GALVmed announces three new projects to accelerate animal healthcare in West Africa

The Global Alliance for Livestock Veterinary Medicines (GALVmed) has announced partnerships with three animal health companies in West Africa in a bid to accelerate improved availability of animal health medicines and vaccines to smallholder farmers in the region. The three new partners are Cowtribe (Ghana and Nigeria), LAPROVET (Senegal) and Afrivet (Cote d'Ivoire).

Livestock disease remains a critical constraint for smallholders in Africa. It is estimated that the cost of livestock disease in Africa alone exceeds $9 billion per annum, not including productivity losses or human health impacts. Furthermore, smallholder farmers are more vulnerable, losing at least 25 percent of their livestock every year. This is because they have higher exposure to disease risks and have less capacity to cope when outbreaks occur. Providing access to veterinary products to prevent these diseases will significantly help reduce losses, improve the livelihood of smallholders and increase availability of affordable animal protein for populations in Africa.

These new partnerships will address weak distribution channels and create reliable supply of high-quality livestock health products, enabling millions of smallholders in the region to access a basic portfolio of essential animal health products and benefit from significant productivity and livelihood improvement.

In Ghana and Nigeria, GALVmed has partnered with Cowtribe, Africa's first cloud-based, animal health product distribution company, based in Ghana. Cowtribe leverages mobile technology and cloud computing to simplify the supply chain and deliver reliable animal vaccines and other animal health products to farmers in underserved communities. This partnership will see Cowtribe expand into the upstream sector focusing on the importation, wholesaling, and distribution of animal health products to smallholder farmers in Ghana, with subsequent expansion to Nigeria. Nearly 2 million smallholders in both countries are expected to benefit from this innovative distribution model within a period of 5 years.

“Cowtribe’s mission has always been to make life-saving animal vaccines and preventive veterinary care accessible and affordable to farmers at the very last mile in Africa by leveraging the power of technology. We have developed a low-cost, tech-enabled solution that disintermediates the current inefficient supply chains and provides a novel, dedicated supply channel to directly reach smallholder farmers in the remotest places in Africa with quality and reliable livestock inputs,” said Cowtribe’s Chief Executive, Peter Awin.

In Senegal, GALVmed’s partnership with LAPROVET aims at improving the distribution of quality veterinary products by strengthening the importation and wholesale component of the value chain, supporting private animal health professionals in both retail and technical follow-up aspects and training and sensitizing emerging poultry farmers on the best prophylaxis measures.

Dr. Guillaume Remond the General Managerat LAPROVETsaid, “We expect important positive outcomes for smallholders such as the reduction of shortages of key veterinary products and the improvement of their farms’ productivity by avoiding economic losses caused by infectious diseases.”

And in Cote d'Ivoire, GALVmed is working with Afrivet to deliver animal health products to smallholder farmers in the country. This will be undertaken jointly with a co-operative group of private sector veterinarians and para veterinarians. It is Afrivet’s philosophy and business model that focuses on ensuring the buyers of its products have the necessary skills to extract he maximum benefit of their purchase that led to this choice.

“We embrace collaboration, and proudly work with a network of national and multinational institutes and understand local conditions, diseases and problems that are too small for the global companies to be concerned with, but are critical for farmers and stock owners in Africa,” says Dr Peter Oberem, CEO and founder of Afrivet, “our locally and internationally developed and tested solutions, including world-firsts will prevent and treat diseases, and promote food security and safety in Cote d'Ivoire.”

GALVmed’s Commercial Director, Rick Manlove noted, “GALVmed is committed to accelerating the availability and adoption of high-quality veterinary products that are beneficial for the smallholder farmers in rural areas throughout Africa.”

The new projects are part of GALVmed’s Commercial Development activity aimed at establishing profitable large-scale distribution systems providing access to animal health products and services for small-scale livestock keepers in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. It is hoped such initiatives will pave the way for further investment in the small-scale livestock sector by animal health companies resulting in large scale positive economic impact.

Land restoration in Africa: practical perspectives from the Regreening Africa Programme

Africa is faced with potentially devastating challenges owing to the climate crisis, population growth, urban expansion and, not least, millions of hectares of degraded agricultural and forest land.

More than 80% of Sub-Saharan Africans depend on land-based activities for their livelihoods, yet two-thirds of land in Africa is already degraded to some degree. 

Leading experts in land restoration from major global organizations have been discussing challenges in the context of the massive Regreening Africa programme.

Regreening Africa is a European Union-funded, five-year programme that seeks to reverse land degradation among 500,000 households on 1 million hectares in eight countries in Sub-Saharan Africa: Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Mali, Niger, Rwanda, Senegal and Somalia.

By incorporating trees into croplands, communal lands and pastoral areas, regreening efforts aim to improve the livelihoods and food security of hundreds of thousands of smallholders and increase their resilience to the worst impact of the climate crisis. 

ICRAF is a centre of scientific and development excellence that harnesses the benefits of trees for people and the environment. Knowledge produced by ICRAF enables governments, development agencies and farmers to utilize the power of trees to make farming and livelihoods more environmentally, socially and economically sustainable at multiple scales.

 

AATF and AUDA-NEPAD to promote agricultural research and commercialisation in Africa

The African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF) and the African Union Development Agency-NEPAD (AUDA-NEPAD), have signed a collaboration agreement that will facilitate joint work towards building a market system for the commercialisation of research products in Africa.

The agreement will also facilitate the improvement of farm productivity through mechanisation to address drudgery and contribute to building an enabling environment for agricultural research and development on the continent.

The MoU will be guided by the core principles and values of the African Union especially the realisation of Agenda 2063.

Specific key areas of the agreement include addressing challenges in production of quality foundation seed, a key area of attention for AATF that is already working with the continent’s small and medium seed enterprises to ease production of quality certified seed.

The two organisations will also focus on strengthening seed certification and variety release policies and processes including development of the private sector, licensing of new agricultural technologies and technology stewardship for sustainable use of agricultural innovations and products.

The MoU, signed by Dr Denis T. Kyetere, Executive Director of the AATF and Dr Ibrahim Assane Mayaki, Chief Executive Officer, AUDA-NEPAD, will ensure that both organisations identify flagship projects from the key areas of cooperation to effectively achieve the intended goals.

Dr Ibrahim Mayaki, welcomed the collaboration saying it would contribute to accelerating Africa’s agricultural transformation.

“As articulated in Agenda 2063, Africa’s sustained growth, competitiveness and economic transformation requires sustained investment in new technologies and continuous innovation in areas such as agriculture, clean energy, education and health. This agreement will help contribute to this goal,” said Dr Mayaki.

Dr Denis Kyetere said the collaboration provides opportunity for the smallholder farmers to benefit from innovative and value adding agricultural technologies.

“With the smallholder farmer at the centre of decision making, AATF  emphasises the need to get  innovations to farmers rapidly and effectively to optimise benefits,” said Dr Kyetere, adding that the agreement would also facilitate replication of mechanisation business models in more African countries as part of transformative agriculture development.