1,500 agric-experts route for AGRF 2016 in Nairobi

NaijaAgroNet:

The President of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) Dr. Mrs. Agnes Kalibata has disclosed that the 2016 edition of the African Green Revolution Forum (AGRF), which kicked off in Nairobi, Kenyan capital, attracted in excess of 1,500 agriculture experts from over 40 countries, reports NaijaAgroNet.

Making this disclosure at Intercontinental Hotel, Nairobi at a sideline event on Monday, Dr. Kalibata said this figure includes Heads of State and high level officials among others.

Kalibata, who was joined s the media chat by the Kenyan Cabinet Secretary at Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries, Hon. Willy Bett, General Manager of Australian Centre for International Agriculture Research (ACIAR), Mrs. Melisa Wood, Managing Director for Africa at Rockefeller foundation, Mr. Mamadou Biteye, Director, Agriculture and Environment at the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Dr. Dominuque Charron, told NaijaAgroNet that the forum will provide African leaders to opportunity to deliver core new investments for agriculture on the continent.

She also affirmed that Kenya the forum is expected to bring undisclosed hundreds of millions of dollars in new support for African farmers and agribusinesses while unveiling winner of prestigious new Africa Food Prize as part of the agenda.

For Mamadou Biteye of Rockfeller noted that AGRA was founded through partnership between AGRA, Rockefeller, Bill and Melinda Gate, stressing they are very proud to be associated with AGRF and AGRA, especially as it celebrates 10 years.

The Kenyan’s Agriculture Cabinet Secretary Hon. Willy Bett assured that Kenya is the appropriate venue for this historic gathering because farming and food production are the lifeblood of the Kenyan economy.

“We want to set an example that others can follow. We are committed to pushing through the policy and financial reforms that can make farming and other agriculture businesses an economically and environmentally sustainable way of life,” he said.

Remmy Nweke in Nairobi/GEE
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Nairobi agog for African Green Revolution forum 2016

NaijaAgroNet:

The city of Nairobi, capital of Kenya would from this weekend becomes agog in readiness for the hosting of the 2016 African Green Revolution Forum (AGRF) with the theme: “Seize the Moment - 

Securing Africa's Rise through Agricultural Transformation,” reports NaijaAgroNet.

According to the organisers, the Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), all is now set for the week-long stakeholder forum between September 5 and 9, this year.

NaijaAgroNet gathered the forum kicks off this weekend with pre-forum organized field visit to the Dryland Seed Company (DSL) in Machakos County, while the official opening ceremony has been slated for Monday, September 5, 2016 under the chief host, H.E Uhuru Kenyatta, the President of Kenya.

The African Green Revolution Forum (AGRF) promises to advance policies and secure the investments that will ensure a better life for millions of Africa’s smallholder farmers and families who make up 70 per cent of the population.

NaijaAgroNet recalls that AGRA is an alliance led by Africans with roots in farming communities across 18 countries in Africa. The alliance was formed in 2006 in response to a call from former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who believed that time had come for African farmers to wage a “uniquely African Green Revolution.”

For the past five years AGRA has used the African Green Revolution Forum (AGRF) to not only highlight major accomplishments but also to bring all stakeholders together to advance the policies and secure the investments that ensures a better life for millions of Africa’s farmers and families – and realize the vision of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The forum expected to attract hundreds of participants to Nairobi.

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Improving agriculture with open data journalism - NaijaAgroNet

Features@NaijaAgroNet:

A weeklong open data workshop for a section of Comprehensive African Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) Journalists Network, recently ended in Nairobi, Kenya, with a call for embrace and more training in media sphere. REMMY NWEKE who was there for NaijaAgroNet reports.

India seeks Africa’s support for WTO ministerial meeting in Nairobi.

 NaijaAgroNet:

India has sought support for its food security programme from the visiting African trade ministers as the next World Trade Organisation (WTO) ministerial meeting is slated to be held in Nairobi, reports NaijaAgroNet.

"We discussed WTO issues with African trade ministers. India sees Africa as a natural partner and together we can have a positive influence on the future global economic order," said commerce minister Nirmala Sitharaman after the India-Africa trade ministers' meeting.

Sitharaman was speaking at a joint press conference at the meeting of trade ministers and officials in Delhi which was attended by 29 African nations, including Egypt, Algeria, Angola, Zimbabwe, Tunisia and South Africa, and eight regional economic councils, according to an official release.

New Delhi is trying to garner support for its demand that the Nairobi ministerial in December should come up with a permanent solution with respect to subsidies given under the public procurement programmes for food, NaijaAgroNet learnt.

Cyriacus Nnaji/GEE

 
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G-Soko platform to connect farmers for grains

NaijaAgroNet:

G-Soko, a platform to connect farmers to grain buyers was launched recently in Nairobi, Kenya, NaijaAgroNetreports.

The platform, invented by a Kenyan-based Information Technology(IT) company, Virtual City in collaboration with the Eastern Africa Grain Council (EAGC) and the Food Trade Eastern and Southern Africa Organization, is an online trading platform which would enable Smallholder farmers in the East Africa to sell their produce at favourable prices.

The Secretary General, the East African Community, Amb. Dr. Richard Sezibera, commended EAGC for partnering with the Secretariat to implement the EAC Food Security Action Plan, which is the community’s strategy to achieve food security in the region.

The Executive Director of EAGC, Mr. Gerald Masila, at the event said, G-Soko was part of a five-year trade promotion programme in the region, adding that linking rural food production zones in East Africa to urban consumption centres demands a well-functioning regional market and system whereby farmers in the region will be able to access credit while waiting for prices to increase through pledging the electronic warehouse receipt with the banks and agro-dealers.

The farmers will also benefit from reduced post-harvest losses through access to professional storage, cleaning, drying and will benefit from improved prices discovery since many of them rely on farm-gate prices that deliver cash at lower prices.As for Millers, G-Soko system guarantees availability of quality stocks; standardized and proven grading thus reducing need to carry out sampling to check quality.

The G-Soko, NaijaAgroNet learnt, is now operational in two of the EAC Partner States; Uganda and Kenya, and arrangements are underway to extend the system to Tanzania and Rwanda before the Grains Farmers Summit scheduled to take place in Rwanda in early October, 2015.

Cyriacus Nnaji/GEE with addition sourcefrom East African Community Secretariat (EAC)
 
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Pix: The Executive Director of EAGC, Mr. Gerald Masila,

Africa must innovate to open up agriculture potentials – FARA

NaijaAgroNet

The Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA) and the German government ended a two-day forum in Nairobi by declaring that the continent must embrace agricultural innovations to become globally competitive in bio-economy, reports NaijaAgroNet.

Kenya’s Cabinet Secretary for Agriculture Felix Koskei, told participants that one of the key ingredients to growth in the agriculture sector is attributable to development of technology that fails to be aligned to the needs of the client and effectively fails to compliment national and institutional goals’ aspirations.

NaijaAgroNet reports that particularly, Koskei noted that innovations should be self-perpetuated or be taken up by commercial entities and business the innovations are expected to yield immense socioeconomic benefits and impact productivity income and sustainability of the environment for the small holders.

“Despite this huge resources and potential, this continent together with other developing countries are host to 852 million hungry residents who require constant support,” Koskei noted.

According to Rhoda Tumusiime, Commissioner for Agriculture at the Africa Union, “Africa must feed itself and in fact this initiative of scaling up innovation is very critical. One world no hunger Africa should have no hunger because we have the capability, the land the people but as you have also heard only 50 per cent of agriculture productivity is contributed to by innovation.”

The executive director, FARA, Yemi Akinbamijo,lamented that “Money is not everything; by the way because we have spent more than 150 billion US dollars, about N29,925 trillion, in the last three decades and we are still where we are and we are spending 50 billion US dollars to borrow foods.”

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Dell, eWSAA partners on Kenya e-Waste facility, create jobs

NaijaAgroNet:

The partnership between Dell and Kenyan e-Waste Solutions Alliance for Africa (eWSAA) in Nairobi paved the way for the opening of East Africa Compliant Recycling to create businesses to be supported by a regulatory model tailored for developing countries, reports NaijaAgroNet.

The new regulatory model was developed by Kenyan officials and representatives from non-governmental organizations and the IT and e-recycling industries.

Speaking at the opening of the facility, Honorable Amina A. Abdalla, MP, Chairperson, Committee of Environment and Natural Resources, Kenyan Parliament pointed out that they we were looking at ensuring that e-waste is recycled in such a manner that ensures the people are not exposed to hazardous materials.

“And so basically, we’ve invested in getting out a regulation that is more proactive managing e-waste. With the regulation, its enforcement, and partnering with not only recyclers but producers, we’ll go a long way in addressing these challenges,” Abdalla told NaijaAgroNet.

The Kenyan Environment Secretary,  Ministry of Environment, Water and Natural Resources said that  they were seeing green technology as good business sense, and not just because it creates profits, but if persons working for such a company are of higher health status because of a good environment, then productivity also goes up.

“We want to create jobs, particularly for our youth. So it’s a triple way: We have a clean environment, we have jobs created, we have industrial growth and economic growth of the country,” she underscored.

The Director, Compliance at Dell Takeback, Jean Cox-Kearns, says “It is so exciting to see this sustainable model be implemented on the ground in Nairobi, creating green jobs and implementing a solution that deals with e-waste being generated both in Kenya and the greater East African Region, and providing environmentally sound management of e-waste collected.”

Chuks Egbuna/GEE

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