Agriprenuers (from left to right) Oni Hammed , Ngozi Okeke and Yusuf Babatunde, directors of Frotchery Farms and graduates of the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA) Youth Agripreneur Programme, outside their factory in Ibadan, Nigeria. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

By Busani Bafana
IBADAN, Nigeria, Mar 18 2020 (IPS)

“It is not easy to be in agriculture but you must have the perseverance and you must have the passion for it,” Ngozi Okeke (30), the director of operations at Frotchery Farms, tells IPS during a tour of the company’s factory in Ibadan, Nigeria. For Okeke, passion and patience are pivotal to business success. But she also recognises the need to create opportunities to nurture agripreneurship among Africa’s growing ranks of unemployed youth.

The company processes about 1,500 tonnes of live catfish, frozen and smoked fish, fish snacks, fillets and fish powder at its factory in Ogidi Estate in Akobo, Ibadan. The products are then packaged in the company’s brand and sold at local markets across the country.

“When we started our first production of smoked fish, everything got burnt, we lost our money and lost everything. But because we knew what we wanted for ourselves that did not discourage us, it was just a set back and we continued pushing,” Okeke says.

Yusuf Babatunde (30), who is director of marketing, says the company was started with personal savings which the partners invested in buying fish from farmers before they started their own fish production.

“We have believed in high quality when it comes to fish production and our different skills help us to innovate and grow our brand and this is paying off,” Babatunde says.

• Africa has more than 200 million young people between the ages 15 and 34, according to the Africa Development Bank (AfDB). Agriculture is a key economic driver in many countries on the continent, with the African Union having long-ago identified it as a force for social and economic growth in its 2003 Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP).

But agriculture suffers from negative perceptions among the youth of being labour intensive and offering little gain. 

“Many youth are not patient, youth that go into agriculture have to be patient and they have to persevere serve to succeed,” Okeke says.

Frotchery Farms was established in 2015 by Okeke and Babatunde and their other partner Oni Hammed (31), as graduates of the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA) Youth Agripreneur Programme. The programme provided technical and material resources to launch the enterprise.

• IITA director general Nteranya Sanginga established the Youth Agripreneur Programme in 2012 with the aim of changing the perception of Africa’s youth about agriculture to see it as an exciting and profitable business., which enrols 60 youths for hands-on training in agriculture and entrepreneurship from 24 centres across Africa.

Staying power

Agribusiness is lucrative but demands entrepreneurial flair and a never-say-die attitude, something that eludes young people, says Hammed, the managing director who is also in charge of production at Frotchery Farms.

“Most times the youth feel its old people that can go into agriculture and we are trying to change that mindset,” Hammed tells IPS. “It is possible, the youth are innovative and can create something and change the way agriculture is seen.”

Passion yes, but skills better

Skills in agripreneurship are critical for youth employment, especially for those in rural areas.

Research by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) shows that youth are turning away from agriculture and moving into cities to take up low skilled labour, all the while aspiring to high-skilled jobs despite their low level of education.

“Skills mismatch is a big issue and youth need to be trained and retrained in jobs along the agri-food value chain, beyond farming,” Ji-Yeun Rim, project manager at the OCED’s Development Centre in Paris, France, tells IPS.

With the increasing domestic and regional demand for diversified and processed food, there is a high opportunity to develop the agrifood business in Africa, says Ji-Yeun, who is coordinating a project supporting governments in nine African and Asian countries to improve policies targeting youth, especially in the agro-food value chain.

“Many youth employment programmes focus on entrepreneurship but our research finds that entrepreneurship is not for everyone and most youth do not succeed as entrepreneurs and often remain just in subsistence activities,” Ji-Yeun says.

“Entrepreneurship is a false panacea to the youth employment problem. Youth need to be trained in various types of jobs along the agro-food value chain, from farming to processing, services and marketing to help them find salaried positions.”

Research evidence for policy development

Meanwhile, the IITA says more youths are taking advantage of agricultural research and the new technologies designed for agriculture systems in Africa to make a profitable career from farming.

IITA notes though that agriculture systems need transformation and strengthening to help achieve youth employment, food security, zero hunger and alleviate poverty.

To this end, the IITA launched the Enhancing Capacity to Apply Research Evidence (CARE) in Policy for Youth Engagement in Agribusiness and Rural Economic Activities in Africa, a three-year project funded by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).

CARE seeks to increase understanding of poverty reduction, employment impact and factors influencing youth engagement in agribusiness, rural and non-farm economy. It provides grants to young African scholars who aim to study for a Masters or Doctoral Degree. The scholars are helped to build capacity to generate and disseminate evidence-based results to influence policy and practise in supporting economic growth and meeting SDGs goals in Africa.

Currently, 30 scholars have been awarded grants under the CARE project in 2020.

One of the first grantees of the project in 2019, Dolapo Adeyanju, a Masters student from Nigeria, has researched on the impact of agricultural programmes on youth entrepreneurship performance in the West African nation. She found that many young people have accepted agribusiness as a sustainable and profitable career choice.

“Even though, it can be said that there is still a lot to be put in place in terms of creating an enabling environment for young agribusiness owners in the form of policies and interventions that could help young agripreneurs and prospective ones,” Adeyanju says.

Excerpt:

An irrigated field in Kakamas, South Africa. Due to weak land tenure found in many African countries, large land transfers place local communities at significant risk of dispossession or expropriation. Credit: Patrick Burnett/IPS

By Janah Ncube
NAIROBI, Sep 1 2014 (IPS)

Agriculture in Africa is in urgent need of investment. Nearly 550 million people there are dependent on agriculture for their livelihoods, while half of the total population on the continent live in rural areas.

The adoption of a framework called the Comprehensive African Agriculture Development Program (CAADP) by Africa’s leaders in 2003 confirmed that agriculture is crucial to the continent’s development prospects. African governments recently reiterated this commitment at the Malabo Summit in Guinea during June of this year.The need for private sector investment in Africa is manifest, but the quality of those inflows of capital is vital if it is to enhance the livelihoods of millions of food producers in Africa.

After decades of underinvestment, African governments are now looking for new ways to mobilise funding for the sector and to deliver new technology and skills to farmers. Private sector actors are also looking for opportunities within emerging markets in Africa.

Large-scale public-private partnerships (PPPs) are an emerging trend across the continent. These so called ‘mega’ PPPs are agreements between national governments, aid donors, investors and multinational companies to develop large fertile tracts of land found near to strategic infrastructure such as roads and ports.

Tanzania, Malawi, Mozambique, Ghana and Burkina Faso all host this type of scheme. Several African countries have signed up to global initiatives such as the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition, supported by the rich, industrialised economies of the G8; and GROW Africa, a PPP initiative supported by the World Economic Forum.

For governments, these arrangements offer the illusion of increased capital and technology, production and productivity gains, and foreign exchange earnings.

But as Oxfam reveals, mega-PPPs present a moral hazard with serious downsides, especially for those living in areas pegged for investment.

In particular, the land rights of local communities are at risk. Within just five countries hosting mega-PPPs, the combined amount of land in target area for investment is larger than France or Ukraine.

While not all of this land will go to investors, governments have earmarked over 1.25 million hectares for transfer. This is equal to the entire amount of land in agricultural production in Zambia or Senegal.

Due to weak land tenure found in many African countries, this land transfer places local communities at significant risk of dispossession or expropriation.

These arrangements also threaten to worsen inequality, which is already severe in African countries, according to international measurements. Mega-PPP investments are likely be delivered by – and focus on – richer, well connected companies or wealthier farmers, bypassing those who need support the most. More land will also be placed into the hands of larger players further reducing the amount available for small-scale producers.

The ability of small and medium sized enterprises to benefit from these arrangements is also in doubt. The size of just four multinational seed and agro-chemical companies partnering with a mega-PPP in Tanzania have an annual turnover of 100 billion dollars – that’s triple the size of Tanzania’s economy.

These asymmetries of power could lead to anti-competitive behaviour and squeeze out smaller local and national companies from emerging domestic markets. Larger companies may also gain influence over government policies that perpetuate their control.

These types of partnership also carry serious environmental risks. An example of this is the development of large irrigation schemes for new plantations. They can reduce water availability for other users, such as local communities, smaller farmers and important other rural groups like pastoralists.

The need for private sector investment in Africa is manifest, but the quality of those inflows of capital is vital if it is to enhance the livelihoods of millions of food producers in Africa. The current mega-PPP model is unproven and risky, especially for smallholder farmers and the poor.

At the very heart of the agenda to enhance rural livelihoods and eradicate deep-seated poverty in rural areas should be a clear commitment towards approaches that are pro-smallholder, pro-women and can develop local and regional markets. The protection of land rights for local communities is also – and equally – paramount.

Oxfam’s experience of working with smallholder farmers shows that private sector investment in staple food crops, and the development of rural infrastructure such as storage facilities, combined with public sector investment in support services such as agricultural research and development, extension services and subsidies for seeds and credit, can kick-start the rural economy.

Robust regulation is also vital, to ensure that private sector investment can ‘do no harm’ and also ‘do more good’ by targeting the areas of the rural economy that can have the most impact on poverty reduction. African governments should put themselves at the forefront of this vision for agriculture.

These represent tried and tested policies towards rural development in other contexts. This approach, rather than one that subsidises the entrance of large players into African agriculture, would truly represent a new alliance to benefit all.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, IPS-Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

African Union Commission deputy chair Erastus Mwencha says that 90 percent of Africa's population live in countries in places which are peaceful, with only 10 percent of the continent living in strife-torn areas. Credit: World Economic Forum/CC By 2.0

By Jacey Fortin and Jason Warner
ADDIS ABABA, Jan 28 2014 (IPS)

The issue of peace and security, particularly in South Sudan and the Central African Republic, are expected to dominate the discussions at the African Union’s (AU) semi-annual summit being held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, this week.

But AU Commission deputy chair Erastus Mwencha told IPS that this summit will be about much more than conflict. Sustainable development, economic integration and environmental concerns will also so be on the table, he said, and it would be a mistake to ignore the progress the AU has made over the past several years.

“It is instructive to note that 90 percent of Africa’s population lives in places which are peaceful. And we do have 10 percent of the continent still facing challenges of peace and security, but the 10 percent cannot define the continent,” he said. Mwencha added that governance has been embraced by the continent, “and so also democracy and human rights.”"We have places in Africa where there is conflict, there is war, there is famine – there are great challenges. But Africa has made tremendous progress in these areas." -- AU deputy chair Erastus Mwencha

“That’s not to say that we don’t have those challenges,” he added.

Q: For outsiders looking in, what is this AU summit about? What are the misconceptions about Africa that you hope to dispel?

As part of the AU’s 50th anniversary last year, we came up with a resolution that Africa must now try to tell its story: a story that should, first of all, acknowledge that we have places in Africa where there is conflict, there is war, there is famine – there are great challenges. But Africa has made tremendous progress in these areas too.

Secondly, Africa is a good home for investment and that the socio-economic conditions are getting better and better all the time.

Q: What do you anticipate will be the top three issues facing leaders during this summit?

A: Of course peace and security will continue to preoccupy our continent, because a determination that our leaders have made is that all guns must be silenced by 2020. That is being done within the framework of building an African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA). The main concern is with regards to the current situations that remain in South Sudan and the Central African Republic.

A second aspect is integration. This is a real raison d’etre for the AU, and in that regard we will be looking at programmes that bring African countries together, whether they are infrastructure, whether they are trade or other economic programmes.

And number three, we’ll specifically be looking at the sector of agriculture, which is the theme of the summit.

Q: Can you give concrete examples of what the AU has done to improve agriculture in the past, and what it will focus on during this summit?

A: Look at the sector of agriculture, and what the leaders have been doing in the last 10 years. When the leaders announced the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP), one of the decisions they made was to see increased investment in agriculture. And what we have now, the record shows, is that 70 percent of the countries have increased their investment in agriculture.

When you compare the previous decade, before CAADP was launched, in fact investment was on the decline. Now there is a positive trend. Of course agriculture affects close to 70 percent of the population… These are really concrete actions that demonstrate, through actions that have been taken in the past, that they did have an impact on the ground through collective action.

Q: You mentioned the African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA), and one major component of that is the African Standby Force (ASF), meant to be capable of responding quickly to conflict. How is that progressing?

A: There was a recent stock-taking of the ASF in the context of assessing whether it will be ready come 2015… It clearly indicated that three out of five regional brigades are well under way towards meeting their target. But it also identified a number of elements that we need to address and that might also be informed by trying to look at how we can optimise the ASF to address the challenge of rapid mobilisation – whether they are going to be on hand to make sure that we reduce the impact that conflicts have on the population.

Q: Intra-continental trade is very low in Africa as opposed to other regions, and the AU has long acknowledged this problem. Will this summit try to address it in a new way?

A: Trade has continued to pose a challenge to the continent; we always emphasise the supply-side constraints. Africa needs technology; Africa needs infrastructure; Africa needs capital to transform the raw materials to equip the human resource factor, so that we have entrepreneurs able to transform these resources and produce goods that can reach the market. And this is a process.

You get into an egg and chicken situation: do you create a market first before you produce, or do you produce then go to the market? To address this, we are integrating our markets. There is also a need for investment to take advantage of the growing market on the continent. There is a lot of progress being made by regional economic communities who are also partners in moving us towards establishing a continental free-trade area.

Q: Africa’s population is growing very quickly – how is the AU responding to the threat of overstretched resources?

A: The huge youth bulge is an opportunity, but also presents challenges, and this is where action is focused. We have to make sure these youth can produce enough by endowing them with education and access. So if you look at the actions that have already been undertaken, whether it’s the Millennium Development Goals or whether it’s post-2015, we are looking at sustainable development, how to take care of the environment, and resource exploitation so that we can be able to sustain development into the future.

We have specific programmes like maternal health, which would be addressing the population; we have specific programmes on water sanitation; we have specific programmes on education… these are all looking at the population of the continent as a major resource for Africa, trying to see how we can benefit from the population dividends without getting into the challenge of resource scarcity.

Excerpt:

Sweetpotato breeder Jose Ricardo in Maputo Mozambique. Africa currently imports almost 40 billion dollars worth of food, and experts say that the continent needs to become more self-reliant. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

By Busani Bafana
MAPUTO, Sep 8 2013 (IPS)

Africa currently imports almost 40 billion dollars worth of food a year, but it should implement measures to attract private sector investment in agriculture in order to reduce its food import bill and increase its self-reliance, experts in the sector tell IPS.
“In the next 10 years, African countries should not rely on food aid, but should produce their own food and buy from within Africa when they run out of food,” agriculture researcher and director of the Barefoot Education for Africa Trust, Professor Mandivamba Rukuni, told IPS."The biggest trick is the private sector putting more money into agriculture. There is nowhere in the world today where you can get the government or industry moving if government and the private sector are not working together." -- agriculture researcher, Professor Mandivamba Rukuni

“Food self-reliance means wealth creation and farmers should be directly linked to markets. More people will have more money in their pockets if more smallholder farmers are farming profitably, and this can be done,” Rukuni said.

African countries, according to an Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) African Agriculture Stats Report launched in Maputo, Mozambique’s capital, on Sep. 4, produced 157 million tonnes of cereals and imported 66 million tonnes in 2010. In August, the Forum for Africa Research in Africa put the continent’s current food import bill at more than 40 billion dollars, money it said would be better spent enabling African farmers to become self-sufficient.

African heads of state and government committed themselves to improving agricultural and rural development in Africa in the Maputo Declaration of 2003. It includes the ambitious goal of governments allocating at least 10 percent of national budgets to agriculture and rural development.

But in the last 10 years, only a few of the 54 African Union (AU) member states have made this investment. These include Burkina Faso, Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Niger and Senegal. A further 27 have developed formal national agriculture and food security investment plans under compacts. Compacts are a result of country roundtables that bring together key players in agriculture to agree on investment priorities.

Currently one of the few countries prioritising investment in agriculture is Nigeria. In that West African nation, the government developed the Nigeria Incentive-based Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending (NIRSAL), which seeks to reduce the risk in the agricultural finance value chain by building long-term capacity and institutionalising incentives for agricultural lending. The goal of NIRSAL is to expand bank lending in the agricultural value chain.

Nigeria’s minister of agriculture and rural development Akinwumi Adesina told IPS that Nigeria was leveraging 3.5 billion dollars for agriculture from local banks. The government is shouldering the risk in a bid to attract the participation of the private sector.

“We are developing an approach for the private sector to have access to finance because without finance you cannot do much,” Adesina told IPS. “We are working on new financing instruments that will allow our capital markets to work for agriculture. Agriculture accounts for 44 percent of our GDP and 70 percent of all employment but it has only two percent of all bank lending in Nigeria.”

Meanwhile, Rukuni told IPS that while most African countries have not been able to commit 10 percent, they have seen the wisdom of doing so.

“Although 10 percent is a nice figure to talk about, it is not a magic figure. What is more important moving forward is catalytic public financing, where government, its experts, farmers and private sector work together and really understand here it is important for government to invest to trigger private sector investment,” Rukuni said.

Citing China, India and Brazil as examples of public-private partnerships at work, Rukuni said it was time for Africans to understand that there is no competiveness in agriculture without governments and the private sector setting joint targets in infrastructural development, for instance.

“The biggest trick is the private sector putting more money into agriculture,” he said. “There is nowhere in the world today where you can get the government or industry moving if government and the private sector are not working together.”

The AGRA report notes that despite having over 70 percent of prime uncultivated land, land holdings in Africa continue to shrink. This shrinkage has impacted on the productivity of the 33 million smallholder farmers responsible for up to 90 percent of the continent’s agricultural output.

The alliance estimates that a one percent growth in agriculture will increase the income of the poor by more than 2.5 percent, yet only 0.25 percent of bank lending in the Common Market for the Eastern and Southern Africa region goes to smallholder farmers.

AU Commissioner responsible for agriculture and rural development, Rhoda Peace Tumusiime, told IPS that investment in African agriculture has become more urgent than before and this was reflected in the political movement towards the development of national agriculture plans as proposed under the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) framework of eliminating hunger and reducing poverty.

“The 70 percent of the population who depend on agriculture is a big figure, so if we focus on improving the situation of this 70 percent, poverty will be eradicated. We do not want a situation where the economies are growing but agriculture is not,” she said.

In a March 2013 report, “Growing Africa: Unlocking the Potential of Agribusiness”, the World Bank projected African agriculture would top a trillion dollars in 2030 on the back of increased domestic and international demand for food. The bank also urged African governments to improve their agriculture policies and promote agribusiness as a driver of growth.

Abraham Sarfo, agriculture, technical and vocational education advisor at the New Partnership for Africa’s Development, told IPS that agriculture used to be part of dual development planning but was now on the continental agenda through the Africa-driven CAADP agenda of eliminating hunger and reducing poverty through agriculture.

“A sector that contributes over 30 percent of the economy of a country and is still at subsistence level shows how it is underdeveloped compared to mining or ICT that attract the private sector,” Sarfo told IPS. He called for the increase of innovative financing models that will remove risk in agriculture investment to attract the private sector.

Phillip Kiriro, president of the East Africa Farmers Federation, which represents about 200 farmer bodies told IPS that access to critical inputs and better technologies has slightly improved in the last 10 years but governments still need to help farmers live off their land.