With the global population expected to exceed 9 billion by 2050, food security is one of the most important objectives of our time. The agricultural economy employs 65–70 per cent of Africa's labour force and typically accounts for 30–40 per cent of GDP according to the World Bank. With the population in Africa estimated to reach about 2.6 billion by 2050, it is now important that agriculture and food systems be reviewed in order to find innovative approaches at improving food production and utilisation to enhance food security. Being a high-priority sector for the African economy, agriculture, broadly comprising farming and forestry, livestock (milk, eggs and meat) and fisheries, is on the verge of massive transformation with a greater focus on technology integration. Considering the spectrum of the sector, agriculture is still mired with challenges spread across the value chain and needs better optimisation of operations.

A major new study in Radiology shows that artificial intelligence (AI) is a promising tool for breast cancer detection in screening mammography programs. Mammograms acquired through population-based breast cancer screening programs produce a significant workload for radiologists. AI has been proposed as an automated second reader for mammograms that could help reduce this workload. The technology has shown encouraging results for cancer detection, but evidence related to its use in real screening settings is limited. In the new study--the largest of its kind to date, Norwegian researchers led by Solveig Hofvind, Ph.D., from the Section for Breast Cancer Screening, Cancer Registry of Norway in Oslo, compared the performance of a commercially available AI system with routine independent double reading as performed in a population-based screening program.

The need for diagnostic images is rapidly exceeding the capacity of available specialists worldwide, and more acutely so in developing countries where access to healthcare remains challenging. AI is showing promise in TB diagnosis, but it could do much more, provided incentives went in the right direction, recent initiatives in Uganda have shown. Shortage of radiologists is a worldwide phenomenon, but the lack of specialists is much more pronounced in developing countries. In Uganda, only 20 doctors signed up for radiology residency in 2018 and the radiologist-to-population ratio was approximately 1:1,600,000; and it was even lower in Malawi – 1:8,000,000. With AI, possibilities are emerging to fill in this vertiginous gap and tend to these populations' medical imaging needs.