The summary of all the parallel sessions, chaired by Dr Akin Adesina, Vice President of Policy and Partnerships of AGRA, were presented at one of the final sessions at the African Green Revolution Forum on 4 September.
Several action points came up for discussions, capacity building dominating in all the discussions, but a few of those action points on what must be done shall be enumerated below.
On Agricultural growth corridors Africa must among others, create clear agricultural growth investment blueprints with bankable projects and highlighting specific clusters, develop catalytic financing, solidify and deepen political support for corridors and reduce risks and transaction costs within corridors and extend corridors into cross boarder country investors.
Speakers and participants at the Empowering Women for the Green Revolution agreed that more focus must be put on conservation agriculture which delivers higher yields for labours, capacity building of women and to have a determined focus on changing cultural role models.
The parallel session on developing markets for the smallholder farmer considered three priority areas; Staples and oil crops, High value cash crops, commodity exchange and recommended an enabling environment, capacity building, storage facilities and services.
On creating a favourable environment for farmers to improved seed in Africa, speakers and participants called for the seed sector through partnerships between the public and private sectors to build capacity and harmonize seed regulations and policies.
Speakers and participants at the increasing access to finance session also called among others, de-risking the financial value chains, scaling up crop insurance products to farmers and building capacity and to roll out the Impact Investing Fund for African Agriculture, to scale up innovative financing initiatives for sharing risks with banks to the continental level.
Parliamentary representatives also had their role to play. Their call for action read; “The role of agricultural parliamentary committees is critical for the success of the green revolution in Africa. Parliaments can help in terms of their making laws, regulations and budgetary support for efforts to scale up green revolution efforts”.
In the end, it was agreed that a lot has been done but more needs to be done by AGRA in making sure these action items and more can be achieved.
