High-level officials from across Africa, led by former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, will be in Accra, Ghana, on April 12 to launch the Africa Food Prize, a new US $100,000 award celebrating individuals and institutions that are changing the reality of farming in Africa from a struggle to survive to a business that thrives.
As farmers in eastern and southern Africa wrestle with severe drought, the Africa Food Prize arrives as a clarion call for the bold thinking and technical innovation required to overcome this and an array of other challenges.
Winners will be selected by a panel of independent and distinguished leaders in African agriculture chaired by President Obasanjo.
The Africa Food Prize began as the Yara Prize, which was established in 2005 by Yara International ASA in Norway to honor achievements in African agriculture. Moving the Yara Prize to Africa in 2016 and christening it the Africa Food Prize gives the award a distinctive African home, African identity and African ownership.
Past winners include Prof. Tekalign Mamo Assefa, a world-renowned soil scientist credited with revitalizing depleted lands in Ethiopia; Akinwumi Adesina, the former Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development in Nigeria who is now President of the African Development Bank. Dr. Lindiwe Majele Sibanda, a respected policy expert whose “No Agriculture, No Deal” campaign fought for including farmers in global climate talks; Eric Kaduru, whose passion for passion fruit farming is helping more than 1500 young women in Uganda launch profitable agriculture businesses; and Dr. Agnes Kalibata, the current President of AGRA, who rapidly improved food security and farm production during her tenure as Rwanda’s Minister of Agriculture and Animal Resources.
African Eye Report
