With Dar es Salaam port providing access to the Indian Ocean for the interior of Tanzania and its neighbouring landlocked countries – Malawi, Zambia and the Congo, Tanzania has a large agricultural potential. The Southern Corridor, through serving both regional and international markets, could become a vibrant sustainable commercial farming sector, helping to enhance local food
The first of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) is to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger. According to the World Bank report World Development Indicators 2003, one sixth of the world’s population suffers hunger due to extreme poverty. Part of the hunger problem that is increasingly receiving attention is nutrition insecurity, or malnutrition, which affects one
According to statistics from the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), 95% of food producers live in developing countries. Precisely the area that is worst hit by climate change. Droughts are becoming more severe, floods are devastating entire plantations and a lack in infrastructure and knowledge and access to technology means that
The diets of the poor in developing countries usually consist of very high amounts of staple foods such as maize, wheat and rice, and few micronutrient-rice foods such as fruits and vegetables.
Harvest Plus seeks to reduce micronutrient malnutrition among the poor by breeding and disseminating staple food crops that are high in iron, zinc and
Food fortification, which adds essential vitamins and minerals to foods, is an important strategy to fight malnutrition. The cost of food fortification to reduce widespread malnutrition can be as low as a few cents per individual per year for adding iodine to salt, and up to US$ 0.25 for more complex vitamins and minerals.
GAIN, the
Rice farmers in the Philippines are being given advice on best fertilizer use through a new text message programme.
The scheme, thought to be a worldwide first, has been launched by the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) where scientists have spent 18 years refining a computerized system to advise farmers on optimal fertilizer use via their
