March 2022: Changing the Landscape of Agriculture in Africa
Date: March 23, 2022 8:00am-9:15am PST

Context

According to surveys conducted by the World Bank, the share of households involved in agriculture across various regions of Africa has increased since the start of the pandemic. 60% of the world’s uncultivated, arable land is in Africa, yet many African countries import food at high costs, depleting their forex reserves. How do we reverse this process to support local agriculture and boost employment? What role can African governments play to set targeted policy initiatives to ensure secure land, tax incentives, work permits, supply chains, and other mechanisms to enable a flourishing agricultural sector? What investment frameworks would help regional farms be more attractive to international private equity investment? This session explores opportunities, funding avenues, and best practices for shaping the future of the agricultural sector in Africa.

MODERATOR

Elisabeth Feleke

 Chief Programming Officer, U.S. African Development Foundation (USADF)

Panelist 1

Jehiel Oliver

 Founder and CEO, Hello Tractor

Panelist 2

Dorcas Lukwesa

 Founder, Mobile Aquaponics

Panelist 3

Dr. Adegbola Adesogan

 Professor of Ruminant Nutrition and the Director of the Food Systems Institute and the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Livestock Systems

Bios

Elisabeth Feleke (MODERATOR)

Chief Programming Officer, U.S. African Development Foundation (USADF)

Elisabeth (Liz) Feleke is Chief Programming Officer at the U.S. African Development Foundation (USADF). She has over 20 years of experience in international development management, public private partnerships, and policy reform in Africa. She previously served as Resident Country Director and Deputy Country Director for the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) Compact in Ghana, and as Deputy Country Director for the MCC project in Namibia, these two MCC projects each exceeded $300 million. In addition, Ms. Feleke worked as the Regional Program Manager for West Africa for the Africa Center for Strategic Studies in Dakar, Senegal, spearheaded programs with the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), and U.S bilateral missions in the region on security and economic issues.

Jehiel Oliver

Founder and CEO, Hello Tractor

Jehiel Oliver is the founder and CEO of Hello Tractor, an agricultural technology company working across Africa, Asia, and the Americas to bring economic prosperity to rural farming communities. Hello Tractor’s IoT technology and farm equipment marketplace services more than half a million smallholder farmers through 3,000+ farm equipment owners on the platform. For their creative use of commercial markets to serve low-income communities, Hello Tractor was recognized as a 2021 World-Changing Company by Fortune Magazine. Jehiel was appointed under the Obama Administration to serve two years as a member of the President’s Advisory Council on Doing Business in Africa, where he most recently chaired the technology subcommittee.

Dorcas Lukwesa

Founder, Mobile Aquaponics

Dorcas Lukwesa holds a bachelor’s degree in Agriculture Sciences from EARTH University and she is the founder of Mobile Aquaponics a social venture dedicated to mitigating the impact of climate change while supporting women smallholder farmers in rural areas of Zambia by offering training in implementing small-scale aquaponics systems of farming constructed with locally available materials like bamboo to improve agricultural production and livelihoods under climate crisis. Dorcas is currently a graduate research assistant at Auburn University in the United States doing her Master of Science degree in Horticulture specializing in developing small-scale aquaponics systems and learning about controlled environment agriculture.
Dr. Adegbola Adesogan

Dr. Adegbola Adesogan

Professor of Ruminant Nutrition and the Director of the Food Systems Institute and the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Livestock Systems

Dr. Adesogan is a Professor of Ruminant Nutrition and the Director of the Food Systems Institute and the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Livestock Systems. His research focuses on sustainably increasing animal-source food production and consumption; improving forage production, quality and preservation; and using feed additives, forages and byproducts to sustainably improve animal production and health.

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