First Independent Mena Newspaper
Northern Nigeria is facing a spiraling food and security crisis, with aid agencies warning that drastic funding cuts and rising hunger could push desperate populations into the arms of jihadist groups like Boko Haram. The United Nations calls the situation “unprecedented,” with over 31 million Nigerians facing acute food insecurity and 5 million children suffering […]
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has loaned Burkina Faso $80.7 million to help the West African country surf the impact of the global food crisis. “Food insecurity in Burkina Faso has increased significantly owing to deteriorating security conditions, which led to the displacement of about 2 million people; unfavorable climate events; supply-chain disruptions following the […]
Rapidly rising fertilizer prices are forcing farmers to reduce output and the world’s poorest continent is expected to be hardest hit, with Angola, Malawi and Zimbabwe most at risk in the Southern African region, according to Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). Sanctions on entities within major fertilizer exporter Russia after the invasion of Ukraine and […]
Twelve countries, including Ten in Africa, are hardest hit by the global food and nutrition crisis among adolescent girls and women, UNICEF warned Monday (6 March), calling for all stakeholders to transform food, health and social protection systems for these most vulnerable people. 5.5 million pregnant and breastfeeding adolescent girls and women suffered of acute […]
There is an urgent need for global action to address the fertilizer crisis, most importantly by keeping the fertilizer market open to meet global demand and to avoid a food availability crisis, says a latest study issued by the World Trade Organization (WTO) and United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) on 14 November. The […]
An estimated 4 million people, many of them small subsistence farmers, in over a dozen countries in West and Central Africa that have seen their crops decimated by unusually heavy flooding. In northern Cameroon, for example, the latest floods have destroyed the harvest for this season, while nearly 1 million hectares of farmland across the […]
UN Secretary-General António Guterres has expressed deep concern at Russia’s decision to suspend its involvement in the Black Sea Grain Initiative, a deal set up to reintroduce vital food and fertilizer exports from Ukraine to the rest of the world. On Saturday, Russia announced that it was suspending its involvement in the deal, citing an […]
The announcement by Morocco’s phosphates and fertilizers producer OCP to double its soil nutrient exports to Africa was a boon for a continent that bears the brunt of the surge in commodities prices due to the Russia-Ukraine war. OCP said last week it will bolster its fertilizers exports to Africa to 4 million tons in […]
Since the invasion of Ukraine by Russia — the second largest international exporter after China — the prices of fertilizers in West Africa have skyrocketed, severely aggravating the ongoing food crisis in countries such as Burkina Faso. In the last few months, the Sahel region has been hit by the worst drought in over a […]
French President Emanuel Macron and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov are each visiting several African countries this week in what is widely seen as a tug-of-war over zones of influence on the continent. Speaking during a visit to Ethiopia, Lavrov on Wednesday (27 July) criticized the reliance of the global economy on the US dollar, […]