Cultivating the African savannah
Full details
| Authors & editors | |
| Publisher | Milling & Grain |
| Year of publication | 2017 November |
| Languages | |
| Medium | Digital |
| Edition | 1 |
| Topics | |
| Tags | |
| Scope & content | AfDB launches pilot programme to cultivate the savannah in eight African countries. The savannahs of Africa cover a mind-boggling 600 million hectares, of which 400 million hectares are cultivable, the President of the African Development Bank, Akinwumi Adesina, has said. But just 10 percent of this is cultivated, a mere 40 million hectares, Adesina said Wednesday, while speaking at a session titled “Transformation of the African Savannah Initiative” at the 2017 World Food Prize-Borlaug Dialogue symposium in Des Moines, Iowa. According to the AfDB President, so huge is the potential of African savannahs that the World Bank called the Guinea savannah zone “one of the major underutilised resources in Africa.” He noted that Africa’s savannahs were better than the savannahs of Brazil, a country notable for turning its savannahs into agricultural wealth, saying Africa’s soils were not acidic and therefore did not need liming which had to be done at massive scales in Brazil. “The initiative will start by bringing approximately two million hectares of savannah in eight African countries — Ghana, Guinea, Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, Uganda, Kenya, Zambia, and Mozambique — under the cultivation of maize, soybean, and livestock production in optimum conditions.” The goal: to double production in those eight countries…Read more. |
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