The African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF), has introduce KIKAO, an interactive agricultural talk show that identify, analysis, and proffer practical solutions to the mirage of crisis militating against agricultural development in the continent.
The Executive Director, AATF, Dr Canisius Kanangire, during the show rallied experts to discuss how the African continent can advance its agriculture from the largely practiced subsistence farming to commercial farming.
Kanangire pointed out that there is an age long belief that agriculture is the hub through which sub-Saharan Africa development will evolve while raising concern that the present form of agriculture in the continent might not be able to simulate such development.
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“But the transition from traditional rural societies towards more diversified urban centred societies with high productivity is a complex process that depends on the country’s resource in domains, institutions and other factors on Kikao this week, we will examine the central role of agricultural transformation in development”, he said.
The President of All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN), Arch. Kabir Ibrahim, featured on KIKAO noted that the use of hoes and cutlasses for farming can’t take Africa anywhere, calling on the farmers and other stakeholders in the continent to change practice.
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“We need to do mechanization, we need to deploy technology. We need to have an educated mass that produces for people and we need to add value, we need to process, we need to sell what we produce after value addition, if we sell anything in its primary form, we get nothing”, Ibrahim said
Another guest on KIKAO, Dr Boddupalli Maruthi, the Director of CIMMTY Global Maize Project, noted that more than 400 million people in Africa are still living with less than $1.25 per day, adding that the continent needs a much stronger political will and commitment to promote, to support and to invest in partnerships with both public and private sector institutions.
