ANAFE examines curriculum changes needed to stimulate African agriculture

Subsistence agriculture remains the backbone of the African economy, with more than two-thirds of all Africans living in rural areas and depending entirely on agriculture and natural resources, even as those resources are eroding. Soils and landscapes are degraded and rural poverty is on the rise. This situation persists despite major investment during the early years of African independence in tertiary education that focused on agriculture, forestry and animal husbandry as separate entities.

August Temu, who coordinates the African Network for Agriculture, Agroforestry and Natural Resources Education (ANAFE) from the headquarters of the World Agroforestry Centre in Nairobi, Kenya, says that early investment has failed to move African agriculture forward. “Farmers are still doing things just as their parents did, functioning on the ground as if we were in the 1950s. The smallholders have not received new skills, and we needed to see why not.” So, in 2002,Temu says ANAFE , along with 124 partner institutions in 34 countries, began an in depth study of tertiary education in natural resource management and agriculture on the continent.

The study...culminated in a symposium organized by ANAFE at Kenyatta University in Kenya in April 2003. The 55 papers presented there have now been published in a new book, ‘Rebuilding Africa’s capacity for agricultural development: the roles of tertiary education’. A companion document was also produced, primarily for policy-makers and managers: ‘Improving agriculture and natural resources education in Africa — a stitch in time.’

According to Temu, these publications provide a veritable manifesto for change in how agriculture is taught in African universities and training colleges, highlighting weaknesses in existing programmes and ways to remedy them. Curricula in African universities, for example, have been largely adopted from the countries that once had colonies in Africa. University texts on agriculture emphasized an imported philosophy and policy that aimed to produce cash crops for consumption by — and processing in — those former colonizing countries, denying Africans the crucial income from locally added value to farm and forest produce.

“Little of what was taught was grounded in African reality,” says Temu, “especially the reality of smallholder farms on the continent, where farmers integrated and managed complex farming systems incorporating crops, trees and livestock that stressed food security through diversity.”

He points out that structural adjustment programs in the 1970s and 80s brought cutbacks to government involvement in agriculture and extension sectors, on the assumption that the private sector and non-governmental organizations would step in and fill the gaps. “Thatdidn’t happen...there was a deterioration of knowledge with the retrenchment of technicians...”

‘A stitch in time’ makes it very clear that a transformation in education is needed if Africa’s farmers and educational institutions are to meet the many big challenges of our times. To start that transformation,ANAFE has joined forces with various other insitutions , including universities and research centres, to create a new initiative known as BASIC — Building Africa’s Scientific and Institutional Capacity.

ANAFE itself has already taken a few ‘stitches in time’ to start that reconstruction process, by establishing learning centres for farmers, where young people can see for themselves which farming systems can work for them, how they can produce more with less labour, and then add value to whatever they produce.

Temu says Ethiopia has already begun a major transformation of its approach to agricultural education and training, by creating 15,000 farmer training centres at which 45,000 Ethiopians are already being trained as resource persons. In Uganda, the government has developed a unified extension system that integrates all aspects of agriculture and value-addition for agricultural produce.

“Our aim now,” says Temu, “is to get policy makers and funding institutions on board and to convince them that investment is crucial in making agricultural education in Africa both useful and enticing.”

World Agroforestry Center