The First five year

The First Five Years

Africa Harvest Progress and Financial Report 2002–2006

The First Five Years: Africa Harvest Progress and Financial Report 2002–2006. Nairobi, Kenya: Africa Harvest Biotech Foundation International © Africa Harvest Biotech Foundation International 2007 All rights reserved The publisher encourages fair use of this material provided proper citation is made

For further information about Africa Harvest or additional copies of this publication, contact Africa Harvest at:

Nairobi (HQ) School Lane (Opposite Westlands Primary School) PO Box 642–00621 Village Market Nairobi Kenya

Johannesburg 5 Hunter Street Fernridge Office Park PO Box 36655 Pinegowrie 2123 Gauteng South Africa

Washington DC Blake Building Farragut Square 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW Suite 1012 Washington DC 20036 USA

Tel: +254 20 444 1113/5/6 Fax: +254 20 444 1121 E-mail: kenya@ahbfi.org

Tel: +27 11 781 4449 Fax: +27 11 886 0152 E-mail: southafrica@ahbfi.org

Tel: +1 202 828 1215 Fax: +1 202 857 9799 E-mail: usa@ahbfi.org

Or visit the Africa Harvest website: www.ahbfi.org

The First Five Years Africa Harvest Progress and Financial Report 2002–2006

Africa Harvest Biotech Foundation International (AHBFI) Nairobi • Johannesburg • Washington DC

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CONTENTS

Chairman’s Report v Chief Executive Officer’s Report vii Acknowledgements ix Acronyms and Abbreviations x 1. Africa Harvest: Who and Why? 1 2. Doing it the Africa Harvest Way 7 3. Informing the Biotech Debate: Public Acceptance and Communications Programme 13 4. Tissue Culture Turns the Tide: Capacity Building and Technology Deployment Programme 19 5. The Africa Biofortified Sorghum (ABS) Project 31 6. Focus on Farmers 39

7. Africa Harvest: The People 43 8. Financial Statements 55

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Chairman’s Report The story of Africa Harvest’s first five years is a testimony of the power of a clear vision.

Nobody, not even our founder and Chief Executive Officer, Dr Florence Wambugu, could have imagined that the organization would grow so quickly, expanding its personnel, capacity and scope of activities to such an extent. It is therefore a great honour for me to introduce this report, which spans the years 2002–2006. The report is part of our strategy to inform our stakeholders of progress made, challenges encountered and future plans. We are very proud of what we have achieved over the past five years and excited about the years ahead.

Africa Harvest’s vision of an Africa without hunger, poverty and malnutrition seemed a Herculean – almost impossible – task five years ago. But based on what we have already achieved, winning this fight, through strategic partnerships and the tools of science and technology, now seems possible. The Foundation is strategically positioned to engage its core constituencies – grassroots communities, governments and development partners – at different levels, to create sustainable, life-changing impact and to share its now well-tested models with others.

Since 2002, Africa Harvest has, amongst other things, achieved the following: • Helped Africa gain a better understanding of biotechnology through factual information and active involvement in the agri-biotechnology debate.

• With support from donors – including the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and CropLife – strengthened biotech networks through close collaboration with partners such as AfricaBio, the African Biotechnology Stakeholders Forum (ABSF) and the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA).

• Helped needy farmers break free of the poverty cycle. With the support of DuPont, and working with its subsidiary Pioneer Hi-Bred, we have reached about 6,000 farming households in Chura Community near Nairobi in Kenya. We successfully introduced tissue culture (TC) banana technology and helped set up the farmer-based marketing company Tissue Culture Banana Enterprises Ltd (TCBEL).

• With the support of the Rockefeller Foundation, and working with TechnoServe, we have assisted thousands of farmers to produce high-quality TC bananas and market them to formal markets such as supermarkets, hospitals and schools.

• With support from the Government of Kenya, we have facilitated private–public sector partnerships, such as the establishment of TC banana and tree nurseries.

We are particularly pleased to report that DuPont and Pioneer have agreed to support the second phase of the Chura TC Banana Project in Kenya, which will focus on developing a marketing model. We believe the model, which is designed to benefit farmers, will have a positive impact on many more TC banana farmers in Kenya.

In 2005, Africa Harvest led a consortium of agricultural and scientific organizations in a global competitive grant challenge application, which resulted in receipt of a US$18.6 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The Africa Biofortified Sorghum (ABS) Project gives fresh impetus to the notion of African-led initiatives. It brings together nine African and two international organizations. The composition of the consortium allows for diverse thinking and the generation of knowledge for tackling some of Africa’s most pressing challenges: nutrition and health, food security and income generation. The project seeks to develop a nutritious and easily digestible sorghum that contains increased levels of essential

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amino acids, especially lysine; increased levels of Vitamins A and E; and more available iron and zinc. We are particularly excited by the capacity building component of the project, which has already enabled several African scientists to undergo training at Pioneer. Those trained have returned to their national institutions and more talented young Africans are lined up to receive training throughout the life of the project.

Like other similar African organizations, Africa Harvest’s challenge is to find the resources required to meet the ever-increasing demand for development support and to implement projects successfully. We also face the continuing challenge of finding and motivating highcalibre scientists and managers. Nevertheless, as this report shows, Africa Harvest has built a formidable team, able to deliver an enviable social return on investment to our donors and development partners.

I extend my appreciation to the Board of Directors, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO), the management team and staff of Africa Harvest for their dedication and hard work. We also extend our appreciation to our funding partners who continue to believe in us and invest in our work. Thanks also go to our colleagues and partners in the many organizations that collaborate with us: your encouragement has been a source of strength.

As we look to the future, I’m reminded of what our CEO often says: “Africa Harvest must be known for the number of lives that we impact upon and change for the better”. We look forward to working with various stakeholders to ensure that science and technology will transform the lives of the people in greatest need.

Dr Kanayo F. Nwanze Chairman, Africa Harvest Biotech Foundation International

Our Chairman, Dr Kanayo F. Nwanze Dr Kanayo Nwanze has devoted his working life to agricultural research and development as the principle route to reducing poverty and improving liveli­­ hoods in poor African communities.

After obtaining his PhD in Entomology at Kansas State University, USA, Dr Nwanze spent 30 years gaining hands-on and increasingly responsible experience in international agricultural research and development organizations. He has worked at three Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) centres and has extensive field experience in seven countries in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. Throughout his career he has promoted strong partnerships and working relationships with national agricultural research systems.

Between 1996 and 2006, Dr Nwanze held position of Director General of the Africa Rice Center (WARDA), a leading and successful international agricultural research institute. Under his leadership, WARDA was transformed from a sub-regionally focused centre into an Africa-wide institution. His influence also led to formation of a wide range of innovative partnerships at national, regional and international levels with academic, public and private institutions. In addition to improving the institute’s financial health and funding support, Dr Nwanze supervized extensive growth in staff disciplinary strength, depth and diversity. The staff earned international awards for major scientific breakthroughs (the only known center in the CGIAR whose African staff have been so recognized). Today, New Rice for Africa (NERICA) has become a house­hold name among African rice farming families and agricultural researchers throughout the world.

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Chief Executive Officer’s Report Africa Harvest’s first five years’ growth has been quite breathtaking. I have watched us grow out of an idea into a formidable organization that delivers sustainable agricultural solutions. Our interventions are already improving the food security and raising the incomes of thousands of small-scale, rural farming households. At the same time, we are taking huge strides towards building healthy rural populations through better nutrition and lifestyles.

One of our key areas of success is in developing strong, durable relationships with rural communities in which farmers are supported through Africa Harvest’s unique “whole value chain” (WVC) strategy. The WVC approach involves introducing new technologies, providing training in good agronomic practices and improving access to microfinance, post-harvest processing and market-geared value addition. By supporting producers with resources and knowledge, we are helping them to progress – in their minds as well as in their day-to-day activities – from being subsistence farmers to becoming business-minded rural entrepreneurs.

Equally importantly, Africa Harvest informs and leads the public debate surrounding biotechnology. In addition to attending numerous conferences and seminars, both in Kenya and abroad, we have organized workshops with scientists, government officials, politicians, the media and the general public. Our aim is to educate people so they can make moreinformed decisions. At the same time, through different media platforms such as websites, books and newspapers, we have engaged targeted groups of people at the appropriate level of understanding, and broadened their awareness.

Our international partnerships have played, and will continue to play, a vital role in unleashing Africa’s science capacity. By taking the leading role in the ABS Project, we are setting new standards. We are proving that African institutions can participate in globally competitive projects designed to address African challenges. Through the ABS Project, Africans can take pride their leadership and professionalism. The ABS project illustrates our success in forging international links and provides a possible structure for future collaborative efforts that will make a real difference to the people of Africa.

We would not have achieved so much without the visionary leadership of our Chairman, Dr Kanayo Nwanze, and the exemplary Board of Directors. Through their diverse insights and experience, they have continuously challenged us to think big and “out of the box”, and reminded us of the millions of poor, hungry and malnourished Africans who are still waiting for our services. I also wish to thank the management team and staff, who have worked tirelessly to enable thousands of farmers to benefit from the work we do. Despite numerous challenges, they have focused unwaveringly on our prime customer: the farmer.

Obviously, to achieve so much requires money. However, we are lucky that we have been given far more than money by many of our funding and development partners, who have enriched our thinking by suggesting how we can achieve more with the resources they give us. On behalf of the communities whose lives we have jointly changed for the better, thank you. You all have a share in our progress thus far, and we look forward to working together in the future. Let’s see what the next five years will bring!

Dr Florence Wambugu CEO, Africa Harvest

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Our CEO, Dr Florence Wambugu A prominent scientist in her home country of Kenya, Florence Wambugu has also become well known internationally for her expertise and advocacy in the field of biotechnology. She grew up on a small farm in the highlands of Kenya, where her family faced a constant struggle to grow enough to eat. Her childhood memories of going hungry have nurtured her passionate belief in the power of biotechnology to boost food production and her lifelong commitment to making agricultural science work for Africa’s poor.

Thanks to her mother, who sold the family’s only cow so she could go to secondary school, Dr Wambugu was able to embark on a distinguished scientific career. After graduating from Nairobi University with a degree in botany and zoology, she worked for 12 years at the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI), where she initiated a tissue culture programme for pyrethrum. In 1982, while working for KARI, she went to North Dakota State University in the USA, where she took a two-year Master’s degree in plant pathology, specializing in the control of potato viruses. Continuing her work with KARI, she conducted thesis research on sweetpotato diseases in a joint PhD programme with the University of Bath, UK. At that time, Kenyan farmers were facing serious yield losses in this staple food crop due to virus attack, a problem that conventional breeding research had failed to address.

Providentially, Dr Wambugu’s next career step provided an answer.

Under a scholarship from USAID, she became one of the first African scientists to take up a fellowship in biotechnology at Monsanto’s Life Sciences Research Centre in Missouri, USA. Here she led a project to develop Kenya’s first genetically modified sweetpotato, which carries the gene for resistance to feathery mottle virus. The experience reinforced her belief in biotechnology and, at the same time, gave her valuable insight into the workings of private sector industry.

In 1994, she returned to Kenya as Director of the new African office or the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA). Here, she was able to further her work on sweetpotato, in addition to initiating biotechnology projects on maize streak virus, clonal trees and TC bananas. During her time at ISAAA, her dream for Africa Harvest began to take shape and she left ISAAA in 2001, before formally launching the Foundation in 2002. She has combined her career with a family life, raising three children at her home in Nairobi.

Dr Wambugu has published over 100 articles and co-authored various papers. She is also the author and publisher of Modifying Africa: How Biotechnology Can Benefit the Poor. She is the recipient of numerous local and international honours, awards and grants, including: • Profiled as one of 100 people whose ideas will shape debate over 10 important issues of the day (Foreign Policy Journal, posted September 2005: http://www.foreignpolicy.com)

Dr Florence receives Canada’s Planet Africa 2005 Award. With her is Dr Mary Mackey, an Africa Harvest Director from Canada.

• KARI’s 1989 Crop Science Award for outstanding scientist of the year • International Potato Center’s (CIP’s) Regional Research Award/Grant, 1989 • Noble Prize of the United Cultural Convention 2002 • World Bank Global Development Network Award in 2000 for successful introduction of TC banana in Kenya • Woman of the Year Award 2001 from the American Biographical Institute • Planet Africa Award 2005 (Science and Technology Award) • South Africa Ministry of Agriculture and Land Affairs Award 2004 in appreciation for supporting of 10 years of democracy • Woman of the Year Award 2004 from Eve Magazine, Kenya for her contribution to science, technology and academia • Under the leadership of Dr Wambugu, Africa Harvest (and the consortium of collaborating institutions) has been awarded US$18.6 million from a global competitive grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Global Health Challenge for Health and Nutrition.

Dr Wambugu has served as a board member and in other capacities for local and international institutions. These include the Private Sector Committee of the CGIAR, United Nations Millennium Development Goals Hunger Task Force, Executive Committee of the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA), DuPont Company Biotech Advisory Panel, Biodiversity International and the ABSF. She is currently serving as a Council Member of the Japan Science and Technology in Society (STS) Forum, a Steering Committee Member of the European Action on Global Life Sciences (EAGLES), a Science Board member of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Grand Challenges in Global Health, and Executive Board member of the International Genetic Federation (IGF) of Australia.

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Acknowledgements The Africa Harvest vision could not be realized without support and we fully appreciate the resources provided by our funding partners. Their support and cooperation has frequently gone beyond the donation of finances to include strategic resources and advice.

Over the past five years, many organizations and individuals have supported us and we are proud to say that all have shared in our vision and continue to provide resources. On behalf of our beneficiaries, we say thank you. We pledge continuous prudence in managing the resources entrusted to us. Africa Harvest also recognizes that our success would have been limited without the support of the development partners with whom we work closely. We wish to thank our international development partners, who hail from both the public and private sectors.

We thank the governments of Kenya, South Africa and the United States of America, where Africa Harvest has operational offices and works closely with various government agencies.

We also thank various pan-African organizations, including the African Union (AU), the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) and the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA).

In Kenya we thank and continue to work with ISAAA, The African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF), ABSF, KARI, Biotechnology Trust Africa (BTA), TechnoServe, the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) and Jomo Kenyatta University for Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT). In South Africa we extend our thanks to our partners the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), the Agricultural Research Council (ARC), the University of Pretoria, AfricaBio and Egolibio. In the United States we extend our gratitude to our partners who include DuPont Inc. and its subsidiary company Pioneer Hi-Bred International, University of California, Berkeley who are partners in Technology Development, and other agents who represent us including Patton Boggs Law Firm and Eric Cohen and Company Auditors.

We extend our gratitude to the following development partners for their support over the last five years: CropLife International, Rockefeller Foundation, DuPont, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Ford Foundation, Syngenta, Health Harvest, United States Agency for International Development (USAID), United Way and numerous individual and anonymous donors.

Last, but by no means least, we thank the farmers who have taught us a great deal through their hard work and perseverance. Their enthusiastic response has helped us lay a firm foundation for the long-term sustainability of our interventions.

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Acronyms and Abbreviations AATF ABS ABSF AHBFI AEEN AGRA ARC ASARECA ATL AU BTA CAADP CEO CGIAR CIP CSIR FARA GM GMO GTL ICRISAT IDRC IP ISAAA KARI KEFRI KEPHIS NARO NARL NEPAD NERICA NGO PAC PRA PSC R&D SADC TC TCBEL TCRI USAID WARDA WSSD WVC

African Agricultural Technology Foundation Africa Biofortified Sorghum African Biotechnology Stakeholders Forum Africa Harvest Biotech Foundation International Africa Economic Editors Network Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa Agricultural Research Council (South Africa) Association for Strengthening Agricultural Research in East and Central Africa Aberdare Technologies Ltd African Union Biotechnology Trust Africa Comprehensive African Agricultural Development Programme Chief Executive Officer Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research International Potato Center (Centro Internacional de la Papa) Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (South Africa) Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa genetically modified genetically modified organism Genetic Technologies Limited International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics International Development Research Centre intellectual property International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications Kenya Agricultural Research Institute Kenya Forestry Research Institute Kenya Plant Health Inspectorate Service National Agricultural Research Organization (Uganda) National Agricultural Research Laboratories (Kenya) New Partnership for Africa’s Development New Rice for Africa non-governmental organization Public Acceptance and Communications participatory rural appraisal Private Sector Committee research and development Southern African Development Community tissue culture Tissue Culture Banana Enterprises Ltd Tropical Control Research Institute (Tanzania) United States Agency for International Development The Africa Rice Center World Summit for Sustainable Development whole value chain

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1. Africa Harvest: Who and Why? Realizing a dream “Although we are only five years old, Africa Harvest has a 30-year history.”

Florence Wambugu, Africa Harvest CEO

The Africa Harvest dream began 30 years ago, when Dr Wambugu first walked through the door of the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI). Her work there, on the tissue culture of pyrethrum and sweetpotato, opened her eyes to the potential of biotechnology to reduce poverty and hunger, both of which she had experienced during her childhood. Her doctoral and post-doctoral studies, as well as the rural development work she initiated as the Director of the Africa Office of the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications (ISAAA), gave her the knowledge she needed to turn the dream into a realizable vision: that the application of science and technology could release Africans from the bonds of hunger, poverty and malnutrition. While she nurtured her dream, she began to surround herself with people who shared it. In January 2002, Africa Harvest was born. The infant organization had a staff of four and a modest first year budget drawn from Dr Wambugu’s personal savings.

Dr Wambugu started selling her dream by attending various international meetings and networking with her many contacts. One of these was CropLife International, a global federation representing the plant science industry and a network of regional and national associations in 91 countries. CropLife members are committed to promoting sustainable agriculture through innovative research and technology in the areas of crop protection and plant biotechnology. The organization provided Africa Harvest with a grant to lead a biotechnology communication and outreach programme in sub-Saharan Africa. This intervention now covers the entire continent and involves a diverse array of biotech partners.

“While our ultimate goal was to bring new technology to Africa, we first had a major biotech communication and awareness job to do.”

Florence Wambugu

In addition to fulfilling CropLife’s own objectives, the programme benefited the young Africa Harvest by creating awareness of the organization and its vision. This led to additional donor support from the Ford Foundation. Meanwhile, the farmers who had worked with ISAAA in the past were clamouring for support to market their improved tissue culture (TC) bananas.

So Dr Wambugu went back to the Rockefeller Foundation, who had funded the initial work through ISAAA, and they agreed to continue the TC banana work by providing funds to Africa Harvest.

Winning the global competitive grant process that secured the Africa Biofortified Sorghum (ABS) Project proves that Africa Harvest has come of age. This project is part of the Grand

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Challenges in Global Health Initiative, which aims to help apply innovation in science and technology to the greatest health problems of the developing world. The Grand Challenges encompass 43 projects and represent US$450 million from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, US$27.1 million from the Wellcome Trust and US$4.5 million from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. It is administrated by the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health (FNIH) and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

There are 14 Grand Challenges and improving nutrition is one of the key goals. Grand Challenge No. 9 is designed to “create a full range of optimal, bioavailable nutrients in a single, staple plant species”. The ABS Project is one of four projects within the GC#9 and received US$18.6 million funding for a five-year period starting July 2005. DuPont is donating technology worth US$4.8 million in the form of genes, seeds and know-how, another departure from more conventional strategic research project approaches.

“ABS is one of the largest projects I’ve ever been involved with and our level of project management has been applauded by the review board.”

James Onsando, Africa Harvest Director of Technical Operations

Dr Florence Wambugu outside the Africa Harvest office, a private house on the leafy Runda estate in Nairobi’s suburbs. The staff, who number almost 30, have now outgrown this facility and will be moving to a larger office in early 2008.

1. African Harvest: Who and Why? |

Our vision and mission Africa Harvest Biotech Foundation International (AHBFI) is incorporated in the USA as a non-profit foundation. Our headquarters are in Nairobi, Kenya and we have regional offices in Washington DC, USA and Johannesburg, South Africa. We have a global vision with an African focus to see Africa free of poverty, hunger and malnutrition.

Africa’s most prevalent challenges, especially among its rural populations, are hunger, poverty and malnutrition. Hunger affects 800 million people throughout the world and, although

Vision

Africa free of hunger, poverty and malnutrition

Mission

to use science and technology – especially biotechnology – to help the poor in Africa achieve food security, economic well-being and sustainable rural development

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global numbers are decreasing, sub-Saharan Africa continues to experience persistent chronic hunger. Many people, especially those living in marginal rural areas, have to survive on less than one meal a day and it is very worrying for the future to see just how many children are underweight and stunted due to lack of food.

Latin America/ CEE/CIS & Caribbean Baltic States Middle East/ 4 2 North Africa 7 East Asia/ Pacific 27

South Asia 78

Sub-Saharan Africa 32

Figure 1. 150 million children in developing countries are malnourished

Source: UNICEF, 2001. The State of the World’s Children 2002. New York, USA: United

Nations Children’s Fund. (http://www.unicef.org/publications/files/pub_sowc02_en.pdf)

Intricately linked to hunger is poverty, a complex and multifaceted challenge that has no single solution. Trade issues, debt cancellation and policy, governance and infrastructure improvements are all initiatives that could contribute to resolving the challenge of poverty.

Past interventions have tended to benefit those in power, large and medium-sized businesses, and people living in urban and peri-urban environments. The trickle-down effect has had minimal impact on the rural poor, especially those in outlying areas where transport and communication links are limited. In addition, when intervention projects are initiated in remote rural areas, they seldom take a holistic approach, often targeting the production system without addressing the need for market linkages.

“Our business is taking traditional staple crops and using biotechnology tools to create a product, then getting that product to market.”

Florence Wambugu

Africa Harvest utilizes the tools of science and technology – with a unique focus on biotechnology – to improve traditional staple crops. By reducing production constraints, increasing productivity, creating markets and developing value-added products, we can help to improve food security and farmers’ incomes. In addition, Africa Harvest opens and broadens farmers’ minds to the potential of their farms as business enterprises. We also try to involve the entire family in the business decision-making process.

1. African Harvest: Who and Why? |

The whole value chain approach

a)

Evans Mbogo was adamant that growing bananas wouldn’t make him any money.

But he soon changed his mind after being introduced to the Africa Harvest WVC approach, since then his family now has enough to eat all year round and his income has more than doubled. “At first, we thought these bananas were mahindu (wild),” he says. “But now we know why they are so good. We have learned so much – about growing bananas, about running a group – and about making money!”

b)

Africa Harvest developed the WVC approach in response to farmers’ needs.

“When I started Africa Harvest, farmers were calling me, asking for help because they could not get good prices for their bananas,” says Florence Wambugu. “So we developed WVC, which takes a much more holistic approach to production and marketing than most development programmes.” The WVC approach is a community empowerment implementation strategy, which links all the components of the supply chain, from provision of planting materials and training in improved agronomic practices to post-harvest handling, packaging, processing and marketing.

“WVC brings in a vertical alliance of partners who collaborate to help the farmer achieve a more rewarding position in the market”, adds Wambugu.

c)

Farmers like Mbogo, who have tested WVC, have reaped notable benefits, including a better quality crop and higher prices, more market stability, lower production costs and access to new markets, equipment and technology. Empowerment of farmers, which builds when they become organized into groups, helps them to demand better treatment and become part of a much bigger network that includes marketing outlets such as supermarkets. They are also learning how to add value to the crop and realize a better profit. The Chura farmers have been particularly successful and they have established their own marketing company (see Section 4).

d)

The WVC approach applied to TC bananas: a) improving productivity b) adding value by washing and grading c) bulk transport to market d) sales of high-quality fruit to urban consumers.

Awareness creation and baseline surveys

“Our experiences in perfecting the WVC approach lead us to believe that it is scaleable and sustainable and can be extended to additional crops and regions,” says Wambugu. While WVC is relatively expensive in terms of extension support, the investment is worthwhile, since well-informed, confident farmers will be keen to pass on their knowledge and experience to others. Such farmer-to-farmer exchange has real potential to impact on poverty and hunger across a wide area. The goal of Africa Harvest is to ensure that the WVC model is replicated whenever a new project is initiated. In the case of TC banana, we anticipate that this will cover at least five countries.

Seedling availability and affordability

Growing and orchard management

Figure 2. Africa Harvest’s whole value chain strategy

Post-harvest handling and treatment

Marketing and consumer acceptance

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A less noticeable but equally critical challenge facing Africa is that of malnutrition, also known as “hidden hunger”. Vitamin A, iron and zinc deficiencies are the most common indicators of malnutrition. Among rural communities, the lack of proper nutrition is compounded by people’s inability to purchase food crops that would provide a healthy, balanced diet. It is for this reason that Africa Harvest has begun exploring new technologies that can deliver nutrition within existing staple crops.

Our goals and approaches Africa Harvest takes a needs-driven, holistic approach. Our projects focus on the following key aspects: • A WVC community/customer-driven approach (see box) • Scaling up the impact of successful model projects, e.g. in addition to Kenya, the TC Banana Project has potential for impact in Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda • Communications and public acceptance, which are essential to create an enabling environment for the products of biotechnology • Use of biotechnology to develop new crop varieties and products • Capacity building (human and infrastructure) of African people and facilities to create sustainable impact • Supporting biosafety and the development of regulatory policies, which are currently major bottlenecks to the expansion and impact of biotechnology • Nurturing the development of entrepreneurial ventures such as processing and other technologies that add value to a crop • Partnerships and networks with like-minded organizations.

We have a strong African focus. This includes accessing new technologies that have already been successful in Africa instead of having to source them from outside the continent.

For example, we are drawing strongly on the products of South Africa’s scientific research which, coupled with effective private-sector marketing, has contributed to a relatively strong economy. We believe that such success can be replicated in other sub-Saharan African countries. Both the TC bananas and the clonal trees are examples of successful technology transfer from South Africa to East Africa.

“We have no plans to become a research centre. Our role is to act as an agent or facilitator, threading together the whole value chain.

Our expertise is in building strong consortia that work together to bring in the best of scientific leadership and create impact.”

Florence Wambugu

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2. Doing it the Africa Harvest Way The Africa Harvest programmes Africa Harvest’s activities are organized within four programmes: 1. Public Acceptance and Communications (PAC) Programme: focuses on increasing awareness of the benefits of biotechnology and on generating and sharing knowledge that empowers stakeholders at all levels to make informed decisions.

2. Capacity Building and Technology Deployment Programme: provides training and mentoring for technology dissemination to raise yields and incomes.

3. Technical Programme: involves identifying and working with partners to conduct highlevel scientific research leading to development of improved crops for Africa.

4. Finance, Administration and Business Development Programme: provides support to the other three programmes in relation to project initiation, project design, resource mobilization, human resources, administration, documentation and reporting.

Public Acceptance and Communications The PAC Programme ensures message consistency and that community and government relations are developed and implemented for the mutual benefit of all the Africa Harvest projects and recipients. Where regulatory compliance is required, we work with others within and outside Africa Harvest to ensure voluntary as well as mandated requirements are met.

The programme’s approach consists of activities that must be active for the length of the projects we undertake. The activities include defining research to answer questions that are specific to the project being implemented; establishing a baseline and monitoring of societal and cultural concerns; monitoring and addressing stakeholder concerns; continual contact with government officials; cultivating knowledge sharing with Africa public institutions; and addressing environmental concerns and developing research to address these concerns. We also undertake activities surrounding food safety, compliance, stakeholder relations and media outreach. These are activated at the appropriate time in the discovery, development and delivery process by using stewardship consultations at the beginning and throughout the life of a project.

We recognize that part of the key to winning the fight against hunger, poverty and malnutrition is transforming our target communities from having dependent and defeatist mindsets to becoming hard-working, self-reliant entrepreneurs with a “can-do” attitude.

Our leadership in biotechnology communication has contributed significantly to increased awareness of the benefits of biotechnology. Over the past five years, the programme has developed creative ways of disseminating information to facilitate the adoption of new crops and products, especially genetically modified (GM) products in Africa (see Section 3).

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Board of Directors Nominating Committee

Financial Audit Committee Chief Executive Officer Deputy Executive Officer Country Representatives

Consultants

Director –

Director –

Director –

Director –

Communication and Public Acceptance

Capacity Building and Technology

Technical

Finance, Administration and Business Development

Figure 3. Africa Harvest organizational structure

Note: This structure has served the organization well for the last five years but is

being revised to accommodate the rapid growth Africa Harvest has experienced

Capacity Building and Technology Deployment The Capacity Building and Technology Deployment Programme involves strengthening African human and infrastructural capacity to provide much-needed support to farmers.

We also focus on improving the level of knowledge of government officials so that they are better able to grasp the policy issues that surround effective transfer and application of new technologies. The TC banana and clonal trees projects both have a clear focus on developing the capacities of farmers, farmer groups, rural entrepreneurs and African scientists, since we believe this is the key to sustainability of the initiatives (see box and Section 4).

Technical Programme The Technical Programme conducts needs-driven interventions that offer practical solutions to the challenges facing resource-poor smallholder farmers in rural communities throughout Africa. The programme is designed around addressing the immediate challenges of hunger, poverty and malnutrition, and finding longer-term solutions to sustainable development on a large scale. All interventions consider the whole crop and product value chain, giving support

2. Doing it the Africa Harvest Way |

An expanding “banana kitchen” Esther Gachugu has a small farm near Muranga, in Kenya’s Central Highlands. Ten years ago, along with around 150 other smallholders, she was given TC banana plantlets for testing and demonstration through a Rockefeller-funded project. She was amazed when she sold her first bunches of TC bananas for KSh500 each, since the traditional types were fetching only KSh150 or 200. “These bananas have exceeded all my expectations,” she says. “Instead of barely growing enough to eat, I suddenly had plenty to sell and everyone wanted them. After just one year, I had enough money to build a new kitchen with a fireplace, Esther Gachugu is a knowledgeable and enthusiastic advocate so we no longer had to sit in the smoke.” In subsequent of TC banana biotechnology. years, she has been able to invest in her farm and in her children’s education, sending all nine children to secondary school and two to university. She has bought chickens and dairy goats, and last year she acquired a pickup truck, which she uses to deliver bananas to Nairobi.

Esther has played an important part in helping other families make equally dramatic improvements in their living conditions. She acts as a trainer and mentor to four farmers’ groups, encouraging people to come to her farm to see the TC bananas for themselves. She passes on her knowledge and experience of orchard management and marketing, and helps to manage the groups’ revolving savings funds. “I encourage them to invest in their farms,“ she says. “And I help them to get started by supplying them with banana plantlets if they cannot afford them.”

Since she began growing TC bananas in 1997, Esther has been able to expand and improve her “banana kitchen” several times.

As more farmers observe the benefits of growing TC bananas – higher yields and incomes, healthier orchards, better equipped farms, diversified farming enterprises, home improvements and better farmer organization – the technology is beginning to spread by itself, offering real potential for impact on poverty, hunger and malnutrition throughout the banana-growing areas of East Africa.

to production, product distribution and market linkages, with a view to ensuring gains for the intended beneficiaries, mainly in poor rural communities. An example of a successful shortterm intervention is the TC Banana Project, which demonstrates the power of science and technology to transform people’s lives and has won global accolades as a model of successful rural community development. The Africa Biofortifed Sorghum (ABS) Project is an example of a longer-term intervention. This project forms part of Africa Harvest’s strategy for high-level scientific research to develop improved crops that are needed in Africa (see Section 5).

Within the Technical Programme, the Regulatory and Biosafety Team manages the ­regulatory and safety activities of the ABS project and ensures that these conform to national and international regulations, protocols and laws governing GM crops and their products.

10  | Five-year Progress and Financial Report

The team also ensures that ABS materials intended for laboratory, glasshouse or field experiments conform to the regulatory and biosafety requirements of the importing country through development of safety guidelines and permit application dossiers. In providing information and overseeing the ABS Project, the team also contributes to the activities of the PAC Programme.

Finance, Administration and Business Development The Finance, Administration and Business Development Programme plays a supportive role in project initiation, resource mobilization, accounting and finance administration, human resources administration, documentation and reporting, legal compliance and donor liaison.

It helps provide the necessary resources and environment for the effective performance of the other programmes, and guides the strategic development and growth of the organization (see Section 8).

The Africa Harvest unique value proposition Focus on farmers Africa Harvest takes a needs-driven approach to rural development. This means putting farmers at the centre of activities. Our first step in any new area is to conduct a participatory rural appraisal (PRA), that involves the whole community and identifies the main problems and constraints they are facing. A new technology can then be adapted and introduced in a way that answers their needs.

The key to the success of the TC Banana Project has been the formation of strong, cohesive farmer groups. Establishing such groups is not an easy process and needs a considerable

Mobilizing strong farmer groups is the cornerstone of our field activities and Africa Harvest staff have learned a great deal about group dynamics, cohesion and sustainability factors over the past five years.

2. Doing it the Africa Harvest Way | 11

investment of time and resources. However, the benefits extend far beyond the scope of the project and lay the foundations for further development and impact on the wider community.

Through the TC banana work, Africa Harvest field staff have learned a great deal about group dynamics and cohesion. This has helped us to refine our approach and develop a model that can be used elsewhere (see Section 6).

Emphasis on people At Africa Harvest, we place strong emphasis on recruiting quality staff and keeping them motivated. This means offering a salary and benefits package that is competitive with international organizations. All our staff have management experience and strong interpersonal skills. In addition, the members of Africa Harvest Field Officer, Kenneth Macharia, covers long distances, our Board of Directors are chosen for their visiting every farmer group in his area at least once each month. specific and complementary experience. They have a wide diversity of experience and skills and represent many regions and environments.

They meet face-to-face once a year, but have quarterly contact via telephone conference calls.

Section 7 contains details of our Board of Directors and our staff members.

Partnerships and consortia Africa Harvest works in partnership with organizations that can help us fulfil our mission. At grassroots level, we work with farmers and farmer groups, at national and regional levels we work with research and policy institutions, and at the global level we work with international agricultural research and development organizations and donor agencies. We work with the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) on the Dissemination of New Agricultural Technologies in Africa (DONATA) programme, and with NEPAD’s technical arm, FARA. FARA is part of the ABS Consortium, where it provides links with target countries.

One of our key roles is to act as a broker or facilitator, bringing various partners together and forming consortia that create and maximize mutual synergies. These partnerships may include farmer groups, national research systems, international research institutes and the private sector. We believe that public–private partnerships are a powerful means of developing and disseminating technology suited to the needs of small-scale farmers. We therefore encourage the development of private enterprise, such as local nurseries for propagating trees and banana plantlets.

We firmly believe that the best way to promote agricultural growth in Africa is to put Africans in charge. To this end, we strongly advocate creative partnerships with local and international

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private-sector organizations and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) working to build African human capacity and infrastructure, facilitating the acceptance of new technologies and enabling African countries to access regional and global markets. The ABS Project brings together nine different organizations, all of which are committed to fighting poor nutrition through developing nutrient-rich crops. In this project, the private sector plays a particularly important role in donating intellectual property (IP) (see Section 5).

“I believe it is possible to deliver Africa from poverty, hunger and malnutrition, but only if Africans themselves carry the torch.”

Florence Wambugu

Paul Muchemi, one of the entrepreneurs working with Africa Harvest to improve farmers’ access to TC banana plantlets.

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3. Informing the Biotech Debate:

Public Acceptance and Communications Programme

Knowledge is power “You can only benefit from new technology if you first understand and accept it.”

Daniel Kamanga, Africa Harvest Communications Director

People need knowledge and information if they are to make the most of the opportunities afforded by social, economic and technological change. Yet in Africa, there is generally poor awareness and understanding of the potential of biotechnology to impact on poverty, hunger and malnutrition. It is difficult to find information in a format that is helpful to African farmers, while at the same time, negative hype and publicity abound, generated by a handful of anti-biotech groups that are mostly based outside Africa. As a result, media coverage is often distorted. In addition, there is little interaction and information exchange between African scientists, government departments and other organizations in different countries.

All these factors have contributed to an inability on the part of policymakers, farmers’ organizations and the general public in Africa to take an informed stance on adoption of new technologies such as TC plants. Africa Harvest’s communication strategy therefore hinges on increasing public acceptance by raising awareness of the benefits of biotechnology and on gathering and sharing knowledge that empowers the many different stakeholders to make informed decisions.

Africa Harvest uses multiple media and approaches: folk media and traditional social groupings, rural radio for community development, video and multimedia modules for farmer training, and the Internet for linking researchers, educators, extensionists and producer groups to each other and to global information sources. Our close-knit team of communication professionals works with management and field teams to identify the most effective communication strategies that will help achieve our desired agricultural and rural development goals. By implementing innovative and cost-effective communication strategies for clearly defined audiences, Africa Harvest has successfully mobilized thousands of farmers and enhanced social cohesion in many communities.

Our communication team continually monitors the state of biotechnology across the African continent. We also evaluate the accuracy and objectivity of existing information and identify knowledge and information gaps. Working with like-minded organizations, we promote biotechnology as a means of improving the lives of millions of Africans.

Positive, proactive communication While communication is a crosscutting issue running through all our projects, Africa Harvest is implementing three specific initiatives. Firstly, the CropLife Africa Biotech Outreach Programme has been running since 2002. During the initial, Africa-wide mandate, Africa Harvest established the state of biotech activities on the continent, defined the information gaps and identified organizations and target groups with which to engage. More recently, the

14 | Five-year Progress and Financial Report

programme has refined its focus. In Kenya, we have been working with other biotech partners on the Kenya Biosafety Bill as part of a broader strategy to focus on the policy framework in key African countries. Interventions include outreach to government, regulatory and political institutions.

Secondly, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Biotechnology Communication Project aims to promote better awareness of the benefits of GM food, with the result that food aid will be viewed with appreciation, rather than with criticism or fear.

The programme intends to increase the quality and quantity of coverage of GM food issues in the Kenyan media, giving the general public factual information that allows them to make informed choices. Broadening support for GM technology will improve the credibility of the pro-GM view. This includes the academic and scientific communities as well as grassroots community leaders who may be in receipt of food aid. The programme is building a broadbased database of pro-GM individuals and institutions and lobbying for support especially within government and policymaking structures. Finally, we are working to improve access – especially for the media – to specific information on GM food. This will include online and offline materials tailored for different target audiences.

Thirdly, the PAC Programme is in charge of all public acceptance, communication and issue-management tasks within the ABS Project. We are producing positive and proactive communication of progress and achievements and we have developed a specialized issue management capability to deal with communication needs at very short notice.

Communication support is especially important with the intended beneficiaries, particularly the farming community, and during applications for field release. People often reject new technology at first because they fear the unknown. Every Kenyan schoolchild knows the story about the Maasai declaring war on the British because they had brought a giant snake – the first steam train – to the country. Once an object of fear, the trains now provide invaluable transport links and are used by thousands of Kenyans every day. Africa Harvest believes that, with time and education, biotechnology will be equally well accepted.

Delegates at the Africa Harvest and CropLife sponsored SADC Media Training Workshop held in Johannesburg, South Africa in August 2005.

3. Informing the Biotech Debate | 15

Our initial task within the ABS Project was to assess current awareness of and attitudes to biotechnology through the Kenya Biotech Public Perception Baseline Survey. The study examined the public views and opinions of a wide cross-section of the Kenyan population on biotechnology, especially genetic modification within the field of agriculture. The comprehensive empirical study helped us find out what influences people, how they use the media, and the levels of trust they have in various information Wangari Kiragu, Africa Harvest Senior Programme Officer, being sources. We also examined attitudes towards food interviewed for a community radio programme targeted at smallscale farmers. safety and scientific advancement in relation to potential uptake of nutrient-enriched sorghum. The study’s results highlighted the need to combat food insecurity and poor nutrition in Kenya.

The research revealed that most opinion leaders are positive towards biotechnology and would support the introduction of GM crops, especially those that are drought tolerant and have improved nutritive value. The opinion leaders made a number of suggestions relating to the development of public awareness campaigns, Kenyan policy and improvement of the research and development (R&D) process. The results of the survey will feed into all Africa Harvest future projects.

Communication highlights Some of the main highlights spanning 2002–2006: • We have increased the level of awareness of GM technology in the midst of opposition from those who do not understand it, especially during the World Summit for Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg in 2002 • We have improved understanding at all levels in Kenya, keeping both the Government and the public informed of the benefits of GM crops and the need for a Kenya Biosafety Bill • As the first African organization to visit Zambia after the moratorium on GM food aid in 2002, Africa Harvest promoted an enabling environment for dialogue and better understanding of biotechnology • We provided South African stakeholders and media with a scientific and accurate interpretation of the likely effects of eating GM foods. This was in response to the unsuccessful Biowatch GMO lawsuit of 2004 • In 2003, Africa Harvest’s CEO addressed the South African Parliamentary Committee on Agriculture and Science on the opportunities offered by biotechnology and European Union (EU) parliamentarians on the adverse effect of the GMO Moratorium on Africa.

Exhibition and conference awards include Best First-time Exhibitor at the 2004 South Africa Science Festival and an award presented by the Government of South Africa (Ministry of Agriculture and Land Reforms) for our Contribution to Nation Building during the 10th Independence Anniversary Celebrations. In 2003, we received an AfricaBio recognition award for our Contribution to Better Understanding of Biotechnology during the WSSD.

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Africa Harvest’s CEO is a founder member and former Vice-Chair of ABSF, whose objective is to create an enabling environment in which Africa can participate and benefit from biotechnology in a responsible and sustainable manner. It aims to do this by enhancing awareness and understanding through the dissemination of information. We continue to work closely with them, for example, in preparation for a Kenyan Parliamentary Conference on the biosafety legislation. Africa Harvest provided financial sponsorship for the meeting and for journalists to attend all proceedings. We have a permanent officer who is involved in facilitating collaboration with ABSF, BTA, ISAAA and other biotechnology stakeholders, ensuring we participate in all ABSF events and functions. A few examples: • Science communication and parliamentary policymakers’ workshop organized by ABSF together with Tuskegee University, held in Nairobi in August 2003 • Association for Strengthening Agricultural Research in East and Central Africa (ASARECA) Biotechnology workshop for the Biotechnology and Biosafety Programme held in Nairobi in August 2003 • Africa Harvest lecture to biotechnology students from Kenyatta University at ABSF offices in September 2003 • Africa Harvest attended an ABSF luncheon with agriculture, science and technology parliamentary committee members in Nairobi in October 2003 • Africa Harvest participated in a workshop on ‘The Development of a National Biosafety Framework for Kenya’ in Mombasa in October 2003 In South Africa we work closely with AfricaBio and NEPAD. At the continental level Africa Harvest works with the African Union (AU) and FARA. During several FARA Board meetings, conferences and pan-African events, our CEO and the PAC team have ensured that biotechnology remains high on the agenda and that acceptance at continental level is increasing.

Dr Florence Wambugu (foreground), Dr Wynand van der Walt and several SADC science journalists listening to deliberations at the Africa Harvest and CropLife sponsored SADC Media Training Workshop, held in Johannesburg, South Africa in August 2005.

3. Informing the Biotech Debate | 17

The TC Banana Project has helped increase awareness and acceptance of biotechnology in banana-growing regions and has been adopted as one of the three NEPAD Comprehensive African Agricultural Development Programme (CAADP) crops of focus to be up-scaled across sub-Saharan Africa.

Reaching out: creative communication tools PAC provides back-up documentation for all Africa Harvest activities and develops communication tools and messages for different target audiences. For example, in grassroots communities, we have pursued direct contact with community influencers such as clergymen, chiefs and politicians. Our creative communication activities targeted at farmers have helped the benefits of TC bananas to reach an estimated half a million people. We have used a variety of tools including leaflets, posters, radio broadcasts and village-level meetings. Radio has been particularly effective in reaching and mobilizing grassroots communities.

Five years ago, the Kenyan media was either lukewarm or openly negative towards GM technology. Through Africa Harvest’s strategy of media training we have been able to redress the balance and promote more factual, balanced, scientific and in-depth coverage of biotechnology. For example: • We invited Kenyan journalists to visit Africa Harvest and the KARI biotechnology laboratories to see why new technology is so badly needed for agricultural development • We facilitated the placement of an opinion article by Dr Geoffrey Muluvi, Dean of the Faculty of Biosciences at Kenyatta University, in Kenya’s Daily Nation newspaper • We produced a special edition of the Africa Harvest newspaper and held a media training workshop for 30 Kenyan editors focusing on biotechnology policy and the Kenya Biosafety Bill.

The Africa Harvest website (www.ahbfi.org) is widely recognized as a one-stop shop for upto-date information on agricultural biotechnology in Africa and has won several international awards (Golden Web for 2002, 2003 and 2004; Maestro Award of Excellence, 2004). The site was revamped recently to include our quarterly newspaper online edition. Our quarterly newspapers carry news stories highlighting biotechnology and agriculture-related issues.

Many leading science journalists now regard our website as a source of balanced, factual information.

“Informing high-level policy and decision-makers is vital, but it is equally important to provide grassroots communities with knowledge, so they can make informed choices and manage their own sustainable development.”

Daniel Kamanga

Seminars, workshops and travelling workshops have been used to develop capacity among a range of different stakeholders, including farmers and farmer groups, scientists, journalists,

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policymakers, regulators, collaborating partners and politicians (see box). For example, as part of the USAID-funded Biotechnology Communication Project, we held a workshop for scientists on how to work with the media. The event focused on the differences in language between scientists and the media, which in many cases leads to misunderstandings.

The workshop facilitators were communication experts and science editors from Kenyan media houses. They helped equip the scientists with new skills and techniques on how to communicate scientific issues, particularly biotechnology. The participants also learned how the media functions. On the last day, the scientists shared some aspects of their scientific work with journalists.

Africa Harvest held another media training workshop for print and electronic media editors from 10 Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries. The editors, who were all members of the African Economic Editors Forum (AEEF), discussed the role of the media in giving fair coverage to GM and trade issues. Africa Harvest’s objective was to strengthen the capacity of the regional media to report factually, accurately and scientifically on biotech and trade issues; to increase the region’s media access to biosafety information and African news sources; and to understand what influences the perspectives of the region’s media on biosafety/trade issues. After the workshop, the editors went back to their respective countries where they carried out investigative journalism on biotechnology and trade. Their stories were posted on the Africa Harvest website and carried in an edition of our quarterly newspaper, which was then circulated to politicians and decision-makers throughout the region.

Information improves acceptance of GM food aid One potentially life-threatening effect of media scare­mongering about GM food is that starving communities may be persuaded to reject food aid that has a GM component. In 2006, as part of our USAIDfunded communication initiative, Africa Harvest held a workshop for community leaders in Kibwezi, 200km southeast of Nairobi, where the local community had suffered extreme drought conditions for the past four years. The meeting targeted grassroots opinion leaders, including local administrators, agricultural extension agents, public health officers, church leaders, village elders and leaders of self-help groups.

“We wanted to see if we could positively influence the perceptions of grassroots leaders on the acceptability of GM food aid,” says Daniel Kamanga.

The team did this by countering anti-GM or antibiotechnology information that the target audiences may have heard and providing solid data and information on GMOs. They also presented scientific evidence to show that there is no increased health risk associated with the consumption of GM food. “One

of our main concerns was the widespread ignorance and confusion regarding the incidence and effects of aflatoxins,” explains Kamanga. “Aflatoxin poisoning has become muddied with the GM debate as poor communities wrongly attribute aflatoxin-related cancers and deaths to eating GM food.”

As a result of the workshop, the community leaders realized that they had been misinformed about GMOs and they were happy to learn about the real issues.

The community was in dire need of food aid and did not mind if it was GM or not; the main concern was to fill their empty stomachs. And once they understood the problem, they were keen to seek further information and advice on how to improve production and post-harvest storage of food grains to minimize the risk of aflatoxin poisoning. Commenting on what she learnt from the training, Mustaff Hajj from Kibwezi said it was sad to realize that the old stock of maize had led to the death of two community members, but if others could learn, they would not have died for nothing.

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4. Tissue Culture Turns the Tide: Capacity Building and Technology Deployment Programme Addressing Kenya’s banana decline In the highlands of East and Central Africa, bananas are a staple food for around 20 million people. Most farmers in the region grow bananas on a small scale for home and local consumption, with any surplus fruit sold to neighbours or market traders in nearby towns.

The continuous availability of harvestable bunches is vital to the year-round food and income security of banana growers. However, smallholders throughout the region have seen their banana yields fall progressively over the past 20 years in a trend that researchers have come to call “banana decline”. For example, Kenya’s banana yields almost halved in four years, falling from 986,000 tonnes in 1992 to 489,000 tonnes in 1996. The culprits are a range of pests and diseases, such as nematodes, banana weevil, fusarium wilt and Black Sigatoka diseases.

Julius Njoroge proudly shows his TC bananas. Like many other retirees, Julius has to rely on his farm income to pay medical bills and support his family.

Running a profitable business has given him back his self-esteem.

When plants are well watered, weeded and supplied with organic matter to improve soil fertility, they are better able to resist pest and disease attack, but the majority of smallholders can neither afford this level of management nor see a need for it, since banana is traditionally a low-input crop. Even attempts to plant new orchards have been largely unsuccessful, since the traditional way of propagating banana, by taking suckers from nearby mother plants, simply carries the pests and diseases to the new site. Faced with what seemed like a no-win situation, many farmers have simply abandoned banana production altogether. However, there is hope of a dramatic turnaround. Replacing traditional bananas with disease-tolerant and virus-free plants propagated by tissue culture is beginning to reverse the banana decline.

“Banana is potentially one of the most profitable crops in Kenya: with TC plants a farmer could make KSh250,000 (US$3,348.00) per year from one acre.”

Julius Nyabicha, TCBEL General Manager

Tissue culture bananas were first introduced to Kenyan smallholders in 1996 when KARI requested ISAAA to introduce new technology that would improve banana production.

With funding from the US-based Rockefeller Foundation and Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC), ISAAA (under Dr Wambugu’s direction) assembled a multidisciplinary team that included biological scientists and socio-economists from several institutions. Major strengths of the project were the formation of partnerships

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with both public and private sector institutions, and the close attention paid to the needs and interests of the farmers. In 2000, the project received the Medal Prize Award at the Global Development Network Conference in Japan, an initiative of the World Bank and the Government of Japan. The project was selected from 500 initiatives worldwide.

Africa Harvest is continuing this valuable work, applying the WVC approach to address production constraints and, at the same time, ensure that farmers who increase their production can find a ready market. We continue to receive funding from Rockefeller and have secured additional funding from DuPont and the University of Queensland, Australia, the funds being sourced through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (see Table 1). In addition, the Government of Kenya, recognizing the importance of the concept in poverty alleviation, is giving its full support through KARI. Private sector partners, such as Genetic Technologies Limited (GTL), are also fully involved.

Table 1. Tissue Culture Banana Funding and Partners 2002–2006 Project

Donor and duration

Partners

Districts and participating farmers

Developing a pro-poor banana industry in Kenya

Rockefeller Foundation Phase I: 2003–2006

TechnoServe, KARI, ­ Ministry of Agriculture, GTL

Meru Central, Maragua, Muranga; 1691 farmers

Chura community TC Banana Project

Dupont Phase I: 2003–2006

KARI, Ministry of ­Agriculture, GTL, TCBEL

Chura; 6079 farmers

Banana virus indexing project

Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation through the University of Queensland, Australia

TCRI (Tanzania), NARO (Uganda), KARI, University of Queensland

NARO = National Agricultural Research Organization TCRI = Tropical Control Research Institute

Developing a pro-poor banana industry While the ISAAA banana project took large strides in disseminating the TC banana technology to farmers, by 2002 there were two major constraints limiting further progress.

Firstly, farmers had difficulty in accessing TC planting materials, which were too costly and not produced in large enough quantities or close enough to the farming communities.

Secondly, they had trouble marketing their fruit, since the quality and quantity produced was unreliable, they lacked information on where they could sell it, and it was difficult to organize delivery to distant urban markets. The Africa Harvest-led, Rockefeller-funded project therefore focused on the following key areas: • Subsidizing the cost of TC plantlets to first-time buyers • Organizing farmers’ groups and training them how to improve fruit quality and quantity • Improving market information and access • Developing small-scale regional nurseries to enhance seedling availability and affordability.

4. Tissue Culture Turns the Tide | 21

Tissue culture: what, why and how?

Tissue culture is a simple form of biotechnology that allows healthy new plants to be generated from minute amounts of plant tissue. The technique dramatically speeds up the multiplication process for vegetatively propagated crops like banana. Produced under sterile conditions in the laboratory, TC banana plantlets are grown in controlled conditions, then hardened off outside for several weeks before being planted out in farmers’ fields. In addition to providing material that is free from viruses and diseases, the technique can be used to introduce new high-yielding banana varieties that have better resistance to pests and diseases encountered in the field. The plants of such varieties grow faster and mature earlier, typically yielding twice the bunch weights of vegetatively propagated local varieties.

TC plantlets in the growth room at KARI’s National Agricultural Research Laboratories (NARL) in Nairobi.

From Africa Harvest’s analysis, it is clear that from all angles – yield, cash income, net income, labour income and unit cost of production – TC bananas are superior to traditional plants. The profitability of a TC banana plantation is also higher than that of most competing crops.

TC versus traditional banana The only point of concern Conventional is that to get the most of TC banana banana out of their TC bananas, Average farm size (ha)

0.2 0.2 farmers have to invest money in buying them and time Average establishment costs (US$)

600 200 and labour in looking after Average annual yield (tonnes per farm) 10 5 them, something they are not accustomed to doing.

Average realized price per tonne (US$)

200 160 “We need to shift farmers’ Annual gross returns per farm (0.2 ha) 2000 800 mindsets from seeing bananas as a low input–low output Average annual operating costs (US$)

200 140 subsistence crop to a highly Net average annual profit (US$) 1 800 660 profitable and remunerative production paradigm,” says Net average monthly profit (US$)

150 55 Dr Wambugu.

By 2006, the project had by far exceeded its target of mobilizing 900 farmers – in all, 1691 new farmers in three districts (Muranga South, Muranga North and Meru Central) have adopted the technology, planting over 80,000 TC banana plants. The project started with only three field officers (Vicky Ndungu, Israel Ikuro and James Kiragu) but as it expanded, Jane Ndiritu and Josephine Kilei joined the team. Five satellite nurseries are now in operation and farmers have received training on how to improve the quality of their fruit through good orchard management. A partnership with TechnoServe is proving highly beneficial in helping to address the challenge of effective market chain development (see box overleaf).

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Building a banana industry From the beginning in 2002, it was clear to Africa Harvest that the TC banana technology would not have a large-scale impact on poverty unless the growers were linked more productively to the markets and could benefit from better prices. “At that time, there was no banana industry,” says Henry Kinyua, Senior Business Adviser for TechnoServe Kenya.

“On one side, the growers were asking: where is the market? And on the other, the buyers wanted to know: where are the bananas? It was a bit like a leaking pipe: the profit in banana enterprises was being lost through inefficiencies all along the chain.”

The partnership between Africa Harvest and TechnoServe began in 2003 and supports the aims of both organizations by bringing a more integrated approach to market chain development. “Building partnerships is not easy but if you focus on the key objectives it helps all partners to build on their strengths,” says Kinyua. While Africa Harvest focuses on bringing farmers together to form cohesive groups, through which they learn good agronomic practices and can access TC plantlets, TechnoServe builds on this work by providing the mobilized groups with training in preparing the fruit for market, negotiating with buyers, selecting markets, and maintaining sales records and bank accounts. TechnoServe staff introduce The partnership between Africa Harvest and buyers to the groups and oversee price negotiations. TechnoServe also TechnoServe is helping farmers to get a better price helps farmer groups to explore different credit options, including com­mer­ in the marketplace. cial banks, micro-finance providers and sources of venture capital. “We don’t keep the groups to ourselves either,” says Kinyua. “We link them to other developmental NGOs so the farmers can get help to address additional aspects of their farming enterprises such as installing a shallow well or acquiring a dairy cow.”

Kinyua sees the future of the fledgling banana industry in Kenya as very bright. He believes that involving the private sector is the key to making banana enterprises sustainable. And that the Africa Harvest/TechnoServe partnership has developed a working model that can now be scaled up to have real impact on poverty, hunger and malnutrition throughout the region.

Lack of water is a major constraint to increasing TC banana production. TechnoServe links farmers to other developmental organizations, such as those helping farmers to install shallow wells.

About TechnoServe: US businessman Ed Bullard founded the NGO in 1968. While volunteering at a hospital in rural Ghana, he was struck by how difficult it was for hardworking people in the area to lift themselves out of poverty. So he created an organization that aimed to provide the poor with access to productivity-enhancing tools. Bullard’s work was guided by two core principles, revolutionary at the time: the power of private enterprise to transform people’s lives, and the lasting value of providing a hand-up rather than a hand-out.

Today, TechnoServe focuses on developing entrepreneurs, building businesses and industries, and improving the business environment.

Its work revolves around helping the poor to identify and capitalize on good business opportunities that have potential to transform their lives, by generating jobs and markets for their products and services.

TechnoServe has been active in Kenya since 1975.

4. Tissue Culture Turns the Tide | 23

Promoting food security in Chura Despite living within 20km of Nairobi’s urban markets, the people of Chura community often went hungry. The familiar sub-Saharan African problems of rising population, diminishing land holdings, decreasing soil fertility and frequent droughts meant that their traditional horticultural cash crops were no longer providing a reliable livelihood. However, after working with Africa Harvest for just three years, many members of the community have seen a dramatic turnaround in their living standards, thanks to TC bananas.

It was Evelyn Mungai, who chaired the local Rotary Club, who pleaded with Africa Harvest to intervene, resulting in the Chura Community Tissue Culture Banana Project, which ran from January 2003 to December 2007. The main goal was to promote sustainable rural community development through alleviation of hunger and poverty by increasing banana production and removing barriers and bottlenecks in the banana value chain. Africa Harvest field staff, led by Wangari Kiragu, used the WVC approach to work through five main steps: 1. Creating awareness and organizing farmers into groups to access inputs and knowledge.

This included establishing demonstration plots in Chura and taking farmers on visits to other areas (e.g. Maragua), where TC bananas were already established.

2. Enhancing farmers’ access to TC banana planting materials through subsidizing the cost of the plantlets and/or providing loans in kind (the farmer takes the plant and pays back a proportion of the cost after the first harvest); and by establishing local nurseries.

3. Orchard establishment and management: training farmers in good husbandry techniques.

4. Post-harvest handling: training farmers how to wash, grade and prepare their fruit.

5. Empowering farmers and promoting long-term sustainability through setting up a banana growers and marketing association.

The goal to mobilize 6000 farming households in just three years was an ambitious target, particularly since the field team were met with a high level of scepticism. The community did not initially view banana as a potential cash crop since they were accustomed to growing and selling vegetables, which have a shorter turnaround between planting and selling.

Gaining commitment from key opinion leaders, including church ministers and provincial administrators or chiefs, proved to be the best entry tactic. (More information on the Africa Harvest farmer-centred approach can be found in Section 6).

“It was such a pleasure to see the joy on their faces when they harvested the first bumper banana crop.”

Wangari Kiragu, Africa Harvest Senior Programme Officer

The results have been spectacular: 6079 farmers are now growing TC bananas and nearly half a million plants have been established in farm orchards. There are 135 demonstration plots, three satellite nurseries and seven banana collection centres. And the innovative idea of a farmer-owned fruit marketing company completes the chain. Of course, there are still many

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challenges, not least the lack of reliable and sufficient water, but the farmers have a newfound confidence and believe that by working together, they can overcome most hurdles.

Linking the chain: a farmer-owned marketing company is formed By the end of 2006, Kenyan banana farmers had planted around six million TC banana plants in orchards covering 5% of Kenya’s total banana-producing area of 82,000 ha (202,622 acres). Most farmers had seen their banana yields more than double in weight. However, this success created a fresh challenge: although marketing studies indicated there was a high demand for bananas in rural and urban areas and opportunities for export, the links between these markets and the farmers were missing. Africa Harvest is exploring two initiatives aimed at finding solutions to the marketing challenge. The first is through working in partnership with TechnoServe (see box below). The second involves the farmers themselves, who have worked with Africa Harvest and private investors to set up their own marketing company, TC Banana Enterprises Limited (TCBEL).

Zipporah’s story Zipporah Warira Muchai remembers well the day her first TC banana flowered. “It was in April 2005, less than a year after I planted it, and I was so excited,” she says. Zipporah is 56 and, since her husband died, she has been the family’s main breadwinner. She acquired her bananas through the Mwirimiri Mugunda banana growers group, based in the area around Gathiga village in the Chura community. Although she was sceptical initially, she decided to invest in TC bananas after hearing about the profits others were making. “I bought 67 plantlets immediately to take advantage of the subsidized price,” she said. “God is faithful and I had money at hand from our women’s merry-go-round savings group.”

Zipporah’s first banana harvest brought in KSh10,300 (US$147).

“Now I am happy since every month I have a consistent income Zipporah proudly shows off her new of about KSh3,400 (US$50) from my bananas, which are sold wheelbarrow, bought with the profit from through TCBEL,” she says. “The beauty of banana farming as her TC bananas. a business is that I don’t fear being conned by a broker, as has happened in the past with my vegetables.” Zipporah’s vision is to use her banana profits to expand her cow shed to accommodate her three dairy cows and to resume construction on her new stone house, which has remained ­unfinished since her husband died. “I will not live in a shanty all my life,” she declares. She also hopes to educate her grandchildren up to university level and to invest in further farm enterprises, starting with organic poultry.

Zipporah’s success illustrates how TC banana farming can generate food and income security, even on a small scale. What is particularly important is that bananas provide a regular income that allows farmers to invest in savings schemes and fund additional farm enterprises. The role of TCBEL in providing a good price and a reliable market is vital to the farm business development.

4. Tissue Culture Turns the Tide | 25

“We are the only company in Kenya dealing with bananas in an organized way.

Our competitive edge is based on quality and a shorter market chain.”

Julius Nyabicha

TCBEL is predominantly a farmerowned company, with farmers represented on the Board of Directors.

The current Chairman of the Board is a farmer who is rated the best banana farmer in Chura. Africa Harvest facilitated and financed the formation of the company to ensure a fair income for the TC banana farmers in Chura. The company’s stated mission is to “Market banana fruits derived predominantly from tissue culture, and to produce and distribute Julius Nyabicha (General Manager) and Josephine Njeri (Office Administrator) outside the offices of TCBEL related products to farmers, while in Wangige, near Nairobi. Africa Harvest currently incorporating farmers as shareholders subsidizes staff salaries in TCBEL but hopes the company will be fully self-funding from January 2008. and increasing the value of investment for the shareholders”. The company hopes to attract further private investment that will allow it to expand. It will also develop new strategies to address the Kenyan banana market’s currently disaggregated and inefficient pricing structure that exploits the farmers, who receive only a minute proportion of the ultimate market price.

TCBEL purchases bananas from the farmers and markets the produce through various channels. Bananas are harvested and the farmers take them to designated collection points where they are de-handed, clustered, washed, graded and packed into crates to be collected by the company. Africa Harvest has trained the farmers to do all these activities by themselves. TCBEL is expanding its sales to three different market segments: a) low-value mass market, e.g. open-air market stalls; b) middle or institutional market, e.g. schools and hospitals; and c) top-end, e.g. supermarkets and hotels. Branding the bananas as “TCBEL” is helping to create customer loyalty, since the TC bananas tend to have a longer shelf life and sweeter taste than non-TC fruit.

Currently, TCBEL’s efforts are concentrated around the Chura TC banana farmers, but the ultimate aim is to roll out its operations to national level. This entails the involvement of TCBEL in establishing market linkages with top-end markets such as supermarkets, institutional buyers, catering companies, service providers and retail outlets. The company is already involved in organized product aggregation and the setting up of bulking centres; proper handling, grading and transporting processes; ripening and warehousing facilities; and setting industry standards and regulations.

“Technology provides only a third of the value to farmers; the second third is in good agronomic practice, while the remaining third is in post-harvest handling.”

Florence Wambugu

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Addressing a hidden threat: Banana virus indexing While TC bananas offer major advantages to farmers in providing planting material that is free from pests and some diseases, the process of tissue culture does not eliminate viral diseases such as the banana streak virus. Viruses in banana and other food crops cause substantial yield losses, but because they are difficult to identify, historically they have received little research attention. There is an urgent need to integrate virus indexing into the TC banana propagation system. The success of banana production in East Africa will depend on institutionalization of virus indexing and control of somaclonal variants as a mandatory process in banana TC, and in the establishment of an effective regulatory system to enforce it. Currently, Africa Harvest is one of very few organizations in East Africa supplying farmers with certified disease-free TC banana plantlets.

“Identification is the key to managing banana viruses.”

Ann Wangai, Deputy Centre Director, KARI (NARL)

The Africa Harvest-led virus indexing project aims to enhance capacity throughout East Africa to produce clean banana planting materials. We are working closely with KARI and the national agricultural research systems in Tanzania and Uganda. Specifically, our role is to: • Help set up virus-indexing facilities within the national agricultural research systems of Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda • Promote formal government certification of the material produced from TC laboratories • Encourage and oversee virus indexing in both public and private TC laboratories • Help laboratories set up quality-control systems to limit occurrence of somaclonal variants and promote good nursery practices.

Ultimately, it is the farmers who will benefit from an overall improvement in the quality of the TC banana plantlets, since if they lose their hard-won investment Banana viruses cause substantial yield losses throughout East Africa. to viral attack, they may not be able or willing to reinvest in a more hopeful future. However, private sector entrepreneurs will also benefit by being able to offer planting material that is certified “clean” since they may be able to charge a premium and thus secure repeat business from satisfied customers. Now we have established links and credibility with farmers, private sector laboratories, nurseries and national agricultural research systems, Africa Harvest is ideally placed to bring together demand and supply for virus indexing.

4. Tissue Culture Turns the Tide | 27

Progress so far includes running a stakeholders’ workshop in Nairobi, developing the project work plan and conducting a banana virus-indexing baseline survey, that is testing for six viruses of economic importance to bananas in East Africa. This survey will provide information and data to guide the development of an implementation strategy.

TC banana plantlets at Aberdare Technologies Ltd (ATL), one of the satellite nurseries supplying farmers with certified, virus-free plantlets.

A model of success

“It’s like opening a bank account you can draw from whenever you need money.”

TC banana grower

In 2006, Africa Harvest commissioned a socio-economic impact study of the past 10 years’ TC banana development work. The authors concluded that banana TC is an appropriate and manageable technology for small-scale farmers. The direct economic impact was estimated by multiplying the additional income earned by adopting TC rather than non-TC banana (KSh224,500 per ha) by the area under TC banana (4288 ha) and came to just under KSh963 million for 2006. In addition to improving food security, nutrition and economic status of Kenya’s rural poor, TC bananas provide cash income security since bananas can be harvested throughout the year. In addition, the leaves and spare suckers are used to feed animals, especially during the dry season when little else is available.

The study noted that TC bananas had a significant social impact too. After adopting TC bananas, many farming families could survive without food aid for the first time in their lives. Not all the bananas are sold; the lower grade fruit are consumed in the home and malnutrition has become a danger of the past. Since growing bananas is mainly a woman’s task, the increased income has benefited the whole family, helping to pay for medicines, school fees and a more varied diet. Banana income has also helped to promote more equality in family decision-making.

Introduction of TC bananas and the consequent revival of banana farming has had a multiplier effect on the wider economy by providing employment and economic/business opportunities to village assemblies, wholesalers, urban retailers, transporters, labourers in

28 | Five-year Progress and Financial Report

Profits from the sale of TC bananas allow smallholders to invest in their farms, by buying dairy cows and installing water tanks.

wholesale markets, manufacturers of packaging materials and agricultural labour households.

Additional production of bananas has also benefited banana consumers by way of increasing availability.

At community level, the formation of cohesive farmer groups has empowered farmers to seek solutions to a range of community issues and concerns in addition to those of agronomy. For example, the Chura groups have lobbied local government for better road access. The groups also provide an entry point for other development activities, such as provision of dairy cows and wells. One of the most important is improved access to credit, through revolving funds or micro-credit schemes. (See Appendix 1 for a list of the farmer groups formed.)

“NEPAD has commended our work on TC bananas as a key intervention in tackling the problems of poverty and hunger in Africa – this recognition is a great honour to us all.”

Florence Wambugu

Recognition of the potential of TC bananas throughout Africa from NEPAD, FARA and other regional organizations reinforces our belief in this technology. We believe we can use the experience gained through this project to transfer the banana technology to other countries and to apply the same approach to other commodities.

The first step is to scale up to additional regions within Kenya. Working with TechnoServe and funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, we propose to expand to three additional districts, namely Thika, Kirinyaga and Meru Central. These are all banana-growing areas where

4. Tissue Culture Turns the Tide | 29

Going bananas: statistics speak for themselves Banana is potentially one of the most profitable crops in Kenya. With TC plants a farmer could make KSh 250,000 per year from 1 acre.

• Number of TC banana plantlets produced annually: 753,000 • Area of Kenya planted to TC bananas: 82,000 ha (202,622 acres) • Average yield of TC bananas: 12.85t per acre (2.2 times that of non-TC) • Net income from TC bananas: 145% higher than from non-TC • Number of smallholders producing bananas in Kenya: close to 400,000 • Estimated average consumption of banana per capita per day: 300g in banana grower families compared with 60g in the rest of the population • Total energy needs of an average rural Kenyan met by bananas: 8.14%.

TC banana variety Grand Naine yields big bunches weighing 40–50kg.

Source: Acharya, S.S. and Mackey, M.A. 2007. Economic Impact Assessment of Tissue Culture Banana Industry in Kenya. Nairobi, Kenya: Africa Harvest Biotech Foundation International.

Rockefeller has invested substantially in the past. By the end of the second phase (2008), the project is expected to have reached 7,500 smallholders who will plant an average of 50 banana plantlets each, increasing the area under TC bananas by around 250 ha. Enhanced access to inputs and plantlets will be provided by helping to establish ten additional distribution nurseries and by extending the range of varieties on offer to include cooking and popular local dessert varieties. Training activities will focus on both farmer trainers and Ministry of Agriculture extension staff, to ensure the project is sustainable.

If bananas are to play the important dual role of being a food crop and a cash earner, a deliberate policy needs to be put in place to facilitate the development of the banana industry. In particular, the Government of Kenya needs to develop a TC banana regulatory certification system for TC laboratories to ensure production of good-quality plantlets of local varieties. The next phase will see Africa Harvest working closely with governmental and strategic partners to develop appropriate policies that will influence issues of quality control and certification. In terms of scaling out beyond Kenya, Africa Harvest is already looking for potential donors and development partners.

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Replanting Kenya’s trees Tissue culture technology has enormous potential to improve productivity, propagation of disease resistance and uniformity of a wide range of crops and trees. Africa Harvest is using the technology to help address one of Africa’s most pressing concerns: the fuelwood crisis. Fuelwood is the main source of domestic energy for cooking throughout sub-Saharan Africa. As the population is increasing, so is the demand for fuelwood and, as a result, deforestation is becoming a major problem, adversely affecting the delicate balance of water and soils across the continent. There are other implications too. Women have to spend more time collecting fuelwood and have less time for more productive tasks, such as growing food. Farmers are driven to use animal dung and crop residues as fuel instead of applying them to the soil, and the poor may be unable to cook their food at all, resulting in increased levels of malnutrition and disease.

Africa Harvest is a partner in an innovative project that aims to increase the supply of fuelwood, enhance protection of water-catchment areas and hydroelectric dams, and produce poles for power, lighting and timber. This will create new income-earning opportunities for resource-poor smallholders. The project uses tissue culture and clonal hedge propagation techniques to produce highquality plantlets of fast-growing disease-tolerant trees for smallholders to grow on, harvest and use at home or sell for fuelwood, poles and timber.

By simplifying the propagation technique (rooting cuttings straight into sterilized soil/ sand mixture), ATL can produce clonal trees at a more affordable price.

The Tree Biotechnology Project was initiated in 1997 by ISAAA (under Dr Wambugu’s direction) in partnership with the Kenya Forestry Department and Mondi Forests, a South African private sector timber company. While the project tree nursery at Karura, near Nairobi was successful in producing large quantities of tree plantlets, the high infrastructural and production costs deterred smaller-scale local nurseries from adopting the technology. In an effort to encourage dissemination and uptake on a larger scale, Africa Harvest developed a low-cost, less capital-intensive clonal tree propagation technology that was more attractive to small- or medium-sized businesses. The Foundation transferred this technology to the Tree Biotechnology Project at Karura and to Aberdare Technologies Ltd (ATL). “Farmers can adopt our techniques and start their own small tree nurseries, so this is a very scalable technology,” says Paul Muchemi, ATL Managing Director.

Over the past five years, the Tree Biotechnology Project and ATL have distributed millions of small trees, mainly drought-tolerant, fast-growing eucalyptus hybrids but also some indigenous tree species. Farmers in Meru, Embu, Kiambu, Muranga and Nyeri districts in Central Province have received extension and capacity-building services.

Other areas that have benefited include Kakamega, Trans-Nzoia and Uasin Gishu districts in Western Kenya; and Kajiado, Kinangop, Trans-Mara and other districts in Rift Valley Province.

Clonal trees grow fast and have a uniform appearance, making them an ideal smallholder crop. Farmers particularly welcome the potential to generate an income on a small area of land, without demanding too much of their labour.

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5. The Africa Biofortified Sorghum (ABS) Project Addressing a neglected crop Sorghum is an important dietary staple for about 300 million Africans, since it has a unique ability to thrive in harsh arid and semi-arid lands. Many hardworking rural people appreciate the cooked grain’s slow release of energy and a bowl of sorghum porridge is traditionally regarded as a meal that keeps you going all day long. The down side is that the grain lacks essential nutrients and is not easily digested. Poor quality food is one of Africa’s major problems and millions suffer from an invisible form of hunger known as micronutrient deficiency.

Inadequate intake of essential micronutrients can cause impaired immune systems, blindness, low birth weight, and low cognitive development of children, impaired neuropsychological development and general body stunting. It is estimated that 50% of sub-Saharan Africa’s young children (<5 years) and pregnant or lactating mothers suffer from iron deficiency anaemia, while more than 43 million children are at risk of Vitamin A deficiency. Vitamin A is the single most important cause of blindness among children. The overall coverage rate for Vitamin A supplementation to children aged between six and 59 months in the developing world stood at 61% in 2003.

Dietary limitations and lack of private sector involvement have led to several decades of underinvestment in sorghum research and development. This has contributed to a trend in which smallholder farmers are increasingly switching to growing maize. Although farmers prefer maize, growing it in areas prone to drought is a risky business, since a whole year’s investment can be wiped out if there is no rain. What resource-poor farmers need is a

Sorghum facts • • • • • • • • • •

A staple food for 300 million people in Africa Fifth most important grain for food use Centre of origin and diversity in Africa Primary cereal in arid and semi-arid regions Mostly consumed as porridges Considerable variation in grain composition and food preparation methods Low protein content Poor protein digestibility Poor protein quality (low in lysine, tryptophan, threonine, and sulphur amino acids) Low iron and zinc availability.

32â&#x20AC;&#x201A; | Five-year Progress and Financial Report

nutritionally enhanced sorghum that will thrive in poor soils with low rainfall and, at the same time, provide the vitamins and minerals needed for a healthy diet.

The US$18.6 million Africa Biofortified Sorghum (ABS) project, funded under the Grand Challenges in Global Health Initiative by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (see box), will go a long way towards alleviating poverty, hunger and malnutrition and is likely to catalyze further investment in sorghum. Pursuing a health and nutrition goal, the project seeks to develop a more nutritious and easily digestible sorghum that contains higher levels of essential amino acids, especially lysine, increased Vitamins A and E, and more available iron and zinc.

The project has potential to impact on the health and lives of 300 million African people.

"ABS is not looking at short-term solutions; we are harnessing Africa's and the world's best scientific brains and technologies to fight malnutrition, which is a major African health problem."

Florence Wambugu

There is a common perception amongst development agencies that Africa lacks human or infrastructural capacity. This has meant that much Africa-targeted research is conducted outside Africa, or with minimal involvement from African scientists. In contrast, the ABS project has been designed to build on and strengthen Africaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s existing scientific capacity, â&#x20AC;&#x201A; a move that will lay the foundations for future research efforts within Africa.

Sorghum has long been a staple of the African diet and grows well in arid and semi-arid climates, but it lacks essential amino acids, vitamins and minerals, and has poor digestibility.

5. The Africa Biofortified Sorghum (ABS) Project | 33

Africa Harvest developed the ABS proposal by exploiting a series of complementary events and building a consortium of partners. At the time, Dr Wambugu was a member of the advisory board for Dupont, Pioneer’s parent company. She also served on the scientific advisory board of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and had a good working relationship with the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in South Africa. She was therefore ideally placed to bring together the most appropriate expertise and had the knowledge to identify who could provide it. In addition to developing nutritionally enhanced sorghum, the project aims to transfer technology from USA to Africa and to build African capacity (human and

Grand Challenges in Global Health Launched by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in 2005, Grand Challenges in Global Health recognizes that health, economic development and quality of life are closely interlinked. Its objective is to harness the power of science and technology in the world’s most advanced countries to dramatically improve health in the poorest. In identifying 14 separate challenges, the initiative focuses on supporting groundbreaking research in the hope of finding ways to prevent, treat and cure the diseases that kill millions of people in developing countries each year.

Grand Challenges is receiving support to the tune of US$450 million from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, US$27.1 million from the Wellcome Trust and US$4.5 million from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

The Grand Challenges are grouped within the following goals: • Improve childhood vaccines • Create new vaccines • Control insects that transmit agents of disease • Improve nutrition to promote health • Improve drug treatment of infectious diseases • Cure latent and chronic infections • Measure disease and health status accurately and economically in developing countries.

Melinda Gates admires a present given by Africa Harvest CEO, Dr Florence Wambugu, during a meeting of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation grantees in Seattle, USA.

The aim of Grand Challenge No. 9 (which falls within the goal of improving nutrition to promote health) is to create a full range of optimal, bioavailable nutrients in a single staple plant species. In other words, to develop an individual food source that will not only thrive in developing (mostly tropical and sub-tropical) countries but will also provide the vitamins and minerals that are most needed by the people who eat it. The crops that have been identified are banana, cassava, rice and sorghum.

More information is available from www.grandchallengesgh.org

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infrastructural) to develop new food technology. In addition, the project supports advocacy for biosafety policy development and public acceptance of GM technology in Africa.

The bulk of the ABS funds will be spent in Africa, building human and infrastructural capacity to make the project sustainable in the future. Project spin-offs include capacity building, technology transfer and job creation. In the longer term, an improved sorghum would have huge economic potential for post-harvest processing and new product development.

“This is one of the most ambitious food projects that has been attempted – and one of the most promising as far as potential impacts go. The goal isn’t biofortified sorghum – it’s improved health and nutrition.”

John Taylor, Professor of Food Science and Technology, University of Pretoria, South Africa

Taking a consortium approach ABS is an Africa-initiated, Africa-led project that brings together a consortium of nine partners (see Table 3). The consortium approach helps to pull together and benefit from a diverse, international base of knowledge and experience drawn from the best of private, public and academic sectors to deliver technology that will help fight malnutrition in the developing world. The three “technical” partners – the two US groups and CSIR in South Africa – are providing and developing the technologies, carrying out the biotechnology work and building the capacity of their African partners. CSIR is also forming a bridge between scientists at Pioneer and those in Africa to ensure that the technology is properly transferred to and implemented in Africa. The University of Pretoria is carrying out nutritional analyses and digestibility studies on the new GM varieties, while ARC will work to integrate the new traits into locally adapted sorghum varieties. As the lead institution, Africa Harvest’s role is to provide overall project management, make sure the different partners complement each other successfully, and identify and source capacity to fill any skills or infrastructural gaps.

“All the partners have a major contribution to make, and all are very keen to do so.”

James Onsando

The project is well structured, with multiple milestones and deliverables, and very specific roles for each member organization. Funding from the Grand Challenges in Global Health Initiative is closely linked to the delivery of the milestones and adherence to good laboratory, greenhouse and field practices, as clearly stipulated in the project policy manual. The ABS Project team has also developed an access plan called Global Access Strategy for Charitable Objective (GAS-CO) for all intellectual property (IP) issues to ensure that any improved

5. The Africa Biofortified Sorghum (ABS) Project | 35

Table 3. The ABS Consortium Partner

Location

Role

Africa Harvest

Kenya, South Africa, USA Kenya

Lead institution; consortium management and coordination; biosafety and regulatory; public acceptance and communication Managing the project’s intellectual property (IP) to ensure “freedom to operate”, i.e. that farmers will be able to access the ABS technology Backcross the GM varieties with local ones to import the new traits into locally adapted varieties; transgenic field trials Laboratory and greenhouse genetic trans­ formation work; technology development and transfer to Africa Providing and developing the technologies; capacity building for African scientists

African Agricultural Technology ­Foundation (AATF) Agricultural Research Council South Africa (ARC) Council for Scientific and ­Industrial ­Research (CSIR)

South Africa

DuPont, through its subsidiary Pioneer HiBred International Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA)

Iowa, USA

Ghana

International Crops Research India, with a Institute for the Semi-Arid regional office Tropics (ICRISAT), a CGIAR in Kenya centre

Coordination and product distribution in target countries Source of improved sorghum germplasm for biofortification; conducting biosafety environmental and socio-ecological research; product development

University of California, ­Berkeley

California, USA Providing and developing the technologies

University of Pretoria

South Africa

Nutritional analyses and digestibility studies

sorghum strains developed by this project are made available royalty-free to the poorest of the poor. The ABS project receives ongoing feedback and advice from an External Advisory Board, comprised of internationally renowned scientists and other highly regarded subject matter specialists and consultants (see Section 7).

In addition to the short-term goal of alleviating poverty, hunger and malnutrition, the ABS project aims to build the capacity of and empower African scientists to sustain the momentum over the long term. Thus, an important component of the ABS project is to bring top African researchers to the USA to learn about the latest advances and techniques in biotechnology. When they return home, they will play a key role in training the next generation of African scientists (see box overleaf).

A bold beginning The ABS team have made a very promising start in their transformation work and most of the milestones for the first two years have been met. They have been successful in enhancing the level of lysine, one of the targeted essential amino acids, to the extent that the improved sorghum has 100% more lysine than conventional varieties. This is indeed fast work and illustrates the power of biotechnology to speed up the plant breeding process.

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Training Africans to lead the way The three young African scientists who were the first to take part in Pioneer Hi-Bred International’s capacity building programme for the ABS all agree on one thing. South African Andile Grootboom speaks for them: “It was an invaluable experience, both for me as an individual, but also for my group’s part in the ABS Project.” Grootboom spent seven months at the company’s Iowa laboratories, learning new processes and additional technical skills that his group at CSIR needed to carry out their experiments. “On my return, I was able to play a driving role in the experimental work,” he says. “There’s no doubt that what I learned at Pioneer has speeded up our progress here in South Africa.”

Luke Mehlo, originally from Zimbabwe and also working for CSIR, spent 15 months at the same laboratories. “The training was an investment, and it was very rewarding. I got to interact with some exceptional scientists in Iowa. I’m now working with students here, sharing the skills that I learned.” As the leading African technical partner in the ABS Project, CSIR is now looking to these skilled young scientists to lead the way.

Kenneth Mburu, who has a Masters degree in Bio­tech­­nology from Jomo Kenyatta University in Nairobi, receives his tickets to the USA from Florence Wambugu. Kenneth is the fifth African to receive support from Africa Harvest to work at Pioneer. He will learn skills in biotechnology and later share these with his Kenyan colleagues.

Nemeera Shagie works with a different consortium partner, the ARC. He also spent time at Pioneer’s laboratories gaining experience of the hybrid development techniques that his group will rely on when the breeding programme gets under way. “It was hard work,” he admits, “but it was worth it. Now I’ve given myself a commitment to stay with the ABS. I come from Ethiopia, the country where sorghum originates, so I have a special drive to see the fruits of this project.”

Work on digestibility and vitamin enhancement is also proceeding well. The team at Pioneer have managed to down-regulate the quantity of kafrins, the structural proteins that are largely ­responsible for sorghum’s low digestibility. They have also been successful in reducing the phytic acid content of sorghum, which leads to a corresponding increase in inorganic phosphate and improved availability of iron and zinc. Work done by one of the African post-doctoral researchers has been submitted for IP protection to benefit the project – a clear sign that the project is delivering capacity enhancement at the same time as making scientific breakthroughs.

“The first biofortified lines are now available in the lab and will be field tested in the USA in 2008. It’s early days – we’re at the start of a steep learning curve – but things are looking very promising.”

Rachel Chikwamba, Research Group Leader, Plant Biotechnology Group, CSIR Biosciences

5. The Africa Biofortified Sorghum (ABS) Project | 37

Meanwhile, laboratory staff at CSIR are busy analysing data from Pioneer on the amino acid content and digestibility of the new sorghum varieties. They are also adapting an Agrobacterium delivery system developed by Pioneer.

Some transgenic sorghum varieties are being field-tested (in Hawaii and Puerto Rica, as well as at Pioneer in Iowa) but we are still waiting for a permit for greenhouse trials in South Africa. A lack of supportive policies and legislation in African countries in the area of biotechnology and GMOs still poses a considerable challenge for the project. Our regulatory staff are ensuring that we generate all the necessary biosafety data to support application dossiers for the relevant permits, but the activities of anti-GM organizations underlines the need to keep up a prominent communications programme. There is still much to do to inform policy and decision makers about biotechnology and the reason why greenhouse and field trials of GM crops in Africa are so important.

“While there is need to protect Kenya’s investment in science and technology through national policy and legislation, it is important to understand that the country’s leadership position requires carrying other countries along.”

Florence Wambugu

Regulatory issues are of huge importance in all Africa Harvest’s work, but particularly so in ABS and we have staff dedicated to leading our work in this area. Our emphasis on regulatory and biosafety issues is unusual amongst institutions producing public goods, since most work in this area is led by the private sector. One of the reasons for this is the high cost and we are steadily building our own capacity – and that of our partner institutions within ABS – to reduce these costs. Kenya is leading the East Africa region in developing biotechnology legislation that will pave the way for a regional regulatory framework. The Kenya Biosafety Bill, which was drafted in 2005 and published in 2007, is a promising first step. Thinking regionally and internationally will provide the basis for future harmonization of national regulations for crops, livestock, fish, forestry and microorganisms, while meeting international obligations.

“We are proving that IP protection and management should not remain the preserve of the private sector; on the contrary, it is vital that we have proper protection so we can safeguard the ABS technology for the benefit of the poor.”

Richard Boadi, lawyer at AATF, one of the ABS Project’s consorttium partners.

Richard Boadi, AATF

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Safeguarding the IP generated within ABS is of major importance, since the new technology must be made freely available to the poorest rural people if we are to achieve our vision of an Africa free from poverty, hunger and malnutrition.

AATF is leading IP manage­ ment within ABS and has conducted a “freedom to operate” assessment of all the technology to be used in the project, which includes conducting patent searches.

AATF has also prepared a policy manual, which sets guidelines for consortium members on all aspects of IP and ensures a consistent approach and uniform set of standards. This is an unusual feature of research consortia but has been applauded by the reviewers working for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, who now recommend others to do the same in the interests of Projects like ABS are what Dr Florence Wambugu’s dream for good project stewardship.

Africa Harvest was all about.

“If we can crack this, the impact will be immense. US$18.6 million is nothing compared to the economic benefits that will accrue from the improved health and nutrition of millions of Africans.”

James Onsando

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6. Focus on Farmers Groups hold the key “If you want to help the farmers, the first thing you must do is listen to them.”

Victoria Ndungu, Africa Harvest Senior Programme Officer

African smallholders as individuals face seemingly insurmountable obstacles to increasing the productivity of their farms. On one hand, they either cannot afford or do not want to risk buying inputs or investing more time in their crops because there may not be a market for the surplus; and on the other, the inputs they need are not available or are prohibitively expensive because there is insufficient demand to support the services and private companies that could supply them.

Strong farmers groups are the key to overcoming many such problems. Groups build on the Kenyan tradition of harambee, which means – in Kiswahili – pulling together to achieve more than you can as an individual. This spirit is still strong among the country’s rural poor. As a group member, a farmer can take advantage of financial help to buy planting materials or fertilizers, and a group can hire a truck to take their pooled harvest to a city market. Groups also help farmers exchange experiences and learn new skills, often with the help of specialist support and facilitation. In time, groups can develop into community-based enterprises and add value to the crop through processing activities.

Africa Harvest has been very successful in mobilizing farmer groups, and we continue to test and refine our approach. In addition to supporting the development of village financing, such as micro-credit schemes and revolving funds, we link the groups with such external sources of support as local nurseries, extension services, NGOs and private companies.

“Well informed farmer groups who have experienced the benefits are a powerful force for the promotion of biotechnology.”

Florence Wambugu

The growing market for dried banana chips could offer an exciting processing opportunity for lower grade banana fruit.

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As part of the Chura TC Banana Project, farmers and some entrepreneurs are experimenting with different processing options, including dried banana chips and banana flour and juice, as well as hats and lampshades made from the leaves and stems. For example, we are working in partnership with Kiburi Food Processors to develop a technique for solar drying of banana and production of banana flour. This enterprise diversification not only spreads farmers’ risks but also helps in checking group fatigue.

“We are now much more visible and can access help and advice from different sources, like local government extension and development NGOs.” David Karanja Mwangi, Chairman of Ngararia Farmers’ Group

Ngararia farmers pull together The Ngararia farmers group now has more men than women, a sure sign that money is being made. The group meets at the farm of Julius Njoroge, located about 50km north of Nairobi in Maragua District. Njoroge has planted 0.5 acre – one third of his farm – with TC banana. “We are now convinced that TC banana is the best cash crop for this area,” he says. “The price is good and once the orchard is established, the plants don’t need too much labour. There is far less weeding to do than with maize or vegetables.”

Like the other group members, Njoroge puts The Ngararia farmers meet on a regular basis. In addition to group part of his banana profits into the group fund. saving, they give each other advice and identify ways to jointly fulfil group members’ needs.

With the help of TechnoServe, they are using the money to set up their own marketing company so they can attract bigger buyers, cut out the middlemen, and achieve a better price per bunch. “The market is there; we just need to get organized so that between us we can supply a large quantity of fruit on a regular basis,” explains Njoroge. The group are now keeping proper records, so they can begin to forecast how much they will harvest and when, and to look at how to increase their profitability.

“If we could get more water, we could grow bigger bunches,” says Njoroge, who has sunk a shallow well, but still finds water a constraint. “So we are looking into how we can get a borehole and install electricity for pumping.” David Mwangi, the group’s Chair, is a former local government officer and has useful links with district administration, so the dream could soon become a reality.

When they are asked about how growing TC bananas and being in the group has improved their lives, the members list many aspects. Having enough to eat is a major benefit in itself, and being able to buy salt, sugar and new clothes are further considerable improvements. But the members also express a newfound hope in the future, and this is the most important aspect for keeping the project momentum going. Some members have bought dairy goats, which provide an additional income as well as nutritious milk for their children. Others say they feel more comfortable and can make choices now, or that they are no longer embarrassed when they cannot contribute to the church collection. Njoroge particularly welcomes the change in the mindset of his children. “They are learning how to be business people, not just growers of food, and I have hope for their future”.

6. Focus on Farmers | 41

Putting the farmer first Africa Harvest’s WVC approach is built around giving farmers the support they need to drive their own sustainable development. Our first approach to a new project or area focuses on the community and what the farmers need to help them improve their livelihoods.

We normally begin with a detailed participatory rural appraisal (PRA), with input from the whole community, including the most disadvantaged. This helps create a sense of ownership in the project or intervention, right from the beginning. While the farmers usually focus on production constraints, the PRA highlights areas where we need to start addressing marketing and processing issues at the same time.

TC banana bunches mature within six months of flowering (nine months for traditional types) and recording this information helps the farmers know when to harvest .

“Our role is to support them so they can reach the bottom of the ladder. Once they have their feet on the first rung, they are often able to climb out of poverty by themselves.”

Victoria Ndungu

We have learned a great deal through our work introducing TC bananas in Chura. Here, the community initially expressed considerable doubt as to the viability of commercial banana farming and the Africa Harvest field team had to work hard to change their perceptions.

We used a variety of communication channels to create awareness of the potential of TC bananas, including local radio programmes and presentations to church and self-help groups.

After attending farmer field days and visiting existing TC banana farmers like Esther Gachugu in Maragua, several farmers agreed to host demonstration trials. These sites later became the

Africa Harvest is helping farmer groups to introduce and manage their own savings schemes, which allow them to invest in additional farm enterprises such as keeping dairy goats.

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Communication at grassroots level Packaging the appropriate information in the right format is equally important whether communicating with policymakers, scientists or farmers. In the Chura TC Banana Project, the Africa Harvest team had the ambitious target of reaching 6000 farming families within three years. Effective communication was therefore crucial, particularly since the target communities were initially sceptical about TC bananas and had become used to development agencies giving free handouts but little ongoing support. “We realized that we had to change the farmers’ mindsets,” says Florence Wambugu. “One of the greatest challenges was to get the community to see the project as theirs, not something that Africa Harvest owned.”

Evans Mbogo (Chairman of Gatumumu group) and Benjamin Mwangi (Chairman of Gakinduri group) talk to group members in Chura community.

The Africa Harvest communication team has learned a lot through implementing the Chura TC Banana Project. For example, uptake was unsatisfactory during the first year of the project and the field team realized that simply disseminating information on the benefits of TC bananas was not going to overcome farmers’ scepticism.

They needed to see TC bananas growing and to measure how they compared with other crops. Demonstration plots and a cost-benefit analysis proved conclusively that the TC bananas provided higher returns than other farming alternatives, and the farmers heard endorsement directly from other farmers. As a result, there was a rapid increase in the numbers enrolling in the project.

focus of group training in good agronomic practices, group mobilization and management, training in post-harvest handling and marketing, and banana weighing and collection centres.

We have also organized special events, like the “first harvest” celebrations in 2005. More than 3000 people attended this event, which led to increased awareness and adoption the following year. We have also developed the capacity of some leading farmers so they can become farmer trainers. They have learned skills in group formation, leadership, group management, agronomic practices, post-harvest handling and marketing. In addition to training other groups, these farmers act as quality control, inspecting and grading the crop before it goes to market.

The results of these activities speak for themselves: after just three years over 6000 farmers had adopted TC bananas. The Kenya Ministry of Agriculture liaises with our field workers when they need to talk to farmers in Chura because we have established strong and lasting relationships built on trust and we can easily contact large numbers.

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7. Africa Harvest: The People Growing together: Institutional governance and development The main reason for Africa Harvest’s rapid development over the past five years is that we have well-qualified and motivated professional staff. We invest a significant portion of our resources in staff recruitment, motivation and development, offering a salary and benefits package that is competitive with other international organizations. All our staff have management experience and strong inter-personal skills and we take great care in building their capacity so they grow as their role grows. Attitude is important and this means hiring staff who identify with and “live” the core values of the organization, which include having “At Africa Harvest we have built respect for others and being customer-driven, a “pride factor” into our deliverables amongst others. From a staff of four in 2002, our to create an environment where numbers have grown to almost 30.

the entire population is committed to ensuring that everyone is contributing to a strong work product.”

Africa Harvest is an “equal opportunity employer” and we treat our staff fairly and equitably, encouraging opportunities for personal Michael Njuguna, Deputy CEO and Director growth, providing a safe and well-equipped of Finance, Administration and Business Development environment and, most importantly, providing opportunities for staff participation in matters that affect them. We have a formal Policy Manual that informs staff about our employment practices, policies and the benefits provided as well as the conduct expected of them. We have a Senior Management Committee that includes the CEO and this conducts recruitment and staff performance reviews, looks at staff training and welfare needs, and resolves emerging issues.

Number of employees per year

30

25 20 15 10 5 0 2002

2003

2004

2005

Year

Figure 4. Growth in staff numbers, 2002–2006

2006

No of employees

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Africa Harvest Board of Directors The strong Board has been chosen specifically to provide Africa Harvest with the diversity of expertise, good geographical representation and complementary skills that will move the institution forward.

Dr Kanayo Felix Nwanze, Board Chair, is also Vice President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). He previously served as Director General of WARDA. Dr Nwanze provides strategic leadership, focusing on institutional growth and sustainability (see page vi).

Joseph G. Kibe is the Board Vice Chair and Treasurer, providing Africa Harvest with strategic financial and governance oversight. He is a former Kenyan Permanent Secretary in five different ministries over 12 years. He is currently involved in private business and philanthropic efforts.

Andrew C. Fish is Senior Vice-President for Legal and Government Affairs and General Counsel for the Consumer Healthcare Products Association (CHPA) of the USA. His role is to provide strategic advice on governance issues.

Dr Florence Wambugu, Africa Harvest’s CEO, provides strategic leadership to a team of dedicated staff working to achieve our vision of an Africa free of hunger, poverty and malnutrition (see page vii).

Gisèle d’Almeida is Chair of the Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee. She is currently serving as the Executive Director of Interface, a wide network of local private sectors in Senegal, West Africa. She provides strategic advice on development and promotion of entrepreneurial ventures among smallholder farmers in Africa.

Dr Mary G. Alton Mackey is Chair of the Finance and Audit Committee.

She has a long experience of international agriculture development in Africa and Asia and currently runs her own health and nutrition consultancy, offering advice to biotech-related organizations in Canada. Her role on the Africa Harvest Board is to provide strategic advice on audit matters and on programme formulation, design and implementation.

7. Africa Harvest: The People | 45

Caroline A. Kovac, Board Member, is a former senior manager at IBM and now holds the position of Managing Director of Burrill and Company, a venture capital firm promoting the start-up and growth of life science-based entrepreneurial ventures. She provides the Board with strategic leadership in organizational development and growth of entrepreneurial ventures, with a unique private sector view.

Prudence Ndlovu, Board Member, previously held a senior position at PricewaterhouseCoopers. She is currently serving as the Chief Executive of Eagle People and Organisation Development (EPOD) Global, a private enterprise involved in human resources development. She advises the Board on human resource development issues.

David Farber is Africa Harvest Legal Counsel. Although not a Member of the Board, he serves as the Board Secretary. He is a Legal Counsel with Patton Boggs LLP and ensures institutional compliance as well as handling all legal matters.

Africa Harvest Senior Management Dr Florence Wambugu is Africa Harvest’s CEO. She graduated from the University of Nairobi with a degree in Botany, and then gained her Masters in Plant Pathology at the University of North Dakota, USA, and her PhD in Plant Pathology (Virology) from the University of Bath in England. She spent seven years engaged in a Post-doctoral fellowship in Genetic Engineering at the Monsanto Life Sciences Center in the USA. Before founding Africa Harvest in 2002, she was the Director of the ISAAA AfriCenter. (See Dr Wambugu’s minibiography on page vii for more.)

Michael Njuguna is the Deputy CEO and Director of Finance, Administration and Business Development. He graduated from the University of Nairobi with a degree in Botany and Zoology and gained his Certified Diploma in Accounting and Finance from the UK’s Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA).

He has an MSc in Entrepreneurship and is currently finalizing his PhD in Entrepreneurship Development. Prior to joining Africa Harvest, Njuguna worked as a Business Development Specialist for BEAM Training and Consultancy for two years, and then as the Programme Administrator for ISAAA’s AfriCenter. He joined Africa Harvest in 2004. “Because I have a scientific and a business management background, I am well placed to interact in project technical discussions and keep a sensible balance between scientific and financial perspectives,” he says. He also assists the CEO in a new project on the nation and development, fundraising, planning and human resources management, administration, donor liaison and Board of Directors matters.

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Njuguna has worked as a high school teacher, a profession he esteems highly. The experiences and skills gathered over the years have played a key role in the establishment of Africa Harvest. Having joined the organization at its formative stage, Njuguna established policies, procedures and management systems for the smooth running of the institution.

Today all the important human resources, administrative and financial policies are fully operational. Before the ABS grant was awarded, KPMG conducted an in-depth due diligence (to assess our credibility in terms of human resource capacity, institutional systems/policies, utilization of grants received from other development partners, and assessment by our development partners and other financial institutions). This focused on all aspects of organizational and programme management and found Africa Harvest to be soundly and professionally managed.

Being an NGO, Africa Harvest depends heavily on financial grants, which calls for well written proposals and well thought through business plans. Njuguna has been part of every proposal developed by the Foundation. He is also behind all business development planning and implementation.

Daniel Kamanga is Director of the Public Acceptance and Communications Programme. He has a BA Degree in Economics and Sociology and a Post-Graduate Diploma in Journalism and Mass Communications, both from the University of Nairobi. He also has a Masters in Business Administration (MBA) from the Durham University Business School in the UK. Kamanga is a Member of the Chartered Institute of Marketing (MCIM) with keen interest in corporate branding and media strategy.

Kamanga was one of the first people to believe in the Africa Harvest vision, joining the organization at its inception. Before this, he was the founder and Director of Business Development at World Stream, an Econet Wireless International subsidiary. Prior to this, he was the Marketing Manager of Liberty Life Association of Africa, one of the top financial services group in South Africa. His main responsibilities and accomplishments included strategic marketing development with special focus on the “emerging” black market in South Africa. He also worked for New Economy Worknet, a specialized publishing house in Johannesburg, South Africa and PRIDE Africa, a US Private Voluntary Organization headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya.

His experience within the Kenyan media includes working at different times as Associate Business Editor of Nation Publishing and Marketing, Business and Finance Sub-editor of the Standard Newspapers and Business Reporter for the Kenya Times Newspapers.

Kamanga believes it is the strength of his team that makes Africa Harvest’s communications programme so successful. “We’re a close-knit team of communication professionals,” he says. “We work very closely with the other programmes and with management, responding to their needs with the appropriate and effective strategies designed to achieve each different goal.”

He is a member of the African Council for Communication Education (ACCE), founder member of the Journalist for the Environment of Kenya (JEK), founder member of Supershares, Kenya’s first investment club, and member of the African Economic Editors Forum (AEEF), which draws together 400 business and economic editors from more than 40 countries.

7. Africa Harvest: The People | 47

Dr James Onsando, Director of Technical Operations, has the right experience and people skills to fulfil the challenging role of managing and coordinating the diverse partners that make up the ABS consortium. “It’s important to be able to motivate people and groups, and to build trust between them,” he says. “At the same time, I’m working to make sure the partners don’t lose sight of the ultimate goal of the project.”

Dr Onsando began his scientific career as a plant pathologist in his native Kenya, after obtaining his first degree in Biological Sciences at the University of Nairobi and his Masters in Plant Pathology at the University of Hawaii, USA. After a five-year stint at KARI, he worked for the Tea Research Foundation of Kenya for eight years as head of Plant Pathology, publishing over 25 papers in regional and international journals and a chapter on diseases of crucifers in a book entitled Plant Diseases of International Importance. Onsando gained his PhD in Plant Pathology at Kenyatta University, Kenya in 1992. He then moved into research management for Sulmac Flowers, a Unilever business. When Unilever discontinued flower operations, he joined the company’s tea business, working his way up to the position of Head of Agricultural Research, where he managed a number of functional units, namely product development, product innovation, food quality assurance, tea agronomy and tea breeding. He was later promoted to Head of Unilever’s Global Tea Sustainability Project with a mandate to implement the Unilever tea sustainability indicators that drive profitability, promote integration of environmental sustainability and develop human capacity. He joined Africa Harvest in 2006.

Dr Onsando’s work profile in the public, private and NGO sectors has solidly enhanced his skills in “hard” science and commercial science, project and people management, communication, leadership and product development and deployment. Each of these has proved its worth in managing the ABS. “I’ve ended up with a broad skill set, which means that I can understand an entire project.” He has gained additional useful experience from sitting on the Boards of the Kenya Plant Health Inspectorate Services (KEPHIS) and the Kenya Forestry Research Institute (KEFRI).

In summarizing the ABS project, Onsando refers back to the individual partners within the Consortium. “From the beginning, all the partners knew they had something important to contribute. But they needed management input to help them coordinate, enhance in-house project synergies, conduct audits, identify gaps and ways to fill them, and document project activities and deliverables – and that’s where I come in!”

Dr James Okeno, Director of Regulatory Affairs, graduated from the University of Nairobi with a BSc in Agriculture and an MSc in Plant Breeding. He then went to Germany for his doctoral studies, graduating with PhD in Agricultural Sciences from the University of Giessen. Upon his return to Kenya, Okeno Okeno joined Moi University as a faculty member, rising to the level of Senior Lecturer with several administrative responsibilities. While at Moi University, he spoke in many international scientific forums. He was also involved in setting up networks such as the Use of Plant Genetic Resources Network in Kenya, the Common Bean Improvement Network in East Africa, and the Sorghum Improvement Network in both East Africa and Africa as a whole.

Dr James Okeno has a wide experience in sorghum improvement, having worked as Principal and Co-investigator on three sorghum projects with the Rockefeller Foundation and the

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Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA). His experiences make him well qualified for his current position as Africa Harvest’s ABS Regulatory Affairs Manager. He has made use of his networking experience to establish an ABS sorghum network to promote buy-in and capacity building of African scientists from the national agricultural research systems involved in the project. He has also set up a functional regulatory focal point, which is a network of specific ABS personnel from Consortium member institutions, who can oversee the regulatory aspects of the project. “You don’t have to re-invent the wheel; look around and see what is available to start with,” he says. “My greatest achievement will be the day ABS is grown, even for testing, in African soil.”

Dr Josephine Songa is the Director of the Capacity Building and Technology Deployment Programme. She graduated from the University of Nairobi with a BSc in Agriculture, and then joined KARI as a Crop Entomologist. She gained her Masters at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada and her PhD in Agricultural Entomology from Kenyatta University in 1999, while working for KARI. She joined Africa Harvest in 2007.

In her career as a research scientist, Songa has coordinated various multi-disciplinary projects in agriculture and has published 19 scientific journal papers and 63 conference proceedings and technical bulletins. She has also conducted various consultancy assignments for donor agencies and supervized post-graduate students. More recently she gained a diploma in Business Management. Songa says that her many years of experience in agricultural research and the knowledge gained while consulting in various agricultural fields have given her what it takes to manage the Capacity Building and Technology Deployment Programme. She adds that the strength of the programme lies predominantly in the team with whom she works. “The team is comprised of young, very hardworking scientists with great potential to contribute significantly to the achievement of Africa Harvest’s goals.”

Africa Harvest teams Public Acceptance and Communications This team is based in South Africa (apart from Julia Kagunda, who works in the Nairobi office) and manages development communication activities within the organization, including awareness creation, dissemination of information and providing communication support to various projects. The team produces print, radio, Internet and television media materials and hosts workshops where scientists and journalists are trained in communicating science. The team is composed of Julia Kagunda (Senior Communication and Administrative Officer), Isaac Esipisu (Content Generation Manager), Benson Kariuki (PAC Assistant) and Yonela Benya (Finance and Administration Assistant).

Julia Kagunda is the Senior Communication and Administrative Officer. Prior to joining Africa Harvest, she worked as a lecturer at Daystar University, Nairobi, where she taught public relations, research, interpersonal skills and print media amongst other communication-related courses. Kagunda has worked in diverse fields, including print and broadcast journalism, public relations, fund-raising and research, as well as consulting in development and implementation of communication strategies. She is driven

7. Africa Harvest: The People | 49

The Communications Team from the AHBFI office in Johannesburg, South Africa (left to right): Benson Kariuki, Assistant, Public Acceptance and Communication; Yonela Benya, Assistant, Finance and Administration; Isaac Esipisu, Manager, Content Development; Daniel Kamanga, Director, Public Acceptance and Communication. Missing from the photo is Julia Kagunda who works both an Administrative and Communication role in the Nairobi office.

by a passion to see effective communication taking place within institutions because communication breeds involvement, involvement breeds ownership, and ownership results in high commitment and high productivity. She holds a BA in Communication and minor degree in Community Development; MA in Communication and a Certificate in Counselling and she is a trainer in Sharpening Your Interpersonal Skills.

Isaac Esipisu, Content Generation Manager, is also based in South Africa. He previously worked at the Africa Economics Editors Forum in Johannesburg. A qualified trainer in media and related issues, he has trained journalists for various organizations including the Southern Africa Media Training Trust, the Lusaka Press Club and the Commonwealth Secretariat. He has over seven years experience in journalism, gained with the East African Standard and the Nation, two of Kenya’s largest daily newspapers. Esipisu is a final-year doctorate student at Witwatersrand University in South Africa. He received a Masters in Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies from Cardiff University, UK. He is a Member of the Southern Africa Media Trainers Association and the AEEN. Benson Kariuki, Communications Assistant, is based in the South Africa office, where he fulfils a range of duties including management and updating of the Africa Harvest websites and databases, design and publication of newspapers, newsletter and reports, research and drafting of articles, involvement in biotech public awareness initiatives, contributing in cross-functional teams on special projects and facilitating the hosting of conferences, workshops and seminars. Before joining Africa Harvest, he worked as a Financial Comptroller for a mortgage and financial services company. He has a BSc in Business Science from the University of Cape Town. He has also worked as a consultant to ATL, an agricultural and forestry seedlings distribution company based in Kenya. Outside work, Benson enjoys playing chess and collecting foreign and rare currencies, reading and attending his local church.

Yonela Benya is the Finance and Administration Assistant in South Africa. Her previous experience is in customer service, accounts and administration, including work as a medical centre receptionist. She is qualified in both cost and management accounting.

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Capacity Building and Technology Deployment This team manages the implementation of technology transfer through agricultural extension services and support activities to small-scale rural farmers in Kenya and neighbouring countries.

They are the face of Africa Harvest who engage with farmers on a day-to-day basis and sustain them through the unique WVC system that lifts them from subsistence farming and poverty to becoming entrepreneur-minded business farmers. The team interacts with farmer groups to provide access to and information on microfinance, farm preparation and management, on-site training, business and entrepreneurship workshops, mobilization of resources, post-harvest handling, marketing, and value addition of produce. Victoria Ndungu and Wangari Kiragu are the Senior Programme Officers. The other members of the team are Israel Ikuro, David Kamau, Eugenio Kiogora, Kenneth Macharia, â&#x20AC;&#x201A; Nicholas Mutune, Jane Ndiritu and Julius Nyabicha.

Africa Harvest Field Officers (clockwise from back left): Ken Macharia, Nicholas Mutune, Julius Nyabicha, David Kimani, Eugenio Kiogora, Wangari Kiragu, Victoria Ndungu, Jane Ndiritu.

Victoria Ndungu, Senior Programme Officer, has seven years experience in community development work, having begun her career in BEAM Business Options as an Assistant Programme Officer. She then spent two years with ISAAA before joining Africa Harvest.

Victoria has a BEd from Moi University, Nairobi and a Postgraduate Diploma in Crop Production and Water Management from Galillee College in Israel. She is currently studying for her Masters in Sociology at the University of Nairobi.

Wangari Kiragu, Senior Programme Officer, has seven years experience in community development work. She began her career in BEAM Business Options, where she worked for three years as a Programme Manager, moving on to the Kenya Business Development Service as Programme Coordinator. In 2004 she joined Africa Harvest to lead the Chura TC Banana Project. Kiragu holds a BSc in Horticulture from Egerton University and a Postgraduate Diploma in Marketing Management from the Kenya Institute of Management. She is now following an online course on Fundamentals of International Business leading to a Certificate from the University of Texas, USA. Her hobbies are reading motivational books and autobiographies and visiting new cities.

Wangari Kiragu (left) and Victoria Ndungu (right), discuss banana processing options with Njoki Wainaina, Director of Kiburi Food Processors.

7. Africa Harvest: The People | 51

Israel Ikuro, Field Assistant, works with, trains and mobilizes farmer groups. He has worked with Africa Harvest since its initiation in 2002. He enjoys preaching the word of God and spending time with his family.

David Kamau Kimani, Field Officer, is currently pursuing a Diploma in Community Development and Project Management, having graduated with a Bachelors degree in Agriculture and Business Management from Egerton University. Before joining Africa Harvest he worked with the Catholic Diocese of Murang’a as a Project Coordinator and did his Field Attachment in Tropical Farm Management. David’s additional professional qualifications include project management, business management skills, leadership skills, community mobilization skills and computer skills including research data entry and analysis.

Kiogoria Eugenio, Field Officer, has a Bachelors degree in Agribusiness Management from Egerton University. Before joining Africa Harvest, Kiogora worked as a Horticultural Extension Officer and Senior Field Assistant with British American Tobacco Kenya Ltd and as a Field Supervisor, scouting crop pests and diseases, for Home Grown, Kenya Ltd. Ken Macharia, Field Office, has a BSc in Horticulture from Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology. Before joining Africa Harvest he worked for Frigoken Limited as a Regional Supervisor and for Homegrown, Kenya Ltd as a Section Supervisor.

Nicholas Mutune, Field Officer, has a BSc degree in Agriculture (Crop Protection) from the University of Nairobi. He previously worked as a rural development promoter, salesman and agronomist. He was lead trainer on EurepGAP standards and worked as a salesman with Lenana Pharmaceutical.

Jane Ndiritu, Programme Assistant, is professionally trained in electrical engineering and hardware maintenance. At Africa Harvest, she has acquired knowledge in community mobilization, project planning and implementation, report writing, monitoring and evaluation.

Staff of TCBEL (left to right): Dedan Kamau (Extension and Quality Control Officer); Joseph Kariuki (Marketing Assistant); Josephine Njeri (Office Administrator); Stephen Sagini (Marketing Assistant) and Julius Nyabicha (Programme Manager).

Julius Nyabicha is the Programme Manager in charge of TCBEL. He has a degree in Agribusiness Management from Egerton University, Kenya. Before joining Africa Harvest he worked as a farm manager, a lecturer and a sports administrator. Julius worked as Product Developer and Extension Advisor (promoter) in Farm Input Promotions (FIPS) Africa, an agricultural NGO whose main objective is to improve rural livelihoods through improved farming methods.

Julius also worked at the Agricultural Society of Kenya (ASK) as a branch manager.

Technical Programme

This team focuses on developing new products that are needed but not available in Africa, using a consortium and collaboration approach, such as that of the ABS Project. The team is headed by Dr James Onsando (assisted by Anthony Korir) and operates in both Africa Harvest and the virtual institution of ABS. The Regulatory and Biosafety Affairs Programme, although currently administered under the Technical Programme, is an interface between the Technical Programme and PAC. It will become a fully fledged programme in due course. The team is headed by Dr James Okeno.

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Finance, Administration and Business Development This team provides support to the other three programmes in relation to project initiation, resource mobilization, accounting and finance administration, human resources administration, documentation and reporting, legal compliance and donor liaison.

As a programme we also contribute to project design, implementation, entrepreneurship development, overall monitoring and evaluation. Other functions of this programme include Africa Harvest’s institutional development and forward planning, the coordination of Board of Directors’ matters, development of institutional policies, and acquisition of consultant expertise as and when it is required.

The programme is currently seeking funding from international development partners, government agencies, philanthropic foundations, country governments, bilateral funding agencies, private organizations, individuals, community and social groups to support Africa Harvest’s operational budget or projects that will increase food and nutritional supply, increase income to smallholder farmers, and contribute to environmental sustainability, capacity building and knowledge transfer in specific countries in Africa.

Continuous monitoring and evaluation will be conducted to ensure that the Foundation is achieving its objectives. This is done through an annual financial audit, regular board meetings, multi-year commissioning of external reviews, an inbuilt project-specific monitor mechanism to assess achievement of goals, and external evaluation of impact on the target client.

The Finance, Administration and Business Development staff (left to right): James Njane, John Busaala, Anthony Korir, Chris Ng’ang’a, Josephine Kilei, Julia Kagunda, Gideon Ndichu, Mercy Muthui and Rose Kanduthu.

In Kenya, the team is composed of James Njane (Senior Accountant), Gideon Ndichu ­(Account Assistant), Josephine Kilei (Administrative Assistant), Antony Korir (IT Administrator and Personal Assistant to the Technical Director), Rose Kanduthu (Procurement Officer), Mercy Muthui (Personal Assistant to the CEO), Christopher Nganga (Office Assistant), ­Teresa Amaya (Receptionist), John Busaala (Site Services Assistant) and Esther Mugo (Site/Store Assistant). The United States Office is managed by David Farber (Legal Counsel at Patton Boggs LLP). Africa Harvest also offers internships to university students and eight students have so far benefited from this initiative.

James Njane is the Senior Accountant, reporting to the Deputy CEO/Director of Finance and Business Development. He has a BSc in Business Administration and is a Certified Public Accountant CPA (K) and Certified Public Secretary CPS (K) from Strathmore University, Kenya and is currently pursuing an MBA at Moi University. Before joining Africa Harvest he worked for various institutions such as Cooperative Habitat Finance International (an NGO) and Maina Waithaka and Associates, certified Public Accountants. He has over nine years experience in grant management and audit services.

Gideon Ndichu holds the position of Account Assistant, reporting directly to the Senior Accountant. He is a holder of CPA (K) and has enhanced it by attaining a Certificate in Computer Applications. He joined Africa Harvest from the Safari Park Hotel in January 2007.

Josephine Kilei is an Administrative Assistant in the Nairobi Office. She joined Africa Harvest four years ago. Initially, she worked in the field for two years where she acquired experience in community mobilization, project planning, implementation and training farmers. Josephine has a Secretarial and PA background and holds an ABE Diploma in Hospitality, Tours and Travel.

7. Africa Harvest: The People | 53

Anthony Korir is the IT Administrator and PA Technical Director. He is a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer and has a National Diploma in Computer Science. He spent five years working with Unilever Tea as a Statistical Analyst and with the IT Help Desk. He is also a training lecturer in two computer institutes. Outside work he enjoys athletics, mountain climbing, reading, listening to gospel music and doing voluntary and charitable work.

Rose Kanduthu is the Procurement Officer in the Nairobi Office. She joined Africa Harvest five years ago. Rose has a business career behind her. She holds a Diploma in Cosmetology from the Morris School of Hairdressing, London, a Diploma in Purchasing and Supply in Process, and a Certificate of Achievement in Participation in Contract Management.

Mercy Muthui has been the CEO’s Personal Assistant since January 2002. She holds a Higher Diploma in Business Administration. Her hobbies are reading journals and travelling.

Chris Ng’ang’a is our Office Assistant. He has accumulated 16 years of hands-on experience in motor mechanics and has participated in formal IT training, completing a certificate course at CS Holdings, South Africa. He likes travelling and watching movies; he is also a skilled photographer.

Terry Amaya is our Receptionist. She has nine years experience in front office management and telephone switchboard operation, having worked at the International Casino and HLS Project Management Limited. Terry holds an Advanced Diploma Certificate in Business and Human Resource Management and a Diploma in Front Office Management and Telephone Switchboard Operation.

John Busaala is the Caretaker and has been with Africa Harvest since its beginning. He is responsible for keeping the compound clean and doing office chores. He has gained a lot of knowledge on TC bananas through Africa Harvest. He is easy-going and always willing to lend a helping hand.

Esther Mugo, Site and Store Assistant, has worked for Africa Harvest for the past four years.

She also takes care of minor office purchases and the office lunch.

External Advisory Board to the ABS Project The ABS Project has a ten-member External Advisory Board. The Board brings a wealth of expertise and experience to the project, particularly in the areas of nutrition, agricultural economics, sorghum breeding and biology. In addition to providing technical advice, the Board contributes to the development of the project in its various phases, especially regarding regulatory, field-testing, delivery and social impact issues.

Professor Matin Qaim is the Full Professor and Chair of International Agricultural Trade and Food Security at the University of Hohenheim in Stuttgart, Germany. He is a specialist in agricultural economics issues, with a bias towards poverty, food security, agricultural innovation, farming systems and sustainable development in developing countries.

Dr Gebisa Ejeta is Professor of Agronomy at Purdue University, USA, specializing in sorghum genetics and breeding. He is also the Regional Co-ordinator for Somalia, Ethiopia, Sudan and surrounding countries in the International Sorghum and Millet Research Support Programme.

54 | Five-year Progress and Financial Report

He has devoted more than 20 years to improving sorghum, and has played an instrumental role in producing improved drought-resistant and Striga-resistant hybrids of sorghum.

Professor Pauline Kuzwayo is Head of the Department of Human Nutrition at the University of Limpopo, Medunsa Campus, South Africa. Her work on community nutrition, with a specific focus on nutritional policies and programmes targeted at women, children and people living with HIV/AIDS, has received international recognition. She has been elected a Council Member of the International Union of Nutritional Sciences, and was the President of the International Nutrition Congress in 2005.

Dr Gurdev Khush recently retired as Head of the Plant Breeding Programme at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) after 34 years. He is one of the world’s foremost rice breeders, and over 300 high-yielding rice varieties were bred in IRRI under his leadership.

Among other things, he contributed to the breeding of famous rice varieties such as IR36, which was released in 1976 to become the most widely planted variety of rice in the world.

Dr Ephraim Mukhisira is Director of KARI, the largest public agricultural research institution in Kenya, where he has served during most of his career. He is an expert in animal production, serving as the National Chairman of the Animal Production Society of Kenya, and participating in international bodies such as the World Council of Animal Production (1999– 2003), and Secretary to the African Chapter of the World Association of Animal Production (1998). He is currently a member of the Netherlands-based CTA Advisory Committee on Science and Technology.

Dr Harold Roy-Macauley is Director of the Regional Centre for the Study of Crop Adaptation to Drought in Dakar, Senegal. He is a consultant to FARA, which oversees the West and Central African Council for Agricultural Research and Development (CORAF/ WECARD). He is also Director of a national laboratory of the Senegalese Institute of Agricultural Research (ISRA), mandated to implement the national research programme on plant adaptation to drought. The laboratory is also a base centre of CORAF/WECARD. Dr Rod Townsend is Registration Director of the Crop Genetics Research and Development Division at DuPont, a multinational company based in the USA. He also serves as the Director of Regulatory Affairs at Pioneer Hi-Bred International, a subsidiary of DuPont.

Dr Steven Daugherty is Biotechnology Affairs Director at Pioneer Hi-Bred International.

Dr David Hoisington is Global Team Leader – Biotechnology at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) based in Patancheru, India. He has also served as Director of the Applied Biotechnology Center within the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).

Dr Gatsha Mazithulela is the Executive Director of Biosciences at CSIR in South Africa.

He is a recipient of the Archbishop Desmond Tutu Leadership Scholarship (2006) and the Fogarty AIDS International Scholarship (2004). A member of the National Biotechnology Advisory Committee of South Africa and a Graduate Member of the Chartered Management Institute (UK), Dr Mazithulela is the former Deputy Director of the Medical Research Council of South Africa, and was Managing Director of Secure Investments Plans Ltd, a laboratorychemical export firm in the UK.

| 55

8. Financial Statements Africa Harvest is registered as a non-profit organization under 501(c)3 status in the State of California in the United States of America. Africa Harvest complies with international accounting standards and local laws in all the countries in which it operates and has been audited at the end of each year of operation. The responsibility of institutional governance is vested with an International Board of Directors, which has three committees: Corporate Governance, Nominating and Audit.

The Audit Committee has approved policies that guide the Foundation’s accounting practices, internal control, corporate social responsibility and auditing. In effect, the Audit Committee ensures transparency and accountability in all financial matters. In 2005, the international audit firm KPMG conducted a rigorous assessment of Africa Harvest’s financial statements in preparation for a major grant award from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. We were given an unqualified approval. This and the steady increase in the number of development partners investing in Africa Harvest’s work reflects a vote of confidence in our programmes and management and we expect our donor numbers to grow still further as we work towards reaching more needy communities in additional African countries.

Funding Grant funding has been received from a wide range of partners who are committed to our vision and mission. Africa Harvest is either receiving or seeking funding support from international development partners, government agencies, philanthropic foundations, country governments, bilateral funding agencies, private organizations, individual anonymous donors, communities and social groups.

US$ ‘000 8,000 7,000

6,000 5,000 4,000 3,000 2,000 1,000 0

2002

2003

2004 Years

Figure 5. Grant Income, 2002–2006

2005

2006

Grant income

56 | Five-year Progress and Financial Report

The increase in grant income over the past five years can be attributed to the success of our projects in having real impact and delivering value to target grassroots communities and to our donors’ commitments to fighting hunger, poverty and malnutrition in Africa. With good management of donor funds we have been able to secure support for project periods ranging from three to five years.

Expenditure Africa Harvest commits to ensuring that most of the grant goes directly to programme implementation reflecting our sense of social responsibility. Most of our projects are community driven and managed, and therefore help to build local capacity. The programme activities deliver improved products leading to increased food security, better nutrition and enhanced income, as well as contributing to environmental sustainability and transfer of knowledge.

Sub-grants to Partner Organizations Africa Harvest recognizes that the task of improving the livelihoods of resource challenged and marginalized communities requires the concerted effort of like-minded partners. It is with this background that the Foundation made grants to eight different partner organizations to implement a project of common interest.

Fundraising 2% Subgrant to partners 39%

General and Administration 12%

Figure 6. Overall Expenditure, 2002–2006

Programme services 47%

8. Financial Statements |â&#x20AC;&#x201A; 57

Africa Harvest Financial Indicators (in US$â&#x20AC;&#x2122;000s) 2006

2005

2004

2003

2002

Fixed assets

218

96

80

73

3

Total assets

3,673

1,693

1,005

968

51

Net assets

3,614

1,578

940

964

47

7,628

3,456

1,352

2,065

604

1,623

1,387

1,022

828

540

518

297

270

221

61

3,407

1,030

-

-

-

45

103

58

23

-

Total expenditure

5,593

2,817

1,350

1,072

601

Net surplus/(deficit)

2,035

639

2

993

3

696

15

865

4

0

3,280

696

15

865

4

BALANCE SHEET

INCOME AND EXPENSE INDICATORS Income Grant and investment income Expenditure Programme services General and administration expenses Sub-grant to other partners Fundraising

Cashflow Cash and cash equivalent beginning of year Cash and cash equivalent end of year Ratio analysis Asset management Net asset turn

2.1

2.2

1.4

2.1

12.9

Remuneration as percentage of total expenditure

18%

32%

54%

52%

30%

Number of employees

26

22

19

15

Performance

5

NB: Net asset turn = total revenue (including investment income) divided by net assets

Funding Partners Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Started in 2000, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation focuses on reducing inequities around the world. The Foundation, through the Grand Challenges in Global Health Initiative, has funded the Africa Harvest-led Consortium, the Africa Biofortified Sorghum (ABS) Project.

58 | Five-year Progress and Financial Report

CropLife A global federation representing the plant science industry, CropLife addresses international developments in the area of crop protection (pesticides), biotechnology (GMOs) and sustainable agriculture. CropLife International aims to provide transparent information to its stakeholders and actively encourages open dialogue with interested parties. CropLife has funded Africa Harvest’s Public Acceptance and Communication Programme for the past five years.

DuPont With its vision of putting science to work by creating sustainable solutions essential to a better, safer, healthier life for people everywhere, DuPont operates in more than 70 countries.

DuPont funds Africa Harvest’s Chura TC Banana Project, which targets 6,000 farming families with a view to helping them produce and market quality bananas.

Ford Foundation The Ford Foundation is an independent non-profit grant-making organization, which works mainly by making grants or loans that build knowledge and strengthen organizations and networks. Since their financial resources are modest in comparison with societal needs, they focus on a limited number of problem areas and strategies within their broad goals. The Ford Foundation has funded Africa Harvest’s tree seedling reforestation project, which to enhances access to domestic fuelwood in an effort to curb deforestation and promote conservation of indiginenous forests.

Rockefeller Foundation The Rockefeller Foundation works around the world to expand opportunities for poor or vulnerable people and to help ensure that the benefits of globalization are shared more widely. The Foundation funds Africa Harvest’s TC Banana Project in partnership with TechnoServe, the goal of which is to assist banana farmers to produce and market their products profitably.

USAID USAID is an independent federal government agency that receives overall foreign policy guidance from the Secretary of State. USAID work supports long-term and equitable economic growth and advances US foreign policy objectives by supporting economic growth, agriculture and trade; global health; and democracy, conflict prevention and humanitarian assistance. USAID has worked with Africa Harvest to develop and communicate biotechnology messages to clearly defined target groups in Kenya.

Credits Writing/Editing

Green Ink: Sue Parrott Africa Harvest: Daniel Kamanga, Julia Kagunda, Isaac Esipisu and Benson Kariuki

Design and layout Christel Blank, Green Ink (www.greenink.co.uk) Photographs

Green Ink and AHBFI

Printing

Pragati Offset Pvt. Ltd (www.pragati.com)

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