African Farmers' Committee Meeting Cotnou, Benin, 21-24 March 2007 |
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Programmes: - 21-22 March: - 23 March: DCC Meeting - 24 March: Field visit |
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Brief Summary of the Meeting :
More than 35 farmer leaders from 22 African countries met in Cotonou, Benin for the 15th session of the IFAP African committee. The meeting was opened by the Minister for Agriculture Benin, on behalf of the President of the republic. The Minister challenged leaders to propose actions that need to be taken to improve the situation of the African Agriculture and confirmed his government‘s commitment to support farmers and the agricultural sector. IFAP President, Jack Wilkinson, in reference to the World Bank Report 2008 informed the delegates that there was a renewed effort to focus on Agriculture after decades of neglect. He said development partners and governments have recognised that agricultural development contributes to significant poverty reduction. This means farmers have to keep up the pressure to have more support towards Agriculture.
Jack Bonou the Chair of the African Committee in his welcome speech said it is important for different producers to come together to defend their place in the agricultural sector. He said African farmers particularly the small farmers face threat of marginalisation with the on-going “Economic Partnership Agreements” (EPA’s) and the concentration at agri-food chain.
Delegates discussed the major challenges of the sector in the African continent which include: Environment and natural resources, the challenge of achieving the Millenium Development Goals, Strengthening the place of the farmer in the food chain and the Involvement of farmers in the EPA’s Negotiations.
On the situation of the Sector in Africa, there are challenges related to production, productive resources, physical infrastructure, enabling Environment, conflict and disease. To overcome these constraints there is need for good governance, Sustained funding for agricultural research and extension, soil and water conservation, replication of proven commodity-specific breeding and processing successes, Marketing and information systems, vertical supply chains, Regional cooperation in trade and agricultural technology among others. The delegates met the challenge and were able to come up with recommendations on all the items on the agenda towards actions for themselves, the national governments, IFAP Secretariat and development partners. As most of the delegates pointed out, this was a milestone meeting and progress will be benchmarked upon these recommendations.