Inequality in our global agricultural and food systems is the primary cause of hunger and malnutrition. Despite the fact that the world has enough food for its population, billions of people are food insecure; the majority of whom reside in Asia and Africa. Technological innovation is a viable option to address food insecurity in Africa, as it offers solutions to meet the changing nature of food processing and production.
This is the opinion of Mustafa Soylu, Chief Executive Officer of Defy Appliances who offers these insights ahead of Africa Day, celebrated annually on 25 May. He says that this is true at a macro level, involving innovation in agricultural systems and sustainable supply chain management, but also at the most granular level where innovative appliances have the ability to increase the efficiency of the way that Africans use energy to produce and store food.
The African Union has declared 2022 to be the Year of Nutrition, under the theme, ‘Strengthening Resilience in Nutrition and Food Security on the African Continent.’ On this topic, Soylu asserts that an investment into research and development, human capital, infrastructure and knowledge transfer will become ever more crucial if the potential of technology is to be harnessed effectively as a direct way of addressing the issue of food security.
“Artificial intelligence in particular presents several solutions to the need to transform the world’s food systems. Advancements in robotics, soil and crop monitoring and forecasting have the potential to revolutionise the protection of water and soil resources and make a significant contribution to food security given that these issues are part of broader global challenges including climate change, population growth and resource depletion.”
He says that in order to provide solutions that are pervasive, the focus for both the public and private sectors needs to encompass the broader perspective as well as the role that consumers on the ground play in contributing to change. “For example, almost a third of all food that is grown or produced is thrown away before it can reach anyone’s dinner table. According to a report compiled by the World Wildlife Fund South Africa, this level of waste quantified, amounts to 10 million tons of food annually and a third of the 31 million tons of food produced in South Africa every year.”
As Soylu expands, “talking about issues relating to food security and the way that technology can enable solutions, necessitates addressing the issue of waste at the level of the consumer. At Defy, this mission has translated into the development of appliances that use less energy and water while providing ways for consumers to store food optimally. To address the issue of food insecurity, particularly in Africa, we need to home in on waste and food loss reduction. We call on companies across all sectors to streamline their focus on these challenges and join us in using innovation as a tool to combat multiple global problems.”
One of the ways in which Defy has sought to address this unique need is to develop and market its Solar Hybrid range of products which allows consumers to keep food cold using solar energy during daytime hours, and therefore remain unaffected by blackouts or loadshedding. The development of this range addresses two issues simultaneously – the rising cost of electricity and the lack of reliable power.
Putting this into perspective, Soylu concludes that the energy wasted every year in South Africa for producing food that is not eaten is estimated as enough to power the City of Johannesburg for roughly 16 weeks. Given South Africa’s unique needs as a nation faced by an ongoing energy crisis, solutions that save energy need to be prioritised and emerging technologies that are purposed towards serving the African continent need to also consider issues around sustainability and the responsible use of natural resources.
“In South Africa we have the resources and knowledge to lead the charge towards more efficient energy use. Data should continue to inform our technological developments as companies across sectors in this regard. But in order to harness the power of complex data, we require cutting-edge technology. And that innovation needs to happen at both a macro and micro level as we take a two-pronged approach to solving broader global issues,” he concludes.
