International Day For The Eradication Of Poverty? It's A Long Time Coming!

Yesterday, Thursday, 17 October 2019, was the "International Day For The Eradication Of Poverty" – and the world did not celebrate it! 

The International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, IITA, did, as according to the Facebook sharing of Katherine Lopez from the IITA, which is based in Ibadan, Nigeria. These are what I read from the image:

422 million Africans live below the global poverty line.
Production of Aflasafe for Food Security.
Restoring Hope by Donating Improved Seed Varieties
Commercializing Research Technologies
Promoting Youths in Agribusiness.

"Improving Livelihood & Income"

I note that "IITA aims to lift 11.5 million people out of poverty by 2020," which is next year! That is quite ambitious, but we would be very glad to learn from the IITA once they have done it. So now, let us look inside the IITA and try to guess how it is going to liberate millions of African poor by next year.

"Production of Aflasafe" refers to aflatoxin-safe food. We all need safe food.

I know "Promoting youths in agribusiness" is also a mantra of the Philippine Department of Agriculture, DA, so let's see what we can learn from the IITA within the next few months.

"Improving Livelihood & Income" is easier said than done. It has always been the dream of every farmer since cultivation began in ancient times.

"Restoring Hope by Donating Improved Seed Varieties" – farmers always need better seeds.

"Commercializing Research Technologies" – this is where science has yet to meet astounding success anywhere in the world.

The website https://www.iita.org says the IITA is "Africa's leading partner in research for development." It describes itself further:

The International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) is a non-profit institution that generates agricultural innovations to meet Africa’s most pressing challenges of hunger, malnutrition, poverty, and natural resource degradation. Working with various partners across sub-Saharan Africa, we improve livelihoods, enhance food and nutrition security, increase employment, and preserve natural resource integrity.

Science serving society to save people from hunger, malnutrition, and poverty. If you have saved people from poverty, you already have solved their problems of hunger and malnutrition. But this is easier said than done.

I wonder why the IITA is nottalking about the marketing of farm produce. Hesperian (en.hesperian.org) advises that "to sell their products, farmers need reliable roads, transportation to markets, and fair prices." The advice is "to form a cooperative or a marketing association with other farmers" to share processing, transporting and marketing costs, and fair prices can be demanded from consumers.

Here is another advice from Hesperian about "value-added products":

Companies that process foods and farm products make a lot of money that could be made by farmers instead. When farmers process crops into products for sale, such as dried fruit, dried and packaged plant medicines, jams and jellies, honey, cheese, baskets, furniture, and so on, this is called value-added production because you are adding value to the crops you have grown.

Commonly, I see that value-adding is what the African and Filipino farmers have yet to learn for their common advantage!@517