Small-Scale Farming - Way to Overcome Food Insecurity

By: Butjwana Seokoma

South Africa should invest in small-scale farming if it intends overcoming food insecurity, ending the culture of relying on social grants and also meeting the UN MDG 1 

 

I was born and raised in a rural area somewhere in the eastern side of Limpopo Lowveld. I never suffered from malnutrition or any other disease linked to food insecurity because my parents relied on small-scale farming to produce the food that we consumed as a family. Like many other families in my area, we have a piece of land where we plant crops depending on the season of the year. Many people in my community face a number of socio-economic hardships in their daily lives. To escape the reality of living under such hardships, they invest their time and energy into small-scale farming. It is for this reason that children from families that practice small-scale farming are not likely to suffer from diseases such as kwashiorkor, which is directly linked to food insecurity.

In order to overcome some of the socio-economic hardships already referred to, most unemployed adults in the area have no option but to rely on small-scale farming to sustain their families and generate income. The greatest benefit is the area has loam soil and one is not required to invest in buying fertilisers since it contains more nutrients and humus.

I am a bit worried that while the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries focuses on providing fertilisers to small-scale farmers in my area, other departments have not contributed anything to the sector. Fertilisers are not important especially because activists in the area are of the view that they have the potential to kill the microorganisms which play a key role in decomposing the organic matter in the soil. If this claim is anything to go by, the use of fertilisers could impact negatively on small-scale farming in future.

A few months after hosting the 17th Conference of the Parties (COP17), we now live with the reality that climate change exists. All we need to do as a country is to empower small-scale farmers to make informed decisions, especially because they are affected by climate change.


Small-scale farmers operate within ever-changing and unpredictable weather patterns. It is time for the South African Weather Service (SAWS) to come to the party. We cannot continue to have the SAWS which does not even reach out to small-scale farmers when conveying weather-related information. I am one of the fortunate few South Africans who can access weather forecasts on the SAWS website, get weather information on radio or watch it on television. The sad thing is that many of our small-scale farmers do not have the luxury of accessing weather-related information.

I recently went to the SAWS website and found the following message - “Get weather insight for your farm in the palm of your hand by using our web product and SMS messages: R199 per month.” This message is aimed at commercial farmers – there is no doubt about it. Does this institution have a strategy in place to start updating small-scale farmers with useful information on weather, which will enable them to make more informed decisions when farming? Messages like this will not benefit majority of the small-scale farmers in the country, if one considers the country’s literacy.

Again, providing support to small-scale farmers will go a long in building healthy communities. Small-scale farming has many benefits. In South Africa for example, small-scale farming could enable many people, especially those living with HIV/AIDS to eat a healthy diet and also contribute to improving life expectancy. In addition, it could help majority of the 15 million social grants beneficiaries to also produce enough food. This will ease pressure on their social grants, which are often used for buying food and not other necessities in the household.

Even though small-scale farming does not contribute massively to overcoming food insecurity in many communities, it could enable communities to realise the United Nations Millennium Development Goal 1 of eradicating extreme poverty and hunger. Our government should put its money where its mouth is. We cannot continue encouraging people to venture into a sector which we are not supporting as a country. By failing to build the capacity of small-scale farmers to be able to produce food; we are creating a hungry nation, promoting the culture of relying on social grants for survival, not improving life expectancy, and taking the country many steps backwards when it comes to nutrition. We need to follow on the footsteps of our parents’ generation, who grew crops to feed their families for many years.

- Butjwana Seokoma is information coordinator at SANGONeT. He continues to believe in the power of subsistence farming and describes agriculture as his greatest passion

FAO launches project to boost food security in Egypt

CAIRO -  The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is leading a US$3 million project to boost food and nutrition security for women and youth in Egypt, through increased food production, nutrition education, and governmental capacity building.

Women harvesting onions in Ghana. © Afrikafarms

The four-year project, announced last month (18 June), is funded by the Italian government and will be implemented in collaboration with Egypt's Ministry of Agriculture.

Moujahed Achouri, the Egyptian FAO representative, told SciDev.Net: "The programme is part of the FAO's [regional] contribution to reducing and mitigating [...] concomitant financial and political shocks, which are heavily affecting food and nutrition security at household level". 

The project aims to improve the nutritional status of households, particularly of women and youth, in Egypt's poorest villages, by creating secure access to diversified foods from both animal and vegetable sources, and ensuring target groups have the knowledge and skills necessary to follow nutritionally adequate diets. 

The FAO in Egypt told SciDev.Net that before the revolution of 2011, "women and youth faced constraints in accessing the labour market — it is expected that this situation will worsen with the prevailing economic slow-down". 

According to the UN Development Programme's Human Development Report 2010, the percentage of unemployed women and youth was significantly higher than the national average, (24–24.5 per cent versus ten per cent). Egyptian health surveys show that malnutrition is the root cause of more than one third of illnesses affecting children under five. 

A new fund will promote training, not only on environmentally-friendly and bio-secure ways of producing food and rearing animals, but also on the skills and knowledge necessary to running small enterprises, says the FAO in Egypt. 

Training will be delivered through women's groups and will engage community members in in-depth analyses of their villages' nutritional statuses and in the preparation and implementation of nutrition education and communication plans. 

Akila Saleh, a coordinator at the Egyptian Ministry of Agriculture, told SciDev.Net that "There is a steering committee for the project made ​​up of [officials from] the ministries of education, health and agriculture".

An institutional mechanism will be established to coordinate implementation, monitor impact and ensure that good practices are integrated into national strategies.

"Target villages will be selected on the basis of their poverty ranking [...]," according to the FAO in Egypt. "Preference will be given to those located in governorates with high rates of poverty, low food security, and malnutrition".

Source: Science and Development Network

How Corporate Agribusiness supplies the lion's share of US Food Aid

For the first time it is possible to see which companies benefit from aid contracts and which countries are the main recipients

A woman collects WFP vegetable oil in Agok, southern Sudan.

As the food crisis in the Sahel countries of west Africa deepens and the anniversary of the famine in the Horn of Africa falls, the debate about how best to deliver food aid to the world's hungry has intensified.

The US is the world's largest donor of food aid but still delivers most of it "in kind" under programmes dating back to the 1950s that tie it to American companies and were originally designed to make use of American agricultural surplus.

The in-depth Guardian analysis of all the food aid contracts awarded by the US government's department of agriculture last year highlights some of the most controversial aspects of the programme. For the first time it is possible to see just which companies benefit from the contracts and which countries are the main recipients.
Development charities have been concerned for some time that corporate agribusiness supplies the lion's share of the contracted food aid and the Guardian investigation bears this out.

It is not surprising ADM, Cargill and Bunge dominate food aid, since they dominate global grain trade too. They are also powerful political players; in the first three months of 2012 alone, ADM and Cargill reported lobbying expenses of $360,000 and $340,000 respectively; Bunge reported spending $230,000 over the same period, lobbying Congress on a range of largely agricultural issues, including "support for US in-kind food aid programmes".

Patrick Woodall, research director at Food and Water Watch, pointed out the inherent contradiction in current policy. The companies that benefit from the US food aid business are the very companies that encourage poor countries to cultivate non-food crops for export rather than food to feed their people. "In terms of global food security, it seems like a double-edged sword," he said.

Nor is it surprising that food aid supports US geopolitical interests – although just how emerges in our analysis. The Guardian database shows Ethiopia, Sudan, Djibouti, Pakistan, Kenya and Afghanistan are among the top recipients of American food. These are all countries with people who go hungry but, were humanitarian need the only criterion for giving food aid, you might expect to see more countries from west Africa higher on the list, points out Rob Bailey, a fellow at Chatham House. Ethiopia, the recipient of the largest amounts by far, is highly vulnerable to regular droughts and food crises, and famine has been associated with regime change there, but it is since it became an ally in the global war on terror in the region that a more permanent food aid structure has been developed. The US has given more food and the World Food Programme has been able to work with the government to make regular food distributions as a result. A similar pattern can be seen in food aid to Afghanistan, Bailey said. High wheat prices have been a source of political instability in strategic ally Pakistan too, explaining its position as fourth largest destination country for US food aid.

Debate over these issues is growing as Congress approaches a 30 September deadline to pass a new farm bill. Negotiated every five years, it is one of the largest and most contentious pieces of US legislation, setting policy on a wide range of issues – including the bulk of international food aid.

In 2008 Congress authorised a $60m pilot to buy food aid closer to where it was needed as part of the current farm bill – a move that many other donor countries and NGOs believe would be a more effective use of money. The Senate version of the farm bill would extend the pilot. However, the House version doesn't even mention it. Now the two chambers of Congress have to reconcile their differences, and with big farm bill fights over farm subsidies and domestic food stamps, it's anyone's guess what happens next.

Trade groups are clear in their opposition to local and regional purchasing. In letters to Congress earlier this year 31 agribusiness and shipping groups wrote: "US food aid programmes not only further our humanitarian and security goals by allowing Americans to share their bounty with the needy, but these programmes also provide stable jobs for hundreds of thousands of Americans."

Source: the guardian

Saudi Investment in African Farmland

Saudi Arabia is investing in agricultural land in Africa as the state’s local crop production diminish.

Saudi Arabia has a major problem with water scarcity and only 1% of its land is suitable for agriculture.

“Saudi investors have reportedly planned or concluded investments covering 800,000 hectares of land in Africa (accounting for almost 70% of all large deals struck by Saudi firms globally),” says Standard Bank in a recent report.

But why Africa, and what are the opportunities and problems Saudi investment in Africa might catalyse?

The Saudi agriculture problem

Saudi Arabia is approaching a food production crisis that is a major problem for its growing population that is consuming more food. “Local poultry production in 2012 is likely to be almost 800,000 tonnes lower than consumption, while wheat production will be deficient by around 1,800,000 tonnes and maize by 1,880,000 tonnes,” notes Standard Bank’s report. Saudi Arabia’s water scarcity is also problematic, with water consumption having more than doubled since 2006.

This has led to the Saudi government deciding to phase out local wheat production. By 2016 it will no longer purchase locally-grown wheat. The country is already estimated to import around 2.5 million tonnes of wheat between 2012/2013, and this is expected to increase to 3.3 million tonnes annually in the coming years.

However, relying on food imports is not ideal, with the country becoming vulnerable to unstable global supply and costs.

The solution: invest in foreign agricultural production as a “means to ensure a long-term, reliable supply of stable commodities,” says the report. It is because of this that the “Saudi government established the King Abdullah Initiative for Saudi Agriculture Investment Abroad under which large Saudi agribusiness firms are provided with credit, as well as strategic and logistical support to invest abroad”.

The Africa solution

With 60% of the world’s uncultivated arable land being in Africa, it’s no wonder that Saudi Arabia has an eye on the continent, with almost 70% of all concluded and planned investments in offshore agriculture being in Africa.

“Factors considered in identifying suitable host countries for agricultural investments include the availability of resources and infrastructure, political and socio-economic stability, and favourable relations with the Saudi government,” notes the report. “Under this initiative, bilateral government-to-government deals can be struck which allow more fluid access for Saudi firms in target markets.”

An example of a Saudi investment in agricultural land in Africa is the Ethiopian government leasing 10,000 hectares to the Saudi Star Agricultural Development in 2008. The company has plans to acquire another 290,000 hectares of land.

“A guiding principle of the initiative is that the investor must have the right to export at least 50% of the farmed produce to Saudi Arabia,” says the report. “The primary products targeted are wheat, barley and maize.”

Weighing up the pros and cons for Africa

Africa needs investment for the improvement of infrastructure and to boost employment opportunities and skills development. Agricultural investment by Saudi firms could help with all these things and more.

However, Standard Bank points out that attention needs to be given to the possible negative ramifications. “Under-selling of agricultural assets (both land and, perhaps more critically, water) remains a profound threat. Meanwhile, as large tracts of land are sold or leased off to foreign investors, the social strains brought about by the relocation of local inhabitants has the potential to be deeply destabilising.”

An ideal investment in Africa’s agricultural land would include directing investment into agricultural infrastructure (such as storage and transport); providing employment and training for local communities; and ensuring that a generous portion of the crops go to local markets. The report also argues that “transparency in the manner in which land deals are struck, and adequate consultation with affected local communities, must be compulsory”.

Source: How We Made in Africa

Attaining Green Revolution In Ghana – The Role of Agra

Human beings depend greatly on grains for subsistence. Grains are man’s source of food and grains are agricultural products. Man does not live on grains alone but on other foods like vegetables, meats and fish to make his meals more palatable. Like grains, these other foods come from the soil, which have to be grown with great care.

Agriculture is the major source of food and the major component of household expenditure. Aside being man’s main food, it also serves as his source of wealth. 

The cocoa, rubber tree and the oil-palm bring millions of cedis to man and the nation as a whole. The agriculture sector also provides the greater number of employments to many people, especially those in the rural settings of the country.

Ghana’s agriculture sector is the backbone of the country’s economy, and smallholder farmers represent about 80 percent of the total agricultural production in the country. However, despite the important role and economic growth the sector plays in man’s livelihood and in the country’s economic development, a lot of these smallholder farmers seem to be living below the poverty line.

In order to complement the Ghana Government’s efforts to help millions of these small-scale farmers and their families lift themselves out of poverty and hunger, the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), a non- governmental organization, is working to increase the productivity, profitability and sustainability of these small farms.

AGRA’s programs and partnerships target major obstacles faced by Ghana’s smallholder farmers through improving farmers’ access to good seed, fertilizer, and sustainable farming practices; to credit; to crop storage; to markets; and to strong farmer-based organizations.
  AGRA is five years in its supportive role to helping ensure food security in Ghana and Africa as a whole. As part of activities marking the event, AGRA is organising a national consultative forum titled “Ghana Agricultural Investment Forum” on Thursday, 24th May, 2012 at Alisa Hotel.

With the aim of working to increase productivity, profitability and sustainability of small farms across the agricultural value chain, AGRA is organizing this forum to provide the platform for key government officials, relevant donor partners, actors along the value chain, the private sector and the media to deliberate on how to effectively operationalize African Green Revolution in Ghana and also to discuss Ghana’s readiness to implement a full-scale agricultural green revolution.

AGRA believes that Ghana has the potential to transform its smallholder farming into a commercially viable and sustainable enterprise and is therefore strengthening smallholder agriculture in the country’s potential “breadbaskets.”

In the northern region, for instance, farmers grow 66 percent of the country’s rice and AGRA is supporting these smallholder farmers with the necessary resources to help transform Ghana into an exporter of rice, and free up US$500 million now spent on rice imports. AGRA is also helping private seed companies which multiply and disseminate soybean, sorghum, maize, rice and groundnut to resource-poor farmers in northern Ghana and other areas.

Also, among its numerous contributions to the sector, is the support to the over 2,200 agro-dealers and 150 seed producers across the regions in the country to increase the availability of agro-inputs such as improved seeds and fertilizers for about 850,000 smallholder farmers.

AGRA also established and supports the West Africa Centre for Crop Improvement (WACCI) at the University of Ghana, Legon, a PhD program to offer training to young scientists. The NGO is also supporting an MSc program in seed science at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology.

The Ghana Agricultural Investment Forum, AGRA believe will offer the requisite platform for all stakeholders to dialogue on Ghana’s agricultural strategies and to discuss Ghana’s readiness to achieve food sufficiency. The outcome of this forum will complement the efforts of government and all the other actors along the value chain to help improve on the lives of the smallholder farmer and the country’s economic development as a whole.

From: Mrs. Praise Nutakor

Food Inflation back on agenda as Prices rise

Women selling vegetables on roadsides in Nairobi

MILAN - Global food prices rose in March for a third successive month, driven by gains in grains and vegetable oils, the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organisation said on Thursday, putting food inflation firmly back on the economic agenda.

Food prices hit record highs in February 2011 and stoked protests connected to the Arab Spring wave of civil unrest in some north African and middle eastern countries. They then receded but started to grow again in January.

The index, which measures monthly price changes for a food basket of cereals, oilseeds, dairy, meat and sugar, averaged 215.9 points in March, up from a revised 215.4 points in February, FAO data showed.

Its Cereal Price Index averaged 227 points in March, up from February, with maize prices showing gains, supported by low inventories and a strong soybean market, the FAO said.

"You can see prices in the near term rising even further," FAO's senior economist and grain analyst Abdolreza Abbassian told Reuters before the index update.

The FAO also confirmed its earlier forecast for world wheat output to fall 1.4 percent from last year's record crop to 690 million tonnes in 2012.

High oil prices have fanned inflationary concerns since the start of this year. Consumer prices in the 17 nations sharing the euro were up 2.6 percent in March from a year ago, despite the region's stumbling economy.

"The food price index has an extremely high correlation to oil prices and with oil prices up it's going to be difficult for food prices not to follow suit," said Nick Higgins, commodity analyst at Rabobank International.

Energy prices affect the production of fertilizers as well as costs related to food distribution and farm machinery use.

"We really saw the (food index) declines in Q4 2011 as being anomalous and related more to sell offs from the threats posed by the European macroeconomic situation rather than agricultural fundamentals," he said.

A U.S. government report last week with lower than expected estimates of grain stocks and reduced soybean and wheat plantings, added to concerns about global grain supplies, driving a rally in U.S. and European grain futures.

Corn and soybeans are set to be the major drivers on world grain markets until new crops are harvested. Strong price swings are expected due to weather changes in major producing countries, Abbassian said.

More price volatility could come if U.S. farmers decide to plant more soybeans after being lured by high prices, he added.

U.S. soybean futures rose about 7 percent in March and gained about 17 percent in the first quarter of this year spurred by concerns about tight supplies as drought hit South America and smaller U.S. plantings.

But FAO's Abbassian said prices could fall in the second half of this year with new crops easing market tension and driving full-year average prices below the record levels of 2011.

Source: Reuters

Restoring Angolan agriculture to its former glory

Many might find it hard to believe that Angola’s capital Luanda used to be the party capital of the central African region up until 1975, when the country gained independence from Portugal.

Working the fields at a project in Angola's Huila Province.

“Luanda was a place of fun,” says Pierre Sauveur, commercial advisor at TAAG Angolan Airlines, the country’s national carrier. “While Portugal was an underdeveloped European country, the fun was in Angola .  .  . Angola was the place where the Portuguese would really enjoy life . . . Movies would come out first in Luanda before Lisbon. New cars would be presented first in Angola before Portugal. They had race tracks; they had a very much developed society.”

At the time Angola had a thriving agricultural sector. The country was one of the world’s foremost coffee exporters. It also produced crops such as palm oil, cocoa and cotton, among various others. “Before 1975, Angola was an extremely productive place, both in terms of animals and crops,” notes Roger Ballard-Tremeer, chief executive of the South Africa-Angola Chamber of Commerce.

The good times, however, came to an end when the Portuguese left. For the following three decades the country was involved in a brutal civil war. The conflict destroyed much of the infrastructure and had a negative impact on business and the economy.

Renewed focus on agriculture

The return of peace in 2002 led to significant economic growth, albeit from a very low base. According to The Economist, Angola experienced an average annual GDP growth of 11.1% between 2001 and 2010, largely sustained by the oil industry. With very little manufacturing in the country, almost all products are imported and sold at prices up to ten times more as what they would cost elsewhere in the world.

The government has, however, committed itself to diversify the economy, with agriculture being one of the focus areas. “As the circumstances improved from 2002 onwards, so they were able to build into their national plan several agricultural projects. For example, [a number of] big irrigation schemes that had existed in one form or another were rehabilitated and they are all now being developed as productive entities,” says Ballard-Tremeer.

One of the projects initiated by the government is the Capanda Agro-Industrial Zone, situated in Malanje Province about 300 kilometres from Luanda. The project is next to the Capanda hydropower dam on the River Kwanza. The zone has a total area of over 400,000 hectares, of which 256,000 ha has been earmarked for rainfed agriculture and 13,500 ha for irrigation. Crops and livestock indentified for the initiative include soya beans, maize, cassava, sugar cane, cotton and dairy. There is also a very strong emphasis on processing activities.

Gesterra, the Angolan state owned agricultural enterprise, currently operates on the Pungo Andongo farm within the Capanda zone. The total area of the farm is 33,000 ha, although only 5,000 ha is currently under cultivation. Gesterra has planted maize, soya beans, rice and beans. Maize and feed mills have also been established.

The entire Capanda zone is managed by a special entity called Sodepac, whose responsibility it is to enter into negotiations with the private sector.

The project is being run on a public-private partnership (PPP) model. The Angolan government has already put in place infrastructure such as a railway line between Luanda and Malanje as well as road access to the zone. Electricity is available from the hydropower station. A nearby airport is also already in use. The exact details on how the PPP structure will work regarding shareholding is, however, still unclear.

The Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA) is also actively looking at the project. “We have paid a visit to Capanda to assess what is already on the ground . . . the policies that government has put in place to enable investment in agriculture, and also to identify the key players . . . What we will be doing now is working together with businesses and South African farmers to help put together vertically integrated agribusiness projects. We are going to be spending a bit of money to bring in a couple of experts that can help us do the necessary assessment on these opportunities, do the scoping of the projects as well as the feasibility studies and business plans,” says John Rocha, a manager of the Bank’s Spatial Development Initiative Programme.

Opportunities for the private sector

Rocha says Angola holds considerable potential for agribusiness. “The Angolan agricultural sector was completely decimated during the civil war. Before independence Angola was self sufficient in food production. At the moment everything, and I mean everything, is imported . . . So clearly there is an opportunity there.”

Ballard-Tremeer agrees, “Angola has many times the number of high potential agricultural land that South Africa, for example, has. And in Angola you don’t have to wait for the rain to come. So that is a good start.”

Inadequate infrastructure as well as nutrient-depleted soil are, however, some of the challenges farmers would have to deal with.

So how can companies get involved in projects such as Capanda? “What one needs to do, if possible, is to arrange to visit the facility and to meet people that may be looking for expertise, technology and investments. One can either sell expertise and technology packages into that project, or actually go and participate with an Angolan partner directly,” explains Ballard-Tremeer.

Rocha says that there is also scope for companies to get involved in the supply of services and inputs such as seed. “If [Angola is] going to succeed in attracting the relevant private sector . . . you need to ensure that the services are there. As part of the assessment that we are doing, we are beginning to look across the value chain and what the requirements are going to be. Our job is then also to introduce companies from South Africa or elsewhere who will provide those products and services, to bring them on board so that we can close the missing links in the value chain.”

Source: How We Made It in Africa

Trees 'boost African crop yields and food security'

Planting trees that improve soil quality can help boost crop yields for African farmers, an assessment shows. 

Fertiliser tree systems (FTS) also help boost food security and play a role in "climate proofing" the region's arable land, the paper adds.

 

Researchers from the World Agroforestry Centre say poor soil fertility is one of the main obstacles to improving food production in Africa. 

The results appear in the International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability.

"In Africa, it is generally agreed that poor soil management - along with poor water management - is most greatly affecting yields," explained co-author Frank Place, head of the centre's Impact Assessment team.

He said that despite chemical fertilisers having been on the market for more than half a century, farmers appeared reluctant or unable to buy them.

"Therefore, there have been a lot of attempts to bring in other types of nutrients from other systems - such as livestock and plants" he told BBC News.

"We have been working quite a lot on what is broadly referred to as 'fertiliser tree systems'."

Although it has been known for centuries that certain plants, such as legumes, "fix" nitrogen in the soil and boost food crop yields, Dr Place said that the centre's researchers had been looking to develop a more active management approach such as FTS.

"Some farms, for example in Zambia, where the farms are larger, it is possible to rest arable land and allow it to lie fallow," he observed.

"But in place such as much of Malawi, where population densities are higher, they cannot afford to fallow their land; so we came up with alternative management systems where they could intercrop the trees with the (maize)."

While the technique is not new, Dr Place said that some of the nitrogen-fixing species used by farmers were probably not the most effective.

For example, farmers in East Africa had been using Cajanus cajan (also known as pigeon pea).

"A lot of the nitrogen was being stored in the trees' seeds; so there was an effort to use other trees that put a greater volume in the soil, such as Gliricidia sepium (one of its common name is mother of cocoa)," he said.

"A really nice thing about G. sepium is that we have been coppicing some of those trees for 20 years and they still continue to grow back vigorously." 

However, he acknowledged that there were a number of challenges that had to be addressed in order to maximise yields.

For example, some systems suggested planting rows of trees between rows of crops with mixed results.

"We realised that there were a few management problems with that sort of system - what tended to happen was that there was too much competition between the crops and the trees," Dr Place explained.

"We developed a new management system where the trees were cut very low to the ground at the time you are planting the crop so then there was no light competition. 

"The trees go into a dormant state when you cut them like this, so the root system is not competing straight away for the nutrients, so the maize is free to become established.

"The trees only really start to come out out of the dormant phase when the maize is already tall."

Another challenge was to provide enough seeds in order to have mass-scale planting. He said that balancing the provision of high-quality seeds with large local engagement was another hurdle that had to be overcome.

But the rewards in improved yields were noticeable, he added.

"Some of the studies have shown that in TFS across Africa as a whole, yields are doubling or more in two-thirds of cases."

Where the systems were not delivering such good results, Dr Place said that scientists were looking to refine current practices and modify them to suit the local conditions.

'Climate proofing'

As well as helping to boost yields, the use of trees in agriculture has other benefits - such as helping to "climate proof" agriculture land.

One example, Dr Place said, was the use of Faidherbia albida (common names include winter thorn and apple-ring acacia) in West African arable landscapes.

"It has a deep penetrating tap root, and it can secure a good water supply even in dry years," he explained.

"Generally speaking, tree roots do go much deeper than crop roots, so it is recycling nutrients and water from deeper reaches. 

"There are also studies showing that these roots act as conduits and bring up water to surface root systems (such as those belonging to crops)."

The editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability, Professor Jules Pretty from Essex University in , said the study illustrated that there was a growing movement of agricultural innovations across Africa that were increasing yields and at the same time improving the environment. 

"Trees and shrubs in agricultural systems seem to break some of the rules of agriculture - in this case, farmers are using shrubs to create a diverse rotation pattern rather than year-on-year maize," he told BBC News. 

"The trees fix nitrogen and improve the soil; the leaves can be fed to livestock; the crops then benefit greatly in subsequent years."

Source: BBC

African agriculture as solution for World food crisis

Cabbage farms in Egypt.

Concerns around the earth’s ability to nourish a population of 6 billion people, expected to rise to 9 billion by 2050, are increasingly abundant. According to the UN’s FAO, food production will have to increase by 70% to feed the globe’s larger, more urbanised, and more affluent population, by 2050, necessitating a total average annual net investment in developing world agriculture of US$83 billion.

Much of the new demand for food continues to originate from the developing world’s rising, and increasingly affluent, population. For many emerging markets, rising demand is being met with diminishing local resources – most principally arable land and irrigable water – placing pronounced strain on local governments. In China, which is home to 20% of the world’s population and less than 8% of its arable land, total cropland is expected to decline from 135 million hectares today, to 129 million ha in 2020 (120 million ha is considered the “red line” for Chinese food security). Meanwhile, in large part due to rapid urbanisation and excessive water use by China’s industrial sector, almost half of China’s cities face water shortages.

Attention is increasingly turning to Africa

Naturally, as nations seek external sources of nutrition, focus is narrowing on those regions which still have large untapped agricultural potential. No region (with the exception to an extent of Latin America) epitomises this residual allure more than Sub-Saharan Africa. It is estimated that over 60% of the world’s available and unexploited cropland is in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Cassava farm.

While water scarcity is increasingly prominent in most North African, and some Southern African, nations, for much of West, Central and parts of East Africa, renewable water reserves are plentiful. Central Africa receives around 38% of total precipitation in Africa per year, and holds 48% of Africa’s total internal renewable water reserves. The Gulf of Guinea region is similarly well-endowed, with 15% of Africa’s total annual precipitation and 24% of the continent’s internal renewable water resources. The Congo River Basin alone holds 23% of Africa’s irrigation potential, while the Nile River Basin holds a further 19%.

Investment is key to unlocking Africa’s potential

The majority of the large investments concluded in recent years have been structured on a government-to-government basis. Unsurprisingly, Gulf States have been prominent, though several Asian nations, most prominently China and South Korea, continue to play pivotal roles.

Beyond government transactions, the potential value inherent in untapped farmland within a climate of elevated global demand and volatile prices has inspired a surge of private and institutional investor interest, much of which is focusing on primary agriculture as opposed to agri-business and other agricultural support industries. For instance, London-listed Agriterra owns a variety of African agricultural assets, including 14,000 ha of land for ranching, as well as a maize processing facility in Mozambique. Private Indian investors, often backed by government loans, have purchased land in several African countries – principally Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Senegal, and Mozambique. Indian horticultural firm Karuturi Global has, for instance, emerged as the world’s largest exporter of fresh cut roses on the spine of its investments in Kenya and Ethiopia. In Ethiopia, the firm has since branched out into agriculture, leasing 100,000 ha of land (Karuturi claims it has access to 300,000 ha) in the Gambella Province to produce crops primarily for local demand.

Rice farming

Meanwhile, alternative investment firms, such as Emergent Asset Management through its African AgriLand Fund, have in turn attracted private investors to Africa’s agricultural sector. Private equity interest has also spiked considerably since 2008.

The reasons for Africa’s underperformance are complex, and varied. Yet, certain elementary causal dimensions are clear. For one, African governments have persistently underinvested in the sector. On average, African countries allocate 4% of their budgetary expenditures to agriculture, compared to 14% in Asia. Spending on agricultural research and development has also been consistently minimal, even declining between 1991 and 2000 in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Then, Africa’s largely small-scale farmers rely disproportionately on rain-fed agriculture, in the absence of sufficient irrigation systems. Indicatively, only around 6.5% of African farmland is irrigated, compared to 40% in Asia. Irrigation has the ability to raise agricultural productivity by more than 50%.

In addition to insufficient use of irrigation systems, which places Africa’s smallholder farmers in a constant state of insecurity given the unreliability of rain patterns, access to and use of fertilisers remains low. According to World Bank data, Sub-Saharan Africa uses just 11.6 kg of fertiliser per hectare of arable land, compared to a world average of 119 kg/ha, and a South Asian average of 148 kg/ha of arable land.

Meanwhile, given inadequate storage and transport facilities in Africa, post-harvest waste is a perennial concern. It is estimated that post-harvest grain losses in Sub-Saharan Africa are equal to $4 billion per year – approximately 15% of total output.

Finally, and related to both insufficient irrigation and fertiliser usage, smallholder farmers in Africa are generally locked out of the formal economy, unable to raise finance for investing in the means to secure increased output.

Policies are increasingly supporting Africa’s own Green Revolution

Ndama-breed cattle.

Fortunately, new levels of investment in African agriculture are increasingly being supported by enhanced policy frameworks. Under the New Partnership for Africa’s Development’s (NEPAD) CAADP, 22 African countries have committed to raise the budget share for agriculture to 10%. CAADP aims to see agricultural productivity in Africa increase by 6%. Meanwhile, critical research support is being lent to small-scale farmers by organisations such as the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA). And innovative financing mechanisms between donor institutions and commercial banks are increasing access to financing for African farmers. For instance, in Kenya, Equity Bank is administering a $47.6 million credit line from AGRA and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) for small-scale Kenyan farmers.

These shifts are inspired in part by the tremendous success of so-called green revolutions in other emerging markets – principally Mexico, Brazil, China and India. In Africa, as in some of these markets, investment in agriculture, bolstered by adequate policy support, has the ability to substantially raise growth, and create new employment opportunities.

Source: How We Made In Africa. This article is a shortened and edited version of Freemantle’s original report, titled Africa’s dormant resources potential.

Small Scale Farmers in 12 African Countries Warn their Governments over GMO Seed Companies

Dar-es-Salaam - A GROUPING of small scale farmers in 12 African countries has asked governments to be wary of agribusiness giants who want to bring in Genetically Modified Crops under the disguise of support to small holder farmers.

The grouping, under Eastern and Southern Africa Small Scale Farmers’ Forum (ESAFF) said in Dar es Salaam on Monday that there was threat that genetically modified (GMO) crops pose for indigenous plant species, organic harvests, small farmers, and the health and welfare of everyone.

ESAFF Regional Chairperson Elizabeth Mpofu said it was important to educate everyone about genetically modified crops and, more importantly, how to fight big billion dollar companies like Monsanto that are hovering like hawks ready to swoop in for the kill.

She warned about the ruthless practices of corporations which acquire patents, sometimes illegitimately, to crop genes and end up controlling the farmers who grow them.

“Our seed has stood the test of time and can be used to produce bumper harvest,” she said.

She said there should be something to relieve the economy of farmers towards escalating seed prices.

ESAFF also said small scale farmers should push for the governments in Africa to allocate more money into the agriculture sector by honouring the 10 per cent budget allocation to agriculture as of their Maputo 2003 declaration.

They said that since small scale farmers are the biggest producers in member countries, they should be included in decision making processes at policy level on land rights, access to inputs, farm equipments since they feed nations.

In Tanzania, the sector experienced a 35.5 per cent increase in funding from 666.9bn/- the previous fiscal year to 903.8bn/- in the current 2010/2011 national budget.

The ESAFF triennial general summit starts in Morogoro today with Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Seychelles, Madagascar, South Africa, Lesotho, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Malawi while Mozambique has applied for membership.

The objective is to bring farmers together to share about the challenges of new agriculture caused by internal and external factors.

The ESAFF chair said some of these include the food price increase, climate change, land grabbing, market access and also the growing concentration of agriculture input supply to few global agrochemical companies.

“There is a trend that shows that Monsanto, Syngenta and DuPont are using these initiatives to colonize Africa from seeds to super marketing. This will mean that small scale farmers will lose their right to seeds and the whole productive chain,” she said.

ESAFF Board member from Tanzania, Mr Elias Kawea, argued that it is also known that, these agrochemical companies are promoting non conventional seeds (GMOs) and imposing them through various programmes made as rendering solutions to the African hunger situations.

Their proposition to African governments is that all these initiatives must include the decisions of the real practitioners of production of small scale farmers.

Source: Daily News Tanzania

Stakeholders urged to rethink agric funding in Ghana

Afrikafarms Small Scale tomatoe farm project. © Afrikafarms.

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Mr Kwesi Ahwoi Minister for Food and Agriculture on Thursday said agric stakeholders must rethink means of funding agriculture as difficulties of loan recovery from farmers mounted up.

“Stakeholders must brainstorm to find sustainable means of funding agriculture,” he said.

He made the comment when he appeared before the Public Accounts Committee to clarify issues in connections with the Auditor General’s Report for 2007, 2008 and 2009 financial year.

According to the Audit Report Government policy of boosting agriculture in 2005 and 2006 advanced an amount of GHC53,600 to 600 farmers in the form of cash and inputs such as fertilizers seed maize, herbicides and chemicals, only GHC16,783 had been retrieved representing a percentage of 31.

The Minister also indicated that many people including MPs brought people to take loans but when it came to payment of the loans they were not seen again.

Mr Kweku Agyeman-Manu Deputy Chairman PAC called for injection of seriousness in the handling of financial administration of the country, adding that since some of the lapses in the report bordered on the lack of basic accounting principles on the part of the directors, there should be the need to educate them.

 

US firm to invest in $100 mln Tanzania farms JV

U.S. firm, AgriSol Energy LLC, and its joint venture partner in Tanzania will invest more than $100 million over the next 10 years to develop a large-scale commercial farming project in the east African country, a company director said on Tuesday.

AgriSol, led by well-known Iowa farming and ethanol executive Bruce Rastetter, has joined with Serengeti Advisers, a Tanzanian investments and consulting firm, to invest in crop and poultry production in western Tanzania.

"Our initial project in Lugufu involves approximately 10,000 hectares -- a tiny percentage of the overall available land in Tanzania -- but large enough to have a meaningful impact on the country's agricultural industry," Bertram Eyakuze, one of AgriSol Tanzania's directors, said in an e-mailed response to questions submitted by Reuters.

"We project that it will cost in excess of $100 million over the next ten years to develop Lugufu fully," Eyakuze said, adding the focus would initially be on the growth of maize and soy, which would in part be used to produce feed for livestock and cooking oil.

Poultry production would also be a focus of the project, to eventually wean Tanzania off importing chicken from Brazil and other countries.

"Tanzania has 43 million hectares of arable land, of which only about 10 million hectares, or 23 percent, is currently being farmed, leaving more than 30 million hectares available to produce food for the people of Tanzania and eventually the rest of Africa," Eyakuze said.

He said investors would look into expanding farming activities once the Lugufu project was completed.

AFRICAN LAND-GRAB DENIALS

Tanzanian prime minister Mizengo Pinda said in June the country would offer over 1.6 million hectares of land for lease to investors to set up large-scale projects.

Companies have already injected about 1 trillion shillings in free trade zones since 2007 and exported goods worth 525 billion shillings in the same period, Pinda said at the time.

AgriSol denied allegations it was among wealthy U.S. and European investors accumulating large swathes of African agricultural lands in deals that have little accountability and give them greater control over food supply for the world's poor.

A report by Oakland Institute, a think tank in California, said in June some U.S. public universities, pension and hedge funds and speculators were among those in on the land rush, eyeing returns of 20 to as much as 40 percent.

"Some recent news accounts and reports have inaccurately portrayed our intentions ... Our project is about partnering with world-class agricultural experts and putting Tanzanian farmland to its best and fullest use," Iddi Simba, a director at Serengeti Advisers, said in an open letter to the public posted on AgriSol's website last month.

"(Tanzanian) government made AgriSol aware of three tracts of land in western Tanzania that were previously used as camps for refugees, but were, at the time, either closed or being closed. The decision to close these camps was made well before AgriSol became involved and was based on a model program agreed to with the United Nations."

Eyakuze said Agrisol's farms in Tanzania would generate thousands of jobs and improve food security in the country.

Africa Food Shortage Areas

11 million hungry from East Africa's drought, worst in 60 years

NAIROBI, Kenya — East Africa's worst drought in 60 years is putting 11 million lives at risk, many of them in war-torn Somalia, where thousands of hungry families are making the dangerous trek across parched, violent territory to the promise of safety and food in Kenya.

Aid agencies warn the drought is regional — affecting Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia — and the hunger that now stalks the land may become famine.

Somali refugees line up on July 6, 2011. Photo: Roberto Schmidt

Most of the Somali refugees arrive at Dadaab, a sprawling complex of overcrowded camps in northeastern Kenya built in 1991 for 90,000 people. Today it is home to more than four times that number. It is the world’s largest refugee camp and one of the fastest growing human settlements on the planet.

But it is not large enough for the new refugees, who are currently arriving at a rate as high as 1,000 per day.

Bowing to international pressure, Kenya’s government has agreed to open a new refugee camp to house some of those thousands of hungry, desperate and bedraggled victims of Somalia’s decades-long war who cross into Kenya. The exodus has accelerated because of the drought that is pushing their already marginal existence to the edge of oblivion.

A few miles away from Dadaab’s dusty squalor is Ifo-II, a new $20 million facility for refugees built by the U.N. in 2010. But a year later the gleaming new camp remains empty. The lines of brick houses with tin roofs, deep wells for fresh water, latrines and health facilities are all empty and unused.

Kenya blocked opening the camp, complaining that the new facility would encourage more refugees whose arrival could provide cover for Somalia’s Islamist militants who have threatened Kenya in the past, such as the Al Shabaab insurgents. Kenya has suffered several terrorist bombings. 

“We have security concerns that Al Shabaab could be coming into our country under the guise of refugees,” said Kenya’s security minister George Saitoti earlier this week.

But on Thursday Prime Minister Raila Odinga caved into the pressure from aid agencies and the U.N. to open Ifo-II. “Although we consider our own security, we cannot turn away refugees,” he said.

The new camp will help to decongest Dadaab, but it amounts to little more than a sticking a bandaid on a gaping wound as refugees continue to flood across the border joining communities that are themselves suffering from drought-created food shortages.

Two consecutive poor rainy seasons has resulted in “one of the driest years since 1950/51 in many pastoral zones,” according to the U.S.-funded Famine Early Warning System Network (Fewsnet). The drought has compounded the problems created by more than 20 years of war in Somalia.

“More than 11 million people need urgent assistance to stay alive, as they face their worst drought in decades,” said U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

“The human cost of this crisis is catastrophic. U.N. agencies have asked for $1.6 billion dollars to pay for essential life-saving programs in the region, but have only received half that amount,” Ban said. “Our priority is to stop the suffering now.”

Civilians fleeing conflict and drought have made long, often deadly, walks southwards from Somalia in search of food and safety.

“Women and children have made the most incredible journeys, walking for weeks through the desert and braving hunger and attacks by armed robbers and wild animals, to get to the camps in Kenya,” said Joost van de Lest, head of Oxfam in Kenya.

“The numbers arriving are overwhelming and basic services are insufficient,” warned Nick Guttman, head of the humanitarian division at charity Christian Aid.

“Most people have been walking for weeks on end and are in a very poor state of health. Many only make the very difficult and arduous journey to Dadaab when their last animals have died and they have no other choice,” Guttman said after visiting the area this week.

The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres, called the conflict and drought “the worst humanitarian crisis in the world today.”

In Somalia itself the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) says malnutrition levels are currently the highest in the world.

“The population is no longer able to cope with harsh climate conditions, such as the current drought, while at the same time struggling to survive armed conflict and other violence,” said Andrea Heath, ICRC economic security coordinator.

The combination of conflict forcing people from their homes while drought kills off livestock and dries up the land has caused suffering for thousands. To make matters worse, Al Shabaab, Somalia's ruthless Al Qaeda-linked rebel group, has restricted Western humanitarian access in recent years and food prices have shot up.

In Somalia the cost of sorghum, a staple grain, has risen by 240 percent over the last year.

So dire is the situation that Al Shabaab said it will lift restrictions imposed on humanitarian activities in areas it controls, although aid agencies are wary of returning. The UN’s World Food Programme is considering a return to Al Shabaab-controlled territory after an 18-month absence.

“WFP withdrew from areas under Al Shabaab control … because of threats to the lives of our staff and the imposition of unacceptable operating conditions, including the imposition of informal taxes, and a demand that no female staff work for us there,” the agency said in a statement.

WFP added that it would “explore every possibility to return” with the necessary security guarantees.

This week the U.N. children’s agency, UNICEF, airlifted 5 tons of food and medicine into the Al Shabaab-controlled town of Baidoa. “We are ready to work anywhere in Somalia," said UNICEF Somalia head Rozanne Chorlton, "provided we get unhindered access to reach the most vulnerable children in need.”

Source: Globalpost