Food in Hot Water

In this blog post, I will be examining a case study of Kenya and its horticulture agribusiness, which has been one of the more successful stories on the African continent. The factors which allowed horticulture to flourish and specifically, the role of irrigation in smallholder farms will be explored. The narratives of Africa with regards to agriculture, can sometimes be steeped in how the continent is not fulfilling its potential. There are, however, some countries which have subverted this account and had considerable development of their agriculture industry. An example is Kenya, an eastern and central Africa country which derives 26% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) from agriculture directly and another 27% through linkages with other industries (FAO, 2019) .   Although key agricultural exports such as coffee and tea contribute significantly to Kenya’s GDP, I will focus more on horticulture produce as 1.      It has increased 5 times in real dollar v...

In this blog post, I will be covering some possible misconceptions people might have about Africa and a broader perspective surrounding water and food. Irrigation may seem like a simple answer to increasing productivity on the African continent where food productivity per capita is the lowest in the world, but there are far more complex issues at hand that discourage adoption of irrigation techniques. Food is also tied to development in societies dominated by agriculture. News about Africa is seemingly dominated by negativity, insecurity and the plight of Africans (Nothias,2016) . Whether how veritable such information is, they can dominate certain representations and paint a distorted picture. Regarding water and food, Nikoloski, Christiaensen and Hill (2018) state that a predominant perception of impacts to agriculture in Africa is drought. However, other occurrences such as floods, landslides and price fluctuations can also bring about significant detriment (Nikoloski,Christia...

Welcome everyone to this blog! I am Gordon and over the next few weeks, this blog will cover issues relating water and food in Africa, of which I feel is very current and salient. Amidst the great breadth of topics, I plan to focus on the following: food production, climate change, food security and the future of farming. Given the varied landscapes and environments in Africa, I would use a select few case studies and focus on different regions for the subsequent posts. Setting the stage Globally, agriculture is responsible for most freshwater consumption, accounting for “70% of freshwater withdrawals from rivers and aquifers” (UNCTAD, 2011, p.1) . Such close links between water and agriculture entails that water is an important part of food production and security (FAO, 2008) . While Africa as a whole does not suffer from a lack of water resources, it is estimated only 4% of arable land is irrigated (Giordano, 2005) . Compounded by the low per capita agricultural production, many peo...