What comes to mind when you think of Agriculture? The produce, the farmers, investments, tech or the next level? The next level that will propel us into the much-needed transformation with the design and implementation of the right policies, scalable innovation alongside focused and sustained investment.
It is no news that the existing frameworks and age-long practices in Africa’s agriculture sector are outdated and need to be improved upon.
Transforming the continent’s agriculture sector into a powerhouse that will not only feed the continent’s growing population but will also boost the economy, create decent employment for millions of people and hopefully absorb the shocks from the Coronavirus pandemic.
Agriculture is one of the sectors Sterling Bank holds close to its HEART. As one of Nigeria’s foremost commercial banks renowned for its giant strides in Agriculture financing, Sterling Bank has over the years organised a yearly Agriculture summit to bring together industry players, actors and subject matter experts across the board to discuss pervasive issues ranging from poor market linkage, risks of natural disasters, cost of raising funds, absence of agricultural insurance amongst others.
The summit aims at providing insights on Africa’s agriculture with a view to charting a new course and unleashing the full potential of the sector.
These and so much more is what Sterling Bank aims to address during this year’s edition of Agriculture Summit Africa, ASA 2020 themed “FAST-FORWARD AGRICULTURE: EXPLOITING THE NEXT REVOLUTION”. This year’s edition promises to be different as it will be the first time of hosting the Summit digitally.
Some of the key areas that will be the core focus areas during this year’s summit will be on government policies, technology, agribusiness financing, scalable innovations and the impact of resource availability and climate change on the output.
This, in turn, will help more key stakeholders get more involved in developing policies to aid the growth of the agribusiness value chain across the public and private sectors, attract sizable investments to drive expansion and achieve global competitiveness. The role and impact of technology and data science in stimulating innovation in the value chain will also be discussed during the Summit.
The keynote speakers for this year’s summit are Dr. Akinwumi Adesina and Dr. Atta-Krah who will be speaking on the theme, the Deputy Program Director for Mercy Corps AgriFin, Sietika Gatabaki will be the lead speaker for ‘Role of Technology and Data in Agriculture’ which is one of the panels, while Tayo Aduloju of The Nigerian Economic Summit Group will be talking on ‘Public-Private Partnership’.
Join the Summit on the 23rd & 24th of September 2020 where live discussions will be held on a number of exciting topics that will help forge a path for the opportunities to be explored.