{{Agricultural experts meeting in Kigali have warned that Great Lakes region could face increased conflict and greater instability in coming decades due to available food grown to less land.}}<\/p>\n
The experts convened in a four-days conference of consortium for Improving Agriculture-based Livelihoods in Central Africa (CIALCA) to examine challenges and opportunities for sustainable improvement of farm production in Central Africa.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnless there is widespread use of farm approaches and innovations that can grow more food with less land, countries in Central Africa\u2019s densely populated Great Lakes region could face increased conflict and greater instability in coming decades,\u201d Experts warned.<\/p>\n
A press release from CIALCA has indicated that most of the agricultural land has extremely high population densities up to 400 people per square kilometer in Rwanda and Burundi and severely degraded soils. <\/p>\n
According to the release, there is a highest rate of malnutrition and extreme poverty in sub-Saharan Africa.<\/p>\n
The eastern Democratic Republic of Congo has been in a state of almost continual instability and periodic violence since 1996. <\/p>\n
The International Rescue Committee has estimated that 5.4 million excess deaths resulted between the start of the second Congolese war in 1998 and 2007. <\/p>\n
A decade of conflicts in Burundi and the 1994 genocide in Rwanda are responsible for widespread displacement and regional instability.<\/p>\n
\u201cPrevious conflicts have been indirectly driven by the ability of the land to support the food needs of Central Africa\u2019s high population densities,\u201d said Nteranya Sanginga, a Congolese scientist and Director General of International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA).<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the future, a big question will be whether the land and the soils that underpin farm yields can support booming populations under new constraints like rapid climate change and other environmental factors,\u201d Sanginga wondered.
\n\u201cWithout sustainable intensification of food production, there will be a high price. We will be going back to the situation of war and not because of ethnicity but war for food, war for space,\u201d Sanginga warned.<\/p>\n
The release say there is high-potential farming areas, small farm sizes, persistent civil conflicts, poor infrastructure and political instability have left the region plagued with chronic food insecurity regardless of other favorable factors. <\/p>\n
The effects of climate change in the region have become a major concern for the already resource strained, landlocked countries of Rwanda, Burundi and Democratic Republic of Congo. <\/p>\n
Recent research by the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) has shown that the ability of farmers to grow coffee in Rwanda is severely affected by rising temperatures, hence more vulnerable to pests and diseases. <\/p>\n
Earlier on Hans Herren, president of the Millennium Institute and World Food Prize Laureate, had said that many current approaches to farm production are harmful to the environment and not accessible enough for farmers to adopt on a broader scale.<\/p>\n
Participants at the CIALCA conference shared examples of sustainable farm approaches that can increase yields and alleviate land pressure in the region. <\/p>\n
These include the widespread adoption of higher-yielding climbing beans in Rwanda that improve soils and the availability of dietary protein and intercrop high-value coffee plants with banana in Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi.<\/p>\n
Staple crops such as maize, millet, beans, sweet potato and cassava are being produced at 60 percent to 90 percent below their potential.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{{Agricultural experts meeting in Kigali have warned that Great Lakes region could face increased conflict and greater instability in coming decades due to available food grown to less land.}} The experts convened in a four-days conference of consortium for Improving Agriculture-based Livelihoods in Central Africa (CIALCA) to examine challenges and opportunities for sustainable improvement of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[75],"byline":[277],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-1042","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-homenews","byline-igihe-com-reporter"],"bylines":[{"id":277,"name":"IGIHE.com Reporter","slug":"igihe-com-reporter","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":277,"name":"IGIHE.com Reporter","slug":"igihe-com-reporter","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1042","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1042"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1042\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1042"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=1042"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=1042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}