Is your morning coffee an espresso or a skinny latte? Is it from a darkly roasted French or Italian blend? If it’s a high quality brew, it’s almost certainly made with beans from the Arabica species (Coffea arabica), which is known for its finer flavours.

At its 72nd Session, the United Nations General Assembly officially adopted a resolution declaring 2019 – 2028 as a “Decade of Family Farming”. The resolution is aimed at providing a framework for the promotion of better public policies on family farming.

Avocado goes on toast, in a smoothie, and yes, on pizza.

Nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium are the three elements that support the productivity of all plants used for agriculture, and are the constituents of commercial fertilizers that farmers use throughout the world.

A researcher in Edinburgh is leading efforts to develop gene-edited farm animals for poor farmers in Africa.Prof Appolinaire Djikeng is developing cows, pigs and chickens that are resistant to diseases and more productive.

It is always difficult to get a good handle of Zimbabwe’s maize production data. I tend to rely more on the International Grains Council and United States Department of Agriculture for a better picture of crop conditions there, as they have their people on the ground to do the survey.

Africa has been a fast-growing grain import market for more than a decade, and not just because its population is mushrooming. Take wheat, for example.

“According to a new report on food security and nutrition, the hunger in Africa is still rising and the continent is not on track to meet the ‘Zero Hunger’ goal set by the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations by 2050,” says Fanie Brink, an independent agricultural economist.

In recent years, agribusiness analysts have predicted that agricultural commodities could become “the new oil” in Africa, a continent with a booming population, a growing economy with potential for even greater expansion, and 60% of the world’s uncultivated arable land. This all adds up to an incredible opportunity.

 Food companies doing business in Africa risk becoming bogged down in decades-long legal disputes over land that could cost tens of millions of dollars, according to a report released on Monday.

John Deere has welcomed the R3.7billion allocation announced in the 2019 Budget Speech to assist emerging black farmers in acquiring land and title deeds, which it believes will complement the proposed blended finance model and assist in building a more inclusive agricultural sector for the benefit of all South Africans.

Evidence is now in and the verdict is that Africa’s agriculture is powering economic transformation in the region. African agriculture has shown remarkable improvement compared to its precarious state 15 years ago.

According to a new report on food security and nutrition, the hunger in Africa is still rising and the continent is not on track to meet the “Zero Hunger” goal set by the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations by 2050.

Africa’s elephant population has plummeted from roughly a million in 1970 to around 400,000 today – a decline which is largely blamed on poaching for their ivory tusks. At its peak in 2011, poaching claimed 36,000 elephants a year, or one every 15 minutes.

The World Bank recently released an interesting book titled Agriculture in Africa: Telling Myths from Facts. It covers a wide range of topics from smallholder land access, post-harvest losses, financing of agricultural inputs, agricultural labour productivity and women’s work in agriculture amongst others.

The organisers of African Utility Week and POWERGEN Africa, have announced that they have entered into a media partnership with African News Agency (ANA), a continent-wide multimedia content dissemination platform in the run-up to the event that is taking place from 14-16 May in Cape Town. ANA will also have a presence on the expo floor.

Africa is facing dire times. Climate change is having major impacts on the region and on agriculture in particular, with smallholder farmers —many of them women — facing drought, general lack of water, shifting seasons, and floods in some areas. 

The US and China have for the past three months been locked in discussions about how to overcome a trade dispute that has slowed Chinese economic growth and seen the US-China trade balance slump to a record low last year.

It’s an old proverb in these lands that since man has learned to shoot without missing, birds have learned to fly without perching — and the same is true with farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA).

Here are 25 of the most amazing places to see when you travel to Africa: