Sustainable and inclusive agriculture-driven transformation for Africa requires a long-term view. That transformation must also recognise the critical role of research and development in building agribusinesses that provide employment, food security and drive African prosperity.
Agricultural value chains start well before the farm gate; they start at the research stage. Scientists make decisions that have critical bearings on what happens across the entire value chain. Whether it’s breeding for preferable traits in commodities like tomatoes so they don’t bruise on the way to market or maize varieties that can be harvested later in the season to avoid market gluts. Agricultural research scientists make many important upstream innovations that enable agri-preneurs to thrive and be profitable.
For sustainable and long-term transformation, Africa cannot afford to outsource its agricultural innovation needs. We need to ensure African agri-preneurs, especially the farmers, have access to appropriate innovation that helps them respond to Africa’s unique challenges, especially in the context of climate change. Africa’s research institutions such as the National Agricultural Research and Extension Services (NARES), and our universities’ research and development departments deserve enhanced investments.
A robust and resilient agricultural innovation ecosystem for Africa will need to be gender responsive: comprise of institutions and scientists whose research agendas respond to the needs and priorities of both men and women across the entire agricultural value chain. While women are recognised as critical players across agricultural value chains, their perspectives, especially in decision-making, remain woefully underrepresented. Today, only one in four agricultural scientists in Africa is a woman. Further up the ranks, women occupy only one in seven leadership positions in agricultural research.
Agricultural research
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Agricultural research processes also often fail to take account of the particular needs and priorities of women end-users. For example it is important that plant breeders also listen to, and prioritise qualities such as cooking time and intensity of labour needed to process new varieties. These decisions, often made in the sterility of a lab and with no women in the room, have tremendous implications, for example on the amount of time and labour women expend preparing food for their families.
African Women in Agricultural Research and Development (AWARD) is addressing the need for gender responsiveness in agricultural research and development by investing in Africa’s leading women scientists and the institutions where they work. Since 2008, AWARD’s 2-year career development fellowships have strengthened the scientific and leadership skills of top women agricultural scientists across sub-Saharan Africa while also connecting them to mentors and a Pan-African network of peers. A total of 465 women scientists from 16 countries (Kenya included) have benefited from an AWARD fellowship.
Research by AWARD fellows such as Mavis Owureku-Asare is transforming the agribusiness opportunity for tomato farmers in Ghana, the world’s second largest importer of tomato paste despite the fact that it produces 350,000 metric tons of tomatoes annually. The challenge: Ghanaian farmers lose up to 50 per cent of their produce due to a lack of processing facilities. Mavis is working with over 1,000 women smallholder farmers to adopt a dried tomato processing technology so that farmers don’t have to sell their produce during gluts.
Another AWARD fellow, Prof Mena Dos Anjos from Mozambique, is working with groups of women and youth farmers to improve productivity of indigenous chickens through adoption of a thermo-tolerant vaccine; an enormous breakthrough in chicken production as it remains stable in the African heat, helping farmers prevent massive losses when New Castle Disease strikes.
AWARD recognizes that Africa has to intensify its investments in a generation solution-driven science leaders like Mavis and Mena, who are committed and equipped to drive a research agenda that responds appropriately to Africa’s unique challenges. We convene a network of over 1000 of Africa’s leading agricultural scientists, mostly women who have benefited from an AWARD fellowship, working collaboratively to ensure that the best technologies are developed and adapted by farmers and other agribusiness entrepreneurs. AWARD’s scientists are also shaping the research agendas and processes in agricultural research institutions across the continent, ensuring that consideration for needs and priorities of both men and women means that the resulting research is relevant to agriculture in the African context.
Dr Wanjiru Kamau-Rutenberg is Director of African Women in Agricultural Research and Development (AWARD). AWARD is a career-development program that equips top women agricultural scientists across sub-Saharan Africa to accelerate agricultural gains.
