Conservation Agriculture as Practised in Ghana

This case study presents the status of conservation agriculture in Ghana. It is one in a series of eight case studies about conservation agriculture in Africa, which were developed within the framework of a collaboration between CIRAD (French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development), FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations), RELMA-in-ICRAF (Regional Land Management Unit of the World Agroforestry Centre) and ACT (African Conservation Tillage Network)

The future of agriculture in Africa

This repository item contains a single issue of The Pardee Papers, a series papers that began publishing in 2008 by the Boston University Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future. The Pardee Papers series features working papers by Pardee Center Fellows and other invited authors. Papers in this series explore current and future challenges by anticipating the pathways to human progress, human development, and human well-being. This series includes papers on a wide range of topics, with a special emphasis on interdisciplinary perspectives and a development orientation.In this paper, 2010 Pardee Post-Doctoral Research Fellow Julius Gatune Kariuki discusses the outlook for the future of agriculture in Africa in light of changing conditions in demographics, climate, global food security, and technology. He argues that the agriculture of Africa today – characterized by low productivity, low levels of technology use, land use issues, and infrastructure weakness – will most certainly be different in the future, but the difference will depend in large part on policy responses to the changing conditions that are already underway. This paper is part of the Africa 2060 Project, a Pardee Center program of research, publications, and symposia exploring African futures in various aspects related to development on continental and regional scales.Julius Gatune Kariuki, a native of Kenya, is interested in investigating the drivers of Africa’s possible futures and in understanding what leverage Africa has in shaping desired futures. He has a multidisciplinary background covering engineering, computer science, business administration, and policy analysis. He currently is a policy advisor with the African Centre of Economic Transformation (ACET) in Accra, Ghana. He was a post-doctoral Research Fellow at Boston University’s Frederick S. Pardee Center in 2010. This paper is part of the Africa 2060 Project, a Pardee Center program of research, publications, and symposia exploring African futures in various aspects related to development on continental and regional scales

Evidence of Impact: Climate-Smart Agriculture in Africa

The vulnerability of Africa’s agriculture to climate change is complex. It is shaped by biophysical, economic, socio-cultural, geographical, ecological, institutional, technological and governance processes that interact in intricate ways, and can together reduce farmers’ adaptive capacity. Women farmers with few resources are particularly vulnerable. This working paper highlights the array of adaptation strategies that exist across Africa’s diverse farming systems and climatic conditions. These strategies can provide the impetus for transforming Africa’s agriculture. The case studies show how farmers are already adapting to climate change, what kinds of investment and how much is needed, and what local and national leadership is necessary to increase adoption and scale up. Successful case studies are broadly defined as those that identify, test and implement climate-smart agriculture (CSA) practices and institutions, counter the impacts of climate change and offer the highest returns on investments. These CSA practices offer the best chance of food security and many other benefits for the people of Africa in the long term

Agriculture in Africa: the emerging role of artificial intelligence.

This chapter critically considers the application of artificial intelligence (AI) to agriculture in Africa. It contends that, while African countries can utilise AI to address agricultural challenges, realising the full potential of AI in agriculture requires the judicious adaptation of pervasive AI technologies to serve African interests. Africa's young, vibrant population along with the movement of people, goods and services around the continent, promoted under the African Union's (AU) Agenda 2063 provide a fecund platform for AI-driven agricultural transformation. This is pivotal because of the multilayered agricultural paradoxes on the continent. For instance, Africa is endowed with an abundance of uncultivated arable land and diverse agro-ecological zones, from rain-forest vegetation to dry and arid vegetation, which engender the growth of wide-ranging food and cash crops, yet it suffers an alarming increase in food insecurity. An AU, United Nations (UN) Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) and Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UN (FAO) Report on Food Security and Nutrition in Africa confirmed that 281.6 million people on the continent, comprising one-fifth of the population, faced hunger in 2020; 346.4 million Africans suffered from severe food insecurity while 452 million suffered from moderate food insecurity in the same year

Biotechnology in Organic Agriculture in Africa: Myth or Oversight?

Biotechnology refers to scientific methods and practices that are based on biological systems or components. Its applications vary from simple system to amino acids (i.e. DNA and RNA) based applications and are relevant to many stages of commodity value chains. Whereas the simple applications are well understood, contemporary advancements into these applications have gone to deeper levels of innovation, dealing with cells, chromosomes, nucleotides and genes. Since these determine the cellular functions that influence behaviour and inheritance, any biotechnological method applied at this level is very sensitive, because it might result into undesirable alterations in the traits and behaviour of organisms. Notwithstanding its likely contributions, therefore, this level of innovation raises scepticism against biotechnology among the organic agriculture community in Africa. Thus, this paper examines the applicability of these innovations in the development of organic agriculture on the continent. Key words: Attitude; Indigenous Knowledge; Technology Adoption; Genetic

Governing Technology Development: Challenges for Agricultural Research in Africa

There is little doubt that agricultural research is of critical importance to the future of agriculture in Africa. As an investment, it has been shown again and again to deliver high returns, in terms of bot

Radio Micah: A Communication Tool to Serve Agriculture in Africa

Radio Micah was launched in Lomé on May 1, 2015 by its founder, Mr. Attivi, Okey to broadcast programmes to listeners online with the goal of transmitting content about Togolese agriculture on the airwaves and thereby increasing the visibility of the work performed by the community, various supervisory authorities, national and international organisations. The company MICAH FARM S.A.S recognized and responded to the need for a suitable communication medium, resulting in the birth of Radio Micah