Oral Session

A06 International Agronomy

This session will be a follow up to the sysmposium session (by the same name). The African Green Revolution, called for by Kofi Annan in 2004 has made significant progress in its 5 years, led by an informal community of institutions from African governments, donor agencies, private sector, academia and the NGO community, that have met yearly. The priority areas are clear: smallholder farmers will triple staple crop yields by 2020, with widespread use of high yielding cultivars, appropriate fertilizers, extension services, access to credit and linkages to the value chain. One country, Malawi has double its maize yields in the last 4 years; maize yields in the Millennium Villages located in 14 agroecological zones that are hunger hotspot in 10 African countries have tripled while malaria has decreased drastically, all children are in primary school and they receive a nutritious lunch. AGRA is leading a group of institutions to provide credit guarantees to those who provide agricultural credit to smallholder farmers, and has made large investment in seeds and soil health, including the straightening of 3 African universities as centers of excellence in plant breeding and soil science. Mali, Nigeria and other countries are scaling up. A multidonor fund for smallholders farmers is being up to provide counterpart funding to national governments. Key agronomic issues are to go beyond nitrogen and phosphorus fertilization, small scale water management and financing nitrogen fixing organic inputs.