Introduction to the Blog

The whole theme of water and development in Africa is one that I hold very close to my heart. At the age of 11, I went to Kenya to visit family and on this trip we went to a very rural farm and I found it fascinating to see how crops were grown and the methods they had involving irrigation. Although, at that time it was just an initial interest, school and university decisions have allowed me to develop this interest and transform it into a more concrete one. 

This first blog post I would like to address what I know already from a general standpoint and what I plan on talking about in future posts. One incident that stood out to me considerably was the Cape Town water crisis. The situation that a city that I have studied and heard all about was in a position where it could potentially have no water supply fascinated me. 

What is food security? It is ultimately describes a situation in which people have the access in terms of physical, social and economic access to safe and nutritious food that meets their exact dietary needs and preferences for a healthy and active life all the time (Barrett, 2010).

Food insecurity has inevitably been a problem for Africa, and today there are an estimated 146 million people who are going hungry, with issues like food prices increasing, conflict within the continent and intense climate change emphasising these problems (British Red Cross, 2022). 

                                              Map of Africa showing Food Insecurity (Source)

A suggested method of combatting food insecurity is vertical farming. The global agricultural production process is experiencing increased pressure to generate larger yields as population is increasing at a rapid level and hence food production demand is increasing. By 2050, there are predictions for the global population to reach almost 10 billion, with 70% of people living in urban environments (United Nations, 2015). This scale of change worldwide will most likely necessitate the introduction of new food production methods in order to facilitate for the amount of and the yield achieved from conventional farming methods (Beacham, 2019). This is where vertical farming has been suggested as a potential solution. 

                                                 How Vertical Farming could look (Source)

Vertical farming is the practice of growing crops in vertically stacked layers, which involves controlled - environment agriculture, with the aim to optimise plant growth and use farming techniques such as aquaponics, hydroponics and aeroponics all which lack soil (Terazono, 2020). This has been widely seen as something that could revolutionise food for the world and in particular a more struggling continent like Africa. However, the economic factors that come into play are seen as too much of an issue. The initial building costs come at a staggering fee that could exceed $100 million for a small farm, with costs of wheat going from US$1.3 per loaf in comparison to US$27 with vertical farming methods (Gitig, 2017). This is just not viable for Africa and is more of a solution to the most economically developed parts of the world where the issue of food insecurity is not as prevalent. 

In future blog posts, I would like to get more specific in regard to Africa. I have family from Ghana who have always talked about the issues associated with agricultural decline and I think it would be fascinating to write about this to continue discussion with them. I have often read and seen information about the ''African Food Crisis' and the 'Sahelian Paradox', both which would make interesting blog posts. I have also always been interested in inequality and how African farmers differ in levels of equality, and then finally would like to look at how sustainability plays a role for farmers due to its ever-increasing importance.