Africa’s Youth Key to Transforming Food Systems, Says AfDB

Gilbert Ekugbe

The Africa development Bank (AfDB) has stated that active participation of the youthful population in Africa is vital in scaling up agricultural production that would transform Africa’s food systems.

The AfDB noted that engaging the youth in the agricultural sector is necessary to revitalize the failing global agro-food systems, which also called for more investments in rural areas and actions to end hunger and malnutrition by 2030.

The AfDB’s Vice President for Agriculture, Human and Social Development, Dr. Beth Dunford, stated these during the celebration of the International Youth Day that was tagged “Transforming Food systems: Youth Innovation for Human and Planetary Health.”

Dunford added that Africa is producing a growing number of young entrepreneurs who are adopting new ideas to bring more affordable, quality food from farm to fork,.

She said: “Africa’s youth play a key role in scaling up the continent’s agricultural production that can transform Africa’s food systems. On International Youth Day, we celebrate Africa’s next generation ‘agri-preneurs,’ whose innovations in agribusiness are helping to feed Africa.”

The Country Representative, The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), Ms. Uller Mueller, urged youths to engage themselves in agricultural and stressed that they have an opportunity to “show the world that they are not just the future but the present. This is a unique opportunity to show what they bring to the table and they bring a lot to the table and this is their time and it is also an opportunity for them to make informed decisions on food choices because food choices are really important.”

The Chief Executive Officer of Releaf, Mr. Ikenna Nzewi, said that his organization has an innovative approach that would improve food systems and to help industrialise Africa by setting up smaller factories that are closer to farmers.

Ikenna said: “When the logistics costs are really high, you have to pay farmers low prices for their commodities. When you are closer by, you can afford to pay them more,” Nzewi said.

The Releaf’s is a Nigeria-based smallholder farmer food procurement company that is focused on industrialising food processing in Africa, which won $20,000 in the AfDB’s AgriPitch competition, where over 600 top agripreneurs in the continent vied for a share of $120,000 in seed funding prizes and a slot in the competition’s business development boot camp. The finalists also receive mentoring and training.

“The grant was very helpful to operationalise our work – we started operations in January. The publicity was helpful for our company. Being able to have more people hear about…how we are tech-enabled industrialists has been really exciting,” Nzewi said.