Source: The East African via Checkbiotech
By Dagi Kimani

Nairobi will host the evaluation and monitoring centre of a $150 million programme funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation to catalyse a "Green Revolution" on the African continent.

The centre, to be set up at cost of $26 million, will monitor the work of the Programme for Africa’s Seed Systems (PASS), whose stated objective is to "mount an across-the-board effort to improve the availability and variety of seeds that can produce higher yields in the often harsh conditions of sub-Saharan Africa."

According to a statement released by the two Foundations, PASS will run under a new organisation called the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), which has been established by the partnership to spur agricultural development on the continent by addressing challenges in such areas as soil fertility and irrigation; farmer management practices, and farmer access to markets and financing.

AGRA will receive an initial investment of $100 million from the Gates Foundation and $50 million from the Rockefeller Foundation to carry out its activities. The organisation has drawn up an elaborate programme that will see interventions ranging from cutting edge agricultural research to peasant farmer education.

Among these will be the funding of 40 national crop breeding programmes in an effort to develop crop varieties that are able to withstand local pests, diseases, rainfall patterns, soil properties and which in addition have the desired attributes demanded by local small farming communities. PASS hopes to develop 200 such crops over a five-year period at a cost of $43 million.

It will invest a further $24 million to ensure that the improved crop varieties are distributed to small-scale farmers through private and public channels, including seed companies, public community seed systems and public extension. This will involve the provision of business management training and investment capital to approximately 60 African seed companies.

Currently, African countries have the lowest levels of improved seed utilisation of any region in the world, mostly because such seeds are not physically or financially available to the majority of farmers. The poor state of rural transportation infrastructure, a lack of effective points of seed delivery to small farmers, and inadequate access to financial services all contribute to the low utilisation and inadequate agricultural productivity.

As a result, almost three- quarters of the continent’s land area is being farmed without improved inputs such as fertiliser and advanced seeds.

Elsewhere, PASS will invest $37 million to address the chronic problem of marketing of agricultural produce. The funds will be used to provide training, capital and credit to establish at least 10,000 small distributors, who will serve as conduits of seeds, fertilisers and chemicals to smallholder farmers, and in doing so help increase their productivity and incomes.

In education, the new initiative will invest $20 million to provide graduate level training for the continent's agricultural researchers in local universities. This will see the training of at least 220 new African crop scientists to masters and doctoral levels.

This project is expected to build on the work of the Rockefeller Foundation between the 1940s and 1960s to launch what is now known as the "Green Revolution," an effort that pioneered the historic transformation of farming methods in Latin America and South and Southeast Asia, helping to double food production and stave off widespread famine. The original Green Revolution was a huge success in many parts of the world," said Judith Rodin, president of the Rockefeller Foundation, in a statement announcing the new programme last week.

We’re committed to launching an African Green Revolution that will help tens of millions of people who are living on the brink of starvation."

The Foundation has already spent more than $600 million on Green Revolution work around the world, including nearly $150 million in the past seven years in Africa.

"No major region around the world has been able to make sustained economic gains without first making significant improvements in agricultural productivity," commented Bill Gates, co-chair of the Gates Foundation at the launch of the new initiative. "We have seen reason for hope – African plant scientists developing higher-yielding crops, African entrepreneurs starting seed companies to reach small farmers, and agro-dealers reaching more and more small farmers with improved farm inputs and farm management practices."

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