A tech that uses radioactive material is increasing crop yields in some nations. It has raised tea yields by 17 per cent in Tanzania and aided water use in Ghana.An expert hopes other African nations would adopt it to spur food security. Read …
“Teff is now in high demand as a highly nutritious, gluten-free grain suitable for consumption by gluten-intolerant persons. … As demand for this crop increases it make sense for us to develop better varieties with increased drought tolerance and yield stability under drier conditions. Another advantage of teff is that …
A new project has begun following the end of a related initiative that has provided more than 200 improved maize varieties for farmers in 13 Sub-Saharan Africa countries. The Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa (DTMA) project launched eight years ago under the Global Maize Program of the International Maize and …
The two biggest challenges we are confronted with this century is managing climate change and ending poverty and hunger. As Lord Stern recently put it: if we fail at one, we will fail on the other. We cannot achieve a world of zero hunger if we do not tackle climate …
In the west, we’ve spent 50 years relying on increasing food yields by adding nitrogen-based fertilisers to the soils. But it’s not an approach that seems to be working for the millions of smallholder farmers across western and central Africa. Local farmers, agronomists and scientists from across the world are …
Natural stocks of phosphorous are expected to last for the next 60 years, but researchers from Kazan University in Russia are looking for ways to prevent a catastrophe as excess phytate levels in the soil pose a long-term risk for sustainable agriculture.
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Small scale livestock farming in Africa can become more intensive yet sustainable if better and more nutritious forage is used to feed the animals. This could benefit farming activities especially in rural Sub-Saharan Africa and see a shift from the increased reliance on ordinary pasture grazing.
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Agriculture is about more than yields. A vast food system spreads beyond farm and table to touch almost every aspect of life in every society. Making that system in Africa as robust as possible will not merely prevent starvation. It will also fight poverty, disease, and malnutrition; create businesses and …
Women are the cornerstone of the rural economy, especially in the developing world. They bear the greatest responsibility for food production, producing more than half of all food in the world and growing 80-90% of the food in sub-Saharan Africa. Yet despite this, women are all too often left out …
The FAO, the Gambia’s Ministry of Agriculture and other stakeholders have validated the National Cassava development strategy document, intended to help transform cassava production and make it an economic commercial-oriented sector. The government has requested the support of FAO to develop cassava because the country’s economic growth has been stifled …
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