𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐁𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐥𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐀𝐟𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐀𝐠𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐮𝐥𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐏𝐨𝐝𝐜𝐚𝐬𝐭 || 𝐄𝐩𝐢𝐬𝐨𝐝𝐞 𝟏𝟗 - 𝐖𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐂𝐡𝐞𝐟 𝐖𝐚𝐟𝐢𝐤 𝐁𝐞𝐥𝐚𝐢𝐝

In this episode of The Battle for African Agriculture Podcast, Dr. Million Belay speaks with Wafik Belaid @WafikBelaid, Tunisian executive chef, trainer, and writer who reflects on how years of European gastronomic influence once pulled him away from his roots until, as he puts it, he stopped and remembered that he is from Tunisia and from Africa. Drawing on childhood memories shaped by family kitchens, military life, and community gatherings, he recalls the tastes and smells that formed him early on: Mediterranean herbs, garlic, seafood, meat, olive oil, and harissa from the north, alongside deeper African influences that emerge as one moves south.

He explains that Tunisian cuisine holds two identities at once, Mediterranean and African, and that this duality reveals Africa’s complexity rather than separating it. From dried herbs and spices in the south to shared stew making traditions stretching from Tunisia through Algeria and Morocco toward Mali, he describes a common African culinary language rooted in grains, legumes, garlic, onions, and slow cooked meals. While acknowledging historical influences from Ottoman, Roman, Jewish, Byzantine, and Berber cultures, he argues that the real danger today is not colonial influence alone but the loss of traditional knowledge, taste markers, and family food practices when children no longer grow up eating and sharing local meals.

For him, food is a battleground and chefs are no longer just cooks. They are educators, storytellers, and cultural ambassadors responsible for preserving original food before altering presentation, teaching through local products rather than foreign recipes, and naming the sources of African food when it travels globally. He frames food sovereignty as beginning with agriculture and support for farmers, warning that dependence on imports signals failure. His message to young chefs is direct: start from the soil, understand food from earth to plate, and stay rooted in culture, because once tradition is lost, it is difficult to recover.

Listen to the full conversation on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify and across all our social media platforms.

Subscribe. Share. Engage.

YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IaiLYh0xvgg
Spotify 
https://open.spotify.com/episode/7tgq9XiaxBBk3HUkPPXlAG?si=fkSHl57DQL2DUGl5mEFvkw
Apple Podcast
https://rss.com/podcasts/battle-for-african-agriculture-podcast/2425523/

#MyFoodIsAfrican #AfricanFood #AfricanCuisine

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐁𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐥𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐀𝐟𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐀𝐠𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐮𝐥𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐏𝐨𝐝𝐜𝐚𝐬𝐭 || 𝐄𝐩𝐢𝐬𝐨𝐝𝐞 𝟏𝟖 - 𝐖𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐂𝐡𝐞𝐟 𝐍𝐣𝐚𝐭𝐡𝐢 𝐊𝐚𝐛𝐮𝐢

𝑳𝒐𝒔𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝑨𝒇𝒓𝒊𝒄𝒂𝒏 𝑭𝒐𝒐𝒅 𝑴𝒆𝒂𝒏𝒔 𝑳𝒐𝒔𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝑨𝒇𝒓𝒊𝒄𝒂

In this episode of The Battle for African Agriculture, Dr. Million Belay speaks with Chef Njathi Kabui, @chefkabui Kenyan chef and activist who introduces food as memory, identity, and power, and argues that African food is not limited to what is cooked on the continent but becomes African wherever African consciousness takes and touches it. He traces his journey from growing up in Kenya, spending years in his ancestral home near Mount Kenya where most food was grown and raised at home, to moving to the city and later to the United States, where the taste and impact of highly processed food pushed him away from studying business and into a long path of studying food, politics, culture, and health, including political science, philosophy, and medical and urban anthropology, before he eventually went to culinary school.

Chef Kabui explains how he intentionally designed what he calls Afro Futuristic Conscious Cuisine, describing it as African based, intellectually and intentionally approached, and shaped by both respect for ancestors and a future oriented question of how to eat to remain in the best condition for the future. Through stories including his experience speaking at Michigan State University and being challenged to design a program that brings indigenous chefs into campus dining, he argues that when Africans and especially the youth disconnect from indigenous food knowledge, they lose health, opportunity, and identity, and Africa itself becomes sicker and poorer because the youth are the future.

He frames African food as a form of resistance against the consequences of colonization, enslavement, exile, and a global food system he understands through statecraft, where control of energy, textile, and food shapes power and conflict. He insists that refusing certain foods is itself resistance because it upholds value and health, and he emphasizes careful language, rejecting the neutrality of “ultra processed” in favor of “ultra programmed” to show intentional design meant to disempower people. He closes with a message that African food will be as important and valuable as Africans decide it to be, urging belief and investment, and describing his role as speaking, telling stories, and cooking so that something tangible happens beyond conversations.

#MyFoodIsAfrican #Agroecology #FoodSovereignty

Listen to the full conversation on 👇🏿

YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnd47JSQj_I
Apple Podcasts
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/why-losing-african-food-means-losing-africa-chef-njathi/id1814081549?i=1000742710494
Spotify
https://open.spotify.com/episode/3HI4IOw4UDEFYebY2vefet?si=JjefeU1qQ86iZUEKRfW91g

𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗩𝗢𝗜𝗖𝗘 𝗢𝗙 𝗔𝗙𝗦𝗔 || 𝗠𝗘𝗘𝗧 𝗠𝗜𝗟𝗟𝗜𝗢𝗡 𝗕𝗘𝗟𝗔𝗬 || 𝗣𝗔𝗥𝗧 𝗧𝗪𝗢

In the second part of his interview for The Voice of AFSA Newsletter, Dr Million Belay takes us inside the story of how the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa took shape. He traces AFSA’s beginnings from early conversations among African networks, through the first meetings in Addis Ababa, to its formal launch and registration. Rather than a single founding moment, he describes #AFSA as a collective journey built over time, shaped by shared principles, trust, and a deep commitment to African led thinking on #foodsystems.

He speaks candidly about the choices AFSA made early on, why #FoodSovereignty mattered, how #agroecology became central, and what it meant to build a continental movement with political clarity, bold positions, and a strong African voice.

Million also reflects on AFSA’s journey and achievements over the years, from the establishment of working groups on #land, #seeds, #climate, and #citizens, to major milestones such as continental food systems conferences, seed and soil initiatives, agroecological entrepreneurship, and campaigns like #MyFoodIsAfrican and #SeedIsLife. He explains how AFSA grew by remaining member driven rather than secretariat led, with these spaces becoming engines of learning and action across the continent.

At the end of the conversation, Dr Million reflects on continuity and responsibility. He explains why he launched The #BattleForAfricanAgriculture podcast as a space for learning, documentation, and deeper engagement with Africa’s food systems struggles.

When asked how he hopes to be remembered, he shifts away from titles or recognition and speaks instead of trying to do the right thing, walking with others, and helping remove obstacles so movements, ideas, and people can move forward together.

Read Part Two of the interview in The Voice of AFSA Newsletter
https://mailchi.mp/afsafrica.org/meet-million-belay-part-two

Listen to the full conversation here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7bXBFhmttw

𝗧𝗢𝗗𝗔𝗬 𝗔𝗧 #𝗖𝗢𝗣𝟯𝟬, 𝗕𝗲𝗹𝗲́𝗺, 𝗕𝗿𝗮𝘇𝗶𝗹

AFSA’s Programmes and Networking Coordinator, Bridget Mugambe, joined government authorities, global movement leaders, and civil society partners in a high-level panel on Territorial Agroecology Networks: Integrating Climate Resilience with Food and Nutritional Security. The session highlighted how territorial #agroecology, supported by public policies, is driving climate justice, food sovereignty, and resilient local food systems, with lessons drawn from Brazil and global alliances.

In her remarks, Bridget highlighted AFSA’s major continental initiatives that are strengthening #agroecology as a just #climate solution. These include the #SeedIsLife Campaign promoting farmer managed seed systems, the Healthy Soil Healthy Food Initiative implemented through 15 soil learning centres across Africa to regenerate soils using biofertilisers and biopesticides strictly through an agroecological approach, and the #MyFoodIsAfrican Campaign celebrating traditional African cuisines for healthy diets, cultural revival, and sustainable food systems. She emphasised that food is more than what is on our plate , it is political, and our choices impact the planet, the communities growing food, and the farmers who nourish us.

In her intervention, Bridget shared AFSA’s continental advocacy to position agroecology as a just climate action and to institutionalize agroecology within global climate frameworks, including under the #UNFCCC processes. She underscored the power of social movements, youth and women leadership, community-driven knowledge, and solidarity networks across Africa.

Watch her short video below as she speaks from the Action Agenda venue, hosted by the #COP30 Presidency, amplifying Africa’s voice for system-wide transformation.

#Agroecology4Climate