Kagame to join stakeholders in food security in AFS Forum 2024 » Capital News
NAIROBI, Kenya Aug 29 – Heifer International, a global nonprofit organization, will engage stakeholders at the Africa Food Systems Forum 2024, (AFS Forum 2024) slated for September 2nd to 6th in Kigali, Rwanda.
Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame is set to grace the event in a demonstration of the high-level commitment to addressing challenges facing Africa’s food systems.
The AFS Forum, Africa’s leading platform for dialogue and collaboration on food security will brings together thousands of industry leaders, policymakers, innovators, development agencies, private sector giants, farmers and agripreneurs.
They are poised to discuss critical challenges and opportunities in Africa’s food systems with conversation set to discuss innovative financing can catalyze technology integration that enables smallholder farmers to improve productivity.
Organized by AGRA, the AFS Forum is widely considered the continent’s biggest gathering of stakeholders in the agriculture sector.
The theme for this year’s event is ‘Innovate, Accelerate and Scale: Delivering Food Systems Transformation in a Digital and Climate Era’.
At this year’s summit, Heifer International, along with strategic partners, young innovators and smallholder farming organisations within Heifer’s ecosystem.
It will highlight their experiences at various sessions and side events during the summit, in what the organisation hopes will inspire collaborative action and drive change in the area of leveraging innovative financing to accelerate technology integration in agriculture.
Heifer’s Mechanisation for Africa project presents an important illustration of the possibilities of a unique model of applying catalytic funding to innovation that drives transformation in agriculture.
In a report released earlier this year, the organisation showed how Heifer’s innovative financing of a tech-led tractor leasing initiative created by agritech company.
Hello Tractor, catalysed the initiative’s expansion, unlocking commercial capital, and powering beneficiary smallholder farmers in the pilot phase to over 200% increase in income.
The initiative also created over 250 jobs for young Africans as tractor owners, booking agents, tractor operators and technicians.
Adesuwa Ifedi, Senior Vice President, Africa Programs, of Heifer International stated that they are inspired by the incredible contributions that young visionary African innovators can make towards transforming our food systems.
“With the integration of finance and technology, we are able to move smallholder farmers from sustenance to a business, and support them to take their businesses to scale and profitability, while creating much needed new jobs across the value chain for young people,”Ifedi said.
“Working alongside smallholder farmers through this journey has informed our reflections on what is critical to transform Africa’s food systems,”she added.
Interim Country Director, Heifer International Kenya, Clarice Bugo-Kionge emphasized that effective access to finance requires innovation if agricultural transformation is to be achieved.
“We believe innovative finance is a sum of access to finance, access to local and global markets, and technology coupled with mentorship/capacity building of the smallholder farmers for increased resilience,”she said.
This year, Heifer will be attending the 2024 AFS Forum with several young innovators from six African countries who the organisation has been working with to strengthen their innovations to support smallholder farmers on the continent.
Heifer is excited to give an opportunity for generations to connect in agriculture, recognizing that the future of Africa’s agriculture will be dependent on the next generation and their capacity to introduce fit for purpose technology and innovation into the sector.
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