Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa
PRESS RELEASE

Contact: Dr. Monty Jones
Phone: +233 21 772823
Email: mjones@fafa-africa.org

THE 4^TH FARA GENERAL ASSEMBLY DELIVERS KEY RESOLUTIONS

Under the overarching theme of productivity and competitiveness of African agriculture in a global economy, ten sub-themes were identified and over the course of the six days, plenary sessions were conducted, with the objective of identifying key resolutions for all of FARA’s stakeholders to action over the next three years, when the fifth general assembly will be hosted.

[20 June 2007, Accra] - The fourth Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA) general assembly, which took place in Sandton from 10 – 16 June 2007, has closed with a number of key resolutions for advancing agricultural research in Africa.

The General Assembly which coincided with the Africa Agriculture Science week and South Africa day was attended by more than 670 delegates, including 10 ministers and deputy ministers from throughout the continent, as well as Africa’s development partners and non-African collaborating institutions.

“The fourth FARA general assembly, with its large, diverse and vigorous participation, provided a fertile source of information and knowledge on the opportunities and problems currently facing African agriculture,” said the honourable Minister for Agriculture and Land Affairs, Ms Lulama Xingwana.

“This year’s general assembly was, undoubtedly our most successful to date. With ten sub-themes and only a week to work through all of them, we are thrilled with the resolutions that have been brought to the table,” adds Monty Jones, executive secretary of FARA.

The resolutions include:

the promotion of intra-African trade in food staples and international trade in high-value products
the development of endogenous innovation capacity, including the ability to identify and adapt potential foreign innovations
maximising the impact of agricultural research and development by providing policy makers with evidence-based pragmatic options, preferably developed jointly by researchers and policy makers
endorsing FARA’s integrated set of networking support functions as a sound basis for continent-wide contributions to the work of the SROs
advocating and facilitating the strengthening of research management and agricultural sciences
developing adequate veterinary capacity and livestock disease surveillance; epidemiological and response systems
addressing the broad and systemic issues in capacity strengthening to focus on causes rather than symptoms and to assure that the capacity strengthening initiatives reflect established demands – redressing gender and age imbalances and inequities
recognising sub-Saharan and North African civil society organisations
regarding research on peri-urban agriculture as a mainstream activity, but one that requires new approaches to research
mainstreaming indigenous science into agricultural research and development and making the necessary personal and institutional adjustments that are required to enable communication and joint learning between practitioners of the different sciences.

“In addition to the creation of these resolutions, we also elected Dr. Dennis Kyetere’ and Dr. Tiemoko Yo as Chair and Vice Chair of FARA, respectively and look forward to their tenure,” concludes Jones.

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Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa
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