Johannesburg: The NEPAD Business Foundation (NBF) will host the first Southern African Agriculture Development Partnership Platform (SADDPP) Agriculture Conference in Mozambique on 21 May 2013, bringing together the country’s agribusiness players and government agencies in deliberations on partnerships that can increase investment in the sector. Formed in 2012 under the Removing the Barriers in Agriculture Programme funded by USAID, SAADDP is a multi-stakeholder partnership platform for private sector, government, farmers’ associations, donors, development finance institutions and civil society to unblock investment and trade constraints in the agriculture sector. 

African ministers of trade recommended in November 2010, in Kigali, that Africa should fast-track its regional integration process. This political will was reaffirmed during the 18th African Union Summit held in Addis Ababa in January 2012, as African heads of state and government endorsed an action plan for “boosting intra-African trade and the establishment of the continental free trade area�, with 2017 set as the tentative date for the creation of the CFTA. The foregoing analysis, using a computable general equilibrium model, shows that such trade reform would benefit Africa as a whole. The results indicate that, for Africa as a whole, the establishment of regional FTAs would increase continental exports, real income, and real wages for all categories of workers, although the estimated changes are small.

New York:  The international community could end hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition sustainably by 2025 through holistic and “win-winâ€� sustainable agriculture approaches, the head of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said on Monday.  “It is an ambitious goal, but we need to be bold.  And countries around the world are showing that this is possible,â€� José Graziano da Silva, FAO Director-General, said via video link in a keynote address to the Economic and Social Council. 

The food price crisis revealed contradictions in creating food policy. Much of the common policy response can be explained by a benevolent, unitary government. To understand the variance between countries, however, requires understanding fractured government decision-making, path dependency, and institutional constraints. Governments’ relationships with the private sector are very complex. They reveal both the firms’ lobbying successes as well as how the deep distrust between private and public sectors lead to perverse policy incentives and unintended consequences that undermine intended outcomes. Decision makers’ private interests and riot prevention played significant roles in selected cases, but were not leading factors overall.

Johannesburg: The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) African Facility for Inclusive Markets (AFIM) and the Alliance for Commodity Trade in Eastern and Southern Africa (ACTESA), a Specialised Agency of the Common Market for Southern Africa (COMESA) have launched a new initiative – the Southern Africa Project Facilitation Platform (RPF) that will be sustained through partnership between COMESA-ACTESA and UNDP. The initiative aims to support the development of high potential regional value chains through presentation and facilitation of selected projects in maize, ground nuts and soy beans.

Geneva:  Greening global trade is a vital step to achieving sustainable development, and developing countries are well positioned to help catalyze this transition, according to a new report released by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

Tunis:  The African Development Bank (“AfDBâ€� or “the Bankâ€�) is one of the key institutions advancing agriculture development in Africa and supports the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition, which was launched during the G8 summit in May 2012. The objective of the New Alliance is to lift 50 million people out of poverty over the next decade through a collective commitment to invest in credible, comprehensive and country-owned plans, develop new tools to mobilize private capital, spur and scale innovation, manage risk; as well as engage and leverage the capacity of private sector partners. Securing adequate financing for the agriculture sector remains a challenge.

Johannesburg:  A tiny, rapidly breeding cyanide-munching insect, dubbed a "super-fly" by scientists, is threatening the food security of millions of Africans. The Bemisia tabaci - one of several whitefly species - carries lethal viruses that cause cassava brown streak disease (CBSD) and cassava mosaic disease (CMD), which have decimated the hardy cassava plant.  Cassava, a tropical root crop, is the third most important source of calories in the tropics, after rice and maize.

Gaborone: Perhaps the one thing that stands out the most in the international coffee trade is not its obvious injustices of African, Asian and Latin American coffee growers which get  some 7% of the value of roasted coffee sold in super-markets. The Fairtrade people have complained for years and have made some impact when it comes to farmers returns for their coffee. An even more glaring issue is the coffee trade  of countries like Germany which  has grown so rapidly over the last decade  that it now exports more coffee than all of Africa put together. According to the International Coffee Organisation, in 2011 African countries exported some 10 million bags (60kg each) or about 9% of total world production. Germany, without actually growing one bean, exported or more correctly re-exported, 11.9 million bags of coffee in the same year.

Dar es Salaam: Organic food producers in the country have an opportunity to tap international markets if they adhere to accepted global safety standards in production of the food crops. Representatives of ten local groups who attended the two-week Fruit Logistics and Biofach Organic Exhibitions in Nuremberg, Germany, made the revelations in Dar es Salaam, urging fellow farmers to make use of the opportunity. Some ten local institutions involved in organic farming and three business development organizations at the Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA) attended the exhibitions on a learning tour.