Catalysing a new generation of ‘agri-preneurs’ in Africa

Trying out new foods is one of life’s simple pleasures. Cuisine immerses you in a culture, exposes you to new tastes and excites the imagination. The challenge is, the more we succeed, the less time we can afford to cook and experiment in our home kitchens. So as Africa’s emerging markets grow, domestic demand for ready-to-consume food products is quickly on the rise, thanks to rapid urbanisation and an expanding middle class. As over-sized supermarkets pop up across the continent, however, their shelves are mostly being filled by imported processed foods.

This is a huge opportunity that only requires a small change in thinking. If most agriculture initiatives usually start with the farmers and move up the value chain, then agro-processing solutions must start in the marketplace, identify opportunities, and develop businesses that leverage local agricultural resources. When you consider that, for each job created in agro-processing, an additional 2.8 jobs are created in the wider economy, you realise the benefits go much further than cheaper groceries.

To get a taste for the available opportunities, consider the story of Randa Filfili, owner and CEO of Zena Exotic Fruits. When she learned that local farmers produced cashews for export, but did nothing with the fruit these trees produced, she saw an opportunity. Randa worked with a team of food technologists, marketers, and chefs to develop an all-natural cashew apple butter that tastes good, has a long shelf life and comes in attractive packaging.

Today, Zena Exotic Fruits has developed a full range of jams, jellies, sauces and juices from fresh, tropical fruits grown in Senegal and West Africa. The company has not only grown to serve supermarkets and hotels in Senegal, but has also built an export base which includes the United States, Europe and Japan. Through it all, Randa remains considerate of the social impact of her enterprise. Zena Fruits creates jobs for the hearing-impaired; donates 1% of its US sales to educate disadvantaged youth in Senegal; and employs women as 95% of its staff.

Randa’s success story was enabled by the technical assistance and expertise she received from a broad team with “the right mix” of skills. Finding that “right mix” is in a nutshell (or in this case, a cashew apple) what business incubators do. Over the past 19 years, infoDev, a global innovation and entrepreneurship programme in the World Bank’s Trade and Competitiveness Global Practice, has built a network of hundreds of business incubators around the world.

The Agribusiness Innovation Programme (AIP), represents a new approach to advancing agro-processing by enabling innovative, growth-oriented entrepreneurs to scale. We believe in “the talent factor,” which Randa very much embodies: Talented agribusiness entrepreneurs only need a little help to get on the right growth trajectory.

To help us understand what support “agri-preneurs” need most, more than 600 stakeholders – 75% of them from the private sector – contributed during international consultations to developing the AIP approach. The result is a unique model that aims to catalyse local value addition and focus on growth-oriented SMEs with the potential to become market leaders. In order to actively build market linkages across the value chain, both forward into the global industry and backward to smallholder farmers, the AIP cultivates partnerships across the agribusiness ecosystem, both locally and internationally.

The local flavour is delivered through Agribusiness Innovation Centres that provide a menu of services, which includes market linkages, finance, technology, business services and networks. So, this would mean enabling a Baobab snack bar company to acquire the technology it needs to produce a consistent and high-quality product. A Kenyan barbeque sauce manufacturer would attain market knowledge to develop an international brand. A sunflower oil processor would earn the required capital needed to scale his business and gain market share.

Common impediments to the growth of the agro-processing industry – proper infrastructure, electricity, water, etc. – remain as key challenges in many developing economies. However, their comparative advantage in agricultural commodities can be converted into competitive agro-processing industries. With it, a new generation of agri-preneurs will create new jobs, increase inclusion and give the world a taste of unique culinary traditions, exotic fruits and innovative food products. When they do, we hope you’ll enjoy every last bite.

By 2030 Nigeria could have a higher GDP than the Netherlands or Malaysia

Nigeria has the potential to expand its economy by roughly 7.1% per year through 2030.

However, there is another side to the Nigeria story that has been overshadowed both by the recent headlines and the persistence of outdated beliefs and assumptions about Nigeria’s economy. A new report from the McKinsey Global Institute, Nigeria’s renewal: Delivering inclusive growth in Africa’s largest economy, examines the country’s economic potential and finds that with the right reforms and investments, it can become one of the world’s leading economies by 2030.

Since 1999, Nigeria has proven to be both politically and economically stable and new data released this year show that it is now the largest economy in Africa, in addition to being the most populous. The new data also show that Nigeria’s economy is far more diverse than previously understood. While the nation’s rich oil reserves remain a critical source of government income and exports, the entire resources sector today is only 14% of GDP. Agriculture and trade are larger and faster-growing. It is also not generally recognised that Nigerian productivity, which remains low, has been growing recently and now contributes more to GDP growth than does the expanding population.

“What people overlook is Nigeria’s extraordinary advantages for future growth, including a largeconsumer market, a strategic geographic location, and a young and highly entrepreneurial population,” says Reinaldo Fiorini, director and location manager of McKinsey’s Lagos office. The results of Nigeria’s progress, however, have not been spread evenly across its economy. More than 40% of Nigerians live below the nation’s official poverty line and 130m (74%) live below the MGI Empowerment Line – a level of income and access to vital services that provides a decent standard of living.

Chief reasons for Nigeria’s persistent poverty include low farm productivity due to limited access to fertiliser and mechanised tools, and inefficient markets. At the same time, urbanisation has not raised incomes the way it has in other developing economies. This is because formal job creation and skill development in Nigeria’s cities have been weak, making productivity in urban sectors such as manufacturing lower than in agriculture.

Looking ahead, the report finds that Nigeria has the potential to expand its economy by roughly 7.1% per year through 2030, raising GDP to more than US$1.6tr. This could make Nigeria a top-20 global economy – with higher GDP than the Netherlands, Thailand, or Malaysia in 2030. A large consuming class is developing in Nigeria, with potentially as many as 160m members by 2030, more than the current populations of France and Germany combined. This upside scenario is based on a bottom-up analysis of the potential for five major sectors of the Nigerian economy:

Trade. Based on an expanding consumer class in Nigeria, MGI projects that consumption could more than triple, rising from $388bn a year today to $1.4tr a year in 2030, an annual increase of about 8%. This would make trade the largest sector of the economy and provides a particularly good opportunity for makers of packaged foods and fast-moving consumer items such as juices, which could grow by more than 10% per year.

Agriculture. Improvements on several fronts can help raise both the volume and value of Nigerian agricultural production in the next 15 years. The sector, which is now the largest at 22% of GDP, could more than double from $112bn per year in 2013 to $263bn by 2030. This would require raising yields through greater use of fertiliser, seeds, and mechanised implements; shifting the crop mix to more valuable crops; increasing the amount of land under cultivation; reducing post-harvest losses; and raising more livestock and increasing the output of forestry and fisheries.

Infrastructure. On average, the value of a nation’s core infrastructure – roads, railways, ports, airports, the electrical system – is about 70% of GDP; in Nigeria, core infrastructure is estimated to be about 35%-40% of GDP. It has one-seventh the roads per kilometre as India. On a per capita basis, Nigeria has one-third the residential buildings of Indonesia and one-sixth of the commercial space. Between core infrastructure and real estate, total infrastructure investments in Nigeria could reach $1.5tr between 2014 and 2030. This would not only make infrastructure building a major contributor to GDP, but also an enabler of growth across the economy.

Manufacturing. Manufacturing in Nigeria remains at a relatively early stage of development, contributing $35bn, or about 7% of GDP, in 2013. It has, however, achieved strong growth recently, with output rising by 13% per year from 2010 to 2013. Based on current trends, this could yield a four-fold increase in manufacturing output by 2030, to $144bn per year (an annual growth rate of 8.7%). Local processing (packaged foods, for example) and commodities would continue to be the largest manufacturing industries in Nigeria.

Oil and gas. While the oil and gas sector is expected to grow by 2.3% per year at best, its success is still vital to the Nigerian economy. With the right reforms, liquids production could increase from 2.35m barrels a day on average to a new high of 3.13m barrels a day by 2030, contributing $22bn to GDP by 2030. Natural gas output could grow by as much as 6% per year, adding $13bn to GDP by 2030. In total, the oil and gas sector has the potential to contribute $108bn per year by 2030, up from $73bn in 2013. However, this assumes that the sector is successful in dealing with current obstacles such as security and can attract fresh investment.

If Nigeria can better link growth to poverty reduction, 70m citizens could be lifted out of poverty and 120m could have the resources to reach the Empowerment Line. We estimate that, under the most favourable circumstances, for each percent of GDP growth, poverty would be reduced by 0.20%, a rate that is between the ratios of Brazil (0.15) and Ghana (0.25). Tying growth to rising living standards across the economy will depend on raising farm incomes and creating more formal urban jobs. It will also require actions by the government – including reconsidering tariffs that raise the cost of imported food and re-prioritising government spending needed to programmes that lead to economic empowerment.

While government has put in place clear strategies and plans for various sectors, the most important step that government can take now is to improve its ability to deliver its programmes and services. These range from “safety-net” support payments to the poor, to healthcare, education and infrastructure. Nigeria trails peer economies on metrics such as child mortality and literacy. Basic literacy among 15- to 24-year-olds – a crucial indicator for potential economic success – is just 66%, compared with 99% in South Africa, for example. A critical initiative for Nigeria, then, will be to adopt the best practices that have been well established around the world for improving delivery of government services. These include selecting strong, empowered leadership, raising pressure for government departments and agencies to perform, using “delivery units” (dedicated multi-disciplinary teams that can work across bureaucracies), and collaborating with the private sector and other stakeholders.

Nigeria can also capitalise on several favourable trends such as rising demand from emerging economies, growing global demand for resources, and the spread of the digital economy. Nigeria also has a young and rapidly-growing population and an advantageous geographic location in West Africa, which enables trade within the continent and with Europe and North and South America.

“By capitalising on its strengths and positioning itself to take advantage of emerging global trends, Nigeria could potentially triple its GDP by 2030,” says Acha Leke, a director in McKinsey’s Nigeria office. “This adds up to a huge opportunity for inclusive growth that should not be missed.
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Business opportunities galore at Africa’s Big Seven

As a showcase for new and exciting foods, beverages and equipment from around the world, Africa’s Big Seven (AB7) is the biggest and most spectacular exhibition on the continent.Share on p

Just five of the hundreds of opportunities visitors can explore this year are:

• Halaal Certified Margarine, Fats and Oils: Sinar Meadow International Indonesia manufactures edible oils, margarines, shortening, frying fats, speciality fats and cooking oil products under its popular Gold Bullion, Mother’s Choice, CITA and Maestro brands. “We are looking for a distributor willing to help develop a market for our quality margarine, fats and oils, not only in South Africa but in the Southern African region as well,” says International Sales Manager Antonius Loekito.

• Ready-Made Puff Pastry: Sydney Cake House is a supplier of Halaal frozen bakery foods from Malaysia. “We are looking for a partner who can represent our company in the Southern African region and import and distribute our range of frozen pastries into the local markets,” says Export Manager Nicole Chaung. The company’s products include puff pastries with a range of fillings such as curry chicken and spicy anchovies, its popular shell curry puff in barbeque chicken, curry chicken and black pepper chicken flavours, as well as its dessert-type pastries with pineapple, peanut butter, red bean and many other fillings.

• Starter Cultures for Meat Applications: French company Biovitec will be at AB7 to find a South African distributor for its starter cultures for fermented meat and sausages. Francois Sovet, Export Manager at Biovitec says the products cover applications from traditional French or Italian salamis up to more specific products such as sujuk or halaal poultry dry sausages. “We also expect to find partners for the South African market at AB7,” says Sovet.

• Marinade for Mouth Watering Grills: Malaysian manufacturer Castle Chemical is on the lookout for food and beverage industry importers for its Soy Asahi marinades. “Our mouthwatering marinades enhance just about any grilled meat and seafood, creating authentic tastes of savory meat profiles,” says the company’s CFO, L. Lee.

• Fast Frozen Food Preparation from Italy: Italian manufacturer Fructae will also be at the show to explore opportunities. The company produces machines for instantly preparing frozen foods, and these are mainly intended for bars and pubs, restaurants and ice cream parlours.

Ugandan promotes ‘slow food’ ideals to feed Africa

Next to a small wooden house in this town just east of Kampala, 10-year-old Solomon Walusimbi plucks pea pods from a lush green tangle of creepers.

Edie Mukiibi, vice president of Slow Food International

“This is my garden,” he says. “I plant so many things, like peas, carrots and maize.”

Rows of cabbages wind beneath passion fruit vines, and tiny red eggplants rub shoulders with the spikes of a rare type of leek. If it looks more colourful than an ordinary farm, Solomon says, this is because he understands the importance of diversity. He explains that “if you dig, this one will die and this one will continue growing, and you will continue eating and getting so many things.”

This is a lesson Edie Mukiibi is working hard to spread among his fellow Ugandans. As the new vice president of Slow Food International, his mission is to create 10,000 gardens like Solomon’s throughout Africa – many in schools – instilling in the next generation the movement’s ideals such as biodiversity, food activism and the preservation of local food traditions.

“You find little children of 3 to 15 years having a lot of knowledge about the traditional crops, the local crops, the planting seasons and such kind of things, Mukiibi says. “This is what we are achieving with the gardens. The gardens project is very important to reconnect young people like Solomon back to the land.”

Diversity threatened

Seven years ago, as an agronomy student, Mukiibi was taught to encourage farmers to plant hybrid crops that, he found, were ill-equipped to handle Uganda’s unpredictable seasons. This is when he realised how important local foods were to food security, he says, and how quickly they were disappearing.

“These are products which are used to the African conditions, apart from being traditional,” he says. “When we had a bad season and farmers predicted a bad season, they had a crop for that season. When they predicted an attack of butterflies and insects, they had a potato variety which was resistant to this pest, and everyone was encouraged to plant that. Today, we have no choice.”

Slow Food’s gardeners are encouraged to grow traditional crops that are slowly dying out as the continent’s food becomes more and more homogenised.

But the movement, promoted in the west by celebrity chefs, is fighting an uphill battle in Africa. Here, says Mukiibi, politicians and scientists tend to focus their efforts on developing high-yield varieties of seeds and encouraging big agribusinesses to invest.

This, he argues, is not the best way to combat hunger.

“Developing more high-yielding seeds, more high-yielding hybrids is not a solution,” he says. “In Africa we have a lot of food, actually, but very little of this food reaches the final consumer. Instead of advocating for increased yields, we should advocate for improved access and distribution of food.”

Preserving traditional foods

In a corner of Solomon’s garden grows a bush called agobe. The leaves are healthy and delicious when steamed, says Noel Nanyunja, Solomon’s mother. But agobe has practically disappeared from local cuisine, and visiting neighbours are astonished to see it.

“They really ask, ‘How did you get this? It is a long time since I took this.’ These grandparents are the ones who used to prepare them. We are multiplying those seeds, and then we shall give to others,” Nanyunja says. “Solomon will take them to school and give his friends, so they introduce them in their homes.”

She says the people of Mukono are slowly beginning to understand the value of their own vegetables, even those they abandoned years ago.

Countless foods have already been lost, says Mukiibi, but the future of Africa’s rich culinary heritage depends on preserving those that are left
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Hospitality and Foodbiz West Africa, Accra, Ghana, 9–11 September 2014

Ghana has one of the fastest growing economies in the world – according to the Ghana statistical service the economy grew by 14.4% in 2011.

Travel and tourism is the fourth highest foreign exchange earner for the country. The recent discovery of oil coupled with a stable democracy has led to an influx of international operators and their workforce. Mining in West Africa has exploded with most mining operations housing their logistics and support bases in Ghana.

It all adds up to more people, more money, more disposable income and an escalating demand for hotel accommodation, restaurants, fast food outlets and supermarkets.

West Africa also appeals to the world’s alcohol industry. “South Africa is very significant for us, but actually growth in West Africa – Nigeria, Cameroon, Ghana – is even faster,” confirms Nick Blazquez, President of alcohol giant Diageo Africa.

Hospitality and Foodbiz West Africa features four co-located events:

West African Hotel, Hospitality & Catering Exhibition

Alcoholic and non alcoholic beverages; Bar equipment; Beds and bedding; Bakery and catering equipment; Cutlery, crockery and glassware; Gym equipment; Hospitality technology and products; Food products; Furniture and furnishings; Kitchen equipment; Laundry equipment and consumables; Management and communication systems; Uniforms.

Food and Beverage West Africa

Alcoholic and non alcoholic beverages; Biscuits; Catering packs; Cereals; Confectionary and sweets; Convenience foods; Dairy products; Deserts ; Energy drinks; Frozen foods; Groceries; Liquid foods; Processed foods; Tinned, canned and dried foods.

West African Food Manufacturing, Processing and Packaging Expo

Additives; Ingredients; Flavourings; Manufacturing technologies; Packaging equipment, ancillary machines and supplies; Production and processing equipment; Raw materials.

West African Beverage Technology Expo

Bulk nectar, squash and dairy concentrates; Containers, packing materials equipment and closures; Filling and packaging equipment; Raw materials, agents and additives; Technology for the production / processing of beverages, fruit juice, liquid foods; Water technology.

Nigeria releases first generation of herbicide-resistant hybrids

The Nigerian National Variety Release Committee (NVRC) has released the first generation of maize hybrids, resistant to metsulfuron methyl herbicide, that are also endowed with resistance to the noxious parasitic weed Striga hermonthica.

The hybrids were developed by the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) in partnership with DuPont Pioneer Seeds using conventional breeding with funding from IITA and the Integrated Striga Management in Africa (ISMA) project as part of strategies to control S. hermonthica in maize.

The hybrids were released as P48W01 and P48W02 and are recognized as IITA IR-Maize Hybrid 2 and IR-Maize Hybrid 4. The hybrids have a yield potential of up to 5 t/ha under Striga infestation in comparison with local varieties that produce less than 1 t/ha in such conditions.

“These hybrids are the product of introducing a single nuclear gene that confers resistance to imidazolinone herbicides, including metsulfuron methyl (MSM), into inbred lines with known field resistance to S. hermonthica,” Dr Abebe Menkir, IITA Maize Breeder, said.

Recent baseline studies conducted under the ISMA project showed that farmers ranked Striga as the number one constraint to maize production in northern Nigeria, with 50 to 100% of the households reporting Striga incidence in their farms. The parasitic weed infests more than 9 million ha planted to millet, maize, and sorghum in Nigeria and severely lowers the production capacity of these crops.

Dr Menkir said yield losses in maize from damage by S. hermonthica varied from 20 to 80% among subsistence farmers, but 100% loss could occur in susceptible cultivars under severe infestation in marginal production conditions.

The released herbicide-resistant hybrids allow seeds to be planted that have been treated with low doses of metsulfuron methyl herbicide. This targets S. hermonthica before or at the time of its attachment to the maize root, killing the parasite underground before it inflicts damage on the crop. These hybrids can thus be used to deplete the Striga seed bank in the soil and minimize yield losses in subsequent cereal crops. MSM-reated seeds of these hybrids can be integrated into the diverse farming systems in Nigeria because the herbicide effectively controls the parasite at a low rate of application. 

The ISMA project works with the private sector to catalyze the process of producing and marketing treated seeds of herbicide-resistant maize hybrids to smallholder farmers in Nigeria to control S. hermonthica.

Other collaborating partners engaged in extensive testing of these hybrids include the Institute for Agricultural Research (IAR) and Agricultural Development Programs in Bauchi and Kano States

Gambia: Agriculture & Development - Media Practitioners Are Powerful Catalysts to Effect Positive Change in Agricultural Practices

The Governor of Lower River Region, Salifu Puye, has underscored the important role of the media in effecting positive change in agricultural practices, through promoting best agricultural practices, promoting agricultural technologies, promoting positive attitudes and perceptions and promoting an effective farming community.

He said journalists are powerful catalysts to effect positive change in agricultural development, adding that their role as journalists is key in ensuring that farmers have better understanding of agricultural project activities.

There was a need for journalists to be more focused in disseminating information on agricultural project activities, as there was a need for the visibility of projects in the regions.

The LRR Governor made these statements while delivering his official opening speech at a three-day training session for media practitioners on collection and dissemination of agricultural information, held recently at the Rural Farmer Training Centre in Jenoi village in the Lower River Region.

The training course was attended by representatives from both the electronic and print media, and was organised by the Communication, Extension and Education Services (CEES) under the department of Agriculture and funded by the West African Agricultural Productivity Programme (WAAPP).

It aimed at exposing the participants to the importance of communication, types of communication, communication for development, the advantages and disadvantages of various types of agricultural communication, role of journalists in development communication, message development techniques, and media and agricultural information, among other topics related to agricultural development.

In presenting a paper on the role of the media in agricultural development, Ibrahim Jam Jawo, a communication specialist, explained that the media could be crucial in helping farmers' access information that they need and in transmitting their concerns.

However, it is a mistake that most communities are depending on the mainstream media to do this, and that the reason for this was probably because, most of the time, other media like the newspapers mainly rely on secondary information for publication.

Mr Jawo stated that the journalists' job was not to be the public relations tool of the development organisation or the ministry of Agriculture or of the farmers' organization.

Journalists' job was to find and tell good stories, and if people do not understand that distinction they are never going to be satisfied with what journalists do, he said.

Talking about agents of change, Mr. Jawo said, traditionally the use of the media had been about communicating research messages when there are success stories, in particular.

He added that journalists have the potential to be more of agents of change themselves, as they are quite in a unique position, potentially being the voice of policymakers, the voice of farmers and the voice of researchers.

Journalists could potentially be quite a powerful catalyst for change, he went on, adding that taking radio production to the community could give a voice to the rural poor, and allow their concerns to be heard by a wider audience.

Giving the inadequate role of agricultural extension as a result of resources and their constraints, farmers could depend on the media as a complementary source of information.

He said the media could also provide a platform through which farmers could engage with policymakers, so that their perspective could be taken on board, adding that the media could also profile the workfarmers do so that lessons and experiences could be shared.

The training was part of a work plan developed by WAAPP's communication committee for the effective implementation of the WAAPP Gambia communication strategy.

During the three-day interactive session, participants were exposed to various topics which included the importance attached to communication to effect change, promote positive attitudes and perceptions and promote good agricultural best practices; the role of the media in agricultural communication and communication for development.

Recommendations of Participants:

1.Communication Extension Education Services under the department of Agriculture should continue engaging the media by way of training, debriefing and other activities;

2.The Ministry of Agriculture should ensure that a communication component is included in all Agricultural projects;

3.Increase number of participants in future training sessions including community radio representatives;

4.Support to the Network of Agricultural Communicators by the Ministry of Agriculture based on needs assessment;

5.Improved communication between Communication Extension Education Services and Media houses; GRTS in particular, through regular dialogue and follow up of information intended for broadcast;

6.The Ministry of Agriculture should create a budget line for Communication Extension and Education Services ;

7.West African Agricultural Productivity Program WAAPP should implement the communication action plan developed by the WAAPP Communication Committee;

8.Communication Extension and Education Services CEES should periodically update the list of media focal points for Agriculture