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Agribusiness / Food in Southern Africa

  • Zimbabwean farmer digs out weeds from a maize crop.

    ZAMBIA, 2016/05/22 As recently as March, Zambian Agriculture Minister Given Lubinda predicted a shrinking harvest this year due to erratic rains. The government was considering importing maize to cover a potential deficit, he said and, faced with food shortages, Zambian officials had even banned the export of corn and corn products on 5 April. The new announcement came as a amaze to a lot of people in Zambia and the rest of the region. The current El Nino weather phenomenon has been affecting the region for a while, with over 60 million people suffering its consequences, according to the United Nations.

  • Done Sensibly, Agricultural Development Can Reduce Poverty in Africa

    AFRICA, 2016/04/21 The recovery and acceleration of economic increase in sub-Saharan Africa since about 1995 has been widely recognised. But less is known about the extent to which this increase has led to improvements in welfare and poverty reduction in particular. In our recently published, open-access book, we attempt to provide a comprehensive assessment of increase and poverty on the sub-continent. We researched 16 detailed country case studies. Together, these represent nearly three-quarters of the people of sub-Saharan Africa. An significant message from ten of the nations we looked at is that there are potentially high returns to policies that take agriculture seriously. Nations that place a particular emphasis on upgrading the capabilities of small-scale farmers are additional likely to achieve broad-based development objectives. And failure to take agriculture seriously, particularly smallholder agriculture, will leave people behind. It will as well drive up food prices and imports, and dim increase prospects.

  • Africa: Bees Can Help Boost Food Security of Two Billion Small Farmers At No Cost

    AFRICA, 2016/03/06 The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) today highlighted the publication of a new study that quantifies, for the initial time, how much crop yields depend on the work of bees that unknowingly fertilize plants as they move from flower to flower. In doing so, the agency says bees may have a key role to play in improving the production of some two billion smallholder farmers worldwide and ensuring the food security and nutrition of the world's growing people.

  • Yes, Africa will feed itself within the next 15 years

    AFRICA, 2016/01/08 Africa will be able to feed itself in the next 15 years. That’s one of the large “bets on the next” that Bill and Melinda Gates have made in their foundation’s new annual letter. Helped by other breakthroughs in health, mobile banking and education, they argue that the lives of people in poor nations “will improve faster in the next 15 years than at any other time in history”. Their “bet” is good news for African agriculture: agronomy and its natural twin, agricultural extension, are back on the schedule. If Africa is to feed itself, the women and men who grow its crops need access to technical expertise on how to manage their variable natural resources and limited inputs and market intelligence on what to grow, what to sell and what to keep.

  • South Africa – maize planting hit by drought across the country

    SOUTH AFRICA, 2016/01/06 Fewer than half of the country’s maize farmers were able to plant because of the drought, placing the country’s food security in peril. This week is make or break next farmers in maize-growing areas who hoped for a wet Christmas were disappointed. Maize farmers in the western areas of the country can, according to agriculture experts, still try to plant by Thursday, at the new, but there is no rain in sight. Of the 1.37 million hectares earmarked for white maize, less than half of it – 584 500ha – has been planted, according to statistics obtained from Free National Maize (FSM), a company that finances farmers to produce grain.

  • Zimbabwe: Treasury Avails U.S.$18 Million for Grain Payments

    ZIMBABWE, 2015/12/20 Treasury has released $17,8 million to the Grain Marketing Board to pay farmers for maize delivered during the 2015/16 farming season and to clear payments for wheat delivered between 2007 and 2009. Agriculture, Mechanisation and Irrigation Development Minister, Dr Joseph Made, yesterday said $13,715 million was for payments of the maize delivered by farmers to the GMB depots during the 2015/16 marketing season while the $4,1 million was for the wheat delivered between 2007 and 2009. "The money has been released to GMB to result the payments to maize and wheat farmers this week. There was an outstanding all for wheat farmers who had delivered their grain between 2007 and 2009 and had not been paid. The release of the money presently settles the outstanding balance.

  • South Africa: Silo Collapse Clean Up Could Take Four Weeks

    SOUTH AFRICA, 2015/12/14 Cleaning up about 11 500 tons of canola seeds following the collapse of 14 silos at the Sentraal-Suid Koöperasie (SSK) in Swellendam started on Monday morning. It was expected to take about four weeks. The 20-year-old steel structures at the agricultural co-operative toppled like dominoes on December 1. CEO Ernst Pelser said the collapsed silos would be removed from the site and rebuilt once all the seeds had been collected. "The procedure is being overseen by structural engineers and the operation will ensure that the best and safest methods are used," he said.

  • South Africa: President Obama's Chicken War

    UNITED STATES, 2015/11/16 At the same time as it comes to US poultry, President Obama is picking the wrong fight - he should be working to improve the sector, not export our pathology. The US and South Africa have been engaged in a slow-burn chicken war for years. US exporters have been frustrated by restrictions that South Africa has put on US poultry. It was a significant issue in negotiations around the renewal of the African trade preferences bill - the African Increase and Opportunities Act (AGOA) - in the US Congress, with some "chicken-hawks" threatening to drop South Africa from the benefits of US trade preferences. Under pressure, the South African poultry industry negotiated a transaction with the US industry to accept 650,000 tons of US poultry exports, and South Africa was included in the AGOA renewal. It seemed the problem was solved.

  • Food Shortage in SADC Countries

    AFRICA, 2015/08/18 The number of people facing food shortage in Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) bloc has gone up by 13 per cent from 24.28 million in 2013/14 to 27.41 million this year. SADC Secretariat's Director of Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources, Mrs Margaret Nyirenda, told Southern Africa Documentation and Research Centre sponsored journalists ahead of the 35th SADC Heads of State and Government Summit, that the number of vulnerable people increased due to poor food production blamed on climate change.

  • Zimbabwe: More Farmers Register to Grow Tobacco

    ZIMBABWE, 2015/02/13 At least 88 640 farmers have registered to grow tobacco this year, up from 87 281 last year, although 26 375 who sold the crop last year have not from presently on listed, the Tobacco Industry Marketing Board has said. In its weekly statement, the TIMB said at least 16 540 new farmers had registered. The TIMB said the number of new communal farmers this season dropped from 16 936 last year to 10 105 while the number of new A1 farmers rose from 4 056 last year to 5 347 this year.
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