This is the story of every part of the earth where agriculture is being done.Before 1900 there was no chemical farming and yet civilisation was survived.The so called drought started in 1850 or afterward due to uneven distribution of food or diversion of fertile lands of rice, wheat, sorghum to the industrial crops like cotton, sugarcane etc. So it was not the problem of productivity with the traditional agriculture but a man-made unsustainable systems and chemical were introduced as panacea for this malady. So after some times phosphate reserves will exhaust, soil become sick, ground water depleted to dark zone, insects and weeds become resistance to pesticides and deterioration in ecosystem and human health with this chemical farming--------- whether we wait for this situation and then follow ecofriendly farming or-------- start from today a gradual shift to eco friendly farming -it is to be decided by farming community,policy makers etc.The later option is certainly better.

The future of African farmers will remain dim if agricultural innovations; whether be it use of chemicals, farm mechanisation, or organic agriculture e.t.c remain an "imposed intervention" and the farmer's role remains "adoption". This approach has made farmers remain positioned as recipients rather than being proactive in their farming business.

There has been a general failure to appreciate and apply entrepreneurship and business management in agriculture, which emphasise innovation, creativity, risk taking, quality "farm" management and opportunity driven initiatives. If an entrepreneurial approach to farming were adopted, emphasis would be put on the ability of farmers to assess their situation and make decisions that best take advantage of existing opportunities. Agriculture would be targeted as part of the private sector rather than a traditional system and African farmers would have a brighter future- in African Private sector led economies.

Good agricultural practice (GAP) is the future of African agriculture.

Good agricultural practice for sure

From the time when the Roman Empire exploited and degraded lastingly much of northern Africa’s lands as granary, the continent has undergone numerous and very diverse agricultural influences and impacts, from cotton-companies to colonialists, from missionaries to commercial farmers, from Nyereres to Idi-Amins. The overall situation thus is extremely multifarious and not describable by simple short words. In 40 years of work in development cooperation I have become and remained an optimist reg. the continent’s agro-eco-system and its potential. Right now the rich & the beauty in the luxury-hotels of the Arabian Golf-Area are digesting best fruits & vegetables from small commercial farms around Addis-Abeba. The booming economies (some 10) in Africa are partly built on a flourishing agriculture with food-security for the majority of the population and attractive prices for farm-products. At the same time the Orthodox Church in Ethiopia stipulates some 100 religious holidays --- in addition to 52 Sundays --- on which farmers are not allowed to work on the fields….thus making the religious “power” in review responsible for millions of famine-victims of the past decades. Just one example of the man-made (!!) backlog in the agro-system of Africa. But the future of it is bright based on the ample experience gained and on the sober facts and potentials available. In Ruanda some 200,000 ha of swamp-lands are available for 2 harvests / year with each 6 t/ha. On some 6,000 ha this is being practiced right now. A million of additional wetlands are available on the continent for rice-cropping. Conventional agro-chemistry based production-systems parallel to biological systems are being run, tested, are competing and it is clear, that only those approaches can survive, which respect and protect the agro-ecological base and rules. There have to be strong guidelines for new and international agro-investors on the African continent in respect to social, ecological and agronomical minimum standards. So the way forward is to be based on --- among others --- : ●GAP, ●attractive prices for farm-products, ●functional rural roads and other infrastructures ●researchers who work in farmers’ fields, ---not so much in laboratories & libraries-- ●non-ideological agric. policies, ●awareness about the gigantic potentials due to 365-days vegetation-period where water is available, ●drip-irrigation with solar-pumps along all rivers, ●market-economy with social framing; ● 78% nitrogen (fertilizer) in the air over the continent, which can be made available free-of-charge by biological agriculture (rhizobium-bacteria in legumes); ●rain-harvesting with contour-oriented land-use-planning and land-scape-design; ●clever, bright, smart farmers & agronomists & politicians & investors!!!

Dear Mamudu, same questions come up from farmers in Indonesia and all answers are true.Now our turn to transfer the answers