The IITA CGIAR
No. 2341 August 2016
Special bulletin: Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation (TAAT)
TAAT project pre-appraisal meeting focuses on technology outscaling for African agricultural transformation
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he International institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) and the African Development Bank (AfDB) held a project pre-appraisal meeting for the Bank’s new initiative, Feeding Africa or Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation (TAAT) program, 1830 July 2016, at the IITA headquarters in Ibadan, Nigeria. The TAAT program is a critical strategy for transforming agriculture on the continent that would ensure that Africa is able to feed itself through agriculture. The appraisal meeting took place in batches to allow for closer interaction; Week 1: The first leg of the meeting was held from 18-23 July, involving all participants within the following Priority Intervention Areas (PIAs): Sahel, Savannah, Cassava, and Rice. The second leg of the meeting took place 25-30 July, involving all participants within the following PIAs: Tree plantations, Horticulture, Wheat, and Inland fish aquaculture.
Dr Jonas Chianu, TAAT Task manager,
importation of food, vegetables and on few technologies that can have export refined cocoa products.” impact on and change the livelihoods of the people.” He emphasized Dr. Jonas Chianu, Principal Agricultural and reiterated on many occasions Economist, AFDB and TAAT Task during the course of the meeting manager, in his opening remarks said the need to transfer technology to the TAAT program would leverage on the local farmers to increase their the other AFDB sponsored projects productivity and transform agriculture The appraisal mission brought and advised the participants “to focus together all TAAT participating CGIAR centers and non-CGIAR institutions and NARES partners that have submitted technologies that are ready to be scaled up/out for consideration under the program. They jointly reviewed and finalized activity plans and budgets to undertake the scaling out of the proven technologies. While welcoming the participants to the capacity filled IITA conference centre, Dr. Ken Dashiell, Deputy Director, Partnership and Coordination office, said “TAAT is very real and about delivering technology, and how to bring proven technologies to millions of people on the continent. This will not happen unless we employ a lot of thinking and strategies.” He implored all to think big on “how we can stop
Cross section of the audience.
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in Africa. “We are concerned about ‘downloading’ technology to the people to transform agriculture. Anybody who knows or has anything that has worked for technology outscaling, should bring it forward even if it is from outside Africa. We need to look for models that can work in the continent. We will do whatever it takes to ensure transformation in agriculture in Africa in order to achieve food security, job creation and impact. So, organizations like FARA and IFPRI should ensure that their policies can actually “download” technology to the end users.” Thereafter, he gave a brief overview of the TAAT. He said the overall goal of TAAT was to execute a bold plan to achieve rapid agricultural transformation across Africa through raising agricultural productivity along eight Priority Intervention Areas. These interventions are; Self sufficiency in Rice production; Cassava Intensification; Food Security in the Sahel; Transforming African Savannah into Breadbaskets, Revitalizing Strategic Tree Plantations; Expanding Horticulture; Increasing Africa’s wheat Production and Achieving self sufficiency in inland fish production. The ten- day meeting brought together many potential partners to discuss the various proven technologies and innovations retained for deployment, and their critical roles in the actualization of the program. Several presentations from a number of CGIAR centers, NARES and the leaders of the Priority Intervention Areas(PIAs) dwelt on the proven technologies and innovations retained for deployment, and important rationales- including the value adding and synergy of those retained, how the “proven’ technology/innovations propositions from different partners (CG centers, NARS, Private Sector, Advanced Research institutions, Universities etc) fared and key recommendations in relation to the selected technologies and innovations.
on the private sector is to ensure the sustainability of the TAAT project activities and gains even when the project has ended,” said Dr. Chianu.
Dr Kehinde Makinde, AGRA.
In an interview with Dr. Chrys Akem, SARD-SC project Coordinator and organizer of the meeting, he articulated the importance of TAAT to the ordinary farmer thus: “Africa spends billions of dollars importing food we can produce. And the CG centers have over the years generated different technologies sitting on the shelves. We need to bring these technologies and better yielding varieties of crop to farmers to increase productivity and teach them how to add value to their produce. Our vision in TAAT is to produce more food, reduce poverty among farmers and importation of food in the continent.”
critically interrogated by the audience; as a result, great attention was paid to key recommendations elicited from the exhaustive deliberations. Some of the notable presentations at the meeting were on the roles of AGRA, FARA and partners on capacity development and outreach, IFPRI& Partners in Policy support services and Project Intervention Areas of cassava The pre-appraisal meeting took intensification, rice sufficiency and place almost three months after wheat value chains and procurement. the successful launch of the TAAT program initiative in April 2016, The role of the private sector, which was attended by various non-governmental organizations, stakeholders and potential partners agricultural extensions, scaling from national agricultural research up and mechanisms are not left and extension systems (NARES), out in the scheme of things. A full CGIAR centers, international spectrum of private sector partners organizations, and the private sector. will be utilized in all the PIAs in areas of input manufacturers, agro- TAAT will be implemented in industrial, processors, agribusiness 35 Regional Member Countries development specialists, credit (RMCs) of the Bank and along 24 services and insurers. “Our focus specified commodity value chains.
Dr Kenton Dashiell.
The highly interactive meeting covered all the 24 value chains and different shades of presentations from leaders of the eight PIAs and representatives of CGs centers on their proposed roles in the Bank’s new agricultural initiative. Their submissions were Baba Abdullahi, AFDB.
Special bulletin: Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation (TAAT)
Dr Adebayo Abass.
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FARA and IFPRI to offer capacity development and policy support, respectively, to TAAT
Dr Irene Frempong, FARA.
“We are concerned about downloading technologies to farmers and ensuring that they are adopted and used for agricultural transformative impact of countries under TAAT. So this must be handled by experts who know how the technologies will be disseminated and outscaled to the end-users and ensure all the value chains are covered,” said Dr Jonas Chianu,
TAAT Task Manager, and Principal Agricultural Officer, AfDB, during the recent project pre-appraisal workshop. A lot of emphasis was placed on the need to transfer technology to farmers as an important prerequisite to achieve rapid agricultural transformation across Africa through raising agricultural productivity along eight Priority Intervention Areas (PIAs). Hence,
Dr. Yemi Akinbamijo,Executive Director FARA.
Special bulletin: 7th Africa Agriculture Science Week (AASW)
TAAT will deliver powerful and proven agricultural technologies to the Bank’s Regional Member Countries (RMCs) as a means of achieving agricultural transformation. By so doing, it is believed Africa will be able to feed itself and transform its economies by targeting agriculture as a major source of economic diversification and wealth as well as an engine for meaningful job creation. But all these laudable objectives cannot be realized if there is no efficient capacity development program for the actors (from farmers and agro processors to input suppliers etc.) who will be involved in the whole gamut of agricultural productivity and transformation in each of the PIAs. Since TAAT is essentially the Bank’s knowledge and innovationbased response to scaling up proven technologies in Africa, its implementation will be based on the identification and deployment of these technologies to large numbers of beneficiaries and facilitate the mobilization of experts to backstop their dissemination and adaptation. In this wise, the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA) has an
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important role to play. They will undertake capacity development at all levels among partners and institutions, and within the eight PIAs and their constituent commodity value chains. The TAAT approach for capacity development is divided into three areas; the individual, institutional, and systems enabling environment. On the individual level, FARA is expected to improve the technical capacity of researchers and stakeholders in knowledge generation, translation, and up take processes. On the institutional level, they will improve organizational structures, processes, resources, and management and governance issues and enable local institutions to attract, train, and retain capable researchers.
At the systems enabling environment, FARA will develop coherent policies, effective coordination across sectors and among governmental, nonstate, and internal actors and ensure strategic planning and priority setting. Above all, FARA is expected to deploy an holistic approach which will combine all levels to deliver an holistic and targeted capacity development embedded in institutional change. The basis for capacity development of potential actors in TAAT is predicated on the following: 1. Many countries suffer gross imbalances in the competency pool along the entire spectrum of the capacity pyramid. 2. The TAAT capacity development program within each priority value chain will need to
build balanced competencies at the national level. Hence there is need to strengthen capacities to achieve impact in priority interventions areas. Some of the proposed activities to be executed in partnership with some agricultural organizations such as ASRECA, CORAF, ATPS, CCARDESA, and national partners are organizing visioning workshops to adopt and train on the tools for demand-side capacity diagnostics; training on integrated soil fertility management, facilitating farmer-to-farmer training through video-mediated learning on TAAT technologies; and facilitating formation and operationalization of innovation platforms for technology transfer in value chains.
IFPRI to support TAAT with policy initiatives
Dr Ousmane Badiane, IFPRI.
I
FPRI will support various institutions on policy issues that enhance successful program implementation and attainment of the expected widespread and transformational impact. For the much needed policy support, IFPRI will work with other institutions that contribute to agricultural development policy work, including TASAl and ATPS. IFPRI will sign an MoU with IITA as the Executing Agency of the
Dr Maximo Torrero, IFPRI.
program, stating clearly their role in the program, expected deliverables, and other conditions of engagement including an activity budget. For effective policy support for successful value chain transformation, IFPRI will utilize tools to carry out typology, prioritization, and monitoring and evaluation of productivity enhancing programs. Some of the
Special bulletin: Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation (TAAT)
activities to support policy interventions are deploying existing eAtlas GIS data platforms; expanding access to Landinfo mobile app technology; raising the effectiveness of input policies; providing modalities and guidance to improve policies and regulations for technology development; and addressing long-term market dynamics in value chain policies.
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General background of TAAT
AfDB committed to developing African agriculture and economy through TAAT
T
he concept of “Africa Feeding Africa” is inarguably the only way the continent can best feed itself and transform its economies by targeting agriculture as a source of wealth and job creation. For the realization of these laudable goals, “Africa Feeding Africa” is a new and core priority of the African Development Bank, as encapsulated in the High 5s of its current President, Dr Akinwunmi Adesina, for agricultural growth. At the High Level Conference on African Agricultural Transformation held in Dakar, Senegal, in October 2015, graced by leading agricultural experts from Africa and beyond, development institutions, research agencies, private, financial institutions, academia, and the civil society, 18 central themes, seen as critical for revitalizing African agriculture, were identified. The discourse coalesced caption on developing agricultural commodity Dr Akinwunmi Adesina, President AFDB. value chains as a critical component of the new initiative known as “Africa Feeding agricultural transformation strategy, coupled Africa”, or the Technologies for African with access to credit and technologies. Agricultural Transformation (TAAT) However, the Bank later identified eight program. The TAAT program is a critical priority agricultural value chains relating strategy for transforming agriculture on to rice sufficiency, cassava intensification, the continent that would ensure that Africa Sahelian food security, Savannas as is able to feed itself through agriculture. breadbaskets, restoring tree plantations, The goal of the TAAT Program includes expanding horticulture, increasing wheat eliminating extreme poverty, ending hunger production, and expanded fish farming. and malnutrition, achieving food sufficiency, The Bank then requested a response and turning Africa into a net food exporter from the CGIAR centers, FARA, AVRDC, as well as setting Africa in step with global Africa Harvest, and others concerning commodity and agricultural value chains. their combined ability to respond to these challenges and opportunities to transform Adopting modernized, commercial agriculture in Africa through the Technologies agriculture is the key to transforming for African Agricultural Transformation Africa and the livelihoods of its (TAAT) program within the shortest people, particularly the rural poor. possible time while restoring degraded land and maintaining or strengthening The Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa the ecosystems that underpin agriculture. (FARA) and the CGIAR Consortium and 12 of its 15 international agricultural centers active The just concluded Identification and in Africa support this initiative by the Bank and preparation workshop held in IITA, Ibadan, the co-sponsors to revitalize and transform was a response to the Action Plan for agriculture. The 12−14 April workshop agricultural transformation in Africa from was organized by IITA in partnership with the High Level conference. The objective the Support to Agricultural Research for was to execute a bold plan to achieve rapid Development of Strategic Crops (SARDagricultural transformation across Africa SC) project for the African Development through raising agricultural productivity. Bank, which is funding this mega initiative. Hence, more than 200 research and development partners and experts met at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), Ibadan, Nigeria, in a three-day workshop to discuss the
This initiative will be led by IITA, FARA, CGIAR, national agricultural research systems, and the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA). This will involve close partnerships among AfDB, the World
Bank, and major development partners to ensure increased funding for agricultural research and development along the value chains in Africa. CGIAR, FARA, AVRDC - The World Vegetable Center, Africa Harvest, and other partners will provide the technical and developmental support for the Bank’s quest of widespread agricultural transformation. “IITA supports AfDB and partners in ensuring that TAAT is effectively set up,” said IITA Director General, Nteranya Sanginga. “The whole CGIAR system is backing this huge initiative with its research infrastructure in collaboration with FARA, AGRA, Africa Harvest, and the national partners. Everybody wants to ensure that this initiative succeeds.”
Dr Nteranya Sanginga, DG IITA.
Written by Adebola Adewole, SARD-SC project Communication Officer. For further details about the TAAT project, please contact Dr. Chrys Akem,(C.Akem@cgiar.org) SARD-SC Project Coordinator. Got a story to share? Please email it with photos and captions every Wednesday to Katherine Lopez (k.lopez@cgiar.org), Jeffrey T. Oliver (j.oliver@cgiar.org), Catherine Njuguna (c.njuguna@cgiar.org), or Adaobi Umeokoro (a.umeokoro@cgiar.org).
Special bulletin: Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation (TAAT)
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