The African Crops Alliance
Promoting Africa's forgotten and underutilized crops for climate resilience and improved nutrition.
About
African Crops Alliance (ACA) is a global alliance of partners working across food systems in Africa, particularly in relation to forgotten and underutilized crops with significant potential to address the food security and hunger concerns on the continent offering a path for development. Bringing together smallholder farmers, public and private sector as well as research, financial, and philanthropic institutions, ACA aims to break down the silos and create a unified vision and holistic approach towards the development and commercialization of forgotten and underutilized African crops.
Vision and mission
Dramatic shifts in weather, global conflicts, and human health concerns ranging from obesity to dietary deficiencies require bold action by researchers, farmers, producers, and retailers to produce sustainable, healthy food. A year-long effort by the Vision for Adapted Crops and Soils (VACS) initiative highlights how traditional and under-utilized “opportunity” crops can support food and nutrition security while also meeting global climate targets. Increased investment and action are needed to deliver on these ambitious ideas.
The African Crops Alliance (ACA) will support, design, deliver, and promote new crop-value chains across Africa with an initial focus on three crops: fonio, Bambara groundnut, and baobab.
Partners
The African Crops Alliance is open to all stakeholders (public and private) that works to promote the sustainable development of the African food systems. ACA will coordinate the different interventions being undertaken by these different partners to ensure cohesiveness and avoid repetition of interventions. Membership is currently open to all suitable organizations.
Our founding members include:
-
The Forgotten Crops Society
-
Yolélé Foods Inc.
-
Yolélé West Africa
-
Global Shea Alliance
-
Sustainable African Foods
-
Haske Ventures
-
SOS SAHEL
-
Havos AI
-
CAA Compagnie Africaine Agroalimentaire
-
Ake Collective
How do we work?
The African Crops Alliance will mobilize all parties to support, design, deliver, and promote initiatives around:
Policy and institutional support: Advocate for policies and institutional support that promote the cultivation and use of forgotten and underutilized crops in Africa related to food and nutritional security.
Research and development: Identify and implement participatory research programs towards strengthening food systems based on forgotten and underutilized crops that are best suited to local growing conditions, and have high nutritional values.
Sustainable value-chains: Promote markets through the development of profitable and efficient supply chains, in collaboration with farmers, processors, distributors, and consumers.
The Alliance provides a common platform to help navigate these value chains and decrease some of the risks and costs associated with developing and scaling up the production of new crops.