Field Information - Africa
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Pick Up902. TICAD 30th Anniversary Official Side Event "Toward Building Sustainable and Resilient Food System in Africa"
On December 1, JIRCAS will hold a hybrid seminar “Toward Building a Sustainable and Resilient Food System in Africa”, an official side event to commemorate the 30th anniversary of TICAD (Tokyo International Conference on African Development), initiated by the Japanese government in 1993. This event will introduce issues related to agriculture, forestry and fisheries in Africa, Japan's contributions to them, the history and current status of international joint research, and research needs. The diversity of African agriculture in terms of crops, water resources, soil, microorganisms, agricultural management, and nutritional supply will be discussed, as well as the points that need to be taken into consideration and future international collaborative research.
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Pick Up758. Towards Establishing Effective Farmyard Manure Application in Nutrient-poor Soils in Africa
As fertilizer resources continue to be depleted and soar in prices, the use of farmyard manure derived from locally available organic materials is attracting attention to achieve increased food production in infertile soils widely distributed in Africa. In order to use farmyard manure to efficiently improve crop growth, it is important to know where and what kind of farmyard manure to apply. A research team from JIRCAS and the University of Antananarivo conducted rice cultivation trials in a poor-nutrient paddy field in Madagascar to determine the characteristics of the paddy soil and the farmyard manure that are more likely to increase yield when applied to the paddy fields.
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Pick Up615. Special Issue of Field Crops Research on Sustainable Rice Production in Africa
To commemorate the 50th anniversary the Africa Rice Center (formerly WARDA) which is one of the CGIAR centers, Field Crops Research (Elsevier), an internationally renowned research journal has published a special issue on "Sustainable productivity enhancement of rice-based farming systems in Africa". Nineteen papers in the special issue were written by researchers at the forefront of research on rice agronomy in Africa, and JIRCAS researchers contributed to two of the papers. -
Pick Up591. JIRCAS Affiliated Researcher SAITO Kazuki Receives 7th Niigata International Food Award 21st Century Hope Prize
On July 28, the winners of the 7th Niigata International Food Award, which is given to individuals who have devoted themselves to solving problems in the fields of food and agriculture, were announced. Among the five awardees this year, Dr. SAITO Kazuki, an affiliated researcher at JIRCAS, received the 21st Century Hope Prize. -
Pick Up583. TICAD8 Side-Event Poster: “Healthy Soils for Food Security in Africa - Potential of Regenerative Agriculture”
As recently announced in Pick Up, the Sasakawa Africa Association (SAA) and JIRCAS will co-host a TICAD 8 side-event “Healthy Soils for Food Security in Africa - Potential of Regenerative Agriculture” online via Zoom on August 5 (Fri), 2022. The poster of the event is now available. Please take a look. -
Pick Up580. Online Event: Healthy Soils for Food Security in Africa ― Potential of Regenerative Agriculture
For too long, African agriculture has suffered from chronically low soil fertility and nutrient deprivation, resulting in low agricultural productivity and a food security crisis. Now, more than ever, the need for "healthy soils for healthy crops" is critical to Africa's agricultural development, and on Friday, August 5, the Sasakawa Africa Association (SAA) and JIRCAS will co-host an online TICAD 8 side-event "Healthy Soils for Food Security in Africa - Potential of Regenerative Agriculture”. We look forward to your participation. -
Pick Up25. New Coronavirus Pandemic ― Food Security Crisis in East Africa: Urbanization and Structural Transformation of Agriculture
According to the United Nations World Food Program (WFP), the East African region is currently facing the triple threat of COVID-19, floods and locusts. Although East Africa is home to only about 3% of the world's population, the region also hosts 22 percent of the world’s total number of acutely food-insecure people. It is expected that the socio-economic fallout from the pandemic will be far more devastating than the disease itself due the unemployment of people in the urban areas.
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15. New Coronavirus Pandemic ― Impact on World Trade and Developing Countries Dependent on Commodity Crop Export
Cultivation of export commodity crops such as tea and coffee has become popular in developing countries located in the highlands of tropical and subtropical regions. Until recently, the flower and horticulture industry has also rapidly grown due to the establishment of air freight networks to major destinations, and is now integrated into the global value chain due to increased exports. The COVID-19 causes devasting economic crisis to developing countries that depend on commodity crop exports due to declining international demand and suspension of international flights. On April 8, 2020, the World Trade Organization (WTO) predicted a 13-32% drop in world trade volume in 2020, calling for unprecedented measures to protect people's lives and the need to pay close attention to the food security situation of food importing countries that rely on commodity crops for foreign currency acquisition, GDP, and job creation.
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Pick Up14. New Coronavirus Pandemic ― World Bank Bulletin: The first recession in Sub-Saharan Africa in 25 years
2The World Bank announced on April 8, 2020 that due to the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19), the economic growth rate in the Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is projected to decline from 2.4 percent in 2019 to -2.1 to -5.1 percent in 2020, the first recession in the region in 25 years. Countries that depend on oil and minerals exports such as Nigeria, South Africa and Angola, and countries with strong value chain participation such as Ethiopia and Kenya, will be particularly hit hard. In addition, exports and movement regulations will also affect the agricultural production and is expected to contract between 2.6 to 7%. The World Bank, with the support of the SSA governments, has called for the need to avoid the outbreak of an African food crisis associated with COVID-19. Through the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD), Japan has taken the position of strongly supporting development in Africa, the fastest-growing frontier of the 21st century, in cooperation with the public and private sectors.
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Pick Up11. New Coronavirus Pandemic ― International Trade and Food Security
The global food chain is being tested for its robustness and resilience when it comes to movement restrictions and urban blockades (lockdowns) due to the novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19). In order for the international community to overcome the global food crisis, it is necessary to closely monitor the trends in international trade. The trade value of all agricultural products has tripled in face value from 2000 to 2018, and has almost doubled on a weight basis over the same period. Japan is the world’s third-largest cereal importer, and one of the reasons for a calorie-based food self-sufficiency rate of 37% is the heavy reliance on imported maize for livestock feed. The international rice trade from Asia to the Middle East and Africa is surprisingly large and the net per capita rice consumption of importing countries is even higher than Japan. In recent years, rice consumption in Africa has been increasing year by year due to urbanization and population growth, and agricultural technologies that contribute to continuous increase in yield and planted areas are the key to improving the self-sufficiency rate.