• Leaders told to revolutionalise agriculture.
• Private sector told to de-risk their financial support to farmers.
Image: AGATHA NGOTHO
President William Ruto will on Tuesday open the Africa Conference on Agriculture Technologies on Tuesday at Safari Park in Nairobi.
ACAT is being held at a time when the African continent is still struggling to feed its people.
The World Food Programme and FAO Hunger Status Project for June –December 2023 shows that acute food insecurity is likely to deteriorate further in 18 hunger hotspots globally.
This comprises 22 countries in Africa among them Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Mali, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan and Kenya.
African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF) executive director Dr Canisius Kanangire said reliance on rain-fed agriculture and conventional means still form the largest part of Africa’s farming community.
“However, we all know that this can no longer be sustainable as climate change effects, unreliable rainfall, dwindling soil quality make this kind of farming untenable,” he said.
Kanangire spoke during the first day of the conference, which has attracted participants from across the globe.
He said Africa’s growing youth population which is projected to be a resource for revitalising the African economy has not been fully harnessed.
Unfortunately, he said, the younger generation is still shy of soiling their hands in agriculture.
This has led to the continent becoming a leading importer of food at the detriment of provision of quality healthcare, and education despite having the largest arable lands globally.
“AATF’s firm belief in the efficacy of science, technology, and innovation in the agricultural value chain has never been doubted," Kanangire said.
"There are numerous testimonies coming from the 24 countries where we have been working with governments and national research organisations, to guide farmers to improve their agriculture. We shall continue to advocate the deployment of technology as the transformative tool that African agriculture needs."
The conference is designed to tackle the above issues as relates agriculture and food security under the theme-Agricultural Resilience through Innovation.
Kanangire said ACAT presents Africa another opportunity to rethink how best agricultural productivity can be enhanced.
"The time to think outside the box is now and luckily for us, we are not reinventing the wheel,” he said.
"Most of the game changing technologies that we need to transform agriculture on the continent have existed over a decade or two."
Kanangire urged participants to take advantage of this week-long conference to deliberate on the on-going efforts to make Africa a net producer of food there by securing the future of the continent.