TOGO – Agricultural Transformation Agency (ATA), an organization that wants to be based on the model of nodal Agency, of Asian inspiration, has now been set in motion in Togo, a country where two out of every three inhabitants of Togo depend on crops and livestock farming to live.
First announced in April 2022 by the Togolese Head of State, Faure Gnassingbé, the organization aims to accelerate the achievement of the objectives of the 2025 government roadmap in the agricultural sector.
In a recent document, the ministry in charge of agriculture in the country said the ATA should be operational from January 2023 and made a call for applications for the supervisory authority to recruit members of the Top management of this future agency.
The authority is subsequently looking for “people of Togolese nationality, highly dedicated, combative, and with an entrepreneurial spirit, able to work under pressure to join the ATA, to transform agriculture in Togo.”
To ensure it achieves the paradigm of a nodal agency, ATA wants to combine the work methodologies of the private sector in the context of a public organization.
Complimenting the government’s effort in the drive for food security, the West African Development Bank (BOAD) has entered into a partnership with the Interstate Committee for Drought Control in the Sahel (CILSS), to promote sustainable development in the countries of the Sahelo-Saharan and WAEMU zones.
“Regional cooperation and collaboration between CILSS and BOAD, highlighted in this partnership, foreshadows the transformation and emergence of economies in the WAEMU zone,” welcomed Soares Cassama, Vice-President of BOAD.
Cooperation between the two sub-regional structures will focus, among other things, on food and nutritional security, the management of natural resources, and the fight against desertification.
In addition, they have planned for joint financing of development projects and programs, eligible for financing from BOAD and other CILSS donors.
Dr. Abdoulaye Mohamadou, Executive Secretary of CILSS commented that CILSS, with its fifty-year-old technical and scientific know-how, aims through this cooperation agreement with BOAD, to put its expertise and skills at the service of the sub-region, to promote coordination and harmonization of interventions for the benefit of the Sahelian and West African populations.
To support global food security, a leading provider of daily data and insights about Earth, and NASA Harvest, the federal space agency’s Global Food Security and Agriculture Program, have announced a partnership to further support the joint Food Security and Agricultural Monitoring Solution.
The offering aims to deliver policy-grade agricultural monitoring and assessments of potential threats to global food security.
They plan to combine Planet’s satellite data and other publicly-available datasets with the analytics expertise of the combined NASA Harvest team, facilitated by the University of Maryland and the University of Strasbourg – creating an assessment tool that could play a key role in anticipating and averting food shortages and famines.
The NASA Harvest team has been developing innovative satellite-based techniques to monitor commodity crops such as wheat, maize, soybeans, and rice for decades.
The team also collects and analyzes environmental, economic, and social science data to create a full picture of the pending food landscape.
For all the latest food industry news from Africa and the World, subscribe to our NEWSLETTER, follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn, like us on Facebook and subscribe to our YouTube channel.
