For Larbi Siaw, a cocoa farmer in Ghana’s western north region, this is one of the busiest times of year. Like millions of smallholders across west Africa, he and his family are chopping down ripe yellow pods, scooping out white pulpy beans and leaving them to dry on reed mats in the heat. 

For a distance of some 150km, Canadian company ReconAfrica’s oil and gas prospecting concessions border the Kavango River, a crucial source of water in a semi-arid area and the lifeline for one of Africa’s greatest concentrations of wild species in the Okavango Delta into which it discharges.

Perhaps there has never been a more worthy Nobel Peace Prize recipient than the United Nations’ World Food Programme (WFP), which in October was recognized by the Nobel Committee for its efforts in combating world hunger.

 A new generation of locust swarms is threatening to wipe out the livelihoods of farmers and herders across eastern Africa – deepening a food crisis in a region where 35 million people are already hungry, the United Nations warned .

Grain prices continued to surge upward through December changing 2020-21 grain marketing season allowing US grain elevators to profit from strong margins on stored crop, according to a CoBank Knowledge Exchange division report.

LOCATED about 50 kilometres from the Noordoewer border post between Namibia and South Africa, Aussenkehr has vast vineyards that stretch as far as the eye can see.