The Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation
(CTA) has provided information, capacity building and practical support to
almost 80 countries over the past 35 years.
Monday, February 17, Wageningen, NETHERLANDS – An EU-funded
institution established to support smallholder farmers in Africa, the Caribbean
and Pacific will come to an end this year.
The Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation
(CTA), based in Wageningen, Netherlands, has reached almost 80 developing
countries to help improve productivity and resilience among some of the world’s
most vulnerable rural communities.
The closure comes as the Cotonou Agreement between the EU
and African, Caribbean and Pacific group of states, which provided the legal
and financial framework for CTA, comes to an end in December 2020.
“CTA has a proud track record of bringing knowledge and
innovation to smallholder farmers for more than 35 years,” said Michael
Hailu, Director, CTA.
“CTA staff and management are incredibly proud to have
worked for an organisation that has contributed to transforming agriculture
across developing countries through access to technology, innovation and
knowledge sharing. Our priority now is to ensure an orderly closure and provide
as much support to our partners going forward as possible.”
In recent years, CTA has driven the agenda for
digitalisation in agriculture, including launching a flagship report that identified a €2.3 billion untapped market
for digital services in sub-Saharan Africa.
CTA also fostered and supported agricultural innovation
through Pitch AgriHack, a competition for young entrepreneurs to incubate
start-ups and new ideas to use technology to improve farming. Winners of Pitch
AgriHack have included Illuminum Greenhouses, which provides affordable
greenhouses to Kenyan farmers, and Develop Digitally, which helps Jamaican
farmers access credit.
Other CTA initiatives have included the Climate, Livestock
and Markets (CLIMARK) project, which used data to support pastoralists and
livestock keepers in Kenya and Ethiopia, including satellite-based insurance
policies that paid out whenever forage levels dropped too low to sustain herds.
CTA partnered with technology company Amfratech and Takaful
Insurance of Africa to help provide cover to 10,000 pastoralists, improving
their resilience to drought, an example of “climate-smart agriculture”.
The institution also supported women’s entrepreneurship, and
worked with the African Women Agribusiness Network (AWAN) and Africa Women
Innovation and Entrepreneurship Forum (AWIEF) to launch VALUE4HERConnect, a
digital platform to support women in agribusiness.
And in the Caribbean and Pacific, CTA has supported projects
to explore the potential of blockchain to improve transparency and unlock
premiums for farmers, as well as promoting agritourism in the Pacific and
Caribbean islands.
CTA also directly contributed to the EU’s Digital for
Development policy, in particular relating to sustainable agriculture and
entrepreneurship.
“We want the ideas that have been created by CTA to continue
being utilised and support other programmes that we have,” said Harry
Kimtai, principal secretary at Kenya’s ministry of agriculture.
Agnes Kalibata, president of the Alliance for a Green
Revolution in Africa, added: “CTA has done a great job as a knowledge builder,
in sharing that knowledge and advocating what needs to be done and what needs
to change.”
Over the next months, CTA will explore opportunities with a
range of international, national and regional partners that are interested in
continuing the institute’s work and support smallholder farmers.
“CTA is proud to have driven the agenda on a number of
topics related to rural and agricultural development and have facilitated
exchange and learning,” Mr Hailu added.
“CTA may not exist as an institution but the momentum of our
work will continue and we are proud of the legacy we leave behind.”
Source from: CTA
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