Is Technology Africa’s Remedy To Food Crisis?

Written by Ann Brown

Mar 08, 2020

While desert locusts threaten food security in Africa, a nonprofit organization uses technology to address smallholder farming productivity constraints.

The swarms of voracious desert locusts that are devastating farms in East Africa have startled local farmers. The locusts have descended on East Africa in alarming numbers never seen in decades.

The tiny pests, if not controlled, have the capacity to fuel food insecurity and could exacerbate existing conflicts in an already precarious region. According to local news, the swarms have been tracked in northeastern Kenya as large as 926.6 square miles — an estimated 192 billion locusts with the capacity to consume as much food as 35,000 people in a single day and, with the right winds, travel up to 160km a day. The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation needs $76 million to combat the crisis.

Story from Standard Media. Story by Alex Abutu.

While farmers are battling with locusts in the East, the food crisis in West Africa is worsening as over 16 million people are currently under threat. People in Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Senegal are struggling to meet their daily food needs. The food crisis is the worst in the region since 2012, according to researchers. Current statistics from the World Food Programme show that low growth, rising population, drought, and floods have combined to worsen food insecurity in the Southern African region too as a record 45 million people face severe food insecurity. Although the situation seems hopeless, many organizations are involved in providing succor to the vulnerable and poor and some of these organizations have started a gradual revolution capable of, not only making Africa self-sufficient in food production but also, scaling up the quality of food.

It was formed in response to the need for an effective mechanism that would facilitate delivery and formation of appropriate partnerships to manage the development and deployment of innovative technologies for use by smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa. AATF is active in 13 countries of eastern, southern and western Africa, and is currently addressing challenges bedeviling key staples in Sub-Saharan Africa that include maize, rice, cassava, cowpea, banana, and potatoes.