Latest / Chatting with The Experts with Paula Okonneh / Empowering Women in Agriculture
Transcript
- 0:00Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of chatting with the experts.
- 0:03with Paula Okonneh, that's me, as your host.
- 0:08Every week I bring to you amazing, I love that word amazing, I bring
- 0:13to you professional women business women from Africa, from the Caribbean,
- 0:19and in the African diaspora.
- 0:21And what they do with you is to share with you their expertise, so that at the end
- 0:27of the show, the mission is accomplished.
- 0:30And what's that mission?
- 0:32Our mission is to educate, empower, and inspire women globally.
- 0:39Every week we've been able to do that.
- 0:41I've also made some exceptions because we've had some men and join us and
- 0:45they have also shared the same mission and done exactly the same thing.
- 0:51Today, we are going to be talking about the roots of innovation,
- 0:55African diaspora women in agriculture.
- 0:59And with me to do that would be Martha Haile.
- 1:03But before we, I will bring her onto the show, I'll tell you a bit about her.
- 1:08She is an entrepreneur with a business background in the agricultural
- 1:12technology sector, and she has held key leadership roles in prominent Ag-tech
- 1:17startups and has spent the past decade living in Kenya and Nigeria while
- 1:24working across Sub-Saharan Africa.
- 1:28I know I haven't said a lot about her, but I'll let her do that.
- 1:32And so with that, I want to welcome Martha Haile to the show.
- 1:38Thank you.
- 1:39Hey, Paula.
- 1:39Hey, everybody.
- 1:41Welcome to the show.
- 1:43And I didn't say that much about you because I always like my guests to
- 1:47talk a little bit about themselves.
- 1:49I know you're a company and I'm, how do we pronounce it?
- 1:53Abze?
- 1:54Abze.
- 1:55Yes.
- 1:55Yes.
- 1:56Abze is a media and events company that is dedicated to amplifying the
- 2:01stories, innovations and visionaries, which transforms African food system.
- 2:07So we're going to be talking about all of that today.
- 2:09So welcome, welcome.
- 2:10And thank you for saying yes to being on the show.
- 2:13Well, thank you.
- 2:14Thank you so much for having me today.
- 2:15It's a pleasure to be here.
- 2:17So, yes, my name is Martha Haile.
- 2:19I am the founder and CEO of Abze which is a digital media and events company,
- 2:24as you mentioned, .We are focused on really amplifying, as you mentioned,
- 2:27the amplifying the stories of the visionaries and All the good things
- 2:32that are happening within and across the food system in Africa, and I just
- 2:38recently actually launched the company and the vision really is to center Africa
- 2:44in this global food system discussion.
- 2:47A lot is happening within the food and agricultural sector, and I would
- 2:52like to support the transformation of what this food system looks like.
- 2:57And I want to center African voices.
- 3:00And not just our voices, but the innovations that we are, that are
- 3:04taking place across the continent that I think can actually support the forward
- 3:09movement of the food system globally.
- 3:11To be honest, Africa can actually feed the world.
- 3:14And so we want to be able to tell the stories of that.
- 3:17And I know we'll get into some of that today.
- 3:19Absolutely.
- 3:20So I know you're a co founder of Hello Tractor.
- 3:24Yes.
- 3:24Tell us about that.
- 3:25I love that name.
- 3:26Yes, I came up with the name a long time ago.
- 3:31We thank you.
- 3:31Yes, I co founded Hello Tractor, which is a digital platform with
- 3:36the goal of connecting smallholder farmers to mechanization.
- 3:40So it's actually a hardware and software solution to bridge the gap between
- 3:45smallholder farmers and tractors and mechanization to fast track production
- 3:51within smallholder farming communities.
- 3:54So what that basically means is that across Africa, many farmers
- 3:57today are still using hoes, they're still using their hands to actually
- 4:02produce their land, and it's hard.
- 4:04It's backbreaking work, and more and more people are moving away
- 4:08from the agricultural sector because it's just very hard.
- 4:12And to be honest, it doesn't reap a lot of benefits.
- 4:15Incomes are quite low within farmer populations.
- 4:19And so many years ago, we came up with this idea of having a sharing economy
- 4:25type of business model that allows tractor owners to share their assets, essentially
- 4:31rent out their tractor assets to farmers.
- 4:35And so many people might call us like an uber of tractors, which is an easier
- 4:40way to understand the business model.
- 4:42It's really about bringing together the demand and the supply side
- 4:46of that part of the agricultural production particularly in Africa.
- 4:51We've started in Africa.
- 4:52And we started in 2014 and we just passed our 10 year mark this past
- 4:57June, which is very exciting for us.
- 5:00And last year, we actually reached over a million people, a million farmers across
- 5:04Africa with mechanization services.
- 5:08Oh, that's impressive.
- 5:09So you may reach the million farmers.
- 5:11Is it sub-Saharan Africa or all of Africa?
- 5:14Right now, we primarily focus on sub-Saharan Africa.
- 5:17The company is and has looked at North Africa has looked at
- 5:22Southeast Asia in addition, and we had a pilot many years ago.
- 5:26We had a pilot in Bangladesh.
- 5:28We actually do have some customers in Pakistan as well.
- 5:32So yes, we actually are in both sub-Saharan Africa and in Asia as well.
- 5:36One day, actually, we're even represented in the Caribbean as well.
- 5:40And so, yeah, this is a solution that can go around the world.
- 5:46All right.
- 5:47So you came up with the name Hello Tractor and you said
- 5:50it's like an Uber of tractors.
- 5:51I really like that because as you mentioned, a lot of farmers, and let's
- 5:56talk about sub-Saharan Africa are really limited because of a lack of equipment.
- 6:01And so you have gone and partnered with them, I'm assuming, or
- 6:06partnered with companies that are able to subsidize the work.
- 6:10How does that quite work?
- 6:12Yes.
- 6:12So what we did was we have a hardware unit that gets retrofitted onto tractors.
- 6:18And so similar to cars within an uber system, they have GPS
- 6:23tracking devices within, you know, on the phones as an example.
- 6:27So you know where the cars are at all time.
- 6:29And for us, the data that's emanating off of the tractors, Is very important
- 6:34for tractor owner, so they're able to tell where their tractors are at
- 6:38any time of the day, which operator is attached to their tractor.
- 6:42What's the fuel level?
- 6:44What's the service that they've rendered that day?
- 6:46And this is all really important data.
- 6:48Right.
- 6:49So as much as we're a tech company, data is also really critical for Hello
- 6:54Tractor's business model as well, because all of that data that's coming
- 6:57from the tractor and from the farm itself is helping the tractor owner
- 7:02understand, okay, am I using my tractors?
- 7:05Are they utilized at 100 percent or am I only using them half the
- 7:09time that I can actually use them?
- 7:12Because if I increased the tractors usage, I can make more money.
- 7:16I can reach more farmers.
- 7:18So, on the tractor owner side, the supply side, it's, it makes
- 7:21business sense for them to utilize their tractors at 100%, right?
- 7:25And to have eyes on that tractor and to ensure that they understand
- 7:29really the health of the tractor, but also the profit that they're getting
- 7:33from each of the tractors that they have deployed across the market.
- 7:37And then we have a marketplace, right?
- 7:39And so we have booking agents who go out into farming
- 7:43communities with a mobile phone.
- 7:45And they go to farming communities and they say, Hey, you know, farmers,
- 7:49would you like mechanization services?
- 7:51I'm representing Hello Tractor.
- 7:53We can input your data here with your mechanization needs and that
- 7:58demand request is then matched with the supply of the tractor
- 8:02in their local geographic area.
- 8:05And so then we're able to match demand to supply.
- 8:08And so we work with, and when I say we, I'm no longer at the company, but
- 8:12of course, I'm still always part of Hello Tractor since I'm a co founder.
- 8:16But Hello Tractor works with a variety of partners, whether it's
- 8:20tractor manufacturers, or it can be government, local government.
- 8:25Obviously, farmers and tractor owners and booking agents are also key to this model.
- 8:30You have multilaterals, you have venture funds and investors
- 8:34of different varieties.
- 8:37So there's a wide array.
- 8:40Of partners that Hello Tractor has to be able to have this
- 8:44type of growth and scale.
- 8:46The company is in over 20 countries and to reach over a
- 8:49million farmers with an expensive asset like a tractor is not easy.
- 8:56So yes, they work with many different partners.
- 9:00Phenomenal.
- 9:00I love it.
- 9:02Okay.
- 9:03Now you mentioned that you're a co founder, but you're no
- 9:05longer as actively involved.
- 9:07And I know that reading your bio and speaking with you off camera
- 9:11some time back you mentioned that you were the vice president of
- 9:16WeFarm, the business that we found.
- 9:19Yeah.
- 9:19And because you mentioned the word we, when you said we, and then you
- 9:22said, well, I'm no longer there.
- 9:23It jogged my memory about WeFarm.
- 9:26Yeah.
- 9:29Yeah, so tell me more about WeFarm.
- 9:32I mean, you're no longer with them, but I know it has to do with
- 9:36agriculture, and I know that's what we're basically talking about today.
- 9:40Yeah, so I was at Hello Tractor for about just under five years, and we
- 9:46were very heavy on the supply side, really understanding the supply side.
- 9:49When I went to WeFarm, my interest was on the demand side.
- 9:53So WeFarm was a company that it has shut down in 2022.
- 9:57But it was a company that was focused on aggregating farmers in a digital way.
- 10:03So with creating a digital community of farmers.
- 10:06And at one point, there was over 3 million farmers aggregated on the platform.
- 10:11And I was really interested in how do you have all these farmers in one area?
- 10:16Because and not to get too technical, but on the supply side for agricultural
- 10:21companies that are deploying products and services to farmers in Africa.
- 10:26Unfortunately, you know, we are very challenged by the
- 10:29fragmentation of farmers.
- 10:31Many farmers have lands they produce on and
- 10:35they're scattered across different geographic areas, whether it's a country,
- 10:39you know, region they're scattered everywhere so to actually reach the
- 10:43last mile with an agricultural products or service, it can be very expensive.
- 10:47And so, something that really helps agricultural companies be successful and
- 10:51be able to scale is when you bring and when you cluster farmers together, right?
- 10:57Because it makes more sense to sell if you have a thousand farmers in one area,
- 11:01rather than going to an area that might only have ten farmers, and then you may
- 11:04have to go a hundred miles somewhere else to then reach the next ten farmers.
- 11:09Unfortunately that company shut down, but for me, both of those experiences,
- 11:15co founding Hello Tractor and then joining Wefarm that lasted about nine
- 11:20years, you know, and it was quite amazing, about eight and a half years.
- 11:25And these two startups were really my entry point into startup land.
- 11:29I was never in startups.
- 11:31I never wanted to be an entrepreneur per se, it was never a goal of mine.
- 11:35And I didn't even work in agriculture.
- 11:37I didn't even work in Africa before Hello Tractor in 2015.
- 11:42So really, like 2015 was my journey into agriculture, into
- 11:47startups, into working in Africa.
- 11:49So at this point now, it's been just about 10 years of kind of working
- 11:53within this space and sector.
- 11:54And it's been incredible.
- 11:56A lot of learned lessons.
- 11:59What kind of lessons I can just imagine, especially, you know, let's be very
- 12:03frank, Africa, that's our culture.
- 12:06We tend to be more of a male-dominated society and now
- 12:10you're going in as a woman.
- 12:12How does that work?
- 12:13You know, women in the agricultural sector.
- 12:17Yeah, it's, well, you know, I think there's about 500 million smallholder
- 12:23farmers across Africa, right?
- 12:25It's still the dominant industry, meaning that most of African labor
- 12:30is working within agriculture.
- 12:32And depending on which country you're in across the continent, 40 to 60 percent
- 12:37of those farmers are actually women.
- 12:39So in one arena, it's, you know, I'm not on my own.
- 12:42There's actually a lot of women.
- 12:45That are within agriculture work within agriculture.
- 12:48But now, when you look at what are the different roles and positions and
- 12:53where are women actually working, then you start to see how women tend to...
- 12:59I don't want to use the term pigeonholed, but they tend to, exist or work in
- 13:03specific areas within agriculture and so for me and technology or me and startup
- 13:08and being in a leadership position kind of across different companies.
- 13:11Yes.
- 13:12You then start to enter into a more male-dominated kind of industry,
- 13:16and I think this is true across many different industries around
- 13:19the world, but I will say that for me, I feel like I've always kind of
- 13:26operated on the outside in some way.
- 13:28Like my family is Eritrean, but.
- 13:31They're refugees and political asylees, and they settled in
- 13:34Rochester, New York, when I was born, right, in Rochester, New York.
- 13:38So already kind of this diaspora kid, you know, you're always slightly
- 13:42different, you know, so I've always kind of operated slightly on the outside.
- 13:46I've never been like, within a group of people where like, yes,
- 13:49I'm 100 percent just like this group of people that I'm around.
- 13:53So it's not...
- 13:55yes I've, you know, I experienced challenges and plenty of stories
- 13:59that I can share offline, maybe on a separate show.
- 14:02I could share those, but like, it's, you know, it's, I feel like for
- 14:05many women, especially within the African diaspora, it's something
- 14:08you just have to get used to.
- 14:09Right.
- 14:10And you have to leverage a lot of skills, whether it's resilience, whether
- 14:14it's, you know, speaking across kind of different types of communities and
- 14:18different audiences, I almost feel like growing up, providing me with
- 14:23my foundation and my base to be able to work in a male dominated industry,
- 14:27because I've always been on the outside.
- 14:29I've always been something different.
- 14:31And I've always had to then navigate the different situations, whether it's
- 14:34school, whether it's all the different work experience that I've had to be able
- 14:38to achieve what I wanted to achieve.
- 14:41Right.
- 14:41I want to do my best.
- 14:42I want to bring value to any company that I'm in and any team that I'm on.
- 14:48And so it's something that I feel like I've just learned over time.
- 14:53I certainly understand that.
- 14:54My children told me that about being different, being on the outside.
- 14:58But you know, in fact a few hours ago, I was just speaking to someone about that.
- 15:02My parents were from two different parts of the world.
- 15:04And because of that, we lived in different countries.
- 15:07And as a kid, I didn't like it.
- 15:09You know, it always felt that I was trying to fit in.
- 15:12But as an adult, I realized that there was a plus to it.
- 15:16Oh yeah.
- 15:16The plus is that I can live anywhere now.
- 15:18I see that people are people irrespective of where they are, what
- 15:22they look like people, you know, so,
- 15:25Absolutely.
- 15:26To be honest.
- 15:27And for me, I almost feel like it's a superpower.
- 15:29Right.
- 15:30So, something that is very it's like one of my, it's so core
- 15:36to my being like inclusion.
- 15:38So when I'm ever in any environment, I oftentimes think about who's being
- 15:42left out, who is not, you know, how are we not creating the right type
- 15:47of space for all of the different voices and different personalities.
- 15:51And I just, I don't even like situations or environments where
- 15:56people are trying to close it off.
- 15:58You know, like you can't sit with us or this is so exclusive for me.
- 16:03I love transparency and this is actually one reason with even with digital
- 16:07media, why I'm going into it, being able to leverage data and to leverage the
- 16:12internet, to be able to expose millions of people to the type of information and the
- 16:18stories that they need to be successful to me is not only key for agriculture, but it
- 16:24speaks a lot to I think this experience of always feeling kind of left out, right?
- 16:29Be transparent, like everybody deserves access to all of the
- 16:32different opportunities out there.
- 16:34And the more transparent we are with the right type of data, then you're
- 16:38going to be able to provide a pathway for people to be more successful.
- 16:43That's what I believe.
- 16:45And you're right.
- 16:47And you know, data is so important these days because it shows us
- 16:50patterns, like we say, the numbers don't lie, data doesn't lie.
- 16:53And it shows you so much of, you know, what's going on, what's not
- 16:57even spoken, but it's actually there.
- 17:02So, still on the topic of agriculture, you know, there's the misconception of
- 17:08when we hear of Africa, these days, you know, growing up in my days, they would
- 17:12always show such terrible pictures, you know, flies in children's noses.
- 17:16They would never show you or the media never showed you the
- 17:19positive sides of Africa because there's so much that isn't known.
- 17:25And when you don't know what you don't know, you're really not knowledgeable.
- 17:30I don't want to say ignorant.
- 17:31So, you know, so come back to Africa, there's a, we hear a
- 17:35lot about food insecurities.
- 17:38And because you're in that field, how and what is being done to
- 17:45you know, provide food security?
- 17:47What type of sustainable agricultural development is being put into place to
- 17:53provide food security for our people?
- 18:01There's a lot that's there's a lot of innovation that's happening.
- 18:05I think we're in a we're in a fascinating time, right?
- 18:07Things are moving so fast.
- 18:08You have AI, I was just listening to a podcast about how fast
- 18:12generative AI is moving tech and just the whole world, right?
- 18:18And it's You know, not all of it is penetrating in the agricultural sector in
- 18:24Africa, per se, but a lot of it is right.
- 18:27And so you have a lot of consideration for kind of climate smart agriculture,
- 18:33meaning soil preservation, right?
- 18:35Like, how do we regenerate our soils?
- 18:37They're depleted, right?
- 18:38Of the nutrients that they need to be able to grow quality crops.
- 18:42the yields that can actually be to support the feeding the
- 18:47continent and feeding the world.
- 18:48Right.
- 18:49So there's a lot of work being done around soil health.
- 18:52And when I say a lot is being done around it.
- 18:54I mean, like money flows as well, right?
- 18:57So it's not just we're talking about it.
- 18:59It's that more and more kind of climate financing, regenerative kind of soil
- 19:05health financing is taking place.
- 19:07Conservation agriculture is taking place as well.
- 19:10So it's I think that we're moving in the right direction because you
- 19:15know, I think overall, the global food system is at an inflection point.
- 19:19By 2050, this is something we talk about a lot within the, in the
- 19:22sector is that 2050, there is going to be a massive population boom.
- 19:27I mean, by 2050, our continent of about, I think, 1.
- 19:301 billion, it's going to be 2 billion.
- 19:32Right.
- 19:33And that's in less than 30 years, almost a billion extra people.
- 19:38So how do we feed a billion extra people on the continent, right?
- 19:42And part of that is looking at more sustainable methods of agricultural
- 19:47production, because not only is it good for the planet when we Improve the
- 19:54way that we are producing our foods, but it's also good for the outcome, i.
- 20:00e.
- 20:00like crops are just going to be better.
- 20:03They're going to be able to grow more crops if we think a little bit.
- 20:07And if we kind of change our production patterns but what has to happen,
- 20:12though, is Information has to flow down.
- 20:15It has to, we have to provide a little bit more democratic access to the types of
- 20:19information around agricultural production that will help not only the financing, but
- 20:27people actually change what they're doing.
- 20:29Right?
- 20:29Because many farmers, you know, they'll mention, well, we've been
- 20:32doing it this way for generations.
- 20:34Right?
- 20:35And so we're just going to continue.
- 20:37Yeah, and we're just going to continue and part of that I get there's
- 20:42things are changing all the time.
- 20:43Like, you have to do this.
- 20:45And then a year later no, no change it completely.
- 20:47Now you have to, you know, produce it this way and, you know, farmers
- 20:52and I think it's just true pretty globally, but farmers are not
- 20:55the richest people on earth.
- 20:56Unfortunately, there's a big issue when it comes to farmer income.
- 21:00And not just in Africa.
- 21:02So, for farmers to take a risk to change the methods that
- 21:07they are using for production.
- 21:09That's a big risk, right?
- 21:11And, so they, we have to prove to them why they should do that risk.
- 21:16So, It's not just on the farmer.
- 21:19It's around the whole ag-ecosystem.
- 21:21But guess what?
- 21:22Every single person in this world is part of the ag-ecosystem
- 21:25because we all consume food.
- 21:27And so even the decisions that we make on the types of foods that we want to eat.
- 21:33You know, our expectation on how much food should actually cost, where we go
- 21:38to eat and how we eat and how we consume, like our decision making is also really
- 21:43important when it comes to things like food security and sustainability as well.
- 21:50I love that example you gave, you know, that we're all part of this
- 21:54business because we all eat food.
- 21:56And you know, you said so much, I mean, like, you know, people study demographic,
- 22:01at least in the United States.
- 22:02And so you go to different areas and you see that the stores are stocked
- 22:05differently depending on the demographic.
- 22:07That makes sense.
- 22:09You know?
- 22:09Yep.
- 22:10We are all involved in that.
- 22:13I'm talking about that.
- 22:14I'm sorry.
- 22:15Go ahead.
- 22:16I said yes.
- 22:17I think it's such an important point because we oftentimes just separate
- 22:21food from agriculture as if food just appears at the grocery store
- 22:25at the restaurant or on your table.
- 22:27But there is a whole, the path from the farm is so important.
- 22:31And I do think that we need to have a lot more respect for
- 22:36and thanks and be grateful for where our food is coming from.
- 22:40The earth itself, but also from the farmers who are producing our foods.
- 22:44And I again, when I'm talking about how consumers are thinking about all
- 22:48of this, we are all involved, right?
- 22:50And so all the decisions that we're making on a daily basis, it's
- 22:53impacting a whole supply chain.
- 22:58So true.
- 23:00You know, making people more aware that the food that you eat, there's somebody
- 23:06and other things that are going on behind the scene that you're just not aware of.
- 23:10But, you know, within the last 10 years or so, I've seen people actually become
- 23:15more interested in this, you know, where is this food being sourced from?
- 23:19Because it makes a difference.
- 23:21You know, I was having a conversation with a friend of
- 23:24mine who was very interested in organic farming on a small scale.
- 23:29And I said to her, you know, even your potting soil, you've got to look and
- 23:32see what makes up that potting soil.
- 23:33Because if you want to say that you are planting something that is
- 23:37organic, if the soil that you're planting it in is not organic,
- 23:42then it defeats the whole purpose.
- 23:44And potting soil, from what I mean, I was shocked the first
- 23:47time I looked at the ingredients in potting soil and to discover
- 23:51that it wasn't really soil per se.
- 23:53Yeah.
- 23:54So many things are involved or added to it.
- 23:57So, yeah.
- 23:59And you're right.
- 24:00And sometimes we may not know the toxicity of the soil, which, you
- 24:06know, if the nutrients, if there's unhealthy kind of matter in the soil,
- 24:11that can affect your food, and it may not even be on the food manufacturer,
- 24:16the one that's actually producing it.
- 24:18It's really what's coming from the soil.
- 24:20So that's why I'm saying like there's many really amazing initiatives
- 24:24that are happening globally around soil health, soil regeneration.
- 24:28It's a massive topic, it's really, you know, they've been
- 24:31studying it for many years.
- 24:33I'm catching up, we're all kind of catching up on what does
- 24:35it mean to regenerate soils.
- 24:37Regenerate rural communities right into making sure that
- 24:42from the very foundational.
- 24:46Part of ag like we are aware of how healthy or unhealthy it is,
- 24:51and how that impacts everything.
- 24:53So yeah, it was great advice.
- 24:57Yeah, you know, I sat and I thought about it for a while, especially when
- 25:00I discovered that planting soil is like reclaimed material and I was like, wow,
- 25:06and you think that you're planting, okay, I'm not buying this stuff from the store.
- 25:10I'm actually getting the seed and planting it in my soil in my house.
- 25:15You got to look at all of that.
- 25:16It's important.
- 25:18Yes.
- 25:18Yeah, absolutely.
- 25:20Wow.
- 25:20I can't believe you've been speaking for over 25 minutes.
- 25:23But before you go again, because I like to emphasize that most of my
- 25:29women guests are from Africa, the Caribbean, or in the African diaspora.
- 25:34Are you seeing more of a conversation and building the bridge between the African
- 25:39diaspora and even with agriculture?
- 25:41You know, we talked earlier on about how at some point, Africa,
- 25:46the population is growing.
- 25:47We need to have food security.
- 25:51But then I also heard you talk about how at some point we may be
- 25:55the ones who are feeding the world.
- 25:58So we need to have, you know, a bridge between the African
- 26:01diaspora and the rest of the world.
- 26:03Are you seeing anything going in that direction?
- 26:07Yes, absolutely.
- 26:08I can actually give a shout out to my friends at Dine Diaspora.
- 26:12They are a group that was founded by Ghanaian American women.
- 26:16They're based in the U.
- 26:17S.
- 26:18and they are shining a light on African foods and African chefs a lot.
- 26:23That's happening in the U.
- 26:24S.
- 26:25Right.
- 26:25And so even by rebranding and by marketing our foods, like our chefs
- 26:32that are cooking Ethiopian foods and, you know, across the States or Ghanaian
- 26:36and Nigerian it's really important because stories are important, right?
- 26:42Our pride of what our foods are and were, how do we reclaim some of
- 26:48the recipes that are lost, right?
- 26:51How do we actually note that down?
- 26:53There are a lot of great cookbooks that are coming out, right?
- 26:57Or that have been out the last couple of years, all on African dishes, right?
- 27:01And I think that having the pride and writing it down and actively sharing it
- 27:08within the diaspora is going to have an impact on business, on trade, because
- 27:15it shines more of a light on, oh, there are consumers, the demand side of food,
- 27:21people actually want to eat these types of foods that maybe we're not growing enough
- 27:26of across a few different countries, but probably across the continent.
- 27:29There's also a real interest in indigenous crops and you know, there are crops
- 27:34that are native to African lands that, you know, we forgot about where we
- 27:40went to rice and to wheat and to all of these crops when we have fonio, you
- 27:45know, we have cassava and so, some of these crops also do very well in arid
- 27:51or semi arid lands, and we don't have to get into that, but it's important
- 27:54kind of on the fact that they can grow in all sorts of environments, right?
- 27:57Because we have climate change that's impacting weather
- 27:59patterns and all of that.
- 28:01And so, yeah, I, I think that there's a lot happening.
- 28:04I think a lot happening globally and it's exciting and I would love
- 28:10for it to just continue to grow.
- 28:12And I hope I'm part of, bringing that type of value to not solely
- 28:16what's happening in Africa, but how do we continue to export, right?
- 28:21Because we can feed the world.
- 28:22We have 60 percent of the world's arable land is in Africa, right?
- 28:27Our water tables are very strong.
- 28:29And so these are things that we can Really leveraged to be able to improve
- 28:35our production and continue to hopefully export more than we import going forward.
- 28:41Yeah.
- 28:41So yeah, there's I think there's a lot happening in the diaspora and I
- 28:44think It's beautiful to see, right?
- 28:47And it's not only beautiful to see, but we know that through stories and
- 28:50through, through culture it's going to have an impact on business and trade.
- 28:55And at the end of the day, what oftentimes matter is like the bottom
- 28:59line, like who's making money?
- 29:00Like if there's a demand, like we will grow it and we will sell it.
- 29:05Yes, I agree with you 100%.
- 29:07So it's up to us to create that demand.
- 29:10Because the bottom line, you know, if there's no demand, there'll be no supply.
- 29:14So it's up to us to create awareness, you know, as you've said, be proud of our
- 29:20food, patronize the restaurants abroad that are, you know, indigenous to us.
- 29:27And as you say, you know, change our taste buds.
- 29:31It doesn't always have to be rice.
- 29:33Or meat.
- 29:34We have our own taste just as good and it's just as nutritional.
- 29:40Yes.
- 29:41And one more thing, I would love for people to actually come back to Africa.
- 29:45Like, come to all of the countries across Africa, eat the foods here, you know, I
- 29:49respect and love travel around the world.
- 29:51There's so much travel to Europe and I always wonder why not Africa?
- 29:56Like when you come and just, even that tourism bit is going to play
- 30:00a part in agriculture as well.
- 30:03Right.
- 30:03Because if you're going on food tours of Senegal and who doesn't want to
- 30:07go on a food tour in Senegal, you know, so, the more that you also
- 30:11use your money again, consumers.
- 30:14If you know where you spend your money is important, and I just think that that's
- 30:18just as important as the story to really kind of continue to impact the food story,
- 30:24African kind of food story and journey to be able to position us to be able to
- 30:30do everything that I think this continent can do within food and agriculture.
- 30:34I love it.
- 30:35In January, a group of us are going to be doing a retreat in Ghana,
- 30:40and it's going to be a retreat, but it's also going to be discovery.
- 30:45Discover Ghana, discover the food, the culture.
- 30:49Yes, as you said, come back to Africa, it's necessary.
- 30:53We need to go back and discover what's always been there.
- 30:56You know, I said discovery, you can't discover something that
- 30:58wasn't there, you know what I mean?
- 31:00So it's got to be there for it to be discovered.
- 31:03And we've got so much to offer.
- 31:06Yeah.
- 31:07Okay, I'll connect you with a few friends that I have there.
- 31:09There's some interesting things happening on the food front in Ghana, for sure.
- 31:14That's a great country to be.
- 31:15I'm looking forward.
- 31:16We'll talk about that offline.
- 31:18But then, talking about offline and online, how can people
- 31:20connect with you online, Martha?
- 31:23Yes, so LinkedIn, please feel free, anybody.
- 31:26Send me a message, I'm always happy to connect, and we just launched
- 31:29our Instagram, it's at abze_africa, we will be launching YouTube and
- 31:35our LinkedIn page soon as well, but for right now, either LinkedIn me
- 31:40personally, or follow Abze on Instagram, and watch our story grow from here.
- 31:46And I've done both, and it's pretty interesting.
- 31:48Yeah.
- 31:49So thank you, Martha, for coming on to Chatting with the Experts TV show.
- 31:54And for those of you who are viewing this or listening to this because we
- 31:57do a podcast, if you're interested in being a guest on the show, please
- 32:01reach out to me on my website, which is chattingwiththeexperts.
- 32:04com.
- 32:06I'm also on LinkedIn, just like Martha.
- 32:08I love LinkedIn, actually.
- 32:09Just search for Paula Okonneh there.
- 32:11You'll find me.
- 32:13I'm on Instagram.
- 32:15My business page is at chat_experts_podcast, and
- 32:21I'm on Facebook these days.
- 32:23Just look for me, Paula Okonneh, and connect with me there because my mission
- 32:29is to have professional and business women from Africa, the Caribbean,
- 32:35and the African diaspora educate, inspire, and empower women globally.
- 32:41Thank you, Martha.
- 32:43This has been great.
- 32:43Thank you so much.
- 32:45Yay.
- 32:45Thank you so much.
- 32:46It was my pleasure.
- 32:47I appreciate you.
- 32:48This is a great program.
- 32:49Thank you.