Seed firms can help boost food security in Africa

What you need to know:

At the end of the planting season, less than 20 per cent of all farmers would have planted certified and clean seeds.

The rainy season is already here with us, and most farmers have begun to plant various seeds across Africa. As farmers descend upon their farms, one big issue that lingers among researchers is the inability of these farmers to access certified seed that can serve their immediate needs.

At the end of the planting season, less than 20 per cent of all farmers would have planted certified and clean seeds.

The oft-told story of the seed sub-sector in Africa is that it has always been grappling with a lot of challenges, including farmer apathy to adopting new and better varieties.

Given, it is incumbent upon the sector to engage more visibly among themselves than they have ever done before even as they want governments to keep their promises.

Such engagements must ensure that seed companies, who are major taxpayers in many countries, hold political and business leaders to account by measuring their actions against their promises.

Bottlenecks that bedevil the sub-sector, could, for example, be overcome if political leaders kept the promise they made in a major meeting in June last year where there was renewed commitment to allocate at least 10 per cent of their national budgets to agriculture. Whenever agriculture is neglected, there is always the risk of malnutrition, which, in the words of Kofi Annan, chair of the Africa Progress Panel, represents political failure.

Take the case of fruits and vegetables. Smallholder farmers in many parts of Africa produce fruits and vegetables alongside food crops such as cereals, tubers and roots. Yet farmers are losing more than 50 per cent of their harvests due to lack of cold storage.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that one third of the food produced in the world for human consumption (about 1.3 billion tonnes) goes to waste. Therefore, there is a need for post-harvest handling facilities for both horticultural produces and also for cereals.

Drones or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) are revolutionising agriculture. The use of drones for precision agriculture, farming, pest management and crop management is rapidly taking root worldwide. Precision agriculture is a farming management concept based on observing, measuring and responding to inter- and intra-field variability in crops.

The seed sub-sector in Africa should therefore keep the authorities on their toes so that such technology does not bypass any country on the continent. If that were to be done, many farmers and seed producers would benefit from enhanced sustainable agricultural development and food security by improving the use of ICT in the area. With two thirds of Africans dependent on farming for their livelihoods, boosting Africa’s agriculture will no doubt create economic opportunities, reduce malnutrition and poverty, and generate faster, fairer growth.

That African farmers need more investment, better access to financial services such as loans, and quality inputs including seeds and fertiliser is a fact that need not be laboured on but rather acted upon. Its potential yields are millions of jobs. Sadly, the neglect of these sectors has allowed inequality on our continent to accelerate.

Africa currently imports food worth $35 billion (Sh77 trillion) each year. But African farmers should be producing the food and earning this money.

The continent could – and should – be feeding itself and other regions too.

The reality on the ground is that it is possible to change the fortunes of African agriculture.

Comparison should therefore be made with changes in the telecommunications sector which have been described as possibly the greatest modern revolution this continent has seen. Less than two decades ago, 70 per cent of the African population had never heard a telephone ringing. Today 70 per cent have a telephone.

This is an inspiration that seed merchants need to use to boost our food and nutrition security and the prosperity in Africa.

The writer is the Communication Officer at The African Seed Trade Association (AFSTA) – [email protected]