American oil mogul John D Rockefeller built the world’s biggest fortune ever – rebased into today’s money he’d be worth over $300bn, three times that of the richest person alive today. Rockefeller’s genius wasn’t restricted to business, The 103 year old foundation he creates still thrives, and in Davos today announced a hefty $130m project to attack a problem that afflicts literally hundreds of millions of African farmers. The inability to get products to market timeously destroys a third of the crops grown on the continent. Mamadou Biteye, MD of the Foundation’s Africa operation, tells Biznews.com’s Alec Hogg how the Foundation intends changing attitudes through educating farmers in four focused areas.
I’m here with Mamadou Biteye. He’s the Managing Director of the Africa office of the Rockefeller Foundation. Just a little bit of background: people in South Africa have not really been that exposed to the Rockefeller Foundation. It goes back to John D, does it?
Well, thank you very much Alec. Yes, the Rockefeller Foundation is a private philanthropy that was created in 1913 – 103 years ago – by John D Rockefeller with the mission of promoting the wellbeing of humanity worldwide. We of course, in the 103 years of our history, have been interpreting this mission with respect to each time’s challenges. In the 21st century, we think that one off the biggest challenge that the world faces is really the growing inequality and the resurgence, the biggest frequency, and more intensity of natural disasters, which affect all development gains achieved by people.
It’s interesting. You’re a bit ahead of the game because as Oxfam was telling us, 62 people now have the same amount of wealth at 3.5-billion but those 62 people have also started foundations. They’ve also started to try to work towards inequality and it’s interesting to see that the richest man in history (if you brought his numbers up today) had this ideal 103 years ago, so nothing much changes.
Actually, yes in some ways but we have to say that we have observed still growing inequality since then. This is due to various reasons. Some of them are due to policies, which need to change. Obviously, to work on the inequality or to build more inclusive economies, which is one of the pillars of the Rockefeller Foundation’s work today alongside building resilience of people and communities, it’s important to promote and find more equitable opportunities for people. I also think that redistribution in certain ways, to provide safety nets as well as opportunities to the most vulnerable is important as well.
Yes. It’s a really complex issue and you’ve grabbed one of them. Today you announced $130m initiative to address the wasteage of food. The way your research has unfolded shows that it’s not only a dreadful problem that a lot of food is being wasted – maybe one-third of what we’re producing – but also on the other hand, that it’s not helping with global warming.
Actually, when you think about the issue of food wasteage and spoilage, it is really a very important issue that speaks both to inequality (how you can build more inclusive societies) as well as how you can build smallholder farmers’ resilience. We’re talking really talking here about $1trn issue. Let me just give you an example why it is so important. Imagine if every time you opened your wallet, one-third of your money fell down day-after-day. This is exactly what is happening with food produced by 470-million smallholder farmers in Africa.
They can’t eat it themselves and they can’t sell it either.
They can’t eat it. They can’t sell it because this is lost in the process – in the value chain – from harvest to market, due to different reasons. Poor harvesting techniques, lack of storage, lack of infrastructure, lack of linkages to markets, and lack of access to post-harvest loss-reducing technologies. This is absolutely, very important and this deprives the smallholder farmers with a minimum of 30 percent of their potential income.
The governments have been trying hard to address this. The previous Nigerian government had some strong initiatives in agriculture. Why aren’t they able to make the breakthrough that’s required?
I think that we need to acknowledge that there are different initiatives that are trying to address this issue. I’m well aware of the initiatives made by the former Nigerian Minister of Agriculture – the agri-processing zones, which is also going into that direction. What we have seen is that although there are many interventions, none of them is bringing together four key elements that are important to address this issue.
And those elements are…
Those elements are nothing new, really. It’s combining – in an intentional way and a systemic way – market linkages, farmer training and aggregation, access to technology that is affordable and appropriate, and linkages to financing. These four elements are critical elements that need to be applied in an intervention, and not as separate actions but really in an integrated way. That’s how you can have an impact on reducing food loss.
What are you doing about it? How is this $130m going to be applied?
That’s exactly what we will do – applying those four components.
How? You’re going to have people and put the people in the…
That’s what I’m going to say. Applying those four strategy elements in four value chains to start with because our approach at the Rockefeller Foundation…we like to have a catalytic approach, demonstrating a model that works and can be taken by other actors. We will be demonstrating that these four elements can work and we will do it in four representative value chains. These value chains are mango in Kenya, and tomato in Northern Nigeria as illustrative of solutions that can be brought to the crop categories of fruits and vegetables. We will also be working on the maize value chain in Tanzania, as illustrative of solutions for cereals and grains. Finally, on cassava in Nigeria, as illustrative of the roots and tubers crop categories. We are already working with what we call anchor buyers to secure demand and these anchor buyers…
For example, in the mango value chain it’s the Coca-Cola Company, which has huge interests in sourcing more in Africa on the continent, for the beverages it produces, manufactures, and sells on the continent. On the tomato value chain, we’re working with Dangote, which just made a more than $30m investment to build a processing factory for tomatoes in northern Nigeria. We’re also working with the W.F.P. through their patient procurement platform, really for the maize value chain. For the cassava, we’re working with Nestlé in partnership (as anchor buyer). We’re also launching a challenge for innovative technologies that would really help address the main issue with cassava, which is the staple crop in that region in Africa, which is it’s very short shelf-life. How can we double the shelf-life of cassava from 48 hours to 4-5 days? That would make a significant difference in reducing post-harvest loss.
The good thing about this is that you’re focusing. It’s not just talk. You’ve gone ahead. You’ve got your partners. Are you expecting other foundations or other companies to pick up from you soon, or do you have to follow through the whole process as you said earlier? I.e. create the model and then apply it.
Absolutely, we have invested resources – both time and money – and partnerships over a period of 18 months, to really research this issue to build this strategy. This is why we are able to go on point and make this transformation. Obviously, we also have a strong partnership component in this initiative, which will allow us to work with other foundations, bilateral, and multilateral agencies. DATAR is also concerned with this issue because as you know, we are also members of the Champions 12.3, which is actually looking at achieving the SDG 12.3 objective – reducing food wasteage and spoilage by half by 2030. The objective of our initiative is also reducing post-harvest loss in these representative value chains by 50 percent.
And on the ground, it’s all about change. It’s all about changing attitude. It’s all about getting people there to love the fact that they need to change, to benefit.
Absolutely. It’s change, and not just by people. This is a play that will have impact on people (smallholder farmers) who will benefit if they change behaviours, adopt these technologies, reduce post-harvest loss, and increase their uptake to market (and thereby, their incomes). It is also a change by businesses like financial institutions who will provide them with loans to acquire the productive inputs, including post-harvest loss-reducing technologies. It is about corporates who buy these products to also change their sourcing approaches, which will allow farmers to be able to sustainably adopt these technologies and apply them. It’s also profitable and increases their business for these corporates. Finally, it is also about the planet because as many know (or don’t know, because there is a lot of lack of awareness around the issue of food waste and spoilage), more than 25 percent of global fresh water and more than 20 percent of global farmland – every year – are used to grow food that never gets to the table and never gets to be consumed.
Reducing post-harvest loss and reducing food waste means reducing waste of water, fertilisers, and land etcetera. In closing on that point, if food waste and spoilage was a country, it would be the third country with the largest ecological carbon footprint after China and the United States. That is really a huge issue, which humanity needs to be aware of and needs to be committed to tackling because it’s also about sustainability. It’s all about awareness and behavioural change as well as business opportunities.
Mamadou Biteye is the Managing Director of the Rockefeller Foundation in Africa, doing good work.