Category: Agriculture
Fighting the fungus
Many African countries are working to curb the threat posed to human and animal health by mycotoxins. But climate change could set back their progress, Sharon Kantengwa reports. About 80% of East Africa’s population depend on farming for their livelihood. For them, an ever-present scourge is mycotoxins—harmful substances produced by mould growing on cereal crops […]
On Science and Homecoming: A diaspora African’s view
Neither guilt nor sentimentalism should drive an African diaspora scientist’s choice to return home, writes Sara Suliman, a postdoctoral researcher at Harvard University in the United States. Africa’s global diaspora harbours a disproportionate share of the continent’s top scholars and thought leaders. In 2014, the United States Census Bureau reported that Africa-born immigrants had the […]
Yam genetics unveil cradle of agriculture in Africa
African yams were domesticated from a forest species and cultivated for the first time in an area around the Niger River. The findings, published in the journal Science in May, provide new evidence for a cradle of agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa. Nora Scarcelli from the French Research Institute for Development in Montpellier, France, and her […]
On the lookout for oil-eating microbes
In Nigeria, once thriving ecosystems have been devastated by decades of oil exploitation including oil spills caused by sabotage or illegal refining. But Chioma Chikere, an environmental microbiologist at the University of Port Harcourt in Rivers State, is working on a solution. She speaks to Linda Nordling about her work using oil consuming microbes found […]
Investigating barriers between potato farmers and markets in Uganda
With its verdant mountainous slopes, Kabale in western Uganda is well-suited to potato cultivation. But simply because potatoes will grow there does not mean that it is possible to thrive as a farmer. This is a problem. The root vegetable features prominently in the Ugandan government’s agricultural ambitions. Its Development Strategy and Investment Plan for […]