By Linda Asante Agyei
Kenya, Dec. 29, GNA- Some African scientists, and experts in biosafety, and the seed industry say, Africa’s goal of achieving zero hunger by 2030 will not be feasible if farmers do not have access to quality seeds for farming.
They argued that farmers faced many challenges with farm inputs, coupled with negative climate impacts, threatening food security, and seed production on the continent.
“For us to put food on the table, it starts with seed production, and there is the need for us to focus on seed production to ensure that farmers get the best quality of seeds they need for food production.”
Speaking at a three-day consultative meeting on seeds systems regulatory support in Nairobi, Kenya, participants agreed that farmers in Africa needed quality seeds that could withstand droughts and fight pests.
The meeting, organized by the African Union Development Agency-NEPAD (AUDA-NEPAD) was aimed at engaging stakeholders to identify gaps and opportunities within national and regional seed systems.
It was also to ensure functional seed regulatory systems that would enable easy access to approved biotech seeds.
Participants were made up of biosafety experts, communication experts, seed experts, legal practitioners and agriculture specialists from Ghana, Malawi, Kenya, Zambia, and Nigeria.
The meeting also discussed elements of instruments that would facilitate the conduct of a landscape assessment of seed sector actors and their role, outlined a complementary implementation approach with the Africa Seed and Biotechnology Partnership Programme (ASBPP) as well and fostered new strategic linkages with new partners and institutions.
Participants deliberated on planned knowledge-based advisory support and technical advice from AUDA-NEPAD in 2024, including communication support, that would enable African countries to benchmark their policies, regulatory, and investment frameworks, and in alignment with the AU Agenda 2063.
Mr Sam Timpo head of the AUDA-NEPAD/ABNE said there were multiple seed systems with unique strengths and limitations, which included farmers’ own savings, local seed suppliers, and national and international seed companies and there was the need to give greater attention to the often overlooked or marginalized political economy factors that hindered progress in the seed industry.
“The seed interventions must cover the broad spectrum of the seed value chain,” he noted.
He expressed concern about the gap of capacity building in the areas of outreach and communication among stakeholders and farmers and called for the need to address them to cover agri-industry, market trade, farmers’ economic growth, food security, improved nutrition, research, development as well as technology and biosafety.
Mr Timpo explained that for the communication gap to be identified, science technology and innovation required an advanced global agricultural sustainability goal and transformed society.
Dr Clement Adjorlolo, Principal Programme Officer, Africa Union Commission of AUDA-NEPAD who took participants through the African Seed and Biotechnology Program 10-year Action plan noted that it was important that issues with seed were tackled to address food security issues on the continent.”
He explained that the draft plan, which started in 2020 and is expected to end in 2030, had not been able to achieve much and called on stakeholders to speed up efforts and ensure that implementation of activities outlined in the agreed regulatory framework was achieved by the targeted date.
According to the framework, by the end of 2030, all the concerned legal frameworks would have been harmonized with the Regional Economic Communities and aligned to the continental integration vision.
Dr Adjorlolo said guidelines for the domestication of seeds have been developed, benchmarking tools and indicators have also been developed, and regional/continental level biosafety risk assessment mechanisms have already been established.
He noted that by the end of 2030, youth and women participation in the seed sector should have been increased, as indicated in the action plan.
Dr Adjorlolo said the action plan required that countries prepared national seed compendiums, review and verify compendium information to support the establishment of integrated policies for seed system development, germplasm conservation, characterization, utilization and improvement, application of biotechnologies, variety release as well as seed production and distribution.
The action plan he explained also required the establishment of a policy and regulatory framework to facilitate the establishment of small seed enterprises and called for the need to enhance communication, and public education, and improve the flow of information in the seed industry in the continent.
The meeting discussed elements of instruments that would facilitate the conduct of a landscape assessment of seed sector actors and their roles, the outlines of the complementary implementation approach with the Africa Seed and Biotechnology Partnership Programme, which would foster new strategic linkages with new partners and institutions.
The meeting also discussed planned the knowledge-based advisory support and technical advice from AUDA-NEPAD in 2024, including communication support, to enable African countries to benchmark their policies, regulatory, and investment frameworks in alignment with the AU Agenda 2063.
GNA