Farmers must have access to improved seeds

To come up with the commensurate agricultural production to match with the rapidly growing population, farmers must take advantage of the available modern technologies and innovations. 

One way of doing so will be planting seeds that are bred to be high yielding, disease resistant, and drought tolerant. Every serious farmer should have a budget for improved, clean seed at the beginning of every rainy season.
Those that don’t have easy access to the seeds should be helped to get the seeds to plant and pay later after harvesting the crops. 

Saving seeds from the previous harvest for planting is becoming outdated because in most cases the harvests obtained from such seeds have not been so encouraging.
The farmers should also be assisted to have the soil in their gardens examined to determine what fertility components are missing so that they can be availed to them. They must be sensitised about soil conservation measures and affordable means of trapping rainwater for irrigation.  This could be in form of constructing large water dams in areas where rainfall is not evenly distributed and putting in place affordable mechanisms for pumping water to wherever it is needed for irrigation.

They ought to be supported to access fertilisers. Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) President Dr Agnes Kalibata has said, “With the judicious use of appropriate fertilisers and with the right seeds, farmers are able to triple, even quadruple production.”
Credit access to farmers must be made easier by removing unnecessary constraints. It is smallholder farmers that produce 80 per cent of the food we eat in Sub-Saharan Africa and if we are to achieve food security for a population that is expanding so rapidly the farmers must be supported to adopt technologies that quickly increase yields.

Kalibata further says, “Ending hunger is a solvable problem. AGRA has learned the hard way that if you are going to be serious about pulling farmers out of poverty, you need to support reforms of policies and support programmes that can help reach millions of farmers. If Africa smallholder farmers become prosperous, they will change the continent forever.”

Mr Michael Ssali is a veteran journalist, 
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