Agriculture minister calls for simple research findings

Namibia's Minister of Agriculture, Water and Forestry John Mutorwa has implored agricultural scientists in tertiary and other research institutions all over the world to communicate findings of their research to governments in plain language for ease of policy formulation and implementation.

Mutorwa made the call when he delivered the key note address at the start of the world conference for the Association for International Agricultural and Extension Education (AIAEE) which was co-hosted by the University of Namibia, the Agricultural Association of Namibia (AGRISSON) and other partners in Windhoek.

He said while a lot of research had been done to try and improve agriculture all over the world, the fact that many countries still had little to show on the ground that they had benefited from the research results suggested that there was still room for improvement in the dissemination of research results to the target beneficiaries; who ultimately are the ordinary farmers.

"There is a need for improvement in the dissemination of agricultural research findings from the research institutions to the governments of the individual countries that can benefit from the findings. Ideally, governments should not be left to grapple with the decoding of highly technical research findings, which are presented in academic journals in scientific jargon," he said.

The minister said there was also need for improvement in the dissemination of information that governments receive from researchers to the ordinary farmers who may not even be able to read the official language.
"Not all governments are good at doing this and there may be need for capacity building."

Noting that research is costly, Mutorwa called for its proper coordination to avoid duplication and waste, which he said can come in the form of countries or regional groupings getting involved in research to find solutions for problems for which solutions have been found in countries or regions with similar geological and climatic conditions to their own.

"In a world in which resources are scarce, we need to do more with the little we have. There is need for coordination of research at the global, regional and country levels."

Apparently as things stand, he said, countries seem to have their own agricultural research agenda even when they belong to common regional groups. At the global level, there does not appear to be any sharing of research information between regional blocks.

With climate change upon the world and many countries struggling to adapt and cope, Mutorwa suggested partnerships to come up with vibrant global, regional and country-specific research institutions, which can keep pace with these rapid changes.

Calling for a communal approach to the challenges in agriculture, he said there was need for the international community to form partnerships in funding research in finding solutions to agricultural problems affecting countries at the global level more cost-effectively.

The theme for this conference was 'sustainable value chain agriculture for food security and economic development'.

Experts say 'sustainable value agriculture' means agriculture that is guided by the principle of value addition for fuller utilisation of the world's resources, including human resources. Mutorwa's view is that developing countries need to take the value addition route if they are to escape poverty and unemployment.

He explained that value addition has a multiplier effect on an economy in that when countries embark on vigorous value addition they create employment for people who otherwise could not have found it. The employment income that they get will enable them to operate more effectively as consumers of goods and services by buying what they could otherwise not have bought. The producers of these goods and services will now have the incentive to hire even more people so that they can produce more of their products.

"Once started, value addition becomes a self-sustaining process. It is how to start it that we in developing countries need some guidance on, bearing in mind that we cannot afford to lose the export markets we already have for our raw materials."

Approximately 180 scientists – many of them working at universities - from about 17 countries attended the conference. Nearly 50 papers on various aspects of agriculture were presented and some of them will be published, according to Prof Kim Dooley from Texas A&M University who is Executive Editor of the Journal of International and Agricultural and Extension Education.