Stories tagged: nutrition

How an Urban Agriculture Project in Ethiopia is Improving Lives and Regreening Communities

Image of Teshome Nega

Teshome Nega, Urban Agriculture Project Coordinator at Farm Africa, shares insights on how urban agriculture can help improve local food security and nutrition as well as livelihoods.

Urban low-income communities face immense challenges in accessing nutritious food. One of Africa’s biggest cities and Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa, shares this struggle. A fifth of its five million residents live in poverty and now face high inflation and cost of living rates that make access to healthy food a daily challenge.   Continue reading →

Investment for Resilience in African Food Systems

Headshot of Apollos Nwafor

Dr Apollos Nwafor, AGRA’s Vice President for Policy and State Capability, outlines how food systems across Africa can better address malnutrition with increased resilience, investment and cross-sector collaboration. Continue reading →

From Potential to Reality: Innovative solutions to the global hunger crisis

Joachim von Braun, Professor for Economic and Technological Change at the Center for Development Research (ZEF) of the University of Bonn, outlines how Africa can overcome the global hunger crisis.

Food systems around the world are facing a multi-dimensional crisis. The COVID-19 pandemic has drastically disrupted the food supply chain due to bottlenecks in farm labour, processing and transportation. Additionally, the war in Ukraine adds uncertainty to grain supply as Russia and Ukraine account for 20 per cent and 30 per cent of global maize and wheat exports, respectively. Hunger is on the rise in Africa, with issues such as acute climate stress and inflation impacting people’s ability to buy goods. Continue reading →

Nourishing Crops for Resilient Food Systems in sub-Saharan Africa

Image of Dr Shamie Zingore

Dr Shamie Zingore, Director of Research and Development at the African Plant Nutrition Institute, delves into the relationship between soil health, crop productivity and human nutrition.

Africa is home to an estimated 33 million smallholder farmers who contribute about 70 per cent of the continent’s food supply. But these farmers face various constraints, such as low productivity and limited access to new agricultural technologies. The soils in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) in particular are some of the poorest in the world due to naturally low fertility and insufficient soil conservation measures. It is estimated that the continent loses over US $4 billion worth of soil nutrients each year, severely eroding its ability to feed itself. Crops require an adequate and balanced supply of nutrients to produce good yields, yet currently, more than 60 per cent of SSA’s agricultural land faces challenges around crop production. Continue reading →

The Power of People: A spotlight on youth-led initiatives for MENA’s food systems

Rayan Kassem, West Asia Regional Director at Youth4Nature, highlights youth-led projects for food systems transformation and the ways they can be supported to lead as changemakers.

Food systems challenges are not unique to the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, nor are the issues that young people face. But, as with every region, the actions needed to transform them are.  Continue reading →

How Nutrition-Smart Agriculture Can Help Build Resilience Against the “Three C” Crises of Climate, Conflict and COVID-19

Arun Baral, CEO of HarvestPlus – CGIAR’s flagship programme on staple crop biofortification – discusses how biofortification can help bolster food systems resilience in the face of global crises.

We hear a growing chorus of warnings from members of the food and nutrition security community about the dire consequences of the war in Ukraine on global rates of hunger and malnutrition. Arif Husain, chief economist at the World Food Programme, noted recently that threats in numerous countries to food production and availability from the “Three C’s” — climate, conflict, and COVID-19 — are rapidly being compounded by the “Three F’s” — spiking food, fuel, and fertiliser prices. According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation, the number of undernourished people worldwide could increase by 8 to 13 million this year alone. Continue reading →