Breaking the Cycle of Hunger and Malnutrition in Africa | Carol Ibe | TEDxOxford

Imagine a world free of hunger. A world where everyone has equal access to enough food, good nutrition, clean water and basic health care, no matter where they live. Carol Ibe believes that crop species indigenous to Africa are an untapped reservoir of nutritional and genetic potential. They are the key to lifting millions on Africans out of acute hunger. Carol Ibe is the president and founder of JR Biotek Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to upskilling and empowering African agricultural scientists to develop high-impact research projects aimed at addressing food insecurity in African countries. Carol completed her PhD in Plant Sciences from the University of Cambridge (as a Gates scholar) and her postdoctoral research at the John Innes Centre in Norwich, UK. Her PhD and postdoctoral research focused on two staple cereals, rice and wheat, and how their interactions with beneficial and harmful fungi may be optimized for practical agricultural applications. Although Carol enjoyed working on these impactful projects, she has become increasingly restless about the looming hunger and malnutrition problems affecting millions of people in Africa. Carol now devotes her time, experience and passion towards developing practical agri-tech solutions to enable African scientists to advance research on the genetic improvement of understudied indigenous crops, which hold great promise for closing the hunger and malnutrition gaps in Africa. Carol’s outstanding research, exemplary leadership and absolute commitment to improving lives and systems has led to several awards including the 2019 Bill Gates Sr. Prize and the University of Cambridge’s Society for the Application of Research Awards (CSAR). This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx

[Applause] imagine a world free of hunger where everyone had equal access to enough food good nutrition clean water and basic health care no matter where they live imagine a world where every child had equal access to good quality education and did not have to worry about learning or going to bed on

An empty stomach a world where women in poor communities around the world did not have to walk Milds and Miles Away some with children on their backs and heavy loads on their heads in search of their daily bread imagine what that world would look like growing up in Nigeria

I saw how often food was rationed in many households simply because it was not enough many ate not to be filled or satisfied but rather to survive eating what you wanted was not always a choice because what was served was what was available some including children went

To bed hungry with a hope of waking up to a better tomorrow a tomorrow that did not guarantee enough food for them this is the reality of millions of people living in food insecure communities around the world today the 2022 Global report on food crisis estimates that one in five Africans go

To bed hungry and that over 140 million people on the continent are severely food insecure according to the UNICEF according to the UNICEF 6 million children in West and central Africa are currently facing severe acute Mal nutrition and this may even get worse considering the rapid rise in human

Population and the adverse effects of the climate change on our fragile Food Systems today we see the negative impacts of climate change on the farms with extreme drought excessive heavy rainfalls degrading soils the Ence of the larious crop pests and diseases that continue to ravage crops in the field

And the severe consequences of the excessive use of agrochemicals to the environment and to the health of farmers the covid-19 pandemic War conflict Rising tensions inflation and inequalities continue to exacerbate the widening hunger gaps in African nations and oh it breaks my heart to see that from my childhood

Until today basic food such as bread a food often thrown to the birds in richer countries Still Remains a luxury for millions of people at home but in all of this Africa is not a poor continent Africa has so much wealth that it does not need to rely on any other

Continent to feed its people in fact of all other continents Africa is endowed with a wealth of human and natural resour resources Africa Harbors 60% of the vast arable land of the world and 30% of the world’s mineral Reserve gold diamond Cobalt crude oil name it when it comes to crops and

Livestock African countries have hundreds of indigenous species that if properly improved preserved and diversified can sustainably feed Africa and the rest of the world how then can we reconcile these wealth of resources with the level of suffering we see today agriculture is one of Africa’s greatest assets it is a major economic driver

Contributing to an average of 23% of Africa’s gross domestic product according to established reports more than 60% of Africa’s population rely on subsistence Agriculture and about 33 million small holder Farmers produce a significant proportion of Africa’s food supply yet despite these opportunities African countries still import food what

About 23 billion US dollar every year and these are mostly seral crops such as rice and wheat and also Ed oils these cereals were never major sources of food for us when we were growing up simply because they were not readily affordable in fact most of our people

Would rather prefer to eat their indigenous fuu made from indigenous cassava yam cocoyam Millet serum and other indigenous crops my parents never fancied this imported crops and neither did their parents so sometimes I wonder when most of the imported cereals became a major staple for most of

Africa don’t get me wrong I love rice in fact I’ve eaten more rice living in the United States and the United Kingdom more than I ever ate growing up in Nigeria simply because here it is readily accessible and affordable but this is not the case for millions of people living in food insecure

Communities across Africa so each time I hear that Africans need more of these foreign grains to save them from starvation I wonder who made this up what were people eating before these imported cereals dominated our local diets if truly Africans need more of the cereals

As Sky crops to live them out of acute hunger then why are our small holder farmers not producing enough to feed the entire continent could it be that they cannot afford the amount of land water in organic fertilizers and agrochemicals required to grow these crops which may

Not even be very adaptable to the local agroecological systems what if African small holder farmers were rather economically empowered to grow their indigenous crops the crops they love and have grown for Generations wouldn’t that be a right step towards closing the hunger gaps wouldn’t that be a rise step towards closing the hungs

Excitingly African indigenous crops represent a large pool of untapped reservoir of nutritional and genetic potential they are integral to the local food systems the rich cultural traditions and economic sustenance for small holder Farmers unlike some of the imported crops many African indigenous crops are reaching nutrients antioxidants medicinal properties and resilience

Traits that make them more adaptable to their local environment after all they grew up there a typical example of an indigenous crop that has so much cultural importance is y yam is the second most important staple rot tuber after Cava and a major source of food for at least 300 million people

In West and central Africa in my Nigerian tribe the evil tribe yam holds a great deal of cultural significance it is known as the king of all crops yam is seen as a symbol of power strength and Authority that only almost every significant occasion in my culture

Includes the display or eating of yum this includes marriage ceremonies where in certain practices yam constitutes a part of the Diary paid by the groom’s family yam is described so much recognition and respect in my culture that an entire Annual Festival is dedicated to it the new Yam Festival is known as the

IR G Festival where iRig simply means eating y yam but beyond just eating yam the iRig Festival brings together the evil people to celebrate and give thanks for the gift of such a great crop held annually not only in Nigeria but all around the world the IGI

Festival is graced by lot of cultural celebrations eating dancing and more aam was considered a crop for the men in the patriarchal Evo culture the women of abag a town in anur state also of the Nigerian EO tribe believe that if the sewing and harvesting of yam was

Dedicated or reserve for the men then of course they too women ought to celebrate the sewing and harvesting of crops designated as the women’s crops one of such crops is cokoyam my mother’s favorite cokoyam is the third most important staple rot tuber after c s andam and a major source of livelihood

For millions of small holder Farmers especially women in most of West in central Africa no wonder the people of abagana will come together every December to celebrate an anal Culture Festival dedicated to cokoyam during this Festival the women will bring together some of their harvested cokoyam to the

Deed in an expression of your joy for its protection and help during the farming season the festival then takes off with more cultural celebrations eating dancing and more these are just a few examples of the rich historical Traditions linked to African crops the crops of the people yet despite their deep ancestral ties

And their proven nutritional cultural and socioeconomic benefits scientific research to boost the productivity and resilience of the crops particularly in the phase of a looming climate crisis has been historically hindered whereas Western dominated crops often described as mainstream crops have attracted billions of dollars in research investment for their continued Improvement and

Diversification many indigenous crops are facing a rapid Decline and some even facing extinction do to adverse biological and climate conditions unlike the mainstream crops indigenous crops are described with all sorts of colonial biased terminologies such as minor crops abandoned crops forgotten crops neglected crops underutilized crops lost crops even often crops often although

These crops still have parents that are leaving or they wouldn’t exist these Colonial bias terminologies diminish the value of those crops to the people who rely on them and further excludes them from fun funding Global funding priorities after all words matter and language can shape perception over

Time the big question here today is how can we achieve the United Nations sustainable development goals of ending hunger malnutrition and poverty in African nations by 2030 and Beyond if African staple crops the crops of the people and the people who grow them and not giving the full attention they

Deserve if we must achieve these goals then these crops must be reentered into Global research and development funding priorities and by this I do not mean mean investing more millions of dollars solely to Western institutions to develop solutions for Africa neither does this exclude the African governments from investing in improving their own

Crops this simply draws attention to the urgent need for adequate long-term sustainable investments in research and development as well as in human capacity building particularly in African research institutions where the generation of scientists and Industry leaders are trained this also draws attention to the urgent need and moral obligation to meet

The needs of the small holder farmers who produce a significant proportion of Africa’s food supply but yet in themselves live in extreme poverty by providing the right infrastructure access to Modern Technologies research tools technical expertise among others African scientists farmers and businesses or organizations that work with them will

Be empowered to develop resilient crops that assure food security for the African people as a planed scientist and founder of the J arob biotic Foundation my own little contribution has centered around leading efforts aimed at building excellent agricultural research capacity in African research institutions I I set up the Jr biotech

Foundation from my experience completing my undergraduate degree in Nigeria and realized in during my first master’s degree in the United States that my previous degree did not equip me with relevant practical skills in modern biosciences that I could use to solve local or Global problems whereas my peers in the US were

Hundreds of steps ahead I struggled so much to catch up with very B Amic knowledge in fundamental molecular biology and modern biosciences of course I was frustrated but instead of just complaining which I still do by the way I decided to do something to set up an organization that

Will help to bridge the scientific skills and knowledge gaps that are hampering agricultural research and productivity in Africa so over the last seven years we have developed and delivered worldclass scientific training programs designed to upscale emerging African scientists equiping them with the knowledge skills and networks that they need to improve

Their research and teaching for the first two years we focus on offering this world-class training programs at the top UK University but we soon realized that most of the scientists that we trained were not able to apply the skills at home due to the lack of well equipped Laboratories no access to

Modern Technologies and tools and the resources that that they need to do good science so we changed our strategy to meet them right where they are we started to partner with African universities and research institutes to run our worldclass training program and this was a game Cher because it enabled

Us to better understand the challenges that African scientists face at home and how we may better address them to date we have reached over 3,000 scientists and students in more than 19 African countries R through our in-person workshops as well as our online reach and teach science in Africa

Initiative which we started during the covid-19 pandemic our alumni continue to train others it’s like a ripple effect the more you train the more they train but we’re not done yet because there’s still a lot of work to be done and this is why I’m excited about our uh pioner

New initiative the Africa crop Innovation Hub which seeks to bring together Africa’s real EST scientists farmers and institutions to develop groundbreaking solutions that will assure food security for the African people without disregarding indigenous resources knowledge and practices this is the game changer and this gives me hope that collectively we

Can break the generational cycle of hunger malnutrition and extreme poverty after all there is no glamour in poverty and there is no joy in seeing any child or anyone go to bed hungry thank you