Food Security: Progress Through Innovation
Ethiopia, represented by its President, hosted a conference with UNIDO (United Nations Industrial Development Organisation) this week in Addis Ababa. Many dignitaries attended, including Kenya's Prime Minister and over 40 senior officials from various countries, including China, Ukraine, Yemen and Sudan.
The title was "A World Without Hunger" and how to achieve it. Well timed, well executed. My fellow panelists as part of the Global Leaders Debate all presented very thoughtful contributions to the discussion.
Let's see the result of this timely conference.
I believe the 4 "I's" are vital for food security:
Innovation;
Infrastructure;
Integration of smallholders, and
Investment.
Yet the majority of Innovations offering solutions, including companies like #SustainsblePlanet growing plant protein sustainably on non-arable land using 90% less water than soybeans, seek expansion capital.
There are multiple innovations today designed to massively increase scale and productivity of crops, using food waste and crop waste to, for example, create animal feed and organic fertiliser, and to replace charcoal briquettes.
Mechanisation, energy, storage and arcane data capture all have new innovative new offerings. Yet these are consistently un-funded.
Fragmented and disparate funding was a central complaint.
The financing model of SMEs remains a failure yet it is not complicated to fix this most basically through overdrafts, accessible and widespread grants or inputs support arrannged privately or through government schemes.
If we want to solve world hunger, financial support for innovators, as well as tax incentives, easy access visas and pemits and Special Economic Zones providing infrastructure to agri businesses are important.
DFI's and governments take note: we won't solve world hunger without leap-frogging old approaches.
Spirited African youth, discontent and disillusioned, are determined to find a better way forward, voting out or significantly reducing the power base of long term African governments with old agendas, most recently in Botswana, South Africa and Mozambique. This new generation act in order to rescue themselves and focus on the priorities actually impacting them today in the real world, like jobs, freedom of speech and anti-corruption, including misuse of public funds.
The agricultural sector is still the main employer on the continent. Yet it remains largely un-(or well under)-funded.
Food security is not an aspiration.
It's a necessity.
#UNIDO #WorldWithoutHunger #FoodSecurity #Africa #Agriculture #SustainablePlanet
