Despite a lackluster performance in overall agricultural development in recent decades, Africa has been home to some striking agricultural successes. Uganda, for instance, averted a major food crisis thanks to its cassava breeding programs, Kenya is the most important supplier of vegetables to the European Union, and Mali is one of the world's largest suppliers of cotton. Such successes are crucial because they point to a way out of poverty and hunger for the 70 percent of Africans who rely on agriculture for their livelihoods.

From November 22 to 25, more than 70 researchers, policymakers, and farmers--many from the Greater Horn (comprising Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda)--convened in Nairobi to learn from these success stories. A careful look at the ingredients of past agricultural successes can help "identify key processes and technologies that countries can replicate and expand broadly for accelerating agricultural growth in the Greater Horn," explained Benson Mochoge, director of the Agriculture and Environment Division of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), an organization fostering cooperation on development in the region. To this end, conference participants learned about the promising results generated by cassava research programs in East Africa, dairying in Ethiopia, and community empowerment in Somalia, among others.

The conference is the first of a series of regional consultations initiated after the December 2003 conference "Successes in African Agriculture: Building for the Future," held in Pretoria. "Countries along common agroecological zones offer significant opportunities for sharing the costs of research and development as well as expanding the benefits," said Steve Haggblade, leader of the IFPRI research project that instigated the review of the successes.

Because a thriving agriculture sector benefits both rural and urban people, successes in this area can have economywide benefits. "Significant reductions in poverty will depend on the collective ability of African farmers, governments, and agricultural specialists to stimulate and sustain broad-based agricultural growth," said Richard Mkandawire, agricultural adviser to the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), which co-organized the conference along with IGAD, IFPRI, the Kenya Ministry of Agriculture, the International Water Management Institute, the International Fund for Agricultural Development, the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation, and Capacity Building International, Germany (InWEnt).

In conference working groups, the participants identified promising opportunities and devised priority action plans for accelerating agricultural growth in the region, in areas such as regional trade, production and marketing of specific commodities, public-private partnerships, and community organizing.