Farmers in South Africa face constant uncertainty regarding weather, politics and market fluctuations - all factors out of their control.

According to records by the South African Agricultural Machinery Association (SAAMA) that stated that for the period 1 January to 28 February 2019, tractor sales of 914 units and combine harvester sales of 19 units were respectively 20,5% and 34,5% lower than the 1 150 tractors and 29 combine harvesters sold over the same period in 2018. The news figures will be available soon. 

Any private sector investments in Africa’s food sector must take account of Africa’s smallholder farmers if the investments are to survive, particularly with climate change.

Every year U.S. farmers use about a billion pounds of chemicals on crops, including the fruits, nuts and vegetables many parents beg their kids to eat. The Department of Agriculture and Food and Drug Administration are charged with ensuring that these chemicals don’t endanger consumers, and both agencies test the food supply for pesticide residues each year.

Summer rainfall now nearing its end with only light falls expected in the last week of March and first week of April 2019. Heavier falls are however still possible over the eastern Summer Rainfall Area. Very little or no rain for Western Cape for the short to medium term.

It is cheaper ‘to import maize from Brazil to the Western Cape than to rail or truck it down from the northern part of the country’.

 Massive flooding in the Midwestern U.S. is wreaking havoc on stored grain as well as storage structures, and its likely the area of damage will expand.

By 2050, the world’s population is forecast to reach 9.7 billion and agricultural production will need to rise by about 60%, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

Technology and the Internet of Things (IoT) has made its way into our lives and businesses.

'Swarm robots' – small, simple and inexpensive machinery – could reverse the trend in agriculture towards ever bigger machines, an agri-tech expert has said.

It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.” This opening line from the Charles Dickens novel, “A Tale of Two Cities,” could also be used to describe the current state of the organic grain industry. Demand for organic grain-based products has never been greater, particularly in the U.S. and Western Europe, but a recent wave of negative publicity may hamper efforts to expand production and strengthen the public’s trust.

March 2019 World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates report by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) provided further evidence that the world will have fairly large maize, soybean, and rice supplies in the 2018/19 season. Meanwhile, wheat production could decline from levels seen in the 2017/18 season.

The ANC government has no idea that economic growth and progress are totally dependent on the profitability and sustainability of all the individual industries, such as, among others, the production, manufacturing, construction and trading industries in the primary and secondary sectors, as well as the service industries in the tertiary sector of the economy,” says Fanie Brink, an independent agricultural economist.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture, in its March 29 annual Prospective Plantings report, said farmers in 2019 intend to plant 4% more acres of corn than a year ago, 5% fewer acres of soybeans and 4% fewer acres of wheat.

Action is at the heart of the Sustainable Development Goals(SDGs). As the principle connection between people and planet, sustainable food and agriculture can fuel positive change. FAO’s new publication, Transforming food and agriculture to achieve the SDGs, presents 20 actions to help countries in incorporating sustainable agriculture and rural development into their broader development goals. These 20 actions offer a practical guide to implementing the 2030 Agenda. Here are some examples:

When Emmerson Mnangagwa assumed office as president of Zimbabwe in late 2017, one of the immediate tasks he had was to rebuild an economy that had performed poorly for nearly two decades.

The agricultural mechanisation rate in SSA is the lowest in the world. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the European Agricultural Machinery Association, roughly 65% of land preparation is done manually by labourers in SSA, compared with around 40% in East Asia, 30% in South Asia and 25% in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Reality 3D models, Lidar points clouds, superhigh-resolution aerial imagery and artificial intelligence from aerial imagery… these are just a few of the products derived from aerial mapping that the GIS sector takes for granted in 2019.

Over the last century, government policies and large food producers have prioritized farming practices that grow crop varieties with high yields.

CLIMATE change is happening: Scientists say it is, environmentalists agree and, most important, women farmers report the truth of it. Oxfam is very clear that climate change is the biggest threat to global hunger and that it is the women who produce our food who suffer first — and worst.