by Aliyu Bello | Jun 28, 2024
Agri Africa aims to be a platform that will bring together stakeholders from the private and public sector to increase the efficiency of agribusiness value chain in Nigeria and Africa, providing a thriving environment for business, connections and driving the evolution of agribusiness in Nigeria.
The 3-day event will drive inclusive real economic growth in Nigeria and Africa by creating the right opportunity to discuss current issues which will enable a strong agribusiness economy; capable of meeting domestic food demand, building manufacturing base, enhancing productivity, overcoming storage challenges as well as ushering investment into the agribusiness.
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by iKml1 | Jun 26, 2024
Abstract
Achieving gender equality and women’s empowerment in food systems can result in greater food security and better nutrition, and in more just, resilient, and sustainable food systems for all. This paper uses a scoping review to assess the current evidence on pathways between gender equality, women’s empowerment, and food systems.
The paper uses an adaptation of the food systems framework to organize the evidence and identify where evidence is strong, and where gaps remain. Results show strong evidence on women’s differing access to resources, shaped and reinforced by contextual social gender norms, and on links between women’s empowerment and maternal education and important outcomes, such as nutrition and dietary diversity.
However, evidence is limited on issues such as gender considerations in food systems for women in urban areas and in aquaculture value chains, best practices and effective pathways for engaging men in the process of women’s empowerment in food systems, and for addressing issues related to migration, crises, and indigenous food systems. And while there are gender-informed evaluation studies that examine the effectiveness of gender- and nutrition- sensitive agricultural programs, evidence to indicate the long-term sustainability of such impacts remains limited.
The paper recommends keys areas for investment: improving women’s leadership and decision-making in food systems, promoting equal and positive gender norms, improving access to resources, and building cross-contextual research evidence on gender and food systems.
Despite many constraints and limitations including lower access to opportunities, technologies, finance and other productive resources, and weak tenure and resource rights. These constraints and limitations are shaped and reinforced by social and structural inequalities in food systems. Stark gender inequalities are both a cause and outcome of unsustainable food systems and unjust food access, consumption, and production. In the agriculture sector, for example, evidence shows that women have unequal access.
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by iKml1 | Jun 26, 2024
Executive Summary
The past decade has witnessed an explosion in the global supply of digitalization for agriculture (D4Ag) innovation.
Across the regions that comprise the focus of this report—Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), South Asia (SA), Southeast Asia (SEA), and sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) (hereafter collectively referred to as “LMICs” (low- and middle-income countries))—we identified nearly 1,400 currently active D4Ag solutions.
These solutions represent six different D4Ag use cases: Advisory & Information, Market Linkages & Access, Financial Access, Supply Chain Management, Enterprise Management & Efficiency, and Enterprise R&D. The largest proportion is headquartered in sub-Saharan Africa (50%), though a significant number of D4Ag solutions hail from South Asia (21%) and Latin America and the Caribbean (18%) regions.
Despite showing the largest per-annum growth rate in the number of D4Ag solutions of any region over both the past five and ten years, respectively, Southeast Asia still accounts for a relatively small share of the total (7%). The remainder (~4%) are active in but headquartered outside of the LMIC regions of focus (i.e., in North America, Europe, Northeast Asia, or the Middle East). Growth in the number of D4Ag solutions is decelerating.
While nearly half of all D4Ag solutions active in LMICs were started in the past five years, there is a clear nd consistent slowdown in the annual rate of new D4Ag solutions entering the market. The cumulative annual growth rate (CAGR) of the number of D4Ag solutions from 2012 to 2018 (33% p.a.) was more than three times larger than that for the next four years, from 2018 to 2022 (9% p.a.). The trend of deceleration is common to every region, including relative upstart Southeast Asia.
The deceleration certainly reflects a blend of increasing market maturity, consolidation, rationalization, and even COVID-19 impact—especially as sub- scale innovators start to close their doors and some venture-invested companies have shown themselves to be at the end of their ropes.
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by iKml1 | Jun 26, 2024
Executive Summary
Seed is one of the most crucial elements in the livelihoods of agricultural communities. The potential benefits from the use of good quality seed by farmers can be enormous, and the availability to farmers of quality seed of a wide-range of varieties and crops can increase productivity, reduce risks from pest, drought and disease pressure, and increase incomes. Production increases through the use of adapted varieties in a given area could create employment opportunities related to processing, marketing, and other activities generated through quality seed production.
The repeal of the National Agricultural Seeds Act Cap. N5 LFN 2004 and enactment of the National Agricultural Seeds Council Act will create a vibrant thriving seed sector and promote a competitive seed sector which is pivotal to ensuring timely availability of appropriate, high quality seeds at affordable prices to smallholder farmers in Nigeria.
The passage of the bill by Parliament and assent by the President provides a unique opportunity and momentum for the Federal Government of Nigeria to rapidly put the regulatory framework of the seeds subsector into action through the matching of the diversity of seed systems whilst promoting entrepreneurship and professionalism in seed value chains, and thereby enhancing the performance of seed sector administration and the agricultural sector of Nigeria as a whole. The National Agricultural Seeds Council (NASC) will be the principal institution responsible for the administration and implementation of National Seed Policy for Federal Government of Nigeria including the regulation of the market towards competitiveness and quality control to protect the farm population and the environment.
As principal coordinator, it will play the lead support role, maintain public-service infrastructural and service support required to maintain efficient seed supply, enhance farmer demand for improved seeds, and create a favourable enabling environment for investment in the seed subsector. It will also be tasked with the facilitation of the production and distribution of sufficient quantities of high-quality seed of improved varieties of all relevant crops to farmers in order to ensure production of the required food, feed and fibre (National Seed Policy 2015).
This bill when signed into law, will also support the building of a thriving seed system in Nigeria which will not only include an effective distribution network, promotion of the adoption of improved crop varieties by smallholder farmers, seed quality certification and assurance, increase household income, national food security and the sector aligned to the ECOWAS seed regulation framework and responding to the Malabo Commitments and CAADP result framework.
This policy brief posits that a strong regulatory policy framework and legislation should be put in place to facilitate the access to agricultural inputs (seeds) which will serve as catalyst or is pivot to transform agriculture in Nigeria. It will also contribute directly to one of five key executive priorities, as indicated in the National Economic Recovery Growth Plan (ERGP) of the Federal Government of Nigeria; which include input supply; seeds, water, land, fertilizer and agro-chemicals.
These were identified as one of the strategies for achieving food self-sufficiency; but of all the yield-enhancing inputs in crop production, seeds give the most dramatic and most cost- effective return on investment. Improved seeds have provided 50% of the productivity gains in agriculture.
by iKml1 | Jun 26, 2024
Introduction
The global crises of COVID-19, conflict, and climate change are increasing the risk of food shortages, inflation, and poverty in Africa, as global food and fuel prices also rise. The Pan-African Quality Infrastructure (PAQI) under the framework of the African Union (AU) has identified cassava as a poverty-fighter capable of spurring industrial development and food security in Africa.
Root-based crops have huge potential to fight hunger and poverty in Africa. Cassava root and its allied products present real opportunities for income generation for the rural population, as well as for diversification and expansion into new growth markets as substitutes for various imported items.
A versatile crop that can be grown in a variety of agro- ecological conditions, cassava is highly resistant to drought and environmental stresses and is consumed as a staple food in many African countries. This contributes significantly to the self-sustainability and economic growth of millions of small-scale farmers in rural Africa.
However, the cassava value chain faces many challenges such as low productivity, poor product quality, limited utilization and market opportunities. These challenges highlight the role that quality infrastructure institutions can play.
This brochure aims to raise awareness of the role of quality infrastructure to support the industry in tapping into the huge potential for the economic development of the cassava value chain in Africa.
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