The Board of BvAT and its management launched the strategic plan for 2021-2024 in a colorful event held on 24th June 2021 at the Safari Park Hotel, Nairobi, Kenya. The launch was attended by the Ministry of Agriculture officials, BvAT Board Chairperson Mr. Andreas Schriber, the Staff and BvAT’s strategic partners.
The Strategic Plan aligns to the following strategic positioning statements:
Mission
A food secure African continent with healthy people living in a healthy environment
Mission
To alleviate poverty and improve the livelihoods of rural communities in Africa through disseminating relevant information and building the capacity of farmers and partners for the ecological transformation of African agriculture and food systems.
Overall Goal
To sustainably improve the health and prosperity of people in Africa while conserving the environment with Agroecology (AE) and Ecological Organic Agriculture (EOA) as a basis for all life
The Chief Guest, Ms. Anne Nyaga (CBS), the Chief Administrative Secretary (CAS), State Department for Crop Production, Agricultural Research and Cooperatives, Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Cooperatives,in her speech read by Ms. Lucy Njenga, Director of Policy Research and Regulation in the Ministry of Agriculture, congratulated BvAT for its important milestones achieved so far. She noted that Biovision Africa Trust has grown to be a Pan-African Organization that is working in Kenya and in Africa. In Kenya, BvAT is advancing one of the Big 4 Agendas on food security and nutrition through its main programme.
Ms. Nyaga further noted that Biovision Africa Trust is working on the ground in Kenya and across the continent through three main programmes: the Farmer Communication Programme (FCP) in 11 counties in Kenya including Bungoma, Busia, Kakamega, Kirinyaga, Murang’a, Machakos, Nakuru, and Nyandarua; the Ecological Organic Agriculture Initiative (EOA-I) and the Knowledge Centre for Organic Agriculture (KCOA) in 9 African countries of Eastern Africa (Kenya, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Uganda and Rwanda), West Africa (Benin, Mali, Nigeria and Senegal) via a collaboration with national partners, a coalition of international partners and the Africa Union Commission in the implementation of the Organic Farming decision passed by the African Governments in 2011.
Dr. David Amudavi, the BvAT Executive Director, presented the Strategic Plan during the event outlining its five strategic objectives:
- Facilitating adoption of Ecological Organic Agriculture practices among small holder farmers; with a special focus on women and youth,
- Creating Ecological Organic Agriculture value chain diversification and development of markets and trade at local, domestic, and international levels,
- Enhancing policy institutional framework conditions for Ecological Organic Agriculture sector development through influencing and enacting ecological agriculture policies/strategies,
- Strengthening Biovision Africa Trust’s operation and financial sustainability business model that is based on realistic market assumptions, and
- Fostering innovations and socioeconomic research to provide useful and practical solutions facing small holder farmers, especially women and youth.
The Chair of the BvAT Board , Mr. Andreas Schriber affirmed the need for BvAT to train farmers on the bases of scientifically proven standards and according to Agro-Ecological principles, to ensure a constant investment into fertile soils and biodiversity on their farms. He added that the farmers will benefit not only from the yields but also Return on Investment will be added value to the overall health state of their soils, livestock, plants, and families. He noted that there are many benefits of organic agriculture as a contributor in tackling bigger global challenges such as climate change, prevention of biodiversity loss, promotion of sustainable consumption, wealth generation and curbing poverty.
Dr. Amudavi echoed that BvAT aims at ensuring farmers have resilient livelihoods, dynamic markets and promote agroecology best practices technologies and systems. The organization has set targets that are ambitious but achievable.
