#AskAg Twitter Chat: Serving the Poorest Smallholder Farmers
Event Information
During the upcoming #AskAg Twitter chat, Stephanie Hanson and Michael Hudson of One Acre Fund, along with Roger Thurow of The Chicago Council on Global Affairs, will answer your questions about how to help the poorest smallholder farmers in Africa. Along with chat participants, they will look at what is necessary to enable smallholder farmers who primarily grow staple food crops, with a focus on how to offer "bundled services" (farm inputs and financing, or financing and extension), as well as how to make rural distribution successful.
How to participate
- If you are new to Twitter, visit Twitter.com to sign up for an account. (For more tips on getting started, check out our Twitter 101 Training.)
- Post questions using #AskAg prior to the chat to help frame the discussion. (You can also submit questions by commenting on this page.)
- Join us on January 10 at 12 pm ET by using the hashtag #AskAg and following @Agrilinks.
Twitter accounts to follow
- Roger Thurow: @RogerThurow
- The Chicago Council on Global Affairs: @ChicagoCouncil
- Stephanie Hanson: @HansonSteph
- Michael Hudson: @UnderSquitoNet
- One Acre Fund: @One Acre Fund
- Agrilinks: @Agrilinks
Livestream of #AskAg
Speakers
Roger Thurow
The Chicago Council on Global Affairs
Roger Thurow is the Senior Fellow on Global Agriculture and Food Policy at the The Chicago Council on Global Affairs. He joined the Council in January 2010 after three decades at The Wall Street Journal. For twenty years, he was a foreign correspondent based in Europe and Africa. His coverage of global affairs spanned the Cold War, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the release of Nelson Mandela, the end of apartheid, the wars in the former Yugoslavia, and the humanitarian crises of the first decade of this century – along with 10 Olympic Games.
In 2003, he and Journal colleague Scott Kilman wrote a series of stories on famine in Africa that was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in International Reporting. Their reporting on humanitarian and development issues was also honored by the United Nations. Thurow and Kilman are authors of the recent book ENOUGH: Why the World’s Poorest Starve in an Age of Plenty. In 2009, they were awarded Action Against Hunger’s Humanitarian Award.
Thurow's most recent book, The Last Hunger Season: A Year in an African Farm Community on the Brink of Change, was published in May 2012.
Roger Thurow graduated from the University of Iowa. He lives in the Chicago area with his wife Anne, and their two children, Brian and Aishling.
Stephanie Hanson
One Acre Fund
Stephanie Hanson is the director of policy and outreach at One Acre Fund. From 2006 to 2009, she covered economic and political development in Africa and Latin America for CFR.org, the website of the Council on Foreign Relations. In 2008, she won a News and Documentary Emmy for Crisis Guide: Darfur, an interactive media guide that explores the history and context of the crisis in the Darfur region of Sudan. Her work has been published in the Los Angeles Times, Bookforum, San Francisco Chronicle, Newsday, and on the websites of the New York Times, Newsweek, and the Washington Post.
Michael Hudson
One Acre Fund
Michael Hudson is the Director of Innovations at One Acre Fund, Kenya, where he leads a team that researches and scales new products within One Acre Fund's distribution network. Previously, he was Research Team Leader at the Research Center for Rural Development at An Giang University. Michael holds a BA from Colby College.
One Acre Fund is an agriculture organization aims to become the largest network of smallholder farmers in Africa. One Acre Fund currently provides farm input loans and training to 130,000 smallholder farm families in East Africa, and is growing 50-100% per year. One Acre Fund innovates access in two ways. First, One Acre Fund offers customers a complete "market bundle", which consists of farm inputs, financing, extension, and market facilitation. Second, One Acre Fund brings that bundle of services within walking distance of our customers. One Acre Fund makes it as easy as possible for rural farmers to access and benefit from life-improving products.
Event Registration Information
Spotlight Event
In-person Event
Online
Eastern Time Zone, United Arab Emirates