Washington, DC, April 26, 2016 – Tony Elumelu, Chairman of Heirs Holdings,
the United Bank for Africa and Founder of The Tony Elumelu Foundation has
called on African governments and donors to treat the agricultural sector
in Africa as a commercially viable sector with a potential to create
millions of jobs and dollars in revenue.
The African Business leader and Philanthropist, who stated this while
delivering the keynote address to agribusiness investors and stakeholders
at The Global Food Security Symposium in Washington, DC, said agriculture
should not be seen as a social welfare program, rather African farmers
should be treated as entrepreneurs as governments create the enabling
environment for MSMEs to access finance.
Organised by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs on April 26th 2016, the
event, which gathered a host of multi-disciplinary stakeholders in
agriculture and food business, including Elumelu – a member of The Aspen
Institute Global Food Security Strategy Group – presented a platform to
discuss transformations in the global food system necessary to feed
growing cities.
Speaking from an African standpoint, Elumelu advocated for public and
private sector collaboration, recommending the adoption of an
Africapitalist approach to achieve the transformation and growth needed to
meet the increasing demand for safe and sustainable food. Africapitalism
promotes the private sector’s commitment to Africa’s development through
long-term investment in strategic sectors of the economy that create
economic prosperity and social wealth.
“If the public and private sector work together in shared purpose, we will
be able to retain the desired knowledge and manpower in rural areas in
order to support agriculture. We will also be able to control the rate of
urbanisation, because we would have made it possible for our young people
to earn a good living and grow their businesses right where they were born
and raised as agro-allied entrepreneurs,” he added.
On the private sector responsibilities, he advocated for large investments
that promote mechanized farming and processing as well as capital to
partner with the government to provide key infrastructure supportive of
sustained growth in the agriculture sector. “I believe that if we
transform the agriculture sector, we will transform the African
continent!” said Elumelu.
He concluded by appealing to the U.S. government for a decisive
congressional action to reform emergency food assistance by providing
USAID with the flexibility to ship or purchase food regionally to avoid
distorting local markets, further impoverishing local small holder farmers
in Africa. According to him, flexibility is the right way to approach
food aid that will save more lives. “Food aid must not become an industry.
As an African, I want to appeal to the U.S. Congress and the next
president of the United States to make the correct and courageous decision
in the next re-authorisation of the farm bill to fight famine with
flexibility.”
Statistics reveal that an estimated 6.3billion people will live in urban
cities by 2050 putting a strain on the supply of safe and sustainable food
to feed the population. With multiple challenges facing small scale
farmers and easy access to markets still an uphill task, the symposium was
an avenue for stakeholders to discuss and recommend specific actions on
how to tackle problems of global food security. The Council also released
a major report on action points for the US government to advance food
security in an urban world.
Delivering his speech, co-chair of the Global Food and Agriculture
Program, Dan Glickman, stated that action and innovation by the private
sector are important to feed cities. “Feeding the world’s cities is an
enormous challenge but also an enormous opportunity”.
Other international speakers present at the event were Doug Bereuter,
Co-chair, Global Food and Agriculture Program; Member, U.S. Senate,
Honourable Jack Reed; and Rajiv Shah, senior advisor to The Chicago
Council on Global Affairs and a distinguished service professor at
Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, among others.