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Farming and agriculture may not seem cool to young people, but if they can learn the thrill of nurturing plants to produce food, and are provided with their favourite apps and communications software on agriculture, food insecurity will not be an issue, food and agriculture experts said during the Asian Development Bank (ADB)’s Food Security Forum from June 22 to 24 at the ADB headquarters here. »

This article by Tekalign Mamo of the Agricultural Transformation Agency (ATA) describes the succes of the Ethiopian Soil Information System (EthioSIS) project. The initiative started in 2012 and is a first-of-its-kind initiative in Africa. EthioSIS uses remote sensing satellite technology and extensive soil sampling to provide high-resolution soil fertility mapping. The enormous soil analysis data generated, together with satellite imagery, are now being used to create the first country-specific digital soil fertility atlas in Africa.Based on this, experts can identify the types of fertilisers to recommend to farmers. Ethiopia’s extensive study of soil fertility and the resulting fertiliser recommendations can serve as an example to other African nations. »

This blog on Takepart describes an interesting technological innovation serving smallholder farmers in Nigeria. For resource-poor farmers, labor shortages often leads to under-cultivation, poor harvests and lost income. Targeted farm mechanization has proven to be an effective solution to these shortages. Despite this, small farmers throughout Africa lack access to tractors to improve farm productivity. The company “Hello Tractor” has designed an innovative, low-cost “Smart Tractor” specifically for small farmers unique needs. »

This article by the Worldbank Group is a product of the “Agriculture in Africa—Telling Facts from Myths” project. It challenges the common knowledge of the contribution of women in Africa’s agricultural. The contribution of women to labor in African agriculture is regularly quoted in the range of 60–80%. Using individual, plot-level labor input data from nationally representative household surveys across six Sub-Saharan African countries, this study estimates the average female labor share in crop production at 40%. »

In this article in Solutions it is argued that with limited global resources, and in the face of environmental changes, meeting future food security challenges will first require a shift in thinking from just ‘producing food’ (and other sectoral interests) to ‘food systems.’ Future solutions should aim to find synergies between climate mitigation and adaptation and between health and environmental goals, with inevitable trade-offs that will need careful management. »

This article gives a nuanced analysis of changing gender roles in the commercialization of “women’s crops”. The authors explore the relationship between commercialization and gender for groundnuts in Eastern Province, Zambia, using a mixed methods approach. Women saw themselves as having greater control over groundnuts than other crops, and both sexes saw groundnuts as controlled by women. »