An Introduction to Water and Food in Africa: Student Edition

As one of my final blog posts, I wanted to make sure I had adequately researched the whole of the continent of Africa. Therefore, I will be doing a third case study on agriculture and water uses in Uganda. Uganda is a central eastern land-locked country in Africa, which has most of its population engaged in rural agricultural activities (Chidlow, 2014) . Uganda shares a portion of Lake Victoria with Tanzania and Kenya which brings up the idea of transnational water boundaries which we have studied in class. Therefore, knowing Uganda has access to one of the largest lakes in the world, I would’ve thought Uganda could rely on this resource for irrigation. However, like many of the countries in Africa water distribution is extremely unequal and farmers simply depend on rainfall (Chidlow, 2014) . The good news here is that rainfall in Uganda is high, averaging about 1,000 to 1,500 mm in the southern regions of the country (Worldtravelguide) . Just like the majority of countries in Africa,

“There is no reason why Africa cannot be self‐sufficient when it comes to food. It has sufficient arable land. What's lacking is the right seeds, the right irrigation, but also the kinds of institutional mechanisms that ensure that a farmer is going to be able to grow crops, get them to market, get a fair price” -Barack Obama (Lankford, 2009)  A small scale farmer in Africa using the rope and bucket method discussed below (Researchgate) I am starting this week's blog with this quote as it shows what I will be examining and also restates how important the need for investment in Africa’s irrigation is to ensure a bright future. The quote from Obama above shows what I have been thinking a lot about, why is it that the developed countries of the world had it easy when it came to growing crops and sustaining our populations and Africa hasn’t. Well, there is obviously a lot to unpack there with the colonial past which I have touched upon but also the lack of investments and

When looking at a map of Northern Africa, the countries vary in size, geographical extent, and climate. Looking back at last week's blog, I wanted to choose a country for this week's case study that I know little about yet still intrigues me. This is why I chose Mali, it has the Niger River running through it, a transboundary river, which means that in a political sense conflicts could erupt, and in a geographical sense, Mali has a source of water. I am interested in learning more about the connection between water and food in Mali as it is a central northern African country that has had lots of issues in the past. According to WaterAid, Mali is one of the “hottest places on earth” as its lands extend into the Sahara Desert, being a large country (Ouedraogo) . This fact has me questioning if this means that with increased climate change Mali will be heating even more and experiencing things such as increased erosion and desertification? A map of Mali (Free World Maps) Ma