The Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa, FARA, has urged African governments to reduce Africa’s dependence on imports through the creation of new agro enterprises and ensure food security in the continent over the next three decades.
A study undertaken by the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organisation, FAO, indicated that with booming population, the continent might face great challenges to match with food productivity with the surging population growth. In his address to delegates at the just concluded FARA conference, the key speaker, Tumusiime Rhoda-Peace, Commissioner for Rural Economy and Agriculture at the African Union Commission, AUC, advocated the need for governments in the continent to adopt policies that will encourage youths to engage in agric business, amongst other initiatives required to boost agricultural sector productivity.
He said: “We must march forward with force to deal with emerging and contemporary scenarios in our agrifood sector. There is a need to develop a healthy agribusiness environment to reduce Africa’s dependence on imports through the creation of new agro enterprises” FARA has identified various agro technologies in Africa and Asia through its partner organisations and has commercialised them through the creation of a five-year $150 million, incubation programme. The African Agribusiness Incubation Program has been developed to roll out the creation of new agribusiness incubators and to support competitive SMEs in agribusiness.
The Executive Director for FARA, Dr. Yemi Akinbamijo, said that the focus of the program, according to the report, is to engage in creating jobs in the agricultural sector and aims to employ over 65 per cent of Africa’s labour force, opening new doors for new agribusiness avenues. Rhoda-Peace explained that the African Union had bought into the programme and pledged support to raise funds for up-scaling the initiative, and that similar discussions were underway with African Development Bank, He hinted further that a number of universities, research organisations, private sector and governments had also expressed interest in partnering with FARA in agribusiness value chain development and to replicate the “Agripreneur” model.
According to him, despite the abundant opportunities in the continent to boost food supply, the quest for African entrepreneurs for new technologies has never been addressed, noting however that FARA’s Agribusiness Incubation Program and the promotion of youth engagement in agribusiness; agro entrepreneurs have a better chance of success in their ventures.
He noted that benefits from the ventures promoted have started trickling down to the bottom of the pyramid and have benefitted thousands of households in Ghana, Zambia, Uganda, Kenya and Mali. He further said that the presence of over 570 stakeholders and partners convening from 26 to 28 November in Johannesburg would help to rework the numbers that will help make essential shifts in African agriculture, adding that the forum would be a network of the worlds’ most prominent leaders in the agricultural sector who are introducing science led agricultural transformation as a solution to deliver Africa’s future over the next decade.
International agencies support women farmers with N46m Abolaji Adebayo Women in agribusiness in Nigeria have been offered a better chance of advancing their farm level activities and also for those involved in the various parts of the value chain in the £150,000 (N46m) GEMS4 Challenge fund. It is an economic empowerment funding window under the Fund.
The fund, a business contest, is aimed at private sector actors to encourage them to develop and adopt innovative business models and approaches that will create jobs and improve the income of the financially challenged women who engaged in Wholesale and Retail trading. An Agro- Nigeria executive connected with the project, Abigial Anaba, observed that women contribute immensely to agricultural production, but unfortunately they hardly benefit from agricultural incentives and innovation because of economic suppression, social and traditional practices.
Anaba said GEMS4 is a market development project in the country, funded by DFID/UKAid and supported by the World Bank with the mandate to stimulate market system changes that encourage growth and access. “It is expected to create 10,000 new jobs and increase incomes for 500,000 people, especially for resource poor men and women.
“It is becoming increasingly difficult, given the economic climate, for the female gender especially, to access fund, therefore the need to address the issue of poor access to markets, inadequate business support services, low level of education, poor business skills and socio-cultural restrictions being suffered by women,” she said. Anaba also noted that there is £3.5 million private sector development matching grant to support initiatives from Lagos, Kano, Cross River, Kaduna and Enugu under the project. SA govt to provide R2bn to farmers The government of South Africa is pumping R2-billion into 44 district municipalities in a bid to develop emerging farmers and boost the agriculture sector.
Despite past failed projects like the Joint Initiative for Priority Skills Acquisition (Jipsa) and the Accelerated Growth Initiative of South Africa (Agisa), Rural Development and Land Reform Minister Gugile Nkwinti is confident the plan to have agri-parks in municipalities will succeed. Nkwinti was talking in Addo yesterday at a consultative meeting with farmers from the Sarah Baartman District Municipality. He said the government had learnt a lot from mistakes they had made with Agisa and Jipsa and would now correct what was not done right. “We’re learning from the past all the time,” he said.
“When we started Agisa, one of the things we did not take into account was that if you accelerate production, where are your markets? “We did not think about that, so in a sense we learnt from the inadequacies of past initiatives.” Nkwinti admitted that with the failed initiatives, the government had had no idea what was required to be done on the ground. But now, the government had decided to downscale the implementation of agri-parks to district municipalities, rather than doing it from provincial or national government level.