…. calls for increased budgeting

By Jimoh Babatunde

The Director-General, International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), Mr Nteranya Sanginga, has said that it is wrong for African leaders to expect outsiders to develop the agricultural sector of the economy as he ascribed leadership as the bane of the sector.

Speaking with selected journalists in Ibadan as part of activities to celebrate the end of his 11-year tenure as the head of the institute, Sanginga said African leaders should not rely on foreign agencies to fund agriculture research in the continent.

“Sometimes you find heads of state who claim that agriculture is a priority but when you look into the budget for agriculture, it is almost nothing. In Nigeria here, it is barely two per cent, so how can you say it is a priority?”

While calling for increased budgeting for the needed change, he decried the politicization of decisions that affect the sector.

“Leadership is the major problem. When I became DG in 2011, I was lucky to have my friend Akinwumi Adesina as the minister of agriculture for 5 years, he changed the face of agriculture and when he was replaced, his successor somersaulted all his policies and all that he did between 2011 and 2015 went down the drain. So, yes, the major constraint to agricultural transformation is leadership.”

Sanginga expressed hope for the continent stating that African leaders were beginning to understand the importance of agriculture.

He said for Africa to continue to feed itself and the rest of the world, it must move away from exporting raw agricultural produce to value addition.

He also advised African leaders to start engaging secondary school students actively in agriculture and not wait till they get to tertiary institutions.

“Start instilling in their minds that agriculture is business, not punishment,” he said.

“From my interaction with young people, I know they usually associate agriculture with pain, poverty and punishment. What they seem to be missing is the fact that agriculture presents a variety of life-changing opportunities such as value addition, marketing, ICT and logistics, for those who can harness them well.”

The DG said he created programmes to employ youths under the youth agripreneurs programme initiated in 2012.

“IITA has created jobs for thousands of youths by making agriculture and agribusiness appealing to young people in many African countries.

“A programme that has now evolved into a movement across the continent and has since been integrated into the Business Incubation Platform (BIP), the technology delivery arm of IITA.

“The IITA Youth Agripreneurs programme focuses on mentoring and building the capacity of young people, especially youths in science, entrepreneurship and agriculture/agribusiness in Africa.

“We started during my tenure, the Business Incubation Platform, which oversees IITA’s science and technologies in breeding and variety screening, genetics, cultivation techniques, plant health, disease control and biopesticide development, growth stimulation and vegetative and generative multiplication delivery to end-users acro Africa.

“IITA-BIP serves as a model to stimulate product development and to provide opportunities for market expansion on the continent.”

Sanginga, whose tenure ends by January 2023, said when he assumed office in 2011, he met a weak and minimally productive IITA.
“When I became the 7th DG of IITA and started work on November 1, 2011, I used the People Strategy to inform the Business Strategy as the best approach to lead and develop the organisation. Both strategies had worked together to enable the organisation to deliver on its mission and mandate of transforming the agricultural agenda in Africa.”

He said that the people-oriented leadership style employed became a game changer that helped to reposition the institute.

“My leadership tenure has strategically positioned the institute to contribute to achieving 150 million fewer hungry people.

“One hundred million fewer poor people, improving food and nutrition security, as well as improving natural resources and ecosystem services as part of the CGIAR Strategy 2016-2030.”

The Congolese said, “As the first African DG of IITA, I brought to the fore the energy and the vibrancy of a true son of Africa, encouraging developments which are linked to the big African organisations – the African Development Bank, the African Union, FARA, and others, while at the same time maintaining IITA’s brand as a premier, world-quality research institute working in Africa.”

He said that having identified the impact gap from the institute’s research, a lot of projects were instituted across various states in Nigeria and African countries.

According to him, some of the projects and programmes included the seed sector, especially for vegetatively propagated crops-immensely important for food security in Africa.

“The Seed Tracker is an ICT tool that digitally links seed value chain actors, tracks seed production, and organises information.

“Other achievements were: Radio IITA was launched in August 2019 to promote farmer awareness and literacy about improved agricultural technologies, agribusiness, health, nutrition, and gender.

“Since its inception, also in 2019, the Start Them Early Programme was officially launched to change primary and secondary school students’ negative views on agriculture, among others,” the director-general said.

He said that his future endeavours will include championing the partnership formed between the Nigeria and Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) tagged: “Nigeria-DRC Business Forum” to promote agricultural growth and expansion in Africa.
He disclosed that he will act as the president and Governor of Kaduna state, Nasir el-Rufai will be the interim vice-president while Ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo will be the patron of the forum.