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The world is facing unprecedented challenges from COVID-19, which is disrupting lives and livelihoods. The pandemic could profoundly affect the African continent and wipe out hard-won development gains, as sub-Saharan Africa heads into its first recession in 25 years. Beyond the multi-spatial impact of the coronavirus in Africa, its effects on the agriculture and food system is of particular ...

The Fiorella and McIntyre research groups at Cornell University are seeking two graduate
students to join a new NSF-funded study of how harmful algal blooms affect fisheries from
human, fish, and ecosystem perspectives. Our interdisciplinary study seeks to merge human
health outcomes, the behavior of fishers and fish consumers, food web structure, and algal
bloom dynamics in space and time.

Transforming food systems under a changing climate entails amplifying solutions that build sustainability along multiple interconnected principles—i.e., diversity, resilience, equity, economic viability, health and renewability. Two different approaches are engaged in this transformational work in Africa: climate-smart agriculture (promotes participatory multi-stakeholder collaborations and ...

Africa’s “youth bulge” represents both an enormous challenge and a tantalizing opportunity for the continent. With over 60 percent of Africans under the age of 35, governments are under increasing pressure to grasp the “demographic dividend” youth represent to boost agricultural productivity, enhance food security, and expand economic opportunities for young men and women. Each year, about 10-12 ...

Sustained growth and improved governance in Africa’s agriculture sector are critical to meeting the continent’s development goals, including creating decent jobs for youth, nourishing growing cities with healthy foods, promoting resilience, and catalyzing domestic revenue mobilization. The 2020 Annual Trends and Outlook Report (ATOR) from the Regional Strategic Analysis and Knowledge Support ...

Mali’s population is experiencing lifestyle and dietary changes that are driven in part by urbanisation and income growth. Utilising two large-scale datasets, we bring new empirical evidence regarding whether Malians are shifting toward highly processed foods, meals purchased away from home, and sugary foods. We find that on-farm production represents only 25% of the food consumed by rural ...

Twenty-five young African agripreneurs have advanced to the “boot camp” final round of the African Development Bank’s AgriPitch competition, stepping closer to a share of $120,000 in seed funding prizes, training and other benefits.The final round offers young entrepreneurs in Africa’s agricultural sector the opportunity to pitch their agribusiness proposals online to a panel of experts and ...

Over the next 30 years, Sub-Saharan Africa’s population will double to over two billion, and its economies will industrialize. Africa’s development will therefore be critical to the world’s future stability, prosperity, and health. Given this, the continent should be receiving much more international attention.

Over the past 20 years sub-Saharan Africa has registered the highest rate of agricultural production in the world. There have been knock-on effects with the region also seeing the fastest growth in off-farm employment and non-farm labour productivity.

The International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) and the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) recently launched a project that aims to research the drivers and barriers to the adoption of conservation agriculture in southern Africa and to develop strategies for achieving adoption and impact at scale.