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Several officials attended the press conference to announce the ACAT date
The conference, called ACAT (African Conference on Agricultural Technology), is being organized by the Rwandan government in partnership with the African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF) and will be held in Kigali from June 9 to 13, 2025.
The conference will bring together people from different backgrounds, including senior government officials, researchers, policy makers, industrialists, agricultural experts, farmers, investors, women and youth from around the world and others who are concerned with increasing agricultural production.
AATF Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Canisius Kanangire said the conference was very useful as it would bring together people of different knowledge to share ideas to fight hunger.
“When it comes to agriculture on the continent, we need researchers to bring technological innovations and policymakers to create laws that support the innovation process. We also need investors so that inventions can be put into practice and reach farmers, and a way to process, store the products so that they do not spoil and enable farmers to access the market. None of this is possible without such proposals,” he said.
AATF CEO, Dr. Canisius Kanangire
Dr. Kanangire also returned to the genetically modified crops (GM/GMO) technology, which he believes needs to be brought to the fore as it exists in very few countries in Africa.
He said: “Of the 15 African countries that have committed to testing GM crops, only nine (9) have started commercialising them. These countries are South Africa, Ghana, Nigeria, Swaziland, Malawi, Kenya, Ethiopia, Sudan and Burkina Faso. It is therefore important that we work together to consider how we can remove the barriers that our countries face so that our countries are not immune to this GM technology.”
Plants that have been genetically modified to have higher yields, added vitamins, are more tolerant to sunlight, disease, and rain, do not require pesticides or herbicides, have shorter flowering times, and so on, the problems that threaten farmers must be addressed.
These crops produce a lot of agricultural products that can meet the needs of the world population, which currently has more than 735 million people at risk of hunger. This technology will also return in ACAT 2025, especially because it has already arrived in Rwanda, because some crops are being studied, such as cabbage, it just has not yet been marketed, but a separate law has been voted. This technology is monitored by the OFAB (Open Forum on Agricultural Biotechnology in Africa) project of the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock (MINAGRI).
Dr. Rutikanga Alexandre, Technical Advisor, MINAGRI
Dr. Rutikanga Alexandre, technical advisor of MINAGRI, said the conference left a lot of inspiration for those working in agriculture and breeding.
“The purpose of today is to tell Rwandans, Africans and the world that this ACAT 2025 conference has revealed a lot about agricultural technologies to help increase production, to be more and better, to include the necessary nutrition,” he said.
“You know, we also have the problem of climate change, which will cause disasters in Rwanda and other parts of the world, which will lead to a decrease in production. Whether it is facing the sun and asking us to irrigate, or landslides and floods, they will hurt us. So in order to solve this problem, we need technology, which is why we will gather researchers, intellectuals and others to share knowledge of modern technology to solve these problems.
This will be the second time the ACAT conference has been held, the first being in Nairobi, Kenya.
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