Rwanda to host 7th AASW, FARA Assembly

NaijaAgroNet:

The city of Kigali in Rwanda would host the7th Africa Agriculture Science Week (AASW) and the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA) General Assembly, from June 13- June 16 2016, NaijaAgroNet reports.

The event is the prime forum for stakeholders in African agriculture science, technology and innovation to take stock of their collective achievements over the past three years and chart a common agenda along with modalities for achieving their collective targets over the next three years.
With the theme “Apply Science, Impact Livelihoods,” the event would feature activities such as plenary sessions, an exhibition, the Rwanda day, to showcase its achievements in agricultural research and innovation and a business session.

The Executive Director of FARA, DrYemiAkinbamijo, while briefing journalists in Accra, said that the content of the programme would be organised around five sub-themes: institutional systems and policies for making science work for African agriculture, sustainable productivity growth, value chains and profitable agribusinesses.

DrAkinbamijo explained that FARA is the apex continental organisation responsible for coordinating and advocating agricultural research for development and also serves as the technical arm of the Africa Union Commission on matters concerning agriculture science, technology and innovation. While speaking on the need to embrace technology in order to advance the sector, he added that African countries agriculture production is low because, it depends on old system of farming.

Co-organisers of the event alongside FARA, are: sub-regional Agricultural Research Organisations, African Union Commission and NEPAD Planning and Coordinating Agency, Education Networks, The Technical Centre for Agriculture and Rural Cooperation and the Global Forum for Innovations in Agriculture.

Okoli Vincent/GEE
 

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Africa can be world’s breadbasket

 NaijaAgroNet:

Paul Kagame, president, Republic of Rwanda and K Y Amoako, founder, African Center for Economic Transformation, a Ghana-based think tank have concurred that Africa can and should be the world’s breadbasket, NaijaAgroNet reports.

The two leaders took this stand in their contribution to Project Syndicate, an organisation that provides readers with original, engaging, and thought-provoking commentaries by global leaders and thinkers. By offering incisive perspectives from those who are shaping the world’s economics, politics, science, and culture, creating an unrivaled global venue for informed public debate.

They argued that to realise this vision – and to do it in an environmentally sustainable way – its agricultural sector must undergo a genuine transformation that entails higher capital investment, significant crop diversification, and improved linkages to burgeoning urban consumer markets.

Africa, NaijaAgroNet gathered, must start manufacturing more value-added food products for both internal consumption and export, especially to countries like India and China, where demand is growing.

From Europe and North America to East Asia and Latin America, agricultural advances have proved to be key precursors of industrial development and gains in living standards.  Africa has the added benefit of technologies that other regions lacked at this stage of their agricultural development, from cost-competitive off-grid solar power to mechanisms for mapping soil characteristics, regulating water use, and ensuring farmers’ access to accurate price information.

And innovation is already happening. Rwanda, for example, is working to link agriculture support with broader services like electricity and education. And the country’s farming communities are pioneering participatory decision-making structures for agricultural planning and conflict-resolution mechanisms to settle disputes among growers, NaijaAgroNet  learnt.

To bolster agricultural innovation and modernisation, governments must ensure that farmers have secure titles to their land, and thus an incentive to make the needed investments. The challenge lies in the fact that, in many parts of Africa, land is communally owned, with almost everyone in a village having traditional rights to some farming land – a system that has helped to prevent landlessness and destitution in rural areas.

Cyriacus Nnaji/ED,OPs

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 Pix: Paul Kagame and K Y Amoako,

Promoting iron beans for healthier diets, African musicians to rescue

NaijaAgroNet:

Rwanda’s top musicians have joined forces with the HealthPlus and government to promote better nutrition and health through a new music video that was released Monday in Kigali, Rwanda, reports NaijaAgroNet.

The music video was subtitled in both English and Kiswahili for easy adoption by the populace, according to NaijaAgroNet findings, depicting iron beans as very nutritious food.

The release NaijaAgroNet gathered formed part of the roadshow to create awareness on the iron beans brand in an effort to cut hungry trend on the continent.

NaijaAgroNet  further gathered that the song, according to press statement by the Africa Press Organisaiton (APO), extoled the nutritional benefits of new high-iron beans that are now available in Rwanda, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Uganda. 

NaijaAgroNet recalled that almost 40 per cent of children in Rwanda suffer from iron deficiency in their diets, which in severe cases, could lower their intelligence quotients (IQs) and learning capacity, resistance to disease, and energy levels.

Experts at the Rwandan Office of HarvestPlus led by Lister Katsvairo, explained to NaijaAgroNet that beans are a traditional staple food and eaten every day and these new iron beans contain 15 per cent more iron than ordinary beans, and could provide women and children with almost half their daily iron needs.

“They also yield twice the harvest of ordinary beans, increasing incomes for farmers,” Katsvairo said.
NaijaAgroNet notes that over 700,000 Rwandan farmers are now growing and eating these nutritious beans, first released by the Rwandan Government in 2011.

"We’ve had tremendous success so far in getting these beans out, but we wanted to reach a much wider audience across the country,” Katsvairo said.

Lead of HarvestPlus which prides itself as a global programme to improve nutrition emphasized that these iron beans are now making their way into urban markets, hence the campaign to increase consumer awareness.

“We worked with Rwanda’s top musicians, who cater to all musical tastes including Afro-pop, rap and R&B. Who better to spread this message of how beans can improve nutrition and health?" Katsvairo asserted.

The campaign, Katsvairo said has taken musicians King James, Miss Jojo, Riderman, Tom Close, and Urban Boyzon a series of roadshows across the country live performance for over 30,000 people, which equally included exhibitions and sales of iron bean seeds.


+Remmy Nweke (ITRealms) @HealthPlus @Rwanda +Naija AgroNet
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