Africa-Press – Rwanda. A senior journalist at The New Times, Emmanuel Ntirenganya, emerged the overall winner on reporting about agricultural biotechnology in Africa in a ceremony that took place in Abuja, Nigeria on Friday December 2, 2022.
The media awards, which are offered every year, are organised by The Open Forum on Agricultural Biotechnology in Africa (OFAB).
OFAB is a project of African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF) that is funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation operating in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Ghana, Burkina Faso, Rwanda and Nigeria.
The project is a partnership platform in Africa that contributes to creation of an enabling environment for biotechnology research, development, and deployment for the benefit of smallholder farmers in Africa.
OFAB media awards winners
Rita Ene Okwanihe from Nigeria is the winner in the Radio category in 2022 OFAB media awards.
The Runner up is George Kalungwe from Malawi.
The runner up in Television category is Dorcas Bello from Nigeria and Nakuti Adiah from Uganda is the runner up in this category.
The runner up in the print and online category is Benedicta Gylmaa Folley from Ghana.
Emmanuel Ntirenganya, a Rwandan senior journalist from The New Times, emerged as the winner in the print and online category.
Ntirenganya also emerged the overall winner in the OFAB awards.
He was rewarded with a $3,500 trophy and the latest iPhone.
He published different stories on agricultural biotechnology including the one titled “How agricultural biotechnology could boost food security”.
Ntirenganya obtained a Bachelor’s degree from university of Rwanda in school of journalism and communication in August 2014.
He is specialised in agriculture, livestock and fishery reporting.
Ntirenganya also got a business reporting award in Rwanda in 2022 in annual Development Journalism Awards organised by Rwanda Governance Board (RGB) and Rwanda Media Commission (RMC).
Most recently, he was awarded as overall winner of Open Forum on Agricultural Biotechnology (OFAB) Rwanda Media Awards 2022, and got a pass to contest at Africa level where he emerged the winner in Print and online category.
“I am happy to be one of the winners of OFAB media awards for agriculture biotechnology. As you know, Africa is the continent with the highest prevalence of hunger where about 20 per cent are hungry. That means one in five Africans is hungry. Hunger and poverty has been depriving African children of education, because it is difficult for children to study when they are hungry. It means Africa’s workforce is actually threatened by malnutrition and poverty,” he said.
He said Africa should make concerted efforts to address the issue of poverty, hunger and malnutrition considering that Agriculture biotechnology has proven to be one of the approaches that can help the continent to tackle hunger and malnutrition.
“If smallholder farmers can have such technology, they can be able to increase farm productivity at relatively lower cost because they have been incurring losses because of drought, pests and diseases. They apply pesticides which are costly which increase cost of production.
For the continent to feed its people, as journalists we have to contribute to the access to agricultural technology to help farmers and the continent population,” he noted.
Open Forum on Agricultural Biotechnology (OFAB) aims to contribute to informing policy decision making processes on matters of agricultural biotechnology through the provision of factual, well researched and scientific information.
Agriculture biotechnology referred to here, consists of the production of genetically modified (GM) crops which are obtained through inserting or changing specific genes, using genetic engineering methods (in a laboratory setting), in order to confer beneficial traits.
According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), those genes confer beneficial traits such as pest resistance [hence no need for pesticide use for the farmer, which implies reduced food production costs], ability to grow in extreme and unfavourable conditions [such as having the ability to withstand drought] and increased nutrient levels among others.
The awards provided by OFAB are aimed at recognising exemplary journalism that exhibits best practices in credible science reporting that is crucial to better public understanding and acceptance of sciences, technologies and innovations that are needed to transform African agriculture for food security, sustainable development and poverty eradication.
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