1. Sorghum varieties discovered by Ethiopian scientist register commendable results

2. Seeking seed diversity, resilience and farmer control

3. Subsidized fertilizer: The answer to Africa's food crisis?

4. African farms becoming too climate-hot to handle

5. Better seeds and business knowledge: how can small-scale farmers in Africa benefit?

6. Study finds global prices for crops ease

7. Banana blight puts livelihoods at risk

8. South Africa cautions on farm land scramble

9. Fertilizer prices expected to increase in 2010

10. Chilean orange shipments concern South African exporters

11. South African citrus programs transfer ownership to farm workers

12. We have a lot of land to give foreigners, says Zambian agriculture minister

13. A 'time bomb' for world wheat crop

14. Ethiopian plant breeder Gebisa Ejeta wins 2009 World Food Prize

15. Malawi's bountiful maize harvest tempered by high input costs

16. Brazil offers to help Africa boost food output

17. Ugandan sugar producers invest $100 million to expand production

18. Climate change may mean a dry future for Kenyan farms

19. Malawi records 1.2 million tonne maize surplus

20. Zimbabwe faces wheat shortage

21. Views on Jatropha as biofuel mixed

22. Dams leave some African farmers high and dry

23. Company to acquire 15,000 hectares in Ethiopia for jatropha biodiesel production

24. Camel farming could be an option for dry areas

25. EU to fund Zimbabwe’s sugar industry

26. Climate change threatens African farmland - study

27. Agriterra opens second operation in Mozambique

Sorghum varieties discovered by Ethiopian scientist register commendable results

The Ethiopian Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development said it has distributed and gained reliable results from two drought and weed-resistant varieties of sorghum discovered by Ethiopian scientist, Professor Gebisa Ejeta. The professor was recently named as the winner of the 2009 World Food Prize.

State Minister of MoARD, Dr. Abera Deresa said one of the species called Abshir is being produced in a large scale in Shire, Tigray State. The pilot project of the other species called Gubeye in Wollo area of Amhara State registered positive results in withstanding diseases. Currently the variety is being distributed to other areas of the country, Dr. Abera said.

The minister, who was earlier head of Melkassa Agricultural Research Center, recalled that Gebisa was working on a number of researches that have solved problems of Ethiopian farmers.

Sorghum, which is staple food for people living in Eastern and NorthEast part of the country, had been repeatedly destroyed by weed called Striga (“Akenchera”)and caused food shortage to the people .

Earlier on the ministry in collaboration with national research instituions recognized the professor for his findings. Before a year and half the species were distributed and produced in large scale in Tigray State, Wollo, East and West Hararge zones.

The researcher has discovered many other sorghum species in Sudan as the weed has been affecting the plant.The professor also made similar researches in West Africa and his discoveries are being made use of in other parts of the world exposed to food shortage.

Though there are some unproved reports saying professor Gebisa is the second African to win the award, the minister said professor Gebisa is in fact the first African for the award, which is recognized by US State Department.

The researcher will receive the 250,000 USD award on October 15 in a ceremony, which will be organized by the World Food Prize Foundation in Des Moines, Iowa.

Professor Gebisa, 59, a faculty member at Purdue University in the Midwestern U.S. state of Indiana, joined the university faculty in 1984.

President of the foundation, former U.S. ambassador to Cambodia Kenneth Quinn, said Gebisa's work with sorghum has benefited millions of people in Africa and beyond.

Ethiopian Review

Seeking seed diversity, resilience and farmer control

by Raffaella Delle Donne

The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) claims that its "stress breeding", high-yield seed program and its emphasis on grassroots farmer input will boost agricultural production among poor, small scale farmers. But NGOs and environmentalists say AGRA’s Programme for Africa’s Seed System (PASS) is essentially a top-down, corporate driven approach that further threatens food security on the continent.

Like its predecessor, AGRA’s ‘new’ Green Revolution views food shortages as a crisis of demand-and-supply and has initiated what Joe de Vries, director of PASS, describes as a "farmer participatory" program that aims to develop strains of crops specifically suited to African conditions.

"It is our belief that Africa’s farmers need to move beyond subsistence farming and that by doing so they will benefit, and so will African consumers through greater abundance of food in local markets," says de Vries.

For many NGOs working with subsistence farmers, AGRA’s model has more to do with increasing Africa’s production of commercial crops for export and opening up markets for agribusiness than it does with contributing to food security.

"The need to increase yield isa neat argument that is easilyswallowed by governments and citizens.It does not necessarily lead to ending hunger, especially when that yield is headed for a global market and remains inaccessible to the majority", says Haidee Swanby, researcher at the African Centre for Biosafety (ACB).

One of the main criticisms levelled at AGRA is that it has not taken cognizance of the 2008 report by the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) which suggested that food sovereignty is inextricably tied to traditional and ecological agricultural models. "AGRA is not building on the systems and knowledge that already exist, they are still encouraging farmers to move to a foreign system that is reliant on external inputs and they mustbecome reliant on corporations and expert knowledge," argues Swanby.

The African Centre for Biosafety, along with international organisations like Food and Water Watch and the Oakland Institute are particularly concerned that AGRA’s "improved" seed program is laying the foundation for the introduction of GM crops in Africa.

Bill Gates, whose foundation supports AGRA, also funds several other agricultural initiatives in Africa developing GM crops. AGRA falls under the Gates Foundation's Global Development Program, whose senior programme officer is Dr. Robert Horsch - an employee of biotech giant Monsanto for 25 years and part of a team that developed Roundup Ready GM crops.

Earlier this year, alarm bells were raised in the anti-GM camp when AGRA signed a five-year agreement with the Earth Institute at New York's Columbia University, which is headed by Jeff Sachs, an outspoken and avid supporter of GMOs.

But Joe de Vries says that AGRA is not funding the development of GM crops or seeds: "For now, our focus is limited to conventionally-bred varieties. We feel confident that major changes can be brought about simply by developing and deploying this [current breeding] technology."

Rural people’s organisations like South Africa's Trust for Community Outreach and Education (TCOE) believe that AGRA has publicly steered clear of GM technology largely because it is such a contentious issue and because legislative frameworks are not yet in place in most African countries.

"Although AGRA claims that it does not make use of GMO seed, it is careful not to take a principled position on this contentious topic, thus leaving the door open to incorporate these into the plan at some future stage", says Siviwe Mdoda, coordinator of TCOE’s Land Rights Programme.

The fact that AGRA is developing seeds that are privately-owned remains a contested issue within debates about food security and food sovereignty in Africa. Funded by a large corporate network which includes chemical, seed and fertiliser companies, AGRA has helped start up private seed enterprises specifically targeting small-scale farmers in Mozambique, Mali, Malawi and Rwanda to meet, according to de Vries, the growing demand for hybrid seed.

AGRA has also been working closely with African governments who are interested in instituting subsidised seed packages with incentives like free seeds and fertilisers for the first year and subsidised packages for the next three or four years. Through these seed packages, argues Mdoda, farmers who for generations have owned their own seeds will become locked into a cycle of dependency on seeds which they have to then continually purchase, along with specific chemical fertilisers.

"AGRA should be supporting seed saving and indigenous seed banks, not encouraging the production of patented varieties that are not suitable for use in the next planting season," he says.

For Joe De Vries, the only solution to uplifting Africa’s rural poor is to increase agricultural production by helping farmers to access seeds for the 68 new varieties of crops like cassava, sorghum and maize that PASS has released which can be used together with fertilisers: "In order to access quality technology, you have to pay for it - the alternative is hunger. The way to break free from the cycle of poverty is to get better seeds and produce more food".

De Vries, an expert in plant-breeding and genetics, believes that because Africa’s soil is so depleted, it is unfeasible to grow food without increasing the use of fertiliser and says that AGRA has being working with African agronomists, scientists and farmers to find a balance between organic and inorganic methods of sustaining soil health.

"Inorganic fertilisers, used in judicious amounts which are in balance with the environment, have helped free billions of people from hunger throughout the world," he says.

Swanby and Mdodo believe that poorly-educated and impoverished farmers have little chance of competing with large-scale commercial farmers, and that if food security was the priority, AGRA would be concerned with addressing issues such as access to land and water, fair trade and ownership of resources: "In terms of production systems, yield is not as important as diversity, resilience and farmer control over resources," says Swanby.

IPS

Subsidized fertilizer: The answer to Africa's food crisis?

by Brendan Borrell

Heavy use of fertilizers causes environmental problems in the United States and China, but a global team of scientists is prescribing more use of fertilizers for sub-Saharan Africa.

Although overuse of fertilizer has caused environmental damage around the world, some scientists are calling for an increase in its application in African agriculture.

In a paper published in Science, a group of 16 researchers from the United States, Brazil and China want to provide more subsidies for fertilizer use to enrich poor quality soil in Africa, while decreasing fertilizer use in other parts of the world. “The situation in Africa is totally different from where China is now or where the United States and Europe are,” says lead author Peter Vitousek, an ecologist at Stanford University.

Their commentary came out of a workshop at the Aspen Global Change Institute last year, sponsored by NASA and several nonprofits. The researchers point out the “nutrient imbalance” between corn growers in northern China, who are using 1296 pounds (588 kilograms) of nitrogen fertilizer per hectare every year compared with 15.7 pounds (7 kilograms) per hectare in Kenya.

With 500 pounds (227 kilograms) of China’s nitrogen input going to waste every year on each hectare of land, the researchers say it could halve fertilizer use with no decline in its impressive corn yields. Kenya, by contrast, is losing 114 pounds (52 kilograms) of nitrogen per hectare per year, meaning that soil fertility is on the decline, trapping farmers in a cycle of land degradation and poverty.

Of course, asking China to cut its use of fertilizer use isn’t likely to upset environmentalists, Vitousek says. Human fertilizer use has doubled the amount of nitrogen and phosphorous entering rivers. Agricultural runoff pollutes freshwater streams, leading to the kind of unchecked algae blooms that have smothered marine ecosystems in the “dead zone” at the mouth of the Mississippi River.

That's why controversy will likely stem from the scientists’ call to increase subsidies for fertilizer use in Africa. Vitousek’s colleagues in the environmental community, who he declined to name, have already approached him and said, “I understand there’s a move to introduce fertilizer in African agriculture . . . Haven’t we learned anything?”

But there are concerns from the policy side as well. Ephraim Nkonya, an agricultural economist at the International Food Policy Research Institute, says that increasing fertilizer subsidies is not going to solve Africa’s food problems and they may in fact aggravate them. He points out that 35 percent of Zambia’s agricultural budget goes to fertilizer. Nkonya, a Tanzanian, says the problem is that the subsidies often end up in the hands of the “rich” and “well-connected” rather than poor farmers.

Nkonya says that getting fertilizer to the right people is only a small part of the puzzle. He recommends using organic soil fertility management by adding manure to the soil and alternating corn crops with beans, which fix nitrogen from the atmosphere and make it available to crops. These practices, he says, "are quite environmentally friendly and at the same time they increase yields.”

Scientific American

African farms becoming too climate-hot to handle

by Bob Holmes

African farmers will soon face growing seasons hotter than any in their experience. To cope with this rapid climate change, they – and the plant breeders who supply their crops – will need to make big changes, and soon.

Agricultural experts have predicted for some time that farmers are likely to face problems as climates become hotter and drier than they are today. Indeed, some farmers in South Africa are already reporting difficulties.

To see how fast, and how broadly, this will strike, Marshall Burke, an agricultural economist at Stanford University, and colleagues, averaged the results from 18 global climate models to forecast likely temperature and rainfall conditions in 2025, 2050 and 2075 in regions of Africa where maize, millet and sorghum are grown today. Then, assuming that year-to-year variability would remain the same as today – perhaps a conservative assumption – they asked how much these future climates would overlap with existing climates.

They found that farmers in Africa will face average temperatures outside the current range of experience in their locality in 42% of years by 2025 – and 97% by 2075. Since temperature strongly affects crop yields, farmers will need to find new varieties adapted to these higher temperatures, Burke says. Future rainfall showed more overlap with current conditions, largely because rainfall already varies more from year to year.

The researchers then looked to see whether the warmer temperatures forecast for 2050 can be found anywhere in Africa today. If so, they reasoned, these analogous conditions might yield crop varieties already adapted for the future conditions.

A few lucky countries, such as Tanzania, Ethiopia and South Africa, have diverse enough climates today that they can find climates analogous to the potential conditions of 2050 within their own borders today, Burke's team found. At the opposite extreme, Sahelian countries such as Chad, Mali and Niger may have nowhere to turn.

"By 2050, they're going to be hotter than any current growing season in any maize country in the world," says Burke.

Most countries, however, will be able to find analogous climates in other countries today. That would be good news, except that plant breeders have done very little collecting of locally adapted varieties from some of the most likely analog countries, such as Cameroon, Sudan and Nigeria, Burke's team found.

To cope with future climates, genetic prospectors must sample much more of the genetic diversity of crops in these countries – and those nations must then do a better job of sharing these genetic resources, says Burke.

"We've got to do something serious about agriculture and we've got to start now," agrees Gerald Nelson, an agricultural economist who heads research on agriculture and climate change at the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington DC.

New Scientist

Better seeds and business knowledge: how can small-scale farmers in Africa benefit?

by Steve Kretzmann

Inefficient production, bad infrastructure, poor access to markets, a lack of capital investment: the challenges facing smallholder farmers across Africa are many. A 'green revolution' which appears to be gaining ground in Africa seeks to change all this.

Critics have expressed reservations over proposals pushing for new seed varieties and fertilisers - and simplified regulation to speed their adoption by farmers - citing the many negative effects the green revolution of the 1960s and 1970s had on farmers in Asia. Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) president Namanga Ngongi says hindsight will help Africa avoid the same mistakes.

Judging by the high-level status of the approximately 400 international state and private-sector delegates attending the AgriBusiness Forum 2009, held in Somerset West some 70 kilometres from Cape Town from Jun. 14 to 17 - not to mention their willingness to part with the roughly $2,000 attendance fee - there is a high level of interest in participating in what has been tagged a ‘second green revolution’.

Chief among AGRA sceptics’ concerns is that the interests of agribusinesses, often represented by multi-national corporations, will trample the rights of indigenous farmers and introduce environmentally-degrading mechanised monoculture over vast tracts of land in order to export commodity crops, with a negative impact on food security in the continent. The sensitive question of the introduction of genetically-modified crops is also a concern.

But listening to what was said at the AgriBusiness Forum, it appears that while African governments are desperate to increase agricultural productivity and revenue and are opening the sector up to private investors – indeed even begging them to come in – they are also well aware of the dangers inherent in this approach.

Ugandan minister of agriculture, Bagire A Henry, literally pleaded with the agribusiness delegates to take advantage of Uganda’s extremely advantageous deals for private investors in the agricultural sector. A priority for Uganda, he said, was to create value-adding processing plants for their major export crop, coffee.

Thousands of smallholder farmers produce over one million bags of top quality, organic coffee beans for export every year, he said. But he stressed that there was a need for processing plants to be set up to increase export revenue and create more jobs for the local population.

He said investors were even welcome to come and grow the coffee themselves. However, he indicated that Uganda would not allow wholesale land purchases by foreign states or investors and local farmers would not be forced to sell.

"We don’t compel people to leave their land."

Investment would have to benefit local farmers, he said, whether it was in the farming of coffee, fruit and vegetables, rice, maize or any other emerging agricultural product.

"We say people are welcome to come establish farms - we call them nucleus farms and use them for research and development, as demonstration farms. We’re not talking about huge acres of land, we want to create a system where we leverage it in the best interests of local farmers."

It would appear many African states are wary of allowing wholesale foreign land ownership. They are seeking ways to safeguard the interests of indigenous farmers while guiding them into production for export and domestic sale, rather than simply handing the task over to large agribusinesses.

"This latest budget [introduced last week in Kampala] focused on leading farmers into commercial production. Even those farming small pieces of land, they must farm them intensively," said Henry.

He said farmers were being merged into co-operative groups to create economies of scale and his ministry was also identifying farmers who engaged in best practices in the farming of export crops, providing technical input and subsidising their farming practices.

Over the last financial year, he said, 30,000 farmers received government subsidies and a further 30,000 would receive subsidies this year.

"The US and Europe are saying ‘don’t subsidise’ and [yet] they [continue] subsidising [their own farmers]: why? The World Bank is saying ‘don’t subsidise’; we’re telling them ‘You go away, this is our country’."

Getting groups of small holder farmers who each cultivate anything from one to five hectares of land to co-operate together in the growing of commodity crops, rather than amalgamating large tracts of land under single ownership, is a model which seems be working in the African context.

It's an approach which African Connections, a limited liability company based in Ghana, has adopted with some success. African Connections is contracted by large corporations who want to invest in corporate social responsibility in the agricultural sector. They provide training and support services in order develop smallholder farmers’ ability to meet the demands of, and engage with, export markets.

One such project is the Ahafo Agribusiness Growth Initiative, run on behalf of the Newmont gold mining company, involving about 4,000 farmers.

In Ghana, said African Connections managing director Ayesha Hakeem, production is not the problem, the problem is post-harvest waste.

Hakeem said farmers were not even using all the land at their disposal, yet their post-harvest waste was between 40 and 60 percent. This is because farmers have stuck with growing their traditional crops, rather than producing to meet lucrative market demands. So, she said, they will grow yams, for instance, but everybody has yams and nobody buys them, and they just go to waste.

African Connections’ approach was to make use of the knowledge farmers have and help them utilise it to produce crops requiring similar technology but for which there is an export demand.

"We go in and teach that farmer how to transfer the knowledge they already have to a new product that they can get money for. We first of all have identified the market, we know what that market needs. Then we teach the farmer to produce to the specification of that market and then we help them source that market."

Hakeem said instead of farmers producing a particular crop simply because their forefathers grew it, they are helping farmers to run a business. She also said African Connections had enjoyed a lot of success getting farmers producing garden eggs (a type of aubergine) and tomatoes to switch over part of their land to farming chilli peppers.

Although the uptake was initially slow, when farmers saw their forward-thinking neighbour getting hundreds of dollars for a cash crop, they started joining in.

And, according to Hakeem, enabling them to put money in their pockets has had other social consequences such as stemming rural to urban migration as the younger generation sees there is money to be made. She said farmers were beginning to improve their houses and send their children to school.

The point of their intervention is to ensure sustainability. Therefore farmers have to engage with buyers themselves and learn how to negotiate prices paid by buyers, as well as the prices paid for seed. Managing credit and paying off loans for seed and other inputs was also part of the training.

And because farmers still used roughly half their land to produce traditional crops, food supply and food security has not been adversely affected, she said.

It’s about questioning - and breaking with - old traditions, says Ngongi. "We’re not pushing one technology. It’s about using a complement of technologies so that farmers have a choice."

He says simple, non-revolutionary innovations could be used to enable small holder farmers to create sustainable businesses.

Making sure the farmer has access to inputs; supporting the formation of an agro-dealer system made up of a multitude of small businesses set up by local inhabitants, government investment in improving infrastructure and storage facilities, and lowering the cost of credit and facilitating access to microfinance were all measures which could promote the business of agriculture without sacrificing the small farmer.

However, Ngongi admits that breaking away from long-embedded structures could result in some casualties.

"Not all farmers are going to make a wonderful profit from these new investments, but most of them will. But should we sacrifice Africa’s agriculture because there would be some who would not be able to profit?"

If African governments are willing and able to protect small farmers while leveraging the finance and technology large agribusiness possesses in order to provide both food and export revenues for their people, the green revolution could be the blessing we hope for.

IPS

Study finds global prices for crops ease

by Matthew Saltmarsh

Agricultural prices appear to have eased in the past year, even though the cost of many food products is still expected to drift higher over the next decade, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization said Wednesday.

In a joint report, “Agricultural Outlook: 2009-2018,” the two organizations said that the global downturn would continue to weigh down the prices of agricultural commodities over the next few years.

Then, as a recovery takes hold, the prices for many, but not all, agricultural commodities will rise, it said.

“There is lessening evidence to suspect that the world has undergone any structural upward shift in real agricultural commodity prices,” said the report, which covered biofuels, cereals, oilseeds, sugar, meats and dairy products.

Before the global economic downturn began in 2008, there was widespread concern that consumers might have to adjust permanently to higher food prices because of factors including droughts in countries like Australia, increased demand by consumers in emerging markets and increased competition for crops by biofuel plants.

The surge in prices led to riots in some countries and caused some governments to try to control the prices of food staples. In Argentina, for example, the government increased export taxes last year on some crops in an effort to encourage farmers to sell more at home. Higher prices also pushed the issue of food security up the political agenda, bringing the first-ever summit meeting by Group of 8 countries’ agriculture ministers.

But so far this year, the report noted, agricultural prices have been falling — along with those of other commodities — as the economic downturn has moderated demand and as more land has been put into crop production. World cereal inventories, which reached lows in recent years, have started to rebuild.

“The decline in real income should dampen demand for agricultural commodities and, all else being equal, decrease agricultural product prices,” the report said of the period while the economy remains weak.

The report forecast that prices for food commodities would rise 10 to 20 percent in the next decade, compared with the 1997-to-2006 period, while prices for vegetable oils would be more than 30 percent higher.

Average dairy prices are expected to rise slightly in the next 10 years, driven up by higher costs of energy and vegetable oil, with a notable 12 percent increase in average butter prices. Dairy demand over the medium term is expected to expand particularly in developing countries, where increased consumption is governed not only by income and population growth but also by factors like changing preferences, changing diets and dietary diversification.

But meat prices, it said, are unlikely to surpass the 1997-to-2006 average; they did not surge with other prices in the period before 2008.

The years 2007 and 2008 are not included in the historical data period because of the unusual price spike during those years, which made a price comparison less reliable, the O.E.C.D. said.

The report also highlighted the link between agricultural prices and energy costs, which can make up a substantial portion of a farmer’s overall expenses. The report’s forecast assumed crude prices of about $70 a barrel by the end of 2018; crude oil is trading around that price currently.

If oil prices were to increase to $90 to $100 or more a barrel, “agricultural prices would be significantly higher,” the report said, “with the largest impact on crops, driven mainly by reduced crop production with higher input costs, but also increased feedstock demand for biofuels.”

For biofuel markets, the report said, “prospects remain uncertain” because of factors like crude oil prices, changes in policy interventions and technological developments.

Over all, the report paints a picture of a food sector that is relatively resilient, with commodity prices remaining above historical averages, while production, consumption and trade increase in developing countries.

But behind this relatively rosy scenario “lies a more disturbing story,” the report cautioned.

“High food costs, combined with the global credit crunch, falling international trade and investment flows, lower remittances and budgetary pressures on development aid, are reversing the progress made in combating global poverty,” it said.

New York Times

Banana blight puts livelihoods at risk

The bacterial banana Xanthomonas wilt (BXW) disease will endanger the livelihoods of millions of East African farmers if left uncontrolled, according to specialists. First reported about 40 years ago in Ethiopia, BXW is endemic in most of Uganda, and has been reported in Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Kenya and Rwanda.

“BXW is the most serious threat to banana production in East Africa,” said Wafa Khoury, a plant pathologist and agricultural officer in the Plant Production and Protection Division of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). “BXW is very serious because it could wipe out all cultivars planted in the continent, with almost no resistance detected...

"The plants wilt and eventually die. They either do not produce fruits, and when they do, they are hard and inedible to either humans or animals and they cannot be processed even," Khoury said.

Bananas and plantains are the world’s fourth most important food crop after rice, wheat, and maize.

BXW symptoms include premature ripening of fruits, pale yellow ooze from cut surfaces, wilting of bracts and male buds, and progressive yellowing leading to complete wilting. Plants generally show symptoms within three weeks of infection.

Fields infested with the bacteria cannot be replanted with banana for at least six months due to carry-over of soil-borne inoculum, according to a report titled Xanthomonas wilt, a threat to banana production in East and Central Africa, by the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA).

Once BXW occurs in a field, there is no remedy other than to cut down all infected plants, completely dig out the rhizomes, and place the field under at least a six-month fallow period or a prolonged crop-rotation regime.

"... If uncontrolled, BXW would spread at a rate of 8 percent per annum in cooking banana plantations, causing an estimated production loss of about 53 percent over a 10-year period," stated the report.

BXW has devastated plantations in the central, western and southern regions of Uganda, said Wilberforce Tushemereirwe, head of banana research at Uganda’s National Agriculture Research Organization (NARO).

At least 50 percent of plantations in the affected districts have been wiped out, threatening the food security of up to 14 million people, according to NARO. Uganda is the world’s second-largest banana producer after India.

In 2005, Uganda produced 650,000 metric tonnes of bananas; however, output is estimated to have dropped to about 400,000MT in 2008, according to the agriculture ministry. East Africa is the largest banana-producing and consuming region in Africa.

NARO predicts land under banana cultivation could drop another 20 percent in 2010 without adequate funding for disease control.

The potential economic impact of BXW is high. "Based on estimates of the Ugandan government, BXW caused yield losses of up to US$75 million in 2006 with a projected overall economic loss of $2-$8 billion in the next 10 years," said FAO's Khoury. However, no other impact studies have been done.

“Luckily, and despite the fact that the disease can spread like fire... BXW could be contained using proper field management practices,” he said.

These include removing male buds, which are the entryway for new infections, destroying infected plants, using clean field tools and planting material, as well as not using banana remains from unknown sources as mulches.

“Wherever these simple management recommendations have been practised by farmers in a consistent way, the disease has been completely eliminated from their fields.”

Local government authorities have passed by-laws including fines and penalties for farmers who do not heed similar directives in Uganda.


In Rwanda, BXW is devastating plantations, especially in the north. According to Rwanda’s institute of statistics, banana production has maintained an average growth of around 5 percent in the last three years, but this may be affected by the disease.

Kagera region, northwest Tanzania, is among areas affected, said Khadija Rajab, research coordinator and deputy head of the plant protection division in Zanzibar's Ministry of Agriculture.

"Unlike black sigatoka, which affects mostly the Cavendish and dwarf Cavendish varieties, and Panama disease, which affects the Bluggoe and Silk varieties, Xanthomonas can affect all the banana varieties in the region."

Leena Tripathi, a biotechnologist with IITA, said that in the short term, decapitating male buds and cutting and burying infected banana plants, are recommended.

"But most of the farmers are reluctant to apply these as they are labour-intensive," Tripathi said. "Farmers prefer resistant varieties. So developing resistant varieties is [the] long-term solution," she said.

However, conventional breeding of bananas is a difficult and lengthy process due to the sterility of most cultivars, coupled with long generation times. "To circumvent these difficulties, transgenic technologies may provide a cost-effective alternative solution to the BXW pandemic," she said.

In 2008, Uganda announced plans to start testing wilt-resistant genetically modified bananas, using a protein gene from sweet pepper to counter the disease.

According to NARO, preliminary laboratory tests have indicated that transgenic banana plants appear to be resistant to the wilt but these efforts have been hampered by inadequate funding.

Most of the bananas grown in the world are consumed locally with less than 10 percent sold commercially, making the risk of reduced exports because of anti-GM policies low, say researchers http://www.ifpri.org/pubs/dp/ifpridp00767.asp.

In Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda, bananas constitute more than 30 percent of the daily per capita calorie intake.

Meanwhile, according to FAO's Khoury, BXW management through field practice remains important. "Of course, resistant varieties are the easiest, quickest and most economical control methods for almost all diseases, including BXW. The reliance on resistant varieties however, tends to lead to relaxation of the field management practices.

"How safe are the transgenic bananas is a question that is difficult to answer, as in all cases of genetically modified crops."

He noted that the development of a resistant variety or transgenic type and its widespread adoption would take several years. "In the meantime, BXW could wipe out all bananas," he said.

In the coming months, FAO will be undertaking an analysis of the present, and potential, risk to banana production from BXW and Banana Bunchy Top Virus in sub-Saharan Africa.

IRIN

South Africa cautions on farm land scramble

by Muchena Zigomo

South Africa's government will not stand in the way of its farmers investing in other African countries but cannot help protect their investments, its agriculture minister has said.

AgriSA, South Africa's main farmers union, says it has been given tax breaks and rent-free access to arable, poultry and dairy farming on 10 million hectares of land for 99 years in the Republic of Congo, which plans to effect the deal after a planned July presidential election. If the proposed deal goes through, it could be one of the biggest such land agreements on the continent and would cover an area more than twice the size of Switzerland.

"If they go as a private funder, they must be willing to take the risk as any other private funder," Tina Joemat-Pettersson said in an interview. "South Africa would not be able to protect their risk in another country, and we wouldn't be able to provide them with any security or any insurance for their money. So if they invest, they face the risk like any other investor."

Large swathes of arable but fallow land in Africa have prompted rich countries, such as Saudi Arabia, to buy or lease tens of thousands of hectares as they seek greener pastures to help secure food security at home. The land acquisition phenomenon has been called exploitative by activists and prompted the World Bank and European Union to call for guidelines. Some activists have criticised the deals as "land grabs."

Joemat-Pettersson said the plans by South African farmers were private investments, rather than government-backed. "These are private investments and we couldn't be able to stop them, but we couldn't be able to guarantee them any protection from risk," she said on the sidelines of an Africa agribusiness conference in Cape Town. "We have also spoken about security of tenure and security of land, that they should understand the policies of the countries they are investing in, particularly around land."

She said similar cases had turned out badly. "We had high risk impacts in Zimbabwe, where South African farmers went to Zimbabwe, lost their farms and were looking for some form of compensation," she said. "We are not trying to scare away South African investments in the rest of Africa...but we caution our farmers to say that make sure that you understand what you are negotiating, what you are signing up for. You need to read the fine print."

The new minister said one of her priorities will be to reduce production costs so that South Africa could in the next five years regain its former status as a net food exporter.

"With the current global economic crisis it is important that as South Africa we concentrate on food security," she said. "One of our priorities will be to reduce production costs so that instead of our country being a net importer of food, that in the next five years we regain our status as a net exporter.

South Africa has one of the continent's strongest agriculture sectors and is Africa's top maize producer and third biggest wheat grower.

"Our priority is to make food available in a sustainable fashion, use sustainable agricultural methods...such as organic farming, to ensure that at the end of the day we have agro-processing and agro-industries but we do not compromise food security," Joemat-Pettersson said.

The Guardian

Fertilizer prices expected to increase in 2010

by Wendell Roelf

Norway's Yara International expects fertiliser prices to increase in 2010 as the global agriculture sector rebounds, the chief executive of its South African unit said on Monday. The economic crisis has dampened global consumption of agricultural goods and fertiliser, but increased demand and investment in the farming sector in Africa, could help see fertiliser demand rise.

"I don't think we will see a spike like last year in 2008 when you saw the oil price rise... If demand will grow faster than supply then prices will come up," Willem Sloot said on the sidelines of an African agriculture conference. "I think actually that the agricultural industry and activity will improve as from July this year and demand for fertilisers will come back," he said.

Sloot said a global goal to increase food production in Africa, the world's poorest continent, would mean more use of fertilizers, where the average usage of fertilizer was 10 kg per hectare -- 50 kg in South Africa and more than 100 kg in Europe.

"It (demand) could easily triple or multiply by five," Sloot said.

Yara recently paid $225 million for a 50 percent stake in a joint venture with the Libyan governemnt and private investors. The plants produce over 600,000 tonnes of ammonia and close to 1 million tonnes of urea, two of the main fertiliser ingredients.

"We (also) plan to invest in two ports in Dar es Salaam and Beira (Mozambique) with around $30 million each ... to set up large bulk terminal facilities to handle imports for fertiliser which would reduce costs," he said. "We hope to start up the Beira project in the first quarter of 2011... and Dar es Salaam later in 2011," he said.

Reuters