Kevin Wilson: Re-Imagining Food Systems in Africa

Join us in a presentation of our journey to re-imagine smallholder farming agriculture that uplifts smallholder farmers to solve food insecurity and lack of food sovereignty for their communities and their regions.
By adopting both Baha’i principles and principles of disruption, Savanna, a private social enterprise, has developed a working model of smallholder commercial farming that provides an integrated farm to fork solution for smallholder farming agriculture. Savanna launched a pilot project in 2022 in the Sikasso Region of southern Mali. Savanna is now beginning to harvest multi-crop produce grown on previously marginal land without the use of chemical fertilizers and adopting low water use technology. The ‘Berela’ project is 100% solar powered and has adopted regenerative farming practices.
We live in an era of ‘false dichotomies’. We will address some of these false dichotomies such as ‘traditional vs. modern’, ‘large scale vs. small-scale’, ‘export oriented vs. domestic agriculture’, ‘technology vs. human labour’ and ‘government / NGO vs. private sector’. The most pernicious false dichotomy is ‘smallholder wealth vs. crop yields’. We need a new metric of net profit for farmers vs. yield.
African agriculture needs to be disrupted. The Green Revolution failed and disenfranchised smallholder farmers throughout the continent. Global north policies have further subjugated the global south including Sub-Saharan Africa. Smallholder farmers have not been able to be prosperous nor gain generational wealth. Prevailing agricultural practices are characterized by climate change, soil degradation, expensive chemical inputs, gender disparities, mono cash crop exports, lack of crop diversification, food insecurity, lack of food sovereignty, greater than 40% food imported from Europe, limited value addition, limited access to capital, little or no capacity building, lack of access to downstream markets, limited access to technology and information, land grabbing, lack of access to credit, poor land tenure rights for women, lack of government support, total lack of transparency throughout all supply chains, weak governance and poor transportation and logistics infrastructure. The list is not exhaustive.
Kevin Wilson has over 40 years immersed in project development, quality assurance and supply chain management. Kevin brings his Bahai and career experiences to focus on integrating the required technologies for Savanna. Throughout his career, Kevin has worked with teams in Tanzania, Mali, as well as the Canadian Arctic, Estonia, India and Australia. The diversity of regions matches his multiplicity of experience, particularly when it comes to solving complex project deliveries while applying Baha’i principles to difficult challenges.