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By Freddie Ndindana When you are passing or driving next to a beautiful farm with crops that are in good shape and well managed, sometimes you start to think of farming or ask yourself what farming takes. You’ve dreamt of becoming a successful farmer, and you’re prepared to venture into the ever-changing world of the…
By Transparency International We take forests for granted. We forget they’re the reason we breathe, until they burn. We don’t know of all the ways they keep us safe, until we’re sick. We ignore how our way of life threatens them, until they’re gone. Forests are not spared by corruption: illegal logging, illicit wildlife trade, land grabbing and drug…
The United Nations Secretary-General, Mr Antonio Guterres has said he was delighted by the decision of the Nobel Committee to award this year’s Prize for Peace to the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP). The World Food Programme is the world’s first responder on the frontlines of food insecurity. Mr. Guterres said in a world…
By Charles Dhewa Building reliable markets and strengthening the adaptive capacity of farmers should include bold actions to reverse the infiltration of indigenous knowledge by imported knowledge systems. While indigenous knowledge systems are being diluted and fractured at several levels, the most glaring example is in indigenous poultry. Having noted that health-conscious consumers are now…
At a time when the nation is grappling with hunger, the Sally Mugabe Central Hospital nutrition garden has been hailed as an innovation to feed the patients and ensure a healthy citizenry. In an interview with Spiked Online Media, Richard Ngwende, the Sally Mugabe Central Hospital Agronomist said the nutrition garden was started in February…
The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) yesterday commenced cash disbursements in the scale-up of the Urban Social Assistance programme thanks to funding from the United States through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). USAID’s support will provide relief for vulnerable families in eight urban areas across Zimbabwe struggling to meet their daily…
Africa accounts for about 12% of the world’s coffee production and the high-quality and taste of coffee from the continent are loved by coffee connoisseurs worldwide Coffee farmer, Francois Dadi Serikpa (https://bit.ly/3l10941), from Gnamagnoa in Côte d’Ivoire, joined Nestlé’s (https://www.Nestle-cwa.com/) Nescafé Plan (https://bit.ly/34fT6Oe) ten (10) years ago. The coffee farms that had been in his family for generations…
Steward Bank has partnered with businesses under parent company Cassava Smartech Zimbabwe to launch AgroFuture, a new agribusiness product that is set to improve agricultural production in the country. The product – to be delivered in partnership with Cassava entities EcoCash, EcoSure, Vaya, Moovah, and EcoFarmer – offers tailor-made solutions to specific needs of the…
By Charles Dhewa Failure to implement agricultural policies by many African countries stems from processes through which such policies are developed. When different stakeholders do not adequately participate in the process of developing a national agricultural policy, their commitment in terms of technical and financial support is often very weak. Those leading processes of developing…
The African Risk Capacity Limited (ARC Ltd), the commercial subsidiary of African Risk Capacity Group (ARC Group), has announced a partnership agreement with Pula to deliver best-in-class agriculture index insurance products to protect African farmers from climatic risks. Every farming season, African farmers are exposed to a wide range of climate risks including drought, excessive rainfall, pests…
The Zimbabwe Plant Breeders Association (ZPBA) and Agritex are promoting the “Good Quality Climate Smart Seeds and Blitz Soil Conditioning under the famous Pfumvudza/Intwasa Demonstration” program being spearheaded by the Ministry of Agriculture. On 17 September 2020, the Zimbabwe Plant Breeders Association (ZPBA) and AGRITEX hosted a field demonstration event in Ward 4, Mhondoro District….
By Anyway Yotamu Zimbabwe is a low-income country whose economy and livelihoods depend hugely on natural resources with an ambition to leapfrog it to a middle-income economy by 2030. The backbone sectors namely mining, manufacturing, agriculture, and tourism rely heavily on forest, land, and water resources for inputs to the production of goods and services….
The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and partner Fintrac, marked the successful completion of the five-year Feed the Future Livestock Development program at a virtual event on September 16, 2020 under the theme: Celebrating Commercialization of Smallholder Beef and Dairy Production. Since 2015, USAID’s Feed the Future Zimbabwe Livestock Development program assisted more than…
By Charles Dhewa When your favourite indigenous fruits are in season, take a few samples and keep in the freezer for six months to a year and see what happens. Although touted as part of the solution to food and nutrition security in Africa, cold chain is yet prove its relevance for indigenous fruits and…
The continued spread of COVID-19 and the scorch of climate change in Africa have caused economies to contract substantially. Lives and livelihoods are put at risk, as COVID-19 and the associated economic challenges continue to spill into an African food crisis. Before COVID-19, half of Africans faced food insecurity (https://mck.co/3mty5rQ) due to climate change and other factors, of…
AGRF online will convene the most senior decision-makers of governments in the same digital space as grassroots players along the agricultural value chain The African Development Bank (https://www.AfDB.org/en) returns as a top-tier partner of the African Green Revolution Forum (AGRF) – Africa’s largest agriculture conference – to be held online for the first time from…
Enzymes that control a plant’s response to lower oxygen levels could be manipulated to make vital crops resistant to the impacts of flooding triggered by climate change, new research shows. Co-author Mark White, PhD, in the School of Chemistry at the University of Sydney described climate change as a major global issue, particularly for its…
By Nevson Mpofu War veterans are set to be on a collision course with the government’s decision to compensate former white farmers. The War Veterans Welfare Pressure Group said it is against the idea of compensating white farmers yet the former liberation war fighters in the third month without receiving their salaries. Speaking in Harare…
Professor Mthuli Ncube, the Minister of Finance and Economic Development has praised the signing of the Global Compensation Deed on 29 July 2020 as a major milestone in the restoration of trust and cooperation between the former farm owners and the Government of Zimbabwe. Below, Spiked Online Media reproduces a joint statement by Professor Ncube…
By Zimbabwe Civil Society Organisations Scaling Up Nutrition Alliance (ZCSOSUNA) The Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID 19) pandemic is a health and humanitarian crisis threatening the food security and nutrition of millions of people around the country. The pandemic comes at a time when more than 4.3 million people are severely food insecure in rural…
By Charles Dhewa For more than 10 years, Samson Mundodzi a gifted blind farmer from Nyazura in Manicaland province of Zimbabwe used to be accompanied to Mbare market for selling his commodities. Like all other farmers, Samson would have his commodities loaded onto long distance buses that passed through his home and get to Mbare…
For the first time, researchers can predict how extremely large West African storms may behave when, for example, they approach a cityBy Future Climate for Africa and Researchers at the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH) Ground-breaking scientific research will make it easier to predict the path of some of the world’s most powerful…
By Anyway Yotamu In Beitbridge District, 2 250 households are receiving supplementary subsidized livestock feed from the Program for Growth and Resilience (PROGRESS) under the Zimbabwe Resilience Building Fund (ZRBF) in the wake of the drought being experienced in the country. The intervention is being implemented as part of adaptive programming to the resilience-building efforts…
Recently, the UK contributed £17 million to support the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) to continue their efforts to combat the desert locust surge in East Africa and improve early warning and forecasting systems. Because of contributions like this and other contributions that have been made by countries including Germany, Saudi…
By Charles Dhewa Needs assessments are some of the most under-rated and under-utilized resources in African countries. Development agencies that often start some work in communities with a baseline study often do so for purposes of getting donor money as opposed to fully informing and guiding their interventions. In some cases, the baseline study is…
By Charles Dhewa In much of the world including developing countries, COVID19 has repositioned communication as the key driver in project implementation. Before the pandemic, many organizations were reluctant to increase the communication budget. Working from home and restrictions in the movement have seen ICT channels and tools moving to the centre of most communication…
By Charles Dhewa From the Masaai livestock owners in Kenya failing to access veterinary products to farmers in Lupane district of Zimbabwe failing to access usual markets due to lockdowns, COVID19 has resulted in uniform collective grief among food producers across Africa. To the extent dealing with droughts, locusts, fall army worm and other shocks…
New research from the Tufts Global Development and Environment Institute finds the billion-dollar Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa is not living up to its promises By Stacy Malkan Massive investments spent promoting and subsidizing commercial seeds and agrichemicals across Africa have failed to fulfill their purpose of alleviating hunger and lifting small-scale farmers…
By Charles Dhewa In much of Africa there is an age-old assumption that agriculture has to be driven by extension. This is visible in how much of the support from governments and development agencies tend to focus mainly on production while neglecting other value chain nodes such as logistics and markets. More importantly, agriculture has…
By Anyway Yotamu Glytime Foods has made it into the regional markets despite financial challenges faced by the business community in the country, by securing a contract to supply its products into neighboring Zambia. The company specialises in the manufacturing of honey and healthy cereals. Speaking during a media tour organised by ZimTrade in Harare…
Securing healthy diets for the billions who cannot afford them would save trillions in costs More people are going hungry, an annual study by the United Nations has found. Tens of millions have joined the ranks of the chronically undernourished over the past five years, and countries around the world continue to struggle with multiple…
By Anyway Yotamu A Zimbabwean entrepreneur in Africa’s top tobacco producer has launched the first local brand of hand-rolled cigars, defying coronavirus, and economic odds to light up manufacturing. The southern African nation produced more than 252 million kilogrammes of tobacco last year, making it the sixth-largest producer in the world. Nearly all of it…
By Charles Dhew Beyond transporting commodities from production zones to markets, transporters have a much more important knowledge brokering role in African food systems. Transporters are unique informants who get information from diverse actors and sources such as farmers, traders, other transporters, fuel dealers, equipment manufacturers and others. They also convey information from the market…
The United States, through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), will provide $60.55 million toward the World Food Programme’s (WFP) 2020/21 Lean Season Food Assistance program in Zimbabwe. The lean season assistance will begin in August and will feed nearly one million people during the peak of the season, from January to April 2021. …
In the course of working with African mass markets, eMKambo continues to notice several nuances that inform the production of different agricultural commodities, among other patterns. A recent study focused on figuring out the extent to which the market informs production decisions among African smallholder farmers. There are strong indications that most production decisions are supply-driven not…
As the UN warns of an impending global food emergency, researchers in health, nutrition and agriculture have united to support COVID-19 response, recovery and resilience. Montpellier, FRANCE, June 23, 2020 – Leading researchers across health, nutrition and agriculture have launched a new COVID-19 hub to consolidate existing scientific evidence and support response, recovery and resilience…
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the German government assumes premium payments of around EUR 19 million for the drought insurance offered by the African Risk Capacity (ARC). This will reliably protect up to 20 million poor and vulnerable people in Africa against drought in the coming agricultural season and mitigate the risk of a…
By Charles Dhewa COVID-19 has revealed the importance of understanding the roles of different actors in Africa’s food systems. When roles and responsibilities are unclear, smallholder farmers are exposed to conmen. For instance, in Zimbabwe farmers are losing produce to unregistered buyers. The situation would be better if all buyers were registered and the trading…
The Conference of Parties (CoP) of the African Risk Capacity (ARC) has elected Mr. Ibrahima Cheikh Diong, of the Republic of Senegal as the new ARC Group Director-General, for a term of four (4) years. The election of Mr. Diong, which was ‘without objection’ from all the Members, was consistent with provisions of the Procedure for…
By Million Belay (Ph.D.), General Coordinator for Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa Ever since I saw the video of the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on the 25th May, killed by a policeman who knelt on his neck for NINE MINUTES, while he was calling for his dead mother and for mercy, I have been…
In a crisis we know who our real friends are, and we have few better than Aleksandr Zingman. It is said that in times of crisis you really know who your friends are. Zimbabwe has suffered a lot in recent years, especially economically and as a result of the harsh and demanding American sanctions. Few…
“Let’s meet on Chapwati – our WhatsApp group for the Chikuku Development Initiative. Chapwati in our Duma sub-dialect of the Karanga dialect of the Shona language means something awesome, amazing, extraordinary, and impactful,” says world-renowned author and historian, Claude Maredza as he makes reference to a social media group meant to uplift the area and…
By Charles Dhewa Lockdowns as a major method for containing COVID-19 has undoubtedly destroyed social fabrics that sustain most low-income economies. While governments have tried to soften the pandemic’s blow by providing cushioning allowances and other social safety nets to vulnerable members of society including vendors, Mukando or Stokvel and other forms of voluntary and…
By Zimbabwe Environmental Law Association Introduction The tourism sector is one of the most affected industries by the COVID-19 pandemic which is an unprecedented global health and socioeconomic crisis. Globally, this sector is accredited for its immense contribution to GDP, job creation, infrastructure development and wildlife conservation efforts. In the first quarter of 2020, the…
By Olusegun Obasanjo and Hailemariam Desalegn Boshe Africa has so far escaped the worst health consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the continent looks like it could be the worst hit from the economic fallout of the crisis: 80 million Africans could be pushed into extreme poverty if action is not taken. And disruptions in…
