Ensuring the Right to Food: the role of agricultural innovation

Every year, World Food Day is celebrated to highlight the importance of food security and the urgent need to ensure that everyone has access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food. This year’s theme, “Right to Food for a Better Life and a Better Future,” underscores the critical role that food security plays in achieving global well-being and sustainability.

The theme comes in timely at a point where global statistics on acute food insecurity are at an alarming rate. Climate change, conflict, and economic instability are key drivers of food insecurity. To address these challenges, innovative solutions that provide an enabling environment for agricultural productivity, value addition and improvement in other processes along the agricultural value chain are essential.

As a youth entrepreneurship–focused organisation, Kosmos Innovation Center, since itstarted operation in Ghana, provides support for young people with innovative solutions that enhance food production, distribution, and access, providing them with entrepreneurship training to form start-ups, and building their capacity to nurture and grow these businesses. These startups are often at the cutting edge of developing new technologies and practices that can transform agriculture in Ghana.

Start-ups like Complete Farmer provide an end-to-end digital platform for producers, marketers, and other supply chain actors, to connect.

Awunpara is a start-up that has developed an app that links farmers seeking farm workers. This helps to provide employment for young people seeking employment in the south.

3Farmate Robotics Limited is a start-up that develops cutting-edge Artificial Intelligence powered solutions for crop production automation, using GPS-less self-driving robots

AiScarecrow provides drone services for input application and pest management for large farm sizes, helping farmers to improve productivity.

Harvest Ease Innovators is a company which is into agricultural mechanization in Ghana. Starting with maize, they build small harvesters which harvest and dehusk maize from it stalk. This is efficient and cost effective compared to the traditional way of harvesting maize.

Relevant coaching and mentorship of young people in agriculture remains an effective tool in the Center’s contribution to the nation’s quest for the attainment of food security. Through its uniquely designed programmes such as the AgriTech Challenge, KIC continues to inspire and equip young entrepreneurs with the skills and resources they need to succeed in the agricultural sector, by adapting innovation and technology to improve the agricultural process.

Commenting on the World Food Day Celebration, Benjamin Gyan-Kesse, Executive Director of KIC, said: “It is important to recognize our collective responsibility in ensuring food security. Young people can play a significant role in helping to improve the sector by supporting food productivity, storage, processing, and access.”

“Working in partnership with the Mastercard Foundation, we are committed to providing young people with capacity building to create entrepreneurship and job opportunities within the agricultural sector,” he added.

Looking ahead, the future of food security depends on continued innovation, investment, and collaboration, and KIC’s committed to leading the way in this endeavor. By fostering a culture of innovation and supporting entrepreneurial initiatives, the Centre is working assiduously by laying the groundwork for a sustainable and secure food system.