Africa: Digging into the Water and Food crisis

“ The world isn’t short of water, it’s just in the wrong place, and too salty."-Charles Paton According to the World Health Organization, by 2025, half of the world's population will be living in water-stressed areas , where the demand for clean, useable water exceeds the supply available. But what if freshwater is not the answer? What if there is an infinite source of water for agricultural irrigation? Desalination of seawater might be a revolutionary solution to increase food and water security for water-stress countries in Africa. In simplistic terms, it is the process of removing salinity from seawater and making the water safe for consumption ( Khawaji et al., 2008 ). Rather than relying on the common way of obtaining water from areas of surplus, water is created, and this can provide incredible precious sources of water supply for water-scarce nations enabling them to be self-sustainable in water and food. How to grow food from seawater? Rows of fruit and vegetables- jui...

Rapid shifts in climatic patterns have led to more frequent, widespread, and intense droughts across Africa, and it is expected to worsen in the future ( Masih et al., 2014 ). Drought is a major obstacle to crop production in Africa. In 2016, the El Nino event hit southern Africa hard and introduced drought causing 29 million people to be food insecure ( Muzhinji and Ntuli, 2020 ). To address the concern over agriculture production with limited and increasingly unpredictable water supplies, the development and adaptation of technology-based solutions such as GMOs becomes more urgent.  The development of genetically engineered cops, categorized as genetically modified organisms (GMOs) is expected to have great potential in increasing the ability of the population to feed, fuel and heal itself in light of the growing global population and adverse climatic conditions. This post will seek to understand the benefits and drawbacks of GMOs and whether they can provide a solid solution in ...

  Hi, welcome back to the second part of ‘Smallholder farmers in Africa: The case of Tanzania’! In this section, the focus will be on the empowerment and commercialization of smallholder rice farmers in Tanzania for promoting food security. Farmers in Tanzania, despite accounting for more than 70% of the agricultural industry, have limited capacity to boost production and increase earnings due to their reliance on low-tech farming techniques. Local government and community-based organizations are offering supports and solutions to tackle such restraints. Improvement of government policies Tanzania's government has recognized the need of addressing these issues. The Tanzanian government launched the Agriculture Sector Development Strategy (ASDS) in 2001, followed by the Agricultural Sector Development Program (ASDP) in 2003, with the goal of enhancing agricultural productivity, profitability, and farm incomes ( Vermeulen and Cotula, 2010 ).  Recently, the government introduced ...

The persistent problems of food insecurity in Africa have led to widespread malnutrition and famine across the continent, it is stated that one out of four undernourished individuals in the world lives in Africa ( Blein et al., 2013 ). In the following two blog posts, I will be looking at smallholder farmers in Africa, specifically in Tanzania. Agriculture employs more people than any other occupation on the planet, and the agriculture sector in Tanzania contributes considerably to the economy, employment generation, and food security. Tanzania is one of the SSA countries where agriculture forms the backbone of the economy, accounting for approximately 45 percent of GDP, 60 percent of merchandise exports, 75 percent of rural family incomes, and 80 percent of the population employed in agriculture ( Andersson et al., 2005 ; United Republic of Tanzania,2011 ). Rice is the major food and cash crop in Tanzania, as acknowledged by Agritrade ( Rugumamu, 2014 ) and Kafitiriti et al. ( 2003 ),...