The Alliance for the Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) has
listed Nigeria and 12 other countries on the continent as those leading in the
implementation of the Comprehensive African Agriculture Development Programme
(CAADP), reports NaijaAgroNet.
CAADP is the African Union’s initiative created in 2003,
with a component part of CAADP being its call for African governments to
allocate at least 10 per cent of the national budgets to agriculture and to aim
for six per cent annual growth in the sector.
This was contained in the African Agriculture Status Report
(AASR) unveiled on Tuesday at the on-going annual African Green Revolution
Forum (AGRF 2016) at the United Nations Office in Nairobi, Kenya.
The lead-authors including Mr. David Ameyaw of AGRA and
Prof. Thomas Jayne of Michigan State University, as well as the former
president of AGRA and chairman of AASR, Dr. Namanga Ngongi, acknowledged those
making progress and listed what they called early adopters to comprise,
Nigeria, Benin, Burundi, Cape Verde, Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, Liberia, Mali,
Niger, Rwanda, Sierra Leone and Togo.
AASR 2016 underscored the differences when compared among countries that signed up early on CAADP between 2007 and 2009 against those that have not yet signed.
According to them, after decades of stagnation, Africa has
commenced to enjoy sustained agriculture productivity growth since 2005, and as
a result, poverty rates have declined in places like Ghana, Rwanda, Ethiopia
and Burkina Faso.
Also, NaijaAgroNet gathered from the report that agriculture
has had its biggest impact in countries that moved quickly to embrace CAADP.
The AGRA report further noted that even if they didn’t hit
the 10 per cent targets, early adopters of the CAADP goals have seen
productivity on existing farmlands rise between 5.9 to 6.7 percent per year.
This, the report pointed out gave a boost in turn by
spurring a 4.3 per cent average annual increase in overall Gross Domestic
Product (GDP).
As stated by the AGRA report on evaluation of its 10 years
as a body known as AASR, emphasized that those later to the game achieved anywhere from a 3
to 5.7 per cent growth in farm productivity and a 2.4 to 3.5 per cent increase
in GDP.
Equally, AASR noted that countries that sat on the sidelines
saw farm productivity rise by less than 3 per cent and GDP rise by only 2.2 per
cent.
The trend, according to AGRA Status Report, is similar for
declines in malnutrition, with countries that have embraced the CAADP process
experiencing annual declines ranging from 2.4 to 5.7 per cent, while those who
have not averages only a 1.2 per cent decline.
Remmy Nweke in Nairobi/GEE
... Linking agrobiz, sustainable environs, people & technology!Pix: L-r: Dr. Ousmane Badiane is the Africa Director for the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), Dr. Namanga Ngongi, chair of African Fertiiser Agricultural Partnership (AFAP), co-lead author, Prof. Thomas Jayne and David Ameyaw, lead author and Head, Monitoring and Evalution, AGRA, with copies o the report on display.
