Africa’s Biggest Music Artists Use Voices to Change Agriculture

Nineteen of the biggest music artists from across the continent have come together to collaborate on ‘Cocoa na Chocolate’ with ONE.org to boost government investment in agriculture under the ‘Do Agric, It Pays’ campaign.

The collaboration has brought together top recording artists including D’Banj, Femi Kuti of Nigeria, Fally Ipupa of DR Congo, Tiken Jah Fakoly of Cote d’Ivoire, Juliani of Kenya, and Judith Sephuma of South Africa just to name a few.

The goal of ONE.org is to inspire young people to sign a petition to “…tell political leaders ahead of the African Union summit in June that the time has come to adopt better agricultural policies that will help tackle youth unemployment, provide better support to small holder farmers, boost productivity, increase value chains, and help lift millions of Africans out of extreme poverty.”

African leaders pledged to increase support for agriculture in 2003 by allocating 10 percent of their national budgets, however there have only been 8 countries thus far who have met the commitment. Due to this broken promise ONE.org has collected over 100,000 signatures and counting to present to leaders for change in agriculture funding.

D’banj shared his reasons for joining the campaign:

“As African musicians, agriculture is the single most important cause we could champion together and I am proud to say we are doing it with ONE voice. Here in Nigeria alone, while 70% of Nigerians depend on agriculture for their livelihoods, the federal agriculture budget has been trending downwards, and is now at just 1.47%. This is a serious concern, especially because Nigeria spends billions of Naira importing food every year.

Through this song, we are calling on youths to go online and join ONE.org, to get more involved in agriculture, and to ask our governments to step up and improve agricultural investments, so that the youths can have a better chance of succeeding in it.”

What are your thoughts on the new campaign?