Category: African Regenerative Frontrunners

Million Belay – Why the USAID shutdown was a gift to agroecology in Africa

3rd February 2026 koenvanseijen African Regenerative Frontrunners, Regenerative Agriculture 0 Comments

The difference between agroecology and regenerative agriculture is the deep social change we need in the food and agriculture system. As Laura Ortiz Montemayor told us once “ecology without social justice is just gardening”. Million Belay, who leads the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa, the largest social movement on the African continent, is very clear stop intervening with agriculture on the continent, stop imposing all kinds of rules, practices, seeds, inputs etc, which don’t serve in this context (and we could argue in the context we come from as well, how many European banned pesticides are exported to the continent?)

We talk about the shut down of the USAID which was actually a good shock to the system. And finally donors, which unfortunately dictate quite a bit the direction, are talking and slowly also acting around agroecology. We discuss how through lobbying they managed to get many countries to adopt agroecology policies in the last few years, what Million would do with a billion dollar and what his message for investors is.

Omoke Brian – Inside Africa’s regenerative agriculture opportunity

13th January 2026 koenvanseijen African Regenerative Frontrunners, Regenerative Agriculture 0 Comments

Bill Gates Foundation works in Africa: what goes through your mind when you hear those words? We all probably quickly have our thoughts ready, but hold on a second. Just as we often talk about farmers without asking them, we often talk about the African continent without asking people actually living there. So, we never fully grasp how big, how interesting, how full of potential, and how fundamental it is in a regenerative future.

In this new series on African Regenerative Frontrunners, we try to do that differently. We will be talking to amazing regenerative entrepreneurs on the continent, but we obviously are not the best suited to do that and thus won’t be doing this alone. We are collaborating and co-hosting this series with Omoke Brian, aka The Organic Guy, who has been deep in organic agroecology for the last 10 years, based in Kenya, an entrepreneur himself and a podcast host. We will be co-hosting a number of conversations. We will both interview different guests and build upon each other’s episodes, and we kick it off with a double interview where I join Omoke’s show and he joins ours. Will we get it perfect? No. Will we have a lot of fun doing it? Yes.

Why the continent? Most young people this century will be born there. Most land is farmed by smallholders who barely make ends meet. And it is hit hard- really hard- by climate change while having contributed nearly nothing to it. So, all of us better get to work.

What are the big myths, the big pitfalls, when foreigners- especially investors and entrepreneurs- come to this continent and try to “help the poor farmers”? Yes, we will be talking about Gates, GMOs, decolonisation and all the good stuff, and of course get into what Brian sees as big opportunities and what he would do if he were investing 1B, and of course the magic wand question.