EALA Adopts Common Strategy for Food Security in East Africa
EALA in Session
The Third Meeting, Third Session of the Second East African Legislative Assembly sitting at the Chambers of the Parliament of Uganda in Kampala has adopted a common strategy for food security in the region. In a lively plenary session chaired by the Speaker of EALA, Hon. Abdirahin Haithar Abdi, Members adopted the Report on common strategy for food security in the EAC as presented by the Chair of the Committee on Agriculture, Tourism and Natural Resources, Hon. Dr. George Francis Nangale (Tanzania). Hon. Dr. Nangale had earlier informed the House that Article 49 of The Treaty for the Establishment of the East African Community (EAC) mandates the East African Legislative Assembly (EALA) to legislate for the EAC so as to ensure the full realisation of the Community’s objectives. In executing its functions, EALA works through standing Committees, one of which is the Committee on Agriculture, Tourism and Natural Resources.
Given the importance of food security in East Africa, especially in the light of climate change, the committee initiated, in early 2009, a process of evaluating the best way that the EAC can ensure food security for its entire population. The Committee recognised that the region as a whole had substantial unutilized potential for agriculture and that even the resources that are put into use are underutilised because of low productivity of labour, land and water. Hon. Dr. Nangale said despite the frequent pockets of food shortages and hunger in the EAC region and the below optimum production, the region on average produces adequate food for its population. Moreover, most of the food statistics used to assess food supply and adequacy underestimates the extent of supply because often they do not fully take into account food commodities/products from livestock, fisheries, other marine and aquatic products, horticultural produce, and forestry food products.
For this reason, the EALA Committee on Agriculture, Tourism and Natural Resources was of the opinion that the East Africa Common Market provides an excellent opportunity to “make food insecurity history” in the EAC region through a Common Strategy for Food Security, that encompasses increased productivity, better handling and processing, and marketing of food products across the region. This required a common regional strategy. Before adopting the report, Hon. Safina Tsungu Kwekwe (Kenya) urged Partner States not to focus only on investing heavily on highway infrastructures, but also on rural feeder roads that bear direct impact on the common man of East Africa. She also urged for scaling up technical assistance programmes to the farmers in the region.
Hon. Catherine Kimura (Kenya) urged the EAC Council of Ministers to give agriculture top priority in the integration process. Hon. Dr.Ghalib Bilal (Tanzania) called for diversification of staple foods among the people of East Africa. Hon. Dr. James Ndahiro (Rwanda) called for putting in place the necessary institutional framework to oversee the implementation of the Committee’s recommendations. Hon. Leonce Ndarubagiye (Burundi) said the essentials of agriculture i.e. land; labour, water, fertilizers, attitude and political will were all available within the region. Hon. Dan Ogalo (Uganda) said the question of food security was at the heart of EALA but expressed fears that not enough was being done to implement the part of the Treaty that touches on agriculture and food security. He pushed for the establishment of regional institutions to manage the affairs of the Community.
© 2010, Suleiman Mbatiah. All rights reserved. – Reproduction of Newstime Africa content on any other news medium without the prior consent or approval of the publishers is forbidden, and in direct contravention of International copyright laws. Violators will be pursued and prosecuted.
Samuel L. Bangura: 
Tarawali's: 
FREEDOM FOR MOROCCO: 
youins: 
Mo Sande: 
Want to flag (feel free to re-post) an opinion-editorial I co-wrote visiting the World Vegetable Center in Arusha, Tanzania with their director Abdou Tenkouano published today in the Kansas City Star. I am currently in Madagascar, traveling across Africa for the Worldwatch Insitute and blogging everyday on a site called “Nourishing the Planet” [http://blogs.worldwatch.org/nourishingtheplanet/]. I pasted the article below. All the best, Danielle Nierenberg (www.borderjumpers.org)
Cultivating food security in Africa
Kansas City Star
http://borderjumpers1.blogspot.com/2010/02/cultivating-food-security-in-africa.html
By Danielle Nierenberg and Abdou Tenkouano
As hunger and drought spread across Africa, a huge effort is underway to increase yields of staple crops, such as maize, wheat, cassava, and rice.
While these crops are important for food security, providing much-needed calories, they don’t provide much protein, vitamin A, thiamin, niacin, and other important vitamins and micronutrients—or taste. Yet, none of the staple crops would be palatable without vegetables.
Vegetables are less risk-prone to drought than staple crops that stay in the field for longer periods. Because vegetables typically have a shorter growing time, they can maximize scarce water supplies and soil nutrients better than crops such as maize, which need a lot of water and fertilizer.
Unfortunately, no country in Africa has a big focus on vegetable production. But that’s where AVRDC – The World Vegetable Center steps in. Since the 1990s, the Asian Vegetable Research and Development Center (based in Taiwan) has been working in Africa, with offices in Tanzania, Mali, Cameroon, and Madagascar, to breed cultivars that best suit farmers’ needs.
By listening to farmers and including them in breeding research, AVRDC – The World Vegetable Center is building a sustainable seed system in sub-Saharan Africa. The Center does this by breeding a variety of vegetables with different traits—including resistance to disease and longer shelf life—and by bringing the farmers to the Regional Center in Arusha and to other offices across Africa to find out what exactly those farmers need in the field and at market.
Babel Isack, a tomato farmer from Tanzania, is just one of many farmers who visits the Center, advising staff about which vegetable varieties would be best suited for his particular needs—including varieties that depend on fewer chemical sprays and have a longer shelf life.
The Center works with farmers to not only grow vegetables, but also to process and cook them. Often, vegetables are cooked for so long that they lose most of their nutrients. To solve that problem, Mel Oluoch, a Liaison Officer with the Center’s Vegetable Breeding and Seed System Program (vBSS), works with women to improve the nutritional value of cooked foods by helping them develop shorter cooking times.
“Eating is believing,” says Oluoch, who adds that when people find out how much better the food tastes—and how much less fuel and time it takes to cook—they don’t need much convincing about the alternative methods.
Oluoch also trains both urban and rural farmers on seed production. “The sustainability of seed,” says Oluoch, “is not yet there in Africa.” In other words, farmers don’t have access to a reliable source of seed for indigenous vegetables, such as amaranth, spider plant, cowpea, okra, moringa, and other crops.
Although many of these vegetables are typically thought of as weeds, not food, they are a vital source of nutrients for millions of people and can help alleviate hunger. Despite their value, these “weeds” are typically neglected on the international agricultural research agenda. As food prices continue to rise in Africa—in some countries food is 50-80 percent higher than in 2007—indigenous vegetables are becoming an integral part of home gardens.
The hardiness and drought-tolerance of traditional vegetables become increasingly important as climate change becomes more evident.
Many indigenous vegetables use less water than hybrid varieties and some are resistant to pests and disease, advantages that will command greater attention from farmers and policymakers, and make the work of AVRDC – The World Vegetable Center more urgent and necessary than ever before.
Abdou Tenkouano is director of the Regional Center for Africa of AVRDC – The World Vegetable Center in Arusha, Tanzania. Danielle Nierenberg is a senior researcher at the Worldwatch Institute blogging daily from Africa at http://blogs.worldwatch.org/nourishingtheplanet/