Seminar Friday 4th March 2011 9.00 – 12.15 on the paper “The Millennium Development Goals and the African Food Crisis – Report from the Afrint II project” at Sida, Valhallavägen 199, Stockholm, room 24, “Copan”
Program:
9.00 Welcome and introduction, Johan Schaar, Sida 9.15 Presentation of the report, Afrint group, Lund university 9.45Comments by Bill Vorley, IIED 10.00 Comments by Morrison Rwakakamba, Uganda Farmers Federation 10.15 Comments by Anders Ekbom, Department of Economics, Göteborg University 10.30 Coffee break 10.45 Discussion 12.00 Conclusions, Johan Schaar, Sida 12.15 Closing of seminar
Objective:With the Afrint II report as one point of departure, discuss implications for African agricultural policy and for a donor like Sida.
Participants:Invited participants are persons with genuine knowledge in agriculture and development coming from Sida, research institutions, Swedish authorities and Government Offices and CSOs/NGOs
Background:Afrint stands for Intensification of food crops agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa and has, so far, consisted of two phases, Afrint I, which lasted from 2001 to 2004, and Afrint II between 2007 and 2010. The Afrint project is headed by Professor Göran Djurfeldt, Department of Sociology, Lund University, Sweden and is a collaborating venture between researchers from Lund and Linköping universities in Sweden and some twenty researchers from universities and research centers, etc. in nine African countries.
The Afrint project primarily dealt with four important staple food crops in sub-Saharan Africa, namely maize, sorghum, rice and cassava. The paper presented concentrates primarily on features affecting maize production and productivity. Readers interested in performance of the other crops are referred to the more comprehensive CABI publication (Djurfeldt, Aryeetey et al. 2011). The Afrint project, while highlighting the importance also of other actors such as state and traders, pays special attention to the importance of smallholder farmers in agricultural development. The Asian Green Revolution (analyzed during Afrint I, see Djurfeldt, Holmén et al. 2005) was a trinity in being state-led, market-mediated and smallholder-based. The overall conception of agricultural development captured in this trinity is also the starting point for the below analysis. Please find a final draft of the shorter Afrint report produced for Sida enclosed.