Dr Emmanuel Okogbenin is the Director, Program Development and Commercialization of the African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF), in this interview with JULIANA AGBO, he speaks on the need to embrace biotechnology and digital agriculture to boost food security and nutrition in Africa.
How does new emerging technologies have a place in efforts to ensure food security in Africa?
There are many new technologies driving revolution in agriculture and they are both conventional and non-conventional. Agriculture as you know is a science and that is why investment in science is helping to bring major changes to agricultural production, because of this, we must also approach it in a scientific way.
We as a continent are facing food and nutrition security challenges that agriculture could solve, while some technologies have been deployed, the emerging technologies especially in biotech have not received attention and this where AATF is putting a lot of emphasis, so quickly we brought in biotechnology tools that are helping to drive improvement in crops, we have used molecular markers in maize, we have also brought in the use of genetic engineering tools to develop a lot of transgenic crops including cowpea, we are working around nutrient and water use efficiency, we have done mechanisation, we are also trying to strengthen bio-economy by bringing in what we call bio-based products, we use some technologies to develop bio-based products, this basically looks for materials that may be considered as waste and turning them to more useful things such as biochar that can give farmers more money and also improve soils, this helps to improve the environment more like a green economy. Bio-economy is gradually increasing and we are looking for technologies to do that.
A lot of countries see genetically modified crops as aliens, what is AATF doing to ensure this is accepted in Africa
Like i said earlier, agriculture is science and modern agriculture is doing bioscience, so as we continue to apply science in addressing agricultural problems, we are likely to improve agriculture in a way that can help and address food and nutrition security, as technologies keep on emerging, we shall have the responsibilities to explain to people what they are and how they work and we generate a lot of evidence to this effect, we also generate data and prove cases around technology, often times, people talk but is not only on GM, this has generated a lot of issues because people don’t have the full concept, so we have been improving communication for people to have better understanding, there have been some good progress on the continent, then a lot of things are involved, we need to put up a regulatory system that will support those technologies and we need to explain why the basis behind the technologies and we also need to let them understand that conventional technologies that were used before are not sufficient, we need to look for new ways because we can’t continue to use the same thing and expect different result, so AATF is trying to strengthen relationship with partners, farmers and stakeholders in the value chain to let them understand how we are working to help improve their livelihood through the infusion of more technologies to the agricultural systems.
The focus is all about building resilience into food systems for Africa, we engage policy makers, and the press because they are critical in helping us to put messages around those technologies across the users and people who are interested in the development of the agricultural sector.
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Digital agriculture is what is helping a lot of countries in achieving food security, is AATF thinking in this line to help other African countries?
Yes, we have done a bit in strengthening digital agriculture, it is quite a big concept, it helps improves smart farming and helping people to efficiently deploy resources into agriculture, through advancement in digital tools, we have been able to bring on board digital solutions to address a lot of problems in the value chain, what we have done basically at AATF is that, we brought in mechanisation for farmers and we are helping to strengthen the private sector around mechanisation, now with farmers already organised into clusters, we make it possible for the private sector to offer mechanisation service to our farmers, now how do farmers get to order for mechanisation services, we have a tool called agri-drive app, through that app, farmers can apply for mechanisation services and then the providers will go to their field and do it, we have been able to facilitate digital tools in strengthening application for service provision around mechanisation, another notable area is we can use that same tool, the agri-drive app to get information of how you can get farm inputs such as seeds, fertilisers, and also know who are your buyers, you can monitor prices and know how much you want to sell your commodity.
Digital tools are growing and we have to do more, right now we have drones, we use them to monitor farmers’ field and through that, we see how farmers fields are different, from the photos we see, we can analyse, acquire data, know exactly where the challenges are on the field, and based on those challenges, we can also provide them very informative advise on how they can apply appropriate good agronomy practices that will help them to see good yield on their field, we basically help them to understand their farms, then guide them on how to manage their fields efficiently. Digital tools can help you to run your farms and reduce wastage in terms of resources, so AATF is revolving around the use of digital solutions to solve agricultural problems on the field.
We discovered that Nigeria is leading in the introduction of biotechnology in Africa, why is this so?
Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa, which means that, basically, the country is one among every six Africans, the food security issues will be a very pressing matter for Nigeria than any other country on the continent, you know poverty is still high and agriculture can serve as a spring board to develop the country economically, so is not just about addressing food and nutrition security issues, is about using agriculture to fast track economic development in the country, we have a lot of youths who are unemployed, we have to do a lot more by introducing technologies that can make youths to be highly interested in agriculture, we can’t call them to come to agriculture based on rudimentary tools that have not really helped us in recent time, agriculture has advanced and the youth wants to utilise the best technology, if we must get them interested in agriculture, then we must take that responsibility as a nation to do that and AATF is helping countries to acquire technology that can spur agricultural growth and development and biotech is key to that process, we are not saying biotech solves every problem but this in combination with conventional tools is very important. We should think in agriculture where, we don’t only feed ourselves but we export to make more money for the country, right now we spend so much money importing food, that can be spent to strengthen agriculture in the country, it is very important that Nigeria takes the leadership by taking on board very good technology including biotech because Nigeria is seen as the country in the continent based on the resources it possesses.