Interview: China-Africa agricultural collaboration boosts livelihoods transformation

NAIROBI, Aug. 14 (Xinhua) -- The next phase of Africa's socioeconomic transformation will benefit from better collaboration between the continent, China and other international partners in agricultural modernization, tackling hunger, malnutrition and rural poverty, scientists have said.

Bram Govaerts, director-general of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), said that by forging a partnership with China and CIMMYT in research, technology, innovations and training, African countries can get help in their transition from subsistence to resilient and high-yielding farming systems.

"I really think that China-Africa-CIMMYT collaboration for research and to improve food security in Africa has huge potential, but we have not fully explored it," Govaerts said in an interview in Nairobi, the Kenyan capital, on the sidelines of a science forum.

The Africa-China-CIMMYT Science Forum, which was convened by CIMMYT and the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS), gathered more than 100 policymakers and researchers from China, and Africa, including CIMMYT scientists.

The Aug. 13-16 forum will forge a new beginning in China-Africa agricultural collaboration through joint action of CIMMYT to achieve shared aspirations, including combatting hunger and spurring rural development, Govaerts said.

According to Govaerts, CIMMYT's scientific and technological edge has revitalized farming systems in Africa, generating new drought-tolerant maize varieties covering 7.7 million hectares and benefiting over 40 million people.

He said that over four decades of collaboration between CIMMYT and China has led to the development and release of improved maize and wheat varieties suited for China's climate and soils, and generated new agricultural practices to reduce the use of fertilizers and water while improving soil health.

Govaerts observed that African farmers are grappling with low fertilizer use, and degraded soils, and knowledge generated from the partnership between China and CIMMYT could hasten agricultural modernization in the continent.

"Some of the mechanization that has been done to revolutionize the smallholder farmer in China may... also be used in Africa," he said.

Govaerts suggested that the next frontier of China-Africa-CIMMYT agricultural collaboration should focus on boosting production, nutrition security, climate action and crop diversification.

Prasanna Boddupalli, director of CIMMYT's Global Maize Program, said that by leveraging technologies, innovations, training and best practices from China, African countries, together with CIMMYT, will overcome hunger crises fueled by climatic stresses, ecological degradation, pests, diseases and distorted value chains.

He suggested that the scientific knowledge and eco-friendly solutions being developed by Chinese institutions should be harnessed to enhance the resilience of African smallholder farmers.

Boddupalli saw major opportunities in agricultural research and development cooperation between China and Africa that could help turn the continent into a breadbasket.

"China has tremendous capacity to do upstream work on genomics, on modern aspects of crop improvement. Through partnership with African institutions and CIMMYT, that is an important and critical gap we need to fill," he said.

Boddupalli called for China-Africa-CIMMYT collaborative research to develop high-performing maize, and wheat varieties alongside dryland crops like millet, sorghum, cowpea, pigeon pea, and bail out smallholder farmers reeling from food insecurity.

"We really need to unleash the potential of this partnership for the benefit of millions of poor people here in the African continent," Boddupalli said. "I think over the next few decades, you will see a lot of collaborative research work happening between Africa, China and CIMMYT, a lot of capacity-building of young researchers happening from Africa, going to Chinese institutions and getting trained in modern areas of agricultural research and development."