Centre for Agriculture and Bioscience International (CABI), funded by the UK Space Agency’s International Partnership Programme (IPP), is developing a Pest Risk Information Service (PRISE) to fight against crop-devastating pest outbrakes in Kenya.
The service was launched at a Plantwise plant clinic in Manyatta in Kenya’s Eastern Province.
Cambria Finegold, global director …
Super crops have the potential to revolutionise agriculture in Africa, a leading expert has claimed.
Hundreds of millions of pounds have been invested in new crops on the continent which are more nutritious and better resistant to disease with an improved ability to withstand severe flooding or drought.
From “scuba” rice which …
Japan says Zambia will be among the three African countries it is targeting for its Agricultural development programme.
Japanese Parliamentary vice Minister for Foreign Affairs, Manabu Horii says apart from Zambia , his government has picked Kenya and Senegal because of the vast agriculture potential in the three African countries.
“Japan has …
The African and Asian Resilience in Disaster Insurance Scheme (ARDIS) was launched on 18 January in order to help African and Asian farmers affected by climate disasters.
The scheme will target up to 4mn people, particularly focusing on women and their families, in areas of drought such as Kenya, Malawi, Mali, …
Smallholder farming systems in southern Africa are faced with challenges such as declining soil fertility, low productivity and profitability and the increased need to adapt to climate variability and change. Sustainable intensification of both legume- and maize-based farming systems is needed to increase food, nutrition and income security for smallholders.
Since …
Born in a small town of Mufulira, on the Copper Belt province of Zambia in 1960, Winnie Nachivula, is making a mark in the cassava production in Zambia which currently stands at over 1 million metric tonnes per year, making it the most important crop grown in Zambia after maize.
Cassava …
African plant and animal disease experts held a crisis meeting in Harare last week on the spiraling fall armyworm outbreak which is destroying maize crops and posing a major threat to food security and agricultural trade in east, central and southern Africa.
The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation together with the …
The 2016/17 summer crop production season started on a slightly positive note for Southern Africa’s agricultural sector, after emerging from a devastating drought in the 2015/16 season. For South Africa, there are already promising indications that the country could retain its status as a net exporter of maize.
In the second …
In Africa, mineral fertilizer remains a scarce, expensive, and risky resource for most smallholder farmers. On average, farmers use less than 10 kg/ha of NPK fertilizer; and many do not apply it at all. The price of fertilizer is 3-5 times higher in Africa than in Europe due to the …
Efforts have been made by the national Zambian legume program to introduce improved, higher yielding varieties which were developed at the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT). Unfortunately, adoption of these varieties is low because the seed types are not generally preferred by Zambian consumers (like my mom). As …
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