News
Saturday, January 18, 2014
Burundi hosts top scientfic meeting
BUJUMBURA, Burundi - Recently Burundi hosted the 2nd General Assembly and Scientific Conference of ASARECA under the theme, ‘Transforming Agriculture for Economic growth in Eastern and Central Africa’.
ASARECA is the Association for Strengthening Agricultural Research in Eastern and Central Africa.
Gervais Rufyikiri, the Burundi Second Vice President, who officially opened the talks said, ASARECA had the role to share lessons from the past, identify success factors for the transformation of agriculture in Eastern and Central Africa and formulate and adopt an action plan for the transformation of agriculture as an engine of economic growth with equity in Eastern and Central Africa.
He said the organisation also should continue to develop and strengthen the partnerships necessary for the transformation of agriculture. The Burundi Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock, together with the Institut des Sciences Agronomiques du Burundi helped organise the four-day conference.
He hoped the participants would come up with suggestions for the control and fight against various diseases of plants and animals, dissemination and promotion of plant varieties and animal breeds with high efficiency and the dissemination of best farming practices.
Before South Sudan joined ASARECA, the 10 ASARECA countries covered an area of 8.5 million km2 with a total population of more than 280 million people, most of whom are rural dwellers pursuing agricultural livelihoods. Roughly one-third, of East and Central Africa’s total land area is devoted to agricultural use.
By C. Ininiahanze, Saturday, January 18th, 2014