Tanzania is among countries which will benefit from a programme that provides grants to scientists working to improve food production and environmental management in eastern Africa region.

The five-year (2011-2015) 18trillion/- bio-innovative programme was launched at the headquarters of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) in Nairobi on Wednesday.

It will be implemented in Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi, as well as Ethiopia. The programme is aimed at making the region attain food sufficiency and possibly record surplus farm produce in future.

Tanzania is the only country in the group already having an agricultural development drive under the ‘Kilimo Kwanza’ initiative.

Mr Carlos Ser, the ILRI’s Director General, said during the launch that; “By emphasizing innovations to help drive crop production in the six partner countries, bio-innovate is working at the heart of one of the region’s greatest challenges.”

The challenge, he said, is providing enough food in the face of climate change, diversifying crops and addressing productivity constraints that are threatening the livelihoods of millions.”

The newly established Bioresources Innovation Network for Eastern Africa Development (Bio-Innovate) Programme – the first in Africa – provides competitive grants to African researchers who are working with the private sector and NGOs to find ways to improve food security, boost resilience to climate change and identify environmentally sustainable ways of producing food.

In its first three-year phase, the programme is to support five research-based projects working to improve the productivity of sorghum, millet, cassava, sweet potatoes, irish potatoes and beans.

It is also designed to help smallholder farmers adapt to climate change, improve processing of wastes in the production of sisal and coffee and treat better water generated in leather processing and slaughterhouse operations.

The programme is funded by a US $12mil grant from the Swedish International Development Agency (Sida).

Bio-Innovate is managed by ILRI and co-located within the Bio-Sciences Eastern and Central Africa (BeCA) Hub at ILRI’s Nairobi campus.

A statement from ILRI indicates that an increasingly large number of poor people in the developing world are food insecure.

In sub-Saharan Africa, where agricultural production relies on rainfed smallholder farming, hunger, environmental degradation and climate change present a triple threat to individual, community and national development.

In eastern Africa alone, over 100 million people depend on agriculture to meet their fundamental economic and nutritional needs.

Although some three-quarters of the African population are involved in farming or herding, investment in African agricultural production has continued to lag behind population growth rates for several decades, with the result that the continent has been unable to achieve sustainable economic and social development.

Dr Seyoum Leta, the Bio-Innovate’s programme manager stated; Bioresources research and use is key to pro-poor economic growth and by focusing on improving the performance of crop agriculture and agro-processing, while adding value to primary production, we can help build a more productive and sustainable regional bioresources-based economy.

Bio-Innovate works closely with the African Union – New Partnership for Africa’s Development (AU-NEPAD) and its new Planning and Co-ordinating Agency, as well as with the councils and commissions for science and technology in eastern Africa, to encourage adoption of advances in biosciences.

The programme builds on AU- NEPAD’s Consolidated Plan of Action for Africa’s Science and Technology and the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP).

Bio-Innovate has already established partnerships with higher learning institutions and national agricultural research organisations, international agricultural research centres and private industries working both within and outside eastern Africa.

By MARC NKWAME, Tanzania Daily News

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