Posted on March, 23, 2022 at 08:54 am
I There was hardly a time in history when developing countries, particularly those in Africa, needed the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research, (CGIAR) more than they do now. By the time global population stabilizes in the 2050s, and the Africa we want as enshrined in the African Union’s Agenda2063, Africa will need 60% more food than is produced now, on a land base that is rapidly approaching its ecological limits. Much of the additional global food will be needed in Africa because the continent leads the pack with a population that is growing the fastest. Aggravating this grim demographic scenario is the growing scourge of climate change – a brunt visited on Africa mainly due to activities from other continents. Against this backdrop, is the recognition that more than 950 million people in 93 countries go to bed hungry, a high proportion of which, are in Africa. More than being fed, food and nutrition security entails the production and utilization of food with nutrients in the right balance.
There is no doubt that the CGIAR has been playing a pivotal role in supporting developing nations especially over the last 50 years, to meet this food and nutrition security challenge by helping to rapidly increase agricultural production and productivity, particularly in Africa where these indicators lag behind the rest of the developing world.
But the challenge is not only about food and nutrition security. The agriculture sector must contribute much more to sustainable economic growth and development and serve as a means of much more gainful employment. The size of the population in Africa is currently under 1.4 billion and 60% of these are under 25 years. However, the industrial and service sectors where the demand is for more knowledge rather than labor intensive workers will not absorb most of Africa’s youth. Agriculture must do much, much more than it does now.
It is clear that to attain the much-needed economic transformation, food and nutrition security, the agriculture sector must contend with increasingly erratic weather patterns, changing climate, the pandemic and now the crisis in eastern Europe. It is therefore imperative that new agricultural technologies are deployed faster, not only to adapt to these conditions but to mitigate them. In other words, we must green our economies with agriculture playing a big role and as we say, doubling productivity with half the inputs without further degrading the physical environment.
To achieve this noble goal has been the core value of many of the advanced research institutes in operation worldwide but with emphasis on developing economies whose growth depend largely on agriculture. This is the cohort of research institutions that make up the CGIAR. In order to attain efficiency, the CGIAR has reinvented itself during many years of reform – trying to do better, what they do best. As the collective voice for research and development on the continent, in principle, the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA) is delighted at the idea of the current reform which also implies the coalition of research centres in the context of the One CGIAR. Indeed, over the last couple of years, most of the advanced research institutes within the CGIAR cohort had celebrated their golden jubilee – singularly or collectively. These are over 50 years of meaningful contribution to livelihoods and national economies. These institutions very rapidly became the bastion of high-end agricultural research and innovation achievements on the continent as the results of the research generated from them helped to liberate people from the pangs of hunger, malnutrition and poverty.
Innovations around rice, cassava, aquaculture, ruminant livestock and poultry, fodder agronomy, pulses, dryland cereals, general agricultural practices, bioengineering and bio-fortification etc. are some of the visible footprints of the CGIAR. These solutions would have been otherwise impossible in Africa without the support of these institutions conducting upstream science in agricultural research. The outcome of these scientific interventions in the human development indices has been phenomenal.
As the global dynamics within the economic topsy-turvy began to hit all spheres of the common man, the donor-dependent research and innovation in agriculture was bound to feel the heat. The thinking to rationalize the centres with a view to optimizing resources was no longer farfetched as donor support was dwindling and the concept of ‘donor fatigue’ became alter ego. The donors dictate the pace, the show, and the reform!
Source: The Nation