Emmanuel Ntirenganya, a journalist with The New Times Publications, has emerged the overall winner on reporting about agricultural biotechnology in Africa.

Ntirenganya was announced the best agricultural biotechnology reporter on the continent during an awards ceremony in Abuja, Nigeria on Friday, December 2.

The annual OFAB awards are primarily organised by the Open Forum on Agricultural Biotechnology in Africa (OFAB).

Ntirenganya was declared the winner in the print and online category before he took the ultimate prize in a competition preceded by national-level awards.

For his achievement, he was awarded $3,500 and a latest iPhone.

While he has authored a number of authoritative articles around the controversial subject of agricultural biotechnology, the article that stood out the most for the panel of judges is titled "How agricultural biotechnology could boost food security”.

The story, published in July this year, showcases the potential of agricultural biotechnology in transforming Africa’s food systems and boosting food security.

"I am happy to be one of the winners of OFAB Media Awards. As you know, Africa is the continent with the highest prevalence of hunger with about 20 per cent of our populations hungry,” Ntirenganya said in his acceptance speech.

"That means one in five Africans is hungry. Hunger and poverty have been depriving African children of education, because it is difficult for children to study when they are hungry. That also means that Africa’s workforce is threatened by malnutrition and poverty.”

Ntirenganya called on African governments and the development partners to scale up efforts to fight poverty, hunger and malnutrition on the continent, noting that agriculture biotechnology offers the surest way out of the current situation.

"If smallholder farmers can have access to this technology, they can be able to increase farm productivity at a relatively low cost because they have been incurring losses as a result of drought, pests and diseases.”

"Farmers,” he said, "are today applying costly pesticides, which increase cost of production.”

He also called on journalists across Africa to "contribute toward efforts to ease access to agricultural technology.”

A holder of a Bachelor’s degree from University of Rwanda’s School of Journalism and Communication, Ntirenganya is the leading agriculture reporter at The New Times.

In the weeks leading to the awards event in Nigeria, Ntirenganya had emerged as the overall winner of the OFAB Rwanda Media Awards – during which two other journalists with The New Times were also recognised for their work in the same field. In Rwanda, the inaugural OFAB awards were organised in collaboration with the Rwanda Agriculture Board (RAB).

Funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, OFAB is a project that runs under African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF).

It operates in eight countries, namely; Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda.

The project contributes toward creation of an enabling environment for biotechnology research, development, and deployment for the benefit of smallholder farmers in Africa.

Other OFAB media awards winners

Meanwhile, Rita Ene Okwanihe, from Nigeria, was announced the winner in the Radio category for 2022 OFAB media awards. Malawi’s George Kalungwe emerged the first runner up in this category.

The Television category was won by Dorcas Bello, from Nigeria, with Nakuti Adiah, from Uganda, named the first runner up.

With Rwanda’s Ntirenganya winning the print and online category, Benedicta Gylmaa Folley, from Ghana, was named the first runner up.

Open Forum on Agricultural Biotechnology seeks to inform policy decision making processes on matters of agricultural biotechnology through provision of factual, well-researched and scientific information.

Why agriculture biotechnology?

Agriculture biotechnology consists of 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 OFAB media awards are designed to recognise exemplary journalism that showcases best practices in credible science reporting, which is deemed key to better public understanding and acceptance of sciences, technologies and innovations needed to transform Africa’s food systems, accelerate poverty eradication and inspire sustainable development.

Ntirenganya earlier this year also won the business reporting award at the annual Development Journalism Awards organised by Rwanda Governance Board, and Rwanda Media Commission.