November 25, 2020 | No.13 |
|
|
Announced: 7th African Conference of Agricultural Economists - 2022
The African Association of Agricultural Economists (AAAE) has announced the official countdown to the 7th African Conference of Agricultural Economists 2022 (7th ACAE). The conference will be hosted by the city of Durban, KwaZulu Natal, South Africa. The conference dates will be 19 – 22 September 2022. The four-day conference will feature experts and leaders who are driving the African agricultural revolution vision along with regional and international experts. READ MORE
|
|
AAAE POSITION PAPER:
African agriculture in the context of COVID-19: Finding salvation in the devil
The world is facing unprecedented challenges from COVID-19, which is disrupting lives and livelihoods. The pandemic could profoundly affect the African continent and wipe out hard-won development gains, as sub-Saharan Africa heads into its first recession in 25 years. Beyond the multi-spatial impact of the coronavirus in Africa, its effects on the agriculture and food system is of particular interest, as food security could be the most affected area and, at the same time, agriculture could be the sector that could help African economies recover quicker from the impact of COVID-19. READ MORE
|
|
Synthesis Report 1 on the Impact of Covid-19 on Food Systems and Rural Livelihoods in Sub-Saharan Africa
To gain a better understanding of the impact that COVID-19 is having on food systems and rural livelihoods in the region, researchers in the Agricultural Policy Research in Africa (APRA) Programme of the Future Agricultures Consortium (FAC) are conducting a rolling series of telephone-based household surveys and key informant interviews in selected study locations across multiple countries. This report presents results from the first round of that research in seven countries – Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, Tanzania and Zimbabwe – from interviews conducted in June-July 2020.1 APRA will monitor the situation as the pandemic unfolds through further rounds of data collection and analysis in late 2020 and early 2021. READ MORE
|
|
Cornell University: HABs Funded Phd Positions (2)
Application deadline: December 1, 2020 The Fiorella and McIntyre research groups at Cornell University are seeking two graduate students to join a new NSF-funded study of how harmful algal blooms affect fisheries from human, fish, and ecosystem perspectives. Our interdisciplinary study seeks to merge human health outcomes, the behavior of fishers and fish consumers, food web structure, and algal bloom dynamics in space and time. READ MORE
|
|
Viewpoint: The future of work in agri-food
As countries develop, agriculture’s role as domestic employer declines. But the broader agri-food system also expands, and the scope for agriculture-related job creation shifts beyond the farm. Historically, technological revolutions have shaped, and have been shaped by, these dynamics. Today, a digital revolution is taking hold. In this process of structural transformation, societies evolve from having a surplus to a shortage of domestic farm labor, typically met by foreign agricultural wage workers. Yet anti-immigration sentiments are flying high in migrant-destination countries, and agricultural trade may be similarly challenged. Robots in the fields and packing plants offer an alternative to a diminishing labor supply. COVID-19 will reinforce trends of digitization and anti-globalization (including in food trade), while slowing economic growth and structural transformation. READ MORE
|
|
Marketing of baobab pulp in Kenya: Collectors’ choice of rural versus urban markets
Baobab products provide cash income and supplement diets for local communities living in marginalised, arid and semi-arid regions. However, these products are neglected by research, selectively traded and considered underutilised. This study endeavours to narrow this information gap by analysing the determinants of baobab collectors’ choice of marketing channels in Kenya. A multinomial logit was employed, using a dataset of 268 baobab collectors from three counties. The results show that the majority of baobab collectors sell their baobab pulp through rural markets (assemblers and rural wholesalers), as opposed to urban buyers (urban wholesalers, retailers and processors). READ MORE
|
|
African Development Bank’s AgriPitch competition awards $120,000 in prizes to African youth “agripreneurs”
The founder of a cassava processing business in Kenya, a co-founder of a novel food processing technology start-up, and the owner of a smallholder farmer food procurement company in Nigeria won the top cash prizes in the African Development Bank’s $120,000 AgriPitch competition held Tuesday.The AgriPitch competition offered young entrepreneurs in Africa’s agricultural sector the opportunity to pitch their agribusiness proposals to a panel of experts and investors who selected winners in “early start-up,” “mature start-up” and “women-empowered businesses” categories. READ MORE
|
|
Why small farms are key to the future of food - and how we can support them
In the 25 years since Clayton Christensen coined the term “disruptive innovation,” much has been written about the benefits of shaking up established business practices. Even before the current pandemic, there was a growing recognition that our food systems, too, needed to be reimagined. Today’s food systems must feed 7.8 billion people without compromising future productivity or the health of our planet. Yet they must also fairly reward and recognize the work of the millions of people at their base, in particular small-scale producers. READ MORE
|
|
Rust-resistant bread wheat varieties widely adopted in Ethiopia, study shows
A state-of-the-art study of plant DNA provides strong evidence that farmers in Ethiopia have widely adopted new, improved rust-resistant bread wheat varieties since 2014. The results obtained from 4,000 plots, published in Nature Scientific Reports, found that nearly half (47%) of the area sampled was grown to varieties 10 years old or younger and the majority (61%) of these were released after 2005. Four of the top varieties sown were recently-released rust-resistant varieties developed through the breeding programs of the Ethiopian Institute for Agricultural Research (EIAR) and the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT). READ MORE
|
|
Gross Margin Analysis – A tool for better farm management
Farmers in Niger are eager for a change in the way they manage their farms. Traditionally, they have planted crops and raised animals without knowing for sure if they were going to make a profit out of that. Many farmers claim, “We farm what we know we can farm and hope that the season is a good one.” There is little evidence of the economic viability of farming activities and minimal adoption of profitable technologies. Possibly, this leads to their incomes remaining very low. READ MORE
|
|
|
