Unleashing Talents to end hunger
Three years ago, I took a leap of faith and left paid employment to focus on running a business I had started a year earlier. Food has always been my passion and today my business supplies a wide variety of dairy, processed and fresh food products to some of the finest hotels in and around Lagos, Nigeria. My entrepreneurial journey has taken me to the ‘front lines’ of the unending battle to feed over 180 million people of Africa’s most populous country. From the makeshift settlements of the nomadic herdsmen in Sokoto, to the antiquated oil mills in Okitipupa, and closer home at the popular Mile 12 market (arguably the largest fresh foods market in the country), I have first-hand experience dealing with many actors in Nigeria’s food supply chain. It is a system beleaguered by myriad problems and in dire need of an overhaul. It has now become my life’s passion to bring about the change I dream off. There are many hurdles to overcome on this quest, but solving two basic challenges can very well get us off to a brilliant start:
- Technology: Basic technology do simple tasks like shredding vegetables are largely non-existent. This is especially the case for food products that are largely indigenous to Nigeria and neighboring countries. Achieving the level of automation employed by giants like Dole may seem like a pipe dream, but there is plenty of cost savings and productivity gains to be reaped simply by mechanizing age-old manual processes.
2) Linkages: With the exception of a few ‘industrial’ crops such as soy beans, very few formal linkages between stakeholders in various crop value chains exist. Linkages are important for increasing efficiency in supply chains and reducing the impact of market distortions. For instance, some form of alliance among players in the hospitality industry and other food service organizations can form the basis for a veritable market guarantee needed to deploy expensive cold chain distribution for major perishables like tomatoes. Members of the alliance could be linked directly to farmers by a competent logistics/technical partner in this new system.
Often times, I have felt like a lonely Londoner walking a very narrow path on this quest. Indeed, I was still smarting from the disappointment of not progressing to the next stage of an entrepreneurship competition, when a dear friend informed me about UNLEASH. I applied very reluctantly because I considered my ideas rather too lofty. Alas, when I received the notice of acceptance to the UNLEASH program, it was almost too good to be true. Now, I am one of 1,000 talents globally, selected to out think the very real world challenges that the SDGs represent. With barely 13 years to go, UNLEASH is a well thought out initiative for the actualization of these goals by the year 2030.
As expected I have been drafted to the ‘Food’ theme, and our ideas would hopefully get us closer to bequeathing the world with a future with ‘Zero Hunger’. I am very excited to be part of this effort but the sheer enormity of the challenge that this rather lofty goal presents, keeps my excitement in check. Fortunately we would be aided by a small army of experts and innovators from some of the most reputable organizations globally. Again the sheer diversity of cultures and skill sets I have seen on the unofficial Facebook page would add an interesting dimension to the program. Twelve days of learning, brainstorming, co-creating, collaborating and networking on this scale holds a lot of promise for our collective future and I cannot wait to do my bit.
