 |
The Yara Prize Laureates 2007
The Yara Prize 2007 Laureates are Akin Adesina of Nigeria and Josephine Okot of Uganda. The third Yara Prize was awarded Adesina for his efforts to develop agro-dealer networks in Africa, and Okot for her contributions towards production and distribution of seeds.
The Reason The Yara Foundation recognizes that a green revolution in Africa can neither be achieved nor sustained without private sector entrepreneurship to provide agricultural inputs and develop agro-dealer networks. For the Yara Prize 2007, the Yara Foundation therefore focused on candidates who have shown both entrepreneurial excellence and the ability to work at many levels, from on-the-ground initiatives to strategy and policy. The Board of the Yara Foundation considers Akinwumi Adesina and Josephine Okot to be outstanding examples of a new generation of African entrepreneurs who are willing to take risks, take the lead and break new ground within African agriculture and food security. As the founder and managing director of Victoria Seeds Ltd, Josephine Okot is ably demonstrating how to develop new markets and a local private-sector agricultural inputs industry in her native Uganda. Her efforts to reverse the decline in agricultural productivity in Uganda and other countries of the region is paying off. Okot has also taken a leadership role in lobbying for appropriate policies and an institutional framework that help to integrate the African seed sector with the global economy. Akinwumi Adesina is widely known for his efforts to make farm inputs available to poor smallhold farmers. He developed a rural agrodealership model to allow owners of small village shops to develop into agrodealers selling agricultural inputs. He helped the Rockefeller Foundation develop a program that provides technical training and certification to this network of agrodealers. Adesina is currently Associate Director, Food Security and Africa Regional Program at the Rockefeller Foundation. Dr. Thorleif Enger, Chairman of the Yara Foundation Board called the two laureates “examples of the entrepreneurial spirit and drive that is playing a vital role in lifting Africa out of poverty.” He emphasized the necessity of both the bottom-up approach exemplified by Josephine Okot and the broader strategic and policy approach of Akinwumi Adesina in creating Africa’s green revolution. The Persons
Akinwumi Adesina is an agricultural economist with over 20 years of professional experience in African agriculture, development policy and rural development. He holds a B.Sc. in agricultural economics from the University of Ife, Nigeria and a Ph.D. in agricultural economics from Purdue University, USA. He is an associate director (food security) at The Rockefeller Foundation, and also the interim vice president for the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), created by the Rockefeller Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to bring the green revolution to Africa. Adesina has worked variously in senior research leadership positions in international agricultural research centers of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), including as principal economist and social science research coordinator for the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) (1995-1998); principal economist and coordinator for West Africa Rice Economics Task Force, West Africa Rice Development Association (WARDA) (1990-1995); and assistant principal economist, International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) (India and Mali, 1988-1990). He was a member of the CGIAR high-level panel for programmatic and institutional re-alignment of the CGIAR in Africa. Dr. Adesina helped to organize the landmark Africa Fertilizer Summit for African Heads of States at which major decisions to solve Africa’s fertilizer crisis were reached by over 40 governments. In 2005 he received the “Outstanding Black Agricultural Economist Award” from the American Agricultural Economics Association.
Josephine Okot is founder and managing director of Victoria Seeds Ltd., a full line seed company based in Kampala, Uganda. The company became operational in January 2004 for the purpose of delivering quality seed to smallholder farmers producing over 90% of the agricultural output in Uganda. Facing start-up challenges as a woman entrepreneur, in three years Ms. Okot has grown Victoria Seeds into a dependable seed house exporting to the regional market seeds for vegetable, cereal, legume and oil crops. She has extensive experience in agribusiness and the seed sector, in particular having played a leadership role in the harmonization of seed policies and laws in Eastern Africa. Okot served as chairperson of the Uganda Seed Trade Association and is on the board of directors of key institutions and industry associations such as the Uganda Investment Authority, the African Seed Trade Association and Kampala Industrial and Business Park, serrving as co-chair of the management committee overseeing the implementation of the Sub-Saharan Challenge Programme in the Lake Kivu region. She holds an advanced degree in international business and in 2007 undertook a finance management course for smaller businesses at the Harvard Business School. In 2006 she was awarded the Syngenta Foundation Fellowship for East African women scientists, provided to support professional development and improve access to finance by businesses. |
|
|
The Yara Prize Laureates 2007 
