Heifer International supports farmers, it has presence in 19 countries in Africa,Asia & Americas
Rwanda will be hosting African youth in a conference to celebrate innovations in agriculture, aimed at boosting food security in the continent now and in the next 50 years.
A leading global agency, Heifer international has organised the inaugural conference for youth from the continent to showcase their prowess in coming up with innovative solutions towards food security.
This will also be a platform to inspire, nurture and grow agripreneurs, young agritech innovators across Africa, stakeholders in the continent’s agriculture and youth development sectors, its news release reads.
The AYuTe Next Gen gathering is a culmination of strategies implemented by Heifer across countries in the continent to encourage youth involvement in transformation of the sector through tech driven solutions.
Winners drawn from respective countries will be competing for top regional prizes. A panel has been identified to study and rate their innovations.
Heifer’s Youth and Innovation lead Dayo Aduroja says the conference will be an opportunity for stakeholders and partners to witness first hand the immense potential for home grown technology.
He urged stakeholder support, in pushing these solutions in the market, to power small holder farmers to increase productivity and incomes.
Every innovator within the AYuTe ecosystem is a winner; and our ongoing collaborations with them, which presents us with front row seats to the impact of their tech driven solutions for smallholder farmers’ challenges, constantly reminds us of this.
Dayo Aduroja,Africa Youth and Innovation Lead,Heifer international
The Alliance Green Revolution in Africa AGRA Africa Agriculture status report of 2022 calls for the acceleration of Africa’s food system transformation to guarantee food security.
The report shows 90 per cent of Sub Sharan Africa is facing food insecurity and malnutrition, with its systems disrupted by extreme weather, pests and diseases, food prices, regional conflict and the Ukraine war.
These challenges that also include rapid population growth, economic changes are exacerbated by climate change.
The report calls for an urgent need for mindset change on food systems which take in to account costs involved in growing ,distributing and consuming food.
AGRA proposes innovations that provide for more commercialised and profitable production of small holder entrepreneurs.
This should be the focus in Kigali on 11th June 2024 when African youths gather for the AYuTe conference whose theme is reimagining Africa’s Agriculture in the next 50years.
This event that will be opened to the public coincides with Heifer’s 80 years existence of supporting smallholder farmers globally, and 50 years doing so in Africa.