Theme: Nutrition, health and food security

It was another exhausting, but productive day at the Wheat for Food Security in Africa conference at Addis Ababa, culminating in a wonderful evening of traditional dancing and the Injera cuisine so typical of Ethiopia. In case you missed any of our live tweeting during the day (#W4A), here is a brief roundup of the main events. It would be impossible to describe everything that happened in one short post, but this was a day likely to produce impacts in the months to come.

After an official welcome by Tekaligne Mamo, State Minister of Agriculture and Advisor to the Federal Minister of Agriculture, Ethiopia, Bekele Shiferaw started proceedings by describing the main findings from a recently released paper entitled “The Potential for Wheat Production in Sub-Saharan Africa: Analysis of Biophysical Suitability and Economic Profitability”. Co-authored by CIMMYT and IFPRI, this report concludes that there is significant potential for profitable, competitive wheat production in Rwanda, Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Tanzania, and Uganda. This is something the minister agrees with: “Currently African countries import more than half of their wheat demand from abroad. At the same time, African countries have the proper environment and potential to produce wheat not only for their consumption but for export as well.” This potential increases even more if wheat prices continue to rise, added Shiferaw. However, as Norman Borlaug once said: “You can’t eat potential.”

For this reason, Day Four of the conference brought together not only breeders, socio-economists, union leaders, and center directors, but also Ministers from Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, Sudan, and Burundi. The conference had so far discussed the potential  for growing wheat in Africa and the current constraints for doing so. Today gave the opportunity to look in depth at the needs of individual countries, and discuss how we can address these needs and make Africa more self-sufficient in wheat production, and thus more food secure.

David Nyameino, CEO of the Cereal Growers Association of Kenya, took to the floor with an impassioned speech outlining the key strategies we need to adopt if we are to make wheat a viable option for smallholder farmers. According to Nyameino, we need to develop wheat value chains into distinct geographic areas/hubs with the greatest profitability. In those areas, governments must provide farmers with affordable credit and inputs, information, know-how, mechanization, organization, and marketing, all in a comprehensive manner. Hubs must also be willing to include any smallholders who want to enter into profitable wheat production. According to Thomas Lumpkin, CIMMYT Director General, if we are to increase wheat production in Africa, we will have to involve a new type of farmer: a farmer that until now knew nothing about growing wheat.

Value chains and partnerships formed a key part of today’s discussions. “If you want to go far, go together,” quoted Nyameino. Ibrahim Adam Ahmed El-Dukheri, Sudan’s Minister of Agriculture, agreed: “We need regional cooperation and mainstreaming of food security strategies.” A participant from Tanzania added: “We need to improve the value chain to tap the genetic and environmental potential we have seen and to get money into the farmers’ pockets.” This issue was raised again in the final session by Joseph M. Made, Minister of Agriculture, Mechanization, and Irrigation Development, Zimbabwe. “We have great strengths in enhanced value chains, including storage and processing,” he said. “We need policies that enhance the value chain, to push the development of wheat. Without this value chain, or policies that support it, there is no wheat industry to talk about other than localized, home production,” added Made.

In the afternoon, panelists from Zambia, Nigeria, Sudan, South Africa, Kenya, Ethiopia, Tunisia, and a representative from the Association for Strengthening Agricultural Research in Eastern and Central Africa (ASARECA) all agreed that the research priorities for wheat in Africa should focus on developing heat and drought tolerant, disease and pest resistant varieties. They also talked of the need to build capacity, especially in extension, in order to link farmers to markets, both domestically and abroad. In countries such as Sudan, the development of infrastructure is also a vital element, and El-Dukheri highlighted the five-year Agriculture Revival Program currently being implemented in Sudan to address such issues. Mechanization, land consolidation, and public-private partnerships also need to be put on the wheat agenda, according to participants.

It was clear from the discussions that food aid is not the answer. Odette Kayitesi, Minister of Agriculture for Burundi, explained that now her country asks donors to help them produce food themselves, rather than providing it in the form of aid supplies. The representatives from Ethiopia even expressed ambitious hopes that one day soon, they will become an exporter, rather than a nation dependent on imports and food aid.

Concluding the afternoon, Carlos Lopes, Head of the UN Economic Commission of Africa, pointed out that wheat is not currently on the agenda at a continental level. But this could be about to change. With assistance from key researchers from the conference, Ethiopia will present a proposal for developing wheat in Africa, with the full support of Sudan, Burundi, and Zimbabwe, at the African Union Joint Conference of African Ministers of Agriculture and Ministers of Trade during 29 October to 2 November 2012. It’s time to think of Africa as a wheat-grower.

After two days in UNECA, a trip to farmers’ fields, seed production sites, and wheat research platforms provided participants with some welcome fresh air and the chance to see the reality of wheat production in Ethiopia. The majority of participants went to observe and ask questions at bread wheat sites in Kulumsa, about 160 km south-west of Addis Ababa, while one busload went to see the durum wheat fields at Debre Zeit.

I went with the Kulumsa group, and our first stop was with farmer Negash Dino. He is currently working with the Ethiopian Institute of Agriculture at Kulumsa, to grow two new, high-yielding bread wheat varieties (Kakaba and Atila). Dino plans to sell the seed he produces to his neighbors in order to help replace the old, poorly-performing varieties with these new lines. This year, Dino estimates that he will harvest 2 t of grain from 1.25 ha. These high yields are partly down to Dino’s improved agronomic pratices; working with the Kulumsa station has taught him the importance of good crop management, and Dino now plants his rainfed crop in rows and uses herbicide to control grass weeds, which are a big problem for the area.

Our next stop was at the Gonde Iteya Basic Seed Farm of the Ethiopian Seed Enterprise (ESE). Here they multiply seed for an incredible 27 crops, with a total of 79 varieties. They grow 13 varieties of bread wheat with the objective that farmers in the area have a constant and ready supply of quality, affordable seed. In addition, ESE is actively working to promote public-private partnerships and also provides training, consultancy, and technical advice in seed production, processing, and marketing. Currently, of the 4.7 million households farming in Ethiopia, just 600,000 use certified seed. Organizations such as ESE are hoping to increase this figure and therefore ensure dissemination of high-yielding varieties to more farmers in the country.

Finally, we visited the Kulumsa research station itself. Here we were welcomed by the Center Director, Solomon, who was delighted to show off his work to such a large group. We visited the Kulumsa wheat seed multiplication scheme, the international nurseries and irrigation ponds, and had presentations on breeding, pathology, and crop management. The interest of the participants was obvious from their large number of questions and attentiveness to all the presenters. They concluded that despite an early start, the trip had been well worth it.

After a long day in the heat of the Ethiopian sun, participants were rewarded with a traditional Ethiopian coffee ceremony, a beautiful event showcasing the hospitable nature of our hosts here. Tomorrow things will hot up at UNECA as we welcome ministers, ambassadors, donors, and the delegates from earlier in the week to address the policy issues currently constraining wheat production in Africa.

An exhausting, productive day on Day Two of Wheat for Food Security in Africa. Participants arrived bright and early for expert presentations and round-table discussions on abiotic/biotic stresses, market and seed systems, wheat systems and quality, and country outlooks.

After lunch things got really interesting as participants gathered to discuss the key constraints  for having profitable, productive wheat systems in Africa, and how we can overcome these. One rapporteur from each group presented the findings and these will be consolidated tomorrow before we present the findings to key policy makers, ministers, and donors on Thursday. Here are some things I learnt today…

We can do more if we act together

And this applies on so many levels. Farmers in Africa generally produce crops from very small parcels of land. This discourages large investments on their behalf, because they will never be able to get large returns from just a small area. Some scientists suggested that farmers should join together and farm larger plots. The same applies for inputs such as fertilizer and seed. One of the reasons these things are so expensive in Africa is due to the high transaction costs; if farmer cooperatives bulk-bought these inputs, they would be able to pass on the savings to the farmers themselves. At a national level, participants called for a strengthening of seed systems, and this includes encouraging the involvement of the private sector. Finally, as Hans Braun, Director of CIMMYT’s Global Wheat Program, pointed out, whilst we have many regional agricultural organizations in Africa, such as ASARECA, CORAF, and CCARDESA, “they do not know each other”. If international trade, regulations, and wheat policies are to be improved, it is key that all these players work together.

A value chain is only as strong as its weakest link

Breeders work hard to develop new, disease resistant, high-yielding varieties, yet many farmers do not know about them, and the yield difference between experimental stations and farmers’ fields can be huge. This is not to say that farmers are at fault, or in fact that any one part of the value chain is. It comes back to the above point of working together. We need extension workers to inform farmers about new varieties and to disseminate the improved technologies for agronomy and farm mechanization. We need government support to fund these extension workers. We need policymakers to inform government of the needs of the agricultural sector. But as pointed out by Victor Kommerell, Program Manager for the WHEAT CRP, the research heads of national systems are policymakers, too. And it’s not just the politicians we want to influence and get their attention, it’s the millers, the seed companies, the grain traders, in fact, anyone with a vested interest in wheat should be listening to African researchers and learning about the huge market that exists on this continent.

There is a solution for wheat in Africa

It’s simple maths. Increased revenues and decreased production costs equal increased profits and greater incentives for growing wheat in Africa. Aside from the points mentioned above, it’s clear we need more research and knowledge, and for this knowledge to be shared between researchers, governments, extension workers, community leaders, farmers. Timely access to fertilizer is a major problem for Africa, but we could overcome this by increasing capacity in fertilizer production, assisting farmers with credit access, and ensuring that everyone who needs to use fertilizer knows exactly how much to use and when to apply it. Human capacity is also key and countries must invest in their own agricultural researchers and extension workers. And none of these things will be truly successful without effective communication at all levels.

With a whole day of discussions, it’s hard to do little more than scratch the surface in a 600-word blog. Hopefully you have a little insight into our progress in Addis Ababa,
and we’re looking forward to bringing you more updates from the conference on Thursday. Tomorrow you can still follow us as we go to the field – look for our twitter hashtag #W4A and join us as we visit research stations and farmers at Kulumsa and Debre Zeit. You can also read what other people have been saying about the conference; so far, we have had stories published on La Presse, Bloomberg, Reuters, Scientific American, Phys.org, Voice of America, Deutsche Welle, and Times Live.

It’s day one at Wheat for Food Security in Africa, and Cobus Le Roux has just finished outlining the production, constraints, market, and future of wheat in Southern Africa. This morning participants enjoyed keynote speeches from Kwadwo Asenso-Okyere (IFPRI), Nicole Mason (Michigan State University), and Bekele Shiferaw (CIMMYT).

One of the key issues raised was just how much of their precious little foreign expenditure African countries must spend on imports. In 2010, over 12.5 US$ billion was spent to import 32 million tons of wheat to Africa. Many of this morning’s speakers posed the question: “What if that money was spent on wheat research instead? How much money would it take to improve wheat and agronomy so that that import bill is reduced or even eliminated?”

Food security was a buzzword on everyone’s lips this morning. Food aid does not imply food security, merely that people have enough to eat at that moment. But what about next year? What happens then? And what if the countries who supplied food aid this year are unable to do so next year? According to Kwadwo, food security is a right, not a priviledge. And the economics makes sense too; a woman who does not get enough, nutritious food during pregnancy is likely to give birth to an underweight, undernourished baby. If this baby does not get healthy food on a regular basis, particularly in the first two years of childhood, it is more likely to grow up to be an underweight, undernourished adult. This underweight, undernourished adult will not be as strong, not as able to work, more likely to get ill. We need healthy, strong adults if we are to create productive, prosperous countries. Whilst the high food prices in 2007/08 and 2010/11 caused shockwaves around the world, they produced some small benefit in propelling food security to the forefront of the global agenda.

Producing more wheat could help African countries achieve food security. Everyone at the conference is in agreement that demand for wheat in Africa is increasing. Traditionally in Africa, wheat has been the food of the rich; but now that incomes are on the rise, wheat is being eaten also by the traditionally lower- and middle-classes. An increasingly urban population is demanding more processed food, requiring less preparation time; this food is generally wheat-based, such as bread. And whilst the price of wheat is on the rise, the increase has not been as dramatic as for some other staple crops, meaning that it is becoming an ever more attractive option for consumers.

“So,” asked Bekele, “There is obviously a big demand for wheat in Africa – what can we do about the supply?”

And that is the question we are here to answer, starting this afternoon with presentations on the current wheat situation in different parts of Africa and round-table discussions addressing many aspects of wheat production, constraints, and the value chain in Africa. This is not an opportunity for a jolly to Addis Ababa – the participants are here to do a job. We are here to influence and improve the future of wheat in Africa, and that is no small task.

Tomorrow there will be more specific discussions on the things currently constraining African wheat production: abiotic and biotic factors, wheat markets and seed systems, and wheat quality. You can follow all the action on twitter using #W4A, or check back here tomorrow for a full summary.