A LONG time struggle to transform agriculture is bearing fruit, giving hope for a brighter future. That was the implication in President Jakaya Kikwete’s move when launching an agricultural research facility built by International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA).

“Overcoming the many challenges facing African agriculture is a gigantic task that requires addressing many issues including developing adequate capacities for research in order to develop high yielding and disease-resistant seeds,” said president Kikwete.

The president added: “In 2006, the government of Tanzania developed a comprehensive 14-year Agricultural Sector Development Programme to overcome the challenges. The purpose is to increase agricultural productivity through more application of modern science and technology.”

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Barring any unforseen developments, the Afram Plains will soon give full meaning to its accolade of Ghana’s major food basket.

A tour of the two farming districts of Kwahu Afram Plains North and Kwahu Afrarm Plains South depicted that farmers there are now able to cultivate four times bigger acreages than they did previously, and their output per acre has more than quadrupled, thanks to such simple-but-effective technologies as irrigation pumps, improved seeds and animal breeds.

The Afram Plains District Agriculture Development Project (APDADP) is the brain behind the mechanisation of agriculture and the wonders it is doing in the Afram Plains.

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Windhoek — Namibian dieticians are in agreement with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation recommendations this week that eating nutritious insects could help fight obesity.

And for Namibia they recommend mopani worms. In fact the Ministry of Trade and Industry is confident that mopani worms have the potential to become an export item, equal to indigenous products such as the marula oil and silk from moths found on the Acacia tree. “The mopani worm could follow the same route,” opines Minister of Trade and Industry Calle Schlettwein when reached for comment this week. Schlettwein confirmed that his ministry is looking at all commodities to develop as consumer-ready products.

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TANZANIA has finally launched a food fortification programme aimed at adding value to food, in an effort to check health effects resulting from improper nutrition currently affecting 43 per cent of its children population.

President Jakaya Kikwete visited two popular processing factories in Dar es Salaam that have already kicked off the production of fortified food to officially launch the programme. He said at the events that starting the food fortification programme will help reduce — if not eliminating — health hazards grossly affecting stable growth of the children and the entire population.

“Food fortification will now achieve stable nutrition and not just eating for the sake of eating. Consuming food that is added with more value will equally eliminate health complications we now experience in our children,” Mr Kikwete observed.

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President Mugabe is today expected to launch a food and nutrition security policy and implementation plan, yet another gesture exhibiting his commitment to ensure no one starves as a result of drought that ravaged some parts of the country. Most parts of the country are in urgent need offood aid as the Head of State and Government and Commander-in-Chief of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces has also engaged the Zambian government to import 150 000 tonnes of maize from that country.

Vice-President Joice Mujuru, who is the chairperson of the National Taskforce on Food and Security, yesterday revealed that President Mugabe would launch the policy when she invited all Parliamentarians to grace the occasion. VP Mujuru would present the policy document while Agriculture, Mechanisation and Irrigation Development Minister Joseph Made and his Health and Child Welfare counterpart, Dr Henry Madzorera, would give solidarity messages.

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