Got Millet? How Marketing Could Improve the Lives of African Farmers | Zoë Karl-Waithaka | TED

Avocados.

Americans love them.

For what other food would you pay 15 dollars

to have someone bring it to your table and mash it up in front of you?

There's probably a hipster in Brooklyn right now

ordering a 15-dollar avocado toast as we speak.

And that's on the cheap side.

Give me, like, 25 dollars.

I mean, that's insanity, honestly.

So I have a question.

Why would people pay seemingly absurd prices for something so simple?

Marketing.

There was probably a time in the US

when you couldn't pay people to eat avocados

and actually they were known as “alligator pears”.

And then something changed.

In the 1990s,

there was a Super Bowl marketing campaign

where NFL players shared their favorite guacamole recipes.

With the help of this, over time,

avocados went from a relative obscurity in the US

to one of the most consumed fruits.

Now what’s interesting about this is who was behind the campaign:

Californian avocado farmers.

They had a product,

they funded a highly visible and successful marketing campaign,

put money in their pockets and ultimately changed the way people eat.

So today I want to talk to you about how marketing can be a catalyst

to improve the livelihoods of farmers,

but not in the US, in Africa.

And how the development community,

and by that, I mean NGOs, philanthropists

and international development agencies

can use marketing to positively impact society,

the economy and the environment.

So I am South African and American,

I have lived and worked throughout Africa

with a professional focus on food and agriculture.

And I've had the opportunity to study lots of development programs

and even work on some myself.

And through that I have met farmers,

spoken to them, and some of them have said,

"I have a product,

but I don't have a market in which to sell it."

Or, "I have a market, but it's too small."

So I want to talk about how to change that.

Now, just a reminder, Africa is a continent, not a country.

And in sub-Saharan Africa,

agriculture makes up a large part of the economy.

It makes up 20 percent of GDP,

about 60 percent of employment,

and many of the people in agriculture are smallholders.

So they live on less than two hectares of land

and have very small incomes that put them at or below the poverty line.

For decades, the development community has been trying to change this,

primarily with a supply side-focus of working with farmers,

giving them access to seeds and fertilizers,

showing them how to improve their productivity

so that they could grow more,

have more to sell and eat

and ultimately increase their incomes,

which is the end goal.

Billions of dollars have been spent on this.

And unfortunately, today, many African farmers are still poor.

So why is that?

Well, farmers are part of the equation.

They supply food, but obviously we know the other part of the equation is demand.

They need to have demand for the goods that they're growing.

And it's true that the international development community

is increasingly linking farmers to markets

so that they have places to sell what they grow.

And that's good.

But they need to go a step further,

by proactively helping to shape and grow markets

for goods grown by African farmers.

So in other words,

in addition to sending seeds and fertilizer,

they need to send them advertising geniuses.

So I'm going to share a couple of examples

of the type of impact marketing can have.

And I’m going to refer to the US a lot,

and that's because the US knows how to do this really well.

Maybe a little too well, some might argue,

but that's not the topic of the talk today.

So this is the slogan

of arguably one of the most iconic ad campaigns of all time.

[got milk?]

Funded by American dairy farmers.

What's very interesting about dairy in the US

is that companies don't leave it up to individual businesses

to market their brands.

They actually work together as an industry to promote milk drinking.

And they do this by, you know,

many companies contributing to a common fund

that goes towards campaigns like this.

Now they have a little help from government also.

How many of you went to school and got milk on your tray?

In many instances, that milk was subsidized.

Actually the National School Lunch Program dates back to the 1940s,

and it's still ongoing today.

You go to school, you taste something, it's at a good price,

you keep getting it, you like it, maybe you start eating more of it.

You purchase at home, stock your fridge.

Does that sound anything like product promotion and sampling?

Importantly, what this does is it creates a whole category of consumers.

And it gives farmers a constant market in which to sell what they grow,

and that's actually really important, right?

You can't create a product

if you don't know that there's going to be constant demand for it in the market.

Now this combination of industry marketing plus government support

is quite powerful.

So powerful, in fact, that the United States

has one of the highest rates of consumption of dairy in the world:

653 pounds of dairy per person per year.

Try to imagine that.

That's a lot, right?

Now, this has actually been done outside of the US, too.

In Kenya in the 1980s under former president Moi,

there was a National School Milk Program,

dubbed Nyayo Milk,

and many Kenyan children went to school and received packets of milk.

So it became a lot more a part of the local diet.

And as they grew up, they continued to consume it.

And today, Kenya has the highest rate of consumption of dairy

in East Africa.

And it's got a much more developed dairy industry

than its regional neighbors.

Now, both of those examples are about marketing to domestic consumers.

But you're probably thinking,

"Well, what about, you know,

in countries where there's lower purchasing power?"

You can use marketing to create demand beyond borders as well.

If you've ever watched the Super Bowl,

and I never thought I'd talk so much about the Super Bowl

because I kind of don't watch it.

But if you have ever watched the Super Bowl

and you’ve heard this jingle “Avocados from Mexico” --

and you kind of have to dance when you sing it

because it’s just so catchy, honestly --

if you’ve heard that jingle,

then you've been marketed to by the Mexican avocado industry.

Mexico exports 2.5 billion dollars worth of avocados to the US every year.

That's obviously a lot of avocados

and a lot of money going to Mexican avocado farmers.

And Kenya exports avocados, too, but not that much.

So, you know, this is all about how they can do that.

Now I've talked about milk, avocados,

but how many of you eat kale or pomegranate or blueberries

because you've heard that they're superfoods

packed full of antioxidants?

That's marketing.

So how do we take these examples that I've talked about

and use them to improve the livelihoods of farmers?

Three things.

First, development community.

Increase funding for demand in addition to supply.

So in addition to funding farmers to grow food,

donors need to fund world-class marketing campaigns

that help farmers to sell food.

This should be done at local, regional and international levels,

helping to promote the foods grown by African farmers

and create trade within Africa,

but also outside African borders

with consumers in wealthier countries.

Second, governments.

Use your budgets to ensure constant pools of demand.

As one of the largest procurers for schools,

hospitals and other government facilities,

governments can use their budgets

to ensure that farmers have constant marketplaces

in which to sell what they grow.

It can be done, as we've seen in Kenya.

And then third.

Farmers, work together to support your common interests.

By jointly funding marketing campaigns through industry bodies and cooperatives,

farmers can promote what they grow,

put money in their pockets and ultimately change their lives,

which is the end goal.

Warning, big warning in case anyone was losing me.

(Laughter)

Marketing can be a force for good, but it can go too far,

especially if it's used to promote foods that are full of fat, salt and sugar.

So what if, in addition to everything I've said,

we not only use marketing to promote foods grown by African farmers

but we use it to promote foods that are more nutritious

and also better for the environment.

If we do that,

then we've got the triple play of agriculture development:

increased farmer livelihoods,

more nutritious foods for consumers

and more sustainable agriculture.

So I'll give one last example using rice.

Rice is a staple crop,

and in many countries it is consumed as a large part of diets.

However, white rice in particular is low in nutrients,

it takes lots of water to grow,

and current techniques for growing rice

are contributing to a lot of greenhouse gas emissions.

So what if we replace rice with millet?

Millet is a grain just like rice.

It is rich in fiber and antioxidants.

It has more calcium than milk per serving.

It takes 70 percent less water to grow,

and it is drought- and pest-resistant,

which is increasingly important in today's world.

Sounds like a good alternative, right?

Well, there are lots of other foods like this

that are both more nutritious

and more sustainable for the environment,

such as pumpkin leaves, sweet potatoes,

lentils, moringa and many others.

So we need to promote these foods,

develop tasty and affordable recipes with them,

and importantly, get celebrity chefs on board.

Because at the end of the day,

people need to want to eat these foods,

not be told they have to.

So I'll leave you with this.

Africa is still relatively early in its development trajectory

versus other markets,

and it has the opportunity to do things differently and better.

By using marketing and a demand-led approach,

Africa can boost economic growth,

reduce incidences of diet-related diseases

and adapt to the challenges of climate change.

Got millet?

(Laughter and applause)

Thank you.