New Harvest

African agriculture is currently at a crossroads, at which persistent food shortages are compounded by threats from climate change. But, as this book argues, Africa can feed itself in a generation and help contribute to global food security. To achieve this Africa has to define agriculture as a force in economic growth by: advancing scientific and technological research; investing in infrastructure; fostering higher technical training; and creating regional markets.To govern the transformation Africa must foster the emergence of a new crop of entrepreneurial leaders dedicated to the continent's economic improvement.This new edition of The New Harvest provides ideas on how to implement a series of high-level decisions adopted by African leaders to place agriculture at the center of the continent's long-term economic transformation. It puts agriculture in the context of the Science, Technology and Innovation Strategy (STISA-24) adopted by African presidents in 2014. More importantly, this edition provides a policy framework that could be adopted for other sectors such as health, industry and greeninnovation.Incorporating research from academia, government, civil society, and private industry, the book suggests multiple ways that individual African countries can work together at the regional level to develop local knowledge and resources, harness technological innovation, encourage entrepreneurship, increase agricultural output, create markets, and improve overall economic performance.

This is a refreshing new book that steps back from the usual debates about appropriate agricultural policies and programme interventions for redressing Africa's pressing poverty and food security needs, to take a longer-term view of the kinds of science-based interventions that are needed to launch Africa's agricultural sector on a structurally different trajectory...Calestous Juma develops a compelling vision of how knowledge and innovation systems that bring together the best of modern science and local knowledge could...lead to agricultural growth clusters that would drive national and regional economic growth across Africa., [Calestous Juma's] optimism is refreshing, A remarkably optimistic outlook for agriculture in Africa...Juma's account succeeds in offering a glimpse of the possible. The book provides a welcome relief from the gloom and despair in popular narratives about African agriculture., My husband [Lloyd Timberlake, author of Africa in Crisis] came into the house yesterday, tossed me [this] book and said: 'You and your staff should read this book from beginning to end. Every single page. It is all you need to know to do your job.' I have never heard him sound like that about any book!, Calestous Juma of Harvard University, has produced a book of evidence-based recommendations for transforming African food production. As Professor of the Practice of International Development and Director of the Science, Technology, and Globalization Project at Harvard, he recognises the shortcomings of the past, particularly the lack of political and, consequently, financial commitment to agriculture, but he also instances the recent changes in political and investment emphasis that could provide foundation for a new and more fruitful era.

Calestous Juma is Professor of the Practice of International Development and Director of the Science, Technology, and Globalization Project at Harvard University.