Everlyne Mwende,  a young lady in Kibwezi, Kenya, is passionate about agriculture. Shortly after she participated in an agribusiness incubation programme, Everlyne launched her livestock business with 50 birds in 2020.

The incubation programme was facilitated by the Youth-in Agribusiness compact of Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation (TAAT)  as part of its commitment to stimulating youth-led agribusiness enterprises along agricultural commodity value chains.

Sponsored by the African Development Bank as part of its Feed Africa Initiative, TAAT’s main objective is to improve the business of agriculture across Africa by raising agricultural productivity, mitigating risks and promoting diversification and processing in 18 agricultural value chains within eight priority intervention areas.

The programme increases agricultural productivity through the deployment of proven and high-performance agricultural technologies at scale along selected nine commodity compacts such as cassava, Orange-fleshed sweet potato, aquaculture, small livestock, high iron beans, maize, rice, sorghum and millet, and wheat.

These work with six enabler compacts addressing transversal issues such as soil fertility management, water management, capacity development, policy support, attracting African youth in agribusiness and fall armyworm response.

Evelyne sold the 50 birds at Ksh 500 ($5) per piece translating to Ksh 25,000 ($250). After the sales, she restocked 100 birds for rebreeding. She later expanded her business to include the sale of eggs.

Beyond producing chicken, Everlyne has taken her passion to another level this year. She now mentors other poultry farmers within Kibwezi, building their capacity in good agricultural practices. She equally trains women and youth entrepreneurs for medium-scale poultry enterprises to deliver.

Members of the Bidii Self Help Group, a youth group in Kibwezi, have, since January 2021, engaged Evelyne to train them specifically on poultry and goat farming. She has equally mentored more than five other youth in poultry farming, and her business model has proven to be very efficient.

Evelyne is determined to continue sharing her production and business knowledge with other youth in her community and around Kenya. She will also be selling more chicks to farmers hence adding to her revenue streams.

According to Noel Mulinganya, the Leader of the Youth in Agribusiness compact, which is also known as ENABLE-TAAT (Empowering Novel Agribusiness-led Employment), “Evelyne’s resourcefulness affirms the efficacy of ENABLE-TAAT’s “Train-the-trainers” initiative. Through this initiative, benefitting youth are trained to become trainers in their local communities, thus creating a network of young people who have the skills and capacity to contribute to agricultural transformation in Africa.”

“More of such stories are budding, as the compact continues to track the record of previously trained youth,” Noel added.

It would be recalled that a similar “Train-the-Trainers” seminar, organised by the compact, held in March 2021 with youth participants from Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The youth were motivated to replicate the knowledge they received from ENABLE-TAAT in their communities as young instigators of African agricultural transformation.

Led by the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA),  ENABLE-TAAT provides capacity building and technical assistance to establish and expand youth-led agribusiness enterprises along TAAT value chains such as high iron beans, cassava, fish, maize, small livestock, rice and orange-fleshed sweet potato.

The demand for good quality parboiled rice is high in parts of Africa, from east to west, north to south. As at 2015, rice consumption in countries was estimated to be approximately 26 million (MT) of which 13 million MT (about one-third of what is traded on the world market) was imported to the continent.

Rice consumption in Africa is projected to reach 34.9 million tons by 2025.  The African Development Bank estimates that the rice sector has the potential to become an engine for economic growth across the continent.

Thus, as the demand for rice increases as result of population growth, increased per capita consumption, and a shifting preference towards ‘premium’ rice linked to increased urbanisation, Africa will need to produce approximately 13 million additional tons of premium rice per year.

Increasing rice production to meet this need is expected to improve the livelihood of at least 3 million producers and lead to economic gains of about US$5.5 billion per year among African countries. To achieve this, Africa needs to develop technologies and infrastructures to support widespread production, processing and commercial adoption of high-yielding climate-resilient rice varieties.

Until now, domestic rice is processed in Africa through the traditional parboiling process. This is carried out mainly by rural women – laborious, time-consuming and unsafe, producing low quality rice with broken and burnt grains and bad smell.

It also requires lots of firewood, causing deforestation. Another major challenge is the pollution that comes with disposing the rice husks that accumulate after threshing.

A GEM for rice parboilers

To address these challenges, the rice compact of Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation (TAAT) is deploying an innovative and environmentally friendly parboiling system -- called GEM (Grain quality enhancer, Energy-efficient and durable Material).

Sponsored by the African Development Bank as part of its Feed Africa Initiative, TAAT’s main objective is to improve the business of agriculture across Africa by raising agricultural productivity, mitigating risks and promoting diversification and processing in 18 agricultural value chains within eight priority intervention areas.

The programme increases agricultural productivity through the deployment of proven and high-performance agricultural technologies at scale along selected nine commodity compacts which include rice.

Led by the Africa Rice Center (AfricaRice), the TAAT Rice Compact (TRC) seeks to achieve rapid intensification of rice production by raising farm-level productivity and improving the efficiency of processing and increasing market opportunity through innovative partnerships and proven technologies.

One of such is the GEM technology. Compared with the traditional technology, GEM produces rice of high physical and eating quality that fetches higher price on the local market. It was designed by AfricaRice and fabricated through partnerships with the private sector. The system is provided with pulleys that reduces drudgery.           

The improved system protects the women processors from heat and smoke exposure.  It further enables them to process large quantities of paddy rice in a relatively short time. It also includes an eco-friendly stove with a solar-powered fan that runs on rice husk -- a free and abundant fuel in rice-producing areas.

A profitable technology

The use of the GEM technology reduces paddy steaming time from 60 to 20 min, post-harvest losses from 6% to <0.5% and firewood consumption by 41-100%.

The substitution of firewood fuel by the rice husk results in US$30 savings per ton of parboiled rice. Milled parboiled rice has a higher content of B-Vitamins, minerals and demonstrates slower digestive and lower glycemic properties compared to white milled rice. Biochar produced from the burnt rice husk is used to improve soil fertility.

With the installation of the GEM system, Bouake Innovation Platform (IP) in Côte d’Ivoire is now supplying 4.4 tons of milled parboiled rice per month to the market. In collaboration with PAFER (NGO) and an equipment fabricator (TCMS) in Benin, six mini GEM rice parboilers costing CFA 19.5 million (about US$35,454) were installed in communities in Glazoué and Malanville rice hubs in Benin.

From April 2018 to June 2020, 2,255 tons of paddy were processed into 1,600 tons of milled rice. This system completely substituted firewood with rice husk leading to about US$38,300 savings across the IP sites.

Using the rice husk-fueled GEM rice parboiling system by the IP in Bukan-Sidi Lafia, Nasarawa state in north-central Nigeria for example, over 65 million Naira (US$181,800) was generated within one year (2019) from selling 218.15 tonnes of quality domestic parboiled rice.

A total of 68,300 parboiled rice value chain actors (paddy suppliers, service providers, rice marketers and rice consumers) have so far benefited from the GEM rice parboiling system in Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Niger and Nigeria.

“Before the installation of the rice husk stove in our centre, we were spending a lot of money on firewood. But today, we can save that money. It increases our gains and saves the environment. It has really changed my life,” Juliet Ogbonikan a rice processor in Glazoué, Benin Republic said.

The IP in Nigeria confirmed that their production output for parboiling hit 4.4 t/day upon adoption of the GEM technology. A significant increase from the previous parboiling rate of 1.4 t/day.

“Our processing center now serves as a market hub and my paddy is no longer sold to middlemen since the IP is directly linked to market. Now, the IP members process their paddy before selling, using the IP-fixed price, which is 7-10% above the open market price; thus, maximizing profit by adding value to the paddy harvested,” Joshua Jonathan added.

According to Dr. Ernest Asiedu, the TAAT Rice Compact Leader, the significant improvement recorded with the introduction of the GEM technology aligns essentially with the compact’s vision of achieving rapid intensification of rice production through raising farm-level productivity, improving the efficiency of processing and increasing market opportunities across 20 African countries.

“The compact will continue on this pathway of expanding access of smallholder farmers, the majority being women, to high-yielding agricultural technologies and improving rice production as a means of assuring food security,” Dr. Asiedu added.

(PAMACC News) - A new report from global think tank ODI sheds light on the need to strengthen sustainable climate services across Africa if ambitions for effective climate adaptation are to be realised - released ahead of the Climate Ambition Summit, which takes place on 25 and 26 January 2021.

African countries are expected to be hit hard by climate change, and unpredictable and extreme weather is already having a significant impact on people’s lives across the continent.

Well-functioning weather and climate information services can save lives and livelihoods. In order for African communities and businesses to adapt more effectively to the inevitable impacts of climate change, weather and climate information services must be vastly strengthened as quickly as possible – say ODI researchers.

ODI’s report 'Investing for sustainable climate services: Insights from the African experience' looks at the support provided to strengthen weather and climate information services in several African countries from 2016 to 2021. The authors consulted extensively with the experts who ran 15 projects across Africa as part of the Weather and Climate Information Services for Africa (WISER) programme. They found that donors have largely supported capacity-building efforts by funding short-term improvements, but without long-term political and financial commitments, high-level buy-in from stakeholders, and strong and inclusive partnerships, projects lack sufficient traction and funding to guarantee viable results. 

Where donor assistance is sought, donors should commit long term to bringing climate services up to scratch in order to fulfil their promise to support Africa’s resilience to climate change.

The Climate Adaptation Summit 2021 - attended by world leaders including Boris Johnson, Emmanuel Macron and Sheikh Hasina - will highlight the need to accelerate climate adaptation in Africa. This, ODI’s report finds, is not being sufficiently addressed when it comes to sustainable climate information services.

Mairi Dupar, ODI Research Fellow and lead author of the report, said:

“Weather and climate information services are too often the missing ingredient of international climate talks and climate finance flows – and are often overlooked. But investing properly in these services so that they are robust, attuned to users’ needs, and sustainable for the long term is essential for getting climate change adaptation right. Nowhere is this more crucial than in sub-Saharan Africa, whose communities are deeply affected by climate change impacts.

Investing in effective, sustainable climate services is a vital part of adapting to climate change. This new report sets out how stakeholders, from government leaders and domestic agencies through to civil society organisations and development partners, can rise to the challenge to make sustainable, country-led climate resilience a reality.”

The ODI report looked at projects dedicated to building the capacity of weather and climate information services. Countries where projects were taking place included Rwanda, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, Somalia and South Sudan and regionally in East and West Africa. Projects included strengthening weather observation networks and understanding of past and predicted climate trends, as well as delivering weather and climate information to those who need it for their everyday livelihood and business decisions.

The report found that the short-term improvements may be easily eroded if investment is not backed up by long-term plans to work with African institutions to keep climate services operational and local knowledge up-to-date after the projects end. The report’s recommendations include consolidating professional networks on the ground and producing sustainable business models that are in sync with national development priorities.

Improved capacity and know-how are required, not just within National Meteorological and Hydrological Services, but also within NGOs, women’s groups, civil society organisations and media organisations. These groups, the report finds, are key to delivering relevant and useful climate information to local communities and businesses: from artisanal fishermen to airline managers and public health officials.

Livingstone Byandaga, Project Coordinator at CIAT-Rwanda, one of the WISER partners that delivered a UK-funded project to implement a national framework for climate services, said:

“Establishing high-level political buy-in and accountability for climate services is especially true in Rwanda where the Government takes issues of climate change seriously. Our project focused on implementing the National Framework for Climate Services to ensure buy-in and accountability. We have trained the staff of Meteo Rwanda but there has to be the commitment to keep the trained people and maintain their skills over time; sometimes the skills acquired are not sustainably used to benefit the users of climate services – as the ODI/WISER report suggests.” 

The projects in the study were funded by the UK Government’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO). However, weather and climate information services are crucial in helping states adapt to climate change and, therefore, these recommendations apply to all investors and managers of national and local funded projects.

(PAMACC News) - A new report from global think tank ODI sheds light on the need to strengthen sustainable climate services across Africa if ambitions for effective climate adaptation are to be realised - released ahead of the Climate Ambition Summit, which takes place on 25 and 26 January 2021.

African countries are expected to be hit hard by climate change, and unpredictable and extreme weather is already having a significant impact on people’s lives across the continent.

Well-functioning weather and climate information services can save lives and livelihoods. In order for African communities and businesses to adapt more effectively to the inevitable impacts of climate change, weather and climate information services must be vastly strengthened as quickly as possible – say ODI researchers.

ODI’s report 'Investing for sustainable climate services: Insights from the African experience' looks at the support provided to strengthen weather and climate information services in several African countries from 2016 to 2021. The authors consulted extensively with the experts who ran 15 projects across Africa as part of the Weather and Climate Information Services for Africa (WISER) programme. They found that donors have largely supported capacity-building efforts by funding short-term improvements, but without long-term political and financial commitments, high-level buy-in from stakeholders, and strong and inclusive partnerships, projects lack sufficient traction and funding to guarantee viable results. 

Where donor assistance is sought, donors should commit long term to bringing climate services up to scratch in order to fulfil their promise to support Africa’s resilience to climate change.

The Climate Adaptation Summit 2021 - attended by world leaders including Boris Johnson, Emmanuel Macron and Sheikh Hasina - will highlight the need to accelerate climate adaptation in Africa. This, ODI’s report finds, is not being sufficiently addressed when it comes to sustainable climate information services.

Mairi Dupar, ODI Research Fellow and lead author of the report, said:

“Weather and climate information services are too often the missing ingredient of international climate talks and climate finance flows – and are often overlooked. But investing properly in these services so that they are robust, attuned to users’ needs, and sustainable for the long term is essential for getting climate change adaptation right. Nowhere is this more crucial than in sub-Saharan Africa, whose communities are deeply affected by climate change impacts.

Investing in effective, sustainable climate services is a vital part of adapting to climate change. This new report sets out how stakeholders, from government leaders and domestic agencies through to civil society organisations and development partners, can rise to the challenge to make sustainable, country-led climate resilience a reality.”

The ODI report looked at projects dedicated to building the capacity of weather and climate information services. Countries where projects were taking place included Rwanda, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, Somalia and South Sudan and regionally in East and West Africa. Projects included strengthening weather observation networks and understanding of past and predicted climate trends, as well as delivering weather and climate information to those who need it for their everyday livelihood and business decisions.

The report found that the short-term improvements may be easily eroded if investment is not backed up by long-term plans to work with African institutions to keep climate services operational and local knowledge up-to-date after the projects end. The report’s recommendations include consolidating professional networks on the ground and producing sustainable business models that are in sync with national development priorities.

Improved capacity and know-how are required, not just within National Meteorological and Hydrological Services, but also within NGOs, women’s groups, civil society organisations and media organisations. These groups, the report finds, are key to delivering relevant and useful climate information to local communities and businesses: from artisanal fishermen to airline managers and public health officials.

Livingstone Byandaga, Project Coordinator at CIAT-Rwanda, one of the WISER partners that delivered a UK-funded project to implement a national framework for climate services, said:

“Establishing high-level political buy-in and accountability for climate services is especially true in Rwanda where the Government takes issues of climate change seriously. Our project focused on implementing the National Framework for Climate Services to ensure buy-in and accountability. We have trained the staff of Meteo Rwanda but there has to be the commitment to keep the trained people and maintain their skills over time; sometimes the skills acquired are not sustainably used to benefit the users of climate services – as the ODI/WISER report suggests.” 

The projects in the study were funded by the UK Government’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO). However, weather and climate information services are crucial in helping states adapt to climate change and, therefore, these recommendations apply to all investors and managers of national and local funded projects.