NAIROBI, Kenya – The African Union-InterAfrican Bureau for Animal Resources Resilient African Feed and Fodder Systems Project (RAFFS) continental Project was launched on Friday, paving the way for crucial reforms in the feed and fodder sector in Africa.
The Project seeks to ensure the feed and fodder sector is developed across Africa in a sustainable and evidence based manner, to among other things ensure livestock sourced products are available and affordable to those who need them most.
The RAFFS Project was launched by AUC Commissioner for Agriculture, Rural Development, Blue Economy and Sustainable Environment Josefa Sacko, at an occasion graced by dozens of stakeholders from Africa.
Also present, included several ministers from Africa, among them Kenya’s Agriculture and Livestock Development Cabinet Secretary Mithika Linturi and his Ugandan counterpart Lt. Col (Rtd) Bright Rwamirama.
According to Commissioner Sacko, Africa’s feed sector remains largely under articulated and underdeveloped, with few countries having economic feed sub-sectors.
On average, she said an African household would have to expend more than 10 percent of their daily income to purchase dairy products.
“Producers, mainly in rural areas, generate huge animal resources that undergird a mega continental business worth billions of US dollars annually. The livestock sector also has a high multiplier effect, and spillover effects, stimulating fast growth in other agricultural sectors, manufacturing and services, making it critical for achieving the desired accelerated economic growth and structural transformation,” she said during the launch event held in Nairobi.
She pointed out that according to data from the fourth Biennial Review Report, countries that had higher public expenditure in livestock also realized better nutrition outcomes.
The Resilient African Feed and Fodder Systems (RAFFS) Project is designed to harness evidence driven solutions for short term interventions to enhance access to affordable and quality feed and fodder critical to ensuring efficient and sustainable production of livestock and livestock sourced foods.
“The findings of the continental survey and six country assessments the Project undertook are highly insightful, bringing greater understanding to the underlying causes of the structural constraints that have hindered the growth of vibrant feed and fodder systems on the continent,” she added.
“At the heart of the Project is building systemic capacities to better analyze and interpret data to inform evidence-based solutions.”
The Project approach, she said, “highly transformative calling for a shift from a climate disaster paradigm to a feed and fodder economic sector development approach.”
“Emergency alert systems will utilize input data from the feed and fodder sector that will facilitate better profiling of investments and activation of remedial action well before the effect of feed shortages is evidenced by loss of animals and humanitarian disasters.”
To achieve this, Commissioner Sacko said the Project is promoting better designed and more coherent data ecosystems and data as a service accessible by sectors actors, “enhanced identification and coordination of stakeholders who are needed to bring about the desired change; finance, insurance and investment mechanisms to attract and protect investments; empowerment of women and policy reform.”
AU-IBAR Director Dr Huyam Salih said the RAFFS Project will ensure countries are more resilient from global shocks like COVID-19 pandemic, climate change and the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
All the Ministers present committed to the full implementation of the RAFFS Project, in a move that will boost food security for Africans.
“I believe this Project would not have come at a better time than this…it will help us know how best we can utilize our resources,” Kenya’s Agriculture and Livestock Development Cabinet Secretary said.
Kenya lost more than 2 million cattles during the recent prolonged drought.
“We do not have enough meat (and other livestock sourced products) for our population,” he revealed.
The RAFFS pilot Project focussed on Cameroon, Kenya, Nigeria, Somalia, Uganda and Zimbabwe due to “their unique contexts and challenges.”
All the countries have committed to implement the Project, while highlighting some of the programs they are undertaking to boost food and nutritional security.
In Uganda, the Minister said the government was undertaking critical agri-industrialization projects, to address key challenges within the value chain.
“Uganda has developed a policy and legal framework for the feed and fodder sector, run by both the public and private sector,” he said.
