West African rice recipe

 We grow organic brown rice here in the Philippines, but a lot of rice is grown in West Africa, and originally that rice , Oryza glaberrima was a slightly different type than Asian rice, and was domesticated 3000 years ago.according to Wikipedia.

In comparison to Asian rice, African rice is hardy, pest-resistant, low-labour, and suited to a larger variety of African conditions.[1] It is described as filling, with a distinct nutty flavour.

This rice was the one originally planted in the Southern Unite states, but even in Africa, it has mainly been replaced by the Asian variety which is more productive, but there is a push to continue growing this valuable crop.

more at Atlas Obscura.

If you’ve been paying attention to the growth in interest in West African culinary traditions, you’ve probably noticed the increased popularity of Jollof rice. The name derives from one of the kingdoms of my Ancestors, the Wolof peoples living in modern-day Senegal, Gambia, and Mauritania. The Wolof have a great reputation as traders, artisans, musicians, and cooks, forming along with their neighbors the heart of the culture and cuisine of Senegambia...Jollof rice, or benachin, may be from Senegambia, but it spread through Wolof and Mande traders and unfortunately due to colonialism. Different countries have different names and styles of preparation to match. The fiercest rivalry may be between Ghana and Nigeria.

However, Jollof-style rice became the grandmother of Lowcountry red rice as well as jambalaya and rice from Mexico, Brazil, and various spaces in the Caribbean. All you need is tomato, onion, pepper, and spices.

Recipe at link

this video explains how you make it.

 

this one uses Jasmine rice, since the African rice is not available in most western countries.

This article at FlavorInsider compares Jollof rice and Jumbalaya. Some similarities but not the same.

Rice growing causes methane. Duh.

 We Asians are aware that growing rice causes methane release.

Asians have long been blamed by the global warming crazies because we eat rice.

Flooding rice paddies and plowing weeds etc into the mud to rot and fertilize the crops results in methane, a greenhouse gas. So we rice farmers are under pressure to limit the flooding of the rice paddies.

dirty little secret: this method lowers methane release, but increases Nitrous oxide release, which is another greenhouse gas even worse than Methane.

But now Nature magazine is blaming Africa because they too are busy growing rice.

Africa has been identified as a major driver of the current rise in atmospheric methane, and this has been attributed to emissions from wetlands and livestock. Here we show that rapidly increasing rice cultivation is another important source, and we estimate that it accounts for 7% of the current global rise in methane emissions.

so what is their answer? Stop growing rice and starve you peasants. 

Continued rice expansion to feed a rapidly growing population should be considered in climate change mitigation goals.

This will alert the western green NGOs to stop Africans from doing this.

In contrast, China is helping them to grow rice.

getting them to plant hybrid rice with a higher yield, and helping with loans to update their farming practices.

The article goes into details how they are doing this, including finding which type of rice grows best and making a rice institute there to grow seeds for locals to plant.

 

More than 20 African countries are planting hybrid rice, and China continues to provide agricultural technical support to countries and regions in need, helping countries strengthen agricultural capacity building related to hybrid rice.

Cassava bread

 

millet and teff and Sorghum oh my

PhysOrg article on alternative cereal crops in Africa.

Actually our farmers in Zimbabwe often planted these crops as an alternative if the rains were not enough to get a good harvest of maize. Also, we advised moms to make sadza for babies with them because maize was hard for malnourished kids to digest.

another article on the cereal grains of Africa.

Millet Before maize was introduced to Sub Saharan Africa, millet was the most widely eaten grain across the continent. In fact, up to 50 years ago, it was still the grain of choice. Millet, particularly pearl millet, is said to have originated in Africa prior to being exported to Asia. In fact, according to the National Research Council, it has been documented that pearl millet was domesticated over 4000 years ago in West Africa. Other types of millet include fonio and finger millet (rapoko). Millet is highly nutritious and provides far more to the African food economy than maize does, however, due to the amount of scientific research and investment in cultivating maize, the use of millet as the main staple has been surpassed by that of maize. This is unfortunate because the plant is highly resistant to droughts, requires less irrigation than maize does and is a viable option for the provision of food security.

 

Sorghum Sorghum is sometimes used interchangeably as millet, however, it is a different grain. It is popular in countries such as Botswana and is used to make pap or sadza, known in Botswana as bogobe. It can be fermented and made into a sour porridge known as ting.

In Zimbabwe we ate maize but rice was eaten in Liberia. The article does not mention rice even though there was an alternative rice domesticated in west Africa.

the article also mentions teff, but that is grown in the horn of Africa where I did not work.

More here: Foods of Zimbabwe.

Food security in Africa

Story from AlJ:

FAO report on African land grabs

link

Large-scale acquisitions of farmland in Africa, Latin America, Central Asia and Southeast Asia have made headlines in a flurry of media reports across the world. Yet international land deals and their impacts still remain little understood. This report is a step towards filling this gap. The outcome of a collaboration between IIED, FAO and IFAD, the report discusses key trends and drivers in land acquisitions, the contractual arrangements underpinning them and the way these are negotiated, and the early impacts on land access for rural people in recipient countries – with a focus on sub-Saharan Africa.

China buying land in Africa

from a 2009 article

The countries where China are mainly in South Africa including Mozambique, Tanzania, Malawi and currently Angola. The agricultural land story began with Zambia in 1995 when Zhongkan Farm, a private Chinese company invested $22,000 in a farm project. By the end of 2007, the number of farm projects across Africa had increased to 63. Mozambique has received $800 million from China for modernizing its agricultural sector. This will be used to increase rice production in the country from 200,000 tons to 500,000 tons. Teams from the Chinese Hunan Hybrid Rice Institute and at least 100 specialists are stationed in Mozambique.

Similarly, Tanzania received millions of dollars to modernize its own agricultural sector. The idea behind this was to help create a green revolution in Africa. In the entire African continent, 1134 agricultural specialists have come from China to teach and see the implementation of agricultural modernization policies.

Angola is increasingly becoming the most sought after country for Chinese investment. It is already China’s biggest trading partner, and is now going to benefit through agriculture. Angola offers the best environment for beef production, coffee, spices, fruits, sugar and cotton.

The agricultural revolution gradually taking place in Africa is not just beneficial for China alone, it is also helping the African countries as an employment generating industry and providing larger food supplies for its starving millions. It is a win-win situation for both.

Source : Chinafrica

Could GM foods help Africa

this article is more recent, from All AFrica, originally from The Monitor:

the article laments the usual suspects, i.e. that evil corporations are behind it, then quotes Prince Charles who is against it, then laments that South Africa hasn't fully implemented it so it hasn't worked yet, and then adds:

GM also is not so much about African foods like millet, sweet potatoes, cassava or yams and the various African vegetables. We need to develop our own food crops as we fight hunger and we don't have to automatically switch to foods from other continents. The more we adapt to western technology the more we have to spend on machinery and chemicals manufactured in the west.

After all, the industrialised countries will not buy our surplus food (including GM food) since they always have enough food and anyway they have safely put in place trade barriers that discourage African products access to their markets. Our food and poverty problems must be solved right on our small plots of land and by ourselves as farmers and researchers...

yes, those old women with hoes using traditional crops will do it...while all the younger men migrate to work for the Chinese in factories and farms and send their money home, like they do here in the Philippines, to feed their children (we have also forbidden GM crops, but some of our food is hurt by cheaper imports from countries that use modern chemicals and production values forbidden here)

china investment in farm lands

from ELDIS

During 2006 and 2007, a raft of new initiatives and programmes sprang into being around the goal of promoting agricultural technology, including biotechnology, in the African continent. These initiatives have been led by African governments themselves, as well as by international aid donors, agricultural research centres and philanthropic organisations like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation.

Africa remains the part of the world which faces the most intractable problems of entrenched poverty and poor productivity in agriculture. The new initiatives mentioned above are intended to stimulate new innovation and growth in African farming, a new ‘Green Revolution’ to match the transformations which took place in other parts of the world during the 1960s, 70s and 80s...

China is another part of the globe where government, scientists and policy-makers are working towards a uniquely tailored approach to biotechnology development. For many years now, China has taken a circumspect approach to GM crops

Food articles

Biowatch South Africa reports:


South Africa is the only African country commercially producing genetically modified crops. It is also the only country which is producing a genetically modified staple food – maize – on a commercial scale.

At least six of the 15 Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries have said no to genetically modified crops.

The countries in SADC are Angola, Botswana, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Lesotho, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Seychelles, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Madagascar applied for membership recently.

The six which have taken a firm stand against genetically modified crops are:

* Angola – bans imports of all GM products except food aid, providing this has already been milled.
* Lesotho – bans Gm imports unless processed or milled
* Madagascar – bans growing or importing GM foods
* Malawi – bans GM imports unless they are already processed or milled
* Zambia – bans imports of all GM products
* Zimbabwe - bans GM imports unless they are already processed or milled

Other SADC countries and countries in the rest of Africa are developing legislation to regulate genetically modified crops.

High Protein Cassava?

from NewScientist:

A DEADLY poison could save the lives of millions of African children, thanks to the discovery that cassava can be duped into turning about half of the cyanide it makes into extra protein.

Although cassava is a major source of carbohydrates for 700 million people, mostly in Africa, it normally contains only small amounts of protein. Claude Fauquet of the Danforth Plant Science Center in St Louis, Missouri, and his team bumped up the protein content to 12.5 per cent by adding bean and maize genes to make a protein called zeolin. They were surprised to find that the plant used its natural supply of cyanide to provide the building blocks of the new protein. "Cyanide is a source of nitrogen within the plant," explains Fauquet.

While non-modified cassava supplies just one-fifth of daily protein requirements, the extra protein is enough to supply the needs of infants on a typical cassava-based diet (PLoS One, DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0016256). Fauquet says his root could save 1 in 4 African children from a potentially fatal condition called protein-energy malnutrition.

However, it will be some years before it is rolled out

we didn't eat a lot of cassava in my area of Zimababwe but it is a staple food in Malawi and other areas of the continent

Africa not a basket case for agriculture

from ABC Science (australia)

Africa has good soils and could easily feed itself if more money was spent on fertiliser and seed rather than food aid, says one soil scientist.

World Food Prize Laureate Dr Pedro Sanchez laid out his argument to a recent agricultural research symposium at the University of Sydney.

...

He says in 2005 Malawi's maize harvest only reached 57% of the country's requirement, with about 5 million Malawians requiring food aid.

Sanchez says since then, the government has begun subsidising farmers to buy fertiliser and improved maize seed.

In 2007, maize yields almost tripled at the national scale, transforming Malawi into a food exporter, he says.

Sanchez says the subsidy programs are now being extended to another 11 countries in Africa including Tanzania, Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda, Mali and Nigeria.

He says the gains in yield are similar to those seen in India and the Philippines at the start of the Asian green revolution.

By contrast, yields from highly-subsidised farmers in North America are around 10 tonnes per hectare....

Bill Gates vs the Green lobby

fromFrontPageMagazine (a right wing US webpage)

...Greenpeace has long claimed GM foods increase allergies; however, the World Health Organization – hardly a corporate, capitalist shill – concluded, “No allergic effects have been found relative to GM foods currently on the market.” Although six EU nations ban GM foods, Jaap Satter, a senior policy adviser at the Dutch Agriculture Ministry, has said, “You cannot say anymore that there is a scientific reason to be against genetic modification.” The National Research Council summed up the situation: “no conceptual distinction exists between generic modification of plants and microorganisms by classical methods or by molecular techniques that modify DNA and transfer genes.”

Some environmentalists seem concerned the foods will be too successful at feeding the poor. Al Gore has worried, “The most lasting impact of biotechnology on the food supply may come not from something going wrong, but from all going right…we’re far more likely to accidentally drown ourselves in a sea of excess grain.” ,,,“The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa was established by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation” and the Rockefeller Foundation in 2006 “with the objective of improving agriculture in Africa.” However, its leader, former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan, vowed in 2007: “We in the alliance will not incorporate GMOs [genetically modified organisms] in our programmes. We shall work with farmers using traditional seeds.”..


earth to greens: it is not an "either/or" question.

You can have factory farms to produce lots of GM food to feed the poor in the cities, while paying farmers to grow their traditional seeds.

If you got rid of the tsetse fly and used modern farming techniques, Africa could feed the world.

But getting rid of the tsetse fly would mean farmers destroying "game reserves" that warm the cockles of the rich western greens (who live in areas where their own wolves, carrier pidgeons and mammoths no longer survive thanks to men).

And I've seen too many TV shows by those who should know better lauding the "natural" tribal lives of the poor: ignoring of course little things like children dying of diarrhea, moms dying in childbirth, and the constant stomach aches from parasite infestation.

Organic products are labor intensive. Are they better? Perhaps, but the harvest is lower than modern methods, so you get less rice.

so although our family grows organic rice and veggies, the dirty little secret is that we sell the products at a price twice that of ordinary rice and veggies; the ordinary farmers are underpriced by Chinese and Vietnamese etc. farmers who do use lots of pesticides and fertilizers and use the best seeds available, and so can underprice local farmers.

there is a lot of money in all of this, as the article points out:
National Review’s Deroy Murdock found:

In 2001, the 30 leading anti-biotech groups…spent $341.4 million, including Greenpeace USA’s expenditure of $23,748,737, Environmental Defense’s $38,794,150 and the Natural Resources Defense Council’s $41,625,882. Between 1996 and 2001, this crusade’s lavish underwriters included the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation ($11,906,500), the Ford Foundation ($39,978,020) and the Pew Charitable Trusts ($130,996,900).

It also included a large portion of the organic food market. Somehow, this story of an industry trying to spike a competitor did not make MSNBC or the pages of Mother Jones.

Whatever the dangers, the prohibition of GM foods is a moral issue. As Velasio De Paolis of the Pontifical Urban University has said, it is “easy to say no to GM food if your stomach is full.”

Harvest may fall short next year

from AFP

Zimbabwe is expected to reap 450,000 tonnes of maize during the next harvest in May, against 1.5 million tonnes this year. The government estimates that the country needs 1.8 million tonnes to feed its people.

Jenrich said small farmers lacked enough fertiliser, seeds and other inputs, but urged authorities to improve their management of the nation's land rather than to rely on handouts to farmers.

The country's power-sharing government said the increased funding would help boost yields, but farmers' unions report that large tracts of land are lying fallow as farmers lacked the means to plant....

Green revolution take two

Norman Borlaug RIP

Norman Borlaug, the plant scientist who started the green revolution, has died.

How many people on earth can be credited with saving hundreds of millions from starvation? Yet he is less known than the average sports star.

One thing greatly needed in Africa is to implement the green revolution, similar to how it was implemented in Asia...

As Scientific American magazine points out, what stands in the way is a lack of money to buy good seed, fertilizer, and of course an infrastructure that allows them to sell part of their crop for a profit.

They also recommend this:

Here are bold but realistic goals that Africa and its donor partners can adopt: to double grain yields in Africa by 2012, to graduate at least three quarters of African smallholder farm households from subsistence to commercial farming within a decade, and to expand nutrition programs alongside increased food production to cut the ranks of the hungry by at least half by 2015.

Mugabe is alas doing the exact opposite...

Zim prisoners starving to death

from SWRadioAfrica:


A major humanitarian crisis is unfolding in Zimbabwe’s prisons, due to lack of food and a total break down of the prison service. It’s reported that inmates ravaged by disease and hunger are ‘dying like flies’ with no solution in sight. This is happening while the ‘chefs’ continue to splash out millions of dollars on fancy cars for themselves.

Although access to the prisons is restricted, reports from relatives and friends of inmates have exposed the dire situation. This past week an estimated 1,300 people at Harare Central Prison were left to starve, as the prison ran out of food completely....

A rights activist, speaking on condition of anonymity on Monday, said the inmates at Harare Central are fed just once a day, at around 3pm, and on Sunday they had a few soya beans, with nothing else.
We were not able to get prison authorities to confirm the situation, but our source said about 10 inmates are dying everyday at Harare Central Prison alone.

“It’s pretty shocking when we’ve got between 1,300 and 1,500 prisoners in a prison and there is no food to feed them. If you are in the bush you can forage, but in a prison there is not much you can do if you are not getting food,” the activist said. Many prisoners have suppressed immune systems, due to HIV infection, a situation that is worsened by lack of proper food.

How Green Activists harm Africa

from the UKTimes:

Western do-gooders are impoverishing Africa by promoting traditional farming at the expense of modern scientific agriculture, according to Britain's former chief scientist.

Anti-science attitudes among aid agencies, poverty campaigners and green activists are denying the continent access to technology that could improve millions of lives, Professor Sir David King will say today.

Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) from Europe and America are turning African countries against sophisticated farming methods, including GM crops, in favour of indigenous and organic approaches that cannot deliver the continent's much needed “green revolution”, he believes.

Speaking before a keynote lecture tonight to the British Association for the Advancement of Science, of which he is president, Sir David said that the slow pace of African development was linked directly to Western influence. “I'm going to suggest, and I believe this very strongly, that a big part has been played in the impoverishment of that continent by the focus on nontechnological agricultural techniques, on techniques of farming that pertain to the history of that continent rather than techniques that pertain to modern technological capability. Why has that continent not joined Asia in the big green revolutions that have taken place over the past few decades? The suffering within that continent, I believe, is largely driven by attitudes developed in the West which are somewhat anti-science, anti-technology - attitudes that lead towards organic farming, for example, attitudes that lead against the use of genetic technology for crops that could deal with increased salinity in the water, that can deal with flooding for rice crops, that can deal with drought resistance.”

--------------

I agree...we grow organic rice, but do use hybrid high yield seeds; our fertilizer is organic, but we add minerals as needed; and we use hand plows (large rototillers) that save a lot of energy in preparing the fields.

When we harvest, we use a thresher to separate the grain from the stem...but we still dry on the road (in the sun) but there are grain driers if a typhoon is around and theatening to keep the grain wet and prone to mold...

and with proper irrigation, we get two crops a year...and are trying to figure out if we could get three crops, as is done in the Mekong Delta.

Farming in the Congo

From the Toronto Star.

The story relates how locals, using new hybrid seeds but basic tools, locals are growing food.

Wonder how much could be grown with more investment into things like pumps, wheel barrows, rototiller/handplows etc.

It also points out the problems:

One: It's cheaper to import food from overseas than locally because of lack of roads and few farms (sort of a double whammy: no farms because no on invests but no place to sell crops unless roads etc are built).

Two: Points out the evils of colonialism, where plantations were made, destroying local communities and farms. Now plantations aren't being used, but no farmers replaced them.

Three: Note who is building roads etc: China, hoping to get a finger into the mining industry.

Zim white farmers flee abroad

from aljezeerah