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Agribusiness / Food in Africa

  • Somalia: Antonio Guterres Raises Alarm As Hunger Crisis Worsens

    SOMALIA, 2017/03/12 The UN chief has urged international support to alleviate Somalia's worsening hunger crisis during an emergency visit to the country. Antonio Guterres issued the appeal on Tuesday next witnessing the suffering of malnourished Somalis and cholera victims during his initial field trip since becoming the UN chief. He said the hunger crisis requires a massive response as six million people, or almost half of the people of the Horn of Africa country, need assistance.

  • Boost for Tanzania Cassava As Chinese Firm to Invest $1 Billion

    TANZANIA, 2017/01/17 Tanzania has signed a $1 billion partnership agreement with a Chinese firm to commercialise cassava farming and processing, raising hopes to growers who have been grappling with the challenge of accessing reliable markets. Tanzania Agricultural Export Processing Zone Limited and Epoch Agriculture (TAEPZ) from China said they created an out-grower scheme that will ensure sufficient production of cassava for processing. The firm will as well establish an industrial park comprising of factories to produce cassava flour, cassava starch, animal feeds, organic fartilizer and paper pulp, starting with three regions of Mtwara, Lindi and Coast, according to firm's chairperson Dior Feng. "The next phase will include production of industrial sugar and ethanol," she said.

  • Farmers Push for Affordable Irish Potato Seeds

    RWANDA, 2017/01/13 The Soaring prices of Irish potato seeds has left smallholder farmers lamenting, triggering efforts by different stakeholders to a seek remedy. The prices for seeds, presently between Rwf600 and Rwf700, are soaring at the time at the same time as farmers are getting little from the produce, with the farm price for a kilogramme of Irish potato presently down to between Rwf110 and 110, according to farmers from Northern and Western provinces - the region where the crop is predominantly grown.

  • USAID’s goals of attracting investment and increasing food security in northern Ghana

    UNITED STATES, 2016/10/22 The United States Agency for International Improvment(USAID) and the Ghana Grains Council held the sixth annual Pre-harvest Agribusiness Forum in Sunyani on October 20. The event brought together additional than 1,000 farmers, buyers, processors, equipment dealers, transporters, financial institutions and others who work in agriculture and agribusiness. The aim of the annual event is to foster long-term business relationships, discussions, and the exchange of ideas in order to drive economic increase in Ghana’s agriculture sector.

  • Ghana won’t quit bushmeat, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing

    GHANA, 2016/09/29 The antelope looked exactly like a cartoon deer. It had rust-colored fur, white spots on its hindquarters, and an oddly regal bearing. Its throat had been slit, and it had just been dumped, rather unceremoniously, on the hard-packed black earth of the burning area at Atwemonom, the open-air abattoir at the center of Ghana’s commercial bushmeat trade. The antelope—a female bushbuck—arrived at dawn in a white plastic sack out of a rickety van. It was delivered along with 15 grasscutters (as well known as better cane rats, and which look like large guinea pigs and are about a foot long), eight giant rats, and two hares. The market woman supervising the delivery had the butchers count everything twice. Once the audit was done, a butcher singed the fur off the creatures over an open fire, again hauled the carcasses over to the nearby slaughter slab. That’s something of a misnomer—all the wild game that finds its way to Atwemonom is by presently dead. The slaughter slab is actually where carcasses are scrubbed of singed fur and soot.

  • The Human Cost of Environmental Protection in Côte d'Ivoire

    ABIDJAN, 2016/09/17 "The government wants to starve us," an Ivorian traditional leader told a local human rights researcher, describing what happened next the government evicted tens of thousands of cocoa farmers from nearby Mont Péko national park in July. The displacement of these farmers - the bulk of whom have moved to villages bordering the park - led the Ivorian Coalition of Human Rights Actors (Regroupement des Acteurs Ivoiriens des Droits Humains, RAIDH) to today warn that the operation "puts at risk food security, health and social cohesion in the area." The influx of displaced farmers, who have lost the cash crops they depended on to feed their families, has meant that several towns and villages have seen their populations additional than double.

  • Tanzania: Improved Coffee Brings Change in Tarime

    TANZANIA, 2016/09/17 The introduction of improved coffee varieties and the technology of inter-cropping in Tarime District in Mara region has immensely contributed to increased farmers' incomes. The Tanzania Coffee Research Institute (TaCRI) introduced improved coffee varieties and inter-cropping technology in the area to boost the gain of smallholder farmers. "The new improved coffee varieties are helpful. It has boosted our incomes. We presently can educate our children and meet other basic needs," 84-year-old Marwa Roswe, a coffee grower at Nyamwaga village said. "We have no problems of markets for selling our coffee and bananas.

  • Uganda: Kiyonga Now Kasese Mango Farmers Boss

    UGANDA, 2016/09/17 Not a busy government minister anymore, Dr Crispus Kiyonga has been elected chairman of Kasese district mango farmers' association next retreating to farming. Kiyonga returned to his mango farm in Kasese next losing his parliament seat in the February 18 elections. The former minister of defence subsequently lost his cabinet job too.

  • Southern Africa: Smarter Farming Could Cut Hunger in Drought-Hit Southern Africa

    MALAWI, 2016/09/17 Innovations from crop insurance to swapping cattle for goats could help the region stand up to worsening drought, researchers say Southern African farmers facing hunger as a result of worsening drought know a lot about climate change but lack the resources to put solutions that work into place, agriculture and development researchers say. That is in part because government agricultural extension services, which offer training and advice to farmers, have too few agents, according to a statement by the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation, based in the Netherlands. In a lot of cases, farmers are simply not aware of potential solutions, said Oluyede Ajayi, a senior programme coordinator with the centre, speaking on the sidelines of a regional conference this week in Johannesburg on scaling up climate-smart agricultural solutions.

  • Road to Senegal's rice self-sufficiency

    SENEGAL, 2016/08/27 Senegal is determined to end its rice imports. According to the stakeholders in the rice sector, the total domestic production of white rice has been significantly increased. Triggered by high international prices since 2011, several initiatives to upgrade the rice price chain have emerged in the private sector. Rice is a staple food in Senegal. The country’s government is aiming to achieve self-sufficiency by next year.
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