Africa's food and agro industry is primed for growth. With ongoing global agro commodity disruptions caused by disease pandemic, wars, inflation, etc, there is urgent need for these actions to deliver socio-economic growth and enrich food systems across Africa:
Action 1: Need for long-term design and transformation of Africa's agrifood system. This is to be done by
- enabling African smallholder farmers have access to timely inputs, technology, training, and efficient markets
- unlocking smart blended financing instruments to agro commodity intermediaries such as processors and traders
- Enhanced farm-to-fork agrifood transformation among smallholder food producers to enable transparent commodity sourcing, adherence to appropriate labour laws, and better farming income.
Action 2: Climate variability in agriculture is real and African smallholder farmers face hurdles in nurturing climate adaptive strategies in order to increase crop yield and farming incomes. African smallholder farmers, being a predominantly rural-based population, have done least to contribute to climate change but will be the most negatively impacted by it. European Union (EU) new initiatives such as Green Deal might even compound the precarious situations facing African farmers thus the need for actionable investments into smallholder farming systems; including focused digital farmer services like geomapping technologies. The EU and the US need to do more with tailored investments through smart subsidies to African smallholder farming industry delivered through competent and trusted public and private institutions.
Action 3: African Governments need to evolve from the current multilateral and bilateral funding and donor-dependent funding of projects and programs on the continent into something more substantial. We encourage a revision of Africa's debt for it to be channeled into meaningful and targeted agrifood investments to develop the sector.
Africa deserves a large funding round; inclusive collaborative approaches, and strategies beyond the piecemeal it is currently allocated by the global community. Funding that can propel Africa's agrifood system-change is needed for economic transformation. This is the time to think and act anew!
Agriculture in Africa Media
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