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Agriculture in Africa

  • Kenyan officials benefit from Chinese-funded training on rice production

    CHINA, 2016/03/23 Gladys Mwafungo, a senior agricultural officer in Kenya's coastal county of Kilifi and her five colleagues have sharpened their skills in rice production thanks to a two month training program sponsored by the Chinese Ministry of Commerce in June last year. During an interview with Xinhua on Sunday evening, Mwafungo said her study tour to China's Yuan Longping Agricultural Hitech Institute exposed her to cutting edge technologies on production of hybrid rice. "I went to China mid last year for an exchange program on hybrid rice production sponsored by the Ministry of Commerce. The two month training focused on technologies used in production of high yielding rice varieties," said Mwafungo.

  • Agriculture to head discussion list at ATF Kigali event Kigali, Rwanda

    RWANDA, 2016/03/04 At the same time as Africa’s top economists, policymakers, business leaders, and development practitioners gather in Kigali in March for the initial African Transformation Forum (ATF) one of the major discussion topics will be how to use agriculture as a base for the continent’s economic transformation. The ATF, which takes place in Kigali, Rwanda on March 14-15 is organized by the African Center for Economic Transformation (ACET) and the Government of Rwanda.

  • Why the 'Green Revolution' Is Making Farmers Poorer in Rwanda

    RWANDA, 2016/02/21 A major strategy to reduce poverty in sub-Saharan Africa is through modernisation of agricultural production. The "Green Revolution" policies being implemented promote modern seed varieties and inputs to boost production of marketable crops. This is meant to raise farmers' incomes, develop their nations' economies and, by doing so, combat hunger and poverty. In the 1960s and 1970s similar strategies helped a lot of farmers and transformed economies in Asian nations. Similar attempts yielded poor results in Africa. However, a new wave of Green Revolutions is being implemented across the region. These are justified by governments and donors as an essential response to rising people, limited land and a need for increase to fuel additional general development.

  • Portugal’s Portucel increases investment in pulp project in Mozambique

    PORTUGAL, 2016/01/26 Portuguese pulp and paper company Portucel plans to increase investment in Mozambique from US$2.3 to US$3 billion, the company’s director in Mozambique, Pedro Moura, said. Moura, in an interview with Reuters, said the increase in investment was the result of “technological developments of equipment producers” and would increase pulp production capacity. Portucel’s forestry and industrial project for the production of paper pulp and energy in Mozambique is expected to create 7,500 direct jobs and export worth US$1 billion per year.

  • Will Saudi agricultural investments in Sudan leave Egypt high and dry?

    EGYPT, 2016/01/11 Riyadh has been encouraging Saudi investors to pump additional money into Sudan in conjunction with Sudan’s participation in the Saudi-led intervention against the Houthis in Yemen. From presently on internal reports prepared by Egypt’s Water Resources and Irrigation Ministry, along with the Agriculture and Land Reclamation Ministry, confirm that Sudan is by presently using its entire allotment of Nile water, according to a government official briefed on the issue who spoke to Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity.

  • Nigerian banks target N300 billion for SMEs, agric sector

    NIGERIA, 2016/01/04 The Bankers Committee said it has set a target of N300 billion to boost lending to Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (SMEs) and the agriculture sector in 2016. The Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, Godwin Emefiele, said this while briefing journalists on the communiqué released next the 7th Annual Bankers Committee Retreat held in Lagos from December 10 to 11. The theme of the conference was “‘Creating an Enabling Environment for SME Increase’. Mr. Emefiele said that the facilities would not only be for SMEs, but as well to large scale farming companies.

  • China aims to increase Africa's expertise in novel bamboo products

    CHINA, 2015/12/15 China aims to increase Africa's expertise in novel bamboo products through a new knowledge exchange network, it was announced at the COP 21 summit. The country plans to team up with African states to start a partnership that would see knowledge about bamboo growth and products, such as bamboo-based biofuels and charcoal briquettes, transferred to other bamboo-growing nations. The partnership, which was launched at an event on 9 December in Paris, France, will be overseen by INBAR, a China-based intergovernmental organisation that seeks to use bamboo and rattan to reduce poverty and environmental damage. Part of a 20 billion renminbi (US$3.1 billion) fund that China launched in  September to increase South-South cooperation on climate change will be spent on the initiative.

  • Hiked Electricity Charges Will Cripple Irrigation Farming

    ZAMBIA, 2015/12/14 JERVIS Zimba has charged that the Patriotic Front government is treating farmers like idiots by failing to engage them before making critical decisions that affect the industry. And Zimba, a local farmer and former Zambia National Farmers Union president, says increased electricity tariffs will terribly cripple irrigation farming and from presently on trigger high prices of wheat and soya beans.

  • Malawi Cotton Farmers to Smile All the Way to the Bank

    MALAWI, 2015/12/14 Cotton farmers in Malawi are all smiles following the raise in cotton prices by over 90 % for those on arrangement farming with Cotton Ginners Africa Limited. The company's general manager Spencer Dzimbiri told a news conference in Blantyre that the cotton firm will splash out K1.3 billion in loans for farm input for over 100000 cotton farmers. Dzimbiri said this planting season, his company will be buying cotton at K375 per kilogram up from K195 kilogram per kilogram last year. "We want to motivate our esteemed farmers to grow additional cotton. In Malawi we have beautiful good land, beautiful weather and hard working people," said Dzimbiri.

  • German multinational, the Bosch Group, wants to help lift the quality and returns from Ethiopian coffee

    GERMANY, 2015/12/08 German multinational, the Bosch Group, wants to help lift the quality and returns from Ethiopian coffee by supplying better processing equipment and expertise. "We believe that technology is the best way that the coffee industry can move up the price chain in Ethiopia and compete globally. This is why the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) works with companies like Bosch to make this a reality," Vandan Rughani, the Managing Director of Bosch East Africa said last week in Addis Ababa. He was speaking at the initial International Coffee Processing and Packaging Round Table organised and paid for by the Group, specifically, Bosch Packaging Technology. According to a statement, participants came from UNIDO, several industrial and agricultural institutions, large business, small and medium business owners, farmers, civil society inclunding local and international aid agencies. Central to the talks was agreeing on a strategic bid to enhance food security.
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