Statement by Dr. Mpoko Bokanga
Executive Director of the African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF)
at the occasion of the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding between AATF and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)
Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso,  June 21, 2004

It is well known that, in the past 20 years, agricultural productivity per person has been declining in Africa, while it has remained stable or has increased in other parts of the world. Farm yields of the most important food crops (cereals, roots and tubers, legumes) have been level or falling. Low productivity is a major contributor to food shortage and related high food prices and food insecurity. Without a change in productivity trends, it is projected that while progress on reducing hunger and poverty would be recorded everywhere else, the number of hungry people in Africa would rise tremendously to such an extent that by 2015 three out of four hungry people in the world would be living in Africa.

The New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD) and the Forum for African Agricultural Research (FARA) share the same vision that a 6% annual growth in agricultural productivity is required in order to stem and reverse the decline in food production and incomes of the rural poor in Africa. Reaching this vision will require access to new and higher performance technologies and more efficient dissemination strategies. Unfortunately, these new technologies and much of the knowledge base are concentrated outside Africa. Within Africa, funding for agricultural research is declining for both national and international research institutions, and access to new technologies is becoming increasingly hampered by copyright regulations and trade protectionism.

The AATF initiative is a mechanism for bringing agricultural productivity enhancing tools that are currently held out of the reach of African scientists and putting them to work for the benefit of smallholder African farmers. AATF is an innovative approach for accessing copyrighted and proprietary technologies available anywhere in the world that bring a solution to intractable African agricultural problems, removing bottlenecks to the transfer of these technologies to Africa, establishing effective procedures for technology dissemination, monitoring of technology transfer agreements and ensuring the delivery of these technologies throughout the entire crop value chain. This will require the establishment of novel partnerships, including linkages with the African private sector, non-governmental organizations and community-based associations.

The MOU being signed today between the USDA and AATF will give AATF the opportunity to access those technologies developed by USDA that can be turned into technological solutions to enhance the agricultural productivity of African smallholder farmers. It further confirms the US Government support to initiatives that improve food security and reduce poverty in Africa. AATF welcomes this support and calls on other technology owners to make available those technologies that will contribute to increasing agricultural productivity thus contributing to increasing food security and reducing poverty in Africa.

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