nigeria, there has been a programme to put some money and de-risk lending for agriculture. In fact Equity Bank in Kenya lent to farmers and who had less than one percent default in their repayment rate. So really agriculture is a good business but still banks are reluctant.

Originally published

The Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA) has provided information, capacity building and practical support to almost 80 countries over the past 35 years.

Monday, February 17, Wageningen, NETHERLANDS – An EU-funded institution established to support smallholder farmers in Africa, the Caribbean and Pacific will come to an end this year.

The Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA), based in Wageningen, Netherlands, has reached almost 80 developing countries to help improve productivity and resilience among some of the world’s most vulnerable rural communities.

The closure comes as the Cotonou Agreement between the EU and African, Caribbean and Pacific group of states, which provided the legal and financial framework for CTA, comes to an end in December 2020.

“CTA has a proud track record of bringing knowledge and innovation to smallholder farmers for more than 35 years,” said Michael Hailu, Director, CTA.

“CTA staff and management are incredibly proud to have worked for an organisation that has contributed to transforming agriculture across developing countries through access to technology, innovation and knowledge sharing. Our priority now is to ensure an orderly closure and provide as much support to our partners going forward as possible.”

In recent years, CTA has driven the agenda for digitalisation in agriculture, including launching a flagship report that identified a €2.3 billion untapped market for digital services in sub-Saharan Africa.

CTA also fostered and supported agricultural innovation through Pitch AgriHack, a competition for young entrepreneurs to incubate start-ups and new ideas to use technology to improve farming. Winners of Pitch AgriHack have included Illuminum Greenhouses, which provides affordable greenhouses to Kenyan farmers, and Develop Digitally, which helps Jamaican farmers access credit.

Other CTA initiatives have included the Climate, Livestock and Markets (CLIMARK) project, which used data to support pastoralists and livestock keepers in Kenya and Ethiopia, including satellite-based insurance policies that paid out whenever forage levels dropped too low to sustain herds.

CTA partnered with technology company Amfratech and Takaful Insurance of Africa to help provide cover to 10,000 pastoralists, improving their resilience to drought, an example of “climate-smart agriculture”.

The institution also supported women’s entrepreneurship, and worked with the African Women Agribusiness Network (AWAN) and Africa Women Innovation and Entrepreneurship Forum (AWIEF) to launch VALUE4HERConnect, a digital platform to support women in agribusiness.

And in the Caribbean and Pacific, CTA has supported projects to explore the potential of blockchain to improve transparency and unlock premiums for farmers, as well as promoting agritourism in the Pacific and Caribbean islands.

CTA also directly contributed to the EU’s Digital for Development policy, in particular relating to sustainable agriculture and entrepreneurship.

“We want the ideas that have been created by CTA to continue being utilised and support other programmes that we have,” said Harry Kimtai, principal secretary at Kenya’s ministry of agriculture.

Agnes Kalibata, president of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, added: “CTA has done a great job as a knowledge builder, in sharing that knowledge and advocating what needs to be done and what needs to change.”

Over the next months, CTA will explore opportunities with a range of international, national and regional partners that are interested in continuing the institute’s work and support smallholder farmers.

“CTA is proud to have driven the agenda on a number of topics related to rural and agricultural development and have facilitated exchange and learning,” Mr Hailu added.

“CTA may not exist as an institution but the momentum of our work will continue and we are proud of the legacy we leave behind.”

Ends

For more information or to request an interview, contact Bertil Videt, +31 6 5113 1034, videt@cta.int

About CTA

CTA is a joint international institution of the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group of States and the European Union (EU). CTA operates under the framework of the Cotonou Agreement and is funded by the EU. CTA works to advance food security, resilience and inclusive economic growth in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific through innovations in sustainable agriculture.

www.cta.int

Climate change could expand farmland globally by almost a third but would also bring significant environmental threats, including a risk of increased emissions from soils

ROME, Feb 15 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Kenya’s livestock herders planting chilli peppers, Pakistan’s mountain farmers rearing fish and tropical fruits in Sicily – farmers around the world are already shifting what they grow and breed to cope with rising temperatures and erratic weather.

In a few more decades, potatoes from the Russian tundra and corn from once-frigid areas of Canada could be added to the list as vast swathes of land previously unsuited to agriculture open up to farmers on a hotter planet.

Climate change could expand farmland globally by almost a third, a study by international researchers found this week.

They examined which new areas may become suitable for growing 12 key crops including rice, sugar, wheat, oil palm, cassava and soy.

“In a warming world, Canada’s North may become our breadbasket of the future,” the scientists wrote.

But, they warned, opening up new “agricultural frontiers” would also bring significant environmental threats, including a risk of increased planet-warming emissions from soils.

In Canada, there is potential to at least double the country’s farmland to 2 million square kilometres, thus doubling food production, said study co-author Krishna Bahadur KC, an adjunct professor at Canada’s University of Guelph.

“This is the positive aspect,” he said.

Farming on the land identified in the study – more than half of which lies in Canada and Russia, with the rest including the mountains of Central Asia and North America’s Rocky Mountains – could help feed the planet’s growing population.

Today, one in nine people go to bed hungry, and the United Nations has said food production needs to increase by about 50% by 2050, when the global population is expected to reach nearly 10 billion.

Graphic from the Arrell Food Institute at the University of Guelph, Canada, showing “frontier” areas that could become suitable for farming due to climate change

MARS NEXT?

Despite growing demand for food, environmental experts who were not involved in the study told the Thomson Reuters Foundation enlarging farmland could further accelerate climate change.

Some of these frontier areas have the most carbon-rich soils, said Ronald Vargas, secretary of the Global Soils Partnership and a land management officer at the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization.

“As soon as you start (farming) you will see emissions. So global warming will shoot up,” he said, pointing to a map showing that Russia and Canada hold about a third of the world’s organic carbon stock found in the top layer of fertile soil.

Within a decade, half of that carbon could be released into the atmosphere if the land is cultivated, he warned.

The study, published in the science journal PLOS One, echoed that concern.

If agriculture were allowed to extend into all areas identified, “there would be little chance” of meeting the Paris Agreement goal of limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7F) above pre-industrial levels, it said.

That, in turn, would generate “even more climate change for poor people in the developing world” who have done little to cause global warming, said Margarita Astralaga, head of the environment and climate division at the International Fund for Agricultural Development.

Instead the answer lies with better management of existing arable land, including raising productivity in Africa, she said.

About four-fifths of African agriculture relies on rainfall, so extended droughts cripple food production, she noted, calling for solutions such as irrigation, soil conservation and reduction of food waste and spoilage.

“We have millions of hectares that already are arable that we have destroyed… Do we go to Mars next?” she asked.

CAUTION URGED

Agnes Kalibata, president of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa and former Rwandan agricultural minister, also saw downsides to opening up more farmland.

She pointed to the devastating locust invasion in East Africa and a surge in malaria in parts of Africa as the climate gets hotter.

“We can’t… forget that in those areas where it’s warming up, it’s also warming up to be comfortable for insects that were not there before,” she said.

Biodiversity loss could be “huge” too, added Kalibata, who was recently appointed special envoy for a U.N. summit on improving food systems slated for next year.

As well as threatening global biodiversity hotspots, the study warned that extending farming to frontier areas could bring risks for indigenous people who often inhabit such land.

It called for government policies to “optimise food production, biodiversity and ecosystem services under climate change” rather than simply favouring agricultural expansion, as in the past.

An environmentally aware approach could include protecting areas with carbon-rich soils or levying high carbon taxes on conversion of such land for farming, said co-author KC.

“We should proceed but we should move very, very cautiously and (be) mindful of the potential environmental impacts,” he added.

Originally published on Thomson Reuters Foundation

The partnership will create market transparency that is needed to unlock financing for agri-SMEs in emerging markets.

• Agricultural small and medium enterprises (agri-SMEs) face complex and persistent challenges in emerging markets, despite the vital role they play in these economies.
• On the one hand the agribusinesses do not meet market requirements to attract funding, often because they are not run as businesses. On the other hand, the financiers – which range from local financial institutions, regional lenders, and global investors – find the agricultural sector extremely risky and expensive to service.
• The partnership between MIX and SCOPEinsight will address this by using data to create transparency, help financiers make more informed decisions, and build a bridge between agri-SMEs and the capital they need to grow. This partnership’s first set of activities is supported by the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA). 

Agri-SMEs – which include farmer organizations, input providers, off-takers and distributors, among others – play a crucial role in rural economies.  “These businesses create employment and connect smallholders to markets and opportunities to improve their livelihoods,” said Camilla Nestor, CEO of MIX. “Yet agri-SMEs are often unable to access the financing they need to grow.” Estimates place the financing gap for agri-SMEs at USD 100 billion for the segment in sub-Saharan Africa alone.

The financing gap is driven in part by low visibility into a pipeline of viable agribusinesses and a lack of reliable data for decision making and investment.

MIX and SCOPEinsight will leverage the support, guidance, and deep network connections of AGRA to develop and test a set of standardized metrics that enable investors and lenders to compare the financial and operational performance of agri-SMEs, leading to informed decision making. In order to build this set of metrics, the two organizations will first develop a common language for agri-SMEs in consultation with industry actors including investors, lenders, and the agribusinesses themselves. The partners will also tap into AGRA’s expertise and experience supporting agribusinesses. Beginning with select markets in sub-Saharan Africa, MIX and SCOPEinsight will aggregate existing information currently siloed by value chains and geographies, and will conduct outreach to agri-SMEs and their partners.

“Agricultural SMEs contribute to a dynamic marketplace by offering a diverse set of products and services to improve the yields and incomes for smallholder farmers,” said Hedwig Siewertsen, Head of Inclusive Finance for AGRA. “In order for these businesses to grow sustainably, extend their reach, and enhance their value for customers, they need access to appropriate financial services. Yet the current financial services landscape is exceedingly difficult to navigate for both the SMEs and the financial service providers. By supporting MIX and SCOPEinsight in this effort, AGRA aims to enable these players to more easily navigate the available financial services and, ultimately, better match the supply and demand of agricultural SME finance.”  

The partnership between MIX and SCOPEinsight brings together two organizations with deep experience solving intractable problems in the agricultural finance space.

SCOPEinsight was established 10 years ago with the aim to develop a system that would measure and score the level of professionalism of agri-SMEs with the aim to link these organizations in a scalable manner to finance. The graduation system has for the largest part been developed and is being rolled out with local partners. In the past years, nearly 4000 assessments have been conducted in 40 different countries. “SCOPEinsight has come a long way in these past years and the time is right to develop the last piece of the puzzle. We have a great partner in MIX, who has the complementary knowledge and network to make this a success.” Marise Blom, COO of SCOPEinsight, said of the partnership. She elaborates, “In the past, SCOPE scores with the underlying data have proven to be instrumental for the more professional agri-SME’s to gain access to finance. SCOPEinsight envisions a linkage between the bankability metrics and the SCOPE scores, building the bridge between the agri-SME’s and the financiers.” 

To propel the partners’ vision forward, the organizations are establishing an advisory board to include leading thinkers and practitioners with deep experience in emerging market agricultural finance.

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For more information, contact:

Nikhil Gehani – ngehani@themix.org

Director of Marketing & Communications, MIX

Juliet MacDowell – juliet.macdowell@scopeinsight.com

Marketing Director, SCOPEinsight

About MIX

MIX is the leading global data resource for socially responsible investors and businesses focused on inclusive finance. MIX’s catalytic data initiatives encourage the growth of inclusive markets and support informed thinking on the future of financial services. MIX convenes stakeholders to build common data standards that create transparency and develops strategic insight from complex data to help sectors flourish. Founded in 2002, MIX has served as a trusted data partner for socially responsible investors who move USD 10 billion annually. Learn more at www.themix.org.

About SCOPEinsight

We are the leading company offering standardized data for the middle of the agricultural value chain.  Our system is applicable to every country, every type of organization, and every crop. Since 2010, we have trained over 700 assessors who conducted nearly 4,000 assessments in 40 countries spanning 19 agricultural sectors and reaching more than 9.2 million farmers. Our clients include global agribusinesses, NGOs, financial institutions as well as multilateral development and food security organizations.

About AGRA

Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) is a partnership-driven institution that is African-led and farmer centered. Established in 2006, AGRA places smallholder farmers at the center of the continent’s growing economy by transforming their farming beyond the solitary struggle for survival, into thriving businesses. Our partners include African governments, researchers, development partners, the private sector and civil society working primarily with smallholder farmers – men and women who typically cultivate staple crops on two hectares of land or less. Our five-year strategy (2017 – 2021), aims to catalyze and sustain an inclusive agricultural transformation through integrated, country-based investment plans in 11 countries with a high potential for success.  The focus is on increasing incomes and improving food security for 30 million farm households with support that strengthens the capacities of governments and private sector through policies, programs, and partnerships that increase productivity and access to markets and finance. AGRA drives the bulk of its investments through the Partnership for Inclusive Agricultural Transformation in Africa (PIATA) with funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, The German Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), the UK Department for International Development (DFID), and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). For more information, visit www.agra.org, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube.

AGRA worked and supported Ethiopia’s Agricultural Transformation Agency (ATA) with studies and technical support to exempt levies and charges on specific agriculture inputs to trigger better acces​​s by agripreneurs in Ethiopia.

The directive that exempts imported agricultural machinery and inputs from duties reached the final level.

Drafted by the Ministry of Agriculture, the directive has been in the making for the last eight months to waive taxes and duties on selected agricultural machinery, irrigation technologies and animal feed processing machinery, as well as agricultural inputs.

The 96-page draft directive is now tabled to the senior officals  of the Ministry and waiting for final approval. It will waive duties on a total of 591 types of agricultural machinery, accessories and agricultural inputs including tractors, combiners, generators, pumps, fertiliser and seeds.

The Ministry started the drafting process after the Agricultural Transformation Council proposed the duty exemption on selected agricultural machinery and technologies in December 2017. The Council called for the exemption hoping to enhance agricultural productivity and ensure food security through agricultural mechanisation.

Agriculture contributes to close to 46pc of GDP and employs over 80pc of the population.

The Ministry of Agriculture identified and listed the machinery and inputs sent to them from the Ministry of Finance, for approval. The Ministry sent the letter to the Customs Commission last May to be effective as of the same month.

However, the directive could not be enacted, since the implementation requires a legal framework and tractors were excluded from the list, according to Tamiru Habte, director of mechanisation at the Ministry of Agriculture.

Mulay Weldu, tax policy director at the Ministry of Finance, says that tractors were excluded from the original list with the main aim of not discouraging domestic tractor assemblers.

“But we included tractors in the list after learning that the local production doesn’t satisfy the demand,” Mulay said.

After getting the green light from the Ministry of Finance to include tractors in the list, the Ministry of Agriculture drafted the directive and sent it back to the Finance Ministry two months ago for comment.

The draft directive limits the number and types of machinery that will be imported tax-free by private agricultural training centres, youth and women’s organisations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), rental service providers, universities, technical and vocational education & training schools (TVETs) and garages that are engaged in maintaining agricultural machinery.

However, it posed no limit on agricultural machinery importers, manufacturers, assemblers, agricultural institutes, government enterprises, public enterprises, cooperative unions, associations and federations.

To import the machinery and the inputs, the importers should get a certificate of competence, which must be renewed every two years, from the Ministry of Agriculture. The Ministry is also supposed to report – every six months – to the ministries of Finance and Revenues and the Customs Commission on the performance of the scheme.

The Ministry also prepared a logo or a plate number for differentiating the machinery imported through this programme by working with the concerned stakeholders, according to the draft directive.

Machinery and equipment that are imported through this scheme cannot be transferred to a third party as gifts, through inheritance or sales. But if transferred, all the necessary taxes must be paid.

The beneficiaries are also supposed to file reports to the Ministry of Agriculture every three months. The report should include the number of equipment they sold along with the prices, the type of rental agreements, the name and address of the buyers and the renters. The directive has also waived the Value-Added Tax (VAT) for renting these agricultural machines.

In addition, 13 agricultural operation services are exempted from any VAT, following the approval on November 1, 2019.

Between 2011 and 2016 a total of 12 billion Br worth of agricultural mechanised equipment was imported, and 3.3 billion Br in taxes and duties were paid on its behalf.

The Ministry of Finance also lowered its target of duties and tax revenues from the import of machinery this fiscal year. It plans to collect 3.2 billion Br in revenue from machinery imports, 308 million Br lower than the preceding year.

Tadesse Lencho (PhD), an assistant professor at Addis Abeba University’s School of Law & Governance, doubts if this is beneficial for farmers.

“Importers would only be compelled to increase the prices even though the tax pressure is lifted from them,” said Tadesse. “It’s naive if the government thinks this will lessen the pressure on the farmers.”

Tadesse says that the government should propose a finance leasing scheme for these kinds of capital goods, as they are a means of product.

Originally published