Minister Tumwebaze chairs AU meeting on agriculture
Tumwebaze took to X, formerly Twitter, and said the meeting was in preparation for the extraordinary AU Heads of State and Government summit that will take place in Kampala in January 2025.
Agriculture minister Frank Tumwebaze chairing a meeting which was held on Friday (October 25) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. (Courtesy photo)
NewVision Reporter
@NewVision
Agriculture minister Frank Tumwebaze has chaired a meeting of African Union’s (AU) specialised technical committee on agriculture, rural development, water and environment.
The meeting was held on Friday (October 25) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Tumwebaze took to X, formerly Twitter, and said the meeting was in preparation for the extraordinary AU Heads of State and Government summit that will take place in Kampala in January 2025.
“While substantial progress has been made by many AU states in developing resilient agri-food systems, 200 million Africans remain food insecure,” he said.
He noted that food and feed production too, must balance well with environmental security.
“It’s these issues and more that we are interrogating,” the minister stated.
Next year’s summit in Kampala is expected to adopt a strategy and action plan for the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) post-Malabo Declaration.
“A 10-year Kampala Declaration on Agriculture will be adopted as the continent’s agricultural policy blueprint and will succeed the post-Malabo CAADP declaration,” Tumwebaze said.
The draft 10-year CAADP strategy and action plan (2026-2035) was presented to the committee and will subsequently be tabled before the AU policy organs for adoption at the Kampala summit in January.
Godfrey Bahigwa, the AU Commission’s director of agriculture and rural development was quoted in September 2024 as saying that the Kampala declaration will address pressing issues such as technological advancements and the challenges posed by climate change.
Climate change is the long-term shift in the Earth’s average temperatures and weather conditions.
These changes occur naturally over time, but most scientists think that human behaviour is increasing the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, which is causing more rapid changes to the climate, according to the BBC.
It reports that over the last decade, the world was on average around 1.2C warmer than during the late 19th Century.