Pierre Jacquemot
© l’encre noire
To finish this overview, we will end on two certainties.
The first is that African farmers need quality seeds, and time is running out to put in place the solutions to agricultural and food security challenges in a context which will be marked, in the long term, by demographic growth, the dangers of climate change, and various upheavals which will surely follow the great COVID-19 pandemic of 2020. The continent is vulnerable, of course, but its capacity for resilience in the face of risks is also great.
The second certainty is that the potential of combining genetic engineering with environmental engineering, in association with the ingenuity of farmers, will be important to creating a sustainable agriculture and responding to the challenges of food production, which will need to double by 2050 in Africa. Biotech plants, including GM plants, are not a panacea and do not represent the main solution for the future of agriculture in Africa. They can, however, offer welcome technical responses within an overall approach to diversifying agricultural practices and uses, alongside agro-ecology, conventional agriculture and organic farming. Diversity guarantees sustainability.
Pierre Jacquemot