Science has the power to boost farming in Africa. But a lot has to change

The agricultural sector is the world's largest single employer. It provides jobs for more than 40% of the global population. It's also the largest source of income and jobs for poor, rural households.

It is, by and large, a successful sector. There have been huge improvements in yields and food production over the past five decades. More cereals have been produced annually during the past 40 years than in any earlier period. It is also predicted that more grain will be harvested in 2017 than in any year in history. This is as a consequence of scientific advances, increased fertiliser use and favourable rainfall patterns.

Many of these gains have been felt in Africa. Improved seed varieties, new fertilisers and pesticides, improved credit and market access have all played a role. So have scientific innovations such as improved and more reliable weather prediction, improved drought tolerance and increased resistance to extreme climatic conditions, and cross-breeding for improved efficiency.

And yet hundreds of millions of people in Africa are going hungry every day. Globally, 800 million people are categorised as chronically hungry. Around 30% of them – 227 million people – live in Africa.

So where is the disconnect between food production and food security in Africa? Why does the continent spend about US $40 billion a year importing food when so many of its own residents are farmers? And how can this situation be changed?

At least part of the answer lies with science. There are already several excellent examples of ways in which science has led to dramatic increases in food production and moved farmers in some countries closer to self-sufficiency.

Science at work

A project in Uganda provides an excellent example. Ugandan scientist Robert Mwanga won the 2016 World Food Prize for his work in addressing Vitamin A deficiencies. Without Vitamin A, children are more likely to develop entirely preventable blindness. Working with people in Uganda's poor, rural areas, Mwanga set about substituting, at scale, white sweet potato – which is low in Vitamin A – with a Vitamin A-rich alternative.

In Ethiopia, Gebisa Ejeta was awarded the 2009 World Food Prize for his work on improving the food supply of hundreds of millions of people in sub-Saharan Africa by increasing the production of sorghum hybrids resistant to drought and the parasitic Striga weed.

None of these projects would have been possible without governments supporting the research that lay behind them. But much more needs to be done. Research shows that investing an extra US $88 billion in agricultural research and development globally over the next 15 years could increase crop yields by 0.4% each year.

This could save 80 million people from hunger and protect five million children from malnourishment.

Africa is behind the curve on investing in research to improve agriculture outputs. Even though all 54 countries of the African Union have signed up to successive commitments – starting with the Maputo Declaration in 2003 – to increase their agricultural research budgets to at least 10% of their national budgets, few have actually done so.

At the last count only 13 had met or exceeded the 10% target in one or more years since 2003.

There's an added problem. Africa relies on external capacity for most of its scientific research in agriculture. This has undermined its capacity to use science to deliver solutions for problems unique to Africa. This needs to change. Scientific research should be Africa-based, owned and led. Investment will be key – and so will solidarity among African scientists and governments.

Using science to benefit people

In 2014 African heads of state renewed their commitment to the agriculture sector when the signed the Malibu Declaration. The core of its agenda is to connect science to benefit society by:

• Identifying broad areas of science that can be developed in partnership
• Strengthening national science and technology institutions
• Building human capacity
• Diversifying funding sources to support science
• Facilitating partnerships between African institutions at a national and continental level
• Sharing information, technologies, information, facilities and staff for common challenges and opportunities, and
• Creating a favourable policy environment for science

In addition to this, governments need to step up to the plate and increase their research budgets. Combined with the commitment to work together, the hope is that science will increasingly be used to create a more productive, efficient and competitive agriculture sector across the continent. This is critical to improve rural economies, where most people in Africa live.

Professor Frans Swanepoel is a Research Fellow in Residence with focus on Future Africa at the Centre for the Advancement of Scholarship at the University of Pretoria, and a Visiting Fellow at the Institute for African Development at Cornell University in the USA. He is a member of the boards of the African Women in Agricultural Research and Development (AWARD) initiative, and the Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network (FANRPAN).

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Researchers

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  Professor Frans Swanepoel

  Professor Frans Swanepoel, Fellow at the Centre for Advancement of Scholarship and Director: International Strategic Partnerships, was honored by RUFORUM during its 15th AGM in Ghana on 5 December 2019 for his significant contributions in pursuit of excellence in higher education in Africa and creating systems that facilitate change and transformation.
  RUFORUM, the Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture, is constituted of 121 member universities operating in 38 countries across the African continent and facilitates postgraduate education and training in agriculture and life sciences.
  
  Three other leaders in education were honoured by RUFORUM at its AGM: Professor Mabel Imbuga, former Vice-Chancellor of Jomo Kenyatta University, Kenya; Professor Eriabu Lugujjo, Vice-Chancellor of Ndejje University, Uganda; and Professor Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang, former Minister of Education in Ghana.
  
  Prof Swanepoel was specifically recognised as an expert in agriculture and food systems transformation and capacity development in Africa. He has served and represented Africa globally under different appointments, including as Fellow at the Institute for African Development at Cornell University, USA; a steering committee member of the Gates Foundation-supported African Women in Agricultural Research and Development programme based in Nairobi, Kenya; as part of the Technical Committee of the RUFORUM board based in Kampala, Uganda; a member of the steering group of the Science Agenda for African Agriculture of the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa based in Accra, Ghana; as Board member of the UN-approved Food Agriculture Natural Resources and Policy Analysis Network; and member of the Advisory Council of the Science Granting Councils Initiative for sub-Saharan Africa.
  In 2015 Prof Swanepoel directed the development of case studies to increase both the quality and quantity of PhD production in Africa to inform the Continental Summit on Higher Education held in Ghana. In 2018 he directed the background studies to inform the inaugural meeting of the Committee of ten (Co10) Heads of State hosted in Malawi to champion Science Innovation and Technology for Africa’s development. During August 2019 he was invited to represent Africa at the International Fund for Agricultural Development and Wageningen University and Research (WUR) steering group to conceptualise the framework to inform the United Nations (UN) food systems summit scheduled for 2021 in New York.
  Prof Swanepoel has published extensively and supervised more than 50 master’s and PhD students to completion, with more than 30 of these students being from Africa (excluding South Africa). He is a member of the Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf) and was admitted as a Foreign Fellow of the Ugandan National Academy of Sciences in 2016. In 2017 he was recognised by the African Fertilizer and Agribusiness Partnership for his contribution to the advancement of agricultural transformation in Africa and in 2018 he was appointed as Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study at the University of Western Australia in Perth. Prof Swanepoel was former Deputy Chair and acting Chairperson of the Agricultural Research Council Board and chaired the ASSAf consensus panel to revitalise agricultural education and training in South Africa. The recommendations are currently being discussed with the Ministry of Higher Education, Science and Technology.
  

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  Science has the power to boost farming in Africa. But a lot has to change