What do you do, when you come from a food producing area that is becoming rapidly urbanized and you are losing your farm lands? The Food Bridge’s new Eastern regional Coordinator in Nigeria, Mr Uchechi Opararji-Denis faced such a challenge but started a project ( Youths initiative for agriculture) which is encouraging youths in his community to go back to farming and also preserve some of their farm lands for posterity. Their community is  located near a state capital and owns vast lands thus many in the community now view land sales instead of agriculture as their main means of livelihood. It took some determination from this young man, to change back from land prospecting  to farming. Although in the middle of an urban area, in his home garden he now grows different plants, crops; experiments with growing plants which previously were only found in forests, because the forests in his community are being lost to housing projects.

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In collaboration with the Federation of Anglophone Africans Belgium and the Africa Europe Faith and Justice Network, The Food Bridge is organizing an international forum in November in Brussels Belgium. This event will focus on the input of the African Diasporas in the agribusiness sector in the African continent. We believe members of the African diaspora are in a unique position to play an important role in the growing agribusiness and food sector in the continent.

 The engagement of African entrepreneurs in agriculture and food production in the continent, is being promoted and  given support by global agencies,  yet non seem to take into consideration the role the African  diaspora play in the agriculture and food sector in Africa.  For the African diasporas, eating ‘home’ food is an important part of their daily lives in different parts of the world. There are many ‘African shops’ stocked with food grown in the continent in different cities in the developed countries. So insuring that there is a sustainable agriculture, producing safe African food is also of importance to many in the diaspora, as well as a continuos flow of ‘home’ food from Africa to the different  African diaspora communities.

This event will be a follow up to our previous events focusing on the African food systems.  This includes a conference in 2015 (5th November) at the European Parliament on “Food and Gender Implications in Global Food Systems” and another in 2014 (16th October 2014) on “Food and Power; the hunger games in Sub-Saharan African politics”.For this event, we will bring together development experts,  policy makers, financial experts, African diaspora entrepreneurs and communities, to discuss the role and potentials of the African diasporas in the fight against food insecurity in Africa. We also intend to have an exhibition of African foods sold in the Diaspora food market, to help participants and policy makers understand the volume of this trade and the inherent potentials.

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