From fed by the world to food security : Accelerating agricultural development in Africa

This document presents the results of a search for policies and conditions that can help accelerate agricultural development in Africa. This development has been limited in many countries, as evinced by extreme low fertilizer use, low crop yields, poverty and high food insecurity. The rate of development is quantitatively described for the period 1961–2014 for almost fifty countries, those of the African mainland plus Madagascar, on the basis of data on the average cereal yield and fertilizer use. The way the rainfall impacts on the fertilizer-yield relationship has been studied, by comparing contrasting rainfall transects in Western and Southern Africa, occupied by respectively 19 and 9 countries. On the basis of data from the period 1981–2014, it is shown that soil fertility dominated over rainfall in determining crop yields. Data on the evolution of cereal yield rates over the entire 1961–2014 period have been used for dividing the 49 countries into two main groups, subdivided into four and two classes. In the first group of countries, the yields per hectare increased, in different degrees. The second group includes one class of countries with stagnating yields since 1961, and one that at present has lower yields than in 1961. Here, any increase in food production has come from area expansion. All countries have been categorized on the basis of socio-economic as well as agro-ecological conditions. The comparison of classes enables the identification of stimuli and obstacles for agricultural development. The role of policies for change has been studied as well, with a view to identifying policies that can help accelerate agricultural development in Africa. The dominance of poor soils, often combined with difficult climates, explains in part why agricultural development has been slow. In many places, the low average natural production conditions have resulted in a population density that is much too low to allow for a financially beneficial use of fertilizer and other external agricultural inputs. The high costs of transport and trade, and of food and labor, have seriously hindered agricultural development in many African countries. Market oriented production, for the national or the international market, did not become the driver for development, in contrast to countries with more suitable climates and better soils. A hopeful tendency emerges from this study: African agricultural development is taking off in response to population growth, as is shown by the cereal yield and fertilizer use adoption trends in many countries. Three quarters of the African population lives in countries with positive yield growth rates, with some of them having reached Green Revolution growth rates. Policies and conditions are presented that enable accelerated yield growth, which is a matter of life and death for the last quarter of the population, which lives in countries with no significant or negative yield growth rates, but is also of vital importance fo

<i>Cinchona</i> Alkaloid Catalyzed Sulfa-Michael Addition Reactions Leading to Enantiopure β‑Functionalized Cysteines

Sulfa-Michael additions to α,β-unsaturated <i>N</i>-acylated oxazolidin-2-ones and related α,β-unsaturated α-amino acid derivatives have been enantioselectively catalyzed by <i>Cinchona</i> alkaloids functionalized with a hydrogen bond donating group at the C6′ position. The series of <i>Cinchona</i> alkaloids includes known C6′ (thio)­urea and sulfonamide derivatives and several novel species with a benzimidazole, squaramide or a benzamide group at the C6′ position. The sulfonamides were especially suited as bifunctional organocatalysts as they gave the products in very good diastereoselectivity and high enantioselectivity. In particular, the C6′ sulfonamides catalyzed the reaction with the α,β-unsaturated α-amino acid derivatives to afford the products in a diastereomeric ratio as good as 93:7, with the major isomer being formed in an ee of up to 99%. The products of the organocatalytic sulfa-Michael addition to α,β-unsaturated α-amino acid derivatives were subsequently converted in high yields to enantiopure β-functionalized cysteines suitable for native chemical ligation

A Global Land Use and Biomass Approach to Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Fossil Fuel Use and to Preserve Biodiversity

As average growth consumptions per capita and world population will continue to grow, the promotion of sustainable developments during the next half a century implies to take into account environmental aspects, local potentialities and futures changes in population as well climatic, economic and social factors. At the global level, land and fossil fuel availability per capita, capacity of absorption of greenhouse gas emissions are considered the most important environmental factors. Whereas at local levels are to be considered preservation or improvement of soil fertility, of water regimes, of quality of air, soil and water. Biodiversity must be taken into account at both levels to cope also with climate change. But as underlined by IPCC lead authors, up to now there is no tool available to deal with these issues in a comprehensive and adequate manner. A new tool, presented here, the Integrated Environmental Assessment (IEA) has therefore been developed. It takes into account all actions, from the sun to final services, in three stages: solar energy bioconversion and phytomass production at I; conversion of phytomass and non renewable resources into final products and waste disposal at II ; arrangement of products to meet final needs, such as nutrition, housing mobility etc. at III. IEAs start at the global level with the GIEA , the results of which are then to be confronted with constraints at local levels from LIEAs. This new tool can be used to identify impacts of technological changes in land management and to compare alternative practices better than with LCAs. It was used to analyze environmental impacts of technological changes between 1950 and 2000 in France, in wheat production at stage I. It appeared that not only yields, but also the primary mitigation potential (PMP) per hectare have been multiplied by 4, whereas the net primary energy gain per ha has been multiplied by 3.2. Besides this, 14,5 Mha (the area of the French forest about a quarter of France) land use change could be avoided; in the case of deforestation this would have led to the emission of more than 4 billion tons of CO2. Lessons are drawn from the past and for the next fifty years: In developed and industrialized countries, alternative managements of land and increased use of non food phytomass can and should be envisaged. In Sub-Saharan Africa population is expected to double during the next 50 years and soil fertility is drastically decreasing; agricultural practices are no longer sustainable. If no changes appear in agriculture, forests and GHG emission from deforestation as well as biodiversity are threatened by further and inevitable land use change. Increasing yields per hectare should therefore become the priority; it would at the same time increase food security, improve mitigation and adaptation to climate change, help to combat deforestation and desertification, better preserve biodiversity, and ultimately also allow more bioenergy production: This would improve the food security and at the same time help to achieve the objectives of the three main UN environmental conventions and of the UN Millennium Goal