Gates Foundation donates $56m towards Africa farming

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has given the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) 56 million U.S. dollars to help more smallholder farmers in sub- Saharan Africa boost productivity and address poverty and hunger.AGRA said on Thursday the funding given under its Program for Africa’s Seed Systems (PASS) will help millions of poor, smallholder farmers and their families to directly benefit from access to improved seed through higher yields and incomes. PASS Program Director Joe DeVries said African farmers have largely not benefited from improved seeds due to a lack of localized crop breeding and efficient, dependable seed delivery system. “And so crop yields in most of Africa have remained one-third of those produced by farmers in other developing regions of the worlds. Good seed is not just the driving force behind good harvests and eliminating poverty and hunger, it’s the foundation for rapid economic growth,” DeVries said in a statement received in Nairobi on Thursday. Analysts say African agriculture is in crisis as the continent’s farmland is losing its fertility at an alarming rate. Sub-Saharan Africa is producing enough food to feed its people, and the population is increasing while food production has stagnated or declined.DeVries said the latest funding is one of seven grants Gates announced on Thursday in Rome at the Thirty-fifth Session of the Governing Council of the International Fund for Agricultural Development. “This announcement, nearly 200 million dollars in grants, brings the foundation’s total commitment to agriculture to more than 2 billion dollars since the program began in 2006,” he said. The program’s aim is to achieve yearly production of 200,000 metric tons of improved seed for food crops such as maize, cassava, and legumes to support 10 million smallholder farmers. The program will continue to support the education of local crop scientists ensuring that every major crop in 13 countries has at least one fully-qualified crop breeder. AGRA’s PASS which began five years ago to produce disease resistant and higher yielding seeds for important food crops available, has already achieved significant success with the majority of farmers who accessed the new seed reporting dramatic increases in their harvests. The statement said PASS will add 40 new private, independent seed companies to the 60 already established under the first phase of the program by 2017. PASS will also fund the training of an additional 5,000 agro- dealers to set up individually-owned and operated seed and fertilizer shops in remote areas. These efforts will build structures to get improved seed in the hands of smallholder farmers to increase production and decrease dependence on aid. The program seeks to achieve gender balance, with a goal of targeting 40 percent of women students in its fellowship programs. To-date it has increased the female ratio from 10 to 30 percent.