Bongiwe Nomandi Njobe

Director-General
Department of Agriculture,
South Africa.

Perspective

Innovating to Release the Potential of Agriculture in South Africa

The biggest problem for African agriculture is that many farmers are resource limited. This is not so much from a natural resource point of view, because our resources are very rich, but from the fact that they need information, inputs and technology, which are critical for unlocking the potential of those natural resources.

In terms of information, the greatest need of people in rural areas is to understand what services government has on offer and how and under what conditions they can access these. For agriculture we have planning information available based on the resource maps of an area, climatic information for an area, technical information on the range of crops and products that can be grown or developed in an area, and disease and quality-related information. We can also facilitate a link to market-related information - particularly prices of commodities on the market - which is often already available from the private sector for free.

In order to give people access to this information we are going to try something quite brave - we are going to try to digitalize. This will be based around our multipurpose centres, or community meeting halls, which are instrumental in building social cohesion at the community level. In and around the community halls, there are small marketplaces that traders can rent to sell their wares and where entrepreneurs can open shops and businesses. We have experimented with Farmer Support Centres, which become focal points for farmers in rural areas. We are attempting to expand these into Rural Information Centres, which would bring Internet connectivity directly into those areas, so that people can access websites from where they are, and have someone to help them understand what that information can do for them.

Biotechnology also has a lot to offer Africa but the question we have to answer is whether we should depend on increased use of traditional inputs, such as fertilizer and herbicides, to increase yields, or whether we should be innovative and make the quantum leap into biotechnology? We are grappling with these kinds of issues right now across the continent.

In South Africa, arguments often presented in the North are presented here in an environment where people have not yet grappled with the totality of biotechnology. The benefits of biotechnology in improving precision in agricultural research are known to scientists, but the problem is that scientists are not very articulate in presenting such information. As a government, we have legislation on genetically modified organisms and we are now working on a balanced communications strategy on the totality of biotechnology, with genetically modified foods as just one of the products of biotechnology. It is a much more constructive way of dealing with the debate.

The danger of a media-driven dialogue on genetically modified foods is that it does not deal with the science behind the foods. For example, sweet potato has resistance to the mosaic virus because of work done in Kenya. You could say it is a genetically modified food but all that has been done is to introduce resistance into the plant through genetic modification rather than spraying it with some kind of chemical. Something that has been sprayed has been equally modified. So we are trying to avoid having a naïve discussion on genetically modified food, as if it were some kind of monster suddenly appearing out of the gloom. We recognize the benefits of good science in agriculture, in lowering inputs, but we are not blind to the fact that there are probably risks associated with the introduction of genetically modified foods. To contain the risks we have legislation in place to promote the responsible development and use of genetically modified organisms.

African agriculture needs to have an appropriate technology-transfer partnership with developed countries, which facilitates economic growth by raising yields and incomes and at the same time satisfies food security at the household level. All this must be done without compromising the sustainability of its bio-diversity or the trade and market opportunities that exist for its unique products. Linked to that of course is the economic and entrepreneurial character which African agriculture needs to take on, which has been latent in the past. There is a world of opportunity in the combination of our rich bio-diversity and new technologies. Our natural resources, in relation to the people we have to feed, have potential, but we need to harness that capacity. With the right minds thinking about things and coming together, I think it's a positive outlook.

Note: This Perspective is based on an interview featured in an IFPRI News & Views Newsletter

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