African Agriculture and Food Systems
It began, as many revolutions do, with something ordinary. Praxeda Melkior, co-founder of Migeto Farm in Kilosa district, had planted lemongrass — mchai chai — between her banana…
By Charles Mwangi Tanzania achieved food self-sufficiency in 2025. It is a milestone worth celebrating — the country now produces enough food to feed its population and is…
By Kilimokwanza Somewhere in a research station in Tanzania, a plant breeder is looking at rows of amaranth. Each row is a slightly different genetic line, tested across…
A new partnership between an aviation company and a crop protection body signals Kenya’s serious pivot toward precision farming — and raises the question of whether the sky…
By Kilimokwanza Every tomato that rots in a crate before it reaches a market stall is a double loss. It is income that a farmer will not receive,…
By Kilimokwanza There is a persistent assumption in agricultural development circles that reducing chemical inputs means accepting lower yields. It is an assumption rooted in a version of…
By Kilimokwanza There is a tendency, when discussing poor nutrition in Africa, to frame the problem as one of individual choice: people eat badly because they do not…
By Kilimokwanza Thirty-five grams. That is roughly a quarter of a small mango. Half an orange. Two modest slices of papaya. It is the average amount of fruit…
By Kilimokwanza Tanzania has a mobile money success story that much of the world envies. Seven in ten adults use mobile money services. Financial access points now sit…
There is a story we tell ourselves about hunger and body weight in Africa, and it goes roughly like this: poverty causes undernutrition, and wealth brings better diets.…
By Elizabeth Shumbusho In 2010, Tanzania launched an ambitious experiment. The Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor of Tanzania — SAGCOT — set out to bring government, business, development partners,…
Seven research briefs from the CGIAR Science Program on Better Diets and Nutrition paint a detailed and troubling picture: nearly all women surveyed consume far below the recommended…
By Kilimokwanza Mama Amina wakes before dawn to prepare breakfast for her family before the long walk to the shamba. She has never felt sick, not in any…
By Kilimokwanza There is a convenient assumption buried in conversations about vegetable production and nutrition in Africa: that more vegetables, grown by more farmers, is unambiguously good for…
By Kilimokwanza If Tanzania’s vegetable farming is dominated by a small number of crops, its fruit farming is dominated by a single one. The July 2025 research brief…
By Kilimokwanza Arusha and Kilimanjaro sit beside each other on the map, share a climate zone shaped by Mount Kilimanjaro, and are often grouped together in development programming.…
By Kilimokwanza Walk into a kitchen in Arusha or Kilimanjaro and you are likely to encounter African eggplant. Known locally as nyanya chungu, or bitter tomato, it appears…
A humble tuber grown in the mists of the Southern Highlands is quietly transforming the fortunes of thousands of Tanzanian families. With the founding of the Potato Council…
By Kilimokwanza Amaranth, known in Kiswahili as mchicha, is one of the most nutritionally dense leafy vegetables grown in East Africa. Rich in iron, calcium, protein, and vitamins…
By Kilimokwanza On a typical vegetable farm in Arusha or Kilimanjaro, tomatoes occupy a special place. They are grown on nearly half the plot dedicated to them, almost…
By Kilimokwanza Correspondent The question of why so few Tanzanians eat enough fruit and vegetables is often framed as a market problem, a behaviour problem, or an affordability…
Ihemi Cluster · Iringa & Njombe · March 2026 Khalid Mgaramo:How public–private trustis actually built By Kilimokwanza Correspondent Ihemi Cluster Field Report · March 2026 Khalid Mgaramo joined…
Farm For the Future, operating from Ilula in Iringa and backed by Norwegian agricultural equipment manufacturers Underhaug AS and Kverneland Group, has launched a formal buy-or-lease offering of…
A landmark CGIAR evaluation published in July 2025, covering 2,611 households across 33 villages in five districts, has produced the most granular picture yet of what smallholder farmers…