What's New

According to a new FAO Situation Report , Ethiopia could be facing a new drought in the southeastern regions of the country. Following on the tail of the 2015-2016 El Niño-driven drought, which was the worst drought the country has seen in decades, this new period of dryness could significantly impact the food security and livelihoods of livestock-producing households in the region.

Reliable, timely data is crucial to fight hunger and malnutrition and to drive overall development in Africa south of the Sahara; however, significant research and data gaps exist, in terms of both the availability of information and the effective, transparent use of that information by policymakers. (For further discussion of existing research gaps, read about our side event at the recent 2016 ReSAKSS Conference). Improving food security information (FSI) is therefore a development goal that goes hand-in-hand with eradicating hunger.

Fertilizers, particularly inorganic (chemical) fertilizers, have the ability to substantially increase farmers’ agricultural productivity.  However, in Nigeria, fertilizer use remains low; according to a new AGRODEP working paper , inorganic fertilizer use in Nigeria is 11.3kg/ha and organic fertilizer use is only 0.2kg/ha. This puts Nigeria well below the targeted 50 kg/ha set forth in the Abuja Declaration. To address this low fertilizer use, the Nigerian Federal Government established a subsidy to help farmers access inorganic fertilizers.

Better linking Africa’s rural smallholder population to national, regional, and international agricultural value chains is a key rural development and poverty reduction priority. Which types of interventions will be successful in improving such linkages is highly context-specific, however, depending on the country, the target population, and the specific product being marketed. In a new book , IFPRI researchers examine how to best evaluate and implement context-specific value chain development (VCD) interventions, with several case studies conducted in Africa south of the Sahara.

It is a commonly held belief that post-harvest losses along staple food value chains in developing countries tend to be high. However, a new research note from the Ethiopia Strategy Support Program (ESSP) suggests that in the case of Ethiopian teff, this may not be true.