Insect and Hydroponic Farming in Africa: The New Circular Food Economy

Insect Farming webinar WB

 

A special World Bank Live event on insect and hydroponic farming in Africa was livestreamed on January 19, 2022 (9am~10am EST), to launch a new World Bank report ‘Insect and Hydroponic Farming in Africa: The New Circular Food Economy'. The live event was joined by Juergen Voegele (Vice President for Sustainable Development, WB), Martien van Nieuwkoop (Global Director, Agriculture and Food Global Practice, WB), Dorte Verner (Lead Author of the report and Lead Agriculture Economist, WB), Raouf Mazou (Assistant High Commissioner for Operations, UNHCR), and Talash Huijbers (CEO of InsectiPro) and moderated by the BBC's Simon Tulett.

The event emphasized that insect and hydroponic farming had the great potential to increase access to nutritious food, create climate-resilient jobs, and reduce agricultural footprints in Africa. Dorte Verner expressed her special thanks to the Rural Development Administration of Korea (RDA) which partnered with the World Bank team and shared insect farming best practices and technologies.

Byunghong Park, Administrator of RDA, gave his closing remarks and congratulated the report launch. He promised that RDA would address the challenges of food shortage and malnutrition through K-insect technology and strong partnership with the World Bank. RDA has been at the forefront of discovering the value of insects and fostering the edible insects industry. RDA has commercialized 10 kinds of edible insects and introduced 180 products, working with the public and private sectors. Listen more about the efforts of the RDA for insect farming for human food and animal feed (from 1:00:00).

Though KGGTF Year-8 grant, KGGTF is providing funding support for piloting, training and operationalization of insect farming projects in selective African countries in close collaboration with RDA.