Browsing: Food and Agriculture Organization

• Eastern Africa and Western Africa account for 70 per cent of Africa’s population unable to afford a healthy diet.
• About 30 per cent of Africa’s children bear the indelible mark of stunted growth, a cruel consequence of malnutrition.
• Burkina Faso, Djibouti, Mali, Mauritania, and Niger emerged with the highest prevalence rates of child wasting above 10 per cent.

Food crisis in Africa is deepening with a new report showing that an estimated one billion people in the continent are unable to afford a healthy diet. Painting a grim picture for the continent, the Africa Regional Overview of Food Security and Nutrition – Statistics and Trends 2023 report adds that a total of 282 million people in Africa, roughly 20 percent of the population, including millions of children, are undernourished. This distressing statistic sadly reflects an increase of 57 million people since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“After a long …

Only a few Kenyans are aware of the entire extent of the law’s punitive nature, which has remained hidden from the public. The farming communities in Kenya who are aware of it are shocked that no public engagement was carried out prior to the adoption of this statute. 

Greenpeace Africa’s Campaigner, Claire Nasike, says that the Kenya government has failed to do what it was supposed to do, which was to make laws to protect the ownership of native seeds, knowledge about these seeds and the intellectual property rights. The current laws on seeds support neo-colonialism and could make it easy for multinationals, big businesses, and other profit-driven organisations to steal local resources. 

Kenya’s 2010 Constitution has made it clear that indigenous seeds, which are also called “informal seeds”, exist and need to be protected. This is done by requiring parliament to pass laws that protect the ownership of indigenous …

A data collection and analysis initiative led by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the African Union Commission (AUC) has revealed 7 billion trees outside forests for the first time, among other findings. The survey is the first consistent land use representation of the continent and discloses more forests and more arable lands than were previously detected.

FAO and the AUC presented the findings today of the Africa Open DEAL (Data for Environment, Agriculture and Land) initiative which has made Africa the first continent to complete the collection of accurate, comprehensive, and harmonized digital land use and land-use change data. It provides a detailed snapshot of the continent, captured through more than 300 000 sampling points between 2018 and 2020.

“The Africa DEAL shows that science and innovation can provide real solutions and that collaboration and pooling experience leads to the best results. It supports …

Of the 186.5 million people from around the world who cannot afford an energy-sufficient food diet, the vast majority are Africans.

This is according to a new report launched by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) and the African Union Commission (AUC).

Nutritious foods, such as fruits, vegetables and animal proteins, are relatively expensive when compared to staples such as cereals and starchy roots, and, the report argues, some of the reasons for this are systemic.

Evidence presented in the report shows that nearly three-quarters of the African population cannot afford a healthy diet of fruits, vegetable and animal proteins, and more than half cannot afford a nutrient-adequate diet, which provides a mix of carbohydrates, protein, fats, and essential vitamins and minerals to maintain basic health.

Even an energy-sufficient diet, which supplies a bare minimum of energy and little …