[Published: Wednesday October 03 2012]
 African and Global leaders agree plans to boost agriculture in Africa
Arusha, 3 Oct - (ANA) - The African Green Revolution Forum (AGRF) in Arusha, has produced concrete actions to transform Africa’s agricultural sector. United on the roadmap for increasing agricultural productivity and income growth for the African agricultural sector, African heads of state, ministers, private sector representatives, the international community and farmers focused on four major themes: rethinking public-private partnerships, revolutionizing agricultural finance, making markets work, and building the foundations for rapid growth in agricultural productivity. Examples of the specific actions that were collectively decided include:
• Leverage catalytic finance: Develop structures that incentivize financial institutions to lend/invest in agriculture, especially in poor, socially-excluded smallholder farmers; and develop effective models for interaction and coordination between the various players in the financial system.
• Reinforce capacity for regional trade: Regionalize commodity trade and harmonize trade regimes. Remove trade barriers across countries and share knowledge and market information across borders.
• Innovate in staple food chains: Encourage regional economic communities to develop plans that address the bottlenecks that inhibit regional markets from working effectively, such as infrastructure, transport and corruption.
• Active engagement by the private sector with parliamentary select committees: The private sector and members of parliament from African country governments must work together in anon-partisan way to accelerate government investment in agriculture and introduce policy and regulations that motivate the private sector to invest in agriculture.(ANA)
FA/ANA/3 October 2012------------
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Russia/UK/Ukraine