Country

South Africa

South Africa: Does Biotech Have a Future for Africa Farms?

I left Africa last night with a great deal of gratitude for the people who have shared their stories with me, especially the farmers. Never have I encountered such a wide variety of experiences, skills and backgrounds, but all of them were willing, even eager, to share their thoughts with an American journalist. They include:

Janet Kaindu, who had lost her second crop in a row of maize and beans on her plot in Kenya's Rift

South Africa: The Moth That Eats Corn Crops

Thought moths were a threat to your clothes? They can devastate corn crops, too, and do in eastern and southern Africa. I got my first look at busseola fusca on Friday after hearing about ever since I arrived in Africa to look at the challenges facing farmers here and the potential for biotechnology to increase food production.

South Africa Struggles to Aid Black Farmers

Isaac Khuto, 65, got a late start at farming, but he's making the most of it. Khuto, who has an eighth grade education and lived most of his life under the hated apartheid system. But now he's part of a slowly developing effort to help blacks obtain farmland in a way that avoid the wholesale grab of white farms that destroyed food production in Zimbabwe.

Heat of the Moment: Drought (Part 3)

Makuleke, a village of small mud-walled houses with tin roofs in South Africa's Limpopo province, is a dry place in a dry land. Rainfall there, near the country's border with Zimbabwe, is low by most standards; about the same as rainfall in Montana.

Philemon Makamu, a farmer in Makuleke, gestures toward a garden planted in corn, pumpkin, watermelon and peanuts. His friend Reckson Josini squats to the ground to grasp a corn stalk gingerly in his hands. "You can see how it suffers," say Makamu.

Consequences of Climate Change

With a low degree of irrigation, residents of the Limpopo Province of Southern Africa must "gamble on farming," constantly hoping that just enough water will feed their crops to make it through the year. But as the world changes, the dry seasons of the Limpopo Province are getting drier- Daniel Grossman explores.

Climate Change, Drought, Hope in Southern Africa

Makuleke, a village of small mud-walled houses with tin roofs in South Africa's Limpopo province, is a dry place in a dry land. Rainfall there, near the country's border with Zimbabwe, is low by most standards; about the same as rainfall in Montana.

Philemon Makamu, a farmer in Makuleke, gestures toward a garden planted in corn, pumpkin, watermelon and peanuts. His friend Reckson Josini squats to the ground to grasp a corn stalk gingerly in his hands. "You can see how it suffers," say Makamu.

Endangered in South Africa: Watching Wildlife With White People

At about 5:30 in the morning, I was idling at a stoplight and squinting to read the tiny print on my map when the white chap next to me rolled down the window of his beige Land Rover. Two Europeans were seated on the safari seats behind him with cameras already strapped to their necks. "Follow me!" he shouted.

"Going to—er—Pumbi?" I said, having no idea what the name meant much less which of the region's many tribal languages it came from: Xitsonga, siSwati, Sesotho, Tshivenda, isiZulu, Setswana …

Endangered in South Africa: Those Doggone Conservationists

When we first spotted Fender through the 8-foot-tall perimeter fence, I could see she was hobbling behind her two pals, Rory and Stellar. While most packs of African wild dogs consist of a dozen animals, the "diamond dogs" living on this DeBeers-owned reserve numbered just three.

On the Mauricedale Game Ranch

In South Africa, wildlife live behind fences -- whether they surround national parks, public or private game reserves, or cattle ranches. Mauricedale Game Ranch, just south of Kruger National Park, boasts the largest breeding population of white rhinos on private land, and depending on how you see it may be either glorified zoo or a valuable chunk of wildlife habitat in an increasingly fragmented landscape.

Namibia: Poachers or Hunters?

Brendan Borrell, for the Pulitzer Center

Earlier this month, I met Colin Bristow, a bush pilot based in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe who has spent 29 years running charters in countries ranging from Mozambique to Angola. He often flies tourists over the Lower Zambezi National Park in Zambia and sometimes visits the park on foot after most of the tourist lodges have shut down for the season. On a recent trip, he was shocked to count over 60 elephant corpses: their ivory tusks shorn from their heads.