Feed the Future | Newsletter|
When the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition was launched in 2012,
President Obama and others pledged to leverage technology’s transformative
potential by taking innovation to scale. To accomplish this goal, they
committed to a series of measures to promote the adoption of agricultural
technologies, including setting yield targets that support country-defined
agricultural goals; identifying key innovations that can help farmers reach
those targets; harnessing information and communication technologies to
support agricultural growth; and promoting policy reforms to improve the
enabling environment for agricultural investment that will lift millions
out of poverty.
One important vehicle for advancing and delivering on these New Alliance
commitments is the Scaling Seeds and Technologies Partnership, a $47
million, three-year partnership between the U.S. Agency for International
Development (USAID) and the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa
(AGRA) intended to accelerate smallholder farmer access to transformative
agricultural technologies.
The partnership, launched in July 2013, works in six New Alliance countries
– Ethiopia, Ghana, Malawi, Mozambique, Senegal and Tanzania – and is
helping governments strengthen their seed sectors and promote the
commercialization, distribution and adoption of quality seeds of superior
varieties and complementary technologies. Through this joint effort, USAID
and AGRA aim to increase production of high-quality seeds by 45 percent in
three years and ensure that 40 percent more farmers gain access to
innovative agricultural technologies.
One of the major initial activities under the partnership is to help New
Alliance countries prepare “Road Maps” of specific public and private
sector actions needed to achieve 10-year yield improvement targets
established by each country. In February 2014, Ghana and Senegal staged the
fifth and sixth national stakeholder consultations respectively on scaling
up farmers’ access to agricultural innovation; similar consultations have
happened in Mozambique, Tanzania, Malawi, and in Ethiopia through the
Ethiopian Agricultural Transformation Agency. These consultations will
result in targeted support from AGRA to bring the most promising seed and
other technologies to scale in these New Alliance countries.
Among the investments AGRA plans to support is an in-kind grant to the
Alliance for Commodity Trade in Eastern and Southern Africa that is a
specialized agency of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa
(COMESA). This grant will provide software development services for a Plant
Variety Catalog and Database to support the implementation of the
Harmonized COMESA Seed Trade Regulations.
AGRA is also providing input into seed and fertilizer policy reform and
implementation processes in support of the African Union’s 2014 Year of
Agriculture.
The Scaling Seeds and Technologies Partnership emphasizes the importance of
policy and regulatory systems for improving agriculture sectors and food
security, laying the foundation for broad-based economic growth that aligns
with country-determined priorities set out in the Comprehensive Africa
Agriculture Development Program. Since it was launched, the partnership has
played a leadership role in identifying key, practical policy approaches to
make seed and fertilizer more widely available to farmers through
competitive private sector channels, working with a range of other African
and international institutions.