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The state minister for animal industry, Bright Rwamirama, has appealed to researchers in universities and other institutions in Africa to focus on research initiatives that will increase food production to eliminate hunger on the African continent.

He said researchers from universities and other agricultural-based institutions and organizations should concentrate their brains on developing tangible solutions for the challenges facing smallholder farmers at a farm level.

According to the minister, farmers are facing a lot of challenges including changing weather patterns that affect farm yields, but most of the research projects do not offer immediate solutions.

For a change, he said, research projects should be able to lead to better farm yields by moving from production to productivity.

Minister Rwamirama said farmers are facing a lot of challenges including changing weather patterns that affect farm yields, but most of the research projects do not offer immediate solutions. (All Photos by Eddie Ssejjoba)

“We must do things differently; our focus should move from production to productivity and the Government is willing to support initiatives that can lead to an increase in production and eliminate hunger in our communities,” the minister said.

He was Friday, March 15 addressing researchers from universities and other agriculture-based organizations in Africa, at the launch of the Regional Multi-Actor Research Network (RMRNs) in agroecology project at Fairway Hotel in Kampala.

The project, supported by the European Union, targets achieving sustainable farming that works with nature (agroecology) and aims at contributing to the green transition efforts in Sub-Saharan Africa and increasing science technology, and innovation capacities of RMRN in agroecology.

The minister commended the two organizations, the Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture (RUFORUM) and the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA) that jointly brought the researchers together.

“Universities have the greatest concentration of brains to develop tangible solutions. We cannot afford to be stuck in the past when the population was still small. We need to apply science to boost production,” the minister said and called for precision agriculture, which he said aligns the nutrient requirements for the different crops.

He commended the two organizations, the Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture (RUFORUM) and the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA) that jointly brought the researchers together.

The minister said continued soil and environmental degradation, loss of forest cover, and wetlands were impacting negatively on all sectors including agriculture.

“We therefore need to adopt an all-inclusive approach, to identify pathways and initiatives to address these challenges that will move us closer to meeting the Sustainable Development Goals targets,” he explained.

Dr. Patience Rwamigisa, the assistant commissioner in charge of agricultural extension said researchers needed to promote technologies that can reach the farmers.

“The research agenda must conform to the contemporary development and challenges facing the smallholder farmers. Without addressing problems of farmers, we shall not realize the transformation that is needed,” he said at the opening of the workshop.

He regretted that most of the research initiatives in Uganda and Africa, in general, were largely funded from external sources, whose agenda may not necessarily meet the needs of the smallholder farmers.

He urged the research institutions to design research agendas that can address the real needs of the farmers.

Dr. Aggrey Agumya, the executive director FARA remarks.

With emerging climate change, farmers need to adapt and become resilient to changing climate, and for them to do that they need knowledge, information, and new technologies.

Even the technologies that are supposed to address the real needs of the farmers are not reaching them, he explained because of a dysfunctional agricultural extension system that cuts across the continent.

He said this was not a problem in Uganda alone, but found almost everywhere in Africa, and without a functional agricultural extension system, it is difficult to realize good results because it is a tool for social-economic transformation that we need at a farm level.

“Universities and research institutions must coordinate with the ministry of agriculture and farm organizations to ensure that the technologies are able to move from sources of generation to sources of utilization, to ensure that skills are flowing from research to
extension farmers and other actors.”

Elizabeth Nsimadala, the president East Africa Farmers' Federation remarks.

Elizabeth Nsimadala, the president of the Eastern Africa Farmers Federation, said the project was timely because farmers were grappling with the impact of climate change and were facing the wrath of climate change in extremes. 

She appealed to the project to involve the farmers’ voices who are supposed to implement all the innovations and research findings.

The function was attended by Prof. Patrick Okori, the executive director of RUFORUM, Dr. Aggrey Agumya, the executive director of FARA, and Patrick Okori, the executive secretary of Ruforum, among other researchers.