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| IPS Africa stories from 2009 FANRPAN Regional Policy Dialogue and Annual General Meeting |
| 31 August 2009 - 4 September 2009 |
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FANRPAN acknowledges IPS Africa as the source of the below articles: http://africa.ipsterraviva.net/
http://africa.ipsterraviva.net/category/conferences/fanrpan/
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TerraViva Africa - September 2009
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No Development Without Agriculture
Menesia Muinjo and Nalisha Kalideen
Without agricultural development at the core of Africa’s progress, there will be no development on the continent. This was the unanimous agreement from delegates at the Food Agriculture Natural Resources and Policy Analysis Network (FANRPAN) regional dialogue.
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Women Farmers Take Centre Stage
Charles Mushizi and Patrick Chitumba
Take your seats: the curtain has risen on a fresh strategy to link small farmers and policy-makers across Southern Africa. Theatre has been chosen as the means to explain agricultural policy to people in rural areas, and carry voices from the countryside back to the seats of power.
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Dramatising Women Farmers' Struggles
Vusumuzi Sifile
Theatre and agriculture are two words not often seen together. But they are stepping out in tandem across Southern Africa in support of raising farm productivity and incomes.
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Visiting Boane
Zenzele Ndebele
Zenzele Ndebele gets his feet muddy in farmland around Boane, Mozambique.
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Managing An Unpredictable Environment
Hanson Tamfu
The water available in the Limpopo River basin, which stretches across Botswana, South Africa and Zimbabwe and Mozambique, is both in great demand and highly variable. Managing it effectively and to the satisfaction of all users is a challenge.
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Africa Can Feed Itself
Menesia Muinjo
If Africa’s farmers had access to modern farming technology – they could easily feed a billion people.
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Pinpointing the Impact of Agriculture on the Economy
Michael Hoevel
In Mozambique, differences in rainfall contribute to higher levels of poverty in drier areas.
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Malawi’s Food Production Subsidy Coupons
Menesia Muinjo
Malawi has put an end to subsidy coupon fraud by using farmers to hand them out to those who really need them.
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Policy Makers Out of Touch with Farmers Reality
Vusumuzi Sifile
Decisions about agriculture should be made in the outdoors, under trees and with the people whose livelihood it is to farm – not with suits in boardrooms.
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Using Water Efficiently for a Better Life
Busani Bafana
God is not making any new water. It will not rain anymore in the Limpopo Basin.
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CAADP: The African Solution for Net Export
Mohamed Fofanah
Rodger Phiri is a wealthy man. And the most amazing thing is that he made his money through farming.
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Farmers Facing Limpopo River Basin's Instability
Esther Tola
The Limpopo river basin located in Southern Africa, is covered by South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Mozambique. This river could be an important irrigation tool for surrounding farmers if its water level wasn’t that unpredictable.
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Research Findings not Getting to Farmers
Vusumuzi Sifile
Farmers could be losing tonnes of crops every harvest just because no one has bothered to tell them that scientists have found more effective methods of using water to farm.
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Livestock and Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Zenzele Ndebele
Delegates at FANRPAN’s annual regional policy dialogue speak to Zenzele Ndebele about livestock and greenhouse gas emissions.
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Communicate To Farmers On Climate Change
Hanson Tamfu
Across Africa, farmers have noted the effects of climate change, including rising temperatures and unpredictable rainfall patterns; but the explanations of these processes and what can be done about it has largely passed them by.
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Mozambique Recognised For Agriculture Policies
Salma Ahmad
The vision and effectiveness of Mozambique’s Green Revolution Strategy was today recognised with an award. The country’s action plan saw cereal production rise by 15 percent in just the last year.
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Parliament’s Role in Climate Change
Denis Jjuuko
From Cape Town to Cairo, Nairobi to Accra, the climate change story is not reverberating on the streets.
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Malawi Sustains the Farm Subsidy Success Story
Hanson Tamfu
In the days ahead, the one million hectares of fertile land along Lake Malawi and the country’s major rivers will be irrigated and cultivated in prepartion for the abundant harvest it will produce.
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Biofuels: Solving One Problem, Creating Another
Vusumuzi Sifile
African governments could be treading dangerously by rushing into the production of biofuels while food insecurity still stalks the continent. This could result in failing to meet the targets for biofuels, and at the same time jeopardising food security.
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Looking Out For Farmers’ Interests
Esther Tola
Improved seeds are key to increasing farmers’ yields and profits, but the seeds sold by multinational seed companies cannot be replanted the next year. This is fine for the companies bottom lines, but farmers who must buy new seeds every year are vulnerable.
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Lots of Crops But No Market for Malawi
Charles Mpaka
Lameck Samson, a farmer from Thyolo District in South Malawi cycled for two hours to sell his recently harvested two bags of maize.
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Climate Change – Bring the Word to the People
Mohamed Fofanah
It was climate change that killed 10 people in Sierra Leone.
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Climate Change destroys farmers' livelihoods
Frank Kayula
Small scale farmers across Zambia have had to stand by and helplessly watch their crops and livestock being destroyed because of the effects of climate change.
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GMOs: Choose Based on Evidence
Charles Mpaka
South African biotechnology expert Wynand van der Walt headlined a panel promoting biotechnology as a solution to raising Africa’s agricultural productivity. The audience was not entirely convinced.
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Can Unified Seed Laws Improve Food Security?
Busani Bafana
Eighty-year-old Cecilia Makota is blessed amongst women. She is one of the few in her district who can afford seeds from a stockist in Lusaka.
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No Money for Negotiators Means Africa May Not be Heard on Climate Change
Menesia Muinjo
It is good news that for the first time Africa has a united voice when it comes to climate change. But this means nothing if the continent lacks skilled negotiators to represent their standpoint at an upcoming global policy conference.
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Climate Change Now a Human Rights Issue
Vusumuzi Sifile
Climate change is no longer just about changing temperatures and rainfall patterns: it is also about human rights.
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"No Deal without Agriculture"
Mohamed Fofanah
Climate change was centre stage as the chair of the Food Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network (FANRPAN), Sindiso Ngwenya, opened the network’s annual regional dialogue in Maputo, declaring, "there should be no deal without agriculture."
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"Supermarket Revolution"
Vusumuzi Sifile and Salma Ahmad
The "supermarket revolution" could be on its way to African cities. But it is up to African governments to use increasing trends of urbanisation to their advantage.
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What do the delegates have to say?
Zenzele Ndebele
Zenzele Ndebele surveys delegates at FANRPAN’s annual regional policy dialogue in Maputo, Mozambique.
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Female farmer scoops award for food production
Menesia Muinjo and Geline Fuko
In the past, Celina Cossa would queue for days and even nights just waiting to buy a bag of maize. But that did not even guarantee she would be able to purchase it. Some nights her two children, her husband and her would go to sleep on empty stomachs.
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Seeking Diversity, Resilience and Farmer Control
Raffaella Delle Donne
The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) claims that its "stress breeding", high-yield seed program and its emphasis on grassroots farmer input will boost agricultural production among poor, small scale farmers. But NGOs and environmentalists say AGRA’s Programme for Africa’s Seed System (PASS) is essentially a top-down, corporate driven approach that further threatens food security on the continent.
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Biotechnology: Africa Must Not Be Left Behind
Wambi Michael
Africa must embrace agricultural biotechnology or risk being excluded from a major technological revolution that has had increased food production in the Europe, North America and Asia.
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Add Water and Stir
Phathizwe-Chief Zulu
What is the first step towards transforming life in a hardscrabble rural community? Address issues of water.
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Investment, Information Keys To Productivity
Busani Bafana
Sustained investment in agriculture accompanied by effective and inclusive policies are key strategies for Southern Africa to address the global food crisis.
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NGOs Sceptical of Govt’s Rural Development Plans
Louise Redvers
In an attempt to reduce rural poverty, Angola’s government plans to diversify its oil-focused economy by trying to restore the country’s once-booming agricultural sector.
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