Agriculture

The rise of agriculture technology (AgTech) solutions in Africa has opened significant avenues to transform food systems and tackle long-standing obstacles to enhance smallholder productivity. To effectively expand these promising, yet nascent, AgTech solutions, collaborative efforts involving African governments, development partners, and AgTech innovators are essential. Scaling these solutions requires African governments to establish comprehensive digital-infrastructure and devel ...

Nigeria has the potential to be an economic powerhouse, but food insecurity stalks a large share of its population. Over the last fifteen years, undernutrition has increased from over 7% (2004-06) to nearly 13% of the population (2017-2019). The COVID-19 pandemic of course exacerbated health and nutrition problems. With the current high inflation, an additional 4 million people have been pushed into poverty, from 90 million (Dec. 2022) to 94 million (April 2023) (WBG, June 2023). S ...

Ghana achieved lower middle-income country status by 2011. However, its growth path in the previous decades did not lay the foundations for the economic transformation of Ghanaian agriculture and therefore its overall economy. It relied primarily on extractive and non-renewable resources (gold and oil) and cocoa exports, and it did not diversify. While much progress was made in poverty reduction, pervasive low productivity and job informality continue to condemn millions to poverty, ...

This policy brief was originally published on T20 India website   Supportive policies for tropical agriculture have helped millions of small-scale farmers in Brazil step out of poverty by improving government capacity to design legal frameworks to strengthen agricultural production and family farming. Scientific and technological developments have enabled small-scale Brazilian farmers to produce food while considering local tropical conditions. In contrast, tropical agriculture s ...

If you search on “Google” for a pizzeria in Kyiv, you have many choices, such as “Mimosa Brooklyn Pizza”, “Mamamia”, or “Vesuveo”.  If bombs or supersonic missiles do not scare you, more formal dining pleasures exist. “Feel like a star”, reads one of the ads for the “Matisse”, located on the 15th floor of the “Cityhotel” in the historic part of town - an eatery 52 meters up could be a tempting target for Russian missile attacks. Wladimir Klitschko, a former world heavyweight boxing- ...

It is estimated that $1 trillion to $6 trillion per year (up to 2050) needs to be invested globally if the world is to stay below the 2°C global warming ceiling of the Paris Agreement and to meet its adaptation goals. Currently, investments stand at about $630 billion per year, way below the original target. And although great efforts have been made in the climate-finance area, more than 70% of the funds deployed have gone to one sector, renewable energy, followed by the transportat ...

Introduction Food security refers to the availability of sufficient, safe, nutritious food for all people to maintain a healthy and active life (FAO, 2021; Suleri, 2022). It affects people at global, regional, national, sub-national, and household levels, and presents itself in different forms, including chronic, acute, and transient. Food insecurity exacerbates social tensions arising from poverty and inequality, and can be a threat multiplier to national security (FAO, 2021; Const ...

This publication was originally published in https://www.mdpi.com/   The Moroccan agricultural cooperative sector is a key player in self-employment and income generation through territorial anchoring. The government’s “MOURAFAKA” program offers support for newly created cooperatives, including strategic diagnosis and training. This paper analyzes the impact of the MOURAFAKA program on the sustainability of agricultural cooperatives in Morocco. Using original data from a survey of ...

The fundamental role that water resources play in human development has been highlighted in multiple ways; the United Nations SDGs underline 17 different goals and over a hundred targets to be achieved by 2030. Out of 169 SDG targets, 59 were found to have direct links and synergies with the water goal SDG6 (UN Water, 2016). Careful policy making and interventions need to be implemented to avoid conflict among sectors and tradeoffs must be well established. The Integrated Water Reso ...

La double crise actuelle de l’énergie et du conflit militaire en Ukraine freine énormément les processus qui se développaient dans l’ère post-Covid 19. Dans ce contexte fragile et tourmenté, la vulnérabilité touche également les chaînes globales de valeur et les systèmes agroalimentaires. La vulnérabilité de la Chaîne Globale de Valeur (GVC) est une fonction de la capacité d’adaptation (CA) face aux chocs et aux impacts potentiels que présentent la fragmentation du ...

While 2021 brought higher prices for almost all agricultural, mineral and energy commodities as the economy caught up after Covid, this was not the case for 2022, with, on the contrary, prices diverging substantially. The onset of war in Ukraine certainly drove up the price of many commodities given the significance of Russia, Ukraine and even Belarus in world production. However, it was the imposition, or not, of trade and financial sanctions against Russian exporting companies and ...