African nations should fund research in agriculture as part of efforts to achieve faster transformation.

Speaking at a discussion on agriculture in Kigali, on Tuesday, experts said research funding should not be expected from donors only but rather incorporated in the national budget.

"We have everything we need to transform African agriculture in terms of knowledge, and strategy but the biggest challenge is "do we have policies that allow us to transform our agriculture sector?’ Money is not the biggest challenge as many people may think, because if you have a billion dollars and your policies are wrong, that billion is like putting water in a basket,” explained Yemi Akimbamijo, the executive director of the forum for agricultural research in Africa (FARA).

He pointed out that sustainable financing for agricultural research and development was the missing link.

"The biggest challenge we are facing is that we hear about research when money comes from overseas, and when the funding stops, research also stops. We always think that research in Africa must be funded by westerners, which is not correct. We should change such a mind-set,” Akimbamijo said.

Abdenego Kiwia, the programme coordinator at the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), said financial institutions should embrace a new perception about agriculture and come up with products that help them easily access finance to ensure that outcomes from agricultural research are applied at a larger scale not from the plots only.

He said microfinance institutions as well as banks used to take smallholder farmers as risky people, so developing products that are attractive to farmers was not something financial institutions were interested in.

But, then, he added, if we want to achieve agricultural transformation, we need to shun such a mind-set and then seek ways to enable our farmers to apply what comes out of agricultural research by developing products that help them to easily access financial services.

Tony Nsanganira, the state minister for Agricultur,e said research and innovation need to be enhanced by farmers’ access through information so that they are aware of research findings to be able to implement them.

He noted that research and innovations are necessary for transformation of the agriculture sector but they are not enough since farmers need to get timely information about those innovations and research findings so that they can use them to improve on their practices.

Michael Ryan, the head of European Union Delegation to Rwanda, said the European Union (EU) was committed to help African countries to transform agriculture as a tool to achieve the continent’s food security.

He said, "We are also committed to invest Euros 9 billion in agriculture for nutrition security in Africa. We are committed to reduce malnutrition among 7 million children by 2025 in African countries.

"Over 20 per cent of EU budget goes to issues related to agriculture, including climate change, and we need to fund the agricultural value chain focusing on smallholder farmers. It is in this context that, in a few days to come, we will sign an agreement of Euros 200 million to support Rwanda in improving agriculture and nutrition.”

The forum opened on Monday with view to reflect on achievements and craft strategies with an aim to enhance the contribution of Agriculture Science, Technology and Innovation towards accelerating the continent’s socio-economic transformation.

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