By Foday Moriba Conteh
As part of their efforts towards strengthening Agri-food Supply Chains in Africa, Craving 4 Development, in collaboration with SL Agcelerator has on Wednesday concluded a three days Pan African Symposium on agriculture: strengthening agri-food supply chains in Africa.
The three days symposium, which marks the 3rd edition of the Pan African Symposium on Agriculture: Strengthening Agrifood Supply Chains In Africa was held at the Bintumani Hotel on Aberdeen in Freetown.
Speaking to this medium the Founder of Craving 4 Development, Aminata Kane Balde said the vision of the symposium is to create a regional knowledge and partnership based platform that help harness the power of youth involvement in Agriculture and the potential of agricultural innovation, food sovereignty as well as investments and connected supply chains in Africa.
She added that the Symposium aims at setting in motion an initiative that allows practical knowledge sharing, export readiness, and exposure to systems, businesses, enablers, and innovations in order to build robust frameworks and agro-industrial companies, with enhanced human capital, interconnected networks of experts, well-structured and accessible markets, and opportunities for sustained collaborations.
Aminata Kane Balde stated that this year’s event marks the third edition of the Pan African Symposium on Agriculture bringing 23 African countries together from December 5th to 7th 2022 with a focus on Strengthening Agrifood Supply Chains in Africa. The event recorded 11 million engagements on social media and trended in 8 African countries for its 2nd edition held in Dakar, Senegal in November 2021.
She said that the overall objective of the Symposium is to support African youth to take advantage of the great African opportunities in terms of sustainable production and value addition, access to markets, partnerships and investments, furthering that at the end of the symposium, they should be able to provide better opportunities to develop linkages between African markets, build capacities and transfer technologies, and to ensure that young Africans are equipped to foster sustainable production and value addition in the agricultural sector.
Aminata Kane Balde revealed that the Symposium was structured to suit the varied needs and diverse stakeholder expectations. The various themes were discussed in breakdown sessions to allow a more thorough understanding of the issues: The villages were set up to showcase products and services as well as innovations that are representative of the African ‘Agri-entrepreneurial’ potential.
The Pan African Agrifood Chain which was founded by Aminata Kane Balde and co- founded by Tafadzwa Chiganga and Tolulope Aina in many African countries were represented and a Rainbow of African expertise and diversity were also displayed.
