Listen to American Public Media's (APM) and the Center for Investigative Reporting's latest installment of their series, Food for 9 Billion, if you want a down-to-earth look at just what it's going to take to feed the world as we grow to 9 billion people. In Africa, says APM's Kai Ryssdal, farmers will need to double the amount of food they grow to feed the continent's growing population. How?

As Kate Schneider and Monika Zurek write in their series Nourishing People and the Planet, "Most farmers depend on rainfall alone to water their crops, have poor soils and little access to affordable plant nutrition, and suffer pre- and post-harvest losses as a result of pests, diseases, weeds, and drought."  But without access to advanced farming tools and technology, as Schneider and Zurek write, "Not only do these challenges lead to low yields and high risk, they also contribute to further degradation of natural resources."

Journalist Jori Lewis travels through Ghana to tell the story of dirt, farming, and saving the world in the latest edition of APM's Food for 9 Billion, Soil is ground zero in African farming debate.