The story of our current food system begins in Nigeria, Africa. By 2050 the world has to feed an additional 2 billion people, and it is here, in Africa, that most of them will live. Although Africa has almost 200 million hectares of unused fertile land, the annual food import bill of the 54 countries in Africa is expected to rise from 35 billion to 110 billion dollars by 2025. The continent has a massive potential for food production, that has yet to be realized, and that must be fulfilled, in order to increase resilience of the people living here to the impacts of climate change. Smallholder farmers, that means farmers with only a couple of hectares of land, are key to feeding future populations. In 2030, it is expected there will be 750 million of these smallholder farmers worldwide. As a start, these farmers need more knowledge concerning best practice, both because the knowledge can increase output, but also because it can contribute to improved land management. At present, a fifth of Africa's land areas exhibit a decreasing production potential, due to loss of soil quality - and Africa is not alone. Globally, agricultural land equivalent to the size of England is lost each year, due to damaging agricultural practices. A major challenge, in spreading knowledge on best practice, is reaching the individual farmer. Here, Nnaemeka Ikegwuonu, founder of Smallholders Foundation in Nigeria, has a simple, but effective approach. My name is Nnaemeka Ikegwuonu, I'm a farmer, a radio presenter and executive director of the Smallholders Foundation. The Smallholders Foundation is a non-profit, I created in 2003 to use radio and field practical demonstration to educate farmers, deepening knowledge and generate feedback from farmers. You know, I grew up in an agricultural family. We never had a television, we had a radio. So I practically grew up listening to radio with my parents, especially BBC and VOA, and at a point I wanted my voice to be heard on radio. I was fascinated by the power of radio to communicate, to change minds and also to inform behavioral change. In 2003, I founded Smallholders Foundation, a social enterprise that uses educational radio programs and field practical demonstrations to inform, educate and improve the livelihood of smallholder farmers all across Nigeria. In 2007, we set up The Smallholder Farmers Rural Radio, which is a nonprofit radio that designs and broadcast 100% agriculture, environment and social development program and again it is to educate, inform and improve the livelihood of rural farmers living in the Imo State of Nigeria. Today the radio station does 10 hours agricultural broadcasting. Teaching farmers what to produce, when to produce, the best practices in production and for whom they are producing for. The radio station also does commodity prices from 38 regional markets, which it aggregates and broadcasts out to farmers, who listen and decide which market to sell their produce, when to sell their produce, how they can come together to sell their produce and at the right time they should sell their produce. From that humble beginning, the Smallholders Foundation has been supported by a wide variety of partners, including the World Bank, UNDP, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, German International Cooperation, and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. The foundation has also received more than 35 local and international awards for the work we are doing to educate farmers through local languages, driven by radio programs. There's a reason why development programs choose to support initiatives like the Smallholders Foundation. Best practices are the small simple steps, that can make a huge impact, when looking at the overall agricultural yield of Africa. Best practices is very important because it is way beyond having a tractor, it is way beyond mechanization. These are small skills and techniques, that farmers apply to increase the yield of their crops. It is either around the right spacing for crops, the right time to apply fertilizers or herbicides or fungicides. It is around how and where to get the right seed, because when you get the right seed and cultivate the right seed you are certain that you are almost there with a bountiful harvest. Best practices are those steps that we farmers take, to make sure that a bountiful harvest is realized. And in adopting those best practices, we should look at those skill sets, that is used not only to prepare land, to sow seeds, to do the first, second and possibly third weeding. To apply fertilizers, to apply fungicide, to notice when a disease is attacking our crops, which is a mere process of observation - taking a walk inside the farm and observing how the leaves have changed, the new crops that are coming up, the ones that are sprouting and observing if there is any change, around the leaves or the stem of the crop. So this whole compendium or this whole 'best practices' enables farmers to have a bountiful harvest.
