Knowledge Portal

This blog from the Journal of Gender, Agriculture, and Food Security, highlights some succes stories of young agriculture entrepreneurs. Significant challenges remain in realizing the full potential of Africa’s agriculture: access to finance, land rights, and women’s empowerment are just some of the critical issues to address. »

This article in the The Journal of Nutrition, investigated the associations between food price spikes and childhood malnutrition in Andhra Pradesh, one of India’s largest states. The authors tested the hypothesis that the escalating prices of rice, legumes, eggs, and other staples of Indian diets significantly increased the risk of wasting (weight-for-height z scores) in children. »

This policy brief argues that urban food insecurity is significantly distinct from rural food insecurity and that therefore insecurity in urban areas must be addressed through a different set of policies. It provides policy suggestions for national governments in the Global South on how to improve sustainable, healthy food access in urban areas, and identifies issues that need to be addressed. »

This article elaborates on the linkages between urban growth, food insecurity and levels of human development. It uses statistical modelling to analyse this. So far, there have not been systematic analyses on how urbanisation affects contemporary food insecurity risks or how these potential risks are likely to be mitigated by increases in human development. »

This report by the African Development Bank, ECOWAS and the Food and Agriculture Organization highlights opportunities for West African Agricultural growth. The authors states that the combination of strong demand growth, sustained economic growth, higher global agricultural prices, and an improved policy environment has generated the most conducive conditions for agricultural growth in West Africa in over 30 years. »

This blog elaborates on some examples in which genetic improvements for seeds and livestock varieties provided benefits to smallholders. Genetic intensification incorporates conventional breeding and the use of biotechnology to cultivate crops and livestock breeds that satisfy a number of needs and can overcome challenges, such as climate change. Although many of these technologies remain controversial, they seem to be gaining wider acceptance in some places. »