By Tatenda Chitagu
Africa is battling recurring climate change-induced droughts that cause food shortages, despite several breakthrough research studies that should revolutionize its food systems but are not being implemented, according to a renowned food systems expert.
Dr Takemore Chagomoka, head of Innovation, Scaling, and Business Acceleration at the Nairobi-headquartered International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE), an organisation that seeks to alleviate poverty and ensure food security using insect science for sustainable farming, says most agric research is turning into white elephants.
His observations come in the wake of a recent Africa assessment report by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that estimates that multiple African countries are projected to face compounding risks from reduced food production across crops, livestock, and fisheries; increased heat-related mortality, heat-related loss of labour productivity, and flooding from sea level rise due to changing weather patterns and extreme events.
“Many innovations remain in reports or journals. Research should lead to transformation, adoption and measurable outcomes,” Dr Chagomoka said in an interview after the recently held science seminar at ICIPE in Nairobi titled “Research, Outreach, Dissemination for Impact.”
“Research is valuable, but knowledge must move into society to create impact. There should be effects or influence that the research has beyond generational knowledge. Research findings should make a difference in society, policy, practice, economy, environment or practice, especially in agric transformation,” he said.
He urged African scientists to move beyond mere knowledge development and management.
“Research alone is not equal to impact. There should be outreach, dissemination and scaling, which equals to transformation. There should be a call to action from day one when you start designing your research,” Dr Chagomoka said.
He noted that enablers of agric research uptake include multi-stakeholder partnerships, enabling policies and supportive institutions, strong extension systems and long term investment.
Barriers to agric research success, he added, include weak research-user linkages, limited funding for outreach or dissemination, cultural resistance or mistrust or policy misalignment
“Each stakeholder should play their roles. Researchers do knowledge generation, while communities are knowledge holders and testers. Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and extension workers are facilitators, while policymakers are enablers via policy and resources. The private sector are investors and scaling drivers,” Dr Chagomoka said.
He called for interdisciplinary research for climate change mitigation, adaptation-from insect scientists, climate change experts, environmental specialists, crop scientists, meteorologists, among others-so as to end food shortages and crop failure on the continent while also reducing post-harvest losses.
Climate change is having a dramatic impact on African countries in a variety of ways, including aggravating water stress, destroying agricultural harvests, altering lifestyles, and magnifying gender and other elements of inequality. Aside from direct repercussions, climate change’s socioeconomic consequences are having an impact on continental governance as well.
*Banner Image: Dr Takemore Chagomoka speaking at the science seminar (Pic sourced online)