Paris- France (PANA) -- A daylong conference opens in Paris Friday to debate measures capable of reducing global rural poverty. Full text...

Niamey- Niger (PANA) -- Niger is set to reduce its dependence on food aid this year as a result of the agricultural campaign the country's leadership undertook last year. Full text...

Dakar- Senegal (PANA) -- In the back row of a conference hall, a seminar participant has dreams of development in a rural area where people till the land for survival. Full text...

Harare- Zimbabwe (PANA) -- Locked in a tussle with the government over its controversial land reforms, white commercial farmers in Zimbabwe complained Saturday that the authorities were seizing maize stocks from their farms to avert possible starvation in the country. Full text...

Dakar- Senegal (PANA) -- The president of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), Lennart Bage, is due in Dakar 10 January for a five-day visit in the course of which IFAD's West and Central Africa regional poverty assessment report would be launched in the Senegalese capital. Full text...

Yaounde- Cameroon (PANA) -- Cameroonians have begun learning to consume locally grown mushrooms thanks to a Chinese team based in the town of Obala, outside Yaounde. Full text...

Maputo- Mozambique (PANA) -- Mozambique currently possesses reserves of 8,421 tonnes of food to be used in the event of any natural disaster befalling the country during this rainy season. Full text...

Harare- Zimbabwe (PANA) -- The Zimbabwe government Sunday denied opposition charges it was only giving farmland to top officials and its supporters under its controversial agrarian reforms. Full text...

Maputo- Mozambique (PANA) -- An outbreak of African swine fever has killed some 5,000 pigs in the northern Mozambican province of Nampula, the Beira daily paper Diario de Mocambique reported Thursday. Full text...

Luanda- Angola (PANA) -- Some 232. Full text...

Blantyre- Malawi (PANA) -- A marauding hippopotamus has destroyed some farm lands around Lake Chilwa in the southern Malawi District of Zomba, after wildlife officials killed its partner at the weekend. Full text...

Harare- Zimbabwe (PANA) -- Zimbabwe's embattled white commercial farmers said Monday the country's output of the key tobacco crop was expected to drop substantially in the current farming season due to the government's controversial seizure of their farms for re-distribution to land-less blacks. Full text...

Harare- Zimbabwe (PANA) -- Zimbabwe will begin to import maize from South Africa Monday to meet a shortfall in domestic production, a senior government official has said. Full text...

Maputo- Mozambique (PANA) -- The UN World Food Programme (WFP), has reserved some 2,000 tonnes of food to assist needy Mozambicans, a WFP official said. Full text...

Cotonou- Benin (PANA) -- Some 50 chief executives from Benin's Agriculture, Livestock and Fishing sectors, met Friday in Cotonou, to adopt a national forestry development plan for 2001-2020. Full text...

Centenary- Zimbabwe (PANA) -- With encouraging music bellowing from his car radio a few metres away, Taurai Chidzonga attends to the healthy crop of maize on his newly acquired plot in northern Zimbabwe. Full text...

Blantyre- Malawi (PANA) -- Army worms have devastated crops in the central Malawi lakeshore district of Nkhota Kota raising fears of more food shortages next year. Full text...

Ouagadougou- Burkina Faso (PANA) -- Burkina Faso and Japan signed Thursday evening in Ouagadougou a memorandum under which Tokyo will provide 1. Full text...

Kinshasa- DR Congo (PANA) -- A fish farming project funded by French cooperation over the past year will supply Kinshasa with tilapia nilotica fish as from February 2002, project head Daniel Thomas told newsmen. Full text...

Cotonou- Benin (PANA) -- The Agriculture ministry in Benin has published a document outlining the country's agricultural development policy. Full text...

Brazzaville- Congo (PANA) -- The cassava laboratory at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) in Ibadan, Nigeria has donated 5,900 improved cassava seedlings to Congo, agriculture officials said in Brazzaville. Full text...

Nairobi- Kenya (PANA) -- The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) in conjunction with Belgium Survival Fund intends to spend over 35 million shillings (447,000 US dollars) for poverty alleviation projects in dry areas of the central Kenya district of Thika. Full text...

Harare- Zimbabwe (PANA) -- The Zimbabwe government Friday increased the farm-gate price for maize, claiming the move is designed to lure farmers into selling stocks they were supposedly hoarding to press for better prices. Full text...

Harare- Zimbabwe (PANA) -- Zimbabwe has clinched a deal to export 36,000 tonnes of soyabeans worth 16 million US dollars to Malaysia next year, a top agriculture official said Thursday in Harare. Full text...

Dakar- Senegal (PANA) -- The Network of West African farmers' organisations and agricultural producers (ROPPA) has recommend that the West African economical and monetary Union (UEMOA) give priority to small farmers in the Union agricultural policy (PAU). Full text...

Harare- Zimbabwe (PANA) -- The Zimbabwe government said Tuesday it would import 2 000 tractors and several thousand tones of fertilisers from the former Soviet Republic of Belarus to boost its controversial land reforms. Full text...

Niamey- Niger (PANA) -- Niger has reported food deficits of more than 50 percent in 1 933 villages, despite a national cereal surplus of 297 500 tonnes. Full text...

Maputo- Mozambique (PANA) -- Mozambican Prime Minister Pascoal Mocumbi said Thursday that despite the floods that hit the country's central provinces in the early part of this year, the 2001 harvest brought in 1. Full text...

Addis Ababa- Ethiopia (PANA) -- Inadequate maintenance of flour mills causes a loss of 125,000 kg of wheat per day in Ethiopia, according to a recent market survey by Bushler Company of Switzerland. Full text...

Addis Ababa- Ethiopia (PANA) -- Ethiopian officials are working on a national biotechnology policy which the Minister for Capacity Building, Worde Wolde, said would enable the country to utilise its limited resources efficiently. Full text...

Niamey- Niger (PANA) -- Some 350,000 Niger villagers are expected to benefit from an EU food security programme, the EU delegation said in Niamey. Full text...

Lagos- Nigeria (PANA) -- International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) president Lennart Bage is due in Abuja Monday for a four-day official visit to Nigeria, the UN Information Centre here has announced. Full text...

Cape Town- South Africa (PANA) -- The youth league of the African National Congress meets Friday in Johannesburg with Grain South Africa to discuss further the opening up of the farming industry to black and unskilled youths in South Africa. Full text...

Niamey- Niger (PANA) -- Niger, which suffered 163,000 tonnes in cereal deficit last year, harvested 297,000 tonnes surplus of the grain this year, a government statement said. Full text...

Harare- Zimbabwe (PANA) -- Zimbabwe is set to make the best of neighbouring South Africa's 300 000-tonne soybean import requirement, a local bank affirmed Wednesday. Full text...

Harare- Zimbabwe (PANA) -- The Supreme Court in Zimbabwe Monday ruled that the government's agrarian reforms were lawful and complied with the constitution, dealing a big blow to white commercial farmers who had sought court intervention to block the take over of their farms by the government. Full text...

Kinshasa- DR Congo (PANA) -- Kinshasa consumes some 27. Full text...

Brazzaville- Congo (PANA) -- Congo is facing the threat of a food shortage, following a fall in the production of the country's staple food, cassava, sources at the ministry of Agriculture and Livestock said. Full text...

Tripoli- Libya (PANA) -- An epidemic in the Libyan agricultural region of Sahl-Al-Jafara (south-west) has destroyed tens of thousands of chicken, the local daily "AL Chams" reported. Full text...

Maputo- Mozambique (PANA) -- The authorities in Mozambique have approved 50 out of 63 requests from Zimbabwean commercial farmers seeking agricultural land in the central province of Manica. Full text...

Maputo- Mozambique (PANA) -- The Mozambican authorities have approved 50 out of 63 requests made by Zimbabwean commercial farmers for agricultural land in the central province of Manica, according to Agriculture Minister Helder Muteia. Full text...

Lobito- Angola (PANA) -- The World Food Programme (WFP) is sending some 8,000 tons of maize to the needy in Angola's central and eastern regions, the national news agency (ANGOP) has reported. Full text...

Bamako- Mali (PANA) -- Mali's rural development minister Ahmed El Madani Diallo and the World Bank have signed in Washington a draft agreement to finance a programme for the country's Agricultural Services and Farming Associations (SPASFA). Full text...

Khartoum- Sudan (PANA) -- Sudan said it would increase its wheat growing acreage from 300,000 to 500,000 acres this winter, the country's agriculture ministry said Monday. Full text...

Niamey- Niger (PANA) -- The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation will assist Niger in guaranteeing availability of agricultural inputs to farmers under an agreement signed here at the weekend. Full text...

Harare- Zimbabwe (PANA) -- Zimbabwe's embattled white commercial farmers Monday warned of a massive pullout of investment in the key agriculture industry if the government goes ahead with plans to slash their farm sizes as part of its controversial land reform programme. Full text...

Niamey- Niger (PANA) -- Niger's minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, Aïchatou Mindaoudou, has signed an agreement with the FAO on the implementation of phase II of a project promoting agricultural inputs among local producers. Full text...

Ouagadougou- Burkina Faso (PANA) -- A national workshop on a pastoral code is underway in Ouagadougou, to regulate cattle breeding in Burkina Faso. Full text...

Niamey- Niger (PANA) -- Niger expects cereal output of around 200,000 tonnes by the end of 2001, according to the monthly bulletin by the National Early Warning System on agriculture. Full text...

Cape Town- South Africa (PANA) -- South Africa's minister for Public Service and Administration, Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi, is back in Pretoria after attending a conference in Uganda on improving service delivery. Full text...