Experts urge policy reforms to strengthen resilience of Africa's agriculture
NAIROBI, June 14 (Xinhua) -- African governments should reform existing agricultural policies to enhance the sector's resilience to emerging challenges like climatic shocks, population pressure and high demand for food, experts said at a forum in Nairobi on Wednesday.
The experts and researchers attending the 1st ministerial Conference on Global Open Data for Agriculture and Nutrition (GODAN) said that outdated policies, dismal technology uptake alongside underperforming extension services were undermining agricultural productivity in Africa.
Director General of International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), David Bergvinson said that a retooling of agricultural policies in Africa was an imperative to ensure the sector cope with natural and man-made disruptions.
"African countries requires new policies to modernize the agriculture sector in the face of the looming challenge of natural shocks, rapid urbanization and high demand for food to feed a growing population," Bergvinson remarked.
Andrea Moroni