The main obstacle to food security (the availability, access, and utilization of food) in most agricultural-based developing economies is lack of human, technical and institutional capacity  to produce and distribute the food. In this post, I bring together two arguments as the basis for addressing the challenge of capacity building in agriculture through the emerging [...]

An initiative being co-led by Conservation International (CI), the Council for Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR), South Africa and the Earth Institute (EI), Columbia University, has been launched with a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The Africa Monitoring System (AMS) tool will track, monitor and diagnose agricultural productivity, ecosystem health, and human [...]

Is rural agriculture a big business opportunity for the mobile industry or the mobile industry is a big business opportunity for rural agriculture? This is the question that I continue to grapple with as I browse through presentations at the mAgri event during the just ended GSMA Mobile World Congress 2012 in Barcelona, Spain, and [...]

The theme for this years’ International Women’s Day celebration is “Empower Rural Women – End Hunger and Poverty.” This is in recognition of the critical role and contribution women, especially rural women are playing globally to enhance agricultural and rural development, improve food security and help reduce poverty levels in their communities. Unfortunately, there are others [...]