The agricultural sector and challenges for future development

The ECA sub-region, comprising Burundi, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Rwanda, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda and Democratic Republic of Congo has a total land area of 8.021 million km2 with widely differing climatic, edaphic and biotic conditions. Agriculture is very important in the economies of these countries contributing between 29-60% of GDP, 66-100% of exports and employing between 68-92% of the population. It is the main source of income, employment, food, foreign exchange and raw materials for domestic industries, thus an essential contributor to food security, poverty alleviation and economic growth in the sub-region.

With its natural resource endowment, the region supports production of a large variety of crops including cereals, pulses, plantains and bananas, root crops, oil crops, coffee, tea, cotton and horticultural crops. Livestock and cattle production contributes to rural income generation. However, small ruminants (sheep and goats) and poultry which have large potential remain under-exploited. Production is dominated by subsistence farming characterized by low input use, rudimentary technology, large post-harvest losses and minimal processing. It is frequently affected by droughts, wars, political instability and rural-urban migration that contribute to the increasing dependency on food imports and food aid. Until 1970s, agriculture in the sub-region grew from expansion in area under cultivation through shifting cultivation than through increased yield per unit of land area. The late 1970s and 1980s witnessed a stagnation in the agricultural sector from decline in per capita food production. Yield per hectare was low, agricultural exports declined resulting in increasing food imports and food aid. The rapid population growth has resulted in land scarcity leaving application of improved technologies and farm management practices as an only option for increasing agricultural production.

Projections of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations indicate that Africa has the physical potential to expand production of all major agricultural commodities.
As such, agricultural research and development institutions and personnel will need to address the following challenges:
1. development of technologies to increase farm production and productivity through increased use of improved inputs
2. development of transfer systems to provide and distribute affordable inputs in a timely manner
3. development of physical and socio-economic technologies to ensure that farm produce is stored, transported, processed, and/or marketed in urban areas/export markets
4. sustainable maintenance of the agricultural resource base
However, the economic structural adjustment programs being implemented by all governments have a number of implications on the technology development and transfer systems that include:
1. unlikely increase in financial resources to agricultural research systems
2. devotion of resources to most promising environments and technologies for small, medium and large scale farmers
3. demand for market oriented technologies
4. pressure to demonstrate impacts of research programs and projects.

Converting the resource poor farmers from subsistence farming using traditional methods to commercial using science-based technologies to produce for markets will require increased research efforts on post production systems to cater for the rapidly increasing urban population. The agricultural sector should be competitive by world standards to be able to maintain its market share. Regional trade needs facilitation by freer movement of people across national boundaries. Agricultural inputs will be readily available and NARS have to plan their research and development programs taking cognizance of their national and regional issues. The liberalized regional trade and freer movement of people will encourage spread of plant diseases and pests in the sub-region. Phytosanitary services will have to cooperate among themselves to control such occurrences. Natural resource management research and extension issues will focus in planning project activities.

Regionalization of agricultural research

Networking has been regarded as an indispensable and efficient mechanism to conduct scientific research, whether national, regional or international, and irrespective of the economic development of the country or countries involved. Agricultural research networks are organizational mechanisms that link institutions and scientists committed to work together, exchange information, share research tasks and use existing scarce resources more efficiently to effectively solve common agricultural problems. NARS encompass all entities in a country conducting agricultural research, whether through specialized research institutes, universities, the private sector, rural and commodity development projects, and non-governmental institutions. The system include linkages to major client groups.

Research networks have been variously classified depending on their serving function. These range from information exchange to allocation of tasks among member institutions. The Special Program on African Agriculture Research (SPAAR) categorizes networks into 3 types: information exchange networks, scientific consultation networks and collaborative research networks. The collaborative research networks are the most valuable for inter-country cooperation in agricultural research. Their effectiveness depends on clear and common objectives, which can be achieved efficiently by pooling information (technological) and resources (manpower, financial).

Networks are important for building research capacity. They create common pools of knowledge that research systems tap into and sustain to avoid duplication and encourage the spill over of technology and information from one country to another facing similar problems. This permits NARS to gain capacity in areas where they do not have it or where such capacity is not justified on a national basis. It improves the quality of science by linking isolated scientists to the global community of agricultural science and enables efficient training and diffusion of new research technologies necessary to address research issues that can only be dealt within a transnational framework.

There is increasing awareness of the commonality of the problems African NARS face in planning agricultural research and development and mobilising resources for implementation. As such regional networks and programs have become a modality for undertaking collaborative research programs among NARS. Such networks/programs offer to the NARS and their collaborating partners greater potential for increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of agricultural research projects/programs especially where the NARS is small and with very limited resources.

Establishment, strategic planning and research programs of ASARECA

The Directors of National Agricultural Research Institutes established an informal CD to supervise activities of the four regional agricultural research networks operational in the ECA sub-region. Consultations with SPAAR led to the approval of the framework for action for agricultural research. The CD established ASARECA as a technical, non-political coordinating organization charged to enhance agricultural productivity through regional collaboration in agricultural research, training, information exchange and documentation. Its mission was to strengthen and increase the efficiency of agricultural research in the ECA sub-region, facilitate the achievement of economic growth, food security and export competitiveness through productive and sustainable agriculture.

The establishment of ASARECA responded to a felt need by a wide range of stakeholders involved in agricultural development in the sub-region. The diverse stakeholder demands, perceptions and expectations prompted the CD to re-examine, through strategic planning, the original role of the association in guiding and coordinating the regional agricultural research networks and programs. The planning team recognized that countries of the ECA sub-region are facing serious social and economic problems. The only option to improve national economies and social welfare is to restore agriculture as the engine of economic development through transformation of small-holder agriculture from subsistence production to more efficient and productive market-oriented enterprises. The goal, objectives and mode of operations of ASARECA were restated and its proposed strategy approved by her stakeholders. The primary goal is to enable agricultural research in the ECA sub-region play a leading role in promoting market/income generation oriented agriculture.

Presently, nineteen priority research programs have been selected for regional collaboration from 101 national and institutional programs in various sectors including food, cash and export crops, livestock and natural resources. The food crops include maize, beans, sorghum, banana, wheat, potatoes, rice, cassava and groundnuts.

IITA

IITA was founded as an international agricultural research institute with a mandate for food crops, and with ecological and regional responsibilities to develop sustainable production systems in tropical Africa. IITA conducts research, training, germplasm development and information exchange activities in partnership with regional bodies including ASARECA and national programs in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa. The research agenda addresses crop improvement, plant health, and resource and crop management within a farming systems framework. Research focuses on small holder cropping systems in the humid and sub-humid tropics and mid-altitude ecologies of Africa and on the following crops: cassava, maize, plantain and banana, yams, cowpea, and soybean.

IITA has a continental mandate for cassava improvement in sub-Saharan Africa and uses an interdisciplinary approach to cassava research, which cuts across the different research divisions and projects of the institute. Five broad aspects of cassava research: physiology/agronomy, plant protection, tissue culture, biochemistry/food technology and plant breeding are undertaken by these projects. Significant achievements/progress have been made at IITA in the development of clones resistant to major diseases/pests and development of rapid multiplication methods for cassava planting material. Satisfactory equilibrium of CM has been established by the introduction of natural enemies. Two predatory mite species (T. limonicus, T. aripo) have successfully established against cassava green mite. These results have boosted production substantially in Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ghana, Cameroon, D.R. Congo and Rwanda (until outbreak of civil disturbances). The major current research directions are to diversify cassava genotypes to meet the needs of diverse environments, farming systems and stakeholders.

Collaboration between IITA and the NARS:
IITA collaborates with scientists from NARS to conduct research aimed at strengthening their capability to generate and use agricultural technology for their needs. Collaborative mechanisms with NARS have been established for nurturing national agricultural research institutions from the 'embryonic' stage through medium strength to maturity. These include research liaison and resident scientists, networking, information services, systems-based working groups and training. From the regular monitoring tours and workshops, an interactive mechanism is developed and used as a forum to discuss, evaluate, plan and upgrade NARS research activities. This dynamic system evolves continuously as the NARS develop toward self-sustenance. Currently, IITA has separate Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for collaborative research and development activities with Governments of Uganda, Burundi, Rwanda, Congo and Madagascar. That with Kenya is being processed through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Eastern and Southern Africa Regional Center (ESARC):
The Ministry of Agriculture of the Government of Uganda and IITA have established a regional centre within the premises of the Namulonge Agricultural and Animal Research Institute (NAARI). The Centre aims to generate and distribute technologies, which can facilitate increased production commensurate with national needs. The center is designed to strengthen national research capacities in the development of high yielding and stable varieties for the mid-altitude ecology of East and Southern Africa and implement sustainable plant protection strategies. Close links are maintained with research on cassava taking place at other IITA stations to ensure rapid germplasm development and other technologies for the region. ESARC will play an increasing role in backstopping activities of the network. Results from the COSCA and other socio-economic studies will provide bases for refined regional priorities on research and technology transfer processes. Effective collaborative linkages with universities, private sector, policy makers will further strengthen the association that is being built through regional networks.