Africa

Members of South Africa’s fresh produce production and marketing industry have expressed suspicion that Botswana is unfairly protecting its fresh produce farmers in contravention of the arrangements of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) free trade area.

Global agricultural equipment company, AGCO, recently announced plans to restructure its Asia-Pacific region to include Africa and increase its operations in Africa. Gary Collar, senior vice-president and general manager (GM) for Asia-Pacific and Africa and Nuradin Osman, GM for AGCO Africa, spoke to Denene Erasmus about AGCO’s plans for expansion in Africa that will be driven from the company’s new regional headquarters in Johannesburg.

The outbreak of the virulent H5 strain of avian flu in Uganda, has led to Kenya and Rwanda banning the importation of all poultry and poultry products from that country, Willy Bett, Kenya's agriculture cabinet secretary said at a news conference in Nairobi, Kenya.

Mastercard recently launched its 2KUZE project, a digital platform that connects smallholder farmers, agents, buyers and banks in East Africa. This was according to a Mastercard press release.

Widespread rainfall in Zimbabwe has increased the national dam level average, which had dropped to as low as 42% in 2016.

The European Union (EU) has announced funding of €35 million (about R507 million) for agricultural development in Liberia, as well as support for the country’s General Auditing Commission (GAC).

Zimbabwe is currently battling an outbreak of armyworm that has affected seven of the country’s eight rural provinces.

The shortage of a variety of fresh produce, much of it usually imported from South Africa, is due to a self-imposed import ban.

Acting on behalf of 40 local environmental organisations, the Namibia Chamber of Environment has sent an open letter to the Chinese embassy in Windhoek, bemoaning the fact that some Chinese nationals continue to show a blatant disregard of Namibia’s legal and environmental values, said organisation CEO Dr Chris Brown.

Good rains were reported in Namibia during the first week of January, but the rains were sporadic and some parts of the country remained desperately dry, said Sakkie Coetzee, CEO of the Namibia Agricultural Union (NAU) CEO.

Zambeef Products, Zambia’s largest integrated agribusiness and food processing company, has entered what chairperson, Dr Jacob Mwanza, described as a ‘new era’ of doing business.

Cold Storage Company (CSC), a meat processing and distribution parastatal, and ZimTrade, the national export promotion agency, have launched a training programme in Zimbabwe aimed at educating farmers on boosting goat production for exports.