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Heifer International, a global nonprofit organization dedicated to ending hunger and poverty through technology and innovation, will engage key stakeholders at the Africa Food Systems Forum 2024 (AFS Forum 2024). The organization aims to deepen discussions on how innovative financing can drive technology integration to enhance smallholder farmers’ productivity.
The AFS Forum, Africa’s premier platform for food security dialogue and collaboration, will take place from September 2-6 in Kigali, Rwanda. The event will bring together thousands of industry leaders, policymakers, innovators, development agencies, private sector entities, farmers, and agripreneurs to address critical challenges and explore opportunities in Africa’s food systems.
Rwandan President Paul Kagame and other global leaders will attend, underscoring the high-level commitment to tackling Africa’s food system challenges. Organized by AGRA, the AFS Forum is the continent’s largest gathering of agriculture stakeholders. This year’s theme is “Innovate, Accelerate and Scale: Delivering Food Systems Transformation in a Digital and Climate Era.”
At the summit, Heifer International, in collaboration with strategic partners, young innovators, and smallholder farming organizations within its ecosystem, will share their experiences and insights. The organization hopes to inspire collaborative action to leverage innovative financing for accelerating technology integration in agriculture.
Heifer’s Mechanisation for Africa project serves as a key example of how catalytic funding can drive agricultural transformation. A report released earlier this year detailed how Heifer’s innovative financing of a tech-driven tractor leasing initiative by agritech company Hello Tractor expanded the project, unlocked commercial capital, and helped smallholder farmers increase their incomes by over 200%. The initiative also created more than 250 jobs for young Africans in roles such as tractor owners, booking agents, operators, and technicians.
Adesuwa Ifedi, Senior Vice President of Africa Programs at Heifer International, stated, “We are inspired by the incredible contributions young visionary African innovators can make towards transforming our food systems, and we are actively backing their innovations. Through our various programs, especially AYuTe NextGen, we provide the catalytic financing and market knowledge needed for these innovators to scale their agritech solutions for smallholder farmers.”
By integrating finance and technology, Heifer aims to transition smallholder farmers from subsistence farming to scalable, profitable businesses, creating new jobs across the agricultural value chain for young people. Ifedi emphasized the importance of this approach in transforming Africa’s food systems and expressed Heifer’s commitment to engaging with partners, stakeholders, and policymakers at the AFS Forum to accelerate food systems transformation.
Heifer will bring several young innovators from six African countries to the 2024 AFS Forum, showcasing their efforts to support smallholder farmers. The organization is excited to facilitate generational connections in agriculture, recognizing that the future of Africa’s agriculture relies on the next generation’s ability to introduce appropriate technology and innovation.
Delegates at the 2024 AFS Forum will discuss innovations, technological advances, policies, business models, and investments needed to accelerate sustainable food systems transformation in Africa. The forum will also provide public and private sector leaders with an opportunity to address the urgent need to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030 and meet the Malabo Declaration’s commitments by 2025.
