#AskAg Twitter Chat: Solutions for Last-Mile Input Delivery
Event Information
High costs, limited infrastructure and underdeveloped distribution networks are just some of the obstacles to ensuring input access in rural areas. Yet even in these remote communities, products like Coca-Cola are easy to find. How have some companies and organizations overcome the barriers to last-mile distribution, and how can their approaches be applied to agricultural development?
This month’s #AskAg Twitter Chat, featuring Richard Mkandawire (African Fertilizer and Agribusiness Partnership), Regis Chikowo (Africa RISING), Augustin Wambo Yamdjeu (The New Partnership for Africa's Development) and David Hong (One Acre Fund), will examine challenges to and solutions for ensuring smallholder access to agricultural inputs—like fertilizer—in hard-to-reach areas.
Potential Guiding Questions:
- What are the major challenges to reaching farmers with needed inputs, particularly fertilizers?
- What are the most promising solutions for last-mile delivery of inputs such as fertilizers that are financially sustainable/cost-effective?
- What are some existing examples of innovative and successful PPPs that have overcome barriers to input distribution?
- How are inputs best distributed in rural farming communities?
- What other factors need to be considered for successful uptake/adoption of improved inputs?
Twitter Accounts to Follow:
- Richard Mkandawire: @R_Mkandawire
- Regis Chikowo: @RegisChikowo
- Augustin Wambo Yamdjeu: @wamboyamdjeu
- David Hong: @thedavidhong
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 training.)
- Explore the guiding questions that will be discussed during the chat.
- Join us for discussion by using the hashtag #AskAg and following @Agrilinks.
- You can also follow on Twubs or through the livestream below.
LivestreamTweets about "#AskAg"
Speakers
Richard Mkandawire
African Fertilizer and Agribusiness Partnership (AFAP)
Richard Mkandawire is the vice president of the African Fertilizer and Agribusiness Partnership (AFAP). He previously helped lead the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP), an innovative framework for agricultural development established by African nations and leaders.
Mkandawire has decades of experience as a socio-economist and rural development expert, with degrees from the University of Malawi, the University of Missouri and the University of East Anglia. He is a member of the Malawi Presidential Advisory Committee on the Economy, as well as the National Development Council of Malawi.
Regis Chikowo
Africa RISING/Michigan State University
Regis Chikowo is leading the implementation of the Africa RISING project in Malawi through Michigan State University, where he is an Assistant Professor, and the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA). He is a soil scientist by training, with BSc and MPhil degrees from the University of Zimbabwe and a PhD from Wageningen University. He has carried out basic and applied research on nutrient management on smallholder farms, largely in Mozambique, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Approaches that integrate legumes to tap into biological N2-fixation to sustain production on smallholder farms have been core his investigations. He also integrates crop production systems modeling to study complex farming systems.
Augustin Wambo
New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD)
Augustin Wambo Yamdjeu is the principal program officer for agribusiness promotion at the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) Planning and Coordination Agency. He has more than 12 years of experience as an international agricultural economist and rural development specialist. Wambo Yamdjeu recently served as an Associate Agriculture and Food Policy Expert with the UN-FAO, where he oversaw knowledge management for CAADP at the NEPAD Secretariat and helped review, prioritize and selecting programs for implementation.
Wambo Yamdjeu holds a PhD in Agricultural Economics from the University of Paris-Sud, an MSc in Agricultural Economics from the National Advanced School of Agronomy (ENSA), and an MSc in Agricultural Engineering from the University of Dschang, Cameroon.
David Hong
One Acre Fund
David Hong leads global policy engagement at One Acre Fund, a nonprofit social enterprise that supplies smallholder farmers with the tools and financing they need to grow their way out of hunger and poverty.
Event Registration Information
Spotlight Event
Online and In-person Event
United States