Early in May, 2011, I participated in the second of a series of workshops organized in Washington D.C by the National Academies titled “A Sustainability Challenge: Food Security for All” (http://sites.nationalacademies.org/PGA/sustainability/foodsecurity/PGA) . I received a copy of a publication by the National Research Council titled “Emerging Technologies to Benefit Farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia” (http://www.nap.edu) . This publication is the result of a study undertaken by a committee composed of eleven top scientists from some of the best institutions in the United States. The study was funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The Foundation is conscious of the fact that to meet the food needs of the more than 9 billion people by 2050 would require the use of innovations from physics, chemistry, electrical engineering, materials science, remote sensing and computer science. Africa and South Asia still contain the largest number of people that are food insecure. In the case of Africa where the absolute number and percentage of the hungry and malnourished people is still rising, finding the means to feed the more than two billion people projected for 2050 would be a major challenge.
The Committee organized by the National Research Council was tasked with identifying “emerging” technologies. They looked at two types of innovations: 1. applications that currently exist but have not been widely used or adapted in the two regions; 2. innovations in the conceptual or developmental stages that hold promise for improving agriculture. In my view, the committee did an excellent job. For me, as an African, the questions are “How can Africa take advantage of the relevant issues raised by this study?” “Is Africa going to depend on the scientists from the USA and Europe to undertake these innovations?”
My friends and colleagues who teach in the faculties of agriculture in many African countries tell me that the greatest problem they face is attracting qualified students in the pure sciences to study agriculture. Students who populate the faculties of agriculture are usually those who were denied entry into medicine, pure sciences or pharmacy. The situation becomes worse at the post-graduate level. In the 1970s and the early 1980s, students who obtained (the British System’s) “first class” degree or “second class-upper division” degree were prized candidates for post-graduate studies. Today, the laboratories are closed and there is no exciting research going on in our national institutions. Most students who complete their first degree in agriculture and perform well are more likely to immediately find employment in the banking industry. Agriculture, which means “subsistence farming” in Africa is left for the mediocre students. So, who are these African physicists, chemists, electrical engineers and computer scientists that will create the innovations needed to transform Africa’s agriculture?.
The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) (http://www.agra-alliance.org) with seed money from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation is looking at the first type of innovations listed above. AGRA identified lack of trained manpower as a main reason why such innovations have not been adapted for wider use in Africa. They are taking steps to provide education and training to the plant breeders and soil scientists needed to promote their activities.
But it seems to me that the kind of chemists and engineers needed for the future innovations will not be sourced from the current crop of field workers. Forty years ago, there were no universities in many African countries. That is no longer the situation today. There are still many good scientists in Africa’s universities who wake up each day and ask themselves “what am I going to do with myself today?’ They are asking because they have laboratories that have no chemicals, no equipment (even rudimentary ones!) and in most cases, no regular source of power. I know about these scientists because in my years as the Director of the United Nations University Institute for Natural Resources in Africa (UNU-INRA) I interacted with many of these scientists. They were encouraged to apply and become members of the Institute’s College of Research Associates (CRA). Those scientists that were selected produced brilliant proposals dealing with ways to manage and add value to Africa’s natural resources. It was fascinating to know how much research output resulted from the very limited support that UNU-INRA could provide. Better still, these scientists were once again able to attract bright young students to work and become “good disciples”. These are the people upon which the future of Africa depends.
Every national university with an agricultural faculty has one or more of these talented scientists. I argue that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation should evolve an exclusive program aimed at discovering and supporting these talented scientists. This should only be a first step in the process of revamping agricultural education, research and information dissemination in Africa’s universities along the lines of the Land Grant System in the US.
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