● The Honorable Cabinet Secretary for Agriculture, Mr. Willy Bett
● The Director General CIMMYT, Dr. Martin Kropff
● The Director General of the Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization (KALRO) Dr. Eliud Kireger
● Associate Director for External Relations, Norman E. Borlaug Institute for International Agriculture, Ms. Julie Borlaug
● Distinguished guests
● Ladies and Gentlemen

On behalf of the donor community and the USAID mission in Kenya and East Africa, I am delighted to join CIMMYT on this auspicious occasion to mark the 50 years they have devoted to ensuring that smallholder farmers and their families can meet their need for food and nutritional security. This is a daunting but critical task in this part of the world. So first of all, I want to say thank you for your dedicated work.

As development partners, our goal has always been to work together to achieve results that help solve the problems facing the poorest and most vulnerable communities. We are glad to have such a capable and committed partner in CIMMYT. We cherish CIMMYT’s ability to harness technological innovations and mobilize its extensive networks to solve serious problems affecting two of the most important staple crops in the world – maize and wheat. As you know, maize is the most widely produced, marketed and consumed staple crop in East Africa where it is often said that ‘maize is food and food is maize’.

A few months ago, I had the opportunity to visit the Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization (KALRO) facility in Naivasha where CIMMYT conducts research on maize in collaboration with public and private sector partners. I saw firsthand the devastating effect that a new maize disease – Maize Lethal Necrosis (or MLN) – can have on regional food security. A maize field infected by this disease can lose anywhere between 30% and 100% of its expected yield. Those most affected by the MLN disease are the smallholder farmers, who often lose their entire crop.

This is a very serious challenge here in Kenya and across the region, including Ethiopia, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda. So I was heartened to learn of the promising interventions developed by CIMMYT and other collaborators in tackling the serious threat posed by this destructive disease.

Through President Obama’s Feed the Future initiative, USAID works with partners to increase the availability, accessibility and use of key staple food crops in the region. That includes addressing major diseases that cripple crop productivity. In our ongoing intensive efforts to ward off MLN, USAID is closely working with CIMMYT to prevent the spread of the disease from endemic to the non-endemic countries in Africa, especially through commercial seed contaminated by the MLN-causing viruses.

An MLN Community of Practice has been established and is operational, sharing knowledge and lessons learned across borders and strengthening the capacity of National Plant Protection Organizations and the commercial seed sector to implement the best practices of MLN diagnostics and management. We are making considerable progress, but the battle is far from over.

Friends, we all know that development aid to agriculture has been on the decline since the 1980s. Reports indicate that official development assistance to agriculture fell from 17% in 1982 to 6% in recent years.
At the same time, the total public expenditure on agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa remains far below 10% of GDP, which impacts funding for agricultural research. Under the Malabo Declaration in 2014, African governments pledged to uphold their earlier commitment to allocate at least 10% of public expenditure to agriculture, and to ensure its efficiency and effectiveness. Based on what we've heard from national leaders at AGRF, these commitments have once again been renewed.

This is encouraging, especially when we know that agriculture is key to spurring economic growth and moving large numbers of people out of poverty. This is critical to meeting Africa's broader commitment to addressing goals established under the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) related to advancing food security, nutrition and economic growth.

My desire is to see the recent upward trend in investment in agriculture accelerated through deliberate efforts from all partners, and most importantly, all of the governments in sub-Saharan Africa, so that promises and declarations are matched with real actions to ensure that families can access food and have nutritional security.

I sincerely thank all of you for taking the time to come together to reflect on the noble mission that CIMMYT has been carrying out for the last 50 years. Together, we wish them well and hope for increased collaboration as they address the most critical issues affecting the agricultural community and all of us who depend on this community to provide our populations safe, affordable and accessible food.

THANK YOU