power outages are leaving south africans in the dark with the country grappling a serious energy with a serious energy crisis we're asking should governments in africa keep sole control of key sectors all that story and a whole lot more coming up with monika and business africa that's in one minute set time and i'll see you again tomorrow. if you know i mean in your minutes in going us. most router what i'm focused on him is you know what i'm with what i'm organizing around upwards of three. point zero point zero conceived because as you say acid cannot only save but are going on where they're being funded. we make up over a week watches over half of the under budget by we on the civil service and. the

want to shape the continent's future to. be part of enjoying african youngsters as they share their stories their dreams and their challengers. to the citizenship and percent. platform officer in charge. of the. no end in sight for south africans power cuts state utility eskom continues to suffer capacity constraints following the months of cyclon which hit south africa's electricity imports from mozambique. also on the show as more and more people leave floral regions can the rooftop gardens help feed of south africa's booming cities. welcome to do business africa want to get jones good to have you with us and was starting. the fallout from the powerful cycling that hit mozambique killing

hundreds of people and leaving a trail of destruction across ways of south east africa the damage to mozambique and infrastructure including pylons that carry power to neighboring countries may take weeks this has exacerbated running power outages in south africa where state owned utility eskom is struggling to bring faulty generating units back online. cold beer sorry you're out of luck there's been no electricity for hours. thankfully the kitchen has gas burners and there's still some daylight. for this small johannesburg restaurant it's a matter of life and death some days there are numerous power cuts they've already thrown away five hundred euros worth of meat and bags of ice can only function so long as a stopgap measure the. pleas. to the oem

to these. four years in south africa's power stations have been neglected as a consequence of mismanagement and corruption so the state owned energy company has had to limit output causing power cuts the subject dominates the national press the power outages are having an adverse effect on south africa's already struggling economy. traffic lights are out and mobile phone networks down transmitter mast also need electricity these are the worst cuts in years those who are able to prepare in advance count themselves lucky luckily we've got it you know right yeah we self-sustaining. when it comes to power but we did something that we didn't budget for but not all businesses can afford to do that and many of them are heading for dire financial straits. grossly. over the course through make my ear. there. are some

that. just weeks out from the national election the south african government says it's tackling the problem but so far there's no sign of an end to the destruction. now africa is the continent with the fastest growing population and it's also facing the same phenomenon seen in other parts of the world people are leaving the countryside to move to the city so does it make sense to continue growing food in rural areas whether consume us or elsewhere some say no it's time for urban farming instead. why go shopping when you can grow your food yourself tandi bandy cultivates lashes spinach and her ribs on her of rooftop garden she's part of a co-operative that uses the farming technique called aquaponics. proponents say it produces yields three times as high as conventional agriculture she says the system has many advantages. there is no water we stayed here. in new even

a drop of water with the system there were too low to put this goes inside the cones big goes into the homes we cannot go on the floor. and other benefits of the farming method is that it fell through the staining this makes it less susceptible to the changes in the weather and hence more resilient to the effects of climate change members of the co-operative have also begun selling their produce at the local marcus' vegetable connoisseurs say they can taste the difference. so do we need to rethink agriculture well that's one of the questions currently discussed at the global food summit in munich in southern germany where i'm now joined by. head of the u.n. world food program innovation accelerator good to have you with us so the summit i believe focuses on a lot a lot on you technology in the ugly culture sector how do you support such

innovation. we are the world food program looking for startups in innovations globally so we're looking for those disruptive startups that can help. feed the next billion on this planet and also anything from anywhere on this planet we can apply in developing countries they can make it their friends towards zero hunger is what we're looking for and we're providing them with funding hands on support but also access to networks that we have in over eighty countries across the globe ok well africa of course is sadly still very much associated with hunger but it's also a very young continent how big a role the african startups play in. so start ups to really have the power to transform the sectors that we are active in now we see a lot of young entrepreneur and people also in africa that really want to make a difference and they bring their passion to politics able to give you

a couple of examples points we had in our program a startup called hello tractor that's tractors that really brings the efficiency of kind of western agriculture to small the farmers in nigeria right now and a couple of other countries or talking about cold helps it's a cold storage start up it actually increases the shelf life of vegetables for instance for people that cannot afford it bridget but also for example using farm drive is an extended from kenya that use alternative credits were integrating people they currently don't have access to credit into the normal financial marketplace and we see that a lot of that happens both on producing food transporting food but also how you can actually then consume it ok so there's a lot of dynamics there and just briefly if you would to do you see urban farming eventually becoming equally important then rural farming.

so urban farming when you talk about hydroponics politics growing plants without soil is a very attractive picnic hydroponics what you think use is ninety percent less water than traditional agriculture and you don't need choice so you literally can grow it in your home in your back garden in also for poorer families they can actually know produce nutrition that they have access to but they don't have to buy in markets and they can even sell the surplus products so it's definitely one of those areas they could transform the world both in those areas but also for instance like think about climate change we will have more of the production methods that we need in future ok banhart coverts the head of the u.n. world food program's innovation accelerator thank you so much. and i just some other global business stories making the news. bias shares have plunged after a u.s. court found that a reach killer the company owns maybe links to cancer the product in question is

called round up it was made by monsanto which by acquired for sixty three billion dollars last year the verdict came as a surprise and there are many more lawsuits in the legal pipeline. european union regulators have find a google close to one and a half billion euros for abusing its market dominance the misconduct involved favoring its own price comparison results in searches the take giant says it will now stop the practice in the e.u. it's also about to make it easier for android users to choose a different web browser on their phones. in saudi arabia is hoping to raise twenty billion dollars to promote this area. as a tourist destination the site which last month hosted its first ever hot air balloon festival is famous for its pretty islamic heritage sites promoting tourism as one way the country's hoping to diversify its economy away from oil. and ministers from across africa a gathering of the moroccan city of marrakech for

a united nations conference on economics top of the agenda is a plan to introduce a free trade area across much of the continent if implemented the said bill includes forty nine countries and boost intra african trade by an estimated thirty four billion dollars the week long event will also focus on education and digital industries. now that if the delegates don't get lured outside into the sunny weather because morocco gets around three thousand hours of sunshine each year it's a commodity in abundance and in a few years forty percent of the country's energy is expected to come from solar and wind as well as large scale energy producing facilities smaller companies are also working to supply remote rural communities. there's next to nothing in the mountain village of draft in the high atlas no water no electricity no telephones and this family's been eagerly awaiting the arrival of solar engineers show what a raw bay and his colleagues the panel is installed on their roof at a cost of

a few hundred euros. nearly turner energy is pretty expensive for us and we don't have much money so we hope this is going to improve our lives. it's almost ready the cable from the panel is pulled into the living room where she wired overpay screws in the family's first like. it's a great feeling for me when they can say we finally have like a boss until the evidence is wonderful in the evenings we could never see anything even if they were cockroaches in the pot now we're happy. the following morning down his installation team set off for was a start he's one of the hopes of southern morocco and is where his small business is based. the twenty eight year old entrepreneur employs four people and his

business is booming. but it was as that is the solar energy capital of the world that's because of the new massive power plant. nor do that. from a distance you can see the high tower at the facility known as nor that's the arabic word for light because morocco has been relying on imports from missed all of its energy it's the country's now counting on such major projects across a huge area seven and a half thousand mirrors surround the tower focusing the sunlight on to it this generates temperatures of more than a thousand degrees. to it or not but then if we see them all we have no fossil fuels in morocco. the same time our energy needs are growing. so the ideal solution is renewable sources and i government is committed to them. but it can't all be high tech i'm cutting edge now the donkey is saddled and it's

time to return to the mountains and the next house and his team. now how would you fancy attending a conference devoted entirely to pastries and sweet treats now that's exactly what's just kicked off in the moroccan city of casablanca the international forum brings together professionals for the confectionery industry the aim is to highlight the importance of the cafe and restaurant sector it's also an opportunity for morocco to promote its own unique sweet snacks. yami and that is your business brief on africa here on t w thanks for keeping us company.

going to the conflict zone with jim sebastian coe our guest this week here in london is larger mills the progress of european the search for which is consistent returns very for a tough deal with brussels last week romas to move change his mind has decided to support to resume raise agreements victoria cox finally giving up conflict so for a few minutes. the facts. earth

a home for saving google indios tells stories of creative people and innovative projects around the world ideas to protect the climate and boost green energy solutions by global owing to his being on the series of global three thousand on d w and online. this is d w news africa coming up in the next fifteen minutes the ada says. making its way to the victims of psycho need food water and other emergency supplies are being distributed to areas that can be reached and on the ground up change on the relief operation in mozambique. and the policy does that have left south africans in the dock with the country grappling a serious energy crisis we asked should our governments in africa have sole control of key six's when they missed me.