Africa
Viewpoint: Uganda battles anti-GMO, anti-vaccine coalition agitating against COVID-19 immunization
A handful of activist groups are now working in tandem to undermine Uganda’s plans to inoculate its population against the ...
Ending hunger: Researchers are giving smallholder farmers the wrong advice, study claims
How can research help to end hunger? One way to answer this question is to assess published research on hunger, ...
GM crops can slash Africa’s pesticide use: Insect-resistant cowpea field trial shows farmers how
A team of scientists developing Bt Cowpea at CSIR-SARI organized a field day at its confined field trial site in ...
Agroecology must be based in reality, not romanticism, panelists agree
Agroecology has a role to play in transforming agriculture — so long as the movement doesn’t trump the science or ...
Nigeria’s maize import ban could boost adoption of GM varieties
Though a ban on maize imports could accelerate Nigeria’s adoption of genetically modified (GM) TELA maize, it may be two ...
Burkina Faso renews commitment to GM crops with Bt cowpea
Burkina Faso scientists and farmers say their country has not abandoned crop biotechnology, despite challenges that prompted it to shelve ...
Podcast: CRISPR-edited weed; opioid addiction vaccine; Africa’s neglected diseases
An opioid-blocking vaccine could spare many people a lifetime of drug addiction, if and when it's developed. COVID-19 exposed Africa's ...
Video: We can ‘finally’ grow GMOs—Nigerian farmer explains why developing countries need biotech crops
Nigerian farmer Patience Koku discusses the GMO crop trials she is conducting on her farm, and why growers can "rise ...
Viewpoint: UN’s ‘hand-in-glove’ alliance with anti-pesticide groups cripples response to Africa’s ravenous locust swarms
In a year devastated by locust plagues, the COVID-19 pandemic, and massive flooding that displaced over a hundred thousand people ...
Animal biotech could help tackle disease that costs Africa’s cattle farmers $1 billion annually
Animal biotechnology has been primed to contribute significantly towards addressing the challenge of food security, especially in the developing world ...
GMO corn could help combat voracious pests, drought in Nigeria, field study shows
Nigeria’s quest to introduce maize varieties resistant to insect pests such as Stem Borer and Fall Army Worm (FAW) and ...
COVID pandemic exposes Africa’s need for long-term solutions to Lassa fever and other neglected tropical diseases
Spread by food contaminated by the feces or urine of disease-carrying rodents and endemic to Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea and ...
Bt cotton in Africa: Role models and lessons learned
Africa’s cotton farmers are struggling to recoup their investments because they lack access to quality seeds that can increase yields ...
Tinted solar panels could boost farm incomes
Tinted, semi-transparent solar panels can generate electricity and simultaneously produce nutritionally-superior crops, offering farmers the prospect of higher incomes and ...
Kenyan farmers could plant GMO insect-resistant Bt cotton by November, boosting $500 million textile industry
Industrialization, Trade and Enterprise Development Cabinet Secretary Ms. Betty Maina said farmers should expect to plant Bt cotton by November ...
Rwanda controls COVID-19 but its farmers struggle
Rwanda has achieved astonishing results in controlling the novel coronavirus, recording just five deaths from COVID-19 even as cases continue ...
GM crops can lift farmers out of poverty, study shows
On a continent where more than 80 percent of the people living in extreme poverty are rural farmers, some have ...
Viewpoint: Agro-ecology agendas are trapping African farmers in poverty
Rather than helping to address food insecurity, the agro-ecological agenda may in fact be trapping African farmers in poverty. That’s ...
DNA of the slave trade: American Blacks’ genetic links to Africa
[A] paper by 23andMe researchers leveraged genetic data from close to 50,000 people to detail one of the most comprehensive ...
10 things everyone should know about GMOs in Africa
1. Biotechnology, genetic modification, genetic engineering and GMOs are terms for essentially the same process: breeding crops and livestock to ...
African women are leading biotechnology advance across the continent
Women researchers are strongly influencing the adoption of agricultural biotechnology in Africa. “As African women, we are the ones who ...
‘Eat them, poison them, drive them to cannibalism’: Kenyan scientists explore creative solutions to East Africa locust swarms
Eat them, poison them, and use scent to drive them to cannibalism - as a second wave of locusts threatens ...
Ghanaian chief calls for commercialization of GMOs
A Ghanaian chief, Nana Adjie Panin II, has called for the country’s commercialization of genetically modified (GM) seeds. Genetically modified ...
COVID-19 disrupts Africa’s seed supply, threatening food security
The global pandemic has made it difficult for some African seed companies to produce and import sufficient quantities of quality ...
COVID-19 ‘hot spots’ popping up across Africa. They might smolder for years to come
Across Africa, government numbers show coronavirus infections have been significantly lower than in other parts of the world. But from ...
African farmers yearn for biotechnology in the face of climate change
Southern Africa is on the receiving end of the devastating impact of climate change, driving millions into hunger. A record ...
Genetic engineering could tackle crop growth barriers that promote hunger in developing nations
Using potatoes and cassava plants, along with other species such as tomato, rice, and cotton as models, [researchers have] identified ...