1 min
In this week's Letter to My Farmers, Babatunde discusses the importance of self-generated, adaptable information services as the first step in advancing agribusiness and moving forward towards the SDGs.
Every year, we get closer to the deadline in achieving the sustainable development goals (SDGs), of which food security is a very vital goal. The new year is a time to reflect and re-strategize to ensure that some goals are achieved, bringing us to the realization of zero hunger. Therefore, we need to be sincere about our challenges; identify the root causes and make genuine efforts to proffer practical solutions that are sustainable, and its impacts are measurable.
Furthermore, we need to put key value chain actors at the center of our discussion rather than focusing only on the production side of the agribusiness. It should be discussed holistically. We need a business that is demand driven rather than being supply driven. Besides, our business should be highly information dependent, and thus accessing appropriate information at every phase of agribusiness growth should be a big priority across the various value chain actors. Therefore, information dissemination should be key in our programme development, and we must ensure that this information can be self-generated, adapted from external sources and modified to meet emerging situations or new realities. To achieve this, we need to build the capacity of various value chain actors in the act of knowledge gathering, knowledge usage and knowledge sharing with the focus of agricultural development in mind.
Finally, we are in a passing phase in the restoration of food supply chain, which was severely hampered by COVID 19 lockdown, therefore, we all must be involved in achieving complete resilience, and identifying major binding constraints that can be barriers to total restoration of an efficient food system in developing countries, especially Africa. Therefore, we need to constantly manage and monitor our growth through an effective data gathering and management system, which is the bedrock for formulation of appropriate policies for the development of our society.
In the spirit of the new year, I wish us all a fruitful and rewarding new year.
Yours-in-Service,
Babatunde
Furthermore, we need to put key value chain actors at the center of our discussion rather than focusing only on the production side of the agribusiness. It should be discussed holistically. We need a business that is demand driven rather than being supply driven. Besides, our business should be highly information dependent, and thus accessing appropriate information at every phase of agribusiness growth should be a big priority across the various value chain actors. Therefore, information dissemination should be key in our programme development, and we must ensure that this information can be self-generated, adapted from external sources and modified to meet emerging situations or new realities. To achieve this, we need to build the capacity of various value chain actors in the act of knowledge gathering, knowledge usage and knowledge sharing with the focus of agricultural development in mind.
Finally, we are in a passing phase in the restoration of food supply chain, which was severely hampered by COVID 19 lockdown, therefore, we all must be involved in achieving complete resilience, and identifying major binding constraints that can be barriers to total restoration of an efficient food system in developing countries, especially Africa. Therefore, we need to constantly manage and monitor our growth through an effective data gathering and management system, which is the bedrock for formulation of appropriate policies for the development of our society.
In the spirit of the new year, I wish us all a fruitful and rewarding new year.
Yours-in-Service,
Babatunde
Related