AKINWUMI A ADESINA Vice-president, policy and partnerships, Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA)
Though AGRA says it is supporting small farmers, Annan held a separate meeting with private players, including the International SeedFederation and the International Fertilizer Association , and not with civil society groups

Green revolution in Africa: The green revolution in Africa will be very different from the green revolution in Asia. In Asia it was largely rice and wheat, but Africa has diverse agro ecology and a larger variety of crops like yam, cassava, sweet potato. In Africa, we realize the crops are bulky; they need to be processed and value added to reduce the cost of transportation. That too will be a part of the African green revolution.

Crop variety: New varieties are being developed all over the continent, especially in Kenya. In Uganda, AGRA is helping scientists develop new varieties of banana which are virus resistant and produce up to 50 tonnes per hectare as against the present 5-10 tonnes per hectare. In South Africa, we are supporting a new maize variety that is both drought resistant and water efficient.In Mali and Burkina Faso we are developing new sorghum hybrids that will give three to four times the normal yield. Similarly, cassava is being developed for Ghana and Nigeria where the production would be 80 tonnes per hectare against the 10 tonnes per hectare of the present variety.

Learning from Asia: There were problems with regard to the diversity of germplasms in India. The local varieties of wheat and rice disappeared and were replaced by the short-stature varieties. We are doing crop breeding through conventional participatory breeding, using local germplasms in order to conserve and use them, in order to broaden the varietal base for the farmers. AGRA is also looking at India to set up a South-South partnership. We can learn a lot from India