Seeking Africa's green revolution

Typography
By applying a mixture of crop breeding, soil management, irrigation and diversification, agro-science experts are helping subsistence farmers to cope with climate change and buck the trend in neighbouring African countries.

From the begging bowl to the bread basket: in just two years, Malawi has gone from famine to food surplus - a minor agricultural miracle.

By applying a mixture of crop breeding, soil management, irrigation and diversification, agro-science experts are helping subsistence farmers to cope with climate change and buck the trend in neighbouring African countries.

BBC science and environment reporter James Morgan has gone into the field to meet the families who are sowing the seeds of a uniquely African green revolution - one which is as kind to the environment as it is to the economy.

Piled 19 bags high; when I say bags, I'm talking about the kind of sacks you can dam rivers with.

I tried lifting one. At 50kg, that was a big mistake. I left that to the army of youngsters with Popeye biceps, who were loading Malawi's mammoth maize harvest onto lorries, bound for government sales depots around the country.

"If you came here just a few years ago, you would find this storage depot totally empty," says Feckson Kantonga, operations manager for the government-sponsored Agriculture Development and Marketing Corporation (Admarc).

Article Continues: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7651977.stm