Please post pictures of African farms and agricultural sector. :applause: POSITIVE RECOMMENDATIONS AND DISCUSSIONS ONLY:okay:

Can someone please tell me what regions of Africa are considered "Ideal" for agriculture?
and Why is Sudan often said to have the potential to become Africa's "bread basket"?

All of Africa have the potential to be self sufficent in food production. Lack of planning in the years which preceeded this has left agriculture in a poor state. If funds were channeled into agriculture as it should have been in the years gone, Irrigation, Seed and Produce Storage would have been well established. In periods of drought, water, drought resistant seed would have been employed by the farmers. I hope, there comes a time when the African nations will go back to agriculture and start to feed themselves rather than depending on food aid etc.

Case Study - Isreal has been able to produce crops in the Nagev desert. We have good land in nAfrica for Farming.:):):)

Can someone please tell me what regions of Africa are considered "Ideal" for agriculture?
basket"?


East africa, mainly Ethiopia, Sudan and kongo has long been considered the best places to farm in Africa, because of it's huge areas of fertile land and high altitude above sea level.

It has been estimated that nearly 70% of Ethiopia's land mass is cultivable, yet only 11% of the land is under cultivation and permanent crops.

Ethiopian agriculture has remained underdeveloped. Because of drought, a poor economic base, low productivity, weak infrastructure, and low level of technology.

And the most tragic thing is that a large number of farmers if not all the farmers depend on the rain. Everytime the rain fail to come, a new drought will always be there as long as the goverment fails to invest in irrigation of fertile land. Abolish the goverments right too all the land is a must!

An interesting article about Sudan agricultural boom with HUGE investment coming from arab world:


By Edmund Sanders
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
September 28, 2008



WAD RAWAH, SUDAN -- Africa's abundant natural resources have long invited foreign exploitation.

Over generations, foreign empires and companies stripped the continent of its gold and diamonds, then its oil. Rubber and ivory were plundered from Congo. Even Africa's people were exploited: captured and sold into slavery abroad.

Now foreigners are enjoined in a new scramble in Africa. The latest craze? Food. Amid a global crisis that for a time this year doubled prices for wheat, corn, rice and other staples, some of the world's richest nations are coming to Africa to farm, hoping to turn the global epicenter of malnutrition into a breadbasket for themselves.


Lured by fertile land, cheap labor and untapped potential, oil-rich Persian Gulf countries such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait, where deserts hinder food production, are snapping up farmland in underdeveloped African nations to grow crops for consumption back home.

"It's a perfect partnership," said Idriss Ashmaig, manager of the Sudan office for Hadco, a large Saudi agricultural company that made its first foreign foray with a $95-million deal to lease about 25,000 acres near the Nile River north of Khartoum. "Here there is water, land and climate. All they need is the capital."


By next spring, Hadco hopes to be exporting wheat, vegetables and animal feed to Saudi Arabia.

The Emirates government recently signed a similar deal in Sudan for up to 70,000 acres south of Khartoum, the capital. Investors from Qatar are fattening sheep and chickens not far away. Now Egypt and Ethiopia are also touting their agricultural potential, hoping to draw foreign interest.

(And it's not just Africa. Kuwaitis are exploring opportunities in South Asia. The Emirates is eyeing a $500-million investment in Pakistan. Libya is checking out Ukraine.)


The deals are bound to raise eyebrows because countries targeted by the investors are often struggling to feed their own populations. Though Sudan has thriving exports of cotton and gum arabic, it imports more than 1 million tons of wheat annually and has suffered recent deficits in another staple, sorghum. Regions in the south and west, including Darfur, are heavily reliant on international food aid, provided mostly by the United States.

"It's not as easy as siphoning oil out of a country," said Joachim von Braun, director of the Washington-based International Food Policy Research Institute.


Ethiopia, for example, is marketing its farmland to Saudi Arabia, yet the Horn of Africa nation has a history of famine and is currently combating serious drought. Under such circumstance, foreign growers planning to export food could face potential protests, even riots, from hungry locals, experts said. And even as it tries to lure the foreign investment, the government recently slapped a ban on all food exports in response to domestic shortages.

"It would be unimaginable for a foreign investor in Ethiopia now to simply ship out large amounts of grain," Von Braun said.


But he stressed that the foreign partnerships should benefit everyone by increasing worldwide food production. "We should not look at this trend with alarm. The more capital that finds its way into agriculture, the the total pie."

Sudanese officials say the new deals will help, not exploit, their country by creating jobs, promoting commercialization, and pumping much-needed investment into its agricultural industry.

"These partnerships can help lift our farmers," said Abdadaffie Fadlalah, agricultural commissioner at Sudan's Investment Ministry.


In Sudan, like much of Africa, decades of neglect have driven down crop production per acre to just one-third the international average. Even though it boasts the confluence of the White Nile and Blue Nile rivers, only 10% of Sudan's farmland is irrigated and only 20% of its arable ground is cultivated.

Government officials see foreign investment as a means of jump-starting the sector, expanding total output and introducing cutting-edge technology, such as new seed varieties and planting methods.


By watching and sometimes participating in foreign enterprises, farmers will learn improved techniques, Sudanese officials said. And if international prices stabilize, some of the food earmarked for export will probably be sold locally, boosting domestic supplies, they added.
[B]
To lure foreign dollars, Sudan eliminated duties on imports of agricultural-related goods, such as seed, fertilizer and tractors. Exports taxes, once 30%, were also removed. The government, which owns most of Sudan's land, is granting 99-year low-cost leases.


"The government is not interested in making money," said Salah Mohammed Taha, investment director at the Agriculture Ministry. "It's interested in developing the area."

Since the beginning of the year, he said, Sudan has leased nearly 2 million acres to foreign companies.


Agriculture is still a fraction of Sudan's total foreign investment. Oil has drawn more than $12 billion from China, Malaysia and India alone. Saudi interest in Sudan picked up sharply this year. The Persian Gulf country invested a fortune in cutting-edge technology to enable its own farmers to grow wheat in the desert. But the nation began to look outside, worried about long-term depletion of its underground water.


Investors with a longer history in Sudan say the country has already delivered impressive yields. By introducing a technique known as "zero tillage," in which seeds are planted without tilling the soil, the Arab-Sudanese Blue Nile Agriculture Co. said it drove cotton and sorghum yields up nearly three-fold.

"That's a remarkable increase in food production," said the project's deputy chief, Suleiman Shugeiry.

Officially, investors in Sudan are encouraged to assist communities by sharing irrigation systems, lending machinery or setting aside land for small farmers. But such benefits don't always materialize, and those snubs can lead to bad feelings.


For generations, the green fields of Wad Rawah, south of Khartoum, were used by Ahmed Mohammed Abdalla's family to grow sorghum. But when the Emirates-owned Zayed al Khair moved next door, his family lost the rights to more than 50 acres without compensation.

The foreign firm constructed a network of canals from the Nile for its crops, but it has refused to share the water. "They took our land and gave us nothing," said Abdalla, 80.

The firm hires about 300 locals as day laborers and permits herders to graze animals during the off-season. They also built a mosque.


But locals said foreigners should do more. "We don't need a mosque," Abdalla said. "We need hospitals and schools."

For investors, security and stability pose additional risks, analysts say. In the 1970s, Arab nations struck similar agricultural deals with Sudan, but most pulled out amid the country's worsening north-south civil war and a shift in government policy that nationalized some private ventures.


Sudan's current political problems, including the Darfur conflict, U.S. economic sanctions, an International Criminal Court genocide prosecution and the upcoming presidential election, could similarly threaten the foreign partnerships, said University of Khartoum economics professor Ibrahim Sobahi.

"This kind of investment tends to be shy because investors are sensitive to national and international hazards," he said. "The next three or four years in Sudan could be rough."

African Agricultural Technology Foundation to develop drought-tolerant maize varieties for small-scale farmers in Africa
Long-term goal of public-private partnership is to reduce crop failure, alleviate hunger and poverty

KAMPALA – The African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF) today announced a public-private partnership to develop drought-tolerant maize varieties for Africa. The partnership, known as Water Efficient Maize for Africa (WEMA), was formed in response to a growing call by African farmers, leaders, and scientists to address the devastating effects of drought on small-scale farmers and their families. Frequent drought leads to crop failure, hunger, and poverty. Climate change will only worsen the problem.

AATF announced the effort at the end of a two-day planning meeting that included representatives from each of the countries participating in the project: Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, and South Africa. The partners will use marker-assisted breeding and biotechnology to develop African maize varieties with the long-term goal of making drought-tolerant maize available royalty-free to African small-scale farmers. The benefits and safety of these maize varieties will be assessed by national authorities according to the regulatory requirements in each country.

‘This partnership fits well with the AATF mandate of facilitating innovative public/private partnerships that bring to smallholder farmers in Africa the tools needed to increase productivity for better food and income security,’ Said Mpoko Bokanga, Executive Director AATF.

AATF will work with the non-profit International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT); the private agricultural company, Monsanto; and the national agricultural research systems in the participating countries. The new drought-tolerance technologies have already been licensed without charge to AATF so they can be developed, tested, and eventually distributed to African seed companies through AATF without royalty and made available to smallholder farmers.
Bokanga added that the project will involve local institutions, both public and private, and in the process expand their capacity and experience in crop breeding, biotechnology, and biosafety.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Howard G. Buffett Foundation contributed a total of $47 million to this effort.

The Director General of the National Agricultural Research Organisation of Uganda Dr. Dennis Kyetere presided over the official announcement of the initiative and said that the project will help address drought and contribute to food security in Africa.
‘Drought is a source of suffering and food insecurity for many people in Uganda and it is recognised as a challenge by the government. Drought causes up to 100 percent crop failure in Uganda in some instances’, said Dr. Kyetere.

Africa is a drought-prone continent, making farming risky for millions of small-scale farmers who rely on rainfall to water their crops. Maize is the most widely grown staple crop in Africa: more than 300 million Africans depend on it as their main food source. It is severely affected by frequent drought.

In the next five years, the partnership will develop the new maize varieties, incorporating the best drought-tolerance technologies available internationally. CIMMYT will provide conventionally developed drought tolerant high-yielding maize varieties that are adapted to African conditions and expertise in conventional breeding and testing for drought tolerance. Monsanto will provide proprietary germplasm, advanced breeding tools and expertise. Additionally, Monsanto and BASF will provide drought-tolerance transgenes that they have developed through their collaboration. These contributions will be provided without royalty. The national agricultural research systems, farmers’ groups, and seed companies participating in the project will contribute their expertise in breeding, regulatory issues and will be responsible for country-specific implementation including project governance, testing, germplasm evaluation, seed production and distribution.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has funded an independent program at the McLaughlin-Rotman Centre for Global Health (University of Toronto) to assess and monitor social, cultural, ethical and commercial issues related to the WEMA Project. The independent organization will conduct annual audits of WEMA and serve as an additional communication channel for stakeholders.

According to eminent scientist Professor Calestous Juma, who is the Director of the Science, Technology and Globalisation Project at Harvard University, the WEMA project is a powerful signal of the relevance of biotechnology to African agriculture.

The collaboration between CIMMYT and national agricultural research systems has already yielded excellent gains in drought tolerance through conventional breeding. The partners in the WEMA project expect the combination of advanced breeding and biotechnology to bring even greater gains. The partners estimate that the maize products developed over the next 10 years could increase yields by 20 to 35 percent under moderate drought, compared to current varieties. This increase would translate into about two million additional tons of food during drought years in the participating countries, meaning 14 to 21 million people would have more to eat and sell.

The first conventional varieties developed by WEMA could be available after six to seven years of research and development. The transgenic drought-tolerant maize hybrids will be available in about ten years.

Risk of crop failure from drought is one of the primary reasons why small-scale farmers in Africa do not adopt improved farming practices. A more reliable harvest could give farmers the confidence to improve their techniques. Good soil health, improved training and support, pest and disease management, and access to markets to sell their surplus are all necessary for small-scale farmers to boost their yields and incomes. To date, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has invested more than $660 million as part of a broad agricultural development strategy that includes efforts in all of these areas so small-scale farmers could have access to the tools and opportunities they need to build better lives.

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The African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF) is an African-led charity designed to facilitate and promote public/private partnerships for the access and delivery of appropriate proprietary technologies with potential to increase the productivity of resource-poor smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa. (www.aatf-africa.org)

Why are the Arabians buying fertile land in Sudan etc?

They could just invest in (solar) desalination and fertilizers and they can grow the stuff in their own country easily despite it being a desert.