27/01/2015 BY SAMANTHA SPOONER ALL smallholder farmers do is hold up development, it’s not sustainable”, said the development engineer, referring to Kofi Annan’s talking points to leaders at the World Economic Forum, urging Africa’s governments to “put smallholder farmers at its heart”. It was an unsettling statement considering the countless groups and governments that have created strategies and... Read More

5/12/2014  The UN FAO has declared 2015 the International Year of Soil. Today 5th December 2014 is the World Soil Day. What do you know about soils? Find out more at: http://www.fao.org/fileadmin/user_upload/GSP/imgs/WSD2014/WSD_POSTER_EN.jpg  http://www.fao.org/fileadmin/user_upload/GSP/imgs/WSD2014/buttons/infographics/infographics_en.jpg  http://www.fao.org/globalsoilpartnership/world-soil-day/en/  

18/11/2014 Small scale farmers from Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda with support from fellow farmers from Malawi, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Madagascar, Seychelles, Mozambique, Swaziland, South Africa, Democratic Republic of Congo and Lesotho under the umbrella of Eastern and Southern Africa Small Scale Farmers’ Forum (ESAFF) have called upon African governments... Read More

5/11/2014  Small scale farmers from Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda with support from fellow farmers from Malawi, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Madagascar, Seychelles, Mozambique, Swaziland, South Africa, Democratic Republic of Congo and Lesotho under the umbrella of Eastern and Southern Africa Small Scale Farmers’ Forum (ESAFF) have called upon African governments... Read More

5/11/2014  The Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA) has expressed deep concern on the recent acquisitions of large parts of SeedCo, one of Africa’s largest home-grown seed companies calling it “an inevitable consequence of the fierce drive to commercialise agriculture in Africa.” The deals in question involve French seed... Read More

5/11/2014  Governments in industrial countries have been accused of regularly putting pressure on developing countries to introduce stringent plant variety protection (PVP) regimes and to adhere to the 1991 Act of the UPOV Convention, without duly considering its consequences on the enjoyment of human rights of vulnerable groups such as... Read More

5/11/2014  While I have always had my doubts about the potential of African governments and NGOs to eradicate household poverty and provide food security, my recent encounter of food sovereignty issues proved these doubts and now I am more convinced that it is only when a human being intends to... Read More

5/11/2014 A research team from the University of Adelaide, Flinders University and the Institute of Health and Environmental Research, all in Australia, has reviewed published studies on the health impacts of genetically modified (GM) crops on rats and suggested that there is not enough evidence that GM crops are safe... Read More