Oprah Winfrey – Public Service Fellowship

Please circulate to women in your networks:

Oprah Winfrey is once again lending her name and influence to help educate and empower more African women. The Oprah Winfrey Foundation has launched a fully-funded fellowship aimed at empowering African women who are in public service. It offers women from African countries the chance to study for free at New York University’s (NYU’s) Wagner graduate school of public service — in the hope of supporting Africa-led solutions to some of the world’s most pressing issues.

https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/oprah-winfrey-foundation-african-women-fellowship/

Sustainable Farming in Africa

Africa’s sustainable agriculture is a need of the hour if the country has to be brought out of poverty and hunger. Sustainable farming in Africa is therefore being given much boost by the World Bank, UNO in order to reform African agriculture. “Africa Project 2020” is a step taken in this direction.

 

The agricultural production in many of the African countries is quite low in comparison with the rest of the world. Due to this fact, there has been poverty and deprivation surrounding the continent and most of the people are living below poverty line. The result is high level of infant mortality rates, low level of economic development.

Sustainable Agriculture in Africa

Sustainable agriculture is a need of the hour for Africa if the country wants to come out of the shackles of poverty and become self sufficient in food production and food security. Due to these reasons, there has been a number of steps are being taken by the government of the African countries.

Community training is being given to the people of the rural areas, women are also being taught the basics of agriculture so that they too can participate in the programme. The people are also being trained in bio-intensive agriculture, poultry farming, rainwater harvesting and the like fields which are associated with agriculture.

 Improving African Agriculture

In this regard, efforts are being taken world over to improve African agriculture. The World Bank, The United Nations are some of the international bodies which have been making efforts in this regard and have borne fruits as well.

For the effective development of sustainable agriculture the economists too are working hard in order to bring out measures to reform the agriculture in Africa. It has been brought to the knowledge of everyone that existing efforts have not been sufficient in improving the agriculture of Africa so much more is desired.

“Africa Project 2020” is thereby an effort in this direction. The aim of the project is to make Africa self sufficient in food production, since at present a large amount of food grains are exported from the European and Asian countries. So it is an initiative in the right direction.Statistics about farms in Africa help us in knowing in about the overall farm development in the country which otherwise would not be possible.

It is primarily the organic farming which is basically practised in Africa. As many as 39 countries of Africa are employed in organic farming.

Area under farms in Africa

As much as 0.88 million hectares of land has been given the certificate of organic farming in Africa and there are as many as 470,000 farms in Africa. Uganda manages the largest number of farms in Africa. Uganda is having as much as 212,304 hectares of land under farms. On the other hand, Madagascar is having as much as 20,000 hectares of land under farms.

The largest organic areas are of the countries like Tunisia, South Africa, Tanzania apart from Uganda. As much as 8.2 million hectares of the land has been certified as ‘forests’ and ‘wild harvested areas’ in Africa. The countries where the wild collection areas are the largest includes Zambia, Sudan, Kenya, and Uganda.

Development of organic farming in Africa

There has also been noted that organic production is taking place in a number of areas without any certification also and hence correct information is not available. In the informal sector too the organic production takes place on a large scale.

With regard to the area under agriculture, Sao Tome along with Prince is having as much as 5.02% of the land share while Ethiopia is having as much as 0.28% of the share.

The number of farmers who are managing the farms in Africa are as many as 175,266 farmers. The total land area under organic farming is 417,000 hectares.

As much as 9.5 million hectares of land has been certified as bee keeping areas. Of the total area, as much as 5.1 million hectares is in Zambia, 3.0 million hectares is in Namibia.

The organic products have been growing in a large number in a number of countries like South Africa, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania.