Surviving Zimbabwe’s Anti-Gay Laws

Matthew Jacobs* has been married for two years but his wife doesn’t know that he is also in a relationship with someone else. If his secret were discovered, it could result in him ending up in jail. His crime? Being in a same-sex relationship.

Resistance Over GMOs as South Africa Pushes Biotechnology

On a family farm tucked between the rolling hills of Masopane, 40 km outside of South Africa’s capital, Pretoria, 35-year-old Sophie Mabhena is dreaming big about her crop of genetically modified (GM) maize.

Keeping the Grass Greener for African Plant Breeders

For the few plant breeders in Africa like Vivian Oduro, working for an international research institution is an obvious choice, with prestige and benefits any agricultural scientist would find hard to decline.

Free Expression Still a Mirage for Zimbabwean Artists

That citizens cannot enjoy democracy if they are ruled by an undemocratic party is the warning that got Cont Mhlanga's play "Members" banned from theatre stages in Zimbabwe in 1985.

Restoring Sight to Africa’s Gender-Blind Rice Sector

For more than 20 years, Anastasia Ngwakun from Bamunkumbit village in central Cameroon has been farming rice the hard way – using only hand tools. But Ngwakun knows that if she were a man, she would have access to the technology that would not require her to work so hard.

Africa’s Farmers Seek Private Money

Africa currently imports almost 40 billion dollars worth of food a year, but it should implement measures to attract private sector investment in agriculture in order to reduce its food import bill and increase its self-reliance, experts in the sector tell IPS.

Food Disparities Are Scandalous, Says Pope Francis

Pope Francis has challenged the Food and Agriculture Organisation to end global food disparities, describing it as scandalous that despite food abundance, millions of people still die of hunger.

Q&A: Family Farms Hold the Future of Food

A spirited campaign by the World Rural Forum (WRF) - a grouping of civil society organisations - led to the declaration of 2014 as the International Year of Family Farming by the U.N. General Assembly at its 66th session in 2011.

No Food Security Without Land Security

If slavery was a scourge to humanity, denying legitimate tenure rights is the cancer eating away the future of smallholder farmers who feed the world, often under trying conditions, say civil society organisations.

Feeding the World in Harmony with Nature

The world needs a more sustainable food production system based on knowledge that prioritises the conservation of natural resources to boost agricultural yields over the heavy use of pesticides and other chemical inputs, say experts promoting the concept of agroecology.

Nigeria’s Recipe for Hunger Reduction

Nigeria -one of Africa’s most populous states and a major oil producer - learned hard lessons about under-investing in food security for its people: malnutrition went up; so did prices and corruption in the voucher system for farming inputs.

No Till, More Yields

For Catherine Dube, it is a good time to catch up on village happenings and sing-alongs when she meets with neighbours to dig basins in each other's fields in preparation for the planting season.

Bringing Home the Bacon the Green Way

The world can satisfy its growing appetite for meat and animal-based products without upsetting livelihoods, especially of developing country farmers, or worsening climate change.

Genes are Gems for Food Security

What can savvy global financial market traders learn from humble smallholder farmers in developing countries? Risk management in the face of climate change. 

Advancing the Development Goal Posts

With the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) expiring in less than 1,000 days, new goals are needed that prioritise support for smallholder farmers to better access markets and increase productivity, nutrition and incomes.

Q&A: Of Riots and Rice in Africa

Thanks to food riots in several African cities fuelled by high rice prices between 2007 and 2008, sub-Saharan Africa is growing and eating more rice after governments were forced into ambitious production programmes.

Zimbabwean Farmers Adrift Amid Power Struggles

For the past five years, farmer Melusi Mhlanga has spent nearly 200 dollars each season for inputs, but the maize yields have not matched his investment. 

Morphine Kills Pain but its Price Kills Patients

It took Gily Ncube’s daughters two weeks to sell enough chickens to raise the 18 dollars needed to buy the morphine tablets their mother takes every four hours.

Q&A: Depending on Democracy to Deliver Sustainable Development

"Accelerating environmental pressures and growing economic inequality are triggering huge social changes around the world, putting existing democracies to the test,” Halina Ward, director of the London-based Foundation for Democracy and Sustainable Development, tells IPS.

Farmers Need to Grow Climate Smart

Farmers cannot wait much longer for negotiators to reach an agreement on including a work programme on agriculture in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. And until one is approved, “it will continue to be difficult for farmers to produce the food needed, and at the same time reduce greenhouse gas emissions."

/UPDATE*/ Africa – Calling for a GMO-Free Continent

South African smallholder farmer Motlasi Musi is not happy with the African Centre for Biosafety’s call for his country and Africa to ban the cultivation, import and export of all genetically modified maize. "I eat genetically modified maize, which I have been growing on my farm for more than seven years, and I am still alive," he declared.