The Executive Managing Director of the Consultative Group for International Agriculture Research, CGIAR, Dr. Ishamane Elouafi has stressed on the need for development partners to invest more in intensive agriculture in Africa and to produce more food for Africa in order to reduce the prevalence of hunger in the continent.
Elouafi who made this call during her official visit to the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture, IITA headquarters in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital on Monday, stated that efforts should be targeted at doing more to bridge the yield gap be it in animal, fishery or crops adding that the data showed currently that most of African native farming system were producing about ten percent of their potential.
Noting that what was produced in Africa was ten percent of what was produced in the North America, Europe and Asia, she insisted that that yield gap of ninety percent needed to be filled out. According to her, “How do we do it? It’s through adoption of technologies and innovation”, saying that to achieve this, irrigation, mechanization and fertilizer were very important.
She, however, regretted that because Africa imports everything from outside, the cost was very high. “So, we need really to develop our agribusinesses and again, what I am seeing in IITA, with agribusiness incubated is amazing. So, we need to do more of that because by the end, I mean we have been thinking the crisis of COVID, the crisis with Ukraine have thought us a lot of lessons whereby in crisis time, you need to make sure that you have your basic food close by.
“So, we need to really look at that sector and see how much we can do internally but in terms of technologies and innovation, they exist, we need more and we should continue to invest in the research and development because the climate is changing on a daily basis and in a season basis. So, we need to continue investment in science but we need to deploy the technologies we have now and that’s a very important area we need to tackle and that’s where really the CGIAR with its new strategy 2030 is talking about it not only that we do the science but we do the research for development, we do the delivery side, we work with the private sector, we work with the national system to really get the technology in the hands of the smallholders”, she submitted.
Describing IITA as a centre based in Nigeria covering all of Africa and working for transformation of agriculture system towards food security, nutrition security and environmental security, the CGIAR Executive Managing Director said, “It is very important for us, particularly in the continent to talk about food security and nutrition security and resilience and sustainability because, unfortunately, the continent is still very much relying on import and does not produce enough for its own population whereas the potential is there, the potential is huge in Africa not only because of its talents and resourcefulness but also because of its own population.
“We have the youngest population, this youngest population is educated and needs employment and needs new opportunities and hence the agricultural sector at large including agriculture, forestry, animal science, fisheries and all of those that are under the agriculture definition in the United Nations. It’s a sector that needs to be developed not only to make sure that the continent is food secured and nutrition secured but also to make agriculture as effective to have economic empowerment, to have generation of employment for the youth population.
“So, it’s a sector that is very dynamic, that could be developed more but for Africa particularly, we need to develop it based on science and technologies and innovation and that’s where centres like IITA and other CGIAR centres are very important because these centres have wealth of information, wealth of experience in conducting research in the agroecological zone in the environment and have a lot of technologies that could be scaled up to really create that food secured and nutrition secured continent and also resilience and sustainability as climate change will continue to really be variable and even more, continue to change and we need to adapt to it but at the same time, as we are adapting, we need to protect the environment so that we produce enough food with less.”
On funding, Dr. Elouafi who admitted that it’s a “tricky component”, said, “we are very lucky that we have a lot of Board members, a lot DGs, a lot of partners and key stakeholders that have a very good understanding of finance and we have one of them right here, the Director General of IITA coming from the World Bank. So, it’s a matter of how do we really talk to the donors. So, I think, our concentration on certain commodities only might not have answers in raising funds and that’s where working with development agencies, as we said again, in TAAT (Technologies for African Agriculture Transformation), in many programmes in IITA is very important.
“So, be it by national system deploying certain areas of development whereby they really need technology partners so we will be their science and technologies and innovation partner or be it with the international development agencies as well that deploy huge scalability of programme, again, that needs to base it on science and that’s where CGIAR has to come in and I think we haven’t done it this way in the past. We have been quiet in our science and innovation without really looking at how do we transfer that technology to the farmers, how do we make sure it is in the hands of the farmers and how they work also with maybe SMEs – Small and Medium Enterprises at the national level and the regional level to get really the technology out there.”
“Using the TAAT model and using other models to really get to the delivery is very important. So, what I could tell you is that our five impact areas are the ones we are reporting on to our donors and those five impact areas are on the gender, livelihood, climate, nutrition and environment and biodiversity. You can’t get to those without really talking about scaling up. So, those five impact areas are very clear indicator that this is the ultimate. What we want is to make impact on those five areas and to do that we need to work with partners in a different way than we did in the past.”
Speaking on her visit to IITA, she said, “I have been to many centres, this is my fifth centre in my tour and I will say that I am very satisfied to see to what extent the Centres are very beneficial to the host country. So, that’s what I saw across all the Centres. I am very satisfied to see really how the centres have built up experience over the years. I am very happy to see a lot of collaboration between different centres as well.
“But I think we need to do more. We need to do more in terms of integration, in terms of working together and in terms of supporting national system in the least income countries, in the low middle income countries to really transform their agrifood system towards what we are saying, more efficiency, more inclusiveness, more resilience and more sustainability. So, we could do more.
“And to do that, we need to come together because most of the time you talk to a Minister of Agriculture or a Minister of Livestock or Minister of Natural Resources Management, they are interested in one or two commodities or they are interested in the overall. So, very clearly, many of the Ministers I met with told me ‘we are very happy with working with this centre and this centre but we wanted more.’
“So, the demand is much higher from the national system and I think as CGIAR coming with the whole portfolio covering both many crops commodities and value chain but also many animal resource food and many natural resource management, methodologies, we could offer more, we could be much more impactful and that’s where seeing the programme like TAAT that Dr. Ken presented is very important because that is the kind of programme that could help us to get to impact as many as and could really help us to really get a better impact in terms of zero hunger but also in reducing poverty.”
Highlights of the visit was the presentations made by IITA and partners for the visiting Executive Managing Director, CGIAR including: Climate Adaptation and Nutrition As Key Thematic Areas in IITA’s New 2024-2030 Strategy delivered by Bernard Vanlauwe; The Infrastructure Challenge by Hilde Koper-Limbourg; Regional Director – Continental Africa: Roles and Function by Kwesi Attah-Krah; Overview of AfricaRice Nigeria Station by Nwilene Francis and Abraham Shaibu; One CGIAR Collaboration: ILRI’s Activities in Nigeria by Amole Tunde; Unified Governance Review and IITA by Precious Adebayo among others.
Photo: Dr. Ishamane Elouafi, Executive Managing Director, CGIAR (3rd right front row), Dr. Simon Ehui, Director General, IITA and Regional Director, CGIAR for Africa (4th right, front row) and members of staff of IITA and other partner agencies during the visit to IITA Headquarters, Ibadan, Oyo State Monday.
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