Africa

Future of Agriculture: Investing in Mechanization, Increasing Productivity

In most developing countries, there has been a continuous decline in agricultural productivity in the last decades due to many factors such as the negative impact of climate change, decline in soil fertility, lack of mechanisation, inadequate or lack...

One Step at a Time: Meaningful Collaboration to Solve our Food Security Issues

We have started a new year, with many expectations toward achieving food security. These expectations cannot be achieved without a concrete plan; with feasible strategies and resources. However, resource constraints are a challenge, political...

How the Nigerian presidency can help to improve food production

Nigeria is suffering from food shortage, due to both insufficient investments in agriculture and climate change. In this interview by Ehime Alex for the International Center for Investigative Reporting, Ikechi Agbugba addresses the problems of...

Zero Hunger: Agriculture is our Greatest Asset, Own It!

Over the last 7 years, every week I have taken time to put my letters together where I raised several issues in the agricultural sector in West Africa (which many are applicable in Africa) and as well as proffer solutions to some of the issues...

Farming in Nigeria: Another 365 Days with its Tales

With the rising costs of food production, leading to increasing food inflation, the Nigerian farmers have had a rough year with some distortions along the food chain. The consequences are fully borne by the farmers and a small fraction is being felt...

Farmers Social Protection: An Effective Social Safety Net is not Negotiable

In the 21st century, it is sad that smallholder farmers are still one of the most vulnerable groups in our society. As a general belief, farming is a risky business enterprise, where risks are solely borne by the farmers. Therefore, whenever there is...

Brain Re-engineering can boost Food Security in Africa

The Brain Re-engineering Concept and Re-imagination (BRECR) is a powerful approach to educating young academics in agriculture and food systems research in Africa, says Dr. Ikechi Agbugba.

Agricultural Cooperatives: Leveraging on the Power of Numbers for Increased Productivity and Impact

A cooperative is a group of individuals with common interests and working toward achieving specific objectives. These objectives could differ across cooperatives due to factors such as circumstances the members find themselves (Agbekoya), cultural...

Reinventing Farming for Higher Productivity: A Financially Literate Farmer should be the Goal

In the business of agriculture, understanding financial concepts is an underrated skill and applying it in your day-to-day activities is the icing on the cake - a farmer cannot go wrong with it. Every farmer should have a good understanding of...

The Future of Food: There is a Need to Build an Efficient Indigenous Knowledge System

Farming is the practice of knowledge - understanding the soil to establish its suitability, cultivating the land using the appropriate equipment, using the appropriate seeds and upholding good agricultural practices to achieve maximum yield and...

Our Food System: Preparing for the Future

In the past, we have had a time where our food system was very solid and effective. We were able to produce sufficient food for our populace and enough for export. We earned good returns and used the proceeds to develop some critical infrastructures...

Reflection: Agricultural Policies don’t “Work” here, they are just “Ghost Workers”

In the last 7 years since I started writing this weekly series titled "A Letter to my Farmers", I have constantly upheld that working policies would significantly impact our food system, and achieving food security or zero hunger becomes a...