Strong prospects await global companies that invest in the continent’s consumer, agricultural, natural-resource, and infrastructure sectors. These sectors combined could be worth $2.6 trillion in annual revenues by 2020.

Nnaemeka Ikegwuonu, a Nigerian activist and entrepreneur develops a sustainable, community-owned and managed radio through which farmers can share knowledge with each other.

Solar-powered drip irrigation systems significantly enhance household incomes and nutritional intake of villagers in arid sub-Saharan Africa, according to a new Stanford University study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). The two-year study found that solar-powered pumps installed in remote villages in the West African nation of Benin were a [...]

Malawi is to receive a 1.5 million US dollar grant to boost its agricultural sector. The three-year project, sponsored by Japan, will target and train about 280 farmers in the northern district of Mzimba. It is aimed at increasing food production by teaching farmers new farming methods, and encouraging self reliance. The southern African country [...]

Uganda has launched a coffee roasting and packaging company, described as the first of its kind in Africa. President Yoweri Museveni launched the Good African Coffee factory on Friday. The company will export coffee directly to global supermarket chains in the United Kingdom and South Africa. The one-million US dollar enterprise is capable of producing [...]

The 2009 World Food Prize ($250,000) will be awarded to Dr. Gebisa Ejeta of Ethiopia, whose sorghum hybrids resistant to drought have dramatically increased the production and availability of one of the world’s five principal grains.

Butterfly farming in Kenya is becoming an important source of foreign income, with annual earnings of more than 100 million US dollars. The government’s ministry of lands launched the farming project in 2005 to conserve forests in the country. But in the last four years it has become a huge source of income for forest [...]

Farmers across Africa are participating in a new pilot scheme which will help them locate areas where drought-resistant beans are sold. The scheme, which was launched in Kenya last Thursday, will send mobile alerts to government workers and farmers in remote regions. The technology will map the location of traders selling drought-tolerant beans and send [...]

Ghanaian small-scale farmers may lose land
Small-scale farmers in Ghana are in danger of losing their livelihoods due to a rise in demand for bio-fuels. A joint study by global charity, ActionAid, and advocacy network, FoodSPAN, found that the activities of foreign companies exploiting land for bio-fuel production are having serious knock-on effects. The lead researcher [...]

Zimbabwe’s remaining few hundred white farmers are under intense pressure to abandon their land, crops, homes and workers on the eve of a unity government. Most white farmers were evicted from their land by Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe’s government earlier this decade.