Trending
- Can Tanzania irrigation schemes avert impending EAC hunger?
- SA Banks top list of world’s top 500 most valuable banks in Africa
- Africa set to become a new El Dorado for Rare Earths Production
- Land prices in Nairobi subdued amid slowdown of Kenyan economy
- Tanzania increases coal production amidst clean energy transition
- New World Order: Changing global trade patterns
- TradeMark East Africa rebrands to TradeMark Africa, expands to West Africa
- Despite international initiatives food inflation worsening in Africa
Browsing: AfDB
The Horn of Africa region – Eritirea, Ethiopia, Sudan, Djibouti and Somali – has faced persistent food shortages due to…
The United States has been working to increase its economic and political engagement with Africa in recent years. Yellen arrived…
Tanzania President Samia Suluhu has urged the world to look to Africa for energy amid the climate, energy and geopolitical…
The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) could deliver far greater benefits in terms of jobs, growth, and poverty…
Economies the world over have made significant recoveries from the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, Russia-Ukraine conflict and disruptive supply…
Over 20 million children in the Horn of Africa will suffer severe hunger, thirst and disease in 2023 Africa food…
Africa produces more fertilizer than it consumes yet it imports to meet demand gaps Poor inter-country trade facilities affect fertilizer…
By 2050, a quarter of the world’s population (25%) will be in Africa Africa Investment Forum (AIF) raises US $31…
The reason farmers are forced to buy seeds is that projects like AGRA take away traditional organic seeds by giving subsidized GMO seeds, which cannot be replanted hence after harvest, the farmers must buy new batches of seeds to replant the next season.
In effect, forcing the farmers to rely on new purchases of seeds every year means the peasants are unwittingly caught in a cycle of dependency and poverty, for that matter.
Worse still, projects like AGRA that claims to introduce ‘modern agriculture technologies’ focus on using chemical-based fertilizers and pesticides and also push for monoculture, which locks the farmers in the dependency cycle; they have to buy more fertilizers to keep their lands productive, and they have to buy the same pesticides because of monoculture.
It is for such reasons that last year, AFSA released an open letter with over 200 signatories alleging that AGRA did not increase the productivity or incomes of farmers nor did it reduce food insecurity.
A recent index report showed that Tanzania’s agro sector is mechanizing rapidly on the back drop of value addition mini-factories, the revolution is not unique to Tanzania, it is happening continent wide and North Africa is leading.
Evidence to this fact lies in the pages of the Africa Industrialization Index (AII) report that show more than 35 of Africa’s 52 countries have become more industrialized over the span of the last decade.
The multi-stakeholder report, prepared by the African Development Bank, the African Union and the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), attests to an ongoing industrial revolution in Africa.
The Africa Industrialization Index (AII) uses 19 indicators to rate each country’s level of industrialization ranging from performance of its manufacturing sector, capital, labor to a country’s business environment, its infrastructure and even its entire macroeconomic status.
