HalalFocus
Agriculture is the backbone of Africa’s economy. To ensure Africa’s food security is resilient, the continent’s food systems need a new approach with multi-sectoral and multi-stakeholder coordination.
AGRF 2022 Summit is a five-day gathering of the continent’s heads of states, government leaders, thought leaders, and eminent delegates to unite efforts toward Africa’s food security. The AGRF is hosted by the Government of Rwanda and the AGRF Partner’s Group. Under the leadership of H.E. Paul Kagame, President of the Republic of Rwanda, the AGRF 20222 will be held from 5th September until 9th September 2022 in Kigali, Rwanda.
Africa Green Revolution Forum (AGRF) is a premier forum for Africa’s food and agriculture where it will spearhead an approach that combines multi-stakeholders across multi-disciplines to enable a resilient food system and climate-sensitive strategies toward Africa’s food security.
OneAgrix is honoured to be invited to speak at the AGRF 2022 Summit where OneAgrix’s CEO and Co-founder, Diana Sabrain, will be discussing Harnessing the power of technology to enable Africa for a resilient food system with Paula Ingabire, Minister of ICT, Ken Lohento, Digital Agriculture Specialist, FAO, Dr Emmanuel Okagbenin, AATF, and the Session Chair is Dr Canisius Kanangire, Executive Director, AATF. The session is jointly organised by the African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF), Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations, and Tony Blair Institute for Global Change.
Ms. Sabrain will also be on another panel in a session on Scaling up Innovations for Climate-Resilient Food, Land, and Water Systems among other established panellists. The session will be moderated by Kwessiatta-krah Director, Country Alignment and Systems Integration (CASI) and the Senior Advisor Agriculture Development of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF).
In addition to the speaking engagements, OneAgrix is also invited to the Agribusiness Deal Room to engage with several African Governments bilaterally in the areas of the food crisis, diversification of food sources and a roadmap towards digital transformation in the agricultural trade and exports.
As an ambassador for them, OneAgrix will also bring to the table the Food Convergence Innovation (FCI), a movement brainchild of Professor Laurette Dubé, founder and scientific director of the McGill Centre for the Convergence of Health and Economics, McGill University. The FCI ecosystem leverages stakeholder connectivity to enhance business, economic and societal outcomes related to food. These connections foster more targeted food innovations for lasting commercial success, competitiveness and societal impact.
OneAgrix is the world’s pioneering B2B agricultural and halal digital trade ecosystem solving food system challenges. Based in Singapore and Switzerland, OneAgrix, through its private-public partnerships, has worked with various African countries, and organisations to promote trade flow in and outside of Africa. These include Nigeria Feeds the World Initiative, the International Trade Centre’s Guinea Integra Project, African Agri Council, and African Farmers Association of South Africa (AFASA).
According to Diana Sabrain, “Africa has an untapped potential in terms of its agricultural sector and could leapfrog itself from raw materials trade to local processing industries and be a food manufacturing giant to serve the global market. Most importantly, this leap will inspire job creation in the continent while combating unemployment and inevitably reduces poverty. We are honoured to be given the opportunity to work together with some of the continent’s local ecosystems, building bridges between Africa and the global market.”
As a digital trade ecosystem with food traceability technology, OneAgrix is also poised to engage with African countries which are members of the Organisation Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to access the global halal market valued at USD2.55 trillion. It aims to be a digital bridge to connect the African food supply chains for the continent’s intra-trade and to the rest of the world by seamlessly trading on OneAgrix.
Ms. Sabrain explained, “OneAgrix has front row seats watching the state of the food crisis unfold. Events far away in Ukraine have caused food crises around the world, and Africa is not spared. To enable the continent to have a more resilient food security, more intra-trade between African nations by leveraging on digital transformation in addition to multi-stakeholders involvement, ranging from policy makers, the private sector, academia and civil society are much needed to achieve this goal.”
“Nonetheless, we recognise the complexities involved in the delivery of digital transformation initiatives in Africa. We still need to overcome several challenges in the African market such as limited broadband connectivity and affordability which reduces the ability of small farm holders to accelerate digitalisation. Regardless, we remain optimistic as movements like the FCI is critical in bringing stakeholders together in planting the seeds of tomorrow.”
