The AGRF Podcast

Pathé Sene, le Directeur Général de l'AGRF, est responsable de la croissance stratégique et de la gestion quotidienne de son secrétariat en tant que forum indépendant, panafricain et multipartenaire. Avant de rejoindre l'AGRF, Pathé était le principal spécialiste régional de l'environnement et du changement climatique pour le FIDA en Afrique de l'Ouest et du Centre, basé à Rome et plus tard à Abidjan. Il a également été directeur du bureau sous-régional du FIDA à Abidjan et directeur de pays pour la Côte d'Ivoire, le Niger et le Libéria. Avant de rejoindre le FIDA, Pathé était spécialiste des politiques de développement durable au Centre mondial des politiques du PNUD sur le développement durable basé à Rio de Janeiro (Brésil). Il a précédemment travaillé avec le PNUD et le PNUE en tant que conseiller de programme régional basé à Nairobi (Kenya), fournissant une assistance technique aux pays africains sur l'intégration des objectifs de pauvreté, d'environnement et de genre dans les cadres nationaux de développement et d'investissement. Avant cela, il a été administrateur de programme et chef d'équipe par intérim au bureau de pays du PNUD en Mauritanie. Les autres postes antérieurs de Pathé en dehors de l'ONU incluent le programme de sécurité alimentaire et le directeur du sous-bureau en Afghanistan, un consultant auprès de l'Union européenne en France et un chercheur agricole à l'Institut sénégalais de recherche agricole. Dans cet épisode, Pathé parle de son expérience dans l'industrie, de sa passion pour le développement agricole africain et de sa vision pour l'avenir de l'AGRF.

Dans cet épisode Tanya Alden-Zeter discute avec Célia Chabi. Elle est fondatrice de Kiel bien-être, une enterprise qui spécialise dans la production et la commercialisation de produits très nutritifs à base de baobab. Du café au baobab, jusqu'aux croquettes et des baumes et pommades fabriqués avec le baobab, ces produits sont adaptés pour tout le monde, y compris les femmes enceintes, les enfants et les personnes agées. Une psychosociologue, Célia est passionée par la nature et par la nutrition - deux passions qui l'ont motivé à créer son enterprise. Celle-ci a été fondée quand elle a aperçu de nombreux problèmes dans sa communauté, des problèmes bien liés à la dénutrition. En tant qu'activiste, Célia travaille avec les personnes défavorisées afin d'améliorer réellement leur qualité de vie.

On this episode we speak to Fatou Manneh, founder of Jelmah Herbella, which was created to add value to products produce in the Gambia and to contribute to unleash the growth potentials of rural women and farmers. Fatou is the 2022 winner of the rising star award for young female agripreneur for The VALUE4HER Women Agripreneurs of the Year Awards (WAYA), awards which aim to create visibility for successful women and promote them as positive role models, trigger innovation, and spur ambition among women agripreneurs.Fatou has an inspirational story about her background, how she was inspired to work with women in agriculture and also her plans for the future and global distribution.

An inspirational conversation with start-up founder Tei Mukunya, with Umuliza Njiru  communication lead at the Rockerfeller Foundation's Africa Regional Office, about how Tei was inspired by using healthy food products and watching her family trying to dry foods to start her own food brand. We discuss the challenges with getting products to the market as an SME, developing resilience, the importance of having mentors and advisors, the Good Food Innovation Fund and working hard to help make healthy food easier to access for busy people and their families.  

Cyril Ugwu, Country Director for IDH Nigeria office and also leader of the IDH casava programme, talks to Elske Stevenson, Senior Communications Manager at IDH, about how IDH put ‘people, planets and progress' at the heart of trade by levering the power of markets to create better jobs and opportunities for all with a focus on SMEs and farmers at the core of their support offerings. He tells us about the Cassava Progamme and the work they are doing to streamline and increase farming production and support and work towards the idea of zero hunger in Africa and indeed the world in an increasingly challenging climate making cassava production sustainable, competitive and profitable.

UN Climate Champions' Fiona Napier talks to Jack Kimani, CEO Climate Action Platform for Africa (CAP-A) about looking at a different approach to how Africa approaches climate change. Kimani discusses moving away from the dominant narrative of the damage caused and towards the opportunities for the continent to benefit from tackling these issues, but in so doing being able to create an engine for economic growth and job creation. He suggests how a lot of Africa's assets – energy, vast amounts of land, a larger energetic and youthful work force - could be used to competitive advantage to tackle climate change and how there could be some benefit to Africa's comparatively slower adoption of power generation, making it easier to leap-frog to new climate techs with a low emissions pathway.

Dr. Florence Wambugu, Kenyan plant pathologist and virologist, is known for her advocacy of using biotechnology to increase food production in Africa. On this episode we talk about how life and work changed since she won the Africa Food Prize, her work with Africa Harvest, scaling and diversifying across Africa, partnering with development and doners, tissue culture, developing innovative seed systems to move from low productivity to high and changing the fortunes of farmers on the ground, the advice she would give to African governments to support growth and resolve hunger in Africa, empowering farmers, young old, male, female and how we should be investing in looking for the next food prize champions not just waiting for them to come to us.

On this episode we learn all about the fantastic Rockerfeller Foundation Schools' Feeding Program and discuss Regenerative Agriculture, diversifying crops, producing food and supporting the environment, how to feed a growing population during climate crises and droughts and other challenges, how to get farmers to understand that the food on the plate is an important as the money in their pocket, the best way to get nutritious food to everyone affordably and much more.  

Wycliffe Ingoi from Advanta Seeds, delivering farming solutions and technology to farmers spanning across 84 countries, highlights why seed quality is so important and how ultimately investing in quality seed will produce a higher yield, serve to protect farmers during a time of climate change and support the development of go-to market strategies. We also explore how governments, providers, farmers and indeed consumers can work together to try to solve the problems of food production.

Lilian Ndungu, leading agriculture tech adviser advising the government of Rwanda and Raj Singh, manager of global agriculture of food advisory at the Tony Blair Institute have an in-depth discussion about the exciting innovations in ag tech, how technology is changing all the way from how we go about our agriculture to even how we eat our food, what technologies should governments adopt that can be sustainability adopted, how to use this information to help farmers make decisions on their farms, putting the farmer at the centre of agricultural transformation, informing government and private investment decision making, the affordability of devices and available data for farmers, smart agriculture that makes farmers less rainfall-dependent, the importance of behavioural change in food consumption and the importance of focusing on home grown and locally grown production that is able to meet the demand of the population.

Young Rwanda farmer, Pacifique Nshimiyimana, whose family have been farming in the eastern province for many generations, discusses how solving the problem of younger generations losing interest in agriculture is the key to solving the food crisis in Africa. He emphasises how getting young people involved in agriculture should be down to the policy makers; making the job cleaner and less manual labour-focused and more technologically advanced and how the most important thing for farmers in Africa going forward is access to crop protection technologies and how farming careers could give hope the younger generation and his idea for re-branding farming in Africa. In conversation with Fiona Napier from the UN High Level Climate Champions.

Umuliza M Njiru, Rockefeller Communications Lead for the African Regional Office speaks to Roy Steiner, Senior VP Rockefeller Foundation discussing how the world has created a food system focusing on food that is actually killing us, how food systems are the number one culprit raising greenhouse gases and how we can move away from this and how governments can really understand processes to enable us to instead build a food system that is both good for us and good for the planet.  Questioning why governments subsidise sugar, refined wheat, rice and soybean instead of protective foods such as fruits and vegetables and nuts and things that can protect us from disease.

Eric Yirenkyi Danquah, Ghanaian plant geneticist, professor and founding director of the West Africa Centre for Crop Improvement (WACCI), talks about his work, his route into the industry and establishing the West Africa Centre for Crop Improvement - now one of the largest and most impactful centres in Africa on African crops which has turned out hundreds of PhDs in plant breeding now working in over 15 countries in Africa. On this episode we discuss whether reaching zero-hunger is a possiblity and what we are doing to try to acheive this goal. 

Gerda Verburg, UN Assistant Secretary General and Coordinator of the Scaling Up Nutrition Movement (SUN Movement) discusses how we can transform Africa's agriculture, the ‘alarm bells' ringing for the world since Covid 19 and Russia-Ukraine, how good food systems can be the cornerstone for the implementation of sustainable development goals and current trends in food system transformation.

On this episode we talk to Shanni Srivatava, Regional Head of East Africa at UPL Ltd, and find out all about carbon farming, what its potential is across Africa and how it can best benefit smallholder farmers across the continent.

Experts from The Tony Blair Institute, Grant Merrick Head of Agriculture & Food and Liz Kirk Senior Advisor on Agriculture & Food discuss the transforming of agriculture and food systems in Africa and the challenges facing Africa's governments.

Today's discussion is on rice, the role it plays in tackling food security and stories from the Rice Race initiative. Our guests are Florent Clair, Head of Partnerships for Sustainability, Africa and Middle East UPL and Valentine Miheso, Senior Partnerships Officer, AGRA. 

This episode is a recording of the President Youth Townhall at AGRF 2021 held in Nairobi, Kenya and online with President of Kenya, H. E. Uhuru Kenyatta, spotlighting a new policy approved by the Kenyan Government with the aim of returning agricultural learning and clubs in schools. The AGRF 2022 is on 6th-9th September Kigali Rwanda, please register at AGRF.org to attend and to play your part in the discussions.

Agnes (Aggie) Asiimwe Konde, Vice President of Program Innovation & Delivery at AGRA, and key industry figures discuss what immediate actions and steps are needed to accelerate progress and recovery towards inclusive agricultural transformation in Africa. With: Thom Jayne, Professor of Agricultural, Food and Resource Economics at Michigan State University and Senior Advisor to the President of the African Development Bank Lulama Ndibongo Traub, Chair of the Technical Committee Regional Network of Agricultural Policy Research Institutes Tosin Ojo, Vice President, Sahel Group Wandile Sihlobo, Chief Economist of Agricultural Business Chamber of South Africa (AGBIZ) and Senior Lecturer at the Department of Agricultural Economics of Stellenbosch University

Ron Hartman, Director for Global Engagement, Partnerships and Resource Mobilisation of IFAD (the International Fund for Agriculture Development) shares his perspective on building a new dynamic for food systems in the global south from IFAD's unique perspective as both an international financing institution (IFI) and also a specialised agency of the United Nations. specialising in supporting the most marginalised and disadvantaged of rural people around the world.

Together with the AGRF's Catherine Ndung'u, Dr. Fadel Ndiame the Deputy President of AGRA, Professor Thom Jayne the University Foundation Professor of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics at Michigan State University and Lulama Ndibongo Traub a Lecturer at Stellenbosch University discuss the African Agriculture Status Report (AASR) including what it is, why it is so important and fulfilling the need for an accessible yet credible publication to provide an overview of African agriculture.     

For our fourth episode of this series Catherine Ndung'u from the AGRF is joined by Enock Chikava, Deputy Director of the Country Systems Transformation Team at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. They discuss why Africa's food systems need to be transformed and what innovations are available to farmers and how agriculture can help countries to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.

An exciting discussion between three of twelve GoGettaz finalists for the 2021 GoGettaz Agripreneur Competition. GoGettaz is part of the Generation Africa movement which seeks to inspire the next generation of African agripreneurs, connecting them to the resources they need to move their businesses successfully from idea to scale. Two entrepreneurs, one woman and one man, will each win 50,000 US Dollars for the most innovative and scalable agri-food business ventures. 

For this episode we hear from two Africa Food Prize winners, Dr. Lindiwe Sibanda an animal scientist and practicing farmer and Dr. Catherine Nakalembe a research professor. The Africa Food Prize is a $100,000 award recognizing an outstanding individual or institution that is leading the effort to change the reality of farming in Africa. Lindiwe, the 2013 laureate speaks to Catherine, 2020 laureate to understand the impact of winning the Africa Food Prize and why it's such an important award.

For our first episode of Season 2 of the AGRF Podcast Catherine Ndung'u from the AGRF is joined by Dominik Klauser, Program Officer in the Research and Development team at Syngenta Foundation. They discuss soil and root health and the important role they play in tackling climate change. You can let us know what you think via Twitter @theagrf, facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram.  

Debisi Araba, MD of the AGRF, steers leaders in governance, science, technology and the arts in discussing best strategies for stable food systems. This includes a keynote by the Honorable Dr. John Olukayode Fayemi, chairman of Nigeria's Governors Forum, as well as enlightening discussions on building resilience and the production of nutritious food as well as expert opinions on market strengthening and financing approaches for smallholder farmers and other players in Africa's agricultural value chains.

A high-level panel discussion with heads of state and government and leaders of international agencies highlighting strategies to strengthen food security on the continent, post COVID-19 and in view of the upcoming 2021 United Nations Food Systems Summit. High-profile leaders sum up all the conversations from the four days of the virtual 2020 AGRF. The session is moderated by South African conversation strategist, Nozipho Tshabalala and includes the President of Rwanda, H.E. Paul Kagame, the Prime Minister of Ethiopia, H.E. Abiy Ahmed Ali, the Prime Minister of Israel, H.E. Benjamin Netanyahu, Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Rt. Hon. Tony Blair and Deputy Secretary General of the United Nations, H.E. Amina Mohammed.

The worldwide containment measures, including border closures, mean some staple food items cannot reach African consumers. This is as agricultural produce originally planned for export outside the continent is left to decay. Against this background, a panel of experts studies the strategies for building stable agricultural markets within the continent to break the overreliance on foreign imports. The discussion is led by some of the world's leading minds on agri-food policy. The focus is on how to build back better, with notable attention on the most pressing policy decisions before Africa. This is a great debate – one that yields concrete policy-led solutions for some of Africa's most urgent food value chain problems.

A lively and emotive panel of farmers from countries across in Africa as well as leaders of agricultural agencies, farmer cooperatives and aggregators, discussing sustainability plans and strategies for overcoming recent challenges and increasing resilience in the business of agriculture. The conversation seeks to establish ways for the different players in the agricultural value chains to create sustainable food networks for the benefit of the continent. Additionally, the panelists speak of the methods for aligning the goals of governments, private sector and the civil society in promoting smallholder agriculture and supporting food sovereignty in nations across Africa.

The 2020 Africa Food Prize award ceremony is presided over by His Excellency Olusegun Obasanjo, the former President of Nigeria and Chair of the Africa Food Prize Committee. Also presenting are AGRA President Dr. Agnes Kalibata and Mr. Svein Tore Holsether, the President and CEO of Yara. The session includes a panel discussion with Dr. Wanjiru Kamau-Rutenberg from the Africa Food Prize Committee and His Excellency Hailemariam Desalegn, the former Prime Minister of Ethiopia and Chairman of the AGRF.    

The youth demographic, making up three quarters of Africa's population, are Africa's secret weapon in fighting hunger and joblessness. His Excellency Paul Kagame, President of the Republic of Rwanda, speaks to youth leaders from across the continent including Innovative and ambitious young African entrepreneurs creating exciting agribusinesses that deliver on untapped opportunities in the agrifood sector. The session seeks to establish a supportive ecosystem, including innovative financing, capacity development and a supportive policy environment for Africa's young agripreneurs. Jeff Koinange, renowned Kenyan journalist, author and TV talk show host, moderates the largest and possibly the most engaging panel of the 2020 Virtual AGRF.

Ms. Ertharin Cousin, a Distinguished Fellow of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, leads a panel of professionals in celebrating the rich food culture across Africa with a diverse panel comprising a farmer, an academician, a food processor and leaders of international agencies. The discussion is driven by the need to transform Africa's food systems in a way that benefits both the African farmer and consumer and panelists unpack the indicators for food systems that balance the demand against local production capacity as well as show how African food products generate economic growth that develops urban food markets, fosters urban-rural linkages, and contributes to reducing poverty and hunger. The session also seeks strategies for reinforcing Africa's nutrition systems in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic, unusual pest attacks and the damaging effects of climate change.

A panel comprising the world's best professionals in nutrition, planning and sustainability discuss ways to create demand for African products that fuel diverse, healthy diets with safety and quality. The panel discusses the United Nations State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World report (SOFI), in view of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, while seeking the best practices for successfully feeding the continent. The panel discusses cost-savings measures in food budgets driven by a shift towards healthy diets that include sustainability considerations and addresses policy changes needed to transform existing food systems to deliver affordable healthy diets for all.  

More than one third of Africa's population lives in urban areas, with this expected to double in the next 25 years. How can this growing demand for locally-grown agricultural produce be used to benefit the continent's farmers, while creating jobs and enhancing food security? AGRA's President Dr. Agnes Kalibata is joined by the Republic of Rwanda's Prime Minister, the Right Hon. Édouard Ngirente, the Hon. Dr. Gérardine Mukeshimana, Rwanda's Minister for Agriculture and Animal Resources, and His Excellency Hailemariam Dessalegn, the Former Prime Minister of Ethiopia and the current Chairman of the AGRF Partners Group.

The Africa Agriculture Status Report (AASR) has been published annually since 2013 by the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA). It has grown to be an important handbook for Africa's decisions in plans to transform the continent's agricultural sector. This year's publication assesses the opportunity for Africa's 60 million farms to drive food security and economic growth by serving the rapidly growing urban food markets. On this episode, recorded live at AGRF Virtual Summit 2020, Dr. Agnes Kalibata, president of AGRA and the UN Secretary General's Special Envoy for the Food System's Summit, is joined by a fantastic panel of experts.