agriculture - The African Mirror

Mar

2024

China’s Xi willing to work with Angola as it moves on from oil

CHINESE President Xi Jinping said he would support Chinese firms that invest in Angola's agriculture and manufacturing sectors, state media reported on Friday, as the African oil-producing nation seeks help in diversifying its economy. "The Chinese side is willing to work with Angola to implement key infrastructure projects and support strong Chinese companies to go to Angola to carry out various forms of cooperation," Xi told visiting Angolan President Joao Lourenco at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. Lourenco's visit follows Angola's announcement in December it would leave producer group the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and agreements with…

Nov

2023

By The African Mirror

Climate change and farming: economists warn more needs to be done to adapt in sub-Saharan Africa

ENVIRONMENT

SUB-SAHARAN African countries strongly rely on the agricultural and forestry sectors. Agriculture contributes up to 60% of some countries’ gross domestic product. But the sector is highly vulnerable to climate change because it relies heavily on climatic factors. This vulnerability is particularly marked in the region because of its slow rate of technological advancement. ABEEB BABATUNDE OMOTOSO, Postdoctoral research associate, North-West University ABIODUN OLUSOLA OMOTAYO, Senior lecturer/researcher, North-West University As agricultural economists we carried out a review of the literature on the climate change challenge for agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa. We explored the distribution of various climatic factors (like rainfall,…

Oct

2023

By MISHECK KHUMBILO NYIRONGO, BIRD STORY AGENCY

Innovative radio programming transforms agriculture, enables education and offers a lifeline in eastern Zambia

NEWS

FOR Bauti Chipeta, working the land among the rolling hills and lush fields of the Lundazi District in the heart of eastern Zambia, life had begun to feel like an endless struggle. With fertilisers increasingly expensive and the land more and more denuded, cash crops brought in less and less each year and the cutting down of local forests had led to erratic rainfall. Then Chipeta discovered a local community radio station, Chikaya. “I started listening to community radio in 2018 when they also introduced us to permaculture and agroecology approaches on how to grow local seeds,” Chipeta recalled. The…

Apr

2023

By The African Mirror

Agriculture and food: Africa’s economic engine

NEWS

BONFACE ORUCHO, BIRD STORY AGENCY AFRICA is leveraging its huge small-scale farming community to grow its agrifood sector and provide additional jobs for a ballooning population expected to double by 2050. Some 290 million Africans are employed in food and agriculture, according to a recent Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) study, a number that is "only second to Asia, where some 790 million people are employed in agrifood systems". The report, 'Estimating Global and Country Level Employment in Agrifood Systems, notes that the high number of jobs created in Africa reflects the efforts made by different countries to invest in…

Feb

2023

By The African Mirror

Africa’s agribusiness sector should drive the continent’s economic development: Five reasons why

BUSINESS

AFRICA'S agriculture sector accounts for about 35% of the continent’s gross domestic product and provides the livelihood of more than 50% of the continent’s population. These shares are more than double those of the world average and much higher than those of any other emerging region. Author LILAC NACHUM, Visiting Professor at Strathmore Business School; Professor of International Business, City University New York, City University of New York Dependence on agriculture has declined in other emerging regions. For example in Southeast Asia, agriculture’s share of GDP dropped from 30-35% in 1970 to 10-15% in 2019. In Africa, it has remained…

Mar

2022

By The African Mirror

Russia’s war with Ukraine risks putting fresh pressure on rising fertiliser prices

BUSINESS

RUSSIA is one of the major players in global agricultural markets. The country is a significant exporter of grains and also integrated into global agriculture as a supplier of inputs, particularly fertiliser. The country is a leading world supplier of the key ingredients of a range of them. Author WANDILE SIHLOBO, Senior Fellow, Department of Agricultural Economics, Stellenbosch University It’s therefore important to keep track of the impact of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on various transmission channels, and the knock-on effects they could have on Africa’s agricultural markets. So far the focus has been on the supply and price of…

Nov

2021

By The African Mirror

Africa’s sunflower queen’s big dreams

MULTIMEDIA

ROSE NGOY, BIRD IT'S an intoxicating sight - and a rare one in this part of Africa. Gigantic yellow sunflowers seem to almost leap from the verdant green of the fields around them, their faces tilted upwards, gazing at the brightness of a vast morning sky. The five hectares of sunflowers here at the farm that Ange Kanonga runs are both an experiment and another step towards agricultural self-sufficiency in the region. DR Congo's mineral-rich Katanga province has long used its vast mineral wealth to simply import the food it needs, with relatively little investment in agriculture beyond smallholder subsistence…

Sep

2021

By The African Mirror

AU crafts guidelines for GM crops

NEWS

WENDELL ROELF THE African Union is developing guidelines for the use of genetically modified (GM) crops across the continent, officials said, amid criticism from campaigners that some policies favour big business and lack adequate public input. Despite a concerted push by donor-funded schemes to expand the use of such crops in Africa, they have not been widely adopted by the millions of small-scale farmers that make up the backbone of the agricultural sector. Only seven countries - South Africa, Sudan, eSwatini, Ethiopia, Malawi, Nigeria and Kenya - have approved the commercial production of GM crops, mainly insect-resistant cotton, the African…

Aug

2021

By The African Mirror

Research and development are key to resilient food systems in Africa

SCIENCE, TECH AND INNOVATION

WHAT will it take to build sustainable, resilient food systems in African countries? This was among the questions considered at the 2021 United Nations Food Systems Pre-Summit in late July. The summit, the first of its kind in this century, aims to identify bold, innovative actions, with measurable outcomes. These actions are needed to achieve many of the Sustainable Development Goals in what the UN has dubbed the “Decade of Action”. LULAMA NDIBONGO TRAUB, Technical Chair, Regional Network of Agricultural Policy Research Institutes (ReNAPRI), Stellenbosch University THOMAS JAYNE, MSU Foundation Professor, Agricultural, Food and Resource Economics, Michigan State University WANDILE…

Jun

2021

By The African Mirror

Small towns are collapsing across South Africa. How it’s starting to affect farming

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

FARMING and agribusiness play a crucial role in sustaining the economies of small towns and rural areas. There is a lot of evidence of this in the economic literature and in the popular media. This dependency has its inherent risks. WANDILE SIHLOBO, Visiting Research Fellow, Wits School of Governance, University of the Witwatersrand International literature tends to focus on the devastation of small towns in times of drought or when farming lobby groups argue for particular policies. In South Africa, a different pattern has emerged. This is when municipalities fail to provide basic services to their communities and businesses. These…