Is technology the answer to the African food crisis?

Across Africa, many rural communities still depend on manual and animal power for their farm needs, whether it is for production, harvesting or postharvest activities. In fact, in sub-Saharan Africa, engine power represents a meagre 10 per cent of all energy used on farms, compared to 50 per cent in developing regions. Without access to mechanised tools and technologies, farming is a tough, laborious and time-consuming process. Farmers are often left with small harvests, low income ...

The Atlantic Current’s 6th edition provides overview, fresh insights, latest data, and broader analysis on the Atlantic space’s current challenges, as well as their implications for the South. Different chapters explore emerging trends and critical issues, such as the World Trade Organization reform, Brexit and the future of EU, the expansion of militancy in the Sahel and Coastal Africa, the role of cultural diplomacy and the deepening of Sino-African relations within a shifting an ...

Subsidizing fertilizer prices has been a popular policy tool to increase fertilizer use, but should it be? The main message of this Policy Brief is that it should not be, despite its appeal to politicians and recipient farmers alike. Instead, policy makers should seriously consider a holistic approach to promoting fertilizer. A holistic approach has the potential of effectively addressing a range of key interlocking constraints which condemn smallholders to low input, low productivi ...

This paper is about the basic principles which should guide fertilizer policy for smallholder agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa It is not about detailed country-specific prescriptions on the “how” of policy. This important task should constitute the substance of detailed country studies. The overarching goal here is to use fertilizer to spearhead and sustain an African Green Revolution (GR). In this paper, fertilizer use is not considered as an end in itself, but as a necessary mean ...

Commodity prices were once again marked by significant volatility in 2017 and 2018. While there are many economic factors to explain this, politics were also present—trade tensions between China and the United States and, more generally, a rise in uncertainties—weighing upon the global macroeconomic outlook and the ‘dynamism of the markets’. Africa, which has countries with strong growth rates, has, however, been able to show solid economic performance, and this trajectory is not li ...

The author is an alumnus of the 2018 Atlantic Dialogues Emerging Leaders program Arable land per capita availability has been steadily decreasing over the last decades, from 0.5 hectare per capita in 1945 to 0.2 hectares per capita in 2016. Worldwide farmers have been, more or less, addressing the intensification challenge by incorporating new technologies, products, and techniques into their farming systems. The intensification challenge also implied a consolidation of the farming ...

Le présent article expose, outre une analyse holistique du secteur national de production halieutique, les résultats d’un travail de recherche sur l’impact d’un éventuel changement des prix mondiaux des intrants (notamment le pétrole) et des produits de la pêche sur les aspects économiques et biologiques du secteur. Les résultats de ce travail indiquent que ce secteur a peu de réactivité face à la hausse du prix mondial des intrants, alors qu’en réaction à l’augmentation des prix à ...

Le progrès économique et social du Maroc passe par des objectifs de croissance dans l’agriculture, secteur prioritaire dans les stratégies et les politiques de développement. Plus encore, les gains de productivité globale des facteurs sont déterminants pour l’amélioration du niveau de vie. Le présent travail de recherche a consisté à comprendre l’évolution de la performance du secteur agricole au Maroc, en étudiant les contributions relatives des facteurs de production et de la prod ...

La ville de Kigali, au Rwanda, a accueilli du 5 au 8 septembre 2018 le forum de l’AGRA, devenant ainsi la capitale de l’agriculture africaine pendant ces quatre journées. Délégations gouvernementales, partenaires techniques et financiers, chercheurs, universitaires, investisseurs, producteurs, club de réflexion, entre autres, étaient en conclave pour faire l’état des lieux du secteur et mesurer les progrès accomplis sur la route de la transformation de l’agriculture africaine.  A t ...