Africa Food Prize to award $100,000 to spur agricultural innovations

The Africa Food Prize has been launched in Accra, Ghana, with a $100,000 award package intended to inspire innovations in agricultural production and marketing.
 

The Prize celebrates Africans who are taking control of the continent’s agriculture agenda, both in the field and the marketplace.

“We want to celebrate individuals and institutions that are changing the reality of farming in Africa, from a grueling struggle to survive to a profitable family business that thrives,” said former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, who chairs the Africa Food Prize Committee.

The Africa Food Prize was announced at the 12^th Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program (CAADP) Partnership Platform which is seeking new sources of investment and financing for African farmers and agriculture businesses.

Agriculture is emerging as Africa’s best bet for increasing food security and expanding economic opportunity.

“The Africa Food Prize is another way we can drive a search for solutions to fundamental problems, like a chronic lack of financing, that prevent African farmers  from achieving their potential,” said Strive Masiyiwa, Chair and CEO of Econet Wireless International and Board Chair of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA). “It can put a bright spotlight on bold initiatives and technical innovations that can be replicated across the continent to eliminate hunger and poverty and provide a vital new source of employment and income.”

In addition to a dearth of financing, millions of farmers lack understanding of good agricultural practices and they have limited or no access to high quality agricultural inputs, safe storage, and basic processing, which collude to stifle production and income opportunities.

The Africa Food Prize is a successor of the Yara Prize, which was established by Yara International ASA in 2005 in response to a call for action by former UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, challenging the world to create an African Green Revolution.

Winners will be chosen by the Africa Food Prize Committee, which will include other distinguished leaders in African agriculture.

The winners will be announced annually during a prize ceremony at the African Green Revolution Forum (AGRF), starting with the 2016 AGRF slated for 5-9 September in Nairobi.

Past winners include Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, the former Nigerian Agriculture Minister who now heads the African Development Bank (AfDB); Agnes Kalibata, the former Minister of Agriculture and Animal Resources in Rwanda who now serves as AGRA’s President; and Ousmane Badiane, Africa Director for the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).

Story by Kofi Adu Domfeh