Top development organisations have committed to strengthening partnerships to enhance the Vision for Adapted Crops and Soils (VACS), an initiative focused on creating resilient African food systems using diverse, nutritious, and climate-adapted crops cultivated in healthy soils.
During the African Fertilizer and Soil Health Summit in Nairobi, leaders including African Union’s Commissioner for Rural Development and Agriculture, Ambassador Josefa Leonel Correia Sacko, and African Development Bank Group Vice President Dr. Beth Dunford, urged African nations to align with the VACS strategic partnership. This initiative aligns with the African Development Bank’s flagship program, Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation (TAAT). VACS targets five of TAAT’s priority crops: cassava, orange-fleshed sweet potato, sorghum, millet, and high-iron beans. Launched in February 2023, VACS is supported by the U.S. Department of State, the African Union, and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization.
"I am excited to see how the Bank, through its TAAT initiative, alongside the United States Department of State, the African Union, IFAD [International Fund for Agricultural Development], and CGIAR centers, are fostering relationships to advance VACS, Feed the Future, the African Union Fertilizer and Soil Health Action Plan, and the Soil Initiative for Africa," said Dr. Dunford, the Bank’s Vice President for Agriculture, Human and Social Development, addressing the summit participants.
TAAT, part of the Bank Group’s Feed Africa strategy, delivers heat-tolerant, drought-resistant, and other climate-smart certified seeds to millions of Africa’s smallholder farmers, with the goal to produce 120 million additional tons of food in Africa and lift 130 million people out of poverty. The African Union Commission-mandated Soil Initiative for Africa is a framework effort to systematically improve Africa’s soil health and productivity. The United States Government launched the Feed the Future initiative in 2010 to address global hunger and food insecurity.
“Working together under the umbrella of this plan embodies the aspirations and priorities of African nations in building a prosperous, food-secure future,” Dunford added.
Leaders issued the call during a side event titled Advancing the Soil Initiative for Africa through the Vision for Adapted Crops and Soil. The summit closed on May 9 with leaders endorsing the African Union’s Soil Initiative for Africa framework statement and the Fertilizer and Soil Health Action Plan.
“A Soil Initiative for Africa statement captures the urgency of the situation we face in Africa very well: ‘Since 2000 only 25% of Sub-Saharan Africa’s agricultural production growth came from crop yield improvement, while 75% resulted from expansion area under cropland.’ Clearly that’s not sustainable. The African Union’s Fertilizer and Soil Health Action Plan notes, ‘projections suggest that more than half of the currently arable land may be unusable by 2050’ – if that doesn’t concentrate our attention, I’m not sure what will,” U.S. Special Envoy for Food Security Dr. Cary Fowler said during the event panel discussion that identified partnership opportunities and explored potential areas of collaboration between the African Union, African Development Bank and VACS stakeholders.
“We know very clearly that for crops to be productive, need good soils. We also need to realize that soils, to be productive, need the right crops. The two are related,” Fowler added
“More than one billion [Africans] remain unable to afford a healthy diet,” said Commissioner Sacko in her remarks to event attendees. “We are really tired of one meeting after another – we want action…that is why I support this initiative because I believe concrete actions are tangible,” he added.
The event featured during a panel discussion to identify partnership opportunities and potential spheres of collaboration between the African Union, African Development Bank and VACS stakeholders.
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