The Rallying Cry, in partnership with AIICRA, Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT, launches Kenya AgriHack to develop innovative, climate-smart, and gender-responsive solutions to reduce post-harvest losses in grain, dairy, and horticulture. This is the first hackathon of its kind, creating a unique opportunity for the most brilliant minds in the agri-business world to focus on post-harvest loss and solve this pressing issue through climate and gender lenses.
The teams will compete for the following prizes and awards:
- 1st place – USD 5,000
- 2nd place – USD 3,000
- 3rd place – USD 2,000
- Post-hackathon technical assistance and mentorship.
- Join the Accelerate for Impact Platform (A4iP) global community of innovators. ● Access to world-class research and innovation facilities offered by A4iP.
- For scientists and researchers: An opportunity to collaborate with the private sector.
The application deadline is 6 October 2023. The Kenya AgriHack will occur on the 8th and 9th November, 2023.
The key challenges to address include market linkages, knowledge gaps, lack of infrastructure, access to finance, and supply chain. We at The Rallying Cry look forward to meeting agri-preneurs, agri-processors and agri-corporates, software developers, logistics experts, academics, government officials and others with ideas and solutions to this issue.
In 2022/2023, the Climate-Smart Agriculture Investment Plans (CSA IPs) were created to inform public and private investment planning in alignment with the national climate priorities of various countries. One of the commonly identified solutions in the CSA IPs aims to reduce post-harvest losses and promote value addition and processing.
Post-harvest agricultural losses are a significant challenge for farmers and small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) processors in developing countries. They mainly occur downstream, between the production and retail stages of the supply chain. The losses occur at every supply chain step – from production to consumption. Primarily, any loss of produce translates to lost production resources, mainly land, water, energy, and inputs. It is also lost income for the various players in the supply chain, posing the need for a hackathon to help solve this crisis.
