It’s all about Food … from Agri waste

Nyawira Gitaka
UNLEASH Lab
2 min readAug 7, 2017

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Agriculture is the foundation of any society. Yet, now we are finding ourselves in a situation where we cannot produce enough to feed ourselves. Dan Barber said, “Conventional agriculture has never succeeded in feeding the world, and it’s never produced anything good to eat. For the future, we need to look toward alternatives.” The industry as it is produces millions of tonnes of waste annually that can be processed to produce a high value food- mushrooms! Before we produce more of the foods that we already have can we utilize the waste that we are producing fully to feed ourselves? Using of agri waste to produce food not only produces food- obviously but also helps in environmental conservation.

My interest in agriculture stemmed from my love of conservation. Coming from a country where agriculture and conservation are viewed as conflicting activities, I realized that a lot of the issues and challenges faced not only in conservation but other sectors too can be dealt with once the issue of food shortages and hunger is eliminated. How can this be done? Using the waste we already have to produce food that can be accessible to a large number of people is a good beginning. However, we also have to accept the role that agricultural biotechnology, new farming methods and strategies all tapping into the energy of the youth will play for us to achieve Zero hunger.

“ Africa can feed itself. And it can make the transition from hungry importer to self-sufficiency in a single generation.” says Prof. Calestous Juma. To achieve this by 2030 isn’t the current generation the one to change the narrative?

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Nyawira Gitaka
UNLEASH Lab

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