The President of the African Development Bank, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina has made a strong case for increased American and global investments to help unlock Africa’s agriculture potential. He said that what Africa desired most currently is investments and not aids.
Adesina, a former Nigeria’s Minister for Agriculture made the remarks as the Distinguished Guest Speaker, at the USDA’s 94th Agriculture Outlook Forum in Virginia on Thursday, on the theme: ‘The Roots of Prosperity’. “For too long, Agriculture has been associated with what I call the three Ps – pain, penury, and poverty.
The fact though is that agriculture is a huge wealth-creating sector that is primed to unleash new economic opportunities that will lift hundreds of millions of people out of poverty,” said Adesina, who appealed to the US private sector to fundamentally change the way it views African agriculture. “Think about it, the size of the food and agriculture market in Africa will rise to $1 trillion by 2030.
This is the time for US agri-businesses to invest in Africa,” he said. ‘’And for good reason: Think of a continent where McKinsey projects household consumption is expected to reach nearly $2.1trn and business-to-business expenditure will reach $3.5 trn by 2025.
Think of a continent brimming with 840 million youth, the youngest population in the world, by 2050.” “As the nation that first inspired me and then welcomed me with open arms, permit me to say that I am here to seek a partnership with America: a genuine partnership to help transform agriculture in Africa, and by so doing unlock the full potential of agriculture in Africa, unleash the creation of wealth that will lift millions out of poverty in Africa, while creating wealth and jobs back home right here in America,” Adesina said.
At the Forum attended by the US Secretary of Agriculture, Sonny Perdue; Deputy Secretary of Agriculture, Stephen Censky; President of the World Food Prize Foundation, Kenneth Quinn; Chief Economist of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Robert Johansson; Deputy Chief Economist, Warren Preston; and several top level government officials and private sector operators, Adesina announced that the African Development Bank is spearheading a number of transformative business and agricultural initiatives.
He said, “We are launching the Africa Investment Forum, as a 100% transactional platform, to leverage global pension funds and other institutional investors to invest in Africa in Johannesburg, South Africa from November 7-9.” “The African Development Bank is also pioneering the establishment of Staple Crop Processing Zones in 10 African countries, that are expected to transform rural economies into zones of economic prosperity and save African economies billions of dollars in much needed foreign reserves”.
Acording to him, “We must now turn the rural areas from zones of economic misery to zones of economic prosperity. This requires a total transformation of the agriculture sector. “At the core of this must be rapid agricultural industrialization.
We must not just focus on primary production but on the development of agricultural value chains,” the 2017 World Food Prize Laureate added. “That way, Africa will turn from being at the bottom to the top of global value chains.”He said.
