AGRA

On 22nd October 2020, AGRA officially became the new home for the VALUE4HERConnect, Africa’s first digital market place. The launch which had over 500 registered participants from Africa and beyond; emphasized the urgent need to get more women agripreneurs in the continent connected to more networks, markets, financing and training opportunities in order to scale up their businesses.

In her opening remarks Sabdiyo Dido, the Head of Gender and Inclusiveness at AGRA, noted that agriculture markets get more complicated as they move further along the value chain. She describe Value4Her as a platform that was constructed to bring women’s businesses to the path of profitability. The platform, she said, had demonstrated its potential as a go-to platform for women entrepreneurs in Africa to connect with one another and gain access to investments, market information and intelligence.

Eva Ndamono Shitaatala, CEO Zadeva Fisheries, Nambia and a member of the Value4Her platform was one such beneficiary. Eva described her experience going digital after loosing 80% of her revenue due to the lockdown brought about by the COVID 19 pandemic. Through the training she received; she launched an online marketing campaign that saw her business regain its footing and increase its profit by 20% per month. She spoke of the networks, synergy and accessibility brought about by Value4Her and noted that it felt good to brain storm and have others listen to you and share solutions.

Vicki Wilde, the Head of Gender in Agriculture at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation shared her excitement on the launch of Value4HER noting its importance in creating equity and strengthening women’s business networks through facilitated learning and links to buyers.

Dr Ibrahim Khadar, Director at CTA shared his delight in handing over the VALUE4HERConnect platform to AGRA. He stated that in his tenure at CTA which spanned over 20 years, no project has gained brand-recognition and acquired so many admirers faster than VALUE4HER. He was confident that with AGRA’s adoption of the platform it would continue to grow and mature into a rich source of benefits for women entrepreneurs in Africa.

The handover of the VALUE4HER initiative comes at a time when AGRA is refining its 2030 Strategic Framework and adopting a new lens for its gender and inclusion work. Through this, AGRA will aim to reach up to 5,000 women-led agribusinesses in Africa over the next five years, to offer growth pathways for their businesses, catalyse partnerships to build women’s digital skills and capacities and help them benefit from the emerging digital economy in agriculture.

Watch the handover ceremony here.
Learn more about VALUE4HERConnect.

The 2020 AGRF Agribusiness Deal Room brought together 3,600 delegates to facilitate partnerships and investments in African agriculture

The 2020 AGRF Agribusiness Deal Room brought together 3,600 delegates to facilitate partnerships and investments in African agriculture

KIGALI, Rwanda: September 15, 2020: At the 2020 African Green Revolution Forum (AGRF) in Kigali, Rwanda, governments, business leaders, youth entrepreneurs, investors and partners gathered in the Agribusiness Deal Room 2020 to explore ways to strengthen food systems and secure Africa’s agricultural transformation.

Bringing together over 3,600 delegates from 91 countries for idea pitches and forums to shape the investment landscape in African agriculture, the Deal Room witnessed over 1,000 investment and partnership meetings.

In 16 pitching sessions, 15 governments and COMESA presented investment opportunities worth over US$ 4.7 billion in more than 20 value chains.
The Agribusiness Deal Room is a matchmaking platform that convenes stakeholders from the entire eco-system to facilitate partnerships and investments in African agriculture. It specifically supports governments and companies with access to finance and partnership opportunities.

Key highlights from the Agribusiness Deal Room 2020 include:

• The Agribusiness Deal Room witnessed over 1,000 investment and partnership meetings taking place between companies.
• In 16 pitching sessions, 15 governments and COMESA presented investment opportunities worth over US$ 4.7 billion in more than 20 value chains
• There were 208 pre-assessed SMEs with a total investment need of US$ 532 million from 27 African countries.
• These SMEs represent a cumulative annual revenue of US$ 225 million.
• 57% are women led and 31% are youth entrepreneurs.
• The Deal Room hosted 55 targeted investors representing a wide range of ticket sizes (from US$ 50,000 to over US$ 150 million) and includes a wide array of instruments such as debt (secured and unsecured, mezzanine, working capital), convertible notes, and equity among others.
• 20 business development service providers were profiled to work with SMEs and with service cost ranging from $100 – $10,000.
• Finally, there were 54 anchor buyers seeking trade deals with farmers and SMEs.

The Deal Room partners made various announcements of new commitments as follows:

• Letters of intent were signed between AGRA and Microsoft Africa, Africa Improved Foods and OCP.
• UPL announced a new partnership with AGRA and various governments in West and Central Africa to support the increase of rice yields and incomes.
• IDH announced investments worth US$ 11million – stemming from a 2019 commitment made by Unilever to SMEs – and a new partnership with Nestle targeting West and Central Africa.
• Grow Africa announced US$ 260 million of new term sheets for private sector investment in various values chains in Ivory Coast, Ghana, Nigeria, Malawi, Madagascar, Mozambique and Uganda.
• USAID launched the new three year Feed the Future Market Systems and Partnerships (MSP) activity.
• TBI announced the launching of an Agribusiness investment facilitation program.
• African Development Bank (AfDB) announced that it is working with Rockefeller Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in the development of a leadership for agriculture program to put SMEs at the top of the agenda; in addition AfDB will be putting in US$ 45 million into the Senegal Agropole, an agro processing zone developed as a flagship program by the Government of Senegal.
• GAIN announced the launch of Nutritious Food Financing Facility between GAIN + INKOFIN.
• WBSCD announced the launch of the Global Alliance agriculture SMEs digital finance platform.

About AGRA

AGRA is a farmer-centered, African-led, partnerships-driven institution that is working to transforming smallholder farming from a solitary struggle to survive to a business that thrives. In collaboration with its partners—including African governments, researchers, development partners, the private sector and civil society— AGRA’s work primarily focuses on smallholder farmers – men and women who typically cultivate staple crops on two hectares or less. AGRA has learned a lot from efforts during its first decade and is now recognized across the continent as a strong voice for African rural development, a prosperous agricultural economy, and for supporting thousands of small African businesses and millions of African families to improve agriculture as a way to ensure food security and improve their livelihoods.

About the AGRF

The African Green Revolution Forum was first held in 2006 as the African Green Revolution Conference (AGRC), hosted by Yara International ASA in Norway. The conference moved to Africa in 2010 with the championing of former UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, who oversaw its transition to an African identity. The Forum now consists of an annual event combined with thematic platforms and activities throughout the year to ensure continuous progress over time. Rwanda is the second country, after Ghana, to host the event twice, having successfully hosted the 2018 edition. Afterwards, Rwanda will host the event in alternate years, having been named the home of the AGRF seat. Other AGRF member countries will host the Forum in the years between. In its current format, the AGRF is organised by the AGRF Partners Group, a coalition of institutions that care about Africa’s agriculture transformation.

For Media Inquiries Contact:
Saburi Chirimi +254 721 569 369 agrf@portland-communications.com
Media can access the online press room here: https://www.agrf.org/media
For more information on the AGRF agenda and partners visit www.agrf.org.

Last week the African Green Revolution Forum (AGRF) turned global. Some 10,000 people from around the world, three times the normal attendance, watched and participated. There were several hundred physically present in Kigali, socially distant, wearing masks, but all the others attended online. The Forum has become the premier event for African Agriculture. The theme this year was “Feeding Africa’s Cities, Opportunities, Challenges, and Policies for Linking African Farmers with Growing Urban Food Markets.”

President Paul Kagame of Rwanda was the co-host, and Dr. Agnes Kalibata, the President of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) was the coordinator, but participation was clearly global.

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair presented at the AGRF for the third time, but virtually this year. U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Under Secretary Ted McKinney participated along with high level United Nations (UN) officials, African Union officials, the Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu and many more.

The Forum played out with an eye on the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) for 2030 and the upcoming UN Food Systems Summit scheduled for next year. Dr. Kalibata will also serve as the UN Special Ambassador to the UN Food Systems Summit in 2021. When the UN Deputy Secretary General, Ms. Amina J. Mohammed, was asked why this UN Summit will be different from those in the past, she answered “because an African woman will be in charge.”

The UN’s second SDG is to achieve zero hunger by 2030. However, as they point out, after decades of steady decline, the number of people who suffer from hunger – as measured by the prevalence of undernourishment – began to slowly increase again in 2015. Current estimates show that nearly 690 million people are hungry, or 8.9 percent of the world population – up by 10 million people in one year and by nearly 60 million in five years.

According to the World Food Program, led by former Governor David Beasley of South Carolina, 135 million suffer from acute hunger largely due to man-made conflicts, climate change and economic downturns.

At the same time, a profound change in both the African and the global food and agriculture systems are needed if we are to nourish the more than 690 million people who are hungry today – and the additional 2 billion people the world will have by 2050. Increasing agricultural productivity and sustainable food production are crucial to help alleviate the perils of hunger.

The AGRF focused on resilience, nutrition, trade/markets and trying to bring it all together by defining a comprehensive food system for Africa. “We need more food” African Union Commissioner Josefa Sako said bluntly. But COVID-19 has made this more complicated, noted Tony Blair. (After the Forum, on Sunday, September 13, 2020, the New York Times had a major story, “The Other Way COVID-19 Kills: Hunger” pointing to South Asia and Africa.)

The Forum again featured the “Deal Room” where there were presentations on investment opportunities from an incredible array of countries including Tanzania, Zambia, Uganda, Togo and Senegal. There was a big focus on women in agribusiness with sessions looking at how to amplify women’s voices through technology and interviews with a number of women entrepreneurs.

Deputy Secretary General of the UN Mohammed stressed the need for realistic expectations and recognized “the local level is the weakest” link in the food systems chain. She hit the nail on the head. The policy officials in Africa and around the world are all in agreement. The challenge is taking it to the farmers at the local level. “Our best has not been enough” noted President Paul Kagame.

The political leaders who spoke at the Forum all agreed that the African Continental Free Trade Area agreement must be implemented, rather than reinventing the wheel. This agreement was entered into in 2019 but has yet to be implemented. Tony Blair stressed that major progress in Africa will be made if political leaders do nothing else but implement this agreement and break down trade barriers.

Under Secretary Ted McKinney told the Forum: “My International Organization (IO) team, as well as Team Africa in the Foreign Agriculture Service want to lift up Africa, as I do. AGRA is the primary public/private organization to help make it happen.”

Watching the Forum from afar this year, a change is noticeable in Africa that mirrors a global concern. The focus is still on increasing the production of food, but more attention is being paid to the production of nutritious food produced in a sustainable manner. Climate change is real in Africa.

Africa has the potential to be self-sufficient in food and even to export food. They have the land, the natural resources and most importantly, the desire. Unfortunately, Africa still imports billions of dollars in food that should be produced in Africa. Further, some of the food produced in Africa is shipped overseas for processing, only to be imported back as finished products – in part because trade between countries is so difficult within the continent.

Dr. Agnes Kalibata was the former Minister of Agriculture in Rwanda. Working with President Kagame, together they turned Rwanda food security around after the genocide. Now, at AGRA, her leadership is felt throughout the continent; and the UN Secretary General has asked her to help bring the global community together on food systems. It will not be easy, or quick. As noted by Kalibata “we are a global community.” It is true. We are linked by trade, the internet and, unfortunately, COVID-19. The world is growing but also getting smaller.

Africa is making great progress on the development of seeds, inputs, public policy, including trade, but “taking it to the farmers” to quote Dr. Norman Borlaug, is still a challenge. The local level is the weakest link as noted by UN Deputy Secretary General Mohammed. Progress is being made, the Agro-Dealer network is expanding, mechanization is being introduced but reaching more smallholder farmers in rural villages is a major challenge.

Dr. Kalibata closed the 10^th annual Forum by saying: “As Africa’s economies advance and cities grow, we need to seize the moment and improve linkages to Africa’s largest producers – its millions of smallholder farmers- by investing more in urban food markets, coherence of food governance between cities and producers and food safety. These will enhance the competitiveness of our food industry, bolster regional food trade, and position Africa to be a better trade partner with the rest of the world, We must not relent in our effort to transform food systems for the benefit of everyone and build stronger, resilient and more sustainable food systems.”

The entire sequence is available to watch on YouTube.

Marshall Matz specializes in agriculture and food security at OFW Law in Washington, D.C. mmatz@ofwlaw.com

Source: https://www.agri-pulse.com/articles/14467-opinion-a-global-african-agriculture-forum

AGRA is pleased to release the “Africa Agriculture Status Report 2020,” with the theme, “Feeding Africa’s Cities.”

Africa’s cities currently provide the largest and most rapidly growing agricultural markets in Africa. Out of total urban food sales of roughly US$200 to US$250 billion per year, over 80% comes from domestic African suppliers. In the coming decades, demographic projections forecast rates of African urbanization as the highest in the world. Today — and even more so tomorrow — Africa’s rapidly growing cities and food markets offer the largest and fastest growing market opportunity available to the continent’s 60 million farms. One-half of these farms involve young people, contrary to widely held perceptions. AGRA and partners core commitment to smallholder agriculture must now focus on urban food markets, to position domestic suppliers as competitive, responsive and safe; to provide the right signals and inputs to those markets; and continue growing opportunities for young people in the agriculture sector.

Get your copy today:

Africa’s food systems have been moved more than an inch from almost non existing structure for seed production to investing in more than 110 seed companies, Africa Green Revolution in Africa, AGRA is keeping its goal to assist in advancing African Agricultural systems, INFACTNG has learnt.

“AGRA investment in Africa is providing opportunities that farmers in other parts of the world take for granted” says Andrew Cox, AGRA’s Chief of Staff and Strategy.

Cox noted that AGRA’s investment is not from top to bottom as people question its engagement with blue chip organizations and big research institutions instead of reaching out to smallholder farmers which is at the core of its programs mandate.

He argues that AGRA is investing in smallholder farmers and stakeholders in Africa food system to make quick progress and advancement in food sufficiency in the continent.

“We have invested in and built up over 110 seed companies, 11 of which are in Nigeria alone. In many cases, before AGRA invested, there were no seeds at all, meaning they had to be imported (wrong quality, wrong specificity to the land etc)” Cox said.

The investment in establishing seed companies has led to production of over 700,000 tonnes of seed. This investment allows for choices and options for farmers: “By giving farmers choice, wherever possible from local companies, we see sustainable growth happening” said AGRA Chief of Staff and Strategy.

AGRA’s strategy is also to help enable national seed regulatory agencies in African countries where such institutionalized system was lacking. They are supporting The National Seed Council to go fully digital in other to expand seed quality and combat counterfeit. This effort has helped reduce reported incidences of seed counterfeit in Nigeria, Uganda, Kenya and Southern Africa.

AGRA is also helping to establish Early Generation Seeds (EGS) across the continent, which is already witnessing growth in Soyabean production. Part of its support for governments are strengthening of legislative frameworks, one of the laws passed is the Plant Variety Protection Law. “The Plant Variety Protection Law allows private seed inspectors address shortage of government inspectors” Cox said.

Source: https://infactng.com/2020/09/13/agras-greatest-achievement-has-been-to-give-farmers-choices-andrew-cox/

LONDON – Over the next 30 years, Sub-Saharan Africa’s population will double to over two billion, and its economies will industrialize. Africa’s development will therefore be critical to the world’s future stability, prosperity, and health. Given this, the continent should be receiving much more international attention.

The COVID-19 crisis has highlighted a number of global vulnerabilities, including the uncoordinated nature of the world’s pandemic response, its inability to support the poorest countries and their populations in managing the economic fallout, and of course the weakness of existing health-care infrastructure. Leaders must now urgently address these weaknesses, alongside other major global challenges, ranging from climate change and rising inequality to technological disruption and global terrorism.

Moreover, fragile agriculture and food systems, particularly in Africa and other low-income regions, have exacerbated the pandemic’s impact. Unless addressed, these systems’ shortcomings could deepen any crisis in the decades ahead.

The argument for fundamental reforms is partly a moral one. The United Nations World Food Programme warns that the number of people suffering from acute hunger in low and middle-income countries – including in Africa – could almost double this year, to 265 million, as a result of the pandemic. Strengthening Africa’s agriculture systems is vital to making the continent more self-reliant and resilient to future shocks. Otherwise, economies will remain stagnant, limiting tax revenues and leaving welfare systems unable to support people through crises such as COVID-19.

But it is also in the enlightened self-interest of all countries – including members of the G20 and OECD – to ensure well-functioning agriculture and food systems in Africa and other poor regions. This is because food and agriculture are central to making the world’s health, economic, and security systems fit for the twenty-first and twenty-second centuries.

For starters, vibrant food and agriculture sectors are essential for preventing malnutrition – one of the leading global causes of illness – and strengthening them is important in managing pandemics as well. COVID-19 lockdowns and social-distancing measures failed in less developed countries with large informal economies, mainly because of concerns that such regulations would severely harm people’s ability to earn enough to feed their families.

Agriculture is also crucial to successful economic transformations. There can be no global economic stability, green economy, or eradication of mass poverty if African and other developing countries do not industrialize. And as the United States, Europe, and Asia have demonstrated, industrialization first requires an agricultural revolution, which Africa has yet to experience.

Bolstering global security, too, entails transforming agriculture and the food system. Terrorism feeds on the disenfranchisement of rural populations in regions like the Sahel, where people can gain more through illicit activity than through the lawful economy and public services.

Finally, revamping agriculture – particularly in Africa – is a precondition for sustainably feeding a global population that could increase to almost 11 billion by the end of this century.

Many African leaders are focusing on reforming agriculture – and making progress. Senegal’s development of rice and other subsectors, Ghana’s Planting for Food and Jobs program, and the work of Ethiopia’s Agricultural Transformation Agency are all excellent examples of strong government leadership in this field.

Given the right focus by governments, policymakers can identify agricultural sectors, which, with the deployment of technology and new practices, can attract investment, in turn spurring employment, economic growth, and tax revenues – thereby initiating a virtuous cycle of development. Investment and reform – both domestically and externally financed – can accelerate change.

For example, Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire need to process their cocoa into chocolate themselves, while Nigeria needs to mechanize its agriculture and transform its livestock sector. Mozambique needs to develop its various agricultural corridors, and Kenya has huge potential to be a global food-processing hub.

A series of upcoming global events provide the world with excellent opportunities to advance this agenda – starting with the African Green Revolution Forum, which has been taking place this week, hosted by the government of Rwanda. This gathering is crucial in highlighting the need for Africa – backed by the international community – to step up its efforts to transform its agriculture and food systems in a way that will allow the world to achieve the targets established by the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. This year’s forum focuses on how to feed Africa’s rapidly growing cities and urban centers – potentially the global economy’s greatest source of future growth.

I have been taking part in the forum for the third consecutive year, though for the first time remotely. My teams and I have focused on how to scale up investment in Africa’s agriculture and agro-processing to transform the sector, increase its resilience to crises like pandemics and climate change, and spur the continent’s burgeoning industrialization and technological revolution. Then come the UN General Assembly later this month, the G20 summit in November, and the UN Food Systems Summit next year.

The COVID-19 pandemic is a stark reminder that the inability of many poorer countries’ agricultural systems to meet their populations’ most basic needs will have huge geopolitical consequences if not tackled urgently. Fortunately, the upcoming global gatherings will allow the world to debate the best way forward so that governments can take rapid and effective decisions. We all have a stake in seizing the opportunity.

Source: https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/africa-agriculture-transformation-local-global-benefits-by-tony-blair-2020-09