Many Kenyan maize farmers are busy preparing their seed stock for the next planting season. Sowing high quality seeds of stress-tolerant varieties is a cost-effective way for African smallholder farmers to boost their harvests while being resilient to evolving crop pests and diseases as well as an erratic climate. However, even if a …
Recognizing the enormity of the challenge the Fall Armyworm poses on smallholder farmers, government representatives and partners stressed the need to bolster a novel community-based approach being promoted in Eastern Africa to assist farmers and development agents at the frontline to identify and manage the spread of the pest.
In a …
Philanthropist Bill Gates writes:
Whenever I travel to rural parts of the world, the farmers I meet talk about one thing that holds them back: they can’t save their money.
They don’t mean they spend more than they earn. They mean that, literally, they don’t have a safe place to put their …
The uLima mobile platform, developed by Imperial Logistics company Resolve, provides farmers across Africa with access to a toolset, database and the latest market information with information on crops, seed, soil, livestock, agri-chemicals, weather updates and market prices, all at their fingertips.
“uLima allows for ease of reference to best practice …
An image-recognition smartphone app uses AI to help farmers in sub-Saharan Africa identify up to five different diseases.
Cassava is one of the developing world’s most important crops. Its starchy roots and leaves are a staple food for more than 500 million people in Africa each day. And Africa produces half …
Mark Lynas on the complexity of disagreeing on GMOs
Mark Lynas is a British environmentalist and writer famous for having changed his views about GMOs very publicly in a 2013 speech. Lynas recently published a book, Seeds of Science, about how and why he changed his mind. Read …
To address numerous challenges bedeviling small scale farming in the country, the Federal Government may adopt phygital technology to reach farmers across the country.
The Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development Bukar Hassan, while speaking during the presentation of the phygital smallholder value chains technology in Abuja harped on …
A review of research on how information services based on mobile phone technology can improve the lives of farmers has found only patchy evidence of success.
The review, which looked at 23 studies of such services in Africa, Asia and Latin America, found that although users often reported improvements, these were …
Mobile applications and online forums help young Africans make a living from farming amid changing weather, delegates hear on the sidelines of climate talks in Bonn.
African campaigners are promoting digital tools to keep young people involved in farming and prevent migration, delegates heard on the sidelines of climate talks in …
In Nairobi, Kenya, on 17 January, Mastercard launched 2KUZE, which is Swahili for “let’s grow together.” The marketplace will enable farmers to buy, sell and receive payments for agricultural goods via feature phones. The platform will bring together the benefits and security of mobile commerce and payments to famers in …
Sign up for our Week in Review
Get news alerts from our RSS Feed
Follow us on Twitter