Southern African
Report
September-October,
2009
Background
One
of AAAPD’s key objectives is to initiate and lay foundation for the development
of strong and effective linkages between African agricultural professionals in
the Diaspora and African institutions such as the AU/NEPAD, FARA, RECs,
governments, African universities, NARS, AGRA, SADC, COMESA, FAO, CGIAR,
smallholder farmers associations and agribusinesses. This foundation is
necessary in the building very strong partnerships and linkages with these
African institutions. For this reason,
AAAPD organized a regional trip to the SADC region in September – October,
2009. This trip accorded delegates an opportunity to familiarize themselves
with what is going on and discuss ways to partner with key institutions on the
ground.
In
order to ensure maximize the level of contact with African colleagues and
institutions on the ground, AAAPD delegates were sponsored to participate in a
joint plenary/symposium with the African Crop Science Society Conference that
took place September 27 – October, 1,
2009 in Cape Town. The theme of the conference was Science and Technology:
Supporting food security in Africa. Subsequently, the delegates also scheduled
a series of meetings in the region in Malawi, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Prior to
the trip, significant pre-conference planning and appointment scheduling was
undertaken.
This
report has four sections and a summary statement based on the countries that
were visited as follows:
Section
1: South Africa
Section
2: Zambia
Section
3: Zimbabwe
Section
4: Malawi
Section
5: Summary
Section 1 South
Africa (Cape Town)
African Crop
Science Society Conference (ACSS)
Dr. Edmund Mupondwa
and Dr. Stephen Machado
The
Cape Town trip was highly successful as AAAPD delegates participated in a joint
plenary/symposium with the ACSS. The ACSS conference was chaired by Dr GD
Jourbert, Chairman of the Local Organizing Committee, with welcoming address by
Professor Kasem Zaki Ahmed, President of ACSS. This was followed by the official
opening address by Ms. Helen Zille, Premier of Western Cape Province, who gave
an excellent speech focusing on governance and leadership. She also stated the
need to empower small-scale farmers to lobby their politicians; the need for
scientists to be more involved in policy formulation; the need for African
institutions at all levels to create the right social political environment to
foster agricultural development; the need for greater investment in
agriculture. It was interesting to note that the Premier made specific
reference to the role of Africans in the Diaspora in reversing the brain drain
through active engagement with the continent.
Three
key note addresses followed: i) Professor Mohammad Karaan (Perspectives on
science and technology supporting food security in Africa); ii) Professor
Stephen Baenzinger (The future of plant breeding); iii) Professor Agnes
Mwang’ombe (Food and nutrition security and poverty issues in Eastern and
Central Africa: Still a challenge to the realization of millennium development
goals and gender diversity). One unifying theme from these speeches related to
developing multi-disciplinary capacities and approaches in resolving Africa’s
complex problems.
After
the opening ceremonies, AAAPD had the privilege of meeting with Professor Agnes
Mwang’ombe to congratulate her on the keynote speech as well as brief her on
the AAAPD initiative. She was extremely impressed that such an initiative was
coming to fruition. Prof Mwang’ombe would like to be updated as we progress with
AAAPD next steps. In particular, she pointed out many areas in which AAAPD
could help. For instance, she noted that the African educational curriculum is
very obsolete; this is an area in which capacity building is highly needed.
Prof Mwang’ombe talked about formal and informal capacity building especially
in relation to working with small-scale farmers. She also suggested that the
millennium development goals set for 2015 will be far from being achieved
without the necessary conditions for developing multi-disciplinary capacities for
meeting the many challenges that lie ahead.
In
the afternoon, AAAPD members spent time attending a number of concurrent
sessions and meeting with African scholars from various universities and
institutions. There were a few concurrent sessions focused on improving
livelihoods of small scale farmers. Of interest, the issue of capacity building
had a new dimension in one presentation on biosafety capacity building project
for sub-Saharan Africa. AAAPD also met
with presenters for this session and learned with interest that this project in
fact received funding from BMGF and is currently implementing a 3-year
biosafety capacity building project in sub-Saharan Africa in the field of
modern biotechnology. There was a presentation that focused on capacity
building in the development of indigenous technologies in the processing of
agricultural produce and its implications for food security and increased
income among rural households. This area was identified as significantly
lacking. For instance, in Nigeria, 85% of processors and marketers of cocoyam
were women. However, this value-chain does not exist. Within the area of
value-added production, there was also an interesting paper on bio-fuels from
indigenous energy crops. The question of how small scale farmers would be
integrated into this value-chain was raised.
A session by Dr. GYK Kanyama-Phiri discussed strengthening university
contribution to national development: The role of RUFORUM (Regional
Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture) which is an umbrella
body for 25 universities in Eastern,
Central, and Southern Africa formed in 2004 (more will be said about RUFORUM
below). This is a subset of sessions attended throughout the conference by
AAAPD members.
The
following day involved more concurrent session plus the AAAPD symposium which
was well organized and attracted a large audience that was highly
representative of African professionals from the continent. The symposium,
Chaired by Dr. Stephen Machado,
included a keynote speech delivered by Professor Mandivamba Rukuni and a
session presentation by Dr. Edmund Mupondwa.
The keynote speech provided an excellent context for African development
issues, with a focus on rebuilding
African leadership. Professor Rukuni provided a great introduction to his
recent book 'Being Afrikan - Rediscovering the Traditional
Unhu-Ubuntu-Botho Pathways of Being Human" in which he challenged African
scholars at the symposium to take up the call to transformational leadership.
Edmund gave a 30 minute PowerPoint presentation on the vision and mission of
AAAPD and the role of the Diaspora in economic development, including
objectives of AAAPD within the 12 months of the planning grant and where AAAPD
next steps would be past the initial planning phase. The principle of
partnership with African colleagues was emphasized and was well received.
A
very lively discussion followed, with all the speakers stating that the AAAPD
concept was very long-overdue and highly welcome. Many saw AAAPD’s the
relevance in many areas of agricultural development. It was very interesting to
note the complete unanimity with which all the speakers articulated capacity
building as a key area in which AAAPD could have a major positive impact.
Subsequent to the AAAPD symposium, African scholars presented themselves and
signed up for AAAPD membership. Up to 100 scientists signed up.
After the AAAPD symposium,
Edmund and Stephen attended a symposium organized by RUFORUM. This interaction
with RUFORUM’s Dr. Moses Osiru (Program Manager) and his associates was most
informative and constructive. Dr. Osiru
and his associates highly embraced the AAAPD concept and viewed AAAPD as a very
useful resource that can truly enable RUFORUM to achieve its objectives. For
instance, Dr. Osiru stated that although the University of Malawi Bunda College
has been selected as the lead centre for Ph.D. training in Agricultural
Resource Economics and Agriculture (with the first 25 PhD students set to start
in September 2009), there were significant implications for the capacity to
offer this program. Dr. Osiru saw AAAPD as a stronger resource that support
strengthening of capacity in this area. Issues that were raised by attendees
included: 1) what is the vision beyond the project? 2) research funding is very
short term; 3) faced with a lot of needs but with very scarce resources; 4) can
only do a fraction of “wish-list” and hence need to set priorities and move
forward.
Side Meetings
During the ACSS, Edmund and
Stephen also organized in-person meetings with a number of African delegates in
order to gain further understanding of issues. These include
Professor Pangirai Tongoona
(African Centre for Crop Improvement, University of Kwazulu-Natal),
Professor Kwaramba Mariga
(University of Limpopo),
Dr. Jane Alumira (SADC-ICART
– Implementation and Coordination of Agricultural Research and Training in the
SADC Region),
Dr. Francis Nang’ayo
(African Agricultural Technology Foundation),
Dr. Obi Udengwu (University
of Nigeria Genetic Resources and Conservation),
Dr (Mrs) N.I. Odiaka
(University of Agriculture Makurdi Nigeria),
Dr. Ignacio Casper Madakadze
(University of Pretoria Dept of Plant Production and Soil Science),
Dr. Constance Chiremba
(Agricultural Research Council South Africa),
Dr. Lerotholi L. Qhobela
(SADC Plant Genetic Resources Centre – Lusaka Zambia),
Dr. Olawale Taiwo Adeniji
(The World Vegetable Centre – Arusha Tanzania),
Dr. Norn Looney (President
Global Horticulture Initiative – Arusha Tanzania),
Dr. Regina Ntumngia Chiang (MINADER-
Cameroon),
Dr. F.R Kutu Soil Fertility
and Chemistry University of Limpopo),
Dr. Olusola A. Ladokun (Lead
City University of Ibadan –Biochemistry),
Dr. Lawrence G. Owoeye
(Agricultural Research Council),
Dr. Kalaluka Munyinda (Department of Agricultural Research and University
of Zambia),
Dr. Mick Mwala (Professor
and Head Crop Science University of Zambia),
Dr. Judith Lungu (Dean,
Faculty of Agricultural Sciences, University of Zambia)
Professor Mandivamba Rukuni
(formerly with The W.K. Kellogg Foundation),
Dr. Gospel Omanya (African
Technology Foundation, Nairobi, Kenya),
Dr. Moses Maliro (Banda
College of Agriculture, University of Malawi)
Dr. Godfrey Khumalo
(University of Swaziland, Swaziland)
Dr. Pamela Paparu (National
Crops Resources Research Institute, Kampala, Uganda)
Dr. Daniel Mugendi (Kenyatta
University, Nairobi, Kenya)
Dr. E Aigbekaen (Cocoa
Research Institute of Nigeria, Ibadan, Nigeria)
Dr. J.S. Tenywa (African
Crop Science Journal Secretariat, Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda)
Dr. Rafael Masinga
(Instituto Superior Politenico De Manica, Manica, Mozambique)
Dr. Paul Mapfumo
(SOFECSA-Soil fertility Conservation For Southern Africa, CIMMYT)
Dr. Jedidah Danson
(ISAAA-International Service for the Acquisition of Agricultural Biotech
Application, South Africa)
Dr. W.I.H Makumba (Chitedze
Research Station, Malawi)
Issues Identified
·
Need for
capacity building
·
Relevant
curricula; most universities using colonial curricula that has no relevance to
current problems and technological needs
·
Lack of experienced scientists; most in the
Diaspora
·
Lack of adequate resources for education,
research, and extension (computers, books, internet, personnel)
·
Lack of capacity
to deliver agricultural research and development (“broken pipes”)
·
Need to translate
research results into tangible technology that could be used by farmers
·
Lack of
investment in rural infrastructure (roads, grain storage depots)
·
Lack of inputs
and markets
·
Poor and
declining fertility
·
Too many
networks or organizations working on similar missions; need to consolidate to
be more effective in sourcing funds and execution of work.
·
Need to support,
educate, and empower women
·
Establishment of
regional centers to facilitate AAAPD work
·
All approve of
the AAAPD mission and want to be part of the project
One outcome from the
meetings in Cape Town was the fact that AAAPD was able to link RUFORUM recently
with an academic institution in Canada to help them develop a joint proposal on
a Climate Change Research Initiative recently announced by IDRC. The request
was sent to Dr. Edmund Mupondwa in
Canada who facilitated the linkage. RUFORUM had earlier sent an email to
request to AAAPD through Edmund help in linking them with a Canadian university
or research institution.
Section 2. Zambia
Dr. Edmund Mupondwa and Dr. Peter Jeranyama
The meetings in Zambia were
arranged ahead of time through both official channels and personal
contacts. Dr. Edmund
Mupondwa met with the University of Zambia Faculty Council
and gave a PowerPoint presentation. The meeting was chaired by the Dean of the
School of Agricultural Sciences.
Attendance:
Dr. Judith Lungu – Dean
Dr. Mick Mwala
Dr. Egbert Yambayamba
Dr. Davies Lungu
Dr. Moses Daura
Dr. Himoomga Bernard Moonga
Dr. Elijah Phiri
Dr. Mwikisa Likulunga
Dr. Victor Shitumbanuma
Dr. Raphael Jere
Dr. Kalaluka Munyinda
The meeting started with an
introduction by the Dean who gave an overview of the history of the School and
the significance of capacity building. The School of Agricultural Sciences was
established in 1971 and offers five undergraduate programs (five-year duration)
leading a Bachelor of Agricultural Science degree in the following:
Agricultural Economics and Extension, Animal Science, Crop Science, Land
management and Food Science and Technology. The School also offers two
Master of Science programs (two-year duration) in Agronomy (with the option to specialize
in either Crop Science of Soil Science) and in Animal Science. The Crop Science
option has been developed into a SADC regional MS program, training students
from the SADC region.
The introduction was
followed by a PowerPoint presentation by Edmund on AAAPD. This AAAPD concept
and initiative was very well received by the entire Faculty Council, with all
the members feeling that it is a long overdue concept whose time has come. A
very lively discussion followed; it focused on a range of issues constraining
African educational and research institutions from excelling in many areas of
science, technology, and innovation. A number of key points raised included the
following:
Institutional physical
infrastructure is an impediment to science and innovation. For instance,
scientific advances in Food Science/Processing have been frustrated by the lack
of pilot plant capacity to scale up technologies. Does capacity building include the ability to
have access to pilot plant facility? There is no capacity to even assess
research and development (R&D) in this value-added area in terms of its
impact on small scale farmers.
Issues Indentified
·
What models do
we need to transfer knowledge to small scale farmers and rural entrepreneurs?
Do we need a model village as part of initiatives that AAAPD can support?
·
Lack of business
models for the transfer of technology from university laboratories to small
scale farmers.
·
How do we tailor
technology to rural women to enhance farm productivity and value chain
integration? Can AAAPD provide
capacities in this area by working in partnership with African institutions?
·
It is important
to overcome the misconception that everyone in the village is a farmer (or that
everyone in the rural area is a farmer.
·
It is important
to integrate the rural economy to the mainstream economy.
·
Women in higher
education: The University has a good gender balance in its student enrolment.
However, it was also observed that the faculty will continue to enhance the
enrolment of women proportionate with their prominent role in agriculture.
·
Technological
obsolescence: There was lively debate
around technological obsolescence as it affects teaching including: lack of
laboratory equipment and supplies (e.g., the lab at the school still uses
microscopes that were purchased when the school opened in 1971); lack of
computers and internet access compounded by poor connection/download time (it
takes the Dean one hour for her web page to open - if it opens at all);
·
Information
systems: Lack of online scientific journal access. What role can AAAPD play in
strengthening capacity to access and use different sources of information? This
lack of access has been particularly felt at graduate student research level?
·
Inability to
offer course segments in the semester because there is no one to teach them;
inability to complete degree offering for students who have to postpone taking
the course until a professor is available to teach the course;
·
Lack of career
development programs for faculty (conferences, collaborative research,
mentorship programs for both women and men; sabbaticals; etc) that enable
researchers and educators to systematically
upgrade knowledge and skills.
·
The issue of
collaboration was quite prominent during the discussion. The Council felt that
human resource constraints could be addressed by greater multi-institutional
partnerships between universities, NARS, extension agencies, farmers'
organizations, private sector, other relevant stakeholder that are essential to
institutional change. However, again
this is constrained by insufficient capacity to develop viable and sustainable
multi-institutional partnerships. What
role can AAAPD play in building synergies among institutions and programmes in
agricultural education, research and extension?
·
Integrated
approaches: The Council pointed out that increased collaborations will provide
human resources that would make it possible to upgrade the faculty’s curriculum
for teaching and learning in a way that recognizes the need for integrated
approaches in view of growing interdependence between science disciplines.
·
The Council also
emphasized the need for long-term view. The School is constantly bombarded by
short-term offers of support in the form of capacity building that are
fragmented and uncoordinated from all sorts of donors. To a large extent, most
of these capacity development initiatives did not yield expected outcomes
precisely because they were both fragmented and only targeted at single and
non-integrated issues.
·
There was also a
suggestion to have model universities. In other words, is it possible for AAAPD
to adopt model universities or institutions to demonstrate the importance of
sustainable capacity building initiatives?
·
The Council also
felt that a lot needs to be done in order prepare students better for their
careers. There are currently no mentorship programs for young scientists. AAAPD
provided an example of Canada’s FSWEP (Federal Government Student Work
Experience Program) which provides summer experience for students in federal
government laboratories and other institutions across the country. One of the most beneficial aspect of a
program such as FSWEP is the fact that it helps to create and integrate
vertical links in the entire education system from formal schooling to
professional training
·
Information
needs were identified. The irony is that even where locally relevant
educational materials based on agricultural research experiences in Africa
exist, there are not knowledge-based innovation systems that enable efficient
access to this information.
·
In a nutshell,
the meeting at the University of Zambia echoed issues that we came across in
South Africa: lack of institutional capacity to offer training due to
financial, physical, technological, and human resource constraints. The Faculty
Council felt the AAAPD could play a very pivotal and supportive role in
mobilizing resources; even technologies considered to be obsolete in North
America would be significantly more functional compared to what is currently
used in some African institutions. This discussion also extended to the
Ministry of Agriculture where it was noted that similar institutional constraints
cited above have virtually made many forms of collaborative research, training,
and extension impossible. Government research was still characterized by very
weak human and institutional capacity for designing, implementing, and managing
scientific research. It was also noted that there were deficiencies in
agricultural research management and scientific quality, a point that was also
echoed during the ACSS meetings and common to most sub-Saharan Africa. In fact,
the current institutional and programmatic
separation of universities and national agricultural research institutes was
seen as a major stumbling block to science, technology, and innovation. The
Council asked: “Can AAAPD play a role in breaking down these institutional and
programmatic barriers?”
Side Meetings
The
Zambia meetings were quite hectic because of limited time allocation to this
activity. Nevertheless, additional meetings were held, including the following:
Dr. Perpetua Kalala (Senior Policy Director – FAO
Regional Office for Southern Africa). Dr, Perpetua
Kalala is a highly knowledgeable FAO professional who
endorsed the AAAPD concept and was very instrumental in linking us up with
gender experts on the continent. She felt that AAAPD is highly relevant and can
play a catalytic role in creating conditions and capacities for moving the
continent into the 21st century. There was complete unanimity in her
view regarding challenges of capacity building and the marginalization of the
rural sector. Dr. Kalala also noted that AAAPD needed to guard against
perpetuating the “dependence syndrome” in which communities in certain rural
areas have tended to resort to expecting donors to “provide solutions”. AAAPD
needs to differentiate itself by offering a very long-term strategic view and solution;
working directly with the beneficiary constituencies while giving the
beneficiary a capacity to be independent and self-sustaining.
Dr. Mary Bwalya (Clinical Paediatrician - World Health
Organization, Southern Africa Region): A very productive discussion with Dr.
Bwalya focussed on the impact of malaria, HIV/AIDS, and other health issues on
women in rural areas and how this erodes the capacity of women to engage in
sustainable rural livelihoods. Dr. Bwalya stated that health issues must be an
integral part of any strategy aimed at building capacities for rural women in
agriculture because of the direct impact of health on labour supply and labour
productivity.
Dr. Jones Govereh (Senior Policy Coordinator – Common Market for
Eastern and Southern Africa – COMESA): The meeting with Dr. Govereh was
attended by Dr. Jeranyama who had finally managed to fly to Lusaka from Boston
after initial UK Visa difficulties that prevented him from flying to Southern
Africa in the first place. Dr. Govereh was highly supportive of the AAAPD
concept and strongly felt AAAPD had a pivotal role to play. He identified the
following issues: i) connect with networks already operating in Africa on
agricultural issues; ii) join professional associations in Africa; iii) adopt a
few African institutions and make a success story out of them – others will see
this and be won over; iv) must identify liaisons on the continent; v) learn
from other successful Diaspora organizations like the Indian Diaspora that was
responsible for the highly successful IT industry in India; vi) negotiate with
publishers to provide reduced rate access to online journals for African
institutions; in turn give publishers “free” access to AAAPD portal to
advertize their products.
Hon. Dr. Situmbeko
Musokotwane (Minister of Finance). The meeting with Hon. Dr. Musokotwane did not take
place because he had to accompany the President on a foreign mission. However,
Dr. Musokotwane sent Edmund a personal email reply that was highly supportive
of the concept of AAAPD and its mission, noting that Zambia already had a
Diaspora Desk at the Office of the President (State House). Dr Musokotwane
conveyed our AAAPD concept note to his other colleagues in the cabinet. Dr.
Musokotwane was Edmund’s classmate during undergraduate studies.
Section 3: Zimbabwe
Dr. Peter Jeranyama and Dr.
Stephen Machado
Dr.
Jeranyama and Dr. Machado had personal interviews with several community
leaders in Zimbabwe including;
Professor E.O.
Enwerem,
Division Chairman of Clinical Practice and Patient Care at the National
University of Science & Technology, Faculty of Medicine, Bulawayo. This
conversation centered on malnutrition and poverty and how the faculty is
dealing with severe cases of malnutrition and food poisoning as people would eat
anything they found. The collapse of the agricultural sector in Zimbabwe has
caused resurgence in diseases that the country had not dealt with in more than
30 years, and ones which had been contained. All these can be traced to
unavailability of food.
Mr. Abraham
Kamanga,
Manager at Agricultural Bank of Zimbabwe (AgriBank), Bulawayo. Peter discussed the issue of access to credit
with Mr. Kamanga for the agricultural community. Mr. Kamanga stated that due to the collapse
of commercial agriculture in Zimbabwe, AgriBank now rarely gives credit/loans
for agricultural related activities. Peter thought this contradicted the very
rationale for AgriBank’s existence which requires the Bank to provide credit to
the farming community. Instead AgriBank is involved in normal banking functions
such as savings and current accounts for customers from all socio-economic
backgrounds. There is no confidence in the security of tenure of current
farmers; as well, the lack of collateral security was the reason why AgriBank’s
portfolios of activities were shifted from agriculture to the general economy.
Rev. A. B.
MacLean
of Ingwenya Mission, Umguza, near Bulawayo. This was a very interesting
conversation with the man of the clothes.
Rev. MacLean finds himself having to help with agricultural
recommendations of his parishioners because the extension service has either
collapsed or they simply do not know what they are doing. He wanted to know in
what ways AAAPD could help his church members and people around his mission to
grow better crops for their own food consumption and to market the excess on
the market. He had a lot of questions on fertilizer recommendations and crop
rotations. He stumbled upon Peter’s name through Peter’s 2000 publication on
smallholder cropping systems of Zimbabwe. Peter has since connected Rev,
MacLean with the Zimbabwe’s Agricultural Research Department.
Mr. Jaymore
Gotora,
newly settled farmer in Goromonzi. Mr. Gotora invited Peter to the farm in
Goromonzi where Mr Gotora raises chicken, cattle and grows maize. His major
concern was the poor quality of seed maize. Mr Gotora feels the old seed they
used to get from Seed-Coop is no longer the same and has observed a lot more
variability in his crop although the crop is treated with the same amount of
fertilizer. Unfortunately, he could not get help from the extension workers as
they were mostly unavailable perhaps looking for money in other enterprises to
feed their families. The issue of mechanized agriculture featured a lot in the
conversation, access to capital and agriculture loans. In the past he had been
forced to sale all his maize to the government run Grain Marketing Board and he
is still owed payments arrears for two years. Mr. Gotora bemoaned the absence
of private buyers of agricultural commodities.
Ms. Tineyi
Chakanyuka, Seed Services, DR&SS Harare Research Station. Ms. Chakanyuka
is a Research Officer at the Harare Agricultural Research Station and wondered
if AAAPD would entertain a proposal to (i) establish a seed health laboratory
at the station and (ii) provide support to train farmers on seed production
principles. According to Ms. Chakanyuka, the seed certifying agency has been
rejecting a lot of seed due to poor seed production practices since the land
reform. New farmers are not trained in seed production and the rejection of
some hectares of seed would have caused a severe shortage of good quality seed;
the country is now relying on imports. On the other hand, the quality of
imports is not assured since neighboring countries would keep the best seed to
themselves and sale the worst. She cited
an example where they imported a sorghum variety from a neighboring country and
only to find out that the seed had been infected with kernel smut—a seed borne disease
in post control trials. However, the damage had already been done as this seed
had been distributed in the growing area and now they have a problem at hand of
trying to eradicate that seed borne disease.
Dr. Christopher
Nyakanda, Private Fruit Tree Breeder & formerly Senior Lecturer University
of Zimbabwe. Dr. Nyakanda is a renowned
crop scientist and had risen to the position of senior lecturer in the Crop
Science department at the University of Zimbabwe. He left formal employment to become a private
fruit tree breeder. He was concerned about how major agricultural development
agendas put emphasis on agronomic crops at the expense of fruits and vegetables
which are equally important in food security.
He suggested that for sustained agricultural production the focus should
be on commercialization of small growers so they can effectively participate in
the economy. He raised the issue of access to credit as a major hindrance to
expansion.
Ms. Faith Ndlovu, Bulawayo. While on the trip Dr. Peter Jeranyama
interviewed and recruited Faith Ndlovu, a recent graduate from University of
Zimbabwe’s Faculty of Agriculture for a Masters degree at UMASS Amherst under
his tutelage. Faith will be attending UMASS beginning the spring 2010 semester.
Mr. Philip
Taylor, of Capstone Seeds, Howick, South Africa. I met Mr. Taylor in
Johannesburg and he had just returned from a seed market assessment in Zimbabwe
and Malawi. He had been encouraged by
the use of multiple currencies in Zimbabwe and he felt that was good for his
business as well as others. To date, he has set up a seed warehouse in Harare
and they have started to market seed for this season. He felt like competition
was very high on common commodity crops such as maize but very low on pasture
and fodder seed. They as a company had made more profits marketing fodder and
pasture seed. I asked him how he raised and where he raised his pasture seed. I
was surprised to hear him say that all his seed was imported from New Zealand.
They breed and multiply in New Zealand. He figured out that the cost of separation,
cleaning and maintaining purity either in Zimbabwe or South Africa was too high
compared to transportation charges he pays to transport seed into Africa from
New Zealand.
Mrs. Danisile
Hikwa,
Director of the Department of Agricultural Research and Specialist Services
with its headquarters in Harare, Zimbabwe. Dr. Machado had a one and half hour
long meeting to introduce AAAPD concept and its objectives. She was very
excited about the prospect of partnering with AAAPD in the development of African
agriculture. She pledged the full support of her institutions and associated
scientists. She stressed the need to work with the Zimbabwe Farmers Union and
the Zimbabwe Commercial Farmers Union for this project to be successful. This
entails going out there and meeting the farmers and rural development
administrators to get a grasp of the problems in the rural areas before
formulating research or project strategies.
However, she indicated that there were obstacles to their full
participation. The first was connectivity. They have poor internet service and
very few computers that are also antiquated. They also lack transportation and
financial resources to do the fact finding mission needed to launch AAAPD
projects. Retaining staff was also a big problem as many leave for better
working conditions and remuneration. Our discussion led to a bigger meeting
where we made a presentation about AAAPD and its goals. This meeting is
described below.
Dr. Gibson
Guvheya, The African Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF): The
establishment of ACBF was created to solve the severe Africa's capacity problem
and to invest in indigenous human capital and institutions in sub-Saharan
Africa. The ACBF was established in 1991 by the African Development Bank
(AfDB), the World Bank, and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP)),
African governments and bilateral donors and is based in Harare, Zimbabwe.
Membership comprises the AfDB, UNDP, the World Bank, the International Monetary
Fund (IMF), and 41 African and non-African countries and institutions (Benin,
Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Canada, Chad, Côte d'Ivoire, Congo
(Brazzaville), Democratic Republic of Congo, Denmark, Finland, France, Gabon,
Ghana, Greece, India, Ireland, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania,
Mauritius, The Netherlands, Niger, Nigeria, Norway, Rwanda, Sao Tome &
Principe, Senegal, Sudan, Swaziland, Sweden, Tanzania, Uganda, United Kingdom,
United States of America, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Japan has in the past
contributed resources to ACBF.
Dr.
Guvheya indicated that although ACBF was initially geared toward institutional
capacity building in the field of administration and economics, ACBF has now
realized the importance of agriculture and is initiating programs in this
field. Therefore the timing of the formation of AAAPD was perfect and ACBF is
willing to join AAAPD as an institution and collaborate in human capacity
building in agricultural and related fields. Issues that arose are reported
below.
Institutional Contacts
University of Zimbabwe, Mt Pleasant,
Harare. At the University of Zimbabwe we had a group meeting comprising
faculty, graduate students and the Faculty of Agriculture Executives (Professor
Charles Mutisi, the Dean and Associate Professor Justice Nyamangara, the
Associate Dean) and heads of departments. This was a well attended meeting with
at least 50 people in the room. Stephen Machado and Peter
Jeranyama represented AAAPD at this meeting. We gave a power
point presentation of the vision, mission and objectives of AAAPD. We opened the floor for question and
answers. The dean and faculty were
excited about the opportunity to partner with AAAPD and they wanted to know how
they can become members since the organization is for those operating from
outside the continent. We explained this as a partnership with our African
counterparts while those in the Diaspora become members on an equal footing
with partners. Graduate students though AAAPD was a granting organization where
they could apply for scholarships to go study abroad and we tried by all means
to manage their expectations and to let everyone know we were on a fact-finding
mission and to assess potential partnerships in the future. Issues that arose
are reported below.
Department
of Agricultural Research
and Specialist Services (DR&SS), Harare. This meeting was attended by more
than 20 Research Officers including three divisional directors of Crops
Research, Animal & Pastures and Services. We were well received at this
meeting. Stephen and Peter did not know the reaction we would get at this
meeting because both Stephen and Peter had worked at this research station 17
years ago. We were so pleasantly surprised to be received like the prodigal son
who had come back home. Issues that
arose are reported below.
Issues
Indentified
·
Human
capacity development: All the individuals and institutions we talked with
brought up this issue as their most important priority. Attrition due to poor
or total collapse on the economy had rendered mostly public institutions
ineffective at providing services. Most
of the human resources remaining are not adequately trained to handle the
pressure of the job and most of them hold first degrees and in some instances
are trained only up to a diploma level. The directors at DR&SS felt that
for one to become a proficient researcher, they must have graduate degree
training. Currently, they have less than 8% of their staff with such
qualification. They also felt that current issues of biotechnology, biosafety
and intellectual property rights are not well understood and they do not have
the know-how to deal with these issues and yet they are expected to have
scientific and policy positions on the issues. At the University of Zimbabwe
also the issue of staff development came up. In the past they had programs of
staff development but the bonding system did not work as expected to retain
that capacity. The recent economic crises exacerbated the loss of experienced
lecturers to neighboring countries. Certain courses in the program have not
been taught in years due to the lack of expertise in those areas.
·
Institutional
development: Most agricultural institutions in Zimbabwe have nearly collapsed
from a cascade effect of the ill conceived and implemented land reform. Capital flight has not made things any easier. The need to develop markets for inputs and
for produce and regulatory mechanism that govern such institutions; develop
policy networks that help to lobby and inform policy makers. There is very
little public investment in agricultural institutions in both human and capital
goods.
·
Resource
mobilization: Access to modern equipment and instruments. Fundamental tools
like computers are absent. They wondered if those in the Diaspora could
mobilize such resources even if they are second hand that would help immensely.
Operational budgets to be able to visit research sites, to actually buy
research inputs, extension activities and teaching resources.
·
Internet
access: Harare Station has only three computers with access to internet on an
intermittent basis and only the research directors had access to those. The
same thing at the University of Zimbabwe that access to internet was difficult
and as faculty you would have one day a week access for one hour. In addition
to access, the issue of electronic journals came up and they wanted to find out
if AAAPD could enable them to have access to these resources through its web
portal to facilitate literature searches and to keep up with the state of the
science.
·
Mentorship
programs: This came up mostly from
female professionals who wondered if AAAPD could facilitate mentorship of young
women into agricultural sciences by pairing them with successful female
scientists in North America.
·
Research
and Contact Leave: To facilitate
information exchange and in building bridges
·
Establishment of regional offices with
regional representatives to facilitate AAAPD projects. These regions could
follow the current political or economic boundaries e.g. SADC, ECOWAS.
·
Need to develop value chain for small
holder agriculture to enable them to engage in international trade. Marketing
of raw and unprocessed produce will not greatly improve the current small
holder farmers’ situation.
Section
4: Malawi
Dr. Edmund Mupondwa, Dr.
Stephen Machado, Dr. Peter Jeranyama
Dr. Joseph
Rusike, IITA Chitedze,
We met Joseph Rusike almost by accident. Peter was well acquainted with Dr.
Rusike from their graduate student years at Michigan State University. Joseph is an agricultural economist working
on impact assessment with IITA in Malawi. We talked to Joseph about the role of
AAAPD and we asked him for his opinion on how he sees AAAPD. He was very blunt
to us and told us that he thought we would have limited impact since we had
left the continent and had become irrelevant to the African struggles. We
provided a counter argument to his thesis and he suggested that we should in
calculate an impact assessment in our programs to be able to measure actual
impact. He had been discouraged through his research because their impact had
been minimal. Joseph provided us a driver and a vehicle from his program for
our use for half a day.
Dr. Kishombe, Assistant
Director of Department of Agricultural Research
Services (DARS), Malawi. Dr. Kishombe
was our host at Chitedze Research Station.
We discussed issues of capacity building and resource mobilization. He
was excited to be associated with AAAPD and wanted to hear from us what role
his institution could play to make our program a success. Input subsidy program
was discussed with Dr. Kishombe and he felt that it has helped Malawi to become
food self reliant.
Dr. Banda,
Director
of Department of Agricultural Research
Services (DARS), Malawi. He was happy that we included Malawi as one of the
stops during our whistle tour. He also indicated the seriousness the current
government of Dr. Bingu wa Muthariki is emphasizing on agricultural production
and food security. He said things could not have been better because the
President is also the minister of agriculture and has a formal doctorate in
agricultural economics. We felt we had support from the very top and they made
it clear to us that we would get all the support we needed to execute AAAPD
programs in Malawi.
Institutional Contacts
Chitedze
Research Station,
DARS, Malawi. After initial institutional report of Chitedze Research Station
and the rest of DARS by Dr. Kishombe, Stephen Machado
introduced the AAAPD team and our purpose for coming to Malawi. Edmund Mupondwa gave a 30 minute power point
presentation on the vision, mission of AAAPD and the role of the Diaspora in
economic development, giving examples outside agriculture. Edmund also noted
how African leaders had started Diaspora desks at key institutions to catalyze
economic development. Peter Jeranyama
gave a presentation after Edmund on the objectives of AAAPD within the 12
months of our planning grant and where we see ourselves going past the initial
planning phase. Question and answer section took most of the time and several
issues were raised which are summarized below. We had a rude awakening in
Malawi because of a miscommunication, our meeting that was supposed to take
place on Thursday ended up happening on Friday and this meant us changing
flights out of Lilongwe as well as extending our hotel stay. We joked among
ourselves as a team on how inconvenient this could have been to people from a
different culture. As for us we brushed aside the inconvenience, although it
came in form of a cost to see the bigger picture on why we were in Malawi in
the first place. We can safely say we accomplished our objectives on this trip.
Issues
Indentified
·
Human
capacity development: Attrition due to
poor remuneration. They also felt that current issues of biotechnology,
biosafety, and intellectual property rights were not well understood and they
did not have the knowledge to deal with these issues and yet they were expected
to have scientific and policy positions on the issues.
·
Institutional
development: The need to develop markets
for inputs and for produce and regulatory mechanism that govern such institutions;
develop policy networks that help to lobby and inform policy makers. There are
very little public investments into agricultural institutions in both human and
capital goods.
·
Resource
mobilization: Access to modern equipment and instruments. Fundamental tools
like computers are absent. They wondered if those in the Diaspora could
mobilize such resources even if they are second hand that would help immensely.
Operational budgets to be able to visit research sites, to actually buy
research inputs, extension activities and teaching resources.
·
Internet
access: Poor access to internet electronic journals came up and wanted to find
out if AAAPD could enable them to have access to these resources through its
web portal to facilitate literature searches and to keep up with the state of
the science.
·
Research
& Contact Leave: To facilitate information exchange and in building bridges
as well as formal training at graduate level.
·
Gender
issues to be looked at in an African context
·
Engage
the politicians and lobby for increased investment in rural infrastructure
development. The face of many African parliamentarians is changing. They are
getting more and more educated and much easier to engage with and they
understand the urgent need to invest in Africa
Section
5 Summary
Dear AAAPD members, partners and friends, 
