Concrete actions to drive agricultural growth in Africa

ARUSHA, Tanzania (APO) – The African Green Revolution Forum (AGRF) in Arusha, which concluded on 28^th September, produced concrete actions to transform Africa’s agricultural sector. African heads of state, ministers, private sector representatives, the international community and farmers united on the roadmap for increasing agricultural productivity and income growth for the African agricultural sector. Support for Africa’s smallholder farmers remains at the centre of all solutions.

Commenting on the success of AGRF and the critical next steps, Alliance for a Green Revolution (AGRA) president and co-chair of the forum, Jane Karuku stated, “AGRF inspired tremendous discussions and developed actionable plans to bring us closer to achieving food and nutrition security. It is critical that we move forward with these real, practical and pragmatic actions at the farmer-level, not at the office-level.”

The forum serves as an important incubator for innovative solutions to growing the African agricultural sector, said J?rgen Ole Haslestad.

“By gathering public- and private-sector leaders to collaborate across borders and industries, we are optimistic that the ultimate result will be a more food secure future,” Mr Halestad, Yara president and CEO, and co-chair of the forum, also said.

The AGRF action areas focused on four major themes: rethinking public-private partnerships, revolutionizing agricultural finance, making markets work, and building the foundations for rapid growth in agricultural productivity. Examples of the specific actions that were collectively decided include:

Leverage catalytic finance: Develop structures that incentivize financial institutions to lend/invest in agriculture, especially in poor, socially-excluded smallholder farmers; and develop effective models for interaction and coordination between the various players in the financial system.

–        Reinforce capacity for regional trade: Regionalize commodity trade and harmonize trade regimes. Remove trade barriers across countries and share knowledge and market information across borders.

–        Innovate in staple food chains: Encourage regional economic communities to develop plans that address the bottlenecks that inhibit regional markets from working effectively, such as infrastructure, transport and corruption.

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