Tata Bi is a woman who has made it. She runs her own business, she is financially independent. She is willing to share her success with others and pass it on.
GIZ is a globally active provider of international cooperation for sustainable development. It has more than 50 years of experience in a wide range of fields.
The 67-year-old lives in the mountains in the interior of Togo. Hihéatro, a small town. Two women sit in front of a cooking area in the backyard. They are cooking soy milk in large pots. One of them is Yawa Enyonam Akogo (called Tata Bi). A friendly smile as a greeting, a relaxing, calm atmosphere. The backyard seems like an oasis away from the bustling street noise. There is a smell of lemongrass and mint. First, the guests are served a glass of hot soy milk with mint. I wonder if a hot drink is just the thing to cool the body down in tropical temperatures of over 30 degrees. The mint does the trick.
Backyard idyll. (c) Johanna Steinkühler/GIZ
Tata Bi stays in the background at first. After a few minutes, shyness and restraint give way. While she stirs the soy milk, she tells her story. A success story: Tata Bi became aware of soy 30 years ago. No wonder, since soy is grown all around her hometown. It is a seasonal business. Once a year, the beans are harvested, once a year there is money from the sale of the beans. That was not enough for Tata Bi. She wants to make a difference. She is a businesswoman, she says, dynamic and always with new ideas. With many gestures, she tells how she created a new business field with soy and at the same time created work for other women in the small town.
And how? "Soy can be made into more than just flour," says the self-made entrepreneur. The soybean is a natural crop that can be used to make a lot of food. So, she started a small processing business first on her own, then with a few other women, which provides the women with an additional source of income year-round besides selling the soybeans.
The protein- and oil-rich legume soy offers a wide range of possibilities for adding variety to the daily diet. Tata Bi and her collegues bake soy bread from clay ovens, produce delicious soy cheese, which is especially good combined with peppers and onions on barbecue skewers, try soy scrambled eggs, soy cheese sandwiches, or sweet doughnuts. A paradise for vegans.
Tata Bi. (c) Johanna Steinkühler/GIZ
She learned how to make all these products in several training courses at the Green Innovation Centre – a GIZ project as part of the One World – No Hunger initiative. They also dealt about baby food – because soy flour serves as an excellent basis for this. Tata Bi now packs this mixed with other vitamin-rich cereals such as millet into bags and sells them. Tata Bi develops the new products together with the four women and two men who now work for and with her: But that is not all: the entrepreneur conducts training courses and imparts her knowledge to other women via local radio. In addition to the clay oven, a small soy training centre with a focus on entrepreneurship and processing has been established in her backyard. Tata Bi invests part of her income in her growing business – for example, in a washing station in the early 2020s to maintain hygiene standards.
Nevertheless, soy is far from being a competitor to wheat or meat. Soy is still too unknown as a food for domestic consumption and too expensive compared to these products. In order to establish an additional food in society, the Green Innovation Centre supports 1088 women's organisations and entrepreneurs throughout the country in soy processing (and 6957 soy producers). With seminars on entrepreneurship and videos on how to produce soy-based food, the aim is to help women market their products to increase demand for local soy products and generate income year-round.
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A report by T. S. Jayne, A. Adelaja and R. Mkandawire
Thirty years ago, Africa was synonymous with war, famine and poverty. That narrative is clearly outdated. African living standards are rising remarkably fast. Our authors are convinced that improving education and entrepreneurship will ensure irreversible progress in the region even as it confronts COVID-19.
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A contribution by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Africa’s population is young and ready to take its destiny into its own hands. Agriculture offers amazing opportunities in this regard. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation wants to support the next generation in this way.
A contribution by Heike Baumüller, Christine Husmann, Julia Machovsky-Smid, Oliver Kirui, Justice Tambo
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Interview with Gnininkaboka Dabiré and Innocent Somé
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The Cashew Council is the first international organisation for a raw material stemming from Africa. The industry promises to make progress in processing and refining cashew nuts - and answers to climate change
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Three female entrepreneurs from Mozambique, Sri Lanka and Uganda tell their stories about starting organic businesses from scratch, now selling Baobab Oil, Gotukola powder and Shea butter in international markets. And they explain why their business is almost 100 percent female.
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gebana, a Swiss fair trade company, follows the principle of "sharing" with its corporate philosophy: farming families in the Global South participate directly in the sales of their online shop. Caroline Schaar, Marketing at gebana, explains the company's approach.
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A contribution by Dr. May Hokan and Dr. Arnulf Köhncke (WWF)
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A study by Markus Hanisch, Agustina Malvido, Johanna Hansmann, Alexander Mewes, Moritz Reigl, Nicole Paganini (SLE)
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Interview with Paul Newnham, Director of the SDG 2 Advocacy Hub.
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A Contribution by Adrian Muller, Catherine Pfeifer and Jürn Sanders (FiBL)
Taking Biodiversity Focus Areas under production or abandoning lower yielding, more extensive production systems is the wrong approach to mastering the looming global food crisis, say the authors of the Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL).
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Felix Phiri has been Head of the Department of Nutrition, HIV and AIDS at the Ministry of Health in Malawi for almost 20 years. A conversation about constants and change.
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In Togo’s capital, Lomé, home-grown rice costs almost twice as much as the imported product from Thailand. Yet there are good reasons for preferring the local product
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By leasing a three hundred hectare fruit plantation in Ethiopia, Lutz Hartmann has realised a long-cherished dream: to run his own business in Africa. Now he has a personal interest in the issue of Africa’s development.
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Why aren’t bars of chocolate made where cocoa is grown? Author Frank Brunner analyses the industry’s fragile value chain from the plantation to the supermarket
Chancellor Merkel has begun an ambitious European political programme: Striving for compromise in budget negotiations, an orderly Brexit as well as an appropriate response to the corona crisis. Unfortunately, one of her positions that she previously held is nowhere to be found: Africa's prosperity is in the interest of Europe.
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The region of Sub-Saharan Africa is on the decisive verge of a great development boost in farming: it could skip entire generations of technological development. But how? About possible roles and potentials of digital services.
As President of the IABM cooperative in Muhanga, Alphonsine Mukankusi is not simply focused on the figures. She has learned how to deal with people and how to take on responsibility. At the same time, her work helps her to come to terms with the past
Agnes Kalibata, AGRA president since 2014 and former minister of agriculture and wildlife in Rwanda, is convinced that Africa's economy will only grow sustainably if small-scale agriculture is also seen as an opportunity.
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Whether it's banana bread made from brown bananas, conscious shopping plans or foodsharing, we give you five tips on how to reduce your everyday food waste.
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An Artikel by the Initiative for Sustainable Agricultural Supply Chains (INA)
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Until Easter 2022, GIZ publishes a new episode every fortnight introducing people who are committed to fair and sustainable cocoa in Côte d'Ivoire and Germany.
A Contribution of the 'Initiative for Sustainable Agricultural Supply Chains' (INA)
Fair Trade organisations and the Initiative for Sustainable Agricultural Supply Chains (INA) have launched the #ichwillfair campaign during COP26 to highlight the link between global supply chains and climate change.
New insights on trade and value addition in the rice sector in West Africa
Low import tariffs, smuggling activities, unpredictable tax exemptions and weak enforcement of food safety standards: The potential of local rice value chains is undermined in West African countries.
The oceans are important for our food supply, but they are overfished. To halt this trend the global community is now taking action against illegal fishing. Journalist Jan Rübel spoke with Francesco Marí, a specialist for world food, agricultural trade and maritime policy at "Brot für die Welt," and others.
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Organic cotton is extremely popular – but farmers still find it difficult to change their conventional cultivation methods. A new project addresses this dilemma: Bundesliga football teams in Germany are promoting the switch to organic cotton in India. And thereby setting an example.
The consequences of the Russian invasion of Ukraine have enabled many countries to open up new export markets for their agricultural goods. However, smallholder farms have been largely left out. Drawing on his experience in India, our author gives a brief overview of how this can be changed.
From measures to promote biodiversity in Germany to more sustainable cocoa cultivation methods in Ecuador: WWF works at many different levels. At the Green Week, it will be demonstrated just how multifaceted nature conservation work is and what role each individual's decision plays.
A Contribution by Initiative für nachhaltige Agrarlieferketten (INA)
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The majority of producers in developing countries are women. Although they contribute significantly to the food security of their families, they remain chronically disadvantaged in male-dominated agriculture in terms of access to land, credit, technology and education.
A contribution by Nadine Babatounde and Anne Floquet (MISEREOR)
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A contritbution by Essa Chanie Mussa (University of Gondar)
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A menstrual health pilot in Rural Malawi empowers rural women in Agribusiness through hygiene products and helps to improve working conditions in rural areas.
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Agriculture is coming under pressure worldwide: bacteria, viruses and insects are causing problems for crops. In Palestine, Dr. Rana Samara from the Palestinian Academy of Science and Technology is researching solutions to the problem. And she finds them in nature itself.
VR glasses are hardly a conventional tool in agriculture: for the past three years, they have been used in rural areas of Burkina Faso and Cameroon as a training tool for sustainable cotton cultivation.
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