Accra, Nov. 1, GNA - Despite all the credible and promising technologies, Africa continues to experience decline in agricultural productivity, Dr Monty Jones, Executive Director of the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA), said in Accra on Wednesday.
He said the technologies in Africa had done well in certain areas, but 'we have not been able to define technologies in a pact and transfer these technologies to end users for their adoption'.
He noted that over 64 per cent of Africa's population lived on rural land and obtained their livelihood from the farm land. However, despite the huge landmarks and natural resources, 93we have not been able to improve agriculture'.
'This inability has led to decline agricultural productivity thus stagnating productivity for the past years. There is the need to ensure effective support for the farming community,' he told the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in an interview in Accra.
Dr Jones said Africa experienced occasional plagues of drought, locust and floods which make agriculture in Africa uncompetitive. He said it was unfortunate that researchers had not involved agricultural end-users in their work adding, 'They tend to work in isolation, develop the technology and involve them in its usage.=94 Dr Jones explained that the end-users of these technologies who were mostly farmers should be involved right from the onset and should participate effectively as they would be able to determine whether the technology would be suitable for them.
He explained that the farming community needed support to enable them to effectively participate in research activities.
'Support has always gone to research but not end-users on the ground and we need innovative ways to respond to their needs.'
Dr. Jones also attributed the decline in agricultural productivity in Africa to poor infrastructural development citing the poor road network which made it extremely difficult for farmers to get their produce to the market on time.
He emphasized the need for farmers to adopt new scientific ways of farming and the need for research to be demand-driven.
Dr Jones said the emergence of diseases such as HIV/AIDS and malaria had had a great negative effect on the farming communities.
"These diseases have claimed many people in the agricultural sector, especially the youth, and this has greatly affected agricultural productivity.
Dr Jones suggested that farming methods should be changed from the traditional use of the hoe and cutlass to new technological methods to make farming in Africa competitive on the international market.
"We need to create an innovative system approach to involve the end-users right from inception to production as well as the private sectors so that everybody will participate to resolve to change for farmers to produce extra to feed the population, improve their livelihood and translate this into economic growth."
He said under FARA's integrated programmes to provide and strengthen the overall framework for agricultural research, it is promoting innovative systems and building human capacity for rapid dissemination and sustainable take-off of research products and information exchange and learning.
"Innovation is the answer to Africa's agricultural problems. All it needs is to be given the space to develop=85,=94 he said.
Dr Jones said FARA had developed a Framework for African Agricultural Productivity (FAAP) to guide and assist the development of Africa's agricultural innovation systems and promote harmonization of internal and external actions and actors.
FAAP will provide a platform for sharing information, transferring best practices and knowledge-brokering between Africa's sub-regions and from outside the continent.
It will also strengthen capacities of African agricultural innovation systems and increase investments by African governments in technology development and dissemination.
Meanwhile, Professor Emmanuel Owusu-Bennoah, Director-General of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), has also told the GNA that when the innovation systems was fully implemented at the national level in the agricultural sector, they would improve and expand innovation processes in support of economic development.
He said at a Sub-Regional Training of Trainers Workshop on analysing Agricultural, Science, Technology and Innovation (ASTI) Systems that a study conducted in 2004 in the sub-Saharan Africa revealed that there were several gaps in ASTI and farmer innovators were not being included in the knowledge system.
"Universities are also operating outside of the system and although research is talking place at various national and international organizations, the coordination was dysfunctional and the science and technology initiatives have failed to address the immediate and future needs of the sub-sector," he said.
Prof. Owusu-Bennoah said the report indicated that although national policies existed, these were not linked to actions which facilitated networking, information and knowledge sharing, interactive learning, research which impacted on social and economic development, access to funding, markets and entrepreneurship.
He called for more training to improve on understanding among leaders in the agriculture sector in sub-Sahara Africa and involve the key actors in an innovation system for economic development.
