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Browsing: farming in Africa
- Tanzania’s agriculture sector holds one-third of the country’s GDP and employs 75 per cent of the population.
- The government target is to raise crop exports by 48 per cent to $3.5 billion by 2025 as food shipments rise to overtake the value that Tanzania earns from its traditional export crops.
- Tanzania earned over $1.2 billion with the export of agricultural commodities in 2020.
An outlook into Tanzania’s agriculture sector
Numbers show that farmers are Tanzania’s most essential workforce. Tanzania’s agriculture sector holds one-third of the country’s GDP and employs 75 per cent of the population.
Available data shows that approximately 80 per cent of Tanzania’s exports are agricultural products such as coffee, cotton, sisal, tea, cashew nuts and tobacco, to mention a few.
From 2014 to 2020, the above crops benefitted the nation’s export baskets. Tanzania earned over $1.2 billion with the export of agricultural commodities in 2020, according to …
- Kenyan youth are frequently asked to consider farming as a way of making a living
- Some agree while others rubbish the trade saying it is difficult
- Challenges facing farmers in Kenya include the high cost of farming inputs, cartels along the production chain and lack of sufficient land for farming commercially
Kenyan youth have been urged time and time again to turn to farming to make a living, amid high levels of unemployment. They are also frequently asked to use farming as a means of increasing the amount of food produced in the economy to aid food security.
For instance, youths in Elgeyo Marakwet were recently urged to engage in crop farming for economic purposes. Crop farming would also reduce their over reliance on livestock farming, which has contributed to banditry in the region.
A finding by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) explains that agriculture contributes 33% to the …
Africa’s fast population growth exacerbates the issue. According to most estimates, Africa’s population will double by 2050 and then double again by 2100, finally reaching over 4 billion by the end of the century. Feeding Africa’s rising population will need considerable breakthroughs in the continent’s food systems.
However, agricultural progress may be difficult if African farmers are subjected to more severe climatic effects. To prepare for these future difficulties, one must understand how climate change will materialize in Africa and its impact on the continent’s agricultural systems.…
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 …