Written by Abraham Dereje
“We are witnessing a faster pace of public and private investments in agriculture, in part because of improving national policies and regulatory measures. These include significant investment by AGRA and its partners in large breadbasket areas in Ghana, Mali, Mozambique and Tanzania, as well as in several important agricultural growth corridors,” said Kofi Anan, the former secretary general of the UN and Chairman of the Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA). The green revolution has brought tremendous outcomes and changed the lives of millions of farmers, ensuring food security in Asia, and South America. However, Africa still suffers from severe food shortage of production and productivity in most parts of the continent. Boosting productivity is mandatory to properly feed Africa’s growing population, which is getting close to a billion.
The participation of private entities in Africa’s agriculture is of great significance as it fosters the public’s effort to enhance output. Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), aspires to promote agricultural transformation and ensure food security via various support programmes. It’s supports include access to quality seeds, fertilizers, training agricultural scientists, helping governments design agricultural policies that reduce risk, improve market stability and encourage innovation. With support from The Rockefeller Foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and other donors, it is working across Africa, including Ethiopia. AGRA recently launched a three-year breeding initiative for five Ethiopian grain crops, Maize, teff, Sorghum, Soya bean and Faba bean, in collaboration with the Ethiopian Institute for Agricultural Research (EIAR), which will be in charge of implementing the project.
While briefing journalist at the launching workshop, AGRA’s Director of Programme for Africa’s Seed Systems (PASS), Joseph D. Devries (PhD), said, “no seed, no green revolution.” He said AGRA is pleased to have the opportunity to work with the Ethiopian government to tackle the key bottleneck in farmers productivity. Devries indicated that via this collaboration, 20 tons of breeder and foundation seeds- the basic seed multiplied and sold to farmers, will be availed to seed enterprises annually. Building an effective and dynamic seed system takes the participation of all stakeholders, he remarked.
According to him, AGRA is heavily investing in the development of the Ethiopian seed industry, and the country’s industry is showing a positive trend of growth although it is not a job done yet. Breeding of new seed varieties is the missing factor, he says. “Crop breeding can really set people free from hunger, those new varieties that are highly yielding and adapted to local conditions can be an enormous benefit to the entire nation. In order for the farmers to plant the seed of these varieties, there has to be an active and vigorous breeding programme for each of the major crops,” he explained. He noted that AGRA has conducted discussions on scientific, technical and management issues related to the implementation of the new breeding project.
Responding to a question related to the issues of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs), he said that AGRA is officially neutral on the issues of GMOs and works in partnership with the government. It is only governments who can develop the policies with regard to GMOs. “So far none of the governments that the organization is working with have sanctioned development and the commercialization of crop varieties that we are investing in. We are not investing in GMO crop varieties, we are investing heavily in conventional crop breeding and we believe that even with this conventional breeding science, we can achieve a tremendous amount.” Devries noted that the green revolutions of Asia and Latin America were achieved with conventional breeding. Hence conventional breeding also can play a similar role in the effort to achieve the African green revolution. He says farmers should get quick access to improved seed at a large scale and that is really what AGRA wants to achieve via the new project. It is working with six private seed companies in different parts of the country and these companies are eagerly taking the new varieties. According to him, some of the regional seed enterprises and the Ethiopian Seed Enterprise have shown interest for AGRA to do the same thing. “It is not business as usual, it is a research linked with the society through the collaboration of private and public seed agencies.”
There is a proclamation in Ethiopia with respect to the use of the GM technology. This proclamation, even if it does not completely prohibit the use of GM technology in agriculture, it puts strict restrictions. Though there is a strong debate on the use of GMOs in Africa, there might be some useful technologies that need to be imported from the outside world for the benefit of the country, the researchers at the workshop commented. They also said the proclamation should be revised in such a way that enables the country to utilize some of the useful technologies.
AGRA will invest over one million dollars and reach over 200 thousand smallholder farmers in Ethiopia, either directly or indirectly. Adefris Teklewold (PhD), Director of crop research process with the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR), who will be in charge of implementing the project, said the development of new crop varieties may take long time and addressing the specified amount of farmers with in three years would be a commendable task. Farmers situated at the favourable agro-ecological zones for the focused crop varieties may get more benefited.
The EIAR is responsible not only for developing the varieties but also is expected to supply the source seeds for the seed companies, he noted. It undertakes tasks to insure the merits of the new varieties and popularize them to the farmers. “None of the focus crops are priority crops for GM technologies as they are directly linked with the food chain. But if we get useful GM technologies from AGRA we are ready to take test it,” he said. The new project would help the EIAR to provide quality and productive varieties to the farmers and strengthen the involvement of the seed companies in the agricultural production process.
The project has been underway since the last some months and it began with crops that have high potential for yield increase. As the data from the EIAR indicated Maize, Sorghum and Wheat have shown better yield as compared to the other varieties. As the results from the Debre Zeit Research Institute also indicated, teff, staple food most of the people in the country has the great potential to increase yield. Soya bean is chosen among the five key crops considered for the initiative due to its increased importance in the country for the production of cooking oil. Faba bean, one of the crops the project has focused, is also an important crop in Ethiopia though it almost has no significance in other African countries.
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