Browsing: Food Security

Stakeholders of agriculture on the continent have urged governments to work with the private sector to build resillient food systems to bridge the widening gap in production.

Speaking during the Alliance for a Green Revoluton in Africa (AGRA)  organized Africa Green Revolution Forum (AGRF) Summit last week, speakers reiterated that food security cannot be achieved without a gvernment facilitated enabling environemnt for agribusiness to thrive. 

The summit was held ahead AGRF ,  slated for September in Nairobi, where   leaders, while celebrating the milestones the agriculture sector has made over the years, called on enhanced collaboration in transforming the continent’s food systems  amid rising concerns over global food shortages owing to increasing population, shrinking land and climate change.

“As we look at innovative ways of producing food to feed our people, assist our farmers and bolsters agribusinesses, we must explore ways of working together to actualize this commitment. The partnership between …

It is hard to remember any decision that has ever harmed Kenya as much as the recommendation now before parliament that it adopts the European Union’s (EU) policies on agricultural inputs and phase them out. In fact, as the latest and most disastrous move yet by health policy-makers to take over the country’s agricultural policy, it is an overreach where ignorance could cost us 20 per cent of our entire GDP, as well as countless lives. 

 Also read: East African Trends: A focus on East Africa’s agribusiness investments

For there is nothing about the recommendation from the Parliamentary Health Committee to indicate it has examined the policies it wants introduced, or understood them, or assessed the impact on Kenya. Nor has it mentioned why the rest of the world – including Kenya itself – has moved into WTO disputes seeking the overturning of the very same policies, or why the …

The Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Sciences (KFAS) (www.KFAS.org) announced the appointment of Dr. Khaled Ali Al-Fadhel as the new Director General of the Foundation in March. In this capacity, he will also serve on the Board of Trustees for the Al-Sumait Prize for African Development (www.AlSumaitPrize.org). Dr. Al-Fadhel succeeds Dr. Adnan Shihab-Eldin, who retired earlier this year, and had served as Director General of KFAS since 2011, as well as a member of AlSumait Prize Board of Trustees since 2015.

When asked about his vision for Al-Sumait Prize for African Development, he stated: “It is our goal to elevate the impact and standing of Al-Sumait Prize. One of the most certain ways to ensure that humanitarian efforts and initiatives continue their momentum, and their perceptible success, is to establish awards such as Al-Sumait Prize that aim to recognize the accomplishments of organizations and researchers dedicated to the creation …

East Africa has since late 2019 been fighting swarms of desert locusts which have posed a serious threat to crops and grazing across the region. 

The locust plague In Kenya is the worst in 70 years. In the last two months, new swarms have been breeding and hatching leaving farmers devastated as they try to cope with the negative effects from previous pests not to mention the dry spells and floods that hit the region further destroying crops. 

“We expect the worst if the young hatch in March and April,” Kelvin Shingles, Kenya Country Director for German Agro Action (Deutsche Welthungerhilfe) said in a press release. 

In Ethiopia, Somalia and Kenya, it is reported that up to 38 percent of cropland and 48 percent of pastureland have been affected. 69 percent of households have also suffered losses due to the plague according to the Southern Africa Food and …

There is a certain state of mind where someone is so sure something is true they consider all information as proof, and ignore everything that suggests otherwise. It is how the majority of the world’s population believed the Earth was flat long after measurements showed the curve on the planet’s surface and its changing position relative to the sun and stars. 

For, when you want to believe the Earth is flat, facts are only interference.  

And so it is with the current fashion for declaring that spraying locusts or any insects that eat part or all our crops is necessarily bad, even when there is no evidence at all that that is the case. 

Indeed, so extreme is the anti-pesticide noise that we are in danger of plundering our food output and increasing our dependency on Europe for generations ahead. Some have even have called it the new colonialism, in …

During the last decade much has been said about the urgency to develop the African agricultural sector to meet the increasing need for food security across the continent. Frequently it is stressed that Africa largely missed the “Green Revolution” since the continent’s agriculture sector did not transform into an intensive arena with modern technologies to increase the crop yield significantly¹.

Until today the East African agricultural sector is dominated for 75% by smallholder farmers that apply low farming inputs, traditional technologies and methods, while agriculture remains the backbone of the economy². This article discusses a reason for optimism, and how a circular economy (aims close the loop of resources through the establishment of restorative and regenerative systems), can contribute to food security and food productivity in East Africa.

Also Read: Food security: Opening markets for smallholder farmers  

Africa missed the Green revolution; an opportunity to implement …