Browsing: Covid effects on Agriculture

Families across the globe are increasingly unable to access and afford a diet needed for a healthy life due to loss of income, price increases and disruption in food and health care systems.

This is according to new research that indicates that in many populous low- and middle-income countries, the COVID-19 pandemic and its socio-economic effects are projected to cause a devastating increase in child malnutrition, a difficult situation that is likely to get worse if no urgent action is taken.

The Standing Together for Nutrition consortium (ST4N) research suggests that without immediate action, an additional 283,000 malnutrition-related deaths in young children are estimated by 2022 – equivalent to an additional 258 children dying per day.

Food Insecurity in Zimbabwe: A Crisis in the Making?

For those who survive, an additional 3.6 million stunted children will be affected by life-long physical and cognitive impairments, and 13.6 million more will become …

Kenya’s agriculture has beaten the odds of a difficult 2020 to end on a high, having registered one of the best growth trajectories across key segments in a long time.  

Indeed these fortunes are attributable to fairly good weather and unprecedented coordination in delivery of inputs and services as witnessed during the Covid-19 lockdown when President Kenyatta on advice from the private sector placed agriculture among the essential services to be exempted from curfew.  Not even the invasion of desert locusts early in the year and the hovering around of the pest dampened farm production.  The government and private sector players quickly assembled an assault which, together with nature, subdued arguably the most dreaded crop insect.  

The horticulture sector has registered a 140 per cent growth, up from 115 per cent the previous year in a season everyone expected a shrink in the general slow economic turnaround …