Agriculture in Africa
In the 1970’s, Africa was responsible for 8% of the world's total agricultural exports. Today, that number has dropped to 2% resulting in Africa being strictly dependent on food imports. Agriculture in this region should not be a problem due to the tropical climate, booming younger generation, and the huge area. However, agriculture in Africa is suffering due to the lack of fertilizer, technology, funds, and experience. Without a well producing crop, the people of Africa lack certain nutrients needed to live. Africa consists of 11.73 million square miles of “Savanna Woodlands also known as Miombo Forest in the North, a series of Dry Woodlands to the in the South, arid and Semiarid Grassland, Scrubland, and Bushland in the Namib and Kalahari Deserts, and Mediterranean Vegetation along the Southern Coast” (Britannica). African climates are seasonal, ranging from temperate to tropical and arid to semiarid. These zones range from the heavy rain-forest vegetation to relatively sparse, dry and arid vegetation with low rainfall. Africa also consists of a series of plateaus that cover most of the country. The region is generally drained Eastward toward the Indian Ocean, a pattern made by the largest
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African farm yields are amongst the lowest in the world, resulting in most of the farmers being poor and not being able to afford the high price equipment and high price seeds to do well in the ag business. This makes it nearly impossible for farmers in Africa to adopt new farming techniques. There are some financial groups in Africa but due to the lack of money for the farmers they can not seek help and some don't know how the groups work. “Only 35% of surveyed farmers said they could access appropriate finance for their investment.” (Africa and the World). Also “only 13% of respondents said access to finance had improved over the past 12 months.” This leads me to my next
Somalia is one of the world’s poorest and least developed countries (Campbell). Because of the Civil War, which broke out in 1991, much of Somalia’s economy has been devastated. The war left many homeless and drove them to raise livestock as a means of survival. The economy used to be based on exports of cattle, goats, and bananas but as of early 1992 much of the economic trade had come to a halt. Now the economy is primarily based on the raising of livestock, which accounts for 40% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) (Alhaus). Due to overgrazing, soil erosion, and the clearing away of many trees, Somalia has very few natural resources, which have not been exploited.
Africa is the world’s poorest inhabited continent, with more than one third of its residents living on less than a comparative US dollar per day. Africa is often stereotyped as poor, overpopulated, and uncivilized. Africa is commonly interpreted as one united land mass rather than multiple independent nations. Africa’s limited use of technology, agriculture and market based economy, and independent self-governing prior to independence have made gathering data on the continent difficult. Africa as a whole has little data collected about its past and as a result many studies conducted and published refer to the continent as a whole rather than referring to individual nations.
Niger has faced persistent food insecurity for quite some time. Their increasing food crisis has only been worsened by their climate change, desertification, and population growth.
Africa is the second largest of the earth's seven continents, covering about twenty-two percent of the world's total land area. From its northern most point, to its southern most tip is the distance of nearly five thousand miles. Africa is both north and south of the equator. The Atlantic Ocean is located west of the continent, and the Indian Ocean is on the east. Width of the continent is also nearly five thousand miles. Although Africa is so large, much of it is inhabitable. Desert soils, which have little organic content, cover large areas. The Sahara Desert, in the northern part, covers more than one fourth of Africa, and the Kalahari Desert is in the southern part of the continent. These two deserts are a natural detriment to the African continent because they make it difficult to reach the inland where most of the people live. Although Africa is relatively close to Europe, travel by land over the Sahara desert is very prohibitive. Another topographical feature that also isolates the central region of Africa is the coastline.
Now we all know that Africa is some of the most fertile, lush land in the world. Africa abounds with game and almost any type of fruit and berries imaginable. The actual deserts in Africa are quite small, and those images of starving African Negroes you see on your TV is only a very tiny portion of Africa's vast abundance. Any geography professor will tell you this, and they will tell you it has been like this for millennia.
Agriculture is the primary livelihood strategy for 85% of the rural population in developing regions (Quinion et al. 2010). One method that is being used in Africa i...
The top three biomes, which are seen in Africa, are deserts having little to no water for several weeks; savannahs has a wet and a dry season, and the rainforest where there is an abundance of water. These are important details, when we are sorting out the details for why various food sources were abundant and in some areas, yet in others; they were scarcely available if not at all. “The essential staples in Africa includes yams, cassava, green bananas, plantains, sorghum, millet, barley and lentils” These were known to be used either in combination or added with meat as a flavoring, if it were available. Later after trade routes were formed and settlers from outside countries and influences had been established, other staples were slowly introduced into the lives of Africans. Asian influences brought rice, curries, and other spices. Kenyans in the east traded with Arabs for dried fruits and spices. The coastal areas of Africa would trade with the Chinese and the British, which brought in “pigs, sheep, goats, asparagus, oranges, lemons, and limes.” Of
A common myth most people believe about Africa is that is one giant rain forest with monkeys and giant spiders. In fact, Africa is a lot more diverse than people imagine. A notion people tend to have is that Africa is hot year round and that it never rains. It actually has a broad array of climates ranging from snow storms in the mountains to extreme blistering heats in the deserts. One might never put the words snow and Africa together in the same sentence but a high enough elevations, it can actually get cold enough to snow. While there is a giant rainforest, it only covers a small portion of sub-Saharan Africa. The rest is made up of vast green lands, hot and dry, arid desert, and less dense tropical rain forest. Much of the rain forest is on the equator near the top of sub-Saharan African before reaching the arid deserts before
Foods from Africa, which have impacted North American cuisine are numerous, and common in the everyday eating habits of Americans. In the 21st century, Americans take for granted the history of the food they eat, and the origins of the foods that are eaten today. In the early part of the history of the United States, people of European descent brought recipes from home and adapted their recipes to the ingredients which were available. The slave trade was directly responsible for what many Americans think of as American food, and those foods are traceable to Africa. Because slaves incorporated their own foods into the everyday lives of their masters, some of the unique foods from Africa and their history are not well known today. American
Founou-Tchuigoua, Bernard Food self-sufficiency: Crisis of the collective ideology African agriculture: The critical choices. United Nations University Press (1990) ISBN 0-86232-798-9
Growth in Africa is not enough for its people to grow, which is leading to poverty and hunger in Africa. Today Africa is one of the leading countries having poverty and economic problems. One half of the Africans live below the poverty line which leads to low human development in Africa. The main cause of poverty in Africa is a problem in its economic system and environmental factors. Because of poverty people of Africa remain hungry as they don’t have enough money to buy their food and their basic needs. Some of the African countries have less poverty rate than others due to good government and economic system in those countries. Most of the African is facing challenges to survive and keep their family healthy.
...earch and extension, rural infrastructure, and market access for small farmers. Rural investments have been sorely neglected in recent decades, and now is the time to reverse this trend. Farmers in many developing countries are operating in an environment of inadequate infrastructure like roads, electricity, and communications; poor soils; lack of storage and processing capacity; and little or no access to agricultural technologies that could increase their profits and improve their livelihoods. Recent unrest over food prices in a number of countries may tempt policymakers to put the interests of urban consumers over those of rural people, including farmers, but this approach would be shortsighted and counterproductive. Given the scale of investment needed, aid donors should also expand development assistance to agriculture, rural services, and science and technology.
The backbone of a stable nation, socially and politically, is agriculture. Agriculture is the largest sector that provides a nation with food and employment. Agriculture is currently being affected by climate change and at the same time it is also a contributor to climate change. The drastic elevations in climate change started from the mid to late 20th century and they have been increasing since then (Boisvenue & Running 2006). Climate change is affecting agriculture by interfering with the efficiency of crop production. Agriculture is facing droughts, flooding, sea level elevations, natural disasters, and health hazards for employees. All of these exponents lead to crop failure that creates famines and food prices to rise. On the other side, agriculture is also contributing to climate change through their output of greenhouse gas emissions and carbon footprints. These are caused by the activities that agriculture engages with such as breeding of livestock, ploughing of fields, deforestation, and the use of pesticides and other agrochemicals. Climate change affects countries differently, mainly due to their ability to adapt and their geographical location. Canada and Russia benefit from the changes in climate while Sudan and Bangladesh are affected negatively, struggling to adapt. Agriculture and climate change are interrelated processes that exist mutually making it harder to reduce one without affecting the other.
Haruna. U. Nasira. M. Umar. M.B. Sustainability Issues and Nigeria’s Agricultural Paradigm, Agricultural Economics and Extension Programme, Abuakar Tafawa Bawela University, PMB 0248, Bauchi, Nigeria. Department of Agricultural Technology, Jigawa State College of Agriculture, PMB 01, Hadejia State, Nigeria
To understand why is agriculture important in the world of today, then first of all we must know what agriculture is? Agriculture is the basic material production of society, the use of land for agriculture and livestock, mining plants and animals as raw materials and labor to produce mainly food and some raw materials for industry. Agriculture is a major industry, covering many disciplines: planting, breeding and processing of agricultural products; in the broadest sense, also including forestry and fisheries. Agriculture is an important economic sector in the economy of many countries, especially in the past century , when the industry has not yet developed. Since the dawn of history, agriculture has been one of the importance means of producing