Posted on February, 26, 2019 at 08:48 am
THE government has vowed to revamp agriculture in the country by setting aside adequate budget for agricultural research and development, making inputs available on time with proper and swift distribution systems across the country.
Minister for Agriculture, Japhet Hasunga, made the promise at the launching of the accelerated varietal improvement and seed delivery of legumes and cereals in Africa (AVISA) project held in Arusha yesterday. The four year project will be implemented in seven African countries and will cost USD27million .
For Tanzania for example, the legumes will involve beans, pigeon pea, and groundnuts where as cereals will involve sorghum, millets and finger millets.
Addressing participants mainly heads of research institutions, and other researcher from seven countries of Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Mali, Ghana, Uganda, Ethiopia, the host Tanzania, the private sector and development partners, the minister also advised other African countries to emulate development made by developed countries by setting aside one to five per cent of the budget for agriculture.
He said that increasing the budget for research and development will lead to efficiency in agriculture, improve crop production, feed processing industries, earn income, increase forex and spur the national economy.
The minister emphasized on strengthening the public-private partnership so that the project results could reach the farmers on time. He also pointed out that for the project to have more impact, production should be linked with availability of markets.
Seed System Specialist from International Centre for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), Jean Claude Rubyogo explained that the project will establish a robust system that will increase the quality of project, help farmers access quality varieties, make production efficient and profitable.
He advised the private sector to come in, do business and make money.
“I would like to advice governments to seek additional support and mobilise resources to expand the project to wider community so that it can benefit many farmers in the country,” he said.
IITA’s director for southern Africa, Dr David Chikoye said that the project aims at reducing poverty, improving nutrition and looks at issues of sustainable development.
He said the project focuses on breeding to generate improved varieties, the private sector as multipliers should seize opportunities to capitalize on the commercialization of the crops. The government should create enabling environment through policy framework, for example to support inputs distribution and look at policy framework to support the buying of grains produced by the farmers.
TARI director general, Dr. Geoffrey Mkamilo said that Tanzania is among the seven countries participating in the project. “We are very grateful for the support for AVISA because it will support all crops but mainly focusing on beans, groundnuts and sorghum.
He said unlike the past where the crops used to be food crops, nowadays, the crops have turned to be cash crops adding that the country is going to have more new varieties that will be released and will also enable the country to enter in the commercial supply chain.
“The objective of the meeting is to bring together various institutions and organizations that will be involved in the project so that they can create common understanding of the project among partners,” he stressed.
The accelerated varietal improvement and seed delivery of legumes and cereals in Africa project is nice as it involves legumes which is a source of energy and cereals for vitamin.
The accelerated varietal improvement and seed delivery of Legumes and cereals in Africa (AVISA) project consolidates the gains made by earlier projects, Tropical Legumes (TL)- I, II, III and harnessing opportunities for productivity enhancement for Sorghum and Millets (HOPE)- I and II and harvest Plus. All funded by Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF)-while refocusing the work to improve the CGIAR and key NARS breeding and seed delivery systems.
The AVISA project will establish a robust system that will increase the quality of performance data substantiating varietal superiority in sorghum, pearl millet, groundnut, beans and cowpea. It will also boost the availability of early generation seed by strengthening the technical and business acumen of the public early generation systems through technical, management and business capacity building, establish a clear path and handover process from the research system to the private sector and enable private sector multipliers seize opportunities to capitalize on the commercialisation of the crops.
Source: IPP Media