AATF Appoints Former President Jonathan ‘Africa Ambassador for Agricultural Technology

African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF) said former President Goodluck Jonathan has been appointed ‘Africa Ambassador for Agricultural Technology’.

The Executive Director, AATF, Dr Canisius Kanangire, who made this known to the newsmen in Abuja, said there is still a lot to do for biotechnology to be embraced in the continent.

Kanangire said Jonathan has all it takes to motivate other African countries to embrace agricultural technologies that would change the narrative.

According to him, His Excellency, Goodluck Jonathan, one of the areas where he brought innovative ideas was agriculture, with his Agricultural Transformation Initiative of Nigeria, and he made success.

“And today when I look at how Dr. Akinwumi Adesina talks and knowing that he was his Minister of Agriculture, I cannot help it but I feel proud of that initiative, and that is why when we are selecting people to help us do something, among the names that I put on the list and started discussing with some of the board members, was the name of Jonathan Goodluck.

“So what we expect of him is that he (Jonathan) brings this voice of ours, we and yours to the highest level where our limit does not allow us to reach he can open the door of his peer, current Presidents of different countries in Africa, and tell them ‘I believe this is the way we can change our nations on the African continent’. He can talk to our various ministers; You are doing policies but I tried this and I know if it can work if you don’t do this I don’t know if you will reach the result that you expect’.

“So he will talk as a high level ambassador who will talk as one who has tried his ammunition on transforming one of the biggest countries on the continent. He will talk as one who is also a scientist in this area.

Meanwhile, the AATF boss said biotechnology is making appreciable progress in Africa as African countries are keying into it. “Biotechnology is one of the key areas of those technological changes that we need to bring to Africa, and it comes within a number of processes, and we need to identify the needs on the African continent from the farmers’ level and discuss it with the country where we are, which is the government authorities.

“We need to go out and scout the right technologies that we need, negotiate it so that it can be transferred to our governance, and that I would say is the niche of AATF, and we have been doing quite properly.

“Another thing is to have policies that will enable us to bring that biotechnology product to the consumers in the country and the first element has been to work with different countries, including Nigeria to improving and putting in place, the National Biosafety Laws and having the right institutions to really lead the regulatory framework on biosafety that has been done in a number of countries, not only Nigeria, and we are progressing quite well on that”, he explained.