At this morning’s Atoms4Food event, close to 100 delegates heard how nuclear science and technology – through its many applications in soil and water management, crop improvement and food safety – can be part of the integrated solution needed to enhance nutrition and food security across the African continent.
They listened to opening remarks from the Director of the Joint FAO/IAEA Centre of Nuclear Techniques in Food and Agriculture, the Ambassador of Sudan, and Liberia’s Minister of Agriculture. Delegates were also shown a video explaining how nuclear technology had helped Burkina Faso to produce better quality rice. “The impact of nuclear science and technology is evident from the increased yields in my country’s rice fields,” said panellist Valentin Edgar Traore from the Environmental Institute for Agricultural Research (INERA) in Burkina Faso. “Smallholder farmers are now able to produce three times more rice than they were before, which is a game changer for our farmers and for food security overall” he added.
Burkina Faso received targeted support from the IAEA in the form of training and equipment. It is also the first country to have benefited from an Atoms4Food in-country impact assessment mission – as shown on the photo below.
