Inspired by The Africa Report‘s statistics on Africa’s ‘Grain Drain’, founder and vision director of Farmz2U, Aisha Raheem-Bolarinwa of Nigeria, writes about her continued commitment to growing opportunities in the field of sustainable farming to ensure food security in the future.
With collaborative research and development efforts, there is an opportunity to tailor wheat varieties and agronomic practices to Africa’s unique conditions, bolstering productivity and resilience.
This is why Farmz2U is excited to work with organisations like Mercy Corps on projects like SPROUT, an open content agriculture platform with consolidated data on climate adaptive and mitigative farming practices. Such innovations facilitate knowledge transfer, training and access to information that empowers the primary producers of food on the African continent, the emerging commercial and smallholder farmers.
Beyond innovation, public-private partnerships between governments, private enterprises and NGOs can drive investments in agricultural infrastructure, technology and value chains. For instance, through Farmz2U‘s engagements with organisations like the Catalyst Fund (a climate resilient investor) and Global Environment Facility (a multilateral trust fund supporting environmental development), we have accelerated our ability to mitigate agricultural supply chain challenges. Ensuring growth in supply can fulfil growing demand, with the aim of automating procurement for buyers while limiting disruptions across the supply chain.
Alongside some of our biggest supporters like Maelis Carraro, I am excited to share my experience in the need for diplomatic breakthroughs on mitigating the very real climate challenges we all face. If you were at GEF’s Seventh Assembly in Vancouver, Canada, a week ago, and/or you have thoughts on how Africa can grow more wheat with public-private partnership opportunities, I’ll be keen to connect.
Source: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/aisha-raheem_farmz2u-gefassembly2023-agriculturaltransformation-activity-7096777479708643329-ge17/
