News Overview

Kenya’s coffee sector has marked a historic milestone with the successful preparation and export of its first shipment of European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR)-ready coffee. This achievement reflects not only compliance with emerging global sustainability standards, but also the country’s growing capacity to operate within a rapidly evolving trade environment where environmental accountability is becoming a prerequisite for market access.

Since its introduction to Kenya in 1893, coffee has remained one of the country’s most significant agricultural exports. Today, it is grown across 33 counties, largely by smallholder farmers who account for about 70 percent of production, supporting an estimated 1.5 million households directly and indirectly.

In Uasin Gishu County, Kenya, smallholder farmers, cooperatives, and agriGHALA are transforming grain trade through structured systems, improving storage, finance, and market access to reduce losses and increase incomes.

Tanzania’s ACCELERATE Initiative is transforming the seed sector by linking research, markets, and farmers through public–private partnerships, boosting improved seed adoption, strengthening systems, and driving demand-led agricultural growth.

In Elgeyo Marakwet, Kenya, partners distributed Nyota bean seed to 6,300 farmers ahead of the 2026 long rains, boosting yields, nutrition, and resilience through timely, climate-smart interventions and coordinated action.

In Colombia, cidra papa, also known as guatila or chayote, is neither a new nor an unfamiliar crop. It has always been there: in farms, home gardens, and traditional kitchens. It is one of those foods that are part of everyday life in many territories, consumed without much explanation simply because it has always been there; and yet, this familiarity has not necessarily translated into recognition.

Dr. Ismahane Elouafi, on the growing links between food systems, economic stability, and national security under rising global pressures.

Are we at the beginning of another period of high food prices? The short answer, in our assessment, is probably not—at least not yet. The conditions that drove prior price spikes are largely absent today, and the Hormuz disruption is a fundamentally different kind of shock than either the 2007-2008 food price crisis or 2022