Africa should embrace new techs to tackle food insecurity – AU official

The African Union (AU) has urged African countries to embrace new technologies to reverse the current food insecurity and malnutrition prevalence in Africa.

The appeal was made by the AU Commissioner for Rural Economy and Agriculture, Josefa Sacko, as part of the commemoration of the 10th Africa Day for Food and Nutrition Security (ADFNS), which was held under the theme “Fostering New Agricultural Technologies for Improved African Diets.”

The AU official mainly emphasized that “advancements in agricultural, food and nutrition technologies should provide an opportunity for reversing the current trends in food insecurity and malnutrition prevalence.”

“Agricultural technologies are the means to sustaining food and nutrition security,” Sacko said.
Sacko further encouraged the 55 AU member countries “to start promoting the utilization of emerging knowledge to benefit the development of our food systems and food value chains.”

She also called upon “all stakeholders to work together to come up with an All Africa Food and Nutrition Expo in one of the AU member states and to mobilize its public and private sectors to support the preparations, organization and participation in the event.”

The AU, noting that hunger and malnutrition has risen in Africa instead of reducing, also emphasized the need to find ways and modalities to advance new agricultural technologies to tackle hunger and malnutrition from the African continent.

The ADFNS, which was endorsed by African leaders back in July 2010, serves as a continental platform to share experiences, knowledge and mutual learning, as well as measure progress in assuring food and nutrition security for all by governments and multi-stakeholder partners in Africa.

The continental ADFNS commemoration, among other things, envisaged to cultivate a collective responsibility towards increasing sustainable access to safe, nutritious and healthy foods amongst Africa’s countries.

Source: GNA