This doesn’t mean you’re not going to get what you need, the continent has the capacity to produce raw materials that result in a range of products, from food to beauty and apparel, but all too often these are more appreciated in the West and less locally.
These concerns were raised at the just-ended TrustAfrica conference on improving smallholder agriculture in Africa. According to Professor Sam Moyo, Executive Director of the African Institute for Agrarian Studies (AIAS), there are over 600 million people in sub-Saharan Africa that depend on smallholder agriculture, it remains a basis for economic development, including employment. Unfortunately for smallholder farmers across the continent they face huge challenges in terms of input, credit, markets, information and responsive government policies that address the small scale of their business.
Whilst there have been initiatives on the international and national levels to address support towards agriculture – such as the 2003 Maputo Declaration under which African governments committed to spending at least 10% of their national budgets on agriculture, and the Malabo Declaration in 2014 which reaffirmed this – there is plenty that the individual can do at the local level.
200m depend on it
As consumer, across the board people on the continent have the ability to support the mainstream of African society. After all, despite high rates of urbanisation, the majority of Africans are still living in rural areas, by simply buying products that will support their livelihoods and markets. Local demand will not only bring an increase in income and development to these farmers, and the 200 million farmers that depend on small holder agriculture, but it will also protect these farmers from external shocks and foreign trade protectionism.
The products that can be bought to support Africa’s smallholder agriculture can be readily found in urban areas – and are certainly not limited to raw products. By buying locally manufactured products, this will support an entire supply chain within the country.
A typical example of this is the BioEssence brand in Senegal. One of the key ingredients used in BioEssence products is shea nuts, used to make shea butter. Shea butter is a moisturising paste, which for generations African women used to nourish their skin, and today is in high demand globally. Senegal has an abundance of shea trees, but the smallholders lack the infrastructure to fully capitalise on this valuable nut.
Most of Senegal’s shea nuts are processed at low grades or sent abroad to be manufactured by foreign companies. Bioessence however has sourced shea from a women’s co-op in Kédougou, a small town in south-eastern Senegal, and produces and distributes cosmetic products made from the shea butter which they extract mechanically from their factory in Dakar. The company now employs over 4,000 people and has led to the tremendous empowerment of smallholder women in agriculture.
Middle class pay off
As Africa’s middle class continues to grow, and African women develop increased spending power, smallholder agriculturalists could greatly benefit from the development of local cosmetic companies that would use their resources. Unfortunately, local beauty markets are flooded with foreign products and the predominant market for BioEssence products is international – those abroad, having recognised the incredible benefits of this raw product, are willing to pay large sums of money for it.
This is similar in the case of argan oil from Morocco, although the international reputation of this oil has made it a true success story for smallholder agriculture. A plant oil, argan oil is produced from the kernels of the argan tree, endemic to Morocco.
It has become incredibly popular globally because of its proven nourishing properties, rich in unsaturated and essential fatty acids, which make it ideal for shampoos, skin creams and nail care products. Because of this, Morocco’s argan oil is now the most expensive edible oil in the world. High-value argan markets have sparked a bonanza of activity, most of which is done ethically and through cooperatives that ensure members benefit accordingly. This has resulted in a boom enabling some rural households to increase consumption, goat hers and send their girls to secondary school.
By producing locally processed beauty products, such as argan oil or in the case of BioEssence, consumers have supported a whole supply chain from the women that gather the nuts or fruits, to those that transform it into butter or oils and those that do the branding. These industries can be substantial, particularly when a brand branches into several products.
Many good stories
Companies such as Africajou in West Africa, which engage local producers fairly, have rolled out a variety of products from vegetable oils to soaps. There is also LAYU in Senegal. From clothes to jewelry, accessories and home décor, LAYU promotes high-quality West Africa products that will support a supply chain from artisans and artists to smallholder farmers. Based in Dakar, LAYU also has a café were they serve a Senegalese menu. In doing this they are supporting “minor crops” – crops that have minimal usage and often labelled so by specific country policies - yet they are often widely produced by smallholder farmers since they are traditional.
The choice on what we eat has an incredible impact on the lives of smallholder farmers. As Africans move away from traditional meals, traditional African food crops are less used and farmers suffer. The crops that tend to garner the most attention at the international and policy-making level are the major staple and commercial crops - minor crops such as yam, millets, groundnuts and cassava are neglected.
However there are groups that are trying to bring these traditional foods back – for example, Uganda’s “Cassava: Adding Value for Africa” project aims to develop value chains for high quality cassava flour, increasing the incomes of at least 16,000 smallholder households and processing employees within the country. Cassava is versatile and its flour can be used to make a variety of baked goods, from muffins to cakes and cookies. It can also be used in breweries, plywood or paper- board, animal feed and its leaves are also delicious in stews.
Perhaps the meal provided over the festive season can include nutritious African vegetables like cassava leaves, African nightshade (known locally as Mnavu), pumpkin leaves and Amaranth (known locally as Manangu). All with high nutritional value. And in some cases you can miss the mad rush to the grocers to by them. In Kenya, Kayalo groceries home delivers fresh and shade dried organic vegetables, sustainably supporting local farmers. Products such as a pack of dried “sukuma wiki” sell for less than $2 – consider that in the West dried sukuma wiki, known as kale, has taken organic food shops by storm. Marketed for being both healthy and delicious, raw kale or kale chips can be sold in the US for almost $8 a packet.
The purchase of indigenous fruit is widespread but there should also be recognition for those companies who are processing these further. Zena’s Exotic Fruits is a small, family owned, eco-friendly, food processing company based in Dakar, Senegal. Having purchased fruits from local farmer partners, they process them into international standard goods that includes jams and spreads, syrups and a wide variety of juices and drinks
These examples of small-scale local initiatives can be found all over the continent, yet far too often local African markets are flooded with imported goods. To a great extent it is ultimately up to the consumer to make the decision as to which industry and individuals they wish to support.
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