Abstract
This Chapter describes the approach and impacts of the Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation (TAAT) Program. TAAT is an operational framework based upon collaboration between the African Development Bank, the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, and many other partners. This Program is designed to deliver modernizing agricultural technologies as a means of achieving food and nutritional security, and to boost employment and agricultural exports across Africa. TAAT consists of nine Commodity Compacts that have assembled technology toolkits for use in development programs and six specialized Enablers that help them to do so. These commodities are rice, maize, wheat, sorghum, millet, cassava, sweet potato, common beans, fish, and small livestock. The Enablers provide policy support, youth empowerment, capacity development, irrigation and soil fertility expertise, and control of invasive pests. Together these Compacts and Enablers design and conduct collaborative agricultural development projects in partnership with national counterparts. To date, TAAT has staged 88 interventions in 31 African countries, including the incorporation of customized technology toolkits within country loan projects of major development banks. Over three years, these efforts have reached about 10.6 million adopter households and increased food supply by 12 million tons worth over US $763 million, resulting in substantial improvements in smallholder farmer’s food supply (0.75 MT yr.−1) or income ($128 yr.−1). Environmental gains in terms of carbon offset average 0.74 MT CO2e yr.−1 per adopter household, an outcome indicative of positive combined rural development and climate actions. This Chapter describes how these technology toolkits are designed, deployed and evaluated, and how TAAT is becoming a leading mechanism for agricultural innovation delivery across Africa. This evaluation is limited to eight critical field crops and does not consider animal enterprises or the strategic roles of TAAT Enablers, two other important activities within the larger Program.
Highlights
Agriculture is a major economic activity and source of income across Africa, but its untapped potential contributes to persistent poverty, rural stagnation and Technology in Agriculture deteriorating food security
Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation (TAAT; https://taatafrica.org) is a recent program led by the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) that has pioneered new approaches to deploying proven technologies to African farmers
TAAT arose as a joint effort of IITA and the African Development Bank (AfDB) and is a crucial component of the latter’s Feed Africa Strategy [1]
Summary
Agriculture is a major economic activity and source of income across Africa, but its untapped potential contributes to persistent poverty, rural stagnation and Technology in Agriculture deteriorating food security. TAAT represents a dynamic platform where those committed to advancing transformative agricultural technologies connect with those who need them most, within government programs expected to improve their agricultural production, strengthen rural economies and advance the lives and livelihoods of farming households It is a way for the development community to buy into technical advances under the assurance that offered technologies achieve expected levels of adoption and promised impacts. TAAT recognizes that the world’s most vulnerable, including women, youth, and the most impoverished farmers, are the hardest hit by the pandemic, that the African economy is vulnerable to it [9], and that it has a vital role to play in support of Africa’s recovering food systems This Chapter describes the technologies that TAAT promotes, how they are advanced, and the impacts achieved by this Program over its first three years, with attention to eight priority crop commodities
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