Combining innovation and sustainability for resilient agri-food systems

Knowledge, science, governance, finance, partnership – these five catchwords acted as a common thread for the German-African Agribusiness Forum (GAAF) which the German-African Business Association and the German Agribusiness Alliance traditionally hold in Berlin/Germany in late January. Under the motto “Sustainable agriculture and rural development through regional adaptation and innovation”, already for the eleventh time, the organisers offered a platform for all kinds of experts and practitioners in the field of Africa’s agri-food sector. The participants welcomed the event as an opportunity to share views and insights regarding developments in African agricultural policy, sustainable farming and livestock systems and the role of the sector in food security and poverty alleviation.

Commitment to the German-African partnership

“Germany will be at Africa’s side as reliable partner,” pledged event patron Cem Özdemir, the host country’s Federal Agricultural Minister, opening the meeting. In doing so, Özdemir took up his ministry’s “Policy for our cooperation with African countries and regions”, which he had presented a few days earlier with the Agriculture Commissioner of the African Union (AU), Josepha Sacko, in the context of the Global Forum for Food and Agriculture (GFFA). With the document on the agricultural policy partnership, the primacy of the right to food was once again stressed, the Minister stated. Here, the promotion of agroecological principles and climate-resilient agriculture and forestry assumed a central role.

Cem Özdemir, Germany's Federal Agricultural Minister. Photo: Afrika-Verein, Joshua Meeko, Primesquare

Relying on Post-Malabo

AU Commissioner Sacko also emphasised the spirit of partnership between Germany and Africa. She reminded the participants of the Extraordinary Summit on the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) which the AU had held in the first half of January in Kampala/Uganda, and which was headed by the motto “Building resilient agri-food systems in Africa”. “Investing in the agri-food sector is investing in our shared future,” the Commissioner said. Here, she stressed the continent’s strengths (abundant water and soil resources, young workforce) and the significance of regional integration for the creation of inclusive value chains. In spite of the fact that no African country was on track to eliminate hunger by 2025 (to which CAADP was supposed to contribute), she was convinced that Sustainable Development Goal 2 (zero hunger) could still be reached. 

“Ending hunger is possible”

What this requires was referred to by Mali Eber Rose, Research and Policy Analyst at UK-based Shamba Centre for Food & Climate. Rose presented the main results of a recent study which her organisation published together with experts of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). The study explores how to achieve SDG 2 within the next decade.

Setting out from the main problems (the slowdown in agricultural productivity, a lack of access to finance as well as of infrastructure, processing, distribution and retail, weak trade dominated by a few lead firms), Eber Rose presented solutions to get from global to local eco-industrialisation. They included improving farm efficiency (through mechanisation, extension and research), developing infrastructure (e.g. irrigation, storage), enhancing processing, distribution and logistics, supporting open and fair markets (also by eliminating harmful subsidies), improving access to finance for the missing middle, e.g. via domestic banks,  and using social protection to reduce risk. “We know how to do it, and we know what it costs. We can build a sustainable future for all,” the scientist said.

Mali Eber Rose, Research and Policy Analyst at UK-based Shamba Centre for Food & Climate.
Photo: Afrika-Verein, Joshua Meeko, Primesquare

The private sector is in demand

Income-generating approaches are one of the most important aspects of the report. Gunther Beger, Managing Director at UNIDO, pointed out that Africa imported 80 per cent of its processed food, corresponding to a loss of added value totalling 50 to 60 billion US dollars per year. Beger called on the representatives of the private sector to join UNIDO’s public-private-partnership programme. Today, there were 350 to 400 such partnerships all over the world. However, in this context, it was difficult to identify the small and medium-sized enterprises in rural areas.

Josepha Sacko believes that one key problem is that the agri-food sector continues to be looked upon as a poor man’s business which is dependent on government support. This above all applies to the roughly 33 million small-scale farmers in sub-Saharan Africa who account for an estimated 70 to 90 per cent of agricultural production and urgently require agricultural equipment, inputs and knowledge to become more competitive.

Josefa Sacko, AU Commissioner for Agriculture, Rural Development, Blue Economy and Sustainable Environment.
Photo: Afrika-Verein, Joshua Meeko, Primesquare

A question of governance

Sacko sees a further problem in lack of political will. This was also underscored by Ibrahim Coulibaly, President of the Pan African Farmers’ Organization in Mali. None of the African countries had complied with what the Malabo Declaration, adopted in 2014, had stipulated, i.e. that ten per cent of a country’s expenditure be invested in agriculture  – despite the sector’s great importance for the economy. In Europa, by contrast, “40 per cent of subsidies is spent on five per cent of the population,” Coulibaly maintained referring to the European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).

How to get the solutions to the farmers

The ministry representatives, coming e.g. from Burundi, Mali and Côte d’Ivoire, gave insights into their agricultural investment programmes and the success which had been scored, although they also pointed out again and again that financial support from the Global North was necessary to provide the farmers with the resources they needed. In Tanzania, more than 1.2 million farmers were already benefiting from input support und discounts from agroshops, reported John Mulongoti, Permanent Secretary at the country’s Ministry of Agriculture. Furthermore, since 2022, a programme has been running which allows farmers to take out soft loans of up to 20,000 US dollars depending on their investment plans. And supported by the very recently introduced mechanisation programme, the farmers can hire equipment such as tractors and sprayers from mechanisation centres; 60 of these centres are to be established throughout the country by 2027.

The German company Grimme offers another model. Farmers e.g. in Kenya and Uganda can use the company’s machines via a leasing concept which also contains corresponding training for their proper employment. After two to three years, the machines are sold to the most performing farmers. “Above all the partners at local level are important,” said Frank Nordmann, Grimme General Manager Key Accounts and Sustainable Development, with view to sustainable use. For smaller farms, sharing use suggests itself, e.g. via joining forces in a machinery ring.

UKUDLA – getting research to the grassroots

In addition to inputs and machinery, it is often above all knowledge which smallholders lack. This is where the African German Centre of Excellence for Sustainable and Resilient Food Systems and Applied Agriculture and Food Data Science comes in, which took up activities at the beginning of this year and was officially inaugurated at GAAF. Anyone feeling that the name is perhaps too cumbersome can simply refer to UKUDLA, Zulu for food. Germany’s University of Hohenheim as well as three partner universities in South Africa and one in Malawi are involved in the project, which is funded by the German Federal Foreign Office (AA), its Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and its Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL). The scheme seeks to combine transdisciplinary research, capacity development and practice transfer and to thus also see to it that research results really reach out to the small-scale farmers.
 

Happy faces at the inauguration ceremony for UKUDLA.
Photo: Afrika-Verein, Joshua Meeko, Primesquare

Regenerative agriculture and agroecological approaches

A further session discussed how the continent could build agri-food systems that combine ecological practices with commercial viability. Joachim von Braun, Professor of Economics and Technical Change at the Center for Development Research (ZEF) at Bonn University/Germany, pointed out the enormous diversity of African agriculture, which called for a multitude of different solutions. However, given the rapid advancing of soil and land degradation (one third of soils on the continent are degraded), von Braun criticised the frequently held opinion that most of Africa’s agriculture had already been shaped by agroecological approaches.

Conventional agriculture still too much in focus

Nancy Rapando, Africa Food Systems Leader at World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), complained of the obstacles which agroecological enterprises were facing in Kenya. For example, there were no clear standards regarding organic fertilisers, and farmers did not know where to get appropriate inputs. This had also led to agroecology not being eligible for the government subsidy system. Furthermore, while the country had a very good extension system for conventional agriculture, this was not the case for agroecological agriculture. 

No room for ideologies

Small farmers above all had to keep their income and food for their families in mind, said Johannes Buschmeier, Managing Director of the German private consulting firm Gopa AFC. It was therefore important to find out what their needs were and show them the advantages of more sustainable practices. Also, the farmers themselves had to be able to decide what they wanted to do and what not – without government prescriptions. Furthermore, the participants of the discussion agreed that agroecology required both smart technologies and finance – and that it should not be treated as a “religion”.  “We need not shy away from a good combination of high tech farming and sustainability criteria,” von Braun resumed.

Silvia Richter, Rural 21