How about this: Let's Try Something Else.

Why Africans should increase intra-African trade and business by 300% in 2024.

Part 1

Is it working? Is what you're doing working? I mean not just for you but generally and realistically-is it working? If you answered yes to those questions-by all means, excuse yourself from reading this article now because explaining group economics to someone intensely focused on personal economics is above (or below) my paygrade. The rest of us, get in here and let's start a for real dialogue. Here it is: We are not taking responsibility for our lives. We are at the mercy of corporate and Western interests even to the point of being used against our own interests. Food, clothing, shelter --all of our basic needs are arranged and provided to us by folks who clearly don't have any consideration for us. Period. Now is the time to really look at ourselves. We have some advantages, but we have to know them when we seem them.

Food, clothing and shelter are the fundamental building blocks of industry--and institutions. We're not seeing much of that. Now, we have seen what responsibility looks like...in the distant past --but without a thorough examination of those experiences, history has not been allowed to inform our present. We are now living "Groundhog Day" in a mostly destructive post-Reconstruction loop. Hamsters running in a wheel in an exercise in futility that actually takes us nowhere. The purpose of this article is not to go into detail on this aspect--but we can talk about it at later date. Institutional racism is kicking our butts but a great pathway out of the loop is to buckle down and develop institutions that serve us. We cannot put the cart before the horse though. We must use what we have to take more responsibility for what we eat, what we wear--and where we live. From this vantage--our industry develops. The industry that we create is then the foundation of our institutions. Responsibility is the foundation of our power. We cannot defend ourselves against forces and interests that are -at the very least, indifferent to our lives, unless we endeavor to take responsibility for meeting our basic needs.

Insert art, songs, music, films, media that demonstrates this process. Right now, we have to imagine it because we are very close to being responsible for nothing.

Anyway, how would responsibility look? And what does taking responsibility have to do with agriculture, manufacturing and trade?

Make a plan before you plant. Contract your harvest to a distributor who can pick up your fresh produce before you grow. Grow high value and nutrient dense crops to capacity on the land we have right now. Prepare and plan a low-cost processing method to preserve and process the part of your harvest that is left. The average farmer has 40-50% crop waste at harvest time. Share resources and equipment in your growing community. Maximizing revenue from agriculture is not a given and would take some coordination. My hypothesis: If we start now, we will begin to see positive results in health, income and job creation within the first 3 growing seasons. Agriculture is the economic driver in this scenario leading to jobs in transport, delivery, warehousing, textile creation, all types of products, medicines, etc. Agriculture and manufacturing are a beginning but they are not the end. Let's learn from the past where our efforts were purposely thwarted, and we were largely separated from the land itself. To me, this is where the current dialogue can start. What do you think?

Part 2

Why is the AGOA (African Growth and Opportunity Act) relevant? What are the possible benefits associated with the African Continent Free Trade Agreement? Short answer: revenue generation aka making money. Top benefit that folks wanna talk about but there is much more to it than that.