Decolonizing African Food Systems Through Agroecology

14 September 2023. The AFSA webinar explored agroecology as a solution and hear from experts developing African-based soil management models. It discussed the contrast between agroecology and industrial agriculture, and their impacts on the environment, society, and food systems.

• Didi Pershouse Land and Leadership Initiative. Didi Pershouse is the author of The Ecology of Care: Medicine, Agriculture, Money, and the Quiet Power of Human and Microbial Communities and Understanding Soil Health and Watershed Function. She is a lead author for the "Future Directions" chapter of the UN-FAO Technical Manual on Soil Organic Carbon Management, and a contributing author for Health in the Anthropocene
  
  
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  Ferdinand Wafula - Bio Gardening Innovations 
  The holistic gardening project in Emuhaya, Western Kenya, is attracting local and international acclaim. Bio Gardening Innovations (BIOGI) is equipping smallholder farmers to break away from monocultures and create thriving, overflowing “food forests” on their farmland.
  
  
• Claude Arsène Sawadogo Bioprotect Burkina Faso
  
  
  Claude Arsène Sawadogo is the founder of BioProtect, a Burkinabè company that focuses on the promotion of agroecology and organic agriculture. Considered to be only for a specific segment of the population, the consumption of organic products has long been out of reach for low-income consumers. BioProtect aims to democratize organic agriculture. To date, organic agriculture is taking a fairly important place in Burkina Faso. Between 2018 and 2019, the areas planted with organic products have almost doubled. This shows the enthusiasm that farmers and consumers have for organic and ecological products. From an environmental point of view, organic farming preserves biodiversity and improves soil fertility in a sustainable way. According to the founder Mr. Sawadogo, everyone has the right to eat healthy, hence his firm desire to develop this sector for the happiness of farmers and to make the products more affordable to the general public.
• Janet Maro, the director of Sustainable Agriculture Tanzania (SAT)
  
  "The National Ecological Organic agriculture strategy will be validated on 15th of September. We also organise every year a conference on Ecological Organic agriculture . There is also a master program in agroecology at the Sokoine university of Tanzania"