GREAT GREEN WALL

and goals, identifies specific targets of ending hunger, tripling intra-African trade in agricultural goods and services, enhancing resilience of livelihoods and production systems, and ensuring that agriculture contributes significantly to poverty reduction, to be achieved within ten years. “Go around Africa today and ask 36 leaders about the Maputo Declaration. I wonder how many would tell you what it is. When I was president, I asked for documents relating to the declaration and I was inundated with a plethora of resolutions some of which the officials could not even remember. We are quick to pass resolutions and as soon as they are passed, they are forgotten.” The rapidity of leadership changes also leads to loss of and poor institutional memory, with the farmers always the losers, he says. Whenever resources are down, governments fail to support farmers, not subsidizing them with much-needed inputs such as seeds, fertilizer and mechanization in their farms. He says African leaders have neglected farmers, who must now hold the leaders to account. “I always tell farmers they must form organizations so that anybody who wants to get into power will not play around with farmers, because they are the majority and the bedrock of the continent’s economy that is agriculture,” notes Obasanjo. “Even in the Bible, we learn that the first profession was agriculture. When God created Adam and Eve, he put them in the Garden of Eden. We should not destroy what God has created. We must empower farmers. Not doing so is criminal negligence.” Obasanjo offers fatherly advice on the way forward, empathising with the twin challenges facing Africa today of how to provide employment opportunities to the millions of young Africans and the endless cycles of food crises. The future of African agriculture, he agrees, lies in the youth and ICTs to help improve value chains (production systems, market access and financial inclusion). Together with extension services, they constitute the best avenue to channel critical information to farmers, fishers, small traders and business people. African farmers, he adds, must be encouraged to turn around their fortunes by embracing improved seeds and inputs, value addition and plugging into the global value chain so that they see farming as a business, not just for subsistence. “Add value, if it is orange or mango, make juice, chicken cut into pieces and sell. The market is not a problem, the market is there. There must be money available at all times. If you leave your farm for one year, it becomes a bush, for four years, it becomes a forest!” “We need rural roads, water, sanitation, public bathrooms, primary and secondary schools. The rural areas are safer; there is not as much traffic as in cities. We must do what is humanely possible to attract the youth into farming. For example, soil-less farming, which can be done through vegetable farming in the cities. Science and technology has to come into it.

“We must show the youth where to get the best price, encourage and mentor the young. My son went to Cambridge where he obtained a PhD. He got a teaching appointment at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) when I was president. I asked him to go help manage the farm and he asked me why he would go waste his time and qualifications on the farm. I was able to persuade him to try it for at least six months. That was 17 years ago and he is still on the farm managing what I call value addition!” Chief Obasanjo says agricultural research is a must, and acknowledges that a lot has been done; citing the work of the American agronomist Dr Norman Borlaug, who led initiatives worldwide that contributed to the extensive increases in agricultural production termed the Green Revolution.

“Here in IITA the past and present Director-General Dr Nteranya Sanginga are doing a good job. Agricultural research must keep pace with the human population. Science and technology innovation will provide enough for the population. We can match population with production through research,” “We must let the farmers understand what research can do for them. The farmers are not fools. They know what the soil can do for them. When they know the process and the product, they get confidence. “We need farmers, researchers and extension agents working together on the best seeds and other products of research. We must give the farmer the opportunity to be the uptaker of what they produce.” Demonstrating his closeness to farmers, Obasanjo says he is one of the biggest processors of cassava in Nigeria and buys his tubers from local farmers. He also produces and processes pawpaw. “We must stay close to the farmer. They must not be left alone. That is why we need the support of extension services, which unfortunately have greatly declined.” His parting shot is captured in one word, “leadership” across the board. “I understand agriculture. If you are not a practitioner, you may not understand agriculture. “My friend the late German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt once told me that all African leaders must have a modicum of economics. I hasten to add for agribusiness, but also for our economy.”

eProd offers tech solution for farmers, agribusiness

By Murimi Gitari

For long neglected in the production and supply chain management system, small-scale farmers can now look forward to a technological solution that helps them refine and scale up operations. Small-scale farming remains central to the achievement of food security in sub-Saharan Africa, yet smallholder farmers and traders face a myriad challenges that further disadvantage production in their farms and the agriculture value chain. In response to these challenges, eProd Solutions Ltd is now offering small-scale farmers and agribusiness entrepreneurs in Africa an integrated digital farm and trading management platform to ease their woes. The platform automates daily processes such as managing farmer profiles, GPS location, photos, field inspections and data, supply contracts, training and access to finance.

Jan Willem and Almut Van Casteren, founder and co-founder of eProd Solutions, developed a specialized enterprise resource planning (ERP) system to assist traders, food processors, exporters and cooperative societies manage supplies from thousands of smallholder farmers. The system improves farmer productivity, and helps manage finances and transactions including enabling mobile payments, automating payments for inputs and advances and managing incentives. It also helps manage businesses and employees, monitors worker efficiency and improves decision-making, planning, and transparency through reliable reporting. The developers say they knew farmers wanted to scale up their farming, yet managing a large-scale operation was difficult. To manage this complexity efficiently, systems needed to be set up. eProd was designed and designed to translate the challenges relating to payment, quality, credit and repayments, and linkage to financial institutions or traceability, into a technological solution. “Through easy collection of reliable farmer information, eProd is designed to handle large numbers of suppliers. It responds to the requirements of demanding markets and addresses management challenges that aggregators and food processors

experience while sourcing from large numbers of small-scale farmers,” says Van Casteren. “We offer an affordable annual licence fee, off-the-shelf and easy to integrate platform optimized for low bandwidth areas. A solution with perfect offline functionality optimized for low bandwidth environments in Africa’s rural areas where internet is still a challenge,” she explains. Data can be hosted in the cloud, allowing access from anywhere in the world, while eProd also offers a unique data generator platform that creates valuable information for clients and sector stakeholders.

How does eProd work? An off-the-shelf system that can be adjusted on the spot to suit client requirements, eProd is a flexible tool currently managing over 30 different value chains including grain, dairy, poultry, horticulture and tree crops. Company specific standards and questionnaires can be uploaded and filled in conveniently in the field on mobile phones. “Sometimes, clients would like to see additional features integrated into the system. Our technical department will then define the additional needs with the clients and design this new feature,” Van Casteren says. Most of the data entry is done by an organization’s field officers directly in the field – both offline and online. The data entry can range from farmer registration to field registration, produce purchases, distributing inputs on credit as well as uploading trainings. If a company works with small, village-based agents, stocks can be kept and managed. Centrally, from the head office, payments can be processed, messages shared with farmers through SMS, field visits and trainings scheduled, and quality assessed and applied to the payment conditions. The system assists in monitoring field activities, planning of production, certification audits and reporting to senior management and third parties. While many organizations are still working on paper or in Excel to manage their supply chains, eProd offers an affordable and efficient alternative to supply chain management. It reduces costs through increased efficiencies, increases transparency, enables a data-driven management approach and allows full traceability from seed to field to final production. “eProd links farmers with third party suppliers (through integration with financial institutions), and offers options for blended services to farmers together with managing climate-smart agriculture activities like weather integration, soil testing and related production advice,” says Van Casteren. The solutions aim at creating comprehensive farmer profiles and increased production and productivity, including field registration, farmer communication, production advice and soil testing integration. The technological solution for farmers is currently used by over 100 clients in 14 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, Afghanistan, Guatemala and Haiti. The system has been translated into nine different languages and scripts, with their clients using it to manage over 30 different value chains. A spinoff of Equator Kenya Ltd established in 2014, the eProd software has been developed and tested in the field for almost 18 years in response to different challenges. All new features are tested in Equator Kenya Ltd to ensure that they are feasible solutions for their clients.

The system can be implemented in a very short time and is much more affordable as actual coding is not be required for an installation. Just company settings and details, products and data that needs to be prepared and uploaded - a process possible within a few days depending on the quality of the data. “As such, eProd is much more affordable than many other comparable systems in the market,” say Van Casterens. The smallest licence is available at 1,000 euros annually. She cites Organi Ltd, an orange-fleshed sweet potato processor for puree used in bread/cake production in Western Kenya, working with smallholder farmers as one of its success stories.

From not having any data, Organi can now map farmers, manage field production, increase productivity, have real time data, and print the weights from the Bluetooth scale on eProd-generated receipts for the farmers at the moment of collection.

Farmer payments are imported directly into their online payment platform, unlike in the past when farmers were paid cash upon delivery. This reduces risks in the field and mobile phone SMS text boosts bonding with farmers. The stock module allows the company to manage stocks from the purchase roots to puree - the final product in stock. Traceability is important in managing the quality-based payment but also in ensuring final product quality. Farmers harvest crops and deliver to village-based agents, where a base price is paid upon delivery. The balance is paid once the quality is assessed, sent to the mobile app of the village-based agent and then paid to the farmer through the stock module via an integrated ID card system. This ensures that the farmer receives the balance payment. The eProd Solutions team is working on the design of the umbrella platform as an M&E tool for multinationals and NGOs. Company specific data is uploaded into a ‘platform of platforms’, allowing organizations to manage data, capacities, volumes, communication and offer additional services.

eProd Solutions Ltd

eProd Solutions provides simple, strategic agricultural management solutions. Whether working with small- or large-scale famers, eProd Solutions helps streamline agricultural productivity through supply chain management.

eProd Solutions sells an ERP to our clients, assisting in better Agricultural Supply chain management. We provide an affordable, off the shelf, easy to integrate platform that has been optimized to work in low bandwidth environments, enabling easy access to the platform from anywhere in the world. And through this unique data generating platform, eProd Solutions is able to provide information to both clients and their sector stakeholders. Founded in 2015, eProd started a pilot program with 5 aggregators in Kenya, and soon expanded, developing its mobile app only a year later. Over the course of 5 years the company expanded across East and West Africa, and Latin America. Currently eProd Solutions provides an ERP service to clients in 14 different countries, with services available in 9 different languages and scripts, and over 30 different value chains on its platform. Our clients can collect data on and offline and ultimately gain access to the following: ü Comprehensive farmer profiles: we create profiles at various levels, from individual to organizational levels. The features of the profiles include services such as loans, payments, and planting information. ü Greater productivity of famers: through monitoring field activities, SMS services, and surveys. ü Managing finances and farmers transactions: through creating flexible configuration systems that allow for automatic quality-based financial transactions and payments. Whether through mobile money or cash-based payments. ü Ease in management of business and employees. ü Monitoring and Evaluation Activities ü Better communication with farmers and employees through creating flexible configuration systems. ü Flexible system configurations: though partnering with financial institutions to enable relevant solutions to advance credit facilities to farmers. As well as creating bundle services that app users. This platform was created to build more transparency in the field, reduce overhead costs, enable data driven management, allow for full traceability (from seed to final production), link farmers with third-party suppliers, offer options for blended services to farmers, and manage climate smart agricultural activities. Data entry is normally conducted by field officers, using the mobile app. We also provide a stock management system enabling users to take note of their stock, manage purchases and assist in collection route planning. eProd Solutions aims to revolutionize the agricultural space, by creating streamlined digital supply chain management systems.

The Great Green Wall (above), launched in 2007 by the African Union, aims to develop a 7,000- kilometer barrier stretching from Senegal to Djibouti, to halt creeping desertification. Photo: UNCCD

Step by step. Women (left) prepare the ground for planting. GLF Africa 2021 will discuss a new phase of the Great Green Wall for the Sahel and the Sahara Initiative. Photo: greatgreenwall.org

Africa responds to global challenges on restoration

By Alberto Leny

Africa continues to experience the devastating impacts of the interlinkages between environmental and development challenges compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic. Action by African governments has prevented some of the extreme health impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic seen elsewhere. Yet, the fragile economies of Africa’s drylands have been among those hardest hit by the global pandemic, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and other sources. Experts say the hardest hit countries recorded a 30-50% decline in livestock exports, sharp declines in external remittance flows, 20-50% increase in imported food prices and a breaking down of valuable agricultural supply chains. The threat of famine has reappeared, and experience has proven the importance of accelerating the uptake of best practices, and restoration is even more essential. “The lessons from the 2014 Ebola virus disease outbreak in West Africa are clear,” says FAO. “While health needs are an urgent and primary concern, we cannot neglect livelihoods and food security-related impacts or we will face a food crisis within the health crisis.”

Looking beyond the COVID-19 pandemic, the world must urgently

address the climate crisis in the context of the global recovery and reconstruction effort. Tackling climate change is inextricably linked to the urgent environmental crisis - the accelerating destruction of nature. In June, the Global Landscapes Forum (GLF) will host the first global digital conference on Africa’s drylands and how integrative restoration practices can secure the future of these landscapes, and the people and biodiversity that rely on them. GLF Africa 2021 will be held just before the official launch of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. As all parts of the global community grapple with their much-needed role in the transformations needed for a sustainable future, The Decade draws the red line on the gravity of the three environmental emergencies threatening the Earth – climate, biodiversity loss and pollution. “Nature is not to blame for the COVID-19 pandemic. Our unsustainable interactions with nature have created the conditions for this situation,” UN Convention on Biological Diversity Executive Secretary Elizabeth Mrema told the GLF 2020 conference. The GLF Biodiversity event, the largest digital conference on biodiversity in 2020, reached 35 million people via social media channels and an estimated 300 million through global media. Johan Rockström, the Director, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, echoed Mrema’s warning: “This is truly a state of planetary emergency. It is not only about existential risk – we are running out of time. This is the decisive decade for humanity’s future on Earth. GLF Africa 2021 will discuss a new phase of the Great Green Wall for the Sahel and the Sahara Initiative, including a programme for restoration of 100 million hectares of degraded land while creating 10 million green jobs by 2030. The Wall, launched in 2007 by the African Union (AU), aims to develop a 7,000-kilometer barrier stretching from Senegal to Djibouti, to halt creeping desertification via a trans-continental mosaic of green, productive landscapes. The new phase involves $16.85 billion in international pledges for development of the Wall, which is just 4% complete.

The United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, which runs from 2021 to 2030, will be officially launched in June, with calls for the international community, civil society, businesses, politicians and individuals to prevent, halt and reverse the degradation of ecosystems worldwide. Natural Climate Solutions (NCS) – investment in conservation and land management programmes that increase carbon storage and reduce carbon emissions – offer an important way of addressing both crises simultaneously. Greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture, forestry and other land use contribute to about a quarter of global emissions, and it is estimated that NCS projects can help deliver around one-third of net emission reductions needed by 2030. However, despite their vast potential for reducing emissions, natural climate solutions attract very little public investment.

Business can play a vital role in curbing climate change, through making commitments to align with the Paris Agreement; reporting annually on their emissions and those produced in their value chains using accepted standards; and compensating a share of unabated emissions through the purchase and retirement of carbon credits To meet its obligation of The Decade challenge, the continent aims to restore at least 100 million hectares of land by 2030 through the AFR 100 programme. An ambitious target to contribute to the AU Agenda 2063, the Bonn Challenge, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD)’s Land Degradation Neutrality targets, and other targets set internationally and regionally. The Bonn Challenge is a global goal to bring 150 million hectares of degraded and deforested landscapes into restoration by 2020 and 350 million hectares by 2030. If successful, the AFR 100 will make Africa the champion of forest landscape restoration. GLF notes that Africa’s drylands are

Sands of hope. The Great Green Wall Initiative includes a programme for restoration of 100 million hectares of degraded land while creating 10 million green jobs by 2030. Photo: greatgreenwall.org

remarkable landscapes, observing that “although the term ‘drylands’ evokes harsh images of dust bowls, skeletal trees, hard-scrabble cattle, the reality is nuanced. More than half a billion people live and work in Africa’s drylands, among the most parched landscapes on the planet, and 43% of the continent.”

Smallholders nurture crops and graze livestock on land that is mostly rainfed — and rapidly degrading, due in part to the relentless, devastating force of climate change that threatens the rich biodiversity of these fragile landscapes. That biodiversity provides essential ecosystem services for local communities. Dryland forests offer shelter and moisture, charcoal, and reduce water runoff and erosion. Drylands are particularly vulnerable to climatic variations and climate change as well as human activities such as deforestation and overgrazing. That is because dryland soils have relatively low fertility and are particularly susceptible to erosion and nutrient loss. Still, dryland soils sequester tons of carbon every year, helping in the global fight against climate change and are essential to the health of the population. Restoring Africa’s drylands is pivotal to securing health, livelihoods, homes and futures for the 525 million people living in these unique landscapes while protecting their food and nutrition security. Restoration work on the ground in drylands must coordinate efforts among multiple actors and across multiple activities. Convening local knowledge-holders, such as smallholder farmers, herders, pastoralists, youth and elders, civic organizations and local governments, is crucial to success in planning, implementing and monitoring nature restoration efforts.

According to the GLF organizers, by meeting and working together, conflicts and divides across various interests can potentially be bridged. There is an enormous collective experience with drylands restoration, as there are many local and regional partners interested in sharing their successful practices, and wishing to co-invest. GLF Africa will be built on the 2020 Global Biodiversity Conference, which attracted 5,000 people to the digital venue with an additional 9,000 stream online from 148 countries. The conference established the link between ecosystem health and human health, and the importance of communities to guard against future pandemics and achieve optimal health for people, animals and the environment. GLF Africa will continue that focus on cross-disciplinarity. GLF Africa will strengthen the capacities of Africa’s youth living in drylands environments by highlighting job opportunities in restoration and facilitating education around restoration actions with the Youth in Landscapes Initiative (YIL) and partners. By 2030, the youth population in Africa is expected to reach 1.3 billion (the continent’s current population), with 60% under 25. Young people are not only one of the largest demographics in Africa, but also bring the greatest enthusiasm, creativity and the potential to innovate. This first global digital conference on Africa’s drylands builds on work that began with GLF Accra in Ghana in late 2019 and GLF Nairobi in 2018, which rallied young leaders concerned with restoration issues from across the continent and around the world. Founded by the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), the World Bank and UN Environment Programme (UNEP), with 30 leading development organizations as Charter Members, the GLF is the world’s largest and fastest-growing knowledge-led platform on sustainable land use. It seeks to create a movement dedicated to achieving the SDGs and Paris Climate Agreement. The Forum has connected nearly 10,000 organizations, over 200,000 participants and reached more than one billion people from 185 countries.

Digital tools a big boost for Africa’s food systems

As COVID-19 continues to disrupt food distribution systems, it is not only critical to ensure that supply chains continue to function, but also to assess how to emerge stronger from the crisis.

By John Agboola.

One of the foremost challenges facing African countries amid the COVID-19 lockdowns is how to safeguard access to basic services for their citizens. Food is the most fundamental human need. As COVID-19 continues to disrupt food distribution systems, it is not only critical to ensure that supply chains continue to function, but also to assess how to emerge stronger from the crisis. This requires examining how food is produced and distributed across the entire agricultural value chain, and tackling any identified gaps from the farm level to end consumers. To remain relevant at farm level, extension models must embrace new technologies. At the bottom end of this chain, agricultural extension systems play an important role in improving farm productivity. While they provide much-needed information and technical support, traditional extension models based on face-to-face contact with farmers are not only expensive to maintain but slow to respond to a rapidly changing market environment. Moreover, their focus on external inputs, such as hybrid seeds and fertilizers, can be costly for smallholder farmers, and, if used incorrectly, become harmful to soils, water, and other natural resources. In many parts of Africa, formal extension systems are not only poorly underfunded, but they also struggle to remain relevant to farmers’ needs, especially in the face of accelerated land degradation, erratic weather patterns due to a changing climate, and other challenges. A recent report revealed that the average

Photo: CTA. An extension agent sharing information with farmers.

ratio of extension agents to farmers in Africa is 1:2,000. The disparity is significantly higher in Nigeria, where the ratio varies from 1:5,000 to as high as 1:10,000. Due to the scarcity of extension agents, most farmers do not seek advice before commencing agricultural operations. Samuel Sanondo, a maize farmer in Taraba, northern Nigeria, reported that since he started farming more than 10 years ago, extension agents have only visited his farm twice. There is need to advance digital extension advisory services A more cost-effective alternative to maintaining large numbers of extension agents is to adopt information and communication technologies (ICTs) to provide more targeted, and timely information to farmers. Unfortunately, Africa continues to lag behind in the development of virtual platforms for sharing the latest data, and good practices on key topics such as crop agronomy, livestock management, pest and disease control, and weather information. My interaction with five young agribusiness ventures from Nigeria, Ghana and Cameroon, taught me about a range of challenges farmers faced - inaccessibility to inputs, market, extension and support systems further exacerbated by the pandemic. The CGIAR Platform for Big Data in Agriculture tagline “Feeding the World Byte by Byte” reaffirms the unique opportunities offered by ICTs, and other technological innovations, to feed a growing planet. Covid-19 lockdown measures add further urgency to the call by the Malabo Montepellier Panel report to transform African food systems through digitization. One of the nine key areas of digital interventions highlighted in an infographic summarizing the report’s findings focuses on the importance of strengthening skills development and digital literacy for farmers, and other actors in the food systems. Another key player in agricultural innovations and technology in Africa is the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation ACP-EU (CTA). One of the initiatives supported by the centre is the Ghana Farmerline, which connects farmers to up-to-date weather information, agronomic tips, market prices, and nutritional advice, via SMS. In Nigeria, Kitovu Technology Company uses GPS coordinates to perform plant health analysis for farmers registered under its platform. The company makes use of remote sensing tools to monitor plant health and manage pests and diseases in a cost-effective way. This also aids in data collection and the provision of information from farm to market.

The current global health crisis presents both challenges and opportunities for farmers. The restrictions on travel, as well as social distancing rules, have highlighted the advantages of leveraging digital tools to keep food production and agricultural knowledge transfer unhindered during this, and future crises. This article is part of COVID-19 Food/Future, an initiative aiming to provide a unique and direct insight into the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic on national and local food systems. Central to our approach are the experiences of young, urban and peri-urban farmers, street vendors and informal retailers, and low-income consumers. Follow @ CovidFoodFuture on Twitter. Covid-19 Food/Future is an initiative by TMG. ThinkTank for Sustainability, or on Twitter @TMG_think. Funding for this initiative is provided by BMZ, the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development. John Agboola is a farmer and an agricultural specialist who is passionate about agricultural research for sustainable development in Africa. He is a value chain catalyst, agricultural mechanization and communication expert with a degree in Agricultural Economics and Extension. He has served as the communication focal person for YPARD Nigeria, is an Africa Lead Champion for Change, and joined the first cohort of Youth in Data for the CGIAR Platform for Big Data in Agriculture.

Feature photo: ISS blog.

Safaricom DigiFarm General Manager Fred Kiio (left) narrates how farmers (right) can benefitfrom the telco’s digital platform. Photo: Safaricom News

Telco giant’s agribusiness DigiFarm inspires farmers

By Alberto Leny

As communities across the globe reel from a massive public health crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic continues to impose unprecedented disruptions at all levels in economies. In Africa, other than derailing key socio-economic growth factors, the pandemic threatens to undo several decades of developmental gains. Emergency measures to curb the spread of the disease have triggered unintended impacts on trade, including on global and regional supply chains for essential goods such as medical supplies and food products. Restrictive border measures have aggravated intra-African trade and created multiple ripple effects to already strained food and agriculture systems. African countries are devising scenario planning with individual and collective actions, and, where necessary, with the international development community and the private sector to reach a rapid and sustainable exit from the pandemic. To mitigate the collateral damages inflicted to the economy and to some extent to the social fabric of the continent, a selection of common priorities across African countries have been identified and clustered into three categories - intra-African trade and food systems, health systems and education. The pandemic has highlighted the critical role of digital technologies to solve some of the challenges in these three priority-clusters. It has also laid bare structural weaknesses in African countries’ preparedness for the digital post-pandemic era. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, many organizations had already embraced and accelerated the adoption of digital solutions to challenges in trade and food systems. One such organization