Africa Lead II—the Feed the Future: Building Capacity for African Agricultural Transformation Program—aims to support and advance agricultural transformation in Africa as proposed by the African Union Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program. It will also contribute to the Feed the Future goals of reduced hunger and poverty by building the capacity of Champions—defined as men and women leaders in agriculture—to develop, lead, and manage the policies, structures and processes needed for the transformation process.
This report covers the program’s major accomplishments and outputs from October -December 2016, which is Quarter 1 of the Africa Lead’s fourth year of implementation. It highlights the support, facilitation, and training that Africa Lead provides partners to improve institutional capacity and broader systems, and institutional architecture to manage agricultural transformation as well to promote the effective, inclusive participation of non-state actors in policy processes.
Africa Lead — Feed the Future’s Building Capacity for African Agricultural Transformation Program — supports the advancement of agricultural transformation in Africa as proposed by the African Union Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program (CAADP). Africa Lead also contributes to the Feed the Future goals of reduced hunger and poverty by building the capacity of Champions — i.e., men and women leaders in agriculture — and the institutions in which they operate to develop, lead, and manage the policies, structures, and processes needed for transformation.
Africa Lead II is a program dedicated to supporting and advancing agricultural transformation in Africa as proposed by the African Union Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program. It will also contribute to the Feed the Future goals of reduced hunger and poverty by building the capacity of Champions—defined as men and women leaders in agriculture—to develop, lead, and manage the policies, structures and processes needed for the transformation process.
Africa Lead—Feed the Future’s Building Capacity for African Agricultural Transformation Program—supports the advancement of agricultural transformation in Africa as proposed by the African Union Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program (CAADP). Simultaneously, Africa Lead contributes to the Feed the Future goals of reduced hunger and poverty by building the capacity of Champions—defined as men and women leaders in agriculture—and the institutions in which they operate to develop, lead, and manage the policies, structures and processes needed for the transformation process.
Africa Lead II is a program dedicated to supporting and advancing agricultural transformation in Africa as proposed by the African Union Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program. Simultaneously, it contributes to USAID’s Feed the Future goals of reduced hunger and poverty by building the capacity of Champions—defined as men and women leaders in agriculture—to develop, lead, and manage the policies, structures, and processes needed for the transformation process.
Researchers at the University of Queensland have worked on research projects in the PNG Highlands since 2005. These projects were, and are, applied research to manage soil fertility in sweetpotato-based cropping systems in the Highlands. They were funded by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research. Our key collaborator was PNG’s National Agricultural Research Institute. Although the projects were in the field of Soil Science, specifically soil fertility management, our approach has always been multidisciplinary.
The Water Resources Department, Government of Maharashtra, responsible for building infrastructure and delivering water to farmers and other users, has so far created irrigation potential of about 5.3. million hectares and the current utilization is about 76%. About 5000 Water User Associations (WUAs) have been established to manage the water supply within their designated areas. However, the water use efficiency and productivity is adversely impacting the overall water security of the state.
In order to bring about sustainable transformation and business orientation into the Indian Agriculture sector, there have been schematic interventions to promote unique forms of social capital for farmers, called Farmer Producer organizations (FPOs). Many stakeholders, particularly NGOs, are involved in promoting and handholding these FPOs in a target-driven mode by promoting a large number of such institutions across the country.
India is witnessing dwindling gains from agriculture for the smallholder farmers because of high cost of inputs, changing climate impacting production, fluctuating market prices of outputs, and weak delivery of services at the last mile. The value share of farmers in the commodity supply chain needs to be increased to ensure that farming remains a remunerative livelihood option. There has to be a wider acceptance of the fact that the country needs partnerships among multiple players with complementary knowledge and expertise for its agricultural development.