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Tag Archives Africa

(CBSA via YouTube)

Canada shuts to seven African countries’ travelers

Latest COVID-19 variant spurs decision

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Ottawa | Reuters — Canada is closing its borders to foreign travelers who have recently been to seven southern African nations to help stop the spread of a newly identified variant of COVID-19, Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos told reporters Friday. The European Union, the United States and Britain are among those tightening border controls as […] Read more
File photo of a soybean plantation in Brazil. (Mailson Pignata/iStock/Getty Images)
Crops

More acres seen needed worldwide to meet mounting crops demand

U.S. acres may have already hit ceiling: AgResource chief

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Geneva | Reuters — Farmers need more space to grow crops to meet mounting demand for food and renewable fuel at a time of slowing growth in yields, consultancy AgResource said on Tuesday. A renewable fuel push under U.S. President Joe Biden’s climate agenda is set to trigger a boom in soyoil use, reinforcing a […] Read more
David Kayi, a Hello Tractor engineer, installs an application on a John Deere 5503 tractor, using the Hello Tractor technology that connects farmers with vehicles’ owners, at a hay farm at Umande village in Nanyuki, Kenya. Photo: Reuters/Njeri Mwangi
Machinery, News

Deere taps tractor-hailing tech in bid to break ground in Africa

Low incomes, lack of credit hobble African mechanization

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Reuters – It’s ride-hailing, farm style. Deere and Co. is teaming up with the “Uber of tractors” in Africa and betting on a future where farmers summon machines with the touch of a button. The world’s leading farm equipment maker is outfitting its tractors with startup Hello Tractor’s technology, which allows farmers to hail the […] Read more
David Kayi, a Hello Tractor engineer, installs an application on a John Deere 5503 tractor, using the Hello Tractor technology that connects farmers with vehicles’ owners, at a hay farm at Umande village in Nanyuki, Kenya on Feb. 4, 2020. (Photo: Reuters/Njeri Mwangi)
Crops, Machinery, Markets

Deere taps tractor-hailing tech in bid to break ground in Africa

Low incomes, lack of credit hobble African mechanization

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Nanyuki, Kenya/Johannesburg | Reuters — It’s ride-hailing, farm style. Deere and Co. is teaming up with the “Uber of tractors” in Africa and betting on a future where farmers summon machines with the touch of a button. The world’s leading farm equipment maker is outfitting its tractors with startup Hello Tractor’s technology, which allows farmers […] Read more
A spray plane flies over a swarm of desert locusts at Lemasulani village in Kenya’s Samburu County on Jan. 17, 2020. (Photo: Reuters/Njeri Mwangi)
Crops, Machinery

Drones to be tested against Africa’s locust swarms

U.N.'s FAO testing drones to detect, spray pests

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Nairobi | Thomson Reuters Foundation — The United Nations is to test drones equipped with mapping sensors and atomizers to spray pesticides in parts of east Africa battling an invasion of desert locusts that are ravaging crops and exacerbating a hunger crisis. Hundreds of millions of the voracious insects have swept across Ethiopia, Somalia and […] Read more
File photo of cattle seeking shade in Namibia. (Brytta/iStock/Getty Images)
Livestock

Namibia looks to import cattle as drought decimates herds

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Windhoek | Reuters — Namibian state-owned meat processing and marketing firm Meatco is in talks with neighbour Botswana to import cattle, as severe drought decimates local herds and threatens beef export deals with China and European countries. The southern African desert nation moved closer to famine last month after dam levels fell below 20 per […] Read more
Eric Hakizimana, 27, poses with chickens at his home in eastern Rwanda on August 23, 2018.
News

Young entrepreneurs lend glamour to African agriculture

Africa has the world’s youngest population and 65 per cent of its uncultivated arable land

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Thomson Reuters Foundation – In a long-sleeved shirt and jeans, expertly navigating eastern Rwanda’s bumpy back roads in a white four-wheel drive, Dieudonne Twahirwa looks nothing like the stereotypical African farmer. The 30-year-old owner of Gashora Farm knows what a difference that makes. “You need more role models,” he said, standing among knee-high rows of […] Read more

Cyber-Savvy Farmer

Glacier Farmmedia Podcast