Executive Summary:

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Every day, the food we eat connects us to a vast global web of farmers, traders, food processors, manufacturers, retailers, and many other people involved in getting food from farm to fork. Most of us probably don’t pause to think about it while biting into a piece of fruit or a slice of bread, about those behind food production and processing, their incomes and welfare, and ways of promoting the continuation of food production against the threats being brought forward by climate change and wars, the global food system is central to some of the biggest challenges facing humanity.

If you find time to look at all the food around you then you will realize that the world has a food production network that is maintained by those involved in Agriculture, which makes the farmer the most important person that everyone needs every day as what we eat every day comes from the minds and hands of that farmer. This means if anyone is thinking of where to put their money for future investment, and the answer is Agrifood production, we therefore pose a challenge to the African Governments if they are serious about building middle-income economies, in their countries then why not put much of your bigger budgets on agriculture the key to transformation of all Global economies. 

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Company Description: 

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Famer's Pride International Investments (FPI-I) is a Hunter’s Global Network PTY LTD Agriculture subsidiary working on the reactivation of the African agriculture sector through the implementation of the Rural and Urban Agriculture Innovative Production Program (RUAIPP), a cluster-based farming strategy that connects its farming community to the world. FPI-I has operations in many African countries and it's Agriculture Research and Development HQ is in the USA, making it a global solution in the fight against Hunger and Poverty, SDG 1 & 2) 

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FPI believes agriculture is key in connecting economic growth for rural and urban poor communities, as urban economies are surviving from rural eco-systems, so it is key for all stakeholders in the Agriculture sector and other sectors that get inputs from this sector to increase their support to enable productivity and incomes, and bringing people to work together, especially African farming communities.

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ABOUT THE RUIAPP

 

To become a major player in the Global Agriculture sector FPI-I, developed a USD 700 million Agriculture investment program, named,  Rural and Urban Agriculture Production Program (RUAIPP), a USD 700 million Agriculture investment program that came to life through research and development initiatives and is expected to support the building of vast agrifood production and processing opportunities in Africa that will bring to life 70,000 internships, 100,000 agribusiness start-ups, 1,000 000 new decent jobs per country, +1000 Cluster farms per country, and marketing opportunities. Under the program, each of the countries FPI-I has operations in is expected to get an investment of at least US $17,5 million over a period of five years. This amounts to an overall investment of $700 million across the African continent. Within each country, about 2,500 unemployed university and polytechnic graduates, as well as other young farmers, will be trained under a 24-month-long agribusiness incubation to be done in every new project country. RUAIPP involves mobilizing a minimum of 100,000 to 2 million farmers in each projected country depending on the population density who shall mass produce high-value cash crops, which will in turn create +1 million Agrobased jobs in each country of operations. 

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RUAIPP's  Main Objectives are to develop a network of farming communities through the establishment of an Agriculture Based Cluster initiative, (ABC) a combination of Farming Clusters and Agriculture  Industrial Clusters, to achieve this a 9-year strategy was developed to enable FPI-I to join other international Agriculture investment companies and donor communities in financial supporting rural and urban communities in making use of the surrounding land to grow Globally demanded, high value, cross border value chain development crops, this program runs from the year 2022 to the year 2030 as part of its "Poverty Alleviation Strategy”,

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Program Background, Origins, & Benefits Proposition:

The origins of the Rural and Urbal Innovative Production Program (RUIAPP)  backdates to the year 2010 when the then New Hope Foundation Zimbabwe partnered with Chinese NGOs and Universities forged a partnership to come to Africa and train 250 farmers who came from Zimbabwe's 10 Provinces, young people, and women were involved in Agriculture skills and knowledge transfer as well as HIV & AIDS awareness in the farming communities. After many years of expanding the project into several countries, came the 2020 coronavirus pandemic, this was a shocker that then turned to enabling the project's implementation in many African countries as Agriculture proved to be the only surviving sector of the global economy to remain open and functional for the coming two years into 2022. After so many years of trying to unroll the program's projects from the year 2017, COVID-19 came as a blessing in disguise, although it destroyed traditional ways of making money, all sectors of the economy were brought to a standstill, with many jobs affected, one sector only continued to grow, that's the Agriculture and its value chain, it was spared as each one of us wanted food on our table every day even when we were sick. Farmer's Pride International took that opportunity to teach urban dwellers on how to make money through agriculture behind their homes while under lockdown, and these projects have now grown to become a source of livelihood for many.

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FPI-I is now implementing its RUAIPP through an Agriculture-based Clusters (ABCs) strategy to boost the impact of its program and to position itself on the Global food systems transformation platform as it gives support to the achievement of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in host country economies through joint implementation of development policies, which will in turn, support the achievement of the   (SDGs 1 to 8).

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Program Objective:

 

The whole idea behind RUAIPP is to economically empower the rural and urban farming communities, with special emphasis on youth and women, not necessarily by just giving them skills and knowledge on growing for small-scale production and personal consumption, but rather to stimulate an entrepreneurial mind in all people that are trained. It's also been designed to be a medication for long-thriving sickness in Africa that has restricted business ideas to just bringing food to the table or self-provision (Subsistence Farming to commercial farming). RUAIPP aims to broaden the mind of the farmer to see all the opportunities that the African education system has failed to give. RUIPP has the ingredients that social cultures are the fiber of social economic growth. People come to training with a mind to produce products to go and sell at the market or to use for their canteen business but go out of the training room with a global vision. The mission that has been embarked on by Farmer's Pride International is not just a drive to get people to take up farming, but rather an entrepreneurial drive to awaken Africa to the potential that it's been pre-conditioned to be blind to. It's an idea that when implemented has the ability and power to cause a tip in the balance of economic power as it stands in African countries or the continent as a whole. RUIPP is an African green revolution that will empower rural and urban farming communities to take charge of their lives. Read more>>>>

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Global Agriculture Industry Overview: 

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Agriculture is key in rural development and in building middle-income economies in any developing nation, a strong agricultural sector will assist countries in reducing poverty and will build sustainable economic development at all levels.

It is an important sector of the global economy. In fact, the global value-added generated by agriculture, forestry, and fisheries grew by 73 percent in real terms between the years 2000 and 2019, reaching $3.5 trillion in 2019. Not only that, but agriculture provided employment for 874 million people in 2020, totaling 27 percent of the global workforce.

When it comes to production, the total production of primary crops increased by 53 percent between 2000 and 2019, hitting a record high of 9.4 billion tonnes in 2019. Half of global primary crop production is made up of just four crops: sugar cane, maize, wheat, and rice.

Production of vegetable oils has risen sharply due to an increase in demand for palm oil, with production more than doubling between 2000 and 2018. Meat production also saw a hefty increase, growing by 44 percent between 2000 and 2019 to reach 337 million tonnes.

Despite the growing amount of food produced, the global level of the prevalence of undernourishment has increased sharply between 2019 and 2020, under the shadow of the COVID-19 pandemic. Nearly 10 percent of the world's population suffered from hunger in 2020, compared to 8.4 percent in 2019.

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Healthy, sustainable, and inclusive food systems are critical to achieving the world’s development goals. Agricultural development is one of the most powerful tools to end extreme poverty, boost shared prosperity, and feed a projected 9.7 billion people by 2050. Growth in the agriculture sector is two to four times more effective in raising incomes among the poorest compared to other sectors.

Agriculture is also crucial to economic growth: accounting for 4% of global gross domestic product (GDP) and in some least developing countries, it can account for more than 25% of GDP.

However, agriculture-driven growth, poverty reduction, and food security are at risk: Multiple shocks – from COVID-19-related disruptions to extreme weather, pests, and conflicts – are impacting food systems, resulting in higher food prices and growing hunger. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has accelerated a global food crisis that is driving millions more into extreme poverty, and around 205 million people across 45 countries have so little food that their lives are at risk.

The growing impact of climate change could further cut crop yields, especially in the world’s most food-insecure regions. At the same time, our food systems are responsible for about 30% of greenhouse gas emissions.

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Current Challenges Facing the Global Food System:

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Let’s start with the most obvious one. The global food system is expected to provide safe and nutritious food to a population that will likely grow from 7.5 billion people today, to nearly 10 billion by 2050, source>>>. Not only will there be more mouths to feed, but as incomes grow in emerging and developing economies, so too will the demand for vegetables, cereals, meat, fish, and dairy.

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We can agree that this rapid growth has caused food consumption volume to continue increasing since 2015, in 2021 it reached 2.5 billion metric tons. Bread and cereal products were the largest categories of consumption, accounting for 626 million metric tons in that year. Source>>>

With many ups and downs, the year 2022 came with uncertainties caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. During this period we saw supply chain shortages, supply chain recoveries, skyrocketing prices, and much more. Read more>>>

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However, food production is only one aspect of the food system. The agro-food sector also provides a livelihood for millions of people. Globally, most of the people living in extreme poverty are in rural areas where food production is often the most important economic activity. There are an estimated 570 million farms worldwide today, and millions of other people work in food-related jobs.

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There is increased migration of youth from rural areas for employment in most African countries and uncontrollable illegal migration from poverty or violent affected countries to developed nations.  In rural areas, agriculture is the major source of employment which has not been able to create enough opportunities for all, and agriculture has not been able to transform its outlook as a respected job holding. Due to this, the role of agri-business is transforming into an occupation of women, the elderly population, and children. The development of agriculture is associated with the long-term radical financial growth of the rural sectors. However, the lack of decentralization of agriculture policies and infrastructures in most countries has cumulatively affected rural development. The constellations of agriculture service providers and expert human resources, at the capital and district headquarters, have impacted the imparting of new scientific agriculture technologies to the rural areas. The existing monitoring and evaluation system doesn’t reflect the appropriate result of national investment in agriculture service delivery. This has made the entire agriculture service, transparency, and governance questionable. 

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 Poverty reduction, in the context of sustainable development, remains a major challenge, with extreme poverty ravaging the lives of one in four people in the developing world, with a lack of skills and knowledge contributing highly to hunger and poverty levels, these two also promoted the growing numbers in challenges that include mental disturbances, suicides, and diseases that are widespread that include, cholera and malnutrition, with pandemic such as HIV/AIDS still biting and still a scourge in many developing countries, the after-effects of COVID-19 On Agriculture are still visible and has left the world on its knees with challenges that shall continue to be felt for many more years to come unless measures are taken to support world's agriculture sector, especially in Africa.

Urbanites, like people in rural area settings, are equally affected and need a lasting solution to overcome poverty and hunger that continue to affect their families' means of livelihood.  

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Greeing that poverty and hunger are an enemy to all and needing all of us to stand up will help us find lasting solutions, these two will not be history as long as most of the world's poor communities spend much of their income on food instead of putting it into Agriculture investments that can, in turn, build a better future for their families.

At FPI-I we also believe that the most effective way to improve the lives of millions out of poverty is to support agrifood production as a business, and transforming a country’s agriculture sector should start by building effective national agriculture coordinating bodies, this will bring excitement as it promotes the participation of all players and gives farming communities hope as it supports the production, and creation of processing units as well as markets, that in turn, brings more money to poor rural and urban communities, create jobs, raise incomes, reduce malnutrition, and kick-start the economy on a path to middle-income growth. In fact, almost every industrialized nation began its economic ascent with an agricultural transformation

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With all the information provided so far, we can all agree that the global food and agricultural sector needs to undergo a rapid change in the production, distribution, and consumption of food, fiber, and in technology, a rapid increase in production and marketing coordination, market contracting, and concentration of agricultural output is urgently required, with the consolidation of agricultural operations. These increases need to manifest significant long- and short-term changes in farm size, number, distribution, and location. Production that relies on small, independent, family-based farms needs to occur at large-scale, consolidated, global operations. Small- and mid-sized operators are struggling to remain competitive and to adopt developments in technology and information.

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Implementation of The RUAIPP:

 

The successful implementation of the RUAIPP will start with buy-in from country members, who will, in turn, carry out advocacy initiatives to bring in their Governments, formulation of policies, acts, rules, and regulations that have long-term impact and a supportive structure; proper investment of the country; involvement and revitalization of the private sectors; awareness, involvement, commitment and hard work of farmers and donors’ investment together can help to attain the stipulated progress in the agriculture sector and also enhance dependency in the sector and attract younger workforce by making it attractive. 

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The following are stages of RUAIPP Implementation:

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Stage 1: Planning

Stage 2: Design

Stage 3: Implementation

Stage 4: Evaluation

Stage 5: Sustainability

Stage 6: Scaling Up

Stage 7: Policy Advocacy

Stage 8: Partnership Building

Stage 9: Innovation

Stage 10: Exporting of Processed products

Stage 11: Continuous Improvement

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Get the full document on implementing stages here >>>

 

Farming Clusters:

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FPI-I project shall be implemented through Agriculture Based Cluster Farming, a strategy that bring its farming communities together to promote out-grower schemes. Cluster Farming is a low-cost, high-yield technique where highly demanded cash crops can be mass-produced by farmers' groups and then sold in bulk to both local and international markets. learn more.  Agriculture Based Cluster Farming  

Farmers Pride International promotes Agricultural Cluster Systems, as an advanced type of agricultural industrialization. It is of great significance in promoting regional economic growth, enhancing rural competitive strength, advancing the specialization of agriculture production, and increasing the incomes of the farmers. The video below provides a concise summary of the project concept.

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Enhancing Agricultural Productivity and Competitiveness

 

With so many poor rural residents and changes in the agricultural sector—compounded by the deteriorating natural resource base—agriculture has never been more important than it is today in achieving FPI-I goals. International experience has demonstrated the direct relationship between agricultural growth and rural poverty reduction. Agricultural development also induces economic growth in other rural sectors by generating demand for inputs and providing materials for processing and marketing industries

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Cluster farming as a localized system promotes the emergence of value chains. It's about starting with less comprehensive and prescribed plans and demonstrating success with more flexible learning models that can also attract champions, additional talent, and more investment that can be used in scaling up.

Cluster farming development is a means of boosting agriculture production economically, with the benefits of clustering being considered at five levels:

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1. It enhances production,

2. Promotes Processing

3. Creates Domestic marketing

4. Provides household nutrition and

5. boost Exports. ​

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Benefits of cluster farming: 

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At the production level, clustering improves access to production inputs: seeds, chemicals and fertilizers, technology, and infrastructure. When any one of these improved inputs is applied individually, productivity will increase, but when the improved inputs are applied collectively, dramatic productivity increases are possible.

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Country and Cluster Leadership skill building:

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FPI-I's RUIPP successful agriculture transformations can be traced to specific single individuals who have an extraordinary impact on the project. Often this is left to chance, but there is great upside to a more systematic approach to supporting key leaders, from community leaders and high-level government officials to FPI-I employees.

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We believe in recruiting our coordinators, facilitators, and cluster leaders from participants in our skills and knowledge transfer workshops, after recruitment it will be time to take them through Cluster formation and management sessions in their respective areas. To understand cluster farming strategy, please read more here>>>>>>

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FPI-I's Role in Project Implementation:

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FPI will not be a passive participant in promoting cluster farming, it plans to acquire 100 000 hectares of land in each country of operations through a 5 to 10-year land lease and then invite 6 to 10 farms into a clustering arrangement in each province in the countries it has its presences, these facilities are also known as out-growers or contract farms.​

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• Through collective action, smallholder farmers are able to maintain the continuity of supply, quality, and the range of products that institutional buyers demand, thereby enabling them to engage with higher-value markets.

• Through being a cluster member, farmers report that they were better able to access markets, and market information and had a better understanding of the dynamics of the market; it was easier to access technical and financial support; and, with more social connections and more opportunities to engage with other farmers, smallholder farmers had greatly improved their technical knowledge and cultivation skills. ...Read more>>>

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Program Impact and Beneficiaries :

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The FPI Agriculture Innovative Program brings to life five-year agricultural innovations that will support rural and urban agriculture innovations that bring 10,000 farmers together in each of the +43 countries where FPI has a presence. Within each country, about 2,500-3000 unemployed university and polytechnic graduates shall, directly and indirectly, benefit, with 50% of them being young and elderly women.

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The program will also focus on Education and Workforce Professional Development with the following areas of support:

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1. School and out-of-school children

2. Non-formal education that cultivates food and agricultural interest in youth;

3. Workforce training at community, junior, and technical colleges;

4. Training of undergraduate students in research and extension;

5. Fellowships for predoctoral candidates, postdoctoral scholars; and

6. Special workforce training in agriculture and rural development

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It will also have special participation of people living with disabilities, and those living with HIV & AIDS.   The program shall also benefit school dropouts and out-of-school young farmers, who will be trained under a 24-month-long agribusiness incubation.

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Financing of the RUAIPP: 

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Financing of the RUAIPP shall be in two forms, the first one will be done by farmers at first contact with FPI-I, soon after their first induction into the program through one of the program projects, they are expected to organize themselves into Agriculture based Clusters, after this they then start self help credit schemes to pull up resources to start their first project, this takes them into capacity building phase were they will learn how to conduct fundraising as well as financial management, FPI-I expect them to agree on an amount they will contribute per wee, or each month to raise capital for their first projects and more. This phase gives birth to self-help credit schemes or village-serving credit schemes, as well as Agriculture Based Clusters which allow members to contribute small amounts of money each month, this will enable them to build capital to start agriculture activities before FPI funds bigger projects working with these groups, this will promote Youth and Women's economic empowerment, building, family, community and national economies through their participation in the Agriculture Value Chain. This first phase is a way of demanding commitment from member farmers before FPI-I can bring in its own investments. 

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Self-Help Initiatives for Sustainable Food Systems: 

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FPI believes that the efforts of its membership will bring about food security to host nations as well as sustainability in farming activities in communities around the world, FPI members are encouraged to come together, organize themselves into clusters, contribute small amounts of money and then loan the proceeds to any members who are going into an Agriculture project.  FPI promotes self-help microfinance activities to self-fund most of its projects and uses this as its entrance activity into communities across the world. Self-help and microfinancing is a system that supports low-income households to stabilize their income flows and save for future needs. In good times, microfinance helps families and small businesses to prosper, and at times of crisis, it can help them cope and rebuild. When used in Agribusiness, self-help microfinancing becomes a remedy for rural development, this is achieved as young people and women get involved and learn to start their agro-based projects and become profitable through being taught the correct skills and acquiring knowledge in managing their economies as well as the ecology. Read more>>>

 

Angel Investments:

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The angel investments are the second phase of the program financing, which is done solely by FPI-I,  this financing makes the RUAIPP program to become self-sustainable through FPI Angel investments which take place after a group of committed farmers have come together under a cluster farming arrangement and implement two successive projects, this is done to give life to the projects after the exit of the FPI Angel funding, The Angel funding and Angel investments are the best modes of supporting this program which has several projects with high returns on investment that are expected through the creation of several agro-based farming and processing projects/companies that will create 100, 000 projects/companies that will, in turn, bring 1 million agro-based jobs per country to live with a net income ranging from $1,9 billion to $2.9 billion per country in 5 years with Moringa farming, processing and exporting topping the list on the net income. 

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Practising Sustainable Agriculture Through RUAIPP: 

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FPI-I's sustainable agriculture approach seeks to utilize natural resources in such a way that they can regenerate their productive capacity, and also minimize harmful impacts on ecosystems beyond a field's edge. One way that farmers try to reach these goals is by considering how to capitalize on existing natural processes, or how to design their farming systems to incorporate crucial functions of natural ecosystems.

By designing biologically integrated agroecosystems that rely more on the internal cycle of nutrients and energy, it is often possible to maintain an economically viable production system with fewer potentially toxic interventions. For example, farmers aiming for a higher level of environmental sustainability might consider how they can reduce their use of toxic pesticides by bringing natural processes to bear on limiting pest populations. Read more>>>>>

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