IMF: 76% of CBN loans to farmers unpaid

After cyclone Niran hit New Caledonia with gusts of more than 250km per hour in March, one banana grower refused to accept that much of his three tons of unripe fruit would now be lost. He decided to make lemonade out of lemons - by making his damaged fruit into banana flour. It's an alternative to wheat for consumers looking for gluten-free options, and producers in New Caledonia now hope that this could be the beginning of a whole new local industry.

In France, working the soil is often a family business. In the western city of La Rochelle, we meet three generations of cereal farmers who have been working the fields since 1912. A little further north, in the Mayenne region, a whole family has converted to organic farming. For all of them, each working day is a chance to learn or pass on know-how.

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has imposed limits on cash withdrawals from automatic teller machines (ATMs) by individuals and corporate entities in a bid to boost digital payments. Guardian TV takes a look at Five things you need to know about the CBN's new cash policy.

Gaining Ground, a nonprofit organic farm in Concord, Massachusetts, grows vegetables and fruit with the help of several thousand community volunteers and donates all of this fresh food to area meal programs and food pantries.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine and occupation of much of its most fertile land, in the southern regions of Mykolaiv and Kherson, has been catastrophic for the country's agriculture. Back in April, our correspondent Gulliver Cragg met one of the many farmers whose land had fallen under Russian control.

Ghana has reached a "staff-level" agreement with the IMF for a three-year, $3 bln loan program and, according to its finance minister, expects IMF board approval "early next year".

Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) yesterday announced that it would pay €15 million to farmers in three Niger Delta communities as compensation for damages to their farms from pipeline leaks between 2004 and 2007.

Nigerians may have to adapt to a more effective digital payment solution for all transactions in the face of the new Central Bank regulations. Lois Ogunniyi of GuardianTV spoke with Omoniyi Kolade, the founder of Seerbit, a digital payment solutions provider who gave insights into how the new policy works and more.

Kristalina Georgieva, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, is warning that this year will be tougher than the last and that the war in Ukraine, rising inflation and higher interest rates will weigh heavily on the global economy. She expects the EU to be particularly hard hit, with half of its members seeing declines in growth.

Gloomy economic forecasts have cast a long shadow over this year's event in the Swiss Alps. But Georgieva said that although the IMF projects 2023 to be "a difficult year" and for growth to fall further, "we don't expect a global recession". She cited resilient labour markets and consumer spending, the post-Covid reopening of China and signs of inflation trending downwards.

Germany is restructuring its agriculture to make one-third of all farms organic by 2030. But as inflation rises, farmers are demanding more government support. They are set to flock to Berlin to make their voices heard.