One of the many regions of the world suffering a reduction in agricultural productivity is Sub-Saharan Africa. Gary Crawford has more coming up in today’s This Land of Ours report.
A new report, the GAP Report, this year titled “Every Farmer, Every Tool,”from Virginia Tech University is sounding a warning that global growth in agricultural productivity is falling. The report’s editor Dr. Tom Thompson says for example, in Sub-Saharan Africa:
“With constrained access to productivity-enhancing tools, farmers are expanding agricultural land into wild lands at an alarming rate,” he said.
We hear now from a farmer in Zimbabwe, Ruramiso Mashumba.
“Over the past few years, we have seen productivity drop. Climate change has made farming very, very difficult in Zimbabwe and very unpredictable,” she said.
She said many farmers in Africa are still using basically the same equipment, the same techniques, same crop varieties that were used 50 to 100 years ago,
“So, we’re not investing enough in science in research to find out what are we going to do in the future or even right now.”
The new report says the reductions in ag productivity growth are not just happening in the developing world but also in the US.
Gary Crawford for the US Department of Agriculture.
Listen to Gary Crawford’s report here.
Sabrina Halvorson
National Correspondent / AgNet Media, Inc.
Sabrina Halvorson is an award-winning journalist, broadcaster, and public speaker who specializes in agriculture. She primarily reports on legislative issues and hosts The AgNet News Hour and The AgNet Weekly podcast. Sabrina is a native of California’s agriculture-rich Central Valley.