tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/african-agriculture-14536/articlesAfrican agriculture – The Conversation2022-04-28T13:25:44Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1814972022-04-28T13:25:44Z2022-04-28T13:25:44ZRising atmospheric CO₂ may benefit maize crops: first experiment in African conditions<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/458567/original/file-20220419-14-wh3qfk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Most maize production relies on natural rainfall, making it vulnerable to changing rainfall patterns.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Global maize production is worth <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/nyas.12396">billions</a> of dollars annually and is key to global food security because it’s a <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fsufs.2020.617009">staple food</a> for billions of people. Most maize production relies on natural rainfall, making it vulnerable to changing rainfall patterns.</p>
<p>This limitation is <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1718031115">likely to intensify</a> in the future because climate change is predicted to lead to lower rainfall in many regions. This could decrease <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1718031115">yields</a> by 10% by the time global temperatures have increased by 4°C. Droughts are also <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg2/">predicted</a> to become more frequent and severe.</p>
<p>Higher temperatures are also predicted for many parts of the world and will have direct <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nclimate1832">effects on maize growth</a> and productivity. <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Michael-Roberts-33/publication/258807246_The_critical_role_of_extreme_heat_for_maize_production_in_the_United_States/links/55aea08608aed9b7dcdda360/The-critical-role-of-extreme-heat-for-maize-production-in-the-United-States.pdf">Warming will also lead to more evaporation</a>, which means that plants lose more water. </p>
<p>But it is difficult to predict the effects of a changing climate on crop yields. That’s because the effects of rainfall and temperature can interact in complex ways. Rising carbon dioxide (CO₂) in the atmosphere, which is a result of industrialisation, only adds to the uncertainty. However, as our <a href="https://academic.oup.com/aob/article-abstract/129/5/607/6524535?redirectedFrom=fulltext">new research</a> conducted in South Africa shows, it may offset some of the impacts of drying and warming on maize crops in tropical growing regions like those found in much of Africa.</p>
<h2>Why CO₂ matters</h2>
<p>CO₂ is an important resource for photosynthesis and its low availability in the atmosphere has been a major limiting factor to plant growth for millennia. This has led some plant groups, particularly grasses, to <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s004420050311">evolve a photosynthetic pathway</a> that concentrates CO₂ and makes photosynthesis more efficient under low CO₂. </p>
<p>Maize also has this pathway, known as C4 photosynthesis. Under warm and humid conditions, its growth is thus not limited by CO₂ availability and so it gains no direct benefit from increasing atmospheric CO₂. However, elevated CO₂ allows plants to take up enough CO₂ while keeping their leaf pores (stomata) partially closed. This decreases plant water loss and could potentially increase the drought tolerance of maize.</p>
<p>Research has been done in <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1161030111001456">Europe</a> and the <a href="https://academic.oup.com/plphys/article/140/2/779/6115032">US</a> to ascertain how elevated CO₂ might indirectly increase the productivity of C4 plants like maize. These studies found that elevated CO₂ generally had a positive effect on maize growth and compensated for water limitation and warming. However, temperatures and water stress are much higher in most of Africa and other tropical regions than in Europe and the US, raising the question of whether elevated CO₂ can help overcome reduced rainfall under these much more challenging conditions.</p>
<p>We set out to <a href="https://academic.oup.com/aob/article-abstract/129/5/607/6524535?redirectedFrom=fulltext">address this knowledge gap</a>. Through a series of experiments conducted in South Africa’s Eastern Cape province, we found that future atmospheric CO₂ concentrations are likely to benefit maize production in tropical growing regions like those found in many parts of Africa. This may extend the future land area available to rainfed maize cultivation by making maize production more water use efficient.</p>
<p>However, while CO₂ can prolong soil water availability and slow down the effect of drought on photosynthesis, it cannot compensate for a lack of rainfall entirely. Rainfall seasonality thus still plays an important role in determining where maize can be grown. With more data from tropical growing regions, our ability to predict this will increase.</p>
<h2>A series of experiments</h2>
<p>Experiments are required to predict the interacting effects of increased drought and increased CO₂ on maize yields; these studies allow scientists to manipulate each of these factors, singly and in combination. While manipulating water is fairly straightforward, experimenting with atmospheric CO₂ requires specialised and costly facilities. It is therefore not surprising that the leading experiments on the effects of temperature, water and CO₂ have been done under temperate conditions in the northern hemisphere, where research resources are concentrated.</p>
<p>In 2018, Rhodes University in South Africa launched Africa’s first large-scale elevated CO₂ plant <a href="https://www.ru.ac.za/ruecf/">research facility</a>. Here, in special open-top chambers, we exposed six different maize cultivars bred for South African climates to drought and watering treatments under ambient and elevated CO₂, and at elevated temperatures.</p>
<p>Plants were grown over the summer season and were either irrigated daily or left to grow with only the little rainfall that fell naturally. The study area has too little summer rainfall to be a viable maize growing region; this allowed us to simulate the effects of drought under hot and dry summer conditions.</p>
<p>To examine the effect of atmospheric CO₂, we compared current conditions of 400 parts per million (ppm) to those <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg2/">predicted</a> to occur towards the end of the 21st century (800 ppm). The air temperature in the open-top chambers was 4-5°C higher than ambient, which is in line with future climate <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg2/">predictions</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/458566/original/file-20220419-24-4dbirn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/458566/original/file-20220419-24-4dbirn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458566/original/file-20220419-24-4dbirn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458566/original/file-20220419-24-4dbirn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458566/original/file-20220419-24-4dbirn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=643&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458566/original/file-20220419-24-4dbirn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=643&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458566/original/file-20220419-24-4dbirn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=643&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Study co-author Tebadi Burgess (née Bopape) holds maize plants that she grew at either current or future atmospheric CO₂ concentrations with and without drought.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Authors supplied</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Findings</h2>
<p>Under ambient CO₂ and without watering, plants had very low yields. Irrigated plants at elevated CO₂ had nearly four time higher yields. </p>
<p>Adding elevated CO₂ to unwatered plants resulted in the same growth and yield as irrigation at ambient CO₂. This shows that elevated CO₂ had the same effect on plants as daily irrigation and thus completely compensated for drought. When given additional CO₂, plants needed less water, because they could partially close their leaf pores and avoid water loss.</p>
<p>Irrigated maize yields increased with added CO₂. This suggests that even under irrigation, hot and dry weather can cause water stress and reduce productivity.</p>
<p>This research shows that future atmospheric CO₂ concentrations could help alleviate the effects of warming and drought, even for irrigated production. However, more research is needed to determine the effects of intermediate CO₂ concentrations between 400 and 800 ppm, which will be experienced between now and the end of the century. Data on the effects of other variables, such a soil type and severity of climate, are also needed to calibrate realistic models to forecast future maize production.</p>
<p><em>Tebadi Burgess (nee Bopape), an MSc graduate, co-authored the research on which this article is based.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/181497/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brad Ripley receives funding from Applied Centre for Climate & Earth Systems Science (ACCESS), Rhodes Unversity and Grain SA.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Susanne Vetter receives funding from the Applied Centre for Climate & Earth Systems Science (ACCESS) and Rhodes University.</span></em></p>Rising carbon dioxide in the atmosphere may be a boon for maize crops in tropical growing regions like those found in much of Africa.Brad Ripley, Professor, Department of Botany, Rhodes UniversitySusanne Vetter, Associate Professor, Department of Botany, Rhodes UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1814872022-04-26T13:01:28Z2022-04-26T13:01:28ZChanges in sub-Saharan maize trade spell potential trouble for Kenya<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/459057/original/file-20220421-20-ygw9el.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Kenya is expected to import 700,000 tonnes of maize for 2022/23</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Maize production in some of the sub-Saharan African countries that <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/zambia/southern-africa-regional-maize-supply-and-market-outlook-august-31-2021">dominated maize supplies</a> during the 2021/22 marketing year is expected to be lower this coming season. This will bring about some changes in the sub continent’s maize trade in the 2022/23 marketing year, in particular creating complications for Kenya. In the 2021/22 season, Kenya was the largest maize importer in the region.</p>
<p>But Kenya has a longstanding policy against genetically engineered maize. This limits the role of South Africa, the sub-continent’s biggest maize producer and exporter, in meeting Kenya’s needs.</p>
<p>The expected lower production comes in a season when demand for maize from countries in sub-Saharan Africa that rely heavily on imports is expected to remain strong. It’s estimated that Kenya, for example, will need to import <a href="https://apps.fas.usda.gov/newgainapi/api/Report/DownloadReportByFileName?fileName=Grain%20and%20Feed%20Annual_Nairobi_Kenya_KE2022-0002.pdf">700,000 tonnes of maize for 2022/23</a>. Kenya’s maize production is expected to be marginally higher, but not enough to meet the country’s needs.</p>
<p>Kenya is typically one of the major maize importing countries in sub-Saharan Africa. The country’s expected 700,000 tonnes of maize imports <a href="https://www.igc.int/en/default.aspx">account for 21% of the region’s expected maize imports</a> of 3.4 million tonnes in 2021/22 season, according to data from the International Grains Council. Other typical maize importing countries include Zimbabwe, Botswana, Mozambique and Namibia.</p>
<p>However, in the 2021/22 marketing year, several sub-Saharan African countries such as Zambia, Tanzania, Zimbabwe (an exceptional year from the usual importing position) and South Africa <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/zambia/southern-africa-regional-maize-supply-and-market-outlook-august-31-2021">had ample maize harvest</a>. This made it easy for them to meet Kenya’s import needs. Tanzania and Zambia were the leading maize suppliers to Kenya.</p>
<p>Tanzania, the biggest exporter in the region in the 2020/2021 season and Kenya’s traditional major maize supplier, is unlikely to play that role this season because its maize production is forecast <a href="https://apps.fas.usda.gov/newgainapi/api/Report/DownloadReportByFileName?fileName=Grain%20and%20Feed%20Annual_Dar%20Es%20Salaam_Tanzania_TZ2022-0001.pdf">to fall by 16%</a> year-on-year to 5.9 million tonnes. This is due to drought at the start of the season, combined with armyworm infestations and reduced fertiliser usage in some regions because of prohibitively higher prices. The consequence of the fall in production and firmer domestic consumption means that the country could have less maize for export markets.</p>
<p><a href="https://apps.fas.usda.gov/newgainapi/api/Report/DownloadReportByFileName?fileName=Grain%20and%20Feed%20Annual_Dar%20Es%20Salaam_Tanzania_TZ2022-0001.pdf">Preliminary estimates</a> by the United States Department of Agriculture are that Tanzania’s maize exports could decline from 800,000 tonnes in the 2021/22 marketing year to 100,000 tonnes in the 2022/23 marketing year.</p>
<p>Such a drop would leave very little for Kenya’s maize needs, leaving Zambia and South Africa as major suppliers in the region.</p>
<p>Zambia’s expected maize production in the <a href="https://www.africa.com/zambia-when-crop-dreams-are-crushed/">current season is still tentative</a>, and it is unclear how much maize the country could have for exports. Zimbabwe, which had a <a href="https://theconversation.com/zimbabwe-had-a-bumper-harvest-what-went-right-and-what-needs-work-167307#:%7E:text=Zimbabwe%20has%20reported%20a%20bumper,stands%20at%202.7%20million%20tonnes.">large harvest in 2020/21 season</a>, is also in an uncertain position about its 2021/22 maize harvest and ability to export. The <a href="https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/Zimbabwe%20-%20Key%20Message%20Update_%20Wed%2C%202022-03-30.pdf">incoming evidence</a> suggest that some regions in the country have suffered crop failures.</p>
<p>South Africa could help and has the maize production capacity to do so. Given <a href="https://www.namc.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/South-African-Supply-Demand-Estimates-_30-March-2022.pdf">current output projections of 14.7 million tonnes</a>, South Africa could have 3.2 million tons of maize for exports in the 2022/23 season – about 78% being yellow maize, and 22% white maize. But it plays a limited role in the Kenyan maize market.</p>
<h2>The barriers</h2>
<p>South Africa’s limited participation in the Kenyan maize market is arguably affected by regulations rather than just price and consumer preferences. Kenya continues to <a href="https://apps.fas.usda.gov/newgainapi/api/Report/DownloadReportByFileName?fileName=Grain%20and%20Feed%20Annual_Nairobi_Kenya_KE2022-0002.pdf">maintain an import ban on genetically engineered products.</a>. This limits imports from South Africa <a href="https://allianceforscience.cornell.edu/blog/2021/06/south-africa-has-reaped-major-benefits-from-gm-maize-study-finds/">where over 80% of maize production is genetically engineered</a>. </p>
<p>There are <a href="https://apps.fas.usda.gov/newgainapi/api/Report/DownloadReportByFileName?fileName=Grain%20and%20Feed%20Annual_Nairobi_Kenya_KE2022-0002.pdf">indications</a> that Kenya is changing its longstanding policy. Regulatory agencies have recently completed all trials for the approval of biotechnology maize. But any decision would still have to be approved by Kenya’s cabinet.</p>
<p>Even if Kenya were to adjust its policy, South Africa would not necessarily be the only maize supplier looking at expanding its market share in the country. The likes of the US and Brazil would also be at Kenya’s doorstep. The advantage of South Africa would be its substantial white maize production, which is the preferred staple grain of Kenyan consumers.</p>
<p>Outside the African continent, Mexico, the US and Argentina could be among the potential maize suppliers, as there are generally <a href="https://repository.cimmyt.org/xmlui/bitstream/handle/10883/755/66084.pdf?sequence=1">few white maize producing countries in the world</a>. </p>
<h2>Imbalances</h2>
<p>The sub-Saharan Africa maize trade generally has some imbalances. South Africa, Tanzania and Zambia are the major maize producers and exporters in the region. For their part Kenya, Zimbabwe, Botswana, and Mozambique are often the importers.</p>
<p>At the regional level, sub-Saharan Africa’s aggregate maize imports amount to an average of 3.4 million tonnes a year, according to <a href="https://www.igc.int/en/default.aspx">data from the International Grains Council</a>. This is both white and yellow maize, with most being white maize for human consumption.</p>
<p>Although intra-regional trade accounts for most of the consumption needs of import-reliant countries in the region, this is also supplemented by imports from countries outside of the continent such as Argentina, Canada and Mexico.</p>
<p>Overall, these maize market dynamics are worth monitoring, specifically from South Africa’s perspective, as they signal that the sub-Saharan maize demand in the 2022/23 marketing year could be much larger than the previous season. This could be the case especially if <a href="https://www.africa.com/zambia-when-crop-dreams-are-crushed/">Zambia’s maize production</a> comes out lower than the 2021/22 season, which is likely if we use the <a href="https://www.namc.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/South-African-Supply-Demand-Estimates-_30-March-2022.pdf">South African maize production conditions</a> as a barometer for the region. Such a potential increase in the region’s maize imports would have implication for prices.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/181487/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Wandile Sihlobo is the Chief Economist of the Agricultural Business Chamber of South Africa (Agbiz) and a member of the Presidential Economic Advisory Council (PEAC).</span></em></p>Changes in maize production could create complications for Kenya, sub-Saharan Africa’s major importer, because of its policy on genetically modified maize.Wandile Sihlobo, Senior Fellow, Department of Agricultural Economics, Stellenbosch UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1732542022-01-11T14:06:33Z2022-01-11T14:06:33ZWhat it will take for Africa’s agrifood systems to thrive<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/437493/original/file-20211214-19-1wdgs2w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">African-owned food retailers are increasing their footprints across the continent.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">FG TRADE/Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The year 2021 was one of critical conversations about global agrifood systems – the processes and methods through which farming produces food. Following on the heels of the COVID-19 pandemic and a <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/future-development/2021/06/02/long-run-impacts-of-covid-19-on-extreme-poverty/">rise in global poverty</a>, 2021 was a year for recovery and an urgent call to transform food systems if the world is to achieve the <a href="https://sdgs.un.org/goals">Sustainable Development Goals</a> targets by 2030.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.un.org/en/food-systems-summit">United Nations Food System Summit</a> in September was a call to action and a challenge to nations to build “transformed” food systems. It was followed by the development of the <a href="https://au.int/en/pressreleases/20210715/africa-mobilizes-common-position-upcoming-un-food-systems-summit-unfss">African Common Position</a>. This outlines how countries on the continent plan to heed that call and challenge. Then came <a href="https://unfccc.int/conference/glasgow-climate-change-conference-october-november-2021">COP26</a>: sustainable, resilient agrifood solutions are, after all, key to mitigating the effects of climate change. </p>
<p>If commitments are met, these high level dialogues have the potential to shape the trajectory of Africa’s agrifood system over this next decade. But how can global conversations be internalised into systems? How does the continent build sustainable, resilient food markets? What roles do private sector actors and public policy-makers play?</p>
<p>As specialists in food systems keen to tackle these big questions, we’ve drawn on key findings from the <a href="https://agra.org/resource-library/africa-agriculture-status-report/">African Agriculture Status Report</a> and identified three salient features about Africa’s agrifood system. These are that food demand is expected to increase; that African-based agribusinesses are investing; and, finally, that transforming the food industry will take time in light of persistent informality. </p>
<p>The commitments made on the global stage must now be followed through with policy and regulatory reform at national, regional and continental levels. Strategic investments are also needed, particularly to target choke points in the agrifood value chains. </p>
<p>We predict that the journey to transformation of the food industry will be long. It comes with many risks – and, for those who move first and well, high returns.</p>
<h2>Rising demand, rising investment</h2>
<p>Over the coming decade, sub-Saharan Africa’s <a href="https://agra.org/aasr-2021/">food demand is projected to rise</a>. This will make it one of world’s largest sources of additional demand, <a href="https://www.oecd.org/publications/oecd-fao-agricultural-outlook-19991142.htm">rising from 10% to 11%</a> of total global calorie consumption by 2030. The continent’s food market is projected to reach a value of a staggering one trillion dollars by 2030. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.adb.org/sites/default/files/publication/726556/ado2021-update.pdf">Asia</a> is another important food market which will be driven by the growing population. Studies show a potential rise in population and food demand. The difference with Africa’s projected demand, however, is that Asia will likely demand high value products because of relative improvement in incomes.</p>
<p>In Africa, people’s incomes will not rise at the same rate. So while people will demand more and better food, they will not necessarily be able to afford a more diversified, protein-rich diet. This raises questions around the pace of the <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/283708696_Africa_'_s_unfolding_diet_transformation_implications_for_agrifood_system_employment">dietary transformation</a> on the continent going forward. The “dietary transformation” trend is likely not very sustainable if gainful wage employment can’t be ensured.</p>
<p>Despite this concern, it’s clear that agribusiness in Africa presents <a href="https://agra.org/aasr-2021/">vast opportunities</a> for private sector firms. African-owned business are already investing: between 2015 and 2020, the top three leading retail outlets in South Africa expanded their African footprint by increasing the number of outlets across the continent. One, Pick n Pay, has increased the total number of stores by 55% in the past five years, from <a href="https://www.picknpayinvestor.co.za/financials/annual-reports/2015/index.php">1,242</a> to <a href="https://www.picknpayinvestor.co.za/downloads/annual-report/2020/pick-n-pay-iar.pdf">1,925</a>.</p>
<p>Examining leading retailers’ annual reports, we can see that despite the uncertainty and disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic, companies were able to adapt by using <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/350970852_Food_Supply_Chains_Business_Resilience_Innovation_and_Adaptation">digital platforms and new logistical models</a>; this allowed them to expand their sales despite the disruption. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/research-and-development-are-key-to-resilient-food-systems-in-africa-165251">Research and development are key to resilient food systems in Africa</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>But this expansion of investment is not just occurring at the retail level. African-owned enterprises operating at all levels of the agrifood system are expanding their own footprint through increased investments in the sector. Many of the firms listed as the <a href="https://www.foodbusinessafrica.com/top100/">Food Business Africa Top 100</a> companies in 2020 are African-owned and have either entered into the food industry or expanded and diversified their operations over the past two decades.</p>
<h2>Informality</h2>
<p>However, despite this evidence of emerging and growing small and medium enterprises, the journey to transforming the food industry will be long, particularly in the face of persisting informality. Across all of the continent’s regions, except southern Africa, informal employment as a percentage of total employment in the agricultural and non-agricultural sector is above the <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/research/publication/informal-economy">global average of 64%</a> for emerging and developing markets economies. </p>
<p>More than <a href="https://agra.org/aasr-2021/">80% of the continent’s population</a> relies on open-air, largely informal markets for their food. Poor sanitary conditions in many of these markets raise concerns around food safety for households that depend on them.</p>
<p>If African countries are to ensure resilient and sustainable agrifood systems, they must upgrade food value chains by shifting production and employment from informal micro-enterprises to formal firms offering wage employment with income security and health benefits for employees. This will also ensure improvements in food safety within the system. </p>
<p>One example of this is an investment by the Rockefeller Foundation, in collaboration with the East African Grain Council, in Kenya’s <a href="https://cceonlinenews.com/2021/08/13/nakuru-commences-construction-of-ksh-239m-smart-fish-market-2/">Naivasha Smart Fish Market project</a>. The aim is to provide an informal market with good quality infrastructure as a way of improving livelihoods and sanitary conditions.</p>
<h2>Government responsibilities</h2>
<p>There are three things that African governments can do to ensure the reality of the next decade lives up to the global commitments made in 2021. </p>
<p>First, governments must provide adequate public goods. That means hard infrastructure, like roads, public works and electricity, and soft infrastructure like capacity development, finance, data and information.</p>
<p>Second, they must effectively enforce national competition policy and anti-trust laws to level the playing field for all types of agri-food enterprises and minimise abuse of market power.</p>
<p>Finally, they must get out of the way. African governments should not over regulate the sector: this increases the costs of doing business especially for small, medium and micro-enterprises. Policies must also be predictable and based on solid technical research.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/173254/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Wandile Sihlobo is the Chief Economist of the Agricultural Business Chamber of South Africa (Agbiz), and also a member of the South African President's Economic Advisory Council (PEAC).</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Edward Mabaya and Lulama Ndibongo Traub do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Commitments made on the global stage must now be followed through with policy and regulatory reform at national, regional and continental levels.Lulama Ndibongo Traub, Co-director; Bureau of Food and Agricultural Policy (BFAP), Stellenbosch UniversityEdward Mabaya, Research Professor, Cornell UniversityWandile Sihlobo, Senior Fellow, Department of Agricultural Economics, Stellenbosch UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1486652020-10-26T15:17:54Z2020-10-26T15:17:54ZProblematic assumptions raise questions about South Africa’s new land reform plan<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365238/original/file-20201023-16-1fzjk95.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Small-scale farming creates more jobs in South Africa.This one is in Soweto, Johannesburg.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sharon Seretlo/Gallo Images/Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The South African government recently announced a plan to allocate 700,000 hectares of state land to black farmers. Exactly how many farms and beneficiaries this will involve is unclear. </p>
<p>But there’s a huge amount wrong with the idea.</p>
<p>First, it reproduces the core weaknesses of post-apartheid land and agricultural policies, which do little to reduce unemployment or enhance rural livelihoods.</p>
<p>Public response has been mostly <a href="https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/national/2020-10-01-hefty-push-to-redistribute-land-to-black-farmers/">positive in character</a>. But land researchers on the left of the political spectrum are asking searching questions about the origins of this land. Also about the status of its current occupiers, and whether the procedures announced provide sufficient safeguards against the process being <a href="https://www.plaas.org.za/700-000-ha-of-state-land-redistributed/">captured by elites</a>.</p>
<p>From the right, the Institute of Race Relations think-tank asked why property rights on the allocated farms will continue to take the form of leases, rather than private title. It also asked how beneficiaries will <a href="https://irr.org.za/media/government2019s-new-land-plan-needs-to-do-better-iol">secure bank loans without collateral</a>.</p>
<p>The policy announcement does have some positive aspects. If achieved, the redistribution of 700,000ha in one year would indeed represent an acceleration of <a href="https://www.gov.za/issues/land-reform">land reform</a>. The minister also acknowledged that the administration of state land had been deficient to date, and admitted that corruption was a problem. This is refreshingly frank talk from a department that has mostly been in denial about these problems.</p>
<p>But below the radar of public debate are other aspects of this initiative which are highly problematic. These include crippling assumptions in relation to farming systems and scale. </p>
<p>I argue that these reproduce the core weaknesses of post-apartheid state land and agricultural policy, which have done little to reduce unemployment or enhance the livelihoods of the rural poor.</p>
<h2>Key features</h2>
<p>The state will allocate farmland to successful applicants who must <a href="https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/national/2020-10-01-hefty-push-to-redistribute-land-to-black-farmers/">show evidence of farming experience</a> or a willingness to learn. Allocations will be biased in favour of women, young people and the disabled. A compulsory training programme will focus on “entry level” knowledge, record keeping and financial management.</p>
<p>Rent will be paid to the state at rates aligned with local land values, and an option to purchase will be offered after 30 years. Beneficiaries must maintain state-owned infrastructure on farms, and regular inspections will take place. Investments in infrastructure must be recorded, valued and reported.</p>
<p>Given that some (unspecified) proportion of these farms is already occupied and used, a land enquiry process will investigate how such occupation came about. It will also look at whether the land is being used “in accordance with the agricultural practices of the area”, and whether occupiers can become beneficiaries.</p>
<h2>Worrying silences</h2>
<p>There’s a lot of detail that’s worryingly missing. For example, official statements neglect to specify how and when this land came to be acquired by the state, and how it has been managed to date. </p>
<p>Secondly, it is positive that weaknesses in land administration are acknowledged, but no details have been offered. It is also not at all clear that the root causes of the failures of the <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201409/impllandacquisition0.pdf">Pro-Active Land Acquisition policy</a> to date are being addressed. These include the absence of area-based planning, inadequate and poorly targeted financial support and a lack of effective extension advice. And the allocation procedures seem similar to those adopted during the presidency of Jacob Zuma, when corruption was rife and <a href="https://www.plaas.org.za/farai-mtero-elite-capture-in-land-redistribution-winners-and-losers/">elites were favoured</a>.</p>
<p>Nor are the criteria to be used in assessing the performance and productivity of beneficiaries specified, mirroring the lack of clarity on exactly how the suitability of applicants will be assessed.</p>
<p>The lack of clarity speaks to a much deeper problem – the adherence to a <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03066150903498739">particular paradigm of agriculture</a> that I don’t believe is suited to what’s needed in South Africa in the 21st century. </p>
<h2>The wrong model</h2>
<p>The model of “farming” that underlies government’s policies for land and agricultural reform is one of modern, high-tech, large-scale commercial production of agricultural commodities by skilled business managers, in which economies of scale are paramount.</p>
<p>This largely unexamined choice has consequences. From within the paradigm, it is “common sense” that land reform beneficiaries should be “business-oriented”, with the potential to succeed in a highly competitive South African agricultural sector. Lip service is paid to the need to provide land to smallholder and “semi-commercial” farmers. But, in practice, the hegemonic model sidelines farmers operating small-scale farming systems, often successfully, despite inadequate support in a hostile economic environment.</p>
<p>Small-scale farming systems in South Africa tend to be labour rather than capital intensive, and have potential to create jobs <a href="https://theconversation.com/study-shows-land-redistribution-can-create-new-jobs-in-agriculture-in-south-africa-139333">on a significant scale</a>. </p>
<p>They tend to focus on high-value horticultural crops, such as fresh vegetables, rather than mechanised dryland cropping systems in which economies of scale are pervasive. They also focus on extensive livestock production, including small stock such as sheep and goats. </p>
<p>Land reform’s current focus on promoting black, “emerging” commercial farmers means that relatively few people – likely to be either middle class already or aspiring entrepreneurs – gain access to a <a href="https://www.plaas.org.za/farai-mtero-elite-capture-in-land-redistribution-winners-and-losers/">small number of medium-scale farms</a>. Problems with this include high rates of failure, partly due to over-gearing of the new farm enterprises and crippling debt. This is partly due to lack of appropriate planning and support.</p>
<p>These issues need to be understood in the context of a changing agrarian structure. A 2017 <a href="http://www.statssa.gov.za/publications/Report-11-02-01/Report-11-02-012017.pdf">census</a> of commercial farming revealed that 67% of income in South African agriculture is earned by only 2,610 farms, 6.5% of the total. They have annual turnover of over R22.5 million (about US$1.3 million) and employ 51% of all workers. Farms earning around R1 million annually or below number 25,000, or 62% of the total, but earn only 2% of total income.</p>
<p>It would seem that black land reform beneficiaries on under-capitalised medium-scale farms are being set up to join the ranks of these marginal commercial producers. Why?</p>
<p>Aspirant black commercial farmers should benefit from land redistribution. But a narrow focus on only this category of beneficiary is likely to end in tears. And the potential of redistribution to create a large number of new jobs is being missed. In the context of massive and <a href="https://cramsurvey.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/1.-Spaull-et-al.-NIDS-CRAM-Wave-2-Synthesis-Findings..pdf">growing unemployment</a>, a middle class land reform agenda is an affront to the transformative promise of post-apartheid democracy.</p>
<p>Detailed recommendations on an alternative approach are available. A recent study for the Treasury Department provided detailed empirical evidence of the potential for employment growth through land redistribution aimed primarily at smallholders and <a href="https://theconversation.com/study-shows-land-redistribution-can-create-new-jobs-in-agriculture-in-south-africa-139333">small-scale commercial black farmers</a>. It has received little attention from policymakers, including those managing the development of government’s draft <a href="http://www.ruraldevelopment.gov.za/phocadownload/Agri-parks/Cammisa/BOJANALA-Agri-Park-MBP-April2016.pdf">Agricultural Master Plan</a>.</p>
<h2>Urgent need to rethink land redistribution</h2>
<p>The social and economic crisis that has followed the COVID-19 pandemic is already shaking the foundations of South Africa’s democracy. Questions of unequal land ownership, always profoundly political, are unlikely to fade away. </p>
<p>Unless addressed, they will contribute to further dissatisfaction with the status quo, creating fertile ground for authoritarian forms of populism.</p>
<p>It is urgent that land policies provide real opportunities to create jobs, increase the incomes of the poor and enhance livelihoods. A focus on small-scale farmers is the most practical way to do so. But once again, the Agriculture Minister and her department appear to have their heads in the sand.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/148665/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ben Cousins has received funding from the National Research Foundation of South Africa, and from the European Union</span></em></p>The new initiative reproduces the core weaknesses of post-apartheid state land and agricultural policy. These have done little to improve the livelihoods of the poor.Ben Cousins, Emeritus Professor, Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western CapeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1266922019-12-11T12:57:38Z2019-12-11T12:57:38ZCan African smallholders farm themselves out of poverty?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/305851/original/file-20191209-90592-1aq4i79.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Hard work and poor prospects for smallholder farming households in Africa. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/swathi-icrisat-esa/12201688784/">Swathi Sridharan (formerly ICRISAT, Bulawayo)</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A great deal of research on agriculture in Africa is organised around the premise that intensification can take smallholder farmers out of poverty. The emphasis in programming often focuses on technologies that increase farm productivity and management practices that go along with them. </p>
<p>Yet the returns of such technologies are not often evaluated within a whole-farm context. And – critically – the returns for smallholders with very little available land have not received sufficient attention. </p>
<p>To support smallholders in their efforts to escape poverty by adopting modern crop varieties, inputs and management practices, it’s necessary to know if their current resources – particularly their farms – are large enough to generate the requisite value. </p>
<p>Two questions can frame this. How big do farms need to be to enable farmers to escape poverty by farming alone? And what alternative avenues can lead them to sustainable development?</p>
<p>These issues were explored in a <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/experimental-agriculture/article/intensification-benefit-index-how-much-can-rural-households-benefit-from-agricultural-intensification/7580F3F01DEEC06482D5D64DD8CC9EE5">paper</a> in which we examined how much rural households can benefit from agricultural intensification. In particular we, together with colleagues, <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308521X13001236">looked at the size of smallholder farms</a> and their potential profitability and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0030727019888513">alternative strategies for support</a>. In sub-Saharan Africa smallholder farms are, on average, smaller than two hectares.</p>
<p>It’s difficult to be precise about the potential profitability of farms in developing countries. But it’s likely that the upper limit for most farms optimistically lies between $1,000 and $2,000 per hectare per year. In fact the actual values currently achieved by farmers in sub-Saharan Africa are much less. </p>
<p>The large profitability gap between current and potential performance per hectare of smallholder farms could, in theory, be narrowed if farmers adopted improved agricultural methods. These could include better crop varieties and animal breeds; more, as well as more efficient, use of fertilisers; and better protection from losses due to pests and diseases. </p>
<p>But are smallholder farms big enough so that closing the profitability gap will make much difference to their poverty status? </p>
<p>Our <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/experimental-agriculture/article/intensification-benefit-index-how-much-can-rural-households-benefit-from-agricultural-intensification/7580F3F01DEEC06482D5D64DD8CC9EE5">research</a> suggests that they are not. Even if they were able to achieve high levels of profitability, the actual value that could be generated on a small farm translated into only a small gain in income per capita. From this we conclude that many, if not most, smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa are unlikely to farm themselves out of poverty – defined as living on less than $1.90 per person per day. This would be the case even if they were to make substantial improvements in the productivity and profitability of their farms. </p>
<p>That’s not to say that smallholder farmers shouldn’t be supported. The issue, rather, is what kind of support best suits their circumstances. </p>
<h2>Productivity and profitability</h2>
<p>In theory, it should be quite simple to calculate how big farms need to be to enable farmers to escape poverty by farming alone. </p>
<p>To begin with, it’s necessary to know how productive and profitable per unit area a farm can be. Productivity and profitability – the value of outputs minus the value of inputs – are functions of farmers’ skills and investment capacities. </p>
<p>They are also dependent on geographical contexts. This includes soils, rainfall and temperature, which determine the potential for crop and livestock productivity. Other factors that play a part include remoteness, which affects farm-gate prices of inputs and outputs, and how many people a farm needs to support. </p>
<p>The figure below summarises the relation between farm size, profitability and income of rural households. We used a net income of $1.90 per person per day (the blue curve) as our working definition of poverty. A more ambitious target of $4 per person per day (the orange curve) represents a modest measure of prosperity beyond the poverty line.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304224/original/file-20191128-178094-zcbm4y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304224/original/file-20191128-178094-zcbm4y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304224/original/file-20191128-178094-zcbm4y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304224/original/file-20191128-178094-zcbm4y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304224/original/file-20191128-178094-zcbm4y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304224/original/file-20191128-178094-zcbm4y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304224/original/file-20191128-178094-zcbm4y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304224/original/file-20191128-178094-zcbm4y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Combinations of land per capita and net whole-farm profitability that would generate 1.90 (blue) and 4 (orange) dollars per person per day. The median land per capita values of rural households from all 46 sites in 15 countries of Sub-Saharan Africa were below the horizontal dashed line (0.60 hectares per person).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author supplied</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>So, how do these values compare with the situation in sub-Saharan Africa? </p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2015.10.041">It has been estimated</a> that about 80% of farms across nine sub-Saharan countries are smaller than two hectares. These sites would need to generate at least $1,250 per hectare per year just to reach the poverty line. Sites at the lower end of the range cannot escape poverty even if they could generate $3,000 per hectare per year.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, there is limited information about whole-farm net profitability in developing countries. But in Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi, for example, the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agsy.2013.09.005">mean values</a> of only $78, $83 and $424 per hectare per year, respectively, imply that even $1,250 appears to be far out of reach for most small farms. </p>
<p>It’s difficult to interpret information from <a href="http://www.farmbusinesssurvey.co.uk/">developed countries</a> in developing country contexts. Nevertheless, gross margin values for even the most efficient mixed farms seldom exceed around $1,400 per hectare per year. </p>
<p>These values are similar to gross margins using best practices for perennial cropping systems reported in a recent literature survey of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agsy.2013.09.005">tropical crop profitability</a>. The study drew on data from nine household surveys in seven African countries. It found that profit from crop production alone (excluding data on livestock) ranged from only $86 per hectare per year in Burkina Faso to $1,184 in Ethiopia. The survey mean was $535 per hectare per year.</p>
<p>From this overview we must conclude that, even with very modest goals, most smallholder farms in sub-Saharan Africa are not “viable” when benchmarked against the poverty line. And it’s unlikely that agricultural intensification alone can take many households across the poverty line.</p>
<h2>What is the takeaway?</h2>
<p>We certainly do not suggest that continued public and private investments in agricultural technologies are unmerited. In fact, there is evidence that <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1057/ejdr.2015.40">returns to agricultural research and development</a> at national level are very high in developing countries. And there is <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/jid.3455">evidence</a> that agricultural growth is the most important impetus for broader patterns of <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00220388.2018.1430774">structural transformation and economic growth in rural Africa</a>. But realistic assessments of the scope for very small farmers to farm themselves out of poverty are necessary. </p>
<p>Farmers are embedded in complex economic webs and increasingly depend on more than farm production for their livelihoods. More integrated lenses for evaluating public investment in the food systems of the developing world will likely be more helpful in the short term.</p>
<p>Integrated investments that affect both on- and off-farm livelihood choices and outcomes will produce better welfare than a narrow focus on production technologies in smallholder dominated systems. Production technology research for development will remain important. But to reach the smallest of Africa’s smallholders will require focus on what’s happening off the farm.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/126692/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Harris receives funding from the CGIAR.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jordan Chamberlin receives funding from the CGIAR, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and IFAD. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kai Mausch received funding from multiple organisations that fund international agricultural research. </span></em></p>Smallholder farming might not be able to generate enough value on its own, but farmers still need support.David Harris, Honorary Lecturer, Bangor UniversityJordan Chamberlin, Spatial Economist, International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT)Kai Mausch, Senior Economist, Center for International Forestry Research – World Agroforestry (CIFOR-ICRAF)Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1232852019-09-18T13:41:46Z2019-09-18T13:41:46ZMalawi study highlights the importance of men in childcare and nutrition<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/292204/original/file-20190912-190050-159bra5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A woman and baby on a bicycle taxi in Salima, Malawi. Some Malawian men are becoming more involved in childcare. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA-EFE</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In Malawi, as in many other societies, women have historically been responsible for housework, food and childcare. Women’s household responsibilities have often left them with heavier workloads than men. </p>
<p>A recent <a href="http://www.nsomalawi.mw/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=209&Itemid=97">report</a> showed that the time Malawian women spent caring for children was six times higher than men. The women’s multiple roles and responsibilities typically prevented them from participating in activities to earn income. </p>
<p>Past <a href="http://ebrary.ifpri.org/cdm/ref/collection/p15738coll2/id/127110">studies</a> have also shown that women spend more of their income on food and children’s education than men do. </p>
<p>But times are changing. Malawian men are increasingly becoming involved in maternal and child health as well as household chores such as growing, buying and preparing food.</p>
<p>Other <a href="https://reproductive-health-journal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1742-4755-8-36">studies</a> show that changes in the role of men in mother and child health are gaining momentum, particularly with increased government efforts in the country’s northern and central regions. Many of these changes are driven by health sector policies.</p>
<p>Walking into a local clinic in Malawi, you will likely find posters with images calling on men to take a more active role in housework and children’s and mother’s health. Such messages have become a common feature, attesting to changing times in the country. </p>
<p>Our study of one community in rural central Malawi set out to investigate how interventions by NGOs, the Ministry of Health and traditional leaders – which aim to involve men in mother and child health – are changing the role of men in growing, cooking and buying food for the household.</p>
<p>As the custodians of culture, traditional leaders in Malawi have been central to influencing changes in household roles and responsibilities. They play an important role in assisting in policy implementation in the areas they oversee.</p>
<p>Our study began by reviewing international as well as Malawian policy documents to understand how men’s participation in mother and child health emerged. We conducted in-depth interviews and focus group discussions with both men and women, as well as with policymakers.</p>
<p>Our <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0221623">findings</a> show that some men are becoming more involved in looking for food and cooking. They are also helping women with other chores, including cleaning and caring for children.</p>
<p>What has led to this change?</p>
<h2>Findings</h2>
<p>We found that while not all men are willing to become involved in women’s and children’s health, there are specific situations that force them to take on “women’s work”. For example, regulations passed by clinics and traditional leaders encourage women to stay at <a href="https://www.who.int/reproductivehealth/publications/maternal_perinatal_health/MSM_96_21/en/">maternity waiting homes</a> from their eighth month of pregnancy.</p>
<p>These maternity waiting places are located close to the hospital to prevent women travelling long distances when they are in labour. The waiting homes have played a central role in reducing mother and child deaths.</p>
<p>But women who stay at these facilities frequently leave other children at home, forcing men to take responsibility for cooking, cleaning and looking after children. Such interventions are unravelling the typical roles men and women are expected to play.</p>
<p>Along with <a href="http://menengage.org/regions/africa/malawi/">messages</a> from the government and NGOs on gender equality, these interventions are helping undo traditional beliefs about the roles men and women play. </p>
<p>Men who accompany their spouses to antenatal visits are provided with information on the importance of helping women with housework when they are pregnant. As a result, more men are now actively helping women to grow, prepare and buy food.</p>
<p>These interventions are increasing cooperation between men and women, which is important for building well-functioning families.</p>
<p>Besides participating in general housework, men also take children to the hospital and attend antenatal visits with their partners. Thus, men and women in the community work together to make sure that their families are healthy and have food. One woman said,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We work together with our husbands in order to make ends meet. If we see that the food, we have harvested is not enough, we make decisions together with our husbands to say that we should buy some food to top up.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Positive changes</h2>
<p>A new understanding of the concept of gender equity is emerging in this community. Gender equality is understood as men and women working together, as opposed to the common misconception that gender initiatives target only women.</p>
<p>Although the men are becoming involved in “women’s work”, when women are pregnant, these changes offer opportunities for policymakers to harness the potential of men in meeting the food needs of the household, and addressing gender equality at the same time.</p>
<p>Although other <a href="http://www.fao.org/3/a-i2050e.pdf">studies</a> have suggested that women play a central role in food and nutrition, both women and men in our study felt that it was also men’s responsibility to look for food. In many ways this resonates with the traditional hunter role of men. So food, nutrition and agriculture policies that pay attention only to women overlook the important role men can play in promoting their families’ well-being.</p>
<p>Interventions implemented in Malawi’s health sector are creating positive changes in the way in which men and women interact. Agriculture, food security and nutrition policies need to leverage these changes to increase the capacities of men and women to work together in ensuring that their families have access to food.</p>
<p>The important role men play in food and nutrition has long been neglected. Harnessing the complementary role of men could improve food security and gender equality at the same time. This is particularly important as <a href="https://www.unicef.org/media/55921/file/SOFI-2019-full-report.pdf">hunger</a> increases globally.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/123285/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Elizabeth Mkandawire receives funding from the USAID Feed the Future Programme. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sheryl L Hendriks receives funding from the USAID Feed the Future Programme. She is affiliated with the Malabo Montpelier Panel. </span></em></p>While not all men are willing to become involved in women and children’s health, some situations force them take on ‘women’s work’.Elizabeth Mkandawire, Postdoctoral Fellow and Coordinator: UN Academic Impact Hub for SDG2, University of PretoriaSheryl L Hendriks, Professor in Food Security; Director, Institute for Food, Nutrition and Well-being, University of PretoriaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1202332019-07-15T15:12:38Z2019-07-15T15:12:38ZMauritius needs stewardship, not leadership, to keep global respect<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/284067/original/file-20190715-173329-1scxdf7.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Aerial view of Port Louis, Mauritius.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Supplied by author </span></span></figcaption></figure><p>By hosting the <a href="https://jeuxdesiles2019.com/">Indian Ocean Island Games</a> this week, Mauritius has an opportunity to showcase its colours to the region, and to some extent, to the global community. </p>
<p>It also prompts a potentially powerful moment of national unity, and with it, national reflection. </p>
<p>The question is: can Mauritius continue its <a href="https://www.ft.com/reports/mauritius-at-50">much-lauded tradition</a> of punching above <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/mar/07/mauritius-healthcare-education">its weight</a> by embracing a model of stewardship, as opposed to leadership, in politics, the economy, civil society, and even sports? </p>
<p>This may prove the only way forward in an era of climate collapse. No country can continue <a href="https://www.lifeworth.com/deepadaptation.pdf">doing business as usual</a>. Mauritius, due to its size (2040 sq km,) social composition, strengths and vulnerabilities, is uniquely positioned to show how things can be done differently.</p>
<p>Stewardship here is an approach which acknowledges that resources are finite and need protection. And that what the country has now must be carefully safeguarded for future generations. This is easy to hold in mind when you live surrounded by salt water.</p>
<p>Stewardship stands in contrast to managerial leadership, which has been so coopted by corporate discourse as to be most often synonymous with <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/kevinkruse/2013/04/09/what-is-leadership/#9844d4d5b90c">unfettered extraction</a> and capital growth. This approach is in denial of the <a href="https://www.footprintcalculator.org/">limited resources of the planet</a>.</p>
<p>Mauritius has been remarkable at reinvention. It has moved from monocrop agriculture to a system in which financial services and the <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/infographic/2017/06/06/blue-economy">Blue Economy</a> play <a href="https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/28562">central roles</a>. The challenges it faces are significant, but there is precedent to think it can succeed. </p>
<p>The island faces worrying levels of both <a href="https://defimedia.info/public-and-private-debts-alarming-figures">personal</a> and <a href="http://mof.govmu.org/English/Public%20Debt/Pages/Debt-Data.aspx">national debt</a>, <a href="https://www.lexpress.mu/blog/332728/sugar-cane">decimated international sugar markets</a>, fluctuating <a href="https://www.tourism-review.com/mauritius-tourism-going-down-news11096">tourism</a> and an ocean <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780128130643000144">imperiled</a> by the climate crisis.</p>
<p>What is needed is an understanding of stewardship that is based on a clear appreciation of the island’s natural environment. It should be one that aims to close, not extend, the growing gap between the richest and the poor. It also needs to implement policies that enable national development and individual career advancement based on real resources, skill and ethics rather than on debt, caste, religion, or the car that one is seen to drive.</p>
<h2>What can be done</h2>
<p>Mauritius needs to get serious about the climate crisis. <a href="https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/TR-12-2017-0203/full/html">Research shows</a> that the country will be severely affected by changing oceans, rising <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1876610214034572">land temperatures</a> and ever more erratic weather patterns. The national discussion has yet to assume the necessary urgent tone.</p>
<p>Secondly, rising consumption needs to be managed in innovative ways. Until recently, the consumer market in Mauritius was reasonably contained. In living memory, the island’s society has gone from one that was spendthrift and reused almost everything to one in which single-purpose use, disposability and planned obsolescence are defining features of everyday life. This has lead to more trash and more pressure to buy in a country where the cost of living is already extremely high.</p>
<p>This links to a third area in which change is possible – adopting innovative responses to rubbish management. If addressing littering was treated as a national priority, and a tax for single use <a href="https://www.mcci.org/media/189029/presentation-by-mra-plastic-containers-28-feb-2019.pdf">plastic consumption</a> was used to generate funds explicitly for the environment, the country would gain significantly. </p>
<p>Tied to this is the need for new <a href="http://ecobricks.org">eco-architecture</a>, improved recycling facilities, <a href="https://www.lexpress.mu/node/336478">pesticide management</a>, a far safer living environment and an appeal to tourists who are increasingly attracted to green, locally-embedded experiences rather than isolated luxury resorts.</p>
<p>Fourthly, Mauritius’ <a href="http://www.govmu.org/English/Legislations/Pages/Constitution.aspx">unique</a> constitutional political management system needs serious amendment, to prevent the nepotism and communalism that it enables. <a href="https://www.lexpress.mu/article/critical-appraisal-best-loser-system">Conceived</a> as a compromise for managing the transition from colonialism to independence, it divides the population into categories that have long since dissolved. </p>
<p>If your identity is more complex than ‘Hindu’, ‘Muslim’, or ‘Chinese’, you are required to be ‘General Population’ in which skin-tone, surname, and place of residence then encodes social perception as likely either <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-modern-african-studies/article/disunity-in-diversity-how-common-beliefs-about-ethnicity-benefit-the-white-mauritian-elite/4CC4DDB483DB651A58C359B64D5BC968">very rich</a>, or <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1btbx4k">very poor</a>. Though <a href="https://www.lexpress.mu/node/331455">contested</a>, it remains in place. </p>
<p>Finally, for long term stability it is important to teach history. This should happen in secondary schools as well as in work places. Stress in Mauritius has a tendency to manifest in inter-group violence, often along religious lines. Though all countries grapple with this challenge, the size of Mauritius means that here, it easily gets personal. </p>
<p>Again, there is an opportunity to stand as an example for others. By <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/education/2019/jul/03/migration-and-empire-should-be-taught-in-english-schools">building</a> both historical knowledge and human empathy in the population, Mauritius can consolidate its multicultural strength.</p>
<h2>Moral courage</h2>
<p>These kinds of reforms would require moral courage and a willingness to sacrifice personal gain for the good of other people. In a space so small, the growing gap that is a microcosm of the global divide is hard to ignore, and even harder to stomach.</p>
<p>If Mauritius can make the necessary changes to lessen the gap between the richest and the poor, the huge loans taken to build major <a href="https://www.lexpress.mu/node/354276">infrastructure projects</a>, may prove to be worth it. </p>
<p>The country may then emerge a true champion in the eyes of the world: a steward for both natural and human resources.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/120233/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jess Auerbach receives funding from the Tertiary Education Commission of Mauritius as a Visiting Researcher at the Open University.</span></em></p>A significant change in political mentality is required to shore up one of Africa’s leading lights.Jess Auerbach Jahajeeah, Visiting Researcher, Open University of Mauritius., Open University of MauritiusLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1199522019-07-11T14:56:02Z2019-07-11T14:56:02ZHow digital technologies can help Africa’s smallholder farmers<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/283044/original/file-20190708-51253-1ml5ikz.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Digitisation includes the delivery of agronomic advice and information via text messaging and interactive voice response.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">www.cta.int/</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Digitisation could change the game for agriculture in Africa. That’s a key message in <a href="https://www.cta.int/en/digitalisation/all/issue/the-digitalisation-of-african-agriculture-report-2018-2019-sid0d88610e2-d24e-4d6a-8257-455b43cf5ed6">a report </a> recently released by an international institution that enhances smallholder farming in African, Caribbean and Pacific countries. </p>
<p>The Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA) <a href="https://www.cta.int/en/about-cta">focuses</a> on poverty reduction through modernising smallholder farming by fostering innovation and knowledge sharing. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.cta.int/en/digitalisation/all/issue/the-digitalisation-of-african-agriculture-report-2018-2019-sid0d88610e2-d24e-4d6a-8257-455b43cf5ed6">Digitisation</a> refers to everything from delivering farming advice via text messaging to interactive voice response. It also includes smart phone applications that link farmers to multimedia advisory content, farm inputs, and buyers. And it covers the use of drones and satellite systems to inform farmer activities, such as crops and times to plant; and types and amounts of inputs to use.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/282968/original/file-20190707-51292-9zwh7b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/282968/original/file-20190707-51292-9zwh7b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/282968/original/file-20190707-51292-9zwh7b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/282968/original/file-20190707-51292-9zwh7b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/282968/original/file-20190707-51292-9zwh7b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/282968/original/file-20190707-51292-9zwh7b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/282968/original/file-20190707-51292-9zwh7b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ziongate Geospatial and Research Services staff preparing to survey farmlands with drones, Ghana.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ziongate Geospatial and Research Services</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Other global organisations have echoed this message. These range from NGOs like <a href="https://www.solidaridadnetwork.org/news/what-role-can-technology-play-in-smallholder-farms">Solidaridad Network</a> – a civil society organisation that accelerates sustainable and inclusive development – to <a href="http://www.fao.org/3/a-at453e.pdf">the World Bank</a>. These organisations believe that digital technologies can create employment for young people in the agricultural sector, promote economic activity, and enhance food security.</p>
<p>For the past two decades, digitisation has steadily transformed African farming. In Ghana, for instance, online platforms such as <a href="https://esoko.com/">Esoko</a>, <a href="https://farmerline.co/">Farmerline</a>, and <a href="https://www.trotrotractor.com/">Trotro Tractor</a> have provided farmers with accessible services. These have included <a href="https://doi.org/10.1186/s40066-016-0088-y">voice messages and SMS extension advice</a>. This helps farmers obtain information about how to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/agec.12300">access markets and extension services.</a>. </p>
<p>Elsewhere on the continent, international organisations help <a href="https://www.unenvironment.org/pt-br/node/24047">provide precision advice to farmers</a>. An example is the CTA’s <a href="https://www.cta.int/en/projects/eyes-in-the-sky">‘Transforming Africa’s agriculture: Eyes in the sky, smart techs on the ground"</a> project that supports the use of drones for agriculture.</p>
<p>The continent’s digital agriculture industry is growing. The number of farmers subscribed to digital services has grown by <a href="https://www.cta.int/en/digitalisation/all/issue/the-digitalisation-of-african-agriculture-report-2018-2019-sid0d88610e2-d24e-4d6a-8257-455b43cf5ed6">between 40% and 45% per year</a> in the last three years. </p>
<p>Annual revenues from digitally supported farming are estimated at about <a href="https://europa.eu/capacity4dev/file/89982/download?token=LfhgAcCc">$140 million</a>. Services are provided by a small but growing number of providers — some of which are estimated to generate <a href="https://www.cta.int/en/digitalisation/all/issue/the-digitalisation-of-african-agriculture-report-2018-2019-sid0d88610e2-d24e-4d6a-8257-455b43cf5ed6">€90 of revenue per farmer annually</a>, partly through service charges. This trend looks set to continue. </p>
<p>But the success of digitisation in agriculture shouldn’t just be evaluated by its economic value. Its benefits must be enjoyed by smallholder farmers and rural populations. Smallholder farmers, <a href="http://cdm15738.contentdm.oclc.org/utils/getfile/collection/p15738coll2/id/37971/filename/37972.cpd">most of whom have access to less than two acres of land</a>, <a href="http://www.fao.org/fileadmin/templates/nr/sustainability_pathways/docs/Factsheet_SMALLHOLDERS.pdf">produce more than 80%</a> of the food in sub-Saharan Africa.</p>
<p>African smallholder farmers will ultimately determine the continent’s digital farming story. Only through collaborations with them, and among sectors, will the digital transformation become a success in Africa. </p>
<h2>Challenges of smallholder farming</h2>
<p>Smallholder farmers face daunting political, economic, social, cultural, and institutional barriers. They have limited access to information, markets, capital, land tenure, and even basic inputs like fertilisers and seeds. </p>
<p><a href="https://oxfamilibrary.openrepository.com/bitstream/handle/10546/620837/bp-west-africa-inequality-crisis-090719-en.pdf">Government policies</a>, and the influx of <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/03066150.2017.1415887?needAccess=true">foreign land grabbers</a> in <a href="http://ase.tufts.edu/gdae/Pubs/rp/GC104Oct16Wise.pdf">many African countries</a>, only worsen the situation. Ethiopia, Ghana, and South Sudan are among the hot beds for <a href="https://landmatrix.org/documents/47/Analytical_Report_II_LMI_English_2016.pdf">foreign land deals</a>. </p>
<p>Added to these are environmental issues like <a href="https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2FBF02394737.pdf">soil erosion</a> and a <a href="https://hdl.handle.net/10568/66472">changing climate</a>. In recent years, droughts, rising temperatures, and El-Niño events <a href="https://www-cdn.oxfam.org/s3fs-public/mb-climate-crisis-east-africa-drought-270417-en.pdf">left nearly thirteen million</a> people from Kenya, Ethiopia, and Somalia needing humanitarian assistance. </p>
<p>This makes traditional farming hard for smallholders across the continent, and can undermine their capacity to fully benefit from the digital revolution. </p>
<p>Also, connectivity tends to be limited in rural areas. And, even if farmers can connect, they may not have enough money to access the services.</p>
<p>These concerns limit the production and profits of farmers and undermine rural development. This is where digitisation comes in. It has potential to increase access to information and resources to provide solutions. </p>
<p>Elsewhere, digital technologies are already showing promise for rural farmers. The <a href="https://www.realclearscience.com/articles/2018/06/30/china_is_spearheading_the_future_of_agriculture.html">Chinese government</a> partners with private actors like <a href="https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180606006487/en/Alibaba-Cloud-Launches-Agricultural-Brain-Shanghai-Computing">Alibaba</a> to digitise agriculture. From web-portals to Mobile Internet Based Services, rural farmers benefit from access extension advice and capital. This <a href="https://www.scitepress.org/papers/2015/55115/55115.pdf">leads to increased productivity and incomes</a>. </p>
<h2>Inclusion in digitisation</h2>
<p>There have been positive strides in ensuring smallholders become involved in digital agriculture. An estimated <a href="https://www.cta.int/en/digitalisation/all/issue/the-digitalisation-of-african-agriculture-report-2018-2019-sid0d88610e2-d24e-4d6a-8257-455b43cf5ed6">33 million people</a> – about 13% of all sub-Saharan African smallholders and pastoralists – are already registered for services such as weather updates and market linkages. </p>
<p>Ethiopia’s “80-28” hotline - a farmer advisory service - <a href="https://cgspace.cgiar.org/bitstream/handle/10568/101498/CTA-Digitalisation-report.pdf">has about 4 million users</a>, the highest on the continent. Beyond being a free service, its success is partly due to the delivery of services in local languages. Aligning services to local circumstances encourages farmers to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2014/sep/19/ethiopia-agriculture-hotline-opportunities-farmers">subscribe willingly</a>. </p>
<p>Kenya <a href="https://www.cta.int/en/digitalisation/all/issue/the-digitalisation-of-african-agriculture-report-2018-2019-sid0d88610e2-d24e-4d6a-8257-455b43cf5ed6">leads the way</a> in digitisation in Africa. Collaborations between agriculture and telecommunication has been instrumental in their success so far.</p>
<h2>What’s missing</h2>
<p>These examples show what is necessary to help smallholders become connected to digital services.</p>
<p>One additional strategy is to blur the boundaries between different sectors. Digitisation is not just an agricultural issue, or a technological one. It involves many parts of the economy. Hence, digitisation must be situated within a broader development and poverty reduction agenda. For instance, education is critical to farmers’ ability to use and benefit from digital technologies.</p>
<p>It is also crucial to place smallholders front and centre when designing policies and specific digital products meant to help them. In this way, digital transformation will reflect the users’ needs.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/119952/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Abdul-Rahim Abdulai receives funding from the Arrell Food Institute at the University of Guelph. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Emily Duncan receives funding from the Canada First Research Excellence Fund and the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Evan Fraser receives funding from the Canada First Research Excellence Fund, the Canada Research Chairs program, SSHRC and NSERC, the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, and George Weston Ltd. He is the vice-chair of the Maple Leaf Centre for Action on Food Security, and is a member of the scientific advisory panel for the Weston Seeding Food Innovation Fund.
</span></em></p>There have been some positive strides made in getting smallholders involved in digital agriculture in AfricaAbdul-Rahim Abdulai, PHD Student, @Feeding9Blilion Research Lab, Department of Geography, Environment and Geomatics/Arrell Food Institute, University of GuelphEmily Duncan, Ph.D. Student, University of GuelphEvan Fraser, Professor, Director of the Arrell Food Institute and Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Global Food Security, University of GuelphLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1193332019-07-03T14:06:34Z2019-07-03T14:06:34ZSmallholder crop farming is on the decline in South Africa. Why it matters<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/281171/original/file-20190625-81745-gfxsdg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Children play in a cabbage patch near their home in Modderspruit, near Rustenburg, South Africa. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EFE-EPA/Halden Krog</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Over half a million households in South Africa’s former homelands disengaged from farming between <a href="http://cs2016.statssa.gov.za/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/NT-30-06-2016-RELEASE-for-CS-2016-_Statistical-releas_1-July-2016.pdf">2011 and 2016</a>, according to <a href="https://nationalgovernment.co.za/units/view/43/statistics-south-africa-stats-sa">Statistics South Africa</a>. This represents a loss of one in five crop farming households. </p>
<p>The former homelands were the ten areas demarcated under the previous apartheid system as places where indigenous, black South Africans were required to live, along <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/homelands">ethnic group lines</a>. With little economic base and no government investment, underdevelopment and poverty were rife (and still are). Arable agriculture was thus an important livelihood activity of most households.</p>
<p>The high number of households abandoning crop farming is disquieting given the high levels of food insecurity and hunger in the country: one in five people are vulnerable to hunger, and about one-third of children in some provinces suffer <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/news/south-africa/gauteng/rising-poverty-levels-threaten-food-security-and-childrens-futures-15194638">chronic malnutrition</a>. Why would households disengage from field cropping in the face of such high levels of hunger and malnutrition? </p>
<p>We corroborated the picture painted by Statistics South Africa data in our recent <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2019.01.009">synthesis</a> of several studies over the last two decades. The synthesis covers 37 sites spread throughout six of the former homelands and used a wide range of different approaches. These included repeat ground, aerial or satellite images, household surveys, repeat visits to specific villages and oral narratives about farming and cultivation.</p>
<p>We focused on the former homelands because that is where most of the millions of smallholders live. They have experienced very little change in access to land or tenure security since the demise of apartheid. </p>
<p>Regardless of methods used and locations studied, results from most of the sites showed that the planting and cultivation of fields, typically areas larger than 0.5 hectares, has been abandoned on a large-scale. In some instances this has been partially compensated for by the intensification of smaller scale home-gardening. </p>
<p>Such a decline in cropping makes rural households, most of whom are poor, more reliant on food purchases, and at the mercy of price hikes. Such food is often of a lower diversity and nutritional quality. Additionally, the decline undermines the household and national food security and self-sufficiency. While this dynamic is not unique to South Africa, it has received little attention in the national debates around land and about agriculture. </p>
<h2>Why people abandon crop farming</h2>
<p>The abandonment of crop farming fields isn’t new. But some researchers have argued that it’s accelerated in the last two decades. Irrespective, one wonders what might be the causes of such a loss of skills, knowledge, labour and land out of cropping. </p>
<p>The answer is that there is unlikely to be a single cause. The interplay of specific drivers behind the change varies from place to place, and from household to household, even in the same village. </p>
<p>Nonetheless, there are several, often interrelated, causes mentioned more often than others by rural villagers themselves. These include:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>insufficient funds to buy inputs; </p></li>
<li><p>increasing incomes from other sources (mostly social grants), making it possible to buy food from shops; </p></li>
<li><p>environmental change such as climate change or declining soil fertility; </p></li>
<li><p>recurring damage to crops by livestock that are not herded because children are in school; </p></li>
<li><p>socio-cultural change, such as a decline in patriarchy, with many female-headed households, and youth who do not wish to follow in their father’s footsteps. </p></li>
<li><p>aspirations for urban livelihoods leading to some young people not seeing a future in farming; and </p></li>
<li><p>inadequate direct and policy support from the government. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>Understanding the relative contributions of these different causes can contribute towards more informed decision-making, at local and national levels. </p>
<h2>Effects and implications</h2>
<p>The effects and implications of the change are also worth examining. These span social, economic and ecological spheres.</p>
<p>Socially, there is loss of identity as farming communities. That’s because more young people increasingly aspire to a future in less physically demanding, and more financially rewarding jobs. The decline of field cropping means that the people who used to work the fields (including household labour) are either now unemployed or have moved to other sectors. </p>
<p>Another consequence is that food security may be compromised. For example, Dr Gamuchirai Chakona, an environmental science researcher at Rhodes University, has found that farming households have <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/9/8/812/htm">higher dietary diversity</a>. And, Mike Rogan, a professor of labour studies at Rhodes University, has reported that farming households experience less hunger, even though they may be <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0376835X.2017.1358602">poorer in terms of income</a>. </p>
<p>Economically, idle arable land in the context of a growing national population jeopardises national food security and requires increases in food imports. </p>
<p>Ecologically, there may be both pros and cons. Abandoned fields provide other products, such as firewood, that are useful to local communities or general society. Increased biodiversity in deactivated fields increases carbon absorption, and helps mitigate the effects of climate change. But such changes will also alter fire regimes and make some old fields susceptible to invasive species.</p>
<h2>Intervention</h2>
<p>Only a small proportion of households in the former homelands are <a href="https://www.mandelainitiative.org.za/images/docs/Small-scale-Agriculture-Action-Dialogue.pdf">full-time farmers</a>. This number is declining, as is the area of land being cultivated. Government support for cultivators in the communal areas is quite limited, and focused on the small fraction that is capable of selling surplus produce to the formal market. </p>
<p>Policies and interventions that promote the value and image of agriculture, and which strive for food security for all are limited. On the other hand, having unused land means it could be reactivated as a safety net during adverse times, such as the loss of a job or loss of a breadwinner. </p>
<p>There is a clear need to understand this ongoing decline in crop farming. There is also a need to debate the implications for the use of the abandoned land. To find appropriate policy responses, such debates should take place across sectors and involve households, the villages, districts and country. </p>
<p><em>Penny Mograbi (Rhodes), Scott Drimie and Kristi Maciejewski (Stellenbosch), Timm Hoffman (Cape Town), Wayne Twine (Witwatersrand), Derick Fay (California, USA) and Paul Hebinck (Wageningen, The Netherlands) collaborated on the research for this article.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/119333/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Charlie Shackleton receives funding from National Research Organisation of South Africa under the SARChI Chairs programme (grant 84379).</span></em></p>The abandonment of crop farming fields isn’t new. But some researchers say it’s accelerated in the last two decades.Charlie Shackleton, Professor & Research Chair in Interdisciplinary Science in Land and Natural Resource Use for Sustainable Livelihoods, Rhodes UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1114552019-02-27T13:53:05Z2019-02-27T13:53:05ZConnecting food waste and sanitation services can help African farmers<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/258700/original/file-20190213-181627-1he3gjm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Fresh produce at a market in Blantyre, Malawi.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Supplied</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>African agriculture is fundamental to supporting rural livelihoods and bolstering economic growth, and can benefit from technology and advances in other development sectors. One solution to help Africa’s agriculture can come from an unlikely sector: sanitation. </p>
<p>Most of the work in Africa’s agricultural sector is <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211912417301293">done by smallholder farmers</a> but it’s an increasingly tough way to earn a living. Smallholder farmers have limited <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/07900627.2017.1324768">access to irrigation</a>, are vulnerable to <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S095937800800099X">essential phosphorus supplies</a> for their crops, pests, diseases and power supplies are unreliable where they exist. Access to new agricultural technologies, such as renewable fertilisers, are limited. In addition, they are particularly vulnerable <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg2/">to the effects of climate change.</a>.</p>
<p>What if at least part of the solution to these problems lay with another of the continent’s major challenges: in this case, sanitation. </p>
<p>Across the continent less than 10% of the population is connected to a sewer system; <a href="https://www.planetaryhealth.ox.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/2018/07/57868-Sanitation_in_the_context_of_Plantary_Health_V5-1.pdf">with most households using some type of onsite sanitation technology</a> (e.g. pit latrines or septic tanks). If not managed properly, untreated excreta can have serious human and environmental health impacts. But if managed adequately, human waste can offer many opportunities: it’s rich in nutrients (nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium), carbon (for energy) and water. </p>
<p>All can be harnessed into productive resources using technologies that also mitigate the health risks associated with untreated sewage and solid waste. The end product can be delivered to smallholder farmers to fertilise their crops. Food waste from large markets can also be converted into nutrients for farmers.</p>
<p>Connecting two major sustainable development issues – organic waste from food and sanitation services and agriculture – can allow countries to develop a <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-the-circular-economy-23298">circular economy </a>. This could address unnecessary loss of resources. It also presents an alternative to the business as usual use-and-dispose system, and focuses on reusing and recycling waste and resources. </p>
<p>The African continent has tremendous capacity and an abundantly rich natural resource base. But a lack of private sector incentives, institutional rigidity, and lack of systems to support the use of renewable fertilisers, has prevented improvements in wide scale organic waste management and alternative agricultural practices. </p>
<p>Our ongoing research in sanitation and <a href="http://www.p-futurescities.net/">food systems</a> suggests that many African countries are well placed to benefit from this approach. In fact, one project already underway in Malawi shows how it can be done. </p>
<h2>Malawi’s story</h2>
<p>In Malawi, agriculture employs up to <a href="http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/627721490623342886/text/ITM00184-P158434-03-27-2017-1490623340300.txt">64% of the population.</a> Fresh food waste is a major health and urban management problem. This is because most people still shop at large, open-air markets which produce a great deal of waste.</p>
<p>At the Limbe Market, the largest in the City of Blantyre, more than a ton of <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2313-4321/3/4/55">organic waste</a>– like over-ripe tomatoes, banana peels and cabbage leaves – is generated each day. The City Council transports the waste from market to a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVNxrMNPFwo">composting facility</a> where it’s turned into rich, organic compost. This is then sold on to consumers. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/258701/original/file-20190213-181623-l538sc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/258701/original/file-20190213-181623-l538sc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/258701/original/file-20190213-181623-l538sc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/258701/original/file-20190213-181623-l538sc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/258701/original/file-20190213-181623-l538sc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/258701/original/file-20190213-181623-l538sc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/258701/original/file-20190213-181623-l538sc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The composting process.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Supplied</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This isn’t an approach used everywhere due to transport, logistical and space constraints, but the Blantyre facility shows that it’s technically feasible to divert waste from landfills and to add value to an otherwise useless product. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959652615011749">Economic analysis</a> of the benefits of composting have been conducted. It shows that financial and environmental benefits are higher than relying on landfill. <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0956053X12002760">In Africa</a>, an open windrow composting can be a low-cost option for local council to manage their organic waste. </p>
<p>The use of recycled human excreta can also provide positive yield improvements, but <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0734242X10390073">community perceptions </a> remain a barrier to adopting these fertilisers. </p>
<h2>Support structures</h2>
<p>Any innovative project will need input and buy-in from smallholder farmers and be relevant to their developmental needs and skills. Traditional ways of agricultural extension of providing farmers with new technologies are unlikely to succeed without adequate awareness and evidence based approaches. Extension officers can work with farmers – using their extensive knowledge – to develop on farm organic recycling systems that are low-cost and that allows them to reduce their use of external fertilisers. </p>
<p>Strong institutions that support circular economies and enforcement of waste management regulations are also crucial. In a circular economy, <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-planned-national-waste-policy-wont-deliver-a-truly-circular-economy-103908">a range of policies </a> that create standards for imports and production, tax incentives, and explicit targets can help shift behaviours and motivate industries.</p>
<p>In Malawi, the same type of subsidy currently in place for chemical fertilisers could be piloted for organic fertilisers <a href="https://www.uts.edu.au/research-and-teaching/our-research/institute-sustainable-futures/news/towards-phosphorus-and">(as we have found in Sri Lanka)</a> to gauge interest and market demand. </p>
<p>The private sector needs incentives to reduce risk and link new products with farmers. In Malawi, borrowing money from banks comes with a <a href="https://www.natbank.co.mw/index.php/interest-rates">23% interest rate</a>. <a href="https://finca.org/where-we-work/africa/malawi/">Micro-credit unions exist, </a> but loans are often small. This creates little incentive for private businesses to invest in waste management plants or marketing organic fertilisers. Banks can play a crucial role in stimulating the private sector in Malawi and creating new business opportunities. </p>
<h2>Great opportunities</h2>
<p>A circular economy framework can benefit African nations in improving development outcomes while reducing environmental harm. This can help nations work towards delivering on the sustainable development goals in an integrated way through linking food, waste, and sanitation systems.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/111455/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Federico Davila and co-authors supported for this work were supported by the Australia Africa Universities Network</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alice Mutiti Mweetwa receives funding from The Australia Africa Universities Network (AAUN). </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dana Cordell was supported for this work were supported by the Australia Africa Universities Network</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Frank Mnthambala support for this work were supported by the Australia Africa Universities Network. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gudina Terefe Tucho works for Jimma Universitry and received funding for this work from Australian African Universities network. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ruben Sakrabani received funding from Cranfield University Sue White Fund and the Australian African Universities Network. </span></em></p>Across Africa less than 10% of the population is connected to a sewer system. But the waste could be used elsewhere.Federico Davila, Research Principal (Food Systems), University of Technology SydneyAlice Mutiti Mweetwa, Deputy Director Research and Graduate Studies, Senior Lecturer of Soil Microbiology, University of Zambia, University of ZambiaDana Cordell, Research Director, Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology SydneyFrank Mnthambala, PhD student in Environment and Agrifood, Cranfield UniversityGudina Terefe Tucho, Associate Professor, Jimma UniversityRuben Sakrabani, Senior Lecturer in Soil Chemistry, Cranfield UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1098902019-01-15T15:10:32Z2019-01-15T15:10:32ZBold steps Mnangagwa should be taking instead of fiddling with the petrol price<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/253840/original/file-20190115-152986-1z00z45.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Zimbabwe erupted in violent protest after the government doubled the price of petrol. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA-EFE/Aaron Ufumeli</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>When economically challenged rulers try to run nations, especially fragile ones, they can easily make mistakes. </p>
<p>In the past few weeks demonstrators have taken to the streets of Khartoum and Omdurman to protest Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir’s removal of subsidies that have long kept <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/01/sudan-official-death-toll-protests-rises-24-190113065645372.html">bread and fuel affordable</a>. </p>
<p>Now it’s Zimbabwe’s turn. Just before flying off to Russia last weekend, President Emmerson Mnangagwa <a href="https://www.news24.com/Africa/Zimbabwe/zimbabwes-president-hikes-fuel-prices-to-tackle-shortages-20190113">doubled the price of petrol</a>. Doing so brought already impoverished urban Zimbabweans out onto the streets of the capital Harare as well as Bulawayo and a dozen other cities and towns. Protesters blocked roads with tyres, trees and rocks, stopped bus transport, attacked the police, threw canisters of tear gas back at security forces and <a href="https://www.news24.com/Africa/Zimbabwe/deaths-in-zimbabwe-fuel-protests-says-security-minister-20190115">generally ran amok</a>. </p>
<p>At least five people <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/africa/military-deploys-in-zimbabwe-fuel-hike-protests-5-killed/2019/01/15/d44875f6-18aa-11e9-b8e6-567190c2fd08_story.html?utm_term=.2af9f13b1349">were reported</a> to have been killed. Flights into Harare <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/africa/2019-01-14-fastjet-cancels-flights-as-zimbabwe-unrest-continues-countrywide/">were cancelled</a> and the government <a href="https://www.techzim.co.zw/2019/01/econet-and-telone-shut-down-the-internet-completely-now-its-darkeness/amp/?__twitter_impression=true">closed down the internet</a>. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1085088020640997376"}"></div></p>
<p>Mnangagwa’s excuse for raising prices so abruptly is not clear. Possibly he thinks that more costly petrol will bring more cash into national coffers that are mostly bare. Or perhaps he believes that more petrol will pour into the country via the pipeline from Beira in Mozambique if it is more valuable. Both ideas are barmy. </p>
<p>Before flying off to Russia, Mnangagwa said that the fuel price rise was intended to reduce shortages of fuel that, he indicated, were caused by rises in the use of fuel and what he called <a href="https://www.news24.com/Africa/Zimbabwe/anger-as-mnangagwa-raises-gas-prices-in-zimbabwe-20190113-2">“rampant” illegal trading</a> – accusations that make no sense whatsoever. Making petrol purchasing more expensive for poor Zimbabweans – the majority of the nation’s people – simply adds to their hardship and further slows an already crippled economy.</p>
<p>Instead Mnangagwa should do everything his government can to reduce the shortage of real (rather than fake) cash that is crippling the local economy, reducing local production and corporate and consumer cash flows, and driving an already weakened economy <a href="https://ewn.co.za/2019/01/12/zimbabwe-plans-new-currency-as-dollar-shortage-bites-finance-minister">further into recession</a>.</p>
<p>He should also be focused on taking a number of other bold steps to try and reverse the collapse of the country’s economy. Among them are bringing state looting to a halt.</p>
<h2>The cash crisis</h2>
<p>The US dollar is the official currency of commerce. But because Zimbabwe’s economy has essentially ground to a halt, it has few means of bringing new dollars into the country. That, and the steady money laundering of real dollars by high-level officials of the ruling Zanu-PF party, has drained the country of <a href="https://www.newsday.co.zw/2018/10/looting-of-state-resources-to-blame-for-economic-crisis/">currency</a>. </p>
<p>The government has printed $1 bond notes — known as <a href="https://businesstimes.co.zw/dollars-vs-zollars-zim-puts-accounting-standards-to-test/">zollars</a> – for Zimbabweans to use instead of real dollars. They are supposed to be exchangeable at par, but in 2019 they are worth as little as a third of a paper dollar. Many merchants refuse to accept zollars at all.</p>
<p>Bond notes now trade on the black market at 3.2 per dollar, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-14/no-currency-just-a-currency-crisis-zimbabwe-s-woes-deepen">according</a> to the Harare-based ZimBollar Research Institute.</p>
<p>The stress has also spread to financial markets, with locals piling into equities to hedge against price increases. </p>
<p>Mnangagwa may be <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-15/with-president-mnangagwa-in-russia-zimbabwe-descends-into-chaos">attempting to obtain loans</a> from Russia and from shady Central Asian countries <a href="https://carnegieendowment.org/2016/02/04/kazakhstan-at-twenty-five-stable-but-tense-pub-62642">like Kazakhstan</a>. But what the president should be doing is prosecuting and imprisoning his corrupt cronies. That could limit the flight of dollars from Zimbabwe. </p>
<p>He also needs to trim the bloated civil service of excessive patronage appointments. Most of all, if he dared, he should be cutting military expenditures. Zimbabwe has no imaginable need for its large and well equipped a security establishment.</p>
<p>Such bold measures could return confidence to the country’s corporate and agri-business sectors. If coupled with reduced military and other expenditures, and bolstered by funds no longer being transferred overseas, Zimbabwe’s long repressed economy could take off from a very low base.</p>
<h2>Poor leadership</h2>
<p>Raising petrol prices in a land where but a few months ago supplies of petrol were short and motorists <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-10-27/zimbabwe-suffering-worst-economic-crisis-in-a-decade/10433028">queued for hours and days</a> outside stations is neither politically nor economically wise. The newly aroused protesters will not readily melt away. Putting such a hefty extra charge on an essential commodity, and doing so just when Zimbabwe’s parlous economy was beginning to show signs of stability, shows few leadership skills and little common sense.</p>
<p>Inflation has soared since the national election in July, almost reaching the <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=sudan+70%25+inflation&rlz=1C1NHXL_enZA711ZA711&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiwn7u4oO_fAhVMUBUIHVJzAKEQsAR6BAgEEAE&biw=1283&bih=638">Sudanese level of 70% a year</a>. Foreign capital and domestically reinvested capital is avoiding the country. </p>
<p>On top of this, exporters are struggling under draconian Reserve Bank regulations. Only Chinese purchases of ferrochrome, other metals and tobacco, keep the economy ticking over, albeit in an increasingly dilatory manner.</p>
<p>A further drain on confidence and economic rational thinking is the Reserve Bank’s allocation of whatever hard currency there is to politically prominent backers of the president. That is how arbitrage during President Robert Mugabe’s benighted era helped to enrich his entourage while sinking the Zimbabwean economy and impoverishing its peoples.</p>
<h2>Work that needs to be done</h2>
<p>Mnangagwa’s regime has much more work to do to stimulate sustainable economic growth. He will need to restore the rule of law, badly eroded in Mugabe’s time, put some true meaning into his <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/africa/2018-11-20-socialites-laying-low-as-zimbabwes-government-cracks-down-on-big-spenders/">“back to honest business”</a> promise, and widely open up the economy. That would mean eliminating most Reserve Bank restrictions on the free flow of currency and allowing the entire Zimbabwean economy once again to float.</p>
<p>Most of all, Mnangagwa needs to rush home from Russia and Asia and rescind or greatly reduce the price of petrol. After so many years of repression and hardship, Zimbabweans are out of patience.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/109890/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Robert Rotberg does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s decision to double the price of petrol shows very poor judgement and bad leadership.Robert Rotberg, Founding Director of Program on Intrastate Conflict, Harvard Kennedy SchoolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1076292018-12-16T09:11:44Z2018-12-16T09:11:44ZMedium-scale farms are on the rise in Africa. Why this is good news<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248540/original/file-20181203-194928-140sr3m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Medium-scale African farmers are relatively wealthy and influential.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">BOULENGER Xavier/Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Driven by population growth and growing land scarcity, most African farm households <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306919203000460">are witnessing</a> the gradual sub-division of their land. Over time farms are getting smaller and smaller. Today, over 80% of farms in relatively densely populated countries – like Kenya, Ethiopia, Malawi and Rwanda are smaller than one hectare. Because they’re so small, few can generate enough income to keep farmers above the poverty line and most of them increasingly rely on off-farm incomes.</p>
<p>But, from about ten years ago, we have started to see <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/agec.12308">evidence</a> of a major rise in the number of medium-scale, African-owned farms. </p>
<p>Along with many colleagues, we <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/305827375_Africa's_changing_farm_size_distribution_patterns_the_rise_of_medium-scale_farms">set out</a> to understand who these people are. We randomly selected farms operating between five to 50 hectares, and interviewed the farmers. We found that the rapid rise of these medium-scale farms was being driven by a diverse group of people including urban-based professionals, influential rural people, and successful smallholder farmers who acquired more land and grew their operations.</p>
<p>Within the past decade, the amount of agricultural produce that these farms contribute to countries’ national output has risen rapidly. In some countries, like Tanzania and Zambia, medium-sized farms now account for <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/305827375_Africa's_changing_farm_size_distribution_patterns_the_rise_of_medium-scale_farms">roughly</a> 40% of the country’s marketed agricultural produce. </p>
<p>This isn’t uniformly true across Africa. In land-constrained, densely populated areas like Kenya and Rwanda, small-scale farms still account for most of the agricultural output. Medium-scale farms are on the rise mainly where there is substantial, undeveloped land.</p>
<p>While much remains unknown and the story is still unfolding, we believe that medium-scale farms are an important driver of rural transformation in much of Africa – with mostly positive results. </p>
<h2>Influential Africans</h2>
<p>For about ten years there’s been a prolonged surge in global food prices. This ushered in major, and <a href="https://www.un.org/africarenewal/magazine/special-edition-agriculture-2014/africa%E2%80%99s-land-grabs">much publicised</a>, investment in African farmland by foreign investors. What happened largely under the radar were huge farmland investments by African professionals, entrepreneurs and civil servants. </p>
<p>The amount of land acquired by these medium-scale African farmers since 2000 far <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/268803247_Is_the_Scramble_for_Land_in_Africa_Foreclosing_a_Smallholder_Agricultural_Expansion_Strategy">exceeds</a> the amount acquired by foreign investors. </p>
<p>They are relatively wealthy and influential, often professionals, entrepreneurs or retired civil servants. Many accumulated wealth from non-farm jobs, invested in land and became either part-time or full time farmers. </p>
<p>Many are based in rural areas and have political or social influence with local traditional authorities. Others are urban “telephone farmers” who retain jobs in the cities, hire managers to attend to their farms and occasionally visit on weekends. </p>
<p>In some countries, we also find that many current medium-scale farmers started out as small-scale farmers who successfully expanded their operations. </p>
<p>Medium-scale farmers bring new sources of capital and know-how to African agriculture. They have in some countries become a politically <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/4/3/869/htm">powerful</a> group that are well represented in farm lobbies and national agricultural strategies. They have solidified African governments’ commitments to support agriculture. </p>
<p>They get their land from traditional chiefs or by purchasing land from others, including small-scale farm households. Displaced smallholders, especially young people, tend to move off farm in search of other sources of employment.</p>
<p>We identified three reasons for the recent growth of African medium-scale farms. </p>
<p>First, rapid population growth, urbanisation and rising incomes have contributed to <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs12571-016-0597-3">massive growth</a> in demand for food in African countries. Africans with the resources to respond to this demand are doing so. </p>
<p>Second, many Africans with money and resources found farming to be a lucrative investment opportunity – especially during this sustained period of high global food prices <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/agec.12308">since</a> the mid-2000s. </p>
<p>Third, policy reforms in the 1990s removed major barriers to private trade and improved the conditions for private investment in African agri-food systems. One example of this was the removal of restrictions on private movement of food commodities across district borders. The effects of these reforms exploded after world food prices suddenly skyrocketed. They <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0305750X13001770">enabled</a> thousands of small, medium and large-scale private firms to rapidly respond to profitable incentives.</p>
<h2>Smallholder farmers</h2>
<p>With the rise of the medium-scale farms, we expected to find that smallholders were being marginalised. But we’ve changed our views on this in light of various pieces of evidence.</p>
<p>First, medium-scale farms are providing access to markets and services for nearby smallholder farms. For example, many medium-scale farms have attracted tractor rental providers, who now provide mechanisation services to smallholders. This allows them to farm their land with much less labour input, freeing up opportunities to work in off-farm pursuits.</p>
<p>Second, large trading firms <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00220388.2018.1430773">are setting</a> up buying depots in areas where there’s a high concentration of medium-scale farms. This improves market access for smallholders too.</p>
<p>We also found that the medium-scale farms are good for the local economy. They inject cash into the local economy through their expenditures, stimulating off-farm employment opportunities for many rural people who were formerly dependent on subsistence farming. </p>
<p>Medium-scale farms have also contributed to sub-Saharan Africa’s <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00220388.2018.1430774">4.6% annual rate</a> of agricultural production growth between 2000 and 2015. This is the highest of any region in the world over this period. </p>
<p>While there are a lot of positives, these changes are uprooting the traditional social fabric and creating new power structures. The rise of land markets is creating a new class of landless workers who are dependent on the local non-farm economy for their livelihoods. Policy makers will need guidance on how to minimise these hardships –- protecting those who are most vulnerable as the processes of economic transformation gradually raise living standards for the majority of the population.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/107629/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Thomas Jayne receives funding for this work from the USAID-funded Food Security Policy Innovation Lab led by Michigan State University, from the CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM), and from the DFID-funded Agricultural Policy Research in Africa (APRA) Project led by the Institute of Development Studies. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Milu Muyanga receives funding for this work from the USAID-funded Food Security Policy Innovation Lab led by Michigan State University, from the CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM), and from the DFID-funded Agricultural Policy Research in Africa (APRA) Project led by the Institute of Development Studies. </span></em></p>Medium-scale farms are an important driver of agricultural and rural transformation in much of Africa.Thomas Jayne, MSU Foundation Professor, Agricultural, Food and Resource Economics, Michigan State UniversityMilu Muyanga, Assistant Professor, Michigan State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1066332018-11-19T13:36:25Z2018-11-19T13:36:25ZSouth African court resets power balance between villagers, mines and chiefs<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245983/original/file-20181116-194509-31puq6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Communities in South Africa's North West Province are embroiled in battles with chiefs over land. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Jon Hrusa</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>South Africa’s Constitutional Court recently passed an important <a href="http://www.saflii.org/za/cases/ZACC/2018/41.html">judgment</a> that’s fundamentally challenged the power imbalance between mining companies and local communities in rural parts of the country. </p>
<p>The Court ruled in favour of 13 families from the village of Lesetlheng in the north west against a platinum mine that evicted them from their farming land, as well as banned them from setting foot on it. The Court’s judgment is particularly important because it found that existing customary land rights are protected, even if a mining right has been granted on a piece of land.</p>
<p>In South African law, customary land rights are categorised as “informal” and are protected under the <a href="https://www.gov.za/documents/interim-protection-informal-land-rights-act">Interim Protection of Informal Land Rights Act of 1996</a>. Customary land can be <a href="https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/1c1a/37b02fd5df21ace8e4277132b9171f652a24.pdf">“both communal and individual”</a> in character, depending on the purpose for which a particular piece of land was allocated. For instance, rights to grazing land and rivers are communal, while ploughing fields and residential plots are allocated for private family use. </p>
<p>Lesetlheng farmers base their claim to the land not only on customary rights but also on the grounds of ownership. They argue that their forebearers bought the farm as an independent African syndicate, but were denied ownership by colonial laws that privileged tribal ownership and state custodianship.</p>
<p>Their court victory is no small achievement, not only for the community involved, but also for many impoverished village farmers in South Africa who are forcibly relocated and dispossessed of their land due to mining operations. </p>
<p>The Constitutional Court ruling ushers in a glimmer of light that the dark era of colonial and apartheid land dispossession, and the long history of undermining African systems of landholding is slowly crumbling. </p>
<p>The judgment has also made significant progress towards interrupting the tyranny of looting by chiefs, state officials and mining capital as well as expropriation of the land belonging to the rural poor. These are realities that I’ve seen firsthand during a decade of researching the multiple effects of mining on rural communities in some of South Africa’s former <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/homelands">homeland areas</a> - areas to which black people were either moved to or restricted to prevent them living in “white” urban areas under apartheid.</p>
<h2>Grassroots movements</h2>
<p>South Africa has seen a significant rise in levels of <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2016-02-12-we-will-die-for-our-land-say-angry-xolobeni-villagers-as-dune-mining-looms-1">rural grassroots resistance</a> to the rapid expansion of mining as well as to the collusion between state officials, mining companies and local chiefs. </p>
<p>Since the late 1990s the state has given local chiefs, not only legal recognition as local leaders in rural areas, but de facto representatives of rural residents in business transaction and development endeavours. </p>
<p>On the platinum-rich lands of the North West Province, for instance, chiefs and their traditional councils have assumed custodianship of communal resources. This includes land. They have signed complex business deals with mining companies on behalf of rural communities. </p>
<p>There have been a number of problems with the way in which these deals have been done. Firstly, there are usually done with limited – or no – participation by the people most affected.</p>
<p>Secondly, the benefits that are meant to accrue to communities seldom see the light of day. </p>
<p>Because of this, ordinary villagers have been resisting having chiefs who claim to be acting on their behalf. </p>
<h2>The impact of mining</h2>
<p>Lesetlheng in one of the impoverished villages under the Bakgatla traditional authority that lie scattered all over the north-eastern foothills of the Pilanesberg Mountain range north of Johannesburg. </p>
<p>I have spent considerable amounts of time with local residents <a href="https://www.wits.ac.za/media/migration/news-migration/files/SWOP%20%20WP%20%20Bakgatla%20%20Mnwana%20and%20Capps.pdf">researching</a> the impact of mining and local struggles over the distribution of mining revenues and land. Resistance to mining-led dispossession has characterised this once laid back village ever since mining activities began on their farming land - the farm Wilgespruit 2 JQ – in the late 2000s. </p>
<p>The farm Wilgespruit 2 JQ – famously known as “Modimo Mmalo” – has been the only farming land for Lesetleng villagers for generations. It was one of the most productive farms in the Bakgatla area. </p>
<p>The elders in Lesetlheng told how their families used to harvest countless bags of sorghum, maize, beans, and many other crops. Some <a href="https://searchworks.stanford.edu/view/9127790">literature</a> corroborates the history of agricultural productivity of this land. </p>
<p>Every winter, after harvesting, the farmers at Wilgespruit opened the farm for communal grazing. </p>
<p>Over the years, the Pilanesberg Platinum Mine’s open cast mine – owned by Sedibelo Platinum Mines – has expanded astonishingly. Former pastoral and agricultural land on this farm has been fenced off for new mining projects. </p>
<p>The only evidence left that the farm was once productive agricultural land are the abandoned small mud and corrugated iron structures where people used to live during ploughing season. </p>
<p>Some of the former plots had small dams that various clans dug to water their crops. Most have dried up. Following the Constitutional Court victory one can only hope that the Lesetlheng farmers will get their land back and resume farming.</p>
<h2>Starting point</h2>
<p>The recognition of customary land rights is just a starting point. It’s crucial for the law, courts, the state and mining capital to take into account the history of African land dispossession. This is not only rooted in the non-recognition of African land holding systems, but also perpetuates the continued disposition of poor communities by the new rural frontiers of mining expansion.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/106633/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sonwabile Mnwana receives funding from the Open Society Foundation South Africa. </span></em></p>South Africa has made progress towards interrupting the looting of land by chiefs, state officials and mining capital.Sonwabile Mnwana, Associate Professor, Sociology, University of Fort HareLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1048582018-10-16T09:32:50Z2018-10-16T09:32:50ZAfrican countries’ policies must shift to achieve zero hunger<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240563/original/file-20181015-165900-3tejc9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Hunger is a daily reality across large parts of Africa.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jon Hrusa/EPA</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>For the third year in a row <a href="http://www.fao.org/state-of-food-security-nutrition/en/">hunger is rising</a> across the world. And, as <a href="http://www.fao.org/state-of-food-security-nutrition/en/">a recent report</a> by the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation shows, the situation is worsening in most regions in Africa. Almost 21% of the continent’s population of 1,216 billion is undernourished.</p>
<p>Many factors drive this trend. Among these are rising population growth, conflict and poor governance. Severe weather conditions and climate change also play a role. This leads to food insecurity: a state of deprivation ranging from starvation through severe and constant hunger to deficiencies in vitamins and minerals. It’s rooted in poverty and inequalities that deprive people of the right to adequate food to meet their needs.</p>
<p>We <a href="https://www.up.ac.za/media/shared/661/NAIP/1-s2.0-s0305750x18301232-main.zp150838.pdf">reviewed</a> whether the food security plans of 10 countries were aligned with the African Union’s Malabo <a href="https://au.int/sites/default/files/documents/32377-doc-technical_guidelines_for_reporting_on_malabo_rev2_eng.pdf">Biennial Review technical guidelines</a> (which is related to agriculture and food security), the continent’s <a href="http://www.un.org/en/africa/osaa/pdf/au/agenda2063-first10yearimplementation.pdf">Agenda 2063</a> and the Sustainable Development Goal targets. The ten countries were Benin, Burkina Faso, Cote d'Ivoire, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Liberia, Malawi, Niger, Nigeria and Togo.</p>
<p>We found that the plans were generally compliant with the Sustainable Development Goal indicators directly related to agriculture and food security. However, they were not as closely aligned to Africa’s <a href="https://au.int/en/agenda2063">Agenda 2063</a> and the <a href="http://www.nepad.org/download/file/fid/6543">Malabo</a> commitments. They generally missed the opportunity to advance agricultural transformation to reduce poverty, inequality and unemployment. </p>
<p>Countries could benefit from more closely aligning these plans with their national visions, policies and strategies. A greater focus on core development goals could reduce competition for budget resources.</p>
<p>The plans can be strengthened and better aligned. This would offer opportunities to streamline monitoring and reporting on international, continental and national policies. It could also reduce the need for parallel reporting systems. </p>
<p>The African Union needs to provide clearer guidance and active oversight on these matters. The teams responsible for drafting countries’ plans related to food and agricultural investment should be regularly trained and their skills updated.</p>
<h2>A lack of coordination</h2>
<p>In 2014, most African governments signed the <a href="http://www.nepad.org/download/file/fid/6543">Malabo Declaration</a> on Accelerated Agricultural Growth and Transformation for Shared Prosperity and Improved Livelihood. This reiterated commitments made in <a href="https://au.int/sites/default/files/documents/31251-doc-the_country_caadp_implementation_guide_-_version_d_05_apr.pdf">Mozambique</a> more than a decade earlier, and in the continent’s <a href="https://au.int/en/agenda2063">Agenda 2063</a>.</p>
<p>Once the declaration was signed, governments were expected to design and implement <a href="http://www.resakss.org/sites/default/files/NAIP%20ToolBox%2016%2004%202018.pdf">agriculture and food security investment plans</a>. These are five-year integrated development strategies. They set out key priority programmes to achieve the Malabo Declaration’s goals related to advancing agricultural growth, improving food security and reducing malnutrition. </p>
<p>For example, when it comes to food security the plans need to prioritise crops that can increase household incomes. They must also make food more affordable and smooth the seasonal availability of nutritious foods. Through the plans and programmes, governments must directly increase people’s dietary diversity. </p>
<p>It’s one thing to come up with these plans. But implementing the programmes <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03031853.2018.1479974">is tough</a>. Integrated programmes require coordination and collaboration across multiple ministries. They involve the participation of a range of stakeholders with differing priorities. Yet, very few professionals are trained to work across disciplines. Also, budgets and performance management systems are typically associated with these siloed units. This makes collaboration tricky. </p>
<p>It’s important for African governments to align their plans with the <a href="http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/sustainable-development-goals.html">UN’s Sustainable Development Goals</a>, Agenda 2063 and their own national development plans. Doing so improves the coherence and efficiency of planning. It saves resources, the costs of data collection and makes for a coherent system.</p>
<p>But African governments just aren’t doing this, as <a href="https://www.up.ac.za/media/shared/661/NAIP/1-s2.0-s0305750x18301232-main.zp150838.pdf">our research shows</a>. </p>
<p>We found that, based on their plans, most countries didn’t understand what food security really means. They focused their actions and indicators narrowly on agricultural production and support services. This suggests that ministries are still working in silos rather than embracing a <a href="https://theconversation.com/search/result?sg=27cce709-22ed-4928-b150-bcc5ff6f967e&sp=1&sr=3&url=%2Fthe-missing-piece-in-fighting-africas-malnutrition-problems-94427">multisectoral approach to integrated planning</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.mamopanel.org/media/uploads/files/RPT_2017_MaMo_web_v01.pdf">Several countries</a> including Angola, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Ghana, Rwanda, Senegal and Togo, have shown that coordinated effort can achieve real gains in dealing with hunger and related issues. Integration is crucial if these gains are to be replicated elsewhere on the continent.</p>
<h2>Better indicators</h2>
<p>Of course, increases in agricultural production – which featured prominently among most countries’ indicators – are necessary for achieving food security. But they’re not enough. </p>
<p>A comprehensive food security strategy needs to address the four dimensions of food insecurity. These are the availability of food, access to food (such as social protection programmes), nutrition and the resilience of food systems. These elements were largely missing from the plans. </p>
<p>Indicators related to social inclusion were also often absent despite instability, conflict and migration being significant challenges for agricultural growth and food security in Africa. </p>
<p>Similarly, despite the high levels of corruption in Africa, none of these countries included indicators for managing and mitigating corruption.</p>
<h2>Training and planning</h2>
<p>Our research suggests that countries in Africa should think more deeply about how to align their National Agriculture and Food Security Investment Plans with other relevant frameworks.</p>
<p>This will require a greater consciousness at all levels of African governments about what commitments have been made on various international and continental platforms. The teams responsible for drafting these plans should be trained with alignment in mind – with a good understanding of what other frameworks matter.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/104858/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sheryl L Hendriks receives funding from the USAID Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Food Security Policy. She is affiliated with the Malabo Montpellier Panel and the Regional Strategic Analysis and Knowledge Support System's National Agriculture and Fodo Security Investment Plan Task Team associated with the Africa Union. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Elizabeth Mkandawire receives funding from receives funding from the USAID Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Food Security Policy.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nosipho Mabuza receives funding from the USAID Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Food Security Policy and is a member of the Agricultural Economics Association of Southern Africa.</span></em></p>It’s one thing to come up with food security plans. But implementing them is tough.Sheryl L Hendriks, Professor in Food Security; Head of the Department of Agricultural Economics, Extension and Rural Development, University of PretoriaElizabeth Mkandawire, Network and Research Manager: ARUA – UKRI GCRF FSNet Africa, University of PretoriaNosipho Mabuza, Research Assistant, University of Pretoria, University of PretoriaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1021402018-10-14T10:36:40Z2018-10-14T10:36:40ZThe private sector, agriculture and climate change. Connecting the dots<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240021/original/file-20181010-72130-1yih4iq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Rice fields in Madagascar. There is a project in the country to increase climate resilience in the rice sector. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Agriculture plays a key role in food security in Africa. It is also crucial to the economic sector, accounting for between 40%-65% <a href="https://agra.org/aasr2016/public/assr.pdf">of jobs</a>. Farming is expected to remain an important livelihood for decades to come. </p>
<p>At the same time, agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa is <a href="https://theconversation.com/climate-change-is-hitting-african-farmers-the-hardest-of-all-40845">very vulnerable to climate change</a>. Agriculture was <a href="http://www.fao.org/3/a-i5687e.pdf">a priority</a> under the <a href="https://unfccc.int/process/the-paris-agreement/nationally-determined-contributions/ndc-registry">commitments</a> made by sub-Saharan countries to the <a href="https://unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/the-paris-agreement/the-paris-agreement">Paris Agreement</a>. </p>
<p>The widely held view is that the public sector alone <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17565529.2013.821053">can’t meet the cost of the continent’s commitments</a>. Already there’s a mismatch between the investment needs for adaptation and the finance available. As a result, there is increasing interest in bringing in capacity and resources from the private sector to achieve countries’ climate change commitments. </p>
<p>Against this background, <a href="https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/what-roles-could-private-actors-play-in-agricultural-adaptatation-in-sub-saharan-africa.pdf">our recent research</a> examined the role of private-sector players in helping agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa adapt to a changing climate. This work is part of <a href="https://www.sei.org/projects-and-tools/projects/prindcissa-private-sector-finance-for-ndc-implementation-in-sub-saharan-africa/">wider research</a> that looked at ways to give the private sector incentives to help countries in the region achieve their Paris Agreement goals. </p>
<p>Our work shows that these projects for agriculture vary widely. Some use public finance to raise awareness of climate risks and adaptation opportunities. Their aim is to stimulate future private investment. Others channel public finance through private players which are hired to provide goods and services. </p>
<p>Our analysis suggests that the public sector could do more to engage the private sector. Enabling and encouraging private investment, particularly in infrastructure, is expected to have <a href="http://www.fao.org/3/a-i5778e.pdf">high pay-offs</a>.</p>
<h2>Some examples</h2>
<p>We found that private actors – smallholder farmers as well as small and medium-sized private businesses – are beginning to play a role in a wide variety of key adaptation strategies. Their actions include:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Introducing irrigation and water management systems </p></li>
<li><p>Improving weather and seasonal forecasting systems – and ensuring that farmers can use them</p></li>
<li><p>Introducing drought- and heat-resistant crop varieties, </p></li>
<li><p>Adopting new “climate-smart” farming techniques, and </p></li>
<li><p>Expanding finance insurance options for farmers.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>In Namibia, a <a href="https://www.greenclimate.fund/-/climate-resilient-agriculture-in-three-of-the-vulnerable-extreme-northern-crop-growing-regions-crave-">project</a> is showing how small-scale farmers can pay for agricultural index-based insurance. The aim is to develop a viable business model. The insurance policy uses a parameter (or index), such as rainfall estimates or vegetation cover, to determine when a payment should happen to cover the loss after an extreme event, like drought.</p>
<p>In Mozambique, a <a href="http://projects.worldbank.org/P131049/climate-resilience-transforming-hydro-meteorological-services?lang=en&tab=overview">project</a> is strengthening hydrological and meteorological information services to deliver climate information at the local level. Services include hydro-meteorological information for farmers; flood forecasting and early-warning systems, and weather service alerts in coastal areas. Television, radio and telephone companies are crucial as they deliver the forecasts and warnings. And, as the users, commercial farms and maritime transport companies are part of the design and implementation of new hydro-met services.</p>
<p>In Madagascar, a <a href="https://www.adaptation-fund.org/project/madagascar-promoting-climate-resilience-in-the-rice-sector/">project</a> is increasing climate resilience in the rice sector. Through public-private partnerships, it promotes the use of modified fertilisation practices and drought and pest-resistant varieties of seeds. </p>
<p>These examples suggest that the private sector is getting involved in agricultural adaptation to climate change in sub-Saharan Africa. </p>
<p>But there are still two important barriers to overcome.</p>
<p>First, <a href="https://www.sei.org/publications/will-private-finance-support-climate-change-adaptation-in-developing-countries-historical-investment-patterns-as-a-window-on-future-private-climate-finance/">developing countries can find it difficult to attract private investment</a> to meet their most urgent needs. Second, low awareness of climate risk is also <a href="https://www.sei.org/publications/private-finance-rwanda/">a barrier for private involvement in adaptation</a>. But business opportunities do exist, and a growing number of adaptation projects are now demonstrating their potential.</p>
<h2>Getting the private sector involved</h2>
<p>There are five ways in which policymakers could make it more attractive for private actors to engage in agriculture adaptation in sub-Saharan Africa.</p>
<p><strong>Provide more clarity.</strong> Policymakers should be clear in stating which private actors – and in which capacity – they want involved in their agriculture adaptation projects and programmes. This would help accelerate and scale up private investment. The private sector is, obviously, diverse. Different actors respond to different incentives. Without clarity, projects may struggle to identify opportunities for private-sector involvement. </p>
<p><strong>Involve private actors at the design stage.</strong> By identifying ways to involve private actors already at the design stage, project developers can create stronger partnership and more effective ways to promote investment.</p>
<p><strong>Look for opportunities along the value chain.</strong> Increasing agricultural productivity is not the only possible target. Improvements in the harvest and commercialisation stages also offer potential for involving private sector actors.</p>
<p><strong>Demonstrate potential.</strong> Demonstrating the commercial viability of adaptation strategies is vital. Public funding should therefore be focused on feasibility assessments or arranging pilot projects.</p>
<p><strong>Scrutinise results.</strong> Monitoring and evaluation of adaptation projects should include ways to assess private-sector involvement – when it works and when it fails. Transparency in this kind of information can help identify future opportunities.</p>
<p>Private actors already play a role in agriculture adaptation projects in sub-Saharan Africa. But more work is needed to identify effective policies to increase their involvement, and remove existing barriers.</p>
<p><em>Nella Canales, a research fellow at the Stockholm Environment Institute was a co-author on this article.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/102140/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard J.T. Klein leads the project PRINDCISSA, which is funded by the Swedish Energy Agency.</span></em></p>The private-sector plays an increasing role helping agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa adapt to a changing climate.Richard J.T. Klein, Senior Research Fellow and Professor of Geography, Climate Policy and Development, Stockholm Environment InstituteLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1017622018-08-23T13:52:17Z2018-08-23T13:52:17ZHow Africa can up its game on water management for agriculture<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/232855/original/file-20180821-149481-16u1058.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Africa's waterways, like the Barotse floodplain in Zambia, must be properly managed.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Bioversity International/E.Hermanowicz</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Global agriculture is facing unprecedented challenges. It’s estimated that the world’s population will reach <a href="http://www.fao.org/fileadmin/templates/wsfs/docs/Issues_papers/HLEF2050_Global_Agriculture.pdf">9.1 billion</a> by 2050 with an ever expanding middle class. Current food production levels will have to be increased <a href="http://www.fao.org/fileadmin/templates/wsfs/docs/Issues_papers/HLEF2050_Global_Agriculture.pdf">by 70%</a> to meet future nutrition requirements. </p>
<p>At the same time, the challenges posed by climate change, water, nutrients and energy are converging. </p>
<p>About <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/world/high-price-desertification-23-hectares-land-minute">12 million hectares</a> of land becomes degraded each year. Droughts and floods are becoming more frequent and larger. For a host of reasons Africa is at the eye of this storm. Some reasons include the fact that southern Africa has already <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/229571074_An_overview_of_environmental_issues_in_Southern_Africa?_esc=publicationCoverPdf&el=1_x_2&enrichId=rgreq-f66703e9002784161a8ae55da3316e2b-XXX&enrichSource=Y292ZXJQYWdlOzIyOTU3MTA3NDtBUzoxMDIyMDQyNTgxMjc4ODNAMTQwMTM3ODgwMjc3Ng%3D%3D">lost 25% of its soil fertility</a>. And some countries on the continent have some of the highest population growth rates globally. </p>
<p>All of these issues must be tackled. And good water management is among the most crucial factors if Africa is to navigate an uncertain future. Water is essential for agriculture. African countries must, as a matter of urgency, develop coherent and strategic policies around water, land and agriculture. </p>
<p>There is work underway, including <a href="https://gwf.usask.ca/impc/about/about-us.php">my own research</a> and projects being run in <a href="https://www.fruitlook.co.za/">South Africa</a> and <a href="https://www.waterexchange.com.au/">Australia</a>, that might hold lessons for African countries which want to manage their water better.</p>
<p>The initiatives include investing in irrigation infrastructure, the smart use of technology in water management such as tools to predict and manage the flow of water, as well as mobile apps for farmers.</p>
<h2>Investment</h2>
<p>Irrigated agriculture is <a href="http://www.fao.org/docrep/005/Y3918E/y3918e10.htm">much more productive</a> than rain fed agriculture. That’s why both land and water management must be considered within the question of achieving sustainable and productive agriculture. </p>
<p>In North America’s highly productive arid prairie regions, such as the Prairie provinces of Canada (Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba) and the prairie regions of the US, governments and farmers <a href="http://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/may-2017/sustainable-agriculture-and-innovation/">have invested</a> a lot of capital into groundwater and surface water extraction, as well as irrigation infrastructure. </p>
<p>That has allowed the development of increasingly intensive and productive agriculture. Similar investments into irrigation infrastructure are needed in Africa to boost agricultural productivity. Some examples of fairly complex and extensive irrigation schemes do already exist in Africa. One is the transfer of water from the Gariep Dam to the Fish and Sundays rivers in the Eastern Cape province, which supports intensive citrus farming. Although the ecological sustainability of this example is questionable, it does show that Africa has the capacity to develop irrigation schemes. </p>
<p>Such highly productive agricultural regions will be essential for ensuring future food security, both nationally and internationally. Regions in Africa with high potential for intensive, yet sustainable agriculture through irrigation will need to be identified and developed.</p>
<h2>Technology</h2>
<p>Technology is also playing an increasingly important role in farming, irrigation and water management. </p>
<p>Modelling tools such as hydrological and water management models have emerged as an essential component of water management. My colleagues and I at the <a href="https://gwf.usask.ca/impc/">Integrated Modelling Program for Canada</a> are developing tools that can be used to predict and manage the water flow and water quality of Canada’s large river basins. Similar initiatives are needed in other countries. The models developed, along with knowledge gained by our project, can help guide water management in other regions. </p>
<p>Other technological improvements include the development of smart plants that are more drought tolerant thanks to genetic modification and genome editing. Some plants can also be <a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/s/608535/to-feed-the-world-improve-photosynthesis/">engineered</a> to use more efficient photosynthetic pathways that fully use the sun’s available energy. This development holds promise for the hot climates of Africa.</p>
<p>Irrigation management is now using remote sensing data. Much of these data are freely available and cover the entire planet. For instance, remote sensing is used to pinpoint areas of wet and dry zones in cultivated fields. This allows for variable irrigation management and remote sensing estimates of crop water requirements. Australia’s <a href="https://irrisat-cloud.appspot.com/">IrriSAT</a>, which uses the <a href="http://irrisat-cloud.appspot.com/">Google Earth Engine</a>, is one example of this approach.</p>
<p>A South African technology is using <a href="https://www.fruitlook.co.za/">remote sensing</a> to help farmers in the Western Cape province save water. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.newtimes.co.rw/section/read/223291">Mobile apps</a> are currently being piloted in Rwanda to help farmers. These will provide information on weather, rainfall and soil humidity to allow better farm management and productivity, as well as information on markets.</p>
<p>These are positive, but small, steps. It’s clear that the African continent has a lot of catching up to do if it’s to tackle its water management issues.</p>
<h2>The way forward</h2>
<p>African governments need to pursue collaborations with international institutions interested in working with the continent. For example, the <a href="http://www.agr.gc.ca/eng/home/?id=1395690825741">Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration</a> has shown interest in working with African governments. The organisation has developed expertise in managing drought and land degradation since it was established in the 1930s.</p>
<p>And established institutions in Africa such as the <a href="http://www.wrc.org.za/">Water Research Commission</a> and the <a href="http://www.arc.agric.za/Pages/Home.aspx">Agricultural Research Council</a> should be strengthened and new institutions created. This would encourage more sharing of knowledge throughout Africa. </p>
<p>In addition, knowledge of best agricultural practices developed elsewhere should be assessed and adapted for African conditions. Importantly, efforts should be made to reduce the red tape that currently prevents the application of existing technology.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/101762/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew Slaughter is supported by the Global Water Futures (GWF) programme in his capacity as a Visiting Professor within the Global Institute for Water Security, University of Saskatchewan. Dr Slaughter has previously received funding from the Water Research Commission, Pretoria, South Africa.</span></em></p>African countries need to urgently develop coherent and strategic policies around water, land and agriculture.Andrew Slaughter, Visiting professor, University of SaskatchewanLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1014002018-08-20T14:14:59Z2018-08-20T14:14:59ZAfrican agriculture has a lot to gain from increased access to big data<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/231897/original/file-20180814-2906-1p0477a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Satellite data includes digital imagery of factors that affect farming.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock/Solcan Design</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>African scientists are about to get <a href="https://qz.com/1340769/african-researchers-to-have-free-access-to-europes-earth-observation-data/?org=1364&lvl=100&ite=1965&lea=144996&ctr=0&par=1&trk=">unprecedented access</a> to enormous amounts of satellite data. This is thanks to a deal signed by the African Union with the <a href="http://copernicus.eu/news/copernicus-free-open-source-community">European Commission’s Copernicus programme</a>, which describes itself as the <a href="http://copernicus.eu/news/copernicus-free-open-source-community">world’s third largest</a> data provider.</p>
<p>Data, and access to good <a href="https://www.ifama.org/resources/Documents/v17i1/Sonka.pdf">reliable data</a>, is becoming an increasingly important tool for science. It can help <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308521X16303754">guide and support decisions</a> in agriculture. These include the way food is produced, how it moves along the food chain, and the way it’s stored to avoid food wastage and losses.</p>
<p>In North America, Australia and Europe, huge batches of data are being used to assess everything from the <a href="https://ag.purdue.edu/agricultures/Pages/Spring2015/07-BigData.aspx#.W2RixChKjcs">health of farmers’ soil</a> to how <a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/06/170621145133.htm">shifting weather patterns</a> might affect crops.</p>
<p>The data generated by Copernicus’s satellites includes digital imagery of vegetation, soil and water cover, sea and land surface temperature, and weather patterns. All of this information can help African countries tremendously. With the right data and careful analysis, the continent can address its <a href="https://www.dailymanagementreview.com/65-of-Africa-arable-land-is-damaged-and-of-poor-quality_a253.html">declining soil health</a>, as well as the threats of climate change and <a href="https://www.usaid.gov/west-africa-regional/news-information/press-releases/02-06-2018-fall-army-worm">invasive insect pests</a> such as the fall armyworm.</p>
<p>But it’s not just scientists who stand to benefit from the AU’s deal with the European Commission. It will be important to use Copernicus’s copious data to properly advise smallholder farmers and to help guide pest monitoring efforts across the continent.</p>
<h2>Equipping farmers with knowledge</h2>
<p>There are <a href="https://www.ifad.org/documents/36783902/659afea9-f850-4a5d-b1ff-0af97eba6217">about 500 million</a> smallholder farmers across Africa who produce <a href="http://www.fao.org/fileadmin/templates/nr/sustainability_pathways/docs/Factsheet_SMALLHOLDERS.pdf">around 80%</a> of the continent’s food. This group could benefit enormously from reliable data.</p>
<p>Smallholder farmers depend on rain fed agriculture, so they’re especially vulnerable to Africa’s changing climate. They’re not financially able to access climate-smart innovations such as drip irrigation. This is why it’s so crucial for them to get knowledge in advance of crop planting season. With data, they can learn early about what rainfall patterns are predicted and whether, for instance, they should plant drought tolerant crops like sorghum and millet or take advantage of heavy rains and plant vegetables.</p>
<p>This sort of work is already happening through the efforts of the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research, which has built <a href="https://bigdata.cgiar.org/communities-of-practice/">a platform</a> for the use of big data in agriculture. It brings together data enthusiasts and experts who use digital technology to source, analyse and translate big data into timely, practical and context specific information to guide farmers so that they make the best decisions. </p>
<p>Having access to Copernicus data will undoubtedly benefit this platform since it offers additional new data sources. And the Copernicus deal may also inspire the formation of other communities of practice and the birth of other platforms that can continue to translate this data and help guide farmers across Africa. </p>
<h2>Tackling pests</h2>
<p>Africa could also use data from Copernicus to strengthen existing pest monitoring efforts. The Centre for Agriculture and Bioscience International <a href="https://www.cabi.org/projects/food-security/tackling-pests-diseases/">estimates</a> that about 50% of the continent’s crops are lost to pest and diseases each year. <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/113/27/7575">Climate change</a> is making the situation worse and <a href="http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/tar/wg2/index.php?idp=378">is expected</a> to lead to more invasive insects.</p>
<p>Data can be mined to help build images of potential insect pests; these images could then be used to build artificial intelligence and create geographically relevant alerts. Sharing this information with farmers and other stakeholders such as African governments and NGOs that are on the ground working with smallholder farmers allows them to prepare for the arrival of particular pests. This is a way to avoid massive crop failures, which contributes to securing food systems.</p>
<p>This sort of work has been done effectively in the US. Satellite data has aided in <a href="https://www.ars.usda.gov/news-events/news/research-news/2014/tool-helps-track-insects-blowing-in-the-wind/">monitoring and surveilling the migration patterns</a> of the crop eating corn earworm, a pest that costs farmers an estimated<a href="https://agresearchmag.ars.usda.gov/2014/sep/weather"> USD$200</a> million a year. Satellite data has also been used to understand how pests continue to spread.</p>
<h2>Learning from each other</h2>
<p>All of the big data that’s now available to Africa holds enormous value and promise. But it will be crucial for the continent to keep up with advances in this emerging field: African governments, private foundations, universities, and NGOs all need to get involved.</p>
<p>These groups can learn from each other about best practices and chart new ideas to help accelerate the use of big data.</p>
<p>Training and capacity building will also be critical to ensure that Africa has a rich pool of data scientists and analysts.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/101400/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Esther Ndumi Ngumbi does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Big data can be used to properly advise smallholder farmers in Africa and help guide pest monitoring efforts.Esther Ndumi Ngumbi, Distinguished Post Doctoral Researcher, Department of Entomology, University of Illinois at Urbana-ChampaignLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/959502018-05-14T14:47:04Z2018-05-14T14:47:04ZWhy merely owning land isn’t enough to empower Africa’s women farmers<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/217228/original/file-20180502-153878-umakca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A woman harvests groundnuts in Malawi. Land ownership does not automatically empower women.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">ILRI/Flickr</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the agricultural sector – the <a href="http://www.fao.org/docrep/015/i2490e/i2490e01b.pdf">major employer</a> for poor people in Africa – assets like land and livestock are owned and controlled mainly by men. </p>
<p>It makes sense, then, that many donors, national governments and civil society groups <a href="http://www.fao.org/resilience/news-events/detail/en/c/147997/">believe</a> rebalancing asset and land ownership in favour of women will greatly empower women. The argument is that increasing women’s access, control and ownership of land will lead to stronger bargaining power and higher incomes. It is also <a href="http://www.fao.org/resilience/news-events/detail/en/c/147997/">posited</a> as a way to strengthen women’s “voice” within households and communities. </p>
<p>But the reality in communities is very different. Our recent book, <a href="http://fdslive.oup.com/www.oup.com/academic/pdf/openaccess/9780198799290.pdf">Agriculture, Diversification and Gender in Rural Africa</a>, drew on a unique, longitudinal data set covering around 2000 households in 15 regions in six countries: Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania and Zambia. This data, coupled with <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264837717306683">more detailed qualitative research carried out in three villages</a> in Malawi, highlights the limitations of approaches that rely on gender based redistribution of land from men to women.</p>
<p>We found that even when women own land, their husbands are still perceived as household heads. As such, men have better access to public resources such as subsidised fertilisers and agricultural advisory services. </p>
<p>The findings suggest that genuinely empowering women and girls within agriculture requires interventions that go beyond the issue of land redistribution. Instead, policymakers and development agencies should adopt a multifaceted approach that includes aspects beyond agriculture. These include issues of sexual and reproductive rights, for instance, and freeing women from the heavy and time consuming drudgery of domestic work in poor, rural settings. </p>
<h2>Ownership and demands on women’s time</h2>
<p>Female landholders have less land than men in five of the six countries we studied. This means they have lower access to one of the most important resources in rural Africa. </p>
<p>The quantitative data we collected confirms the existence of gender based gaps in farm sizes - female landholders have smaller farms in all countries except Kenya. And the gaps have grown in most of the regions since 2002, when the study started. In countries where average farm sizes have increased – Ghana, Zambia and Tanzania – men have tended to benefit more from this growth than women. </p>
<p>In parts of Malawi and Zambia matrilineal systems mean that women control and inherit land. But this hasn’t made a real difference to women’s lives. This is because of their other responsibilities, as well as societal bias and pressures.</p>
<p>Then there’s the issue of the responsibilities that women bear which interfere with their ability to focus on the business of farming. Through qualitative interviews in the three Malawian communities, we discovered that there are many demands on women’s time and labour outside agriculture. Women are expected to care for ill relatives, especially children and infants. Other demands are the need to collect firewood and water.</p>
<p>A woman cannot juggle these demands with participating fully in agricultural production, even if she is the owner of the land. Gender norms around the division of labour enable men to avoid time consuming domestic work. </p>
<p>Women’s relative lack of empowerment is also related to their limited mobility, which makes it harder for them to reach markets. Women are fettered by their domestic responsibilities, controlling husbands and by the potential dangers of moving around on their own, especially at night. </p>
<p>This means that women don’t have the actual power to control the income from products sold in agricultural markets.</p>
<p>Men’s relative superiority within the household and local communities is compounded by government policies that strengthen the male household head norm. For instance, governments divert substantial public resources into subsidisation programmes that favour household heads.</p>
<p>These programmes also withdraw resources earmarked for agricultural extension services for women. This means that areas that lose funding are those that would empower women – not in terms of land ownership, but in terms of support.</p>
<h2>Sustainable solutions</h2>
<p>These findings suggest that empowering women farmers requires more than just ensuring they own land and assets. Women need support to deal with the many demands on their time. For example, addressing poor health among children might free up more time for women farmers who are also mothers. Improving women’s ability to get around easily is also important.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/95950/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>This article draws on work from rural Malawi by Agnes Andersson Djurfeldt, Ellen Hillbom, Wapulumuka Mulwafu, Peter Mvula and Göran Djurfeldt (<a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264837717306683">https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264837717306683</a>) and a book co-edited by Agnes Andersson Djurfeldt, Fred Mawunyo Dzanku and Aida Cuthbert Isinika.
Both of these contributions are based on collaborative work in the context of the Afrint project, an African-Swedish research project that has been running since 2002 <a href="https://www.keg.lu.se/en/research/research-projects/current-research-projects/afrint">https://www.keg.lu.se/en/research/research-projects/current-research-projects/afrint</a>
Funding for the Afrint project has been awarded by Sida's research council, Vetenskapsrådet, and the UK's Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and UK aid from the UK government. The project is part of two grant schemes, DEGRP (DFID-ESRC Growth Research Programme) jointly funded by the UK's Department for International Development (DFID) and ESRC and APRA (Agricultural Policy Research in Africa) conducted with funding from UKAid from the UK Government. The findings and conclusions in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect positions or policies of the UK Government, DFID, or ESRC, or the Swedish government, Vetenskapsrådet or Sida.
</span></em></p>We found that even when women own land, their husbands are still perceived as household heads.Agnes Andersson Djurfeldt, Professor of Human Geography, Lund UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/955542018-05-02T12:56:36Z2018-05-02T12:56:36ZWhy clashes are on the rise between farmers and herdsmen in the Sahel<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/216634/original/file-20180427-96707-8toqbt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Pastoralists on a dry plain in central Mali, one of the seven Sahel countries hit by a wave of deadly attacks.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Nic Bothma</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>As fireworks were lighting up the skies to usher in the New Year across the world, gunfire was echoing out in Nigeria’s Benue State. On this night alone, <a href="http://saharareporters.com/2018/01/11/benue-state-buries-73-killed-fulani-herdsmen-0">73 people were killed</a> and hundreds were injured after herdsmen unleashed terror in two local government areas mostly populated by farmers. </p>
<p>Clashes between farmers and nomadic herdsmen <a href="https://www.ajol.info/index.php/ajcr/article/view/39421">date back to the pre-colonial era</a>. But they reached an alarming level in 2017 when <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/world/global-terrorism-index-2017">1,000 people were killed in more than 50 clashes</a>. This followed a rise in clashes since 2011 in Nigeria, Ghana, Mali, Niger, Mauritania, Ivory Coast and Senegal.</p>
<p>The dramatic rise in the number, frequency and intensity of attacks in recent years is increasingly been seen as a <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/44148597?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">major source of concern </a> in the region. A 2017 Global Terrorism Index report said that over 2 500 deaths were recorded between 2012 and 2016 in sub-Saharan Africa with <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/world/global-terrorism-index-2017">majority of the deaths</a> recorded in Nigeria. And while there were 67 clashes between farmers and herdsmen in Nigeria between 2007 and 2011, <a href="http://www.nigeriawatch.org/">there were 716 clashes between 2012 and 2018</a>. </p>
<p>Access to land and water, grazing paths, drought, desertification and ethnicity all <a href="https://theconversation.com/nigerias-conflict-is-a-result-of-environmental-devastation-across-west-africa-91694">contribute to the violence</a>. Attacks often happen when cattle stray into farmland and destroy farm products. But the sudden increase in the number of attacks and casualties suggests that the conflict goes beyond access to natural resources and climate change. </p>
<p>There’s growing evidence that conflicts in the region are contributing to the dramatic rise in the number of attacks as well as casualties. For example, violence is being fuelled by the unrest in Libya – which has been on going since 2011 – as well as the six-year long conflict in Mali. These regional conflicts have resulted in proliferation of weapons – for example herdsmen are often armed with weapons, including some <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/02da0292-3268-11e8-b5bf-23cb17fd1498">sourced from Libya</a>, as well as new trends in cattle rustling and animal trafficking in the entire region.</p>
<h2>Arms proliferation</h2>
<p>The 2011 conflict in Libya has led to <a href="http://cco.ndu.edu/News/Article/1171858/brothers-came-back-with-weapons-the-effects-of-arms-proliferation-from-libya/">unprecedented levels of arms proliferations</a> in the Sahel Sahara as well as sub-Saharan Africa and contributed to the conflict in Mali. Terrorist organisations such as AQIM and Boko Haram have also benefited from the arms bazaar, with the region <a href="https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/20121031%20Libya%20Weapons%20Update_final.pdf">flooded with thousands of light weapons</a>.</p>
<p>The growing illegal weapons market in the region has coincided with a tremendous increase in cattle rustling in the region since 2011. This is being driven by what has come to called <a href="https://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21731191-owning-cattle-excellent-way-hide-ill-gotten-wealth-too-african-herders">neo-pastoralism</a>, a trend that involves cartels using illegally acquired wealth to arm young men to steal cattle from nomads. The cattle are then moved to large ranches or across several national boundaries for sale. The cartels have been driven by rising prices for beef, with an adult cow <a href="http://nigerianobservernews.com/2015/03/prices-of-cattle-go-up-survey/">selling for $1,000</a> in the region.</p>
<p>Neo-pastoralism has led to an <a href="http://thenewsnigeria.com.ng/2016/05/fulani-national-leader-why-our-herdsmen-carry-ak47s/">increase in the numbers of herdsmen bearing arms</a>. These same weapons are used against farmers at the slightest provocation as anyone seen to hinder their nomadic activities is regarded an enemy. </p>
<p>While the clashes between farmers and herdsmen have sometimes been branded as ethnic or religious in nature, the economic perspective is also a source of concern. There have been <a href="http://www.nigerianmonitor.com/lawmaker-says-helicopter-delives-supplies-to-fulani-herdsmen-in-delta-desert/">reports of an unmarked helicopter</a> dropping supplies for herdsmen in far-flung areas. Community leaders in Taraba State recently made a similar claim: that <a href="https://www.thetrentonline.com/taraba-elders-military-chopper-weapons/">helicopters were seen dropping weapons for herdsmen</a>.</p>
<p>Herdsmen argue that they now carry weapons to protect themselves and their cattle due to the increased threats they face. For their part, farmers have started forming armed vigilante groups to protect themselves from attacks by herdsmen. The result has been a rising cycle of violence.</p>
<p>On top of this, disputes and clashes that would previously have been resolved through dialogue between the local community leaders and the herdsmen now play out in all out warfare.</p>
<h2>Too slow and ineffective</h2>
<p>The response from governments in the region has been mixed. Nigeria has been <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2018/01/nigeria-dozens-killed-as-military-launches-air-attacks-on-villages-beset-by-spiralling-communal-violence/">criticised</a> for its lackadaisical approach. In an effort to prove that it’s serious about ending the clashes, the <a href="http://www.punchng.com/air-force-sends-fighter-jets-to-adamawa-bombs-villages/">air force recently launched attacks</a> on several villages killing innocent people. This response <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2018/01/nigeria-dozens-killed-as-military-launches-air-attacks-on-villages-beset-by-spiralling-communal-violence/">was roundly criticised</a> Amnesty International for being:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>totally inadequate, too slow and ineffective, and in some cases unlawful. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>For its part, the Ghanaian government sees the herdsmen as the aggressors. Police officers have orders to <a href="https://www.vanguardngr.com/2018/01/herdsmen-beg-ghana-police-boss-gives-personnel-shoot-kill-sight-order/">shoot encroaching cattle on sight</a>, adding a new twist to the conflict. </p>
<p>Niger, meanwhile, has taken a different approach, using Islamic teaching to warn people about the consequences of cattle rustling and murder. This has led to herdsmen <a href="https://guardian.ng/news/herdsmen-surrender-30-guns-to-police-in-niger/">surrendering of 30 guns to the police</a>.</p>
<h2>A regional multi-national approach?</h2>
<p>The menace is fast spiralling out of control and requires an urgent regional response. The porous nature of the borders coupled with large ungoverned spaces show that this is a regional problem that must be addressed collectively, mirroring the response to the Boko Haram insurgency. </p>
<p>Some governors in Nigeria including the governor of Benue state believe <a href="http://allafrica.com/stories/201611010413.html">‘ranching’</a>- rearing cattle in ranches rather than moving them around the country for graving is the only solution to the crises. Although ranching is a good idea, it might not resolve the problem as it negates the culture and tradition of nomads. Instead, grazing routes that are acceptable to both farmers and herdsmen should be marked out as a matter of urgency.</p>
<p>In addition, a multi-national initiative to curb arms trafficking should be top of the agenda in addressing this incessant loss of lives and property.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/95554/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Olayinka Ajala does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A big rise in armed attacks in the Sahel - and the intensity of the attacks in recent years - is now seen as a major source of concern.Olayinka Ajala, Associate Lecturer and Conflict Analyst, University of YorkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/913832018-02-18T21:26:23Z2018-02-18T21:26:23ZScience, politics and the quest to secure Africa’s sustainable food future<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/206414/original/file-20180214-174986-13so0ep.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A man walks through a greenhouse in October 2017 at a learning centre in Uganda where sustainable agriculture techniques, such as drought-resistant crops and tree planting, are taught. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Adelle Kalakouti)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the book <a href="http://www.cambridge.org/ca/academic/subjects/general-science/history-science/golem-what-you-should-know-about-science-2nd-edition-1?format=PB&isbn=9781107604650#MMrjtx0u3TicH4bG.97"><em>The Golem: What You Should Know About Science</em></a>, Harry Collins and Trevor Pinch claimed that citizens of technological societies needed to pay attention to controversial science. </p>
<p>Collins and Pinch argued that scientific controversies exist when the criteria that impart “scientific competence” are publicly contested. As they saw it, when scientists critically and prominently question research results, or deride the quality of work done by others, science becomes politically consequential. </p>
<p>Controversies tend to be exceptions, as Beth Savan, the inaugural sustainability director at the University of Toronto, underscored in her book <em>Science Under Siege: The Myth of Objectivity in Scientific Research</em>.</p>
<p>But there are still good reasons to remember that scientists are human. The personal choices that researchers make, and their subjective interpretations of data, are never inconsequential.</p>
<p>And we do not have to rely solely on critics of science to learn that politics often infuses scientific endeavours. As Ursula M. Franklin, the noted German-Canadian metallurgist and physicist, detailed in the expansion of her 1989 Massey Lectures, <a href="https://houseofanansi.com/products/the-real-world-of-technology-digital"><em>The Real World of Technology</em></a>, technology is anything but apolitical when viewed as a system. </p>
<p>Even the <a href="http://sphweb.bumc.bu.edu/otlt/MPH-Modules/SB/BehavioralChangeTheories/BehavioralChangeTheories4.html">classic text</a> on innovation and development — Everett M. Rogers’ <em>Diffusion of Innovations</em> — stresses that some amount of persuasion is always necessary for people to form favourable or unfavourable attitudes towards particular innovations.</p>
<h2>‘Politics of persuasion’ in Africa</h2>
<p>At present on the African continent, the politics of persuasion are especially consequential in the area of agri-food research and development. </p>
<p>Today, many scientists and researchers, and many more politically concerned people with a stake in Africa’s food future, have mobilized those powers of persuasion. </p>
<p>Some have come together with large agri-businesses to network and build coalitions in support of particular laboratory-based innovations, including biotechnology. </p>
<p>Others, including <a href="http://www.eco.ca/career-profiles/agronomist/">agronomists</a>, have built alliances with small farmers to raise awareness of certain field-based innovations and technologies, such as biological pesticides. </p>
<p>The good news about <a href="http://www.fao.org/docrep/011/ak241e/ak241e00.htm">all</a> of the <a href="https://www.grain.org/article/entries/427-twelve-reasons-for-africa-to-reject-gm-crops">controversies</a> that <a href="https://qz.com/1094112/obesity-diabetes-rises-africa-thanks-to-fast-food/">currently</a> envelop food and agriculture in Africa is that they are happening prominently and in full public view. Debates over land “grabbing,” transgenic crop approvals and the implications of rapid dietary change have generated sustained attention.</p>
<p>In this context, all of the new policy action related to scientific innovation and technological development can inform more inclusive and sustainable food futures. </p>
<p>African scientists working on this topic, for their part, should be proud of just how far attention to African agriculture policy has come since the 1980s. </p>
<p>Back then, in the wake of numerous structural adjustments — including liberalizations, privatizations and deregulation — food system innovation was a missing-in-action topic. Over the ensuing decades, agriculture fell off the policy agenda, and was not even the subject of a <a href="https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/5990"><em>World Development Report</em></a> until 2008.</p>
<p>The political world in which African food system innovation is immersed has certainly changed for the better over the past 10 years. Akinwumi Adesina, the <a href="https://www.worldfoodprize.org/en/laureates/2017_laureate/">2017 World Food Prize Laureate</a> and president of the African Development Bank, has been credited for “galvanizing the political will to transform African agriculture.” Adesina donated his prize money in support of Africa’s young “agropreneurs.”</p>
<h2>Reduces poverty?</h2>
<p>But noted political experts have continued to raise pointed questions about the continent’s food future pertaining to production processes, trade flows, sources of finance and, crucially, science and sustainability.</p>
<p>The political fault lines are particularly stark when it comes to the latter topic: Science that might enable Africa’s food and agricultural systems to thrive in the context of climate variability and change. </p>
<p>So-called “<a href="http://www.fao.org/climate-smart-agriculture/en/">climate-smart agriculture</a>” (CSA) has become a new master concept in this policy area. And it remains a highly contested concept. </p>
<p>That said, according to recent analyses published in <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/03066150.2017.1381602"><em>The Journal of Peasant Studies</em></a>, a leading journal in the field, there is at least some global agreement. In particular, experts generally view CSA as an effort to make agriculture more resilient to the effects of climate change. In turn, that helps reduce poverty, increases yields and cuts greenhouse gas emissions from farming. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/206416/original/file-20180214-174982-ws5fcn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/206416/original/file-20180214-174982-ws5fcn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206416/original/file-20180214-174982-ws5fcn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206416/original/file-20180214-174982-ws5fcn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206416/original/file-20180214-174982-ws5fcn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206416/original/file-20180214-174982-ws5fcn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206416/original/file-20180214-174982-ws5fcn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A man works on cassava plants at a farm at the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture in Ibadan, Nigeria, in October 2012. A single planted hectare of cassava can provide three tonnes of food since the plants survive fires, droughts and pestilence.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Sunday Alamba)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While support for these causes is broadly shared, very few potential solutions enjoy the universal support of agriculture stakeholders. As such, the notion that CSA is an “apolitical” framework — an approach that is somehow divorced from the realm of political contestation and debate — is a non-starter. </p>
<p>In fact, the idea that CSA is somehow above politics has been debunked at length in the <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03066150.2017.1312355">pages of the same journal</a>.</p>
<p>Writing in the <a href="https://theecologist.org/2018/jan/19/will-climate-smart-agriculture-serve-public-interest-or-drive-growing-profits-private">Ecologist</a> magazine, noted food and sustainability experts, including Jennifer Clapp and Peter Newell, have recently asked if CSA will serve the public interest, or alternatively, bolster the profits of transnational agribusiness corporations. </p>
<p>These scholars worry that solutions favouring transnational businesses and the expansion of industrial-scale agriculture tend to enjoy the most support in the biggest emerging CSA networks. For instance, they cite the challenges associated with water-efficient maize for Africa (WEMA), and how this purported solution could make small farmers dependent on seeds company <a href="https://monsanto.com/">Monsanto</a>.</p>
<p>However, Clapp, Newell and their collaborators have also identified an alternative to the dominant perspective. </p>
<h2>Pursuing sustainability</h2>
<p>In their view, the global peasant movement <em><a href="https://viacampesina.org/en/">La Via Campesina</a></em>, non-governmental organizations such as Greenpeace and ActionAid International, as well as experts including the former UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Olivier De Schutter, are actively contesting industrial-scale models of “sustainable intensification.” </p>
<p>These voices advocate green and inclusive farm-level interventions informed by <a href="http://www.fao.org/agroecology/en/">ecological principles</a>. They also support practices associated with agro-forestry and organic certification, and emphasize the need for more <a href="https://fernwoodpublishing.ca/book/food-sovereignty">local control</a> in support of sustainability. </p>
<p>This emerging debate is of crucial importance for African scientists working hard to make the continent’s food future more sustainable. </p>
<p>The scientific community must acknowledge that the power politics associated with this debate cannot simply be wished away. If Africans are swayed by “solutions” that reinforce the market and political power of organizations based elsewhere, Africa’s food futures might reflect the marginalization, dispossession and oppression of the past.</p>
<p>In this context, young African scientists must be both open-minded to bold ideas, and attentive to the global power dynamics that infuse their areas of research, learning and discovery.</p>
<p>They must also be cautious when using terms such as “productivity” and “efficiency.” Genuine climate-smart agriculture demands increased attentiveness to productivity over longer-term time periods, and to efficiency in relation to broader social and environmental criteria.</p>
<p>As the globe grapples with agribusiness mega-mergers — the subject of a recent report of the <a href="http://www.ipes-food.org/new-report-too-big-to-feed-us-expert-panel-sounds-the-alarm-on-mega-mergers-and-calls-for-urgent-review"><em>International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems</em></a> — there is nonetheless great hope that Africans can make tremendous scientific contributions to new CSA practices. </p>
<p>There is already ample evidence that Africans are truly making their mark in this area. The <a href="http://www.remei.ch/en/biore-foundation/">bioRe Foundation in Tanzania</a>, for example, has developed innovative CSA practices for cotton that sustainably and consistently diversify yields and promote soil health. And the successes associated with other on-field and lab-based African innovations are simply too numerous to recount here.</p>
<p>A focus on the successes, and also the challenges linked with the technical, social, political and institutional environments necessary to support climate- smart agriculture, will be in the spotlight at the <a href="http://www.nef.org/">Next Einstein Forum Global Gathering 2018</a> in Kigali in March.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>This piece was originally published on the <a href="http://gg2018.nef.org/science-politics-and-the-quest-to-secure-sustainable-food-futures-for-africa/">Next Einstein Forum blog</a></em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/91383/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adam Sneyd is a member of the Academic and Scientific Advisory Council of the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS), and also serves on the Scientific Program Committee of the Next Einstein Forum.</span></em></p>At present on the African continent, the politics of persuasion are especially consequential in the area of agri-food research and development.Adam Sneyd, Associate Professor, Political Science, University of GuelphLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/880572017-11-24T13:44:33Z2017-11-24T13:44:33ZFour things Zimbabwe can do to recover from the Mugabe era<p>Long in coming but swift and relatively painless when it happened, <a href="https://theconversation.com/will-mnangagwa-usher-in-a-new-democracy-the-view-from-zimbabwe-88023">the downfall of Robert Mugabe</a> offers Zimbabwe a once-in-a-generation opportunity to recalibrate its hitherto dire trajectory. The transition comes with myriad challenges and opportunities, the handling of which will ultimately determine what direction the country takes. Here are four key ways that the new president, Emmerson Mnangagwa, can get it right.</p>
<h2>1. Strike a new political settlement</h2>
<p>The lesson of Zimbabwe’s past 20 years is that a toxic political environment is a severe impediment to the economic development. Political risks create uncertainty and keep sorely needed investment away. A key priority must therefore be the creation of a more inclusive political settlement. When the time came, Zimbabweans from all walks of life were ready to come out and clamour for a fresh start – their “ideals” clearly unified them and need to be harnessed to something concrete out of them.</p>
<p>Some of the provisions needed to do this are already in the constitution, and simply unimplemented. Others, however, need to be negotiated within and among all political actors. Equally, it’s important Zimbabwe doesn’t rush into new elections, but instead creates the conditions necessary for free, credible and fair ones in the future. Properly managed elections are not a magic wand, but they will go a long way in reducing the socio-economic costs of political risks associated with instability.</p>
<h2>2. Reduce poverty and promote inclusive growth</h2>
<p>Zimbabwe has never fully recovered from the <a href="https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Africa/2008/0325/p06s02-woaf.html">economic crisis</a> that peaked in 2008. <a href="https://www.gfmag.com/global-data/country-data/zimbabwe-gdp-country-report">GDP growth</a> rebounded to 11.9% in 2011, but declined to an estimated -2.5% by 2017. Formal sector jobs have shrunk significantly over the last two decades. A 2015 report showed that of the 6.3m people defined as employed, 94.5% were working in the informal economy, 4.16m of them as smallholder farmers. The formal sector, meanwhile, accounts for just 350,000 people. </p>
<p>This means a majority of Zimbabweans can be classified as “working poor”, doing precarious work with irregular incomes in agriculture and the informal sector. Poverty levels remain high: <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/zimbabwe/zimbabwe-humanitarian-needs-overview-2016">around 72% of Zimbabweans now living in chronic poverty</a>. The challenge is to generate national and individual wealth, while also making sure a lot more people benefit from growth than have done over the past two decades. </p>
<p>Currently, the service sector contributes the most to GDP. While mining and the service sector have earned the country much-needed foreign currency and contributed significantly to GDP growth, they can only do so much alleviate poverty in a country where a majority of people still live off the land.</p>
<h2>3. Make agriculture work</h2>
<p>To start reducing poverty as soon as possible, the government needs to get the agricultural sector working again. </p>
<p>When agriculture does well in Zimbabwe, the <a href="https://www.theindependent.co.zw/2017/09/29/creating-100bn-economy-possible/">knock-on effect</a> is remarkable. It not only raises rural incomes (thereby reducing poverty) but also creates more manufacturing jobs in the cities and small towns as the “agriculture-induced” demand for goods and services rises. It also expands the tax base and enables Zimbabweans sitting on productive assets to contribute to building the economy.</p>
<p>The good news is that, while other sectors of the economy will take more time to develop, this is one area that can provide some quick returns. Productivity needs to keep rising and support must be provided for people who have access to farmland, but are currently too poor to use it effectively.</p>
<p>Getting agriculture to work ought to be a core priority. Given the nature of structural changes (particularly the emergence of opportunities through global value chains) a key starting point must be an agricultural review commission to investigate current conditions for smallholder agriculture and recommend new policies required to transform in the sector.</p>
<h2>4. Unlock investment</h2>
<p>With <a href="https://issafrica.org/country-file-zimbabwe/natural-resources-and-environment">abundant natural resources</a> and a <a href="https://africacheck.org/reports/is-zimbabwes-adult-literacy-rate-the-highest-in-africa/">relatively literate population</a>, Zimbabwe is well-placed to attract a large share of the investment being <a href="http://www.smesouthafrica.co.za/15400/Why-more-SA-companies-are-investing-in-the-rest-of-Africa/">funnelled through South Africa</a> into the rest of the continent. </p>
<p>The country’s mining industry, for one, has already proven its capacity to attract investment, provided global commodity prices <a href="http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2017/10/26/commodity-prices-likely-to-rise-further-in-2018-world-bank">recover as expected</a>. But even then, that will depend upon cleaning up Zimbabwe’s toxic political environment and <a href="http://www.thezimbabwenewslive.com/business-15905-zimbabwe-trust-breaks.html">confused policymaking</a>, both of which increase costs for investors. </p>
<p>The country could also benefit from opportunities in the emerging digital economy, but again, this will mean prioritising and maintaining investment in bureaucracy and infrastructure.</p>
<p>All this will require huge sums of money, which the government may not have at the moment. Still, perhaps this new beginning is at least an opportunity for constructive dialogue with the donor community, something Zimbabwe struggled to manage while Mugabe was at the helm. If Zimbabwe gets the politics right, there is every reason to be optimistic that this promising country will flourish at last.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/88057/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Admos Chimhowu currently holds an ESRC Strategic Network Grant (grant number ES/P007406/1) looking at how countries are planning for sustainable development</span></em></p>Zimbabwe has two lost decades to move on from. Fortunately, there are many ways out.Admos Chimhowu, Senior Lecturer, Global Development Institute, University of ManchesterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/868722017-11-22T11:21:42Z2017-11-22T11:21:42ZTobacco hurts more than just your lungs – it damages the communities that grow it<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194058/original/file-20171109-13329-1mgnx98.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Eleanor Jew</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Kipembawe Division is hidden in the southern highlands of south-west Tanzania, a long seven-hour drive north from the city of Mbeya. The scenery is stunning, yet when you look closer you can see that tobacco plants dominate agricultural areas, and the sound of trees being felled is a constant background noise.</p>
<p>Just the word “tobacco” conjures up vivid imagery of death and disease, as depicted on graphic cigarette packets and through hard-hitting anti-smoking campaigns. But tobacco’s impact starts long before it is found wrapped in a cigarette, and affects many more people than the estimated <a href="http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs339/en/">one billion smokers</a> worldwide.</p>
<p>Tobacco also impacts the health and well-being of the people who grow it and the environment where it is grown, often with devastating consequences. My colleagues and I have recently published research demonstrating just how damaging it can be <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ldr.2827/full">to the environment</a> <a href="http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/12380/">and communities</a> in rural Tanzania.</p>
<p>Most villages in Kipembawe don’t have electricity or mobile phone coverage. There are minimal healthcare facilities, and water is obtained from wells and rivers. There are few crops people can grow to make money and the dominant one is tobacco, farmed by 86% of the 196 households we surveyed. In Tanzania, 47% of the population lives below the <a href="http://www.worldbank.org/en/country/tanzania/overview">international poverty line</a> and rural poverty rates are even higher, where most people are reliant on agriculture.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194061/original/file-20171109-13329-166lnkt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194061/original/file-20171109-13329-166lnkt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194061/original/file-20171109-13329-166lnkt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194061/original/file-20171109-13329-166lnkt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194061/original/file-20171109-13329-166lnkt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194061/original/file-20171109-13329-166lnkt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194061/original/file-20171109-13329-166lnkt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Nutrient-hungry crop.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Eleanor Jew</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In Africa, tobacco cultivation is often associated with the presence of a dry tropical woodland called “miombo”, which dominates Kipembawe. Miombo woodland covers over <a href="http://wwf.panda.org/what_we_do/where_we_work/miombo_woodlands/">2.4m km²</a> in Africa, but is undergoing rapid deforestation and degradation throughout its range. Both tobacco and miombo trees like sandy, slightly acidic soils.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, these soils don’t contain many nutrients, and tobacco is one of the most <a href="http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/9/2/217">nutrient-hungry</a> crops there is. This means farmers must clear more woodland almost every year to create new fields, because the land can only support one or two cropping cycles.</p>
<p>For tobacco leaves to be preserved for transportation and further processing they must be dried or cured. This places another burden on the trees, which are used for fuel. In total, approximately <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ldr.2827/full">4,134 hectares</a> of woodland are cleared annually within Kipembawe. This <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006320715301336">reduces biodiversity</a> and the benefits the local environment can provide people, including <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378112715006179">carbon storage</a>, firewood, building materials and fresh water.</p>
<h2>Risks to farmers</h2>
<p>But woodland clearance is just the start of the process. Throughout the growing season, farmers apply several rounds of fertiliser and pesticides to the crop, yet few farmers understand the <a href="http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/21/2/191?utm_source=TrendMD&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=TC_TrendMD-0">risks associated</a> with their use. During our time in Kipembawe, we didn’t see anyone using protective clothing or equipment, exposing farmers, families and labourers to harmful chemicals.</p>
<p>What’s more, despite regulations that aim to reduce the impact of fertilisers on water sources, the crops are often initially grown close to rivers so that the distance to carry water is shorter. This means the only source of drinking water for livestock can become contaminated, causing conflict between livestock keepers and tobacco farmers.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194060/original/file-20171109-13337-1un6fbo.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194060/original/file-20171109-13337-1un6fbo.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194060/original/file-20171109-13337-1un6fbo.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194060/original/file-20171109-13337-1un6fbo.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194060/original/file-20171109-13337-1un6fbo.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194060/original/file-20171109-13337-1un6fbo.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194060/original/file-20171109-13337-1un6fbo.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Young farmers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Eleanor Jew</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Child labour within tobacco growing is a also well-known issue, and the main tobacco organisations have joined the <a href="http://www.eclt.org/">Eliminating Child Labour in Tobacco Growing Foundation</a>. But we saw children working in the fields, and evidence from primary schools indicates that children are likely to start working on their parents’ fields from around the age of 13.</p>
<p>While this has obvious consequences for their education, there are also severe health impacts. <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/greentobaccosickness/default.html">Green tobacco sickness</a> is a form of nicotine poisoning that occurs when the tobacco leaves are wet and contact the skin. Nicotine is absorbed through the skin, and leads to fever, vomiting and dizziness. While it rarely results in death it can be extremely frightening to children, who are <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/aug/24/malawi-child-tobacco-pickers-poisoned">more susceptible</a> to severe symptoms due to a lack of nicotine tolerance and smaller body size.</p>
<h2>Little other choice</h2>
<p>So why do farmers grow tobacco? Many people have few alternative ways to make a living and farmers can get a good price for top quality tobacco. This money can <a href="http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/12380/">significantly improve</a> the lives of the farmers, enabling them to pay school fees, invest in other businesses, and afford bicycles and solar electricity.</p>
<p>Some men spend their money during the weeks after harvest drinking in the local pubs and pop-up bars which emerge. Canny women brew home beer from maize, and make a roaring trade. But prostitutes also flock to the area around this time, raising the risk of STI transmission. HIV rates in Mbeya are the third highest in the country, with <a href="https://dhsprogram.com/pubs/pdf/AIS11/AIS11.pdf">nine per cent of 15-49 year olds</a> testing positive for HIV – four per cent higher than the national average. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194062/original/file-20171109-13303-z318o8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194062/original/file-20171109-13303-z318o8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194062/original/file-20171109-13303-z318o8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194062/original/file-20171109-13303-z318o8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194062/original/file-20171109-13303-z318o8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194062/original/file-20171109-13303-z318o8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194062/original/file-20171109-13303-z318o8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Crop collectors.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Eleanor Jew</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Despite the <a href="http://www.who.int/fctc/en/">2005 World Health Organisation’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control</a> and falling smoking rates, global population growth means total tobacco use looks <a href="http://www.healthdata.org/news-release/despite-declines-smoking-rates-number-smokers-and-cigarettes-rises">likely to keep rising</a> in the foreseeable future. But in Kipembawe, the deforestation associated with tobacco cultivation will ultimately make production unviable because there will be no fuel left to cure the crop. This will leave the community without a significant source of income and a degraded environment.</p>
<p>If people had other ways to make their living, it would help reduce the social and environmental burdens of tobacco production, but opportunities are limited. Tobacco production could be made more sustainable using alternative drying methods, reforestation, more efficient use of fertilisers and pesticides and land use management plans. But extensive training and support is needed, and child labour must be eliminated. </p>
<p>All of this will be difficult while there is such great demand for tobacco. So next time you think about lighting up, remember it’s not just your health at risk. Kicking the habit could save both trees and children’s chances.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/86872/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Eleanor Jew receives funding from the Natural Environment Research Council.</span></em></p>New research shows just how bad tobacco farming can be for the environment and for farmers.Eleanor Jew, Researcher in Conservation and Agriculture, University of LeedsLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/757122017-05-08T15:49:14Z2017-05-08T15:49:14ZWhy the African Union must press ahead with a business and human rights policy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/167695/original/file-20170503-21627-2pvfi2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A fisherman shows an oil slick close to the Niger Delta following a large spill in 2013.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">REUTERS/Stringer </span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The African Union (AU) is developing a policy designed to hold companies to account by setting down guidelines on how they should conduct business on the continent. </p>
<p>The aim of the policy is to implement a set of <a href="http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Business/A-HRC-17-31_AEV.pdf">guiding principles</a> drawn up by the United Nations. It will provide a roadmap for states, regional economic communities and regional institutions to regulate the impact of business activities on people. The policy also seeks to advance guidance for firms conducting activities in Africa.</p>
<p>The policy has been in the making since 2016 and still has to be adopted by an AU technical committee. Because it’s not a treaty it won’t be subject to ratification by all AU member states. </p>
<p>This “soft law” approach raises questions about whether the policy will ever be implemented. But the fact that the AU has developed one is a major step forward and could help African countries deal with some major rights issues including: land grabs and environmental pollution.</p>
<h2>Land grabs</h2>
<p>Africa’s agricultural sector has attracted significant investment. This has resulted in massive land acquisitions by local and foreign firms which has enabled them to engage in large scale production. But local agrarian populations have been dispossessed of their land with little to no consultation or adequate compensation.</p>
<p>Chinese businesses have become the face of the growing concern over land grabs on the continent. A 2014 report estimated that about <a href="https://www.devex.com/news/how-much-agricultural-land-is-china-actually-grabbing-in-africa-83447">10 million hectares</a> of agricultural land in Africa belonged to Chinese businesses. But the Chinese aren’t the only ones acquiring massive tracts of land on the continent. </p>
<p>In Tanzania for instance, <a href="https://renewablesnow.com/news/agro-ecoenergy-in-usd-550m-ethanol-project-in-tanzania-419886/">Sweden-based</a> Agro EcoEnergy acquired 20,000 hectares of land to establish a sugarcane plantation <a href="http://news.trust.org/item/20130718134927-q50zx">and</a> an ethanol-production site. Local people in the <a href="https://www.tni.org/files/publication-downloads/expo_stu2016578007_en.pdf">Bagamoyo district</a> in Dar es Salaam were <a href="http://www.actionaid.org/sites/files/actionaid/stopecoenergy.pdf">deeply distressed by the acquisition</a>.</p>
<p>Although local communities were consulted, they weren’t presented with any <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2015/oct/21/tanzania-sugar-project-small-farmers-land-disputes-agro-ecoenergy-sida">alternatives</a>, particularly around the issue of compensation. Nor was the community given adequate information about the impact of the project.</p>
<h2>Environmental pollution</h2>
<p>Another major business and human rights challenge has been environmental pollution, particularly in the extractive industries. In many cases foreign-owned companies have been involved. </p>
<p>One of the biggest concerns involve oil spillages and gas flaring from business-related activities in Nigeria. For example, over 100 million barrels of oil was <a href="https://books.google.ca/books?id=J8nFBQAAQBAJ&pg=PT395&lpg=PT395&dq=Over+100+million+barrels+of+oil+spilled+in+Niger+Delta&source=bl&ots=5rBG3ZCZU_&sig=xCPx2evWGHwIi_0L-7HY9O7o0pM&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi3kdeGzaDTAhXn24MKHfaaCfIQ6AEITTAH#v=onepage&q=Over%20100%20million%20barrels%20of%20oil%20spilled%20in%20Niger%20Delta&f=false">spilled</a> in the Niger-Delta between the 1960s and 1997. In 2014 alone, Shell and ENI <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2015/03/hundreds-of-oil-spills-continue-to-blight-niger-delta/">admitted</a> to over 550 oil spills in the region.</p>
<p>The United Nations Environment Programme estimates that a cleanup process in the Niger Delta will take between <a href="http://postconflict.unep.ch/publications/OEA/UNEP_OEA.pdf">25 to 30 years</a>. </p>
<p>And some estimates suggest that the impact of gas flaring has significantly reduced life expectancy in the region, from <a href="http://www.economist.com/node/10979890">70 years to about 45 years</a>.</p>
<h2>Key aspects of the policy framework</h2>
<p>All this suggests that Africa needs to regulate business activities with human rights impacts.</p>
<p>The policy framework builds on the three key pillars of the United Nations guiding principles. These are the state’s duty to protect human rights, businesses’ responsibility to respect human rights, and access to remedies.</p>
<p>States need to ensure that business activities don’t negatively affect the livelihoods of local communities. Governments must therefore ensure agreements are drawn up with home states of multinationals and also with businesses to protect human rights. </p>
<p>For their part, businesses have a responsibility to respect human rights. As such, they are required to desist from activities that will have an adverse impact on human rights. To give effect to this responsibility, businesses are expected to develop human rights policies and make a commitment to implement them.</p>
<p>An example is the Coca-Cola <a href="http://www.coca-colacompany.com/content/dam/journey/us/en/private/fileassets/pdf/2014/11/human-rights-policy-pdf-english.pdf">Human Rights Policy</a>. This sets out the company’s commitment to conduct due diligence and to address human rights failures if they occur.</p>
<p>Access to remedies talks to the issue of justice. This means that it has to be underpinned by judicial and nonjudicial, state-based and non-state-based measures to protect victims of business related human rights violations. </p>
<p>Businesses are also required to develop grievance procedures to ensure recourse for affected communities. A practical example of this is the <a href="https://www.tap-ag.com/grievance">grievance mechanism</a> developed around the <a href="https://www.tap-ag.com/about-us">Trans Adriatic Pipeline</a> which is being built to transport natural gas from the border of Greece and Turkey to southern Italy.</p>
<p>But it’s important that these procedures should not prejudice the rights of victims to seek justice from judicial systems.</p>
<h2>Deepening respect for human rights</h2>
<p>The AU’s policy is a right step towards ensuring business upholds human rights. But it’s only the start of a long journey towards deepening a culture of respect for human rights among businesses in Africa. </p>
<p>Only time will tell if the policy framework, once adopted, will in fact be used. But the mere fact that it’s being formulated shows resolve on the part of states to tackle key human rights issues related to business activities in Africa. </p>
<p>A number of key steps need to be taken if the policy is to become a reality. </p>
<p>First, sufficient resources must be made available to make sure its implemented by both states and regional bodies.</p>
<p>Secondly, states must drive policy implementation with the political will to regulate businesses within their territories. </p>
<p>And finally institutions must be strengthened at all levels of implementation including national, regional and continental levels.</p>
<p>But successful implementation won’t be achieved unless there’s cooperation between state institutions, businesses, local populations as well as civil society.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/75712/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>In the development process of the African Union Business and Human Rights Policy Framework, Romola Adeola served as a consultant for the African Union.</span></em></p>The move by the African Union to develop a policy to regulate the impact of firms on human rights puts it ahead of other regions as it seeks to guide companies conducting activities on the continent.Romola Adeola, Steinberg Postdoctoral Fellow in International Migration Law, Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism, Faculty of Law, McGill UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/681152017-01-24T16:34:58Z2017-01-24T16:34:58ZResearch shows how to grow more cassava, one of the world’s key food crops<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/148470/original/image-20161202-25663-1thhg8v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Cassava makes up nearly 50 percent of the diet in parts of sub-Saharan Africa, where populations are projected to increase by more than 120 percent in the next 30 years.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/ciat/7489599668/sizes/o/in/photostream/"> CIAT International Center for Tropical Agriculture</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>What root vegetable is toxic eaten raw but a hunger quencher when cooked, and provides both tapioca flour and the pearls in bubble tea? This question probably will stump many Americans, but is easy for people in the developing world. </p>
<p>The answer is cassava, a woody shrub also known as manioc, yuca, tapioca and mandioca. Originally from Brazil, cassava is the <a href="http://www.fao.org/ag/agp/agpc/gcds/">third most important</a> source of calories in the tropics, behind rice and corn, and sustains an estimated <a href="http://www.fao.org/3/a-i3278e.pdf">800 million</a> throughout Africa, Asia and Latin America. In sub-Saharan Africa, it provides 30 to 50 percent of all calories consumed. </p>
<p>Cassava is one of the most efficient producers of carbohydrates and energy among all food crops. It can produce more than <a href="http://eol.org/pages/1154718/hierarchy_entries/46213115/details">250,000 calories</a> per hectare per day, compared to 176,000 for rice, 110,000 for wheat and 200,000 for corn.</p>
<p>But despite its widespread consumption, cassava yields have not improved in a quarter of a century. In a recently published <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/nph.14250">study</a>, our research group identified 14 paths for improving cassava yield potential through genetic modifications, both engineered and bred. Each route could increase yield by as much as 25 to 100 percent, while also improving how efficiently the plant uses precious resources such as water and fertilizer. </p>
<p>Many of these routes are believed to be “synergistic improvements” – opportunities to increase cassava yield that, when combined, increase the yield of the plant even more. In particular, we know that cassava is photosynthesizing far below its theoretical limit. If we can improve photosynthesis, we might gain substantial, sustainable increases in the yield of this important crop. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/148463/original/image-20161202-25674-vij85u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/148463/original/image-20161202-25674-vij85u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148463/original/image-20161202-25674-vij85u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148463/original/image-20161202-25674-vij85u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148463/original/image-20161202-25674-vij85u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148463/original/image-20161202-25674-vij85u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148463/original/image-20161202-25674-vij85u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The roots of cassava are a primary source of calories for millions of people throughout the world.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">from www.shutterstock.com</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Versatile and hardy</h2>
<p>Cassava’s edible roots grow in clusters of four to eight, each roughly the size of a bowling pin. These tubers are often steamed, fried or roasted, much like potatoes, but can also be ground up into flour or a starchy meal that is used as a condiment or side dish. The leaves can be cooked like spinach. Cassava is mainly grown for human consumption, but is also used for animal feed, biofuel production and other products such as fabric starch and paper. </p>
<p>All parts of the cassava plant naturally contain cyanide, a poisonous compound. Toxic, or “bitter,” cultivars contain as much as <a href="https://plants.usda.gov/plantguide/pdf/cs_maes.pdf">50 times</a> more cyanide as less toxic “sweet” varieties. Peeling and then cooking cassava neutralizes the cyanide in most sweet cultivars, while bitter cultivars need to soak or ferment for at least eight hours to make the plant edible.</p>
<p>Cassava thrives in poor soil with little water, so it is an ideal crop to grow on marginal land in sub-Saharan Africa and other developing regions. Farmers can harvest parts of the perennial plant as needed for food or to sell as a cash crop. </p>
<h2>Stagnant yields</h2>
<p>According to our <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/nph.14250/full">review</a>, cassava yields per acre in Nigeria – the major producer in Africa – have flatlined since 1961. By contrast, corn yields in Nigeria, as in the United States, have more than doubled over the same period.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149482/original/image-20161209-31383-17ar5hw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149482/original/image-20161209-31383-17ar5hw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149482/original/image-20161209-31383-17ar5hw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149482/original/image-20161209-31383-17ar5hw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149482/original/image-20161209-31383-17ar5hw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149482/original/image-20161209-31383-17ar5hw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149482/original/image-20161209-31383-17ar5hw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">The RIPE Project</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>One solution would be to introduce alternative crops with higher yields. But respecting people’s food preferences is a key tenet of food security. And although cassava is not native to Africa, it has become an integral part of many people’s diets. It is also resilient to tough environments, and so is well-adapted to deal with climate change – particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, where <a href="https://ccafs.cgiar.org/blog/crops-under-changing-climate-what-are-impacts-africa#.WE6-Y1zig0g">heat and drought stress events are forecast to increase</a>. </p>
<p>Most published research on cassava to date has focused on improving its nutritional value or disease resistance. But even with these improvements, its current yield potential creates a ceiling that limits how much food farmers can produce. Yield potential is the yield that a given cultivar or genetic form of a crop will achieve under ideal growth conditions and in the absence of pests and diseases. Although crops rarely grow under such conditions, increasing yield potential generally results in increased yields under most conditions. </p>
<h2>Hacking photosynthesis to increase cassava yields</h2>
<p>Hacking photosynthesis has long been considered to be a holy grail of plant biology. Photosynthesis is the process in which green plants use the energy of sunlight to synthesize food from carbon dioxide and water, fueling their growth. It is directly or indirectly the source of all of our food, as well as many of our fibers and most of our fuel. By simulating the process on supercomputers, we identified points where we might intervene to <a href="http://allianceforscience.cornell.edu/Improving_Photosynthetic_Efficiency_of_Crops">speed up the process</a>. </p>
<p><a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.aai8878">Our research</a> demonstrates that this theory can now be translated into real productivity increases in crops, and that the potential payoff is significant. By genetically modifying tobacco plants, we increased the amount of plant tissue that they produced by 14 to 20 percent in real-world, replicated field trials where light, rainfall and other factors are unpredictable. We used tobacco because it is easily modified, but also produces many layers of leaves, making it a good proxy for other crops. The process we modified is common to all plants, which strongly suggests that this approach should work just as effectively in cassava and other food crops. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/148466/original/image-20161202-25669-1ozwonk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/148466/original/image-20161202-25669-1ozwonk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148466/original/image-20161202-25669-1ozwonk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148466/original/image-20161202-25669-1ozwonk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148466/original/image-20161202-25669-1ozwonk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=539&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148466/original/image-20161202-25669-1ozwonk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=539&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148466/original/image-20161202-25669-1ozwonk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=539&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">As computer models predicted, genetically modified plants are better able to make use of the limited sunlight available when their leaves go into the shade, researchers report.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">University of Illinois/Julie McMahon</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Here’s how our approach works: In full sun, plants receive more energy than they can use. If they can’t get rid of this excess energy, it will bleach their leaves. <a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2005/01/too-much-good-thing">To protect themselves</a>, plants induce a process called photoprotection, which converts this excess energy harmlessly to heat. </p>
<p>But when a cloud passes overhead, it can take minutes to hours for the plant to fully recover and begin photosynthesizing at maximum capacity again. In the shade, lack of light limits photosynthesis and photoprotection causes the plant to waste precious light energy as heat. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Av0dTk9KzlY?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">A small change to recovery mechanism means big change in crop output. Genetically modified tobacco plants turn on photosynthesis faster when shade follows dangerous sunlight.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Using a supercomputer, we predicted exactly how much slow recovery from photoprotection reduces crop productivity over the course of a day. Our calculations revealed a <a href="http://jxb.oxfordjournals.org/content/55/400/1167">7.5 percent to 40 percent yield hit</a>, depending on the type of plant and prevailing temperature. </p>
<p>Teaming up with <a href="http://niyogilab.berkeley.edu/">key collaborators</a> at the University of California, Berkeley, we developed a “cassette” of genes to speed up plant recovery from photoprotection by boosting the amount of three proteins involved in photosynthesis. Two of our modified plant lines consistently achieved 20 percent higher productivity than unaltered tobacco plants, while the third was 14 percent higher.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/148469/original/image-20161202-25689-1bffclh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/148469/original/image-20161202-25689-1bffclh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148469/original/image-20161202-25689-1bffclh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148469/original/image-20161202-25689-1bffclh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148469/original/image-20161202-25689-1bffclh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148469/original/image-20161202-25689-1bffclh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148469/original/image-20161202-25689-1bffclh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Three plants genetically altered to improve photoprotection recovery are visibly larger than the normal (wildtype) tobacco plant on the right.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">RIPE Project</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Engineering the future today</h2>
<p>Now we are using this same cassette of genes to improve how quickly cassava recovers from photoprotection. Other “synergistic improvements” on our radar include steps such as <a href="http://ripe.illinois.edu/news/soybean-plants-with-fewer-leaves-yield-more1">engineering plants to produce fewer leaves</a>; <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/gcb.12567">improving the way leaves are arranged</a> to better capture light; and <a href="http://ripe.illinois.edu/news/lighter-colored-upper-leaves-may-be-crop-photosynthesis-hack">altering leaf color</a> to reduce shading of lower leaves. We are also working to <a href="http://ripe.illinois.edu/objectives/photorespiratory-bypass">reduce losses from photorespiration</a>, a parasitic process that occurs during photosynthesis when oxygen is accidentally used instead of carbon dioxide. Photorespiration causes plants to burn as much as 40 percent of the energy they have produced through photosynthesis. This problem will increase along with rising temperatures from climate change. </p>
<p>It typically takes 15 to 20 years to move advances like these from the lab to farmers’ fields at scale. Because of that lag, in a world with a fast-growing population, we are just <a href="http://ripe.illinois.edu/news/one-crop-breeding-cycle-from-starvation">one crop breeding cycle</a> away from starvation. It is therefore essential to start improving yields of staple crops like cassava now, so that we will have these solutions when we need them.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/68115/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephen P. Long receives funding from the Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy; Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; National Science Foundation; Institute for Sustainability, Energy and Environment; and University of Illinois Office of Technology Management.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lynnicia Massenburg receives funding from the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program under Grant Number DGE-1144245. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Amanda P. De Souza does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Cassava is a key food source in tropical countries, but yields have been flat for decades. New genetic research is identifying many options for boosting production of this valuable staple crop.Stephen P. Long, Professor of Crop Sciences and Plant Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-ChampaignAmanda P. De Souza, Postdoctoral Research Associate, University of Illinois at Urbana-ChampaignLynnicia Massenburg, Graduate Student, Department of Plant Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-ChampaignLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/692492016-12-05T14:16:30Z2016-12-05T14:16:30ZSouth Africa’s land reform efforts lack a focus on struggling farmers<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/147393/original/image-20161124-15333-1sjlzvj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Lack of support for beneficiaries of land reform in South Africa has seen many new farmers fail to live off the land.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Siphiwe Sibeko/Reuters</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>South Africa’s land reform programme has suffered many failures and its beneficiaries have in many cases seen little or no improvements to their <a href="http://www.plaas.org.za/bibliography/land-reform-review-nmf">livelihoods</a>. </p>
<p>Land reform remains a contested terrain or what land rights specialist Ruth Hall calls an <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ibpIpi2zAE">“unresolved historical grievance”</a>. South Africa has a history of colonisation, racial domination and <a href="http://www.plaas.org.za/bibliography/rhall-thesis-landreform">racially based land dispossession</a>. Black people were forced off the land they owned and depended on for their <a href="http://unrisd.org/80256B3C005BCCF9/(httpAuxPages)/63265CAFF973018D80256B6D005785D1/$file/dmaguban.pdf">livelihoods</a> through numerous legislative policies and other coercive measures. </p>
<p>In 1994, South Africa’s democratic government implemented <a href="http://mokoro.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/pol_econ_land_reform_sa.pdf">land reform</a> to rectify these past racial injustices, to correct skewed land ownership patterns and to alleviate poverty. The land restitution process is part of the broader land reform programme which includes redistribution and tenure reform. </p>
<p>There is a general agreement that land reform has been a failure and <a href="http://www.thenewage.co.za/pace-of-land-reform-not-fast-enough-political-analyst-says/">needs to be sped up</a>. Research shows that between 70% to 90% of the projects (including land restitution projects) <a href="http://mg.co.za/article/2015-10-15-farmers-rights-must-be-defended">have failed</a>.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, the public, academics, politicians and other stakeholders have largely focused on the land acquisition or restitution phases of the process, to the exclusion of land reform implementation and what happens afterwards. </p>
<p>The chorus for <a href="http://www.universityofpretoria.co.za/media/shared/Legacy/sitefiles/file/48/4153/fromfreedomchartertocautiouslandreformthepoliticsoflandinsouthafrica_wardanseeuwandchrisalden.pdf">land acquisition</a> has drowned out the plea by land beneficiaries for state support. </p>
<p>We studied the issue by focusing on a land restitution project in Macleantown, a village near East London in the Eastern Cape. Our qualitative research found that people living in the village had not benefited tangibly from having land returned to them as part of the restitution process. </p>
<h2>What’s gone wrong</h2>
<p>Some <a href="http://irr.org.za/reports-and-publications/atLiberty/files/liberty-2013-from-land-to-farming-bringing-land-reform-down-to-earth">research</a> has been done on the impact of land reform. Most researchers have concluded that it has contributed little to helping beneficiaries earn a <a href="http://www.plaas.org.za/sites/default/files/publications-pdf/RR32.pdf">livelihood</a> from the land. <a href="http://www.plaas.org.za/sites/default/files/publications-landpdf/RR38.pdf">The reasons</a> for this include inadequate post-settlement support, lack of skills, poor planning and infighting within communities.</p>
<p>Another contributing factor has been that post-restitution projects are designed in a way that favours capital intensive commercial farming unsuitable to the <a href="http://www.plaas.org.za/blog/unworkable-land-reform-project-designs-offer-inappropriate-farming-models-rural-dwellers">beneficiaries’s circumstances</a>. The Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies notes that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>South African land reform beneficiaries have been victims of unworkable project designs, largely irrelevant to their livelihood possibilities, <a href="http://www.plaas.org.za/blog/unworkable-land-reform-project-designs-offer-inappropriate-farming-models-rural-dwellers">aspirations and abilities</a>.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>But the most common cause of failure is a <a href="http://irr.org.za/reports-and-publications/atLiberty/files/liberty-2013-from-land-to-farming-bringing-land-reform-down-to-earth">lack of support</a> for farmers once they become landowners. </p>
<p>There are many examples of thriving agricultural entities becoming ghost farms <a href="http://irr.org.za/reports-and-publications/atLiberty/files/liberty-2013-from-land-to-farming-bringing-land-reform-down-to-earth">after land reform</a>. In some cases, farm infrastructure has been stolen and production has halted. </p>
<p>An important component of land reform is for the beneficiaries to become self-sufficient. It is thus necessary to understand what mechanisms need to be put in place to ensure that beneficiaries can generate adequate livelihoods after they’ve been given land by the government.</p>
<h2>The Macleantown case study</h2>
<p>The benefits of land restitution appear to be more symbolic than material.</p>
<p>Our study showed that beneficiaries remain poor 17 years after being given their land back. Most are unable to generate a livelihood from agriculture and depend on state social grants for survival. Beneficiaries were able to rejoice at having their land back, but they have been unable to escape poverty.</p>
<p>This is particularly worrying since one of the main motives for pursuing land reform was to create self-sufficient farmers able to generate a decent livelihood from their land. </p>
<p>Our findings show that land beneficiaries have been virtually neglected by the government. They have a strong desire to grow crops but lack the support needed to start ploughing. </p>
<p>One respondent said she could not farm because she did not have money to fence her yard or keep livestock. Farming would therefore be a waste of time as cattle would walk onto her land and eat her crops. </p>
<p>One emotional resident said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We don’t get the necessary support from the government man! We don’t get it, at all, they are not interested in coming to support us and help us to give us something … They should come here and make a workshop and call us together, those who are interested in farming and stuff like that, there would be a lot of people because I am not the only one… They don’t support us! They do give the land, and what’s the reason of giving people land and then not helping them? Because we need a tractor, we need this and that, we need seeds… </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Apart from an absence of support, resettled people face other problems. </p>
<p>Water taps can run dry for days. The absence of a health clinic means that they have to use the little money they have to get services from elsewhere. The mobile clinic only comes twice a month.</p>
<p>The local school is too small to cater for all the pupils, forcing some to travel vast distances at huge cost. And then there are the land invaders, leading to fierce competition for grazing land.</p>
<h2>Looking ahead</h2>
<p>The plight of the people of Macleantown highlights the need to revive the country’s many failed land reform projects through post-settlement support strategies. </p>
<p>Giving people land and then depriving them of appropriate support to earn a living from the land is regressive. As much as land reform is justified, it is self-defeating for the government to dump people on land without sufficient or relevant support. </p>
<p>The government needs to re-look its policy of simply acquiring land for redistribution. It needs to take measures to make sure that redistributed land is used productively.</p>
<p>If land reform is to continue in its current fashion, its prospects are doomed. It is the government’s duty to see to it that they create self-sufficient farmers through the provision of post-settlement support.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/69249/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mzingaye Brilliant Xaba receives funding from the DST-NRF Centre of Excellence in Human Development that is based at Wits University.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Monty J. Roodt is the chairperson of the Board of Directors of the Border Rural Committee, a Section 21 not-for-profit company that works with rural communities in the Eastern Cape. He is co-writing this article in his capacity as Mzingaye Xaba's PhD supervisor in the Sociology Department at Rhodes University.</span></em></p>South Africa’s government makes much of its efforts of putting more land in the hands of the previously disenfranchised black majority. Yet, many beneficiaries continue to wallow in poverty.Mzingaye Brilliant Xaba, PhD candidate in Sociology, Rhodes UniversityMonty J. Roodt, Professor of Sociology specialising in development., Rhodes UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.