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By Annonciata Byukusenge
Biotechnology presents an opportunity to transform Africa’s agriculture and food systems.
African governments have been urged to prioritise investment in biotechnology research and development to address pressing challenges in the sector, including climate change, pests and diseases, and declining soil fertility. The call was made to African ministers from six countries, including Rwanda, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia and Eswatini during a ministerial roundtable dialogue held on the sidelines of the African Food Systems in Kigali, Rwanda, on 4 September 2024.
There is a need to harmonize policies and guidelines across the continent to strengthen regional cooperation in biotechnology research, development, and trade. A call was made to harmonize policy framework to ease research by facilitating data transportability and expedite transparent decision making in biotech regulatory processes.
These calls to action emerged from a three-day convening of African researchers in Kigali, Rwanda, from 28-30 August, where they deliberated on the state of agricultural biotechnology research in Africa. The researchers explored challenges and made recommendations for improvement.
The researchers noted that Africa’s agriculture has the least integration of biotech applications due to inadequate investment in research, development, and commercialisation of biotech products.
His Excellency Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, former President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, and AATF Africa Ambassador for Agricultural Technologies advised that African governments have strong regulatory and research capacity fit for international standards and there is no reason to doubt the outputs of their work.
“African has world class scientists and robust regulatory systems for biotechnology research and development, we therefore need to trust them that what they are doing is for the good of their countries and the African continent”, he said.
His Excellency Dr. Jonathan believes that technology is an important factor in agriculture production to meet the growing food requirements of the continent and reduce the food importation bill which currently stands at USD70 billion. “Technology will further help in addressing the impacts of pests and diseases which are on the rise due to climate change and address nutrition needs of the continent” he added.
According to Hon. Dr. Ildephonse Musafiri, Minister for Agriculture and Animal Resources, Rwanda, the integration of technology into agriculture to modernise farming in Africa is crucial to the desired transformative change needed to improve agri-food systems. This element, according to him, should be the cornerstone of Africa’s strategy to tackle the menace of hunger and malnutrition.
In his remarks, Dr Canisius Kanangire, Executive Director of AATF, noted that Africa’s agriculture requires investment in agricultural technologies from the national budgets.
“There is a need to increase funding for research and innovation through direct funding from national budgets on which private financing can leverage for greater and scalable impacts and research sovereignty,” said Dr. Kanangire.
He challenged the Ministers to prioritise biotechnology capacity strengthening to train more local experts and provide incentives to undertake biotechnology entrepreneurship.
“Local experts will prioritise biotechnology solutions for local problems,” he quipped, adding that local investment to fund the establishment of state-of-the-art infrastructure for research in biotech and other advances in science, technology and innovation (STI) will help reduce over-dependence on international expertise and enhance the bargaining power on intellectual property right.
Experts agree that Africa’s capacity to harness modern innovations is limited by a shortage of skilled personnel, inadequate infrastructure, and insufficient financial resources, all combining to prevent the continent from fully realising the benefits of STI.
In conclusion, the ministerial roundtable dialogue emphasised the need for regulatory oversight to build trust by establishing strong frameworks that ensure the safe and responsible use of GMOs, as well as fostering trust in institutions responsible for regulating biotechnologies
