When there is food, there is life – a call to innovate for food in Africa.

In Africa, there is a significant opportunity for innovators to hunt for growth in Agriculture. We need more food and when there is food, there is life. One of the key drivers of this opportunity is the increasing cost of food, which is currently 42% higher than it was between 2014 and 2016. The top 5 foods in Africa are cassava, maize, palm oil, rice, and wheat. As you see, there’s no “protein” in there. Africa is the only continent in the world where animal products are not among the top five most consumed foods.

Africa is still the fastest growing population, and amidst global increase in prices and shortage, we have to work hard to solve our problems lest we die. According to FAO, nearly 25 million Nigerians are at risk of facing hunger between June and August 2023 (lean season) if urgent action is not taken, according to the October 2022 Cadre Harmonisé, a Government led and United Nations supported food and nutrition analysis carried out twice a year. This is a projected increase from the estimated 17 million people currently at risk of food insecurity.

In the spirit of “fast forwarding”, we dig deeper into documented artifacts on what is happening today and why? Having understood that, we share our own thoughts on what areas technology entrepreneurship and innovators can act.

One of our core principles at Fast Forward is that all alternatives matter. As such, we don’t spend time blaming governments. Yes, a lot of government interventions in this space have failed due to corruption and unintended consequences, but then was it a government problem in the first place or a demand and supply challenge? To this effect, we focus more on challenges that can be solved or improved upon by entrepreneurial endeavors first, then supported and by the government and not the other way round. The rationale is simple: if you wait for the government, you will probably wait for a lifetime.

More import substitution.

Did you know that Nigeria is the largest producer of sorghum with the US being second. Now, Sorghum has been touted as a low cost alternative to wheat in the wake of global events. With wheat being Nigeria’s second largest import, it would be interesting to see what we can do with increased sorghum production, sorghum processing and come up with sorghum based meals (flour, cakes and more) – maybe we will have another “semovita” or “indomie” moment that is not “imported” but drives us towards “self-reliance”. With 10x more wheat production compared to sorghum.

We expect creators, manufacturers to explore and turn this into a social cause and help catalyze a demand for Nigeria’s sorghum and other commodities that reduce import numbers.

Reducing food waste

A 2019 report by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) estimated that sub-Saharan Africa wastes about 30% of its food, with the highest levels of waste occurring in the processing and distribution stages.

Nnaemeka Ikegwuonu, farmer, entrepreneur and Legatum Foundry Fellow, says every year in Nigeria, 123 million metric tons of food never makes it to consumers because it spoils in the African heat before getting to the market, in a presentation at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).

Tackling food waste is additive innovation, which is somewhat simpler and can be the baby steps we need; and since the challenges we face are urgent, projects with lower time-to-value are important so we can see the value in increase in retained income faster than other challenge areas.

We expect to see improved transportation infrastructure, information services for market access, better inventory management, and innovative packaging and processing technologies or end products that leverage on any of these process innovations to create value and deliciousness.

Mr Bill Gates and Chickens

Mr. Bill Gates is obsessed with chickens and so should all Africans. Eggs are one of top 10 most nutritious foods, in fact eggs have been touted as the one food with almost all the nutrients. The average annual consumption of eggs is only 44 eggs per person in Africa, compared with 189 eggs for the rest of the world.

Chicken was considered a luxury item in the United States in the 1800s. Only the wealthy could afford to eat it regularly. Chicken consumption in the U.S. only increased during World War II due to a shortage of beef and pork.  Europe started eating more chicken than beef and veal in 1996 due to increased awareness of “mad cow disease”.

With the advent of the artificial incubator, mass rearing of chicken kicked off by an accidental mailing, Dr. Robert Baker’s invention of the chicken burger, chicken nuggets, chicken hot dogs and 30+ chicken somethings, chicken soon took off.

In Africa, we already have some of these tailwinds in place. We love chickens, we know how to rear chickens. However we need to scale production and reduce the cost of feed. The job to be done to increase availability of chicken and eggs in Africa is an entrepreneurial and innovation challenge.

Our defragmented entrepreneurial environment can also support livestock farming. Impoverished families can rear, consume and sell chickens. However, a lot of well-meaning programs in this space have been challenged due to corruption, poverty and lack of sustainability due to the lopsidedness of NGO and market incentives. What if large firms introduced wagestreaming on top of offtaking to allow local farmers rear chickens and get paid on the go as the chickens grow while guaranteeing offtaking. Who will innovate on the feeds of today and crash the feed price to almost nothing? How do we use social media to make hacks and methods of rearing healthier, bigger and more nutritious chickens at a fraction of the cost widely available to more people? We expect to see innovators, entrepreneurs and creators rising to the challenge across the value chain from production, aggregation, processing, wholesale, retail, to consumption.

What does Cassava and Afrobeats have in common?

This is what we asked our new friend, ChatGPT, and here is what it has to say:

Cassava and Afrobeats are both cultural products originating from Africa. Cassava is a starchy root vegetable widely cultivated and consumed in many African countries, while Afrobeats is a music genre that originated in West Africa and is characterized by its fusion of African rhythms, hip-hop, and pop music. In some cases, cassava and other traditional African foods have been referenced in Afrobeats lyrics and music videos, highlighting their cultural significance.

With the new found influence Africa is having on the world, we think its “Cassava” time. The job to be done here is an entrepreneurship challenge. Nigeria is already by far the largest producer of Cassava (63%) and have mostly perfected how to process it. Could we change the the world’s taste buds? Could our chefs make recipes and birth snacks that eventually make their way through to the big cities of the world as meals and packaged products? Could our “African” restaurants become truly continental serving the world instead of just Africans, like we’ve seen with Japanese, Thai, Chinese, Indian, French and Ethiopian Cuisines.

It’s time to build for food.

These are not exhaustive themes, there are also core themes around supporting access to market solutions, smallholder farmers, agri-fintech, crowdfunding and inputs sourcing which are equally exciting and contributing value today in the market. We are rooting for every entrepreneur, innovator or creator out there that sees an opportunity to create impact and business value at the same time. We are not the only ones willing to back, organizations like GIZ, Bayer Cares Foundation, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation are investing immensely in scaling agricultural innovation through startups.  Your work will be definitive for generations to come. Our lives and theirs will depend on it.

Opeyemi Awoyemi is a general partner at Fast Forward, a venture studio and early stage fund that builds and backs companies to unlock prosperity in Africa. He is also an Innovator-in-Residence at the Legatum Centre for Development and Entrepreneurship at MIT