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West Africa faces mixed food security impacts from the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Food security in West Africa has been deteriorating since 2015: The proportion of the population affected by undernutrition rose from 11.5% in 2015 to 18.7% in 2020, a total of 75.2 million people. Now, like the rest of the world, the region faces rapidly growing impacts from Russia’s war in Ukraine, including spiking food prices and disruptions in markets for cereals and other commodities, including fertilizers and fuels. What are some of the war’s likely effects on West Africa?
New E-Learning Courses Launched on FSP E-Learning Platform
The Food Security Portal E-learning Platform has launched two new courses: the French version of the Pro-WEAI (Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index) Foundations Module and a brand-new course focused on training Farmer Business School facilitators.
Contract Farming and Environmental Protection: Evidence from Ghana
Over the past three decades, contract farming has grown in popularity with policymakers and development practitioners throughout low- and middle-income countries. Under contract farming schemes, farmers and buyers enter into preharvest agreements regarding the production and sale of agricultural goods. Farmers are thus assured they will have a buyer for their product, and traders and retailers are guaranteed a supply of saleable goods.
Estimating smallholder maize yields in Ethiopia with satellites and machine learning
Accurate and precise monitoring of agricultural output in developing countries is a crucial tool for the proper allocation of public funds and services, in addressing poverty, and in sustainably increasing yields to feed growing populations. But accurate crop yield estimation is particularly challenging in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), where heterogeneous smallholder farms predominate, making data collection expensive and often subject to systemic bias.
The Russia-Ukraine crisis poses a serious food security threat for Egypt
Russia's invasion of Ukraine has imperiled global food security—creating suffering within Ukraine and displacing millions, while disrupting agricultural production and trade from one of the world's major exporting regions. The latter threatens to drive rising food prices still higher and create scarcity, especially for regions most dependent on exports from Russia and Ukraine—particularly the Middle East and North Africa.