AfDB targets 513 million tonnes of food production by 2025.

AfDB targets 513 million tonnes of food production by 2025. The African Development Bank (AfDB)’s new initiative Technologies for African Agriculture initiative will produce 513 million tonnes of additional food across Africa. It will also lift nearly 250 million Africans out of poverty by 2025. A statement from the bank said 25 African countries have written letters, confirming their interest and readiness to participate in TAAT, and help transform their agriculture. TAAT, according to the bank, will support its Feed Africa Strategy for the continent to eliminate the current massive importation of food and transform its economies by targeting agriculture as a major source of economic diversification and wealth, as well as a powerful engine for job creation. The commodities value chains to benefit from this initiative are rice, cassava, pearl millet, sorghum, groundnut, cowpea, livestock, maize, soya bean, yam, cocoa, coffee, cashew, palm oil, horticulture, beans, wheat and fish. AfDB President Akinwumi Adesina, at a TAAT side event in Des Moines, Iowa, United States, said: “TAAT was born out of this major consultation and brings together global players in agriculture, the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research, the World Bank, the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, the International Fund for Agricultural Development, World Food Programme, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, Rockefeller Foundation and national and regional agricultural research systems.