Dec 28, 2015 | News

Pan African farmers call for enhanced agriculture

By Judith Akolo

The Pan African Farmers Organisation (PAFO) is calling on African Heads of State and Governments to renew their commitment towards enhancing agriculture in Africa.

Speaking at the 10th CAADP Partnership Platform in Durban, South Africa, PAFO CEO Stephen Muchiri urged the African presidents to show leadership and initiate an inclusive process that will ensure that growth in agriculture realises food security on the continent.

Muchiri said 2014 as the year of Agriculture and Food Security should help reduce global poverty as envisaged in the Millennium Summit of September 2000.

“The allocation of at least 10% of the national budgets to agriculture passed in the Summit of the African Union in Maputo, of July 2003 ought to be realised now for us to deal effectively with the debasing hunger and malnutrition in Africa,” said Muchiri.

He added  “we are aware that more than half of the continent has signed CAADP compacts, held business meetings and even developed investment plans, we must move to deal with the challenges of funding to agriculture.”

He called for clear balance between subsidy and business, politics and policies and the inherent institutional arrangements that tend to derail the move towards achieving positive impacts on the socio-economic situation of the African farmers.

He expressed support for the Nepad Planning and Coordination Agency (NPCA) formulation of a result based framework that will guide implementation for the next 10 years towards 2024. “As such we call on all stakeholders and development partners to align their interventions and contributions to this framework,” said Muchiri.

The CEO of PAFO said farmers in Africa believe that a transformed African agriculture will result into transformed producers who are the farmers. He noted that a transformed agriculture which focuses on wealth generation and self-sustainability will in the long run help do away with the dependency syndrome.

He called for the development of home-grown solutions by developing policies, programs and instruments to support the farming community as it faces the reality of climate change.