A growing market for our African entrepreneurs or … for someone else
__It’s up to us.
By Strive Masiyiwa
When I was a little boy in the 60s and first learnt to read newspapers, they were always filled with sad and often horrific stories about hunger in India and Bangladesh. It was never about Africa, because Africa had plenty of food with countries like Nigeria producing great surpluses of things like groundnuts, cassava and palm oil.
By the time we got to the ’80s and ’90s, however, it was Africa that was suffering from massive food deficits whilst countries like India had food. I always wanted to know what happened and how could we resolve this problem?
I finally began to get the answers when I joined the board of the Rockefeller Foundation as a trustee in 2003. This is when I got to know about what became known as the “Asia Green Revolution” where a special program of scientists led by a man called Dr Norman Borlaug developed new high yielding rice seeds (nothing to do with the controversial GMO of today).
The work done by Norman Borlaug and his team saved the lives of millions of people. In 1970, Dr Borlaug was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for this work.
Looking at this example, scientists and other experts became convinced it was time for an “African Green Revolution”. My late friend Kofi Annan called for an African-led initiative to be launched to focus especially on finding solutions to increase agricultural production and support smallholder farmers.
Kofi Annan became the first Chair of the “Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa” (AGRAAlliance). A few years later, he asked me to take over the helm. The week of my final board meeting 15 years later, in 2019, two very special things happened:
First, I was awarded the Norman Borlaug World Food Prize Medallion, which I consider one of the greatest honours in my life. I was totally taken by surprise. Second, my friend Svein Tore Holsether [CEO of Yara International] and I shared the stage to announce the first winners of the inaugural Generation Africa āGoGettaz Agripreneur Prizeā which we co-founded to inspire and support young entrepreneurs in the agrifood sector.
Fast forward to today: The Third Annual GoGettaz Agripreneur Prize competition is underway and applications are open until 14 June. You can find out more here: https://gogettaz.vc4a.com/about/
Judges will choose two agri-food entrepreneurs [one man and one woman] to win US$50,000 and I heard so far only 23% of the applicants are women! What!? Women feed our continent! Please share the word. And for the thousands of you still in the middle of completing your 2021 application… the clock is ticking!
Last yearās Top-12 finalists (age 18-35) were from Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Morocco, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda. In 2019 the Top-12 came from Botswana, Cameroon, DRC, Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zimbabwe.
Were you one of them? I have seen some of you comment on the page from time to time.
# black soldier fly larvae (high protein alternative) to make ice cream and animal feed
# indigenous fruit preserves for tourist and export markets
# dried fruit for local and export markets
# cassava production and processing of gluten-free snacks
# post-harvest loss technologies [solar and digital]
# digital apps to connect investors with smallholders, producers with markets [and more]
# locally processed sunflower oil
# precision agricultural drones
# urban vertical farming
# vermiposting (earthworms) using recyclable waste
# tech-enabled efficient food distributionā¦ [and much more]
I did hear that fish and poultry farmers competed in the past few years, but so far none have made it to the finals. One key thing judges are looking for: #Innovation and potential to #CreateJobs and #Scale [expand strong sustainable agri-food businesses founded by inspiring young African entrepreneurs).
Some of these agribusinesses were really Wow! Imagine ice cream made of black soldier flies! I really wanted to taste some, but maybe another time.
Is there money in food? Of course, there is! Whatever is happening in the world, be it plague or war or recession, there will always be demand for healthy food. And we either must produce it or import it. [Especially now with COVID, that food must be as nutritious as possible!]
SOMEONE is making billions feeding the African people in our GROWING YOUNG market. [It is crazy how much our African nations spend importing food and other inputs to the food system!]
Letās fix this.
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