Mozambique: 40,000 Hectares of Farmland Lost Because of Pesticide Abuse

In the 2018-19 agricultural campaign, Mozambique lost over 40,000 hectares of cultivated land because of the abuse of pesticides in the attempt to control insect pests.

Aderito Lazaro of the Plant Health Department in the Ministry of Agriculture, said "the use of chemicals should be a last resort. However, at the first sign of a pest, the producers grab their pesticides, and one of the mistakes is that they use the same substance repeatedly. They should rotate".

Lazaro cited the case of Boane district, 30 kilometres west of Maputo, where farmers had doubled the amount of pesticides used per week - without getting rid of the pests damaging the maize crop. Insects are showing signs of resistance to pesticides throughout the country.

The Agriculture Ministry, in partnership with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), has publicised methods to handle pests through an integrated range of measures, including not only conventional insecticides, but also biological pesticides and improved seed.

Meanwhile, a new pest is threatening banana growers in Chokwe district, in the Limpopo valley. This is the banana bunchy top virus (BBTV). To prevent the spread of the virus the authorities are destroying infected banana trees in several plantations.

"This virus is lethal, and regardless of whether we cut the trees down or not, they will die", said Celso Rufasse, coordinator of the BBTV project, cited by the independent daily "O Pais".

"If we don't cut the trees down, there will be a greater dispersal of the disease", he continued. "The goal is to avoid the spread of the virus, so that we can eradicate the disease".

Destroying the infected plants began a month ago, and so far almost 30,000 banana trees have been cut down in Chokwe. There is ban in place on the movement of bananas from Chokwe to elsewhere in the country.

The elimination of infected plants is budgeted at 20 million meticais (about 323,000 US dollars), and this task is receiving assistance from South Africa and the United States.

The virus is transmitted plant to plant by banana aphids. The virus damages the cells of the host plant, and usually prevents it from producing fruit. Any fruit that is produced is likely to be deformed.

Since there are no varieties of banana that are resistant to the virus, the only ways to eliminate the disease are to control the aphids, or to remove and destroy infected plants before the virus spreads.

https://allafrica.com/stories/201907170819.html

Cameroon Exported 14,205 Tons Of Banana In June 2019

In June 2019, Cameroon exported 14,205 tons of banana, the banana association Assobacam indicates. Compared with the 16,979 tons exported in June 2018, this represents a drop of more than 2,700 tons.

During the period under review, PHP, subsidiary of French group Compagnie fruitière de Marseille, exported 13,021 tons while Boh Plantations exported 1,184 tons. Due to security and financial challenges amid the Anglophone regions’ separatist crisis, CDC is still absent from the register of banana exporters in Cameroon.


Business in Cameroon

Film maker shocked by Cameroon banana plantation work conditions

A British film maker is shocked and disturbed to find pregnant women among Cameroonian workers exposed to toxic chemicals in the handling of bananas for export to the UK.

Jan Nimmo said, “The women were unfolding blue bags which are used to protect bananas from pests. The bags are coated with a chemical called chlorpyrifos which can cause numbness, weight loss, birth defects, loss of libido, respiratory problems and suicidal thoughts. The most pressing issue is a lack of stewardship of the agrochemicals they use and a lack of understanding of what they can do to people exposed to them.”

The workers are said to be paid £2.25 (US$3.60) per day for work shifts as long as 12 hours, which helps European consumers to enjoy low-priced bananas.

Among other plantation work conditions that shocked the film-maker were toilets with no water and no clean drinking water.

The government-linked Cameroon Development Corporation runs several banana plantations, whose produce is sold to companies like fruit multinational Del Monte for distribution to Europe, North America and elsewhere.

full article...Daily Record

Uganda: trials of nematode-resistant GM banana to begin in 2012

Trials of the cultivation of gene-modified nematode-resistant bananas are to begin in Uganda later this year,
Fresh Fruit Portal reports.

The nemotodes feed on the banana roots, weakening the plant which then tips over easily and produces smaller fruit. Nematodes are said to affect up to 30% of African bananas.

The nematode-fighting GM strategy is two fold:

The first line of defense against the nematode is to incorporate a small piece of synthetic DNA into the genetic makeup of the banana plant. The plant's thus modified DNA is then able to produce a small protein that will prevent the nematodes from detecting the banana's roots.

The second line of the plant's defense is via the incorporation of a piece of DNA into the genome of a bacterium which is capable of harmlessly infecting the banana plant. The modified bacterial DNA then produces, in the banana plant, a protein which stops the nematode from digesting the banana plant's root flesh.

GM technology is as emotionally controversially in Uganda as it is in many other countries. But the sterility of commercial varieties of banana makes them a special case, since conventional breeding techniques that can be readily used on other plants do not apply to giving banana new traits, such as nematode-resistance.

The trials are the culmination of a multi-sector collaboration. It built on research originally done at Leeds University in the UK, the techniques then adopted by scientists at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) in Nigeria. The trials will be conducted at Uganda's National Agricultural Research Laboratories and are funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID.)

Various types of bananas are a key part of Uganda's food security.

original article...Fresh Fruit Portal

        

Ethiopia resumes banana exports to Saudi Arabia after 50 years

After a 50 year suspension for undisclosed reasons, Ethiopia has resumed banana exports to Saudi Arabia.

Exports initially targeted at 200 tonnes a week began with a shipment from Gamo Gofa, a banana growing region of southern Ethiopia.

The Africa Report said the Ethiopian Horticulture Development Agency announced that 3100 hectares of land is to be devoted to the growing of bananas.

Ethiopia is said to have 11,400 banana farmers.

African Agriculture

Cameroon halfway to 500,000 tons per year banana export target

Cameroon’s banana sector currently exports 247,210 tons of bananas to the Europe per year, but aims to double that quantity ‘by 2013.’

The president of the banana producers’ union listed some of the challenges to achieving the ambitious target: liberalization of the European banana market that has increased competition from South American producers and reduced some of the protections for producers from the ACP (African Caribbean Pacific region). The high cost of

transportation due to fuel price rises is also having an impact as is the Euro-Dollar exchange rate, lack of portable water, lack of suitable land required for expansion and poor road infrastructure are others.

Fresh Plaza

Ghana exported 62,000 tonnes of bananas to Europe in 2011

Ghana’s 62,000 tonnes of banana exports to the European Union in 2011 was a jump from the previous year’s 52,000 tonnes.

This represents a small slice of the global banana market, and is far less than the quantities exported by African banana export leaders Ivory Coast and Cameroon, according to Food and Agriculture Organization figures.

People in African and Caribbean in 2010 exported a total of 450,000 tonnes, representing 23 per cent of the market share with almost all of the African supply coming from only two sources: Côte d’Ivoire and Cameroon ,and marginal quantities originating from Ghana.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) statistics, total export of bananas accounted for 15 million tonnes in 2010 valued at over US$7 billion. The European banana market is the largest in the world, with about 5.5 million tonnes imported per year.

Since 2006 when the European Union (EU) opened its market, there has been a rise in exports of between 2 and 5 percent annually.

Though there are approximately 300 species of bananas, only 20 varieties are commercially cultivated.

Daily Guide

Ethiopia records its first banana exports

The Ethiopian Horticulture Development Agency (EHDA) has celebrated a key milestone as the east African nation began exporting bananas for the first time ever.

In a nation where agriculture is the foundation, Ethiopia’s economy has long heavily relied on thriving coffee yields as its main cash crop. In recent years the EHDA has been encouraging Ethiopian farmers to acquire
new farming techniques and new crops.

This week the country recorded its first shipment of 40 tons of organic banana to Saudi Arabia to meet growing demands for the produce in that market.

According to the EHDA, at least 11,400 farmers are involved in the project covering 3100ha. It added Ethiopia was in the process of exporting 200 tons of bananas per week for the Jeddah market following an agreement with a foreign company interested in exporting.

more...Somaliland Press

ACP-EU news briefs from the CTA: agriculture, development, trade _ 1st week February 2012

January saw a wide range of ACP-EU issues. Particularly, last week we knew the conclusions of the Council meeting on Agriculture and Fisheries. Ministers adopted a decision authoriszng the Commission to open negotiations with the aim of concluding a fisheries partnership agreement and protocol with the Republic of Mauritius.

 The protocol will define the fishing opportunities to be granted to EU vessels, the financial compensation, the framework for the implementation of the sectoral support and the clauses related to the duration and the revision of the protocol. Something similar has happened regarding Mozambique as ministers adopted a decision on the signing of the provisional application of a protocol setting out the fishing opportunities and financial contribution.

Stunning seemed to be the declarations of the Tanzanian Industry, Trade and Marketing Minister Cyril Chami, who shed  light on the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA). As EPA negotiations appear to be unfavorable for the economic growth of the East African member states, the Tanzanian government asks the European Commission for a review. Cyril Chami particularly stated that  "development cooperation should be an integral part of EPA to ensure that EAC partner states ably adjust to the new challenges and maximally exploit benefits offered under the agreement." 

He said that even though both parties had affirmed their recognition of development needs for the EAC block, some of the items on the agenda have appeared to be depressing to EAC members.

The world trade is witnessing another banana issue: The President of the newly-created African Pineapples and Bananas Association (APIBANA), Mr. George Kporye, has urged government to sign the EPA with the EU.

Kporye has stressed that the agreement guarantees a quota-free entry into the European market and he is thankful that the interim EPA that Ghana initialed on December 13, 2007, allows pineapple and banana producers access into the European market tariff-free.

“If Ghana does not sign the EPA, pineapple and banana producers will be subjected to tariffs, and we cannot afford that in the face of stiff competition”, Kporye  said.

Finally, we can address the most recent proposals of the European Commission (EC) regarding development: Following the statements of EU Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht and the presentation of the communication "Trade, growth and development", the  EC has presented a series of proposals to make trade and development instruments work conjointly to ensure real poverty reduction across the world. The proposals notably aim at reinforcing the trade capacities of developing countries by making trade part of their development strategy. The role of trade is underlined one of the key drivers to support development, stimulate growth and to lift people out of poverty. Furthermore, today the EU calls for all developed economies to match its significant levels of market access to developing countries. 

According to the EC, to achieve this goal, developing countries' leadership must also face up to their responsibilities, undertaking domestic reforms to ensure that the poor do indeed benefit from trade-led growth.

CTA Brussels

Uganda receives grant to boost banana production

 by Andrea M. Besley

Pests and diseases that attack the Matoke banana, one of Uganda's primary food staples, is the focus of a $7.07 million grant awarded to Cornell University (Ithaca, New York) by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

The grant, which is managed by the Agricultural Biotechnology Research Project (ABSPII) in Cornell's Office of International Programs, will run through October 2016.

"The project will allow us to focus on developing the resistance of the East African Highland banana, locally known as matoke, to pests like nematodes and major diseases like Black Sigatoka, fusarium and bacterial wilt," said Frank Shotkoski, Cornell ABSPII director.

The Cornell-led ABSPII program has been working with Uganda's National Agricultural Research Organization (NARO) to improve Uganda's ability to conduct agricultural biotechnology research and develop disease-resistant varieties of matoke since 2005, when Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni launched an initiative to research, develop and add value to the local banana industry.

"Together, we have strengthened molecular, transformation and tissue culture laboratories at the Kawanda Agricultural Biotechnology Center, built a Level II biosafety greenhouse, several screenhouses and confined field trial facilities," said Shotkoski.

"This project increases national capacity in plant breeding and builds on NARO's successful collaboration with USAID and Cornell," said Wilberforce Tushemereirwe, team leader, National Banana Research Programme. "Matoke is a primary staple crop for Uganda and a top priority for NARO. Along with improving varieties of rice and cassava, improving banana is central to food security and income generation in Uganda."

East African Highland bananas feed more than 65 percent of the population in Uganda and are a major source of cash for most farmers. High in potassium and dietary fiber and lower in sugar than desert bananas, they are usually eaten cooked.

Cornell and Ugandan scientists are working to reverse the drastic drop in production of matoke in the traditional banana growing areas of central and southwestern Uganda as a result of diseases and pests.

Most matoke varieties are sterile and produce no seeds. Hence, genetic improvement using traditional cross-pollination techniques is a prolonged and difficult process. Using the tools of agricultural biotechnology, banana varieties can be improved without changing other important traits.

"As a result of USAID/Uganda's sustained and comprehensive support of Uganda's agricultural biotechnology development, Uganda is now the region's most advanced in terms of agricultural biotechnology research, technology transfer and product testing," said Tilahun Zeweldu, ABSPII's East Africa country coordinator. He added that the transgenic crops currently being field tested in Uganda include banana, cassava, corn and cotton.

Cornell University

Hoax email claims South African bananas infected with ''flesh-eating" bacterium

An email claiming that certain bananas from South Africa's KwaZulu-Natal province have been poisoned with a flesh-eating bacterium has been clarified as a hoax email by the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries.

In the email, members of the public are warned not to buy or eat the bananas as they will be infected by a flesh-eating bacterium. It further advises recipients to seek medical attention if they develop a fever after eating the bananas.

The Department of Agriculture's Acting Chief Director for Stakeholder Relations and Communications, Steve Galane, said Monday: "The information we received from the Department of Health is that the banana scare email is a hoax, and any claims regarding poor food safety will be investigated. The department said in its report that at this stage, they don't see any need to do so as they deem this claim to be a hoax."

The hoax email advises those who may have been infected by the "bacterium" to burn their skin around the infection to prevent it from spreading.

Galane said the department strongly advises against burning of the skin. "Deliberately burning your skin could lead to serious injury and permanent damage," he said.

BUA NEWS

Banana compost could boost crop yields

by Hazem Badr

Banana-based fertiliser could cut about 20 per cent of the water used in irrigating maize and lead to better yields and improved soil properties — such as availability of micronutrients and soil moisture — a researcher at Egypt's National Research Centre has found.
Banana trees — in fact a large herb — only fruit once and most of the farmers in Egypt, who plant more than 52,000 acres of bananas, burn the trees (stems) after they have borne fruit, even though they are hard to burn because of their high moisture content.

Now, Nesreen H. Abou-Baker, who was awarded a PhD last month for her research, says these trees could be put to better use.

She mixed banana residue with manure and microorganisms, such as yeast, and tested the compost in field experiments at the Noubariya Agricultural Research Station, north of Cairo, during four successive growing seasons of corn and beans.

"Using banana compost we get greater efficiency of nutrients in soil compared with other fertilisers, good aeration associated with the relatively low application of irrigation water, and decreased nutrient losses by leaching," said Abou-Baker.

The concentration of heavy metals — cadmium, lead, nickel — in the plants was also reduced when grown with banana compost instead of conventional mineral fertilisers.

The compost may be of use in other banana growing areas, outside Egypt, Abou-Baker said. It could either be prepared by farmers themselves or commercially produced and sold to farmers.

Salah Saad Zarad, associate professor at the agriculture division of the National Research Centre, said: "Mineral fertilisers are too costly to be used in large quantities for profitable production in developing countries so crop residues are a promising alternative for nutrient recycling in soil … easily and cheaply available on a farm".

Zarad said the findings are encouraging, and suggested it may be more cost-effective to set up commercial production of compost, instead of banana farmers producing it individually.

SciDev.net

Bacterial wilt destroys 20% of Ugandan district's banana crop

Bacterial wilt disease has wiped out 20% of banana plants in Uganda's  Ntungamo District, and threatens another 60%.

Ntungamo is the third highest producer of matooke in western Uganda, after Isingiro and Bushenyi. More than 90 per cent of the families in the district depend on matooke (plantain) for food, while another 60 per cent depend on it for income. In Uganda banana is not just a desert food, but an important staple crop.

Reports the Monitor, Ntungamo district agricultural officer Moses Sabiti said, “More than 60 per cent of the gardens may get the infection in less than a year if the disease control system is taken for granted.”

African Agriculture

Banana threatened by old, new pathogens

by Dan Koeppel

Our standard supermarket banana, a variety called Cavendish, may be at the brink of disaster. Chosen for its resistance to a fungal pathogen that wiped out its predecessor, the Gros Michel banana, the popular fruit has long battled a related fungus, which has all but devastated the banana industry in certain parts of the world. Now, it appears the Cavendish variety is facing a new threat—the very same fungal disease that drove Gros Michels off the market.

Cavendish bananas account for about 45 percent of the fruit’s global crop, with an annual export value of US$8.5 billion, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. It was chosen to replace the original Gros Michel banana after a deadly fungal infection, known as Panama disease (Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. Cubense), wiped out much of the world’s banana crop in the first half of the 20th century.

Farmers adopted the Cavendish variety because it appeared to resist the blight, as well as about a dozen other banana diseases that also threaten the worldwide crop. But it wasn’t long before it too started suffering from disease. In the late 1980s, a mysterious malady began to wipe out Asian Cavendish plantations. Soil samples were sent to plant pathologist Randy Ploetz of the University of Florida’s Tropical Research and Education Center, who made the shocking identification: Panama disease was back, in the form of a new strain, which he dubbed Tropical Race 4.

Race 4 is just as virulent to Cavendish as Race 1 was to Gros Michel. The fungus enters the plant via its roots through infected soil or water and spreads via the plant’s vascular system. Once exposed, the plant yellows, and begins to look obviously sick—dried-out, sunken, and sagging. As the disease progresses, brown and purple stripes appear on the trunk, and the plant eventually dies. The disease, however, lives on, spreading via infected soil from plant to plant, plantation to plantation.

Today the disease has spread across Asia, into the Pacific, and to Australia, where it has devastated the island country’s banana industry. Though Race 4 has yet to hit Latin America, where bananas imported to the United States are grown, there’s little doubt it will, said Ploetz.

But it turns out that Race 4 is not the only threat to Cavendish bananas. As banana growers have fled from Race 4, replanting their Cavendish trees in areas only known to harbor Race 1, they quickly learned that Gros Michel’s old foe was now tormenting Cavendish bananas as well.

In 2010, scientists conducting a survey of plants infected in India, which grows and consumes more bananas than any other country in the world, were the first to conclusively identify the presence of Race 1 in the Cavendish banana. They published their findings in Plant Disease that November, and this March, Bioversity International—the global umbrella group for banana research—released a report announcing the finding: Race 1 had begun killing Cavendish plants in plantations around the Theni District of Tamil Nadu, India.

Banana scientists are still trying to determine why some Cavendish are no longer immune to Race 1. Altus Viljoenm, a researcher with the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa, speculates that this new strain of Race 1 may have evolved over time so that it could attack Cavendish.

Other researchers are skeptical of the finding. Ploetz notes that there have been rare cases in which Race 1 has killed individual Cavendish plants when they were already stressed—due to drought conditions, for example, or flooding. “I suspect that this is the same thing,” he said.

But the authors of the Plant Disease paper reported that they had confirmed the finding with laboratory tests on sterile, potted Cavendish. “To our knowledge,” the researchers wrote, “this is the first report of [such] a virulent strain.”

Today, there are no cures, treatments, or even reliable molecular diagnostic tests for either Race, partly due to lack of detailed information on the banana genome, according to Bioversity. Currently, the best available strategy is containment. Ploetz has developed a plan to fight Race 4 if it appears in Latin American plantations, involving the use of strict quarantines on affected plantations to prevent, at least temporarily, the spread of the disease.

But isolating infected plantations is more a stopgap than a solution, Ploetz knows. “It buys time,” he said, but barring any new discoveries, the spread of Panama disease remains inevitable. Ploetz said it’s important that similar agricultural practices be instituted in already affected countries to help prevent the spread to Latin America in the first place.

In the meantime, scientists are working to develop new approaches to quell disaster. Last year, for example, University of Queensland researcher James Dale began the first field tests of a genetically modified Cavendish, which he hopes will provide long-term resistance against Race 4.

Banana companies such as Chiquita and Dole are also reportedly working to develop new varieties. Though genetic modification has long been considered the only way to breed Cavendish, since the variety is completely sterile, recent research conducted in Honduras has revealed that a few Cavendish plants do produce viable seeds. Researchers at the Fundacíon Hondureña de Investigación Agrícola (FHIA) say these non-sterile fruit form the basis of a series of promising hybrids, that can be bred for resistance to the fungi. It will still be at least six years before the new breeds are ready to be brought to market, however, according to a source familiar with the project, or may never appear at all, now that the banana companies are no longer funding the research.

Most banana researchers agree that the real answer—as has been the case with crops like potatoes, apples, and grapes—is to abandon the monoculture that makes the emergence of a disease so devastating. A more diverse banana harvest would allow farmers to isolate susceptible bananas, surrounding them with more resistant varieties. If the solution ends up being a Cavendish stand-in that is resistant to both strains, on the other hand, the predicament of the banana monoculture—with its vulnerability to old, new, and yet-to-be discovered pathogens—would continue.

The Scientist

Film looks at banana sector inequalities in Cameroon

by Nico Colombant

Disputed land rights, food insecurity and pollution caused by large-scale export-based agriculture are main themes of a Cameroonian-made movie currently being shown in the United States. Those important issues and more were presented at a Washington showing of the film called The Big Banana.

In the movie, a woman from a farming community in the Mungo region of Cameroon says villagers are not going to war against anyone. She says they are simply asking those who operate banana plantations to give back the land, which she says belongs to local villagers.

Film director Franck Hameni Bieleu says authorities prevented the film from being shown in Cameroon's capital Yaounde, which does not surprise him. He says filming was extremely difficult, and even led to his brief detention.

"I got arrested because the chief of that part of the village did not want me to film because he is being paid by the banana company. Everything around that area is controlled by the company," said Bieleu. "If you look at the congressman of the region, he is also the director of public relations of the company, the minister of trade of Cameroon is also president of the board of directors of the company."

Representatives for the company, Plantations du Haut Penja, which is French and American owned, refused to be interviewed for the film. They did not respond to a request for an interview for this report, nor did Cameroonian officials.

Bieleu is now taking his movie on a tour of the United States, where he says people are not aware of what is at stake when they buy a banana. He says large parts of fertile land in Cameroon are being used for banana exports, making it more and more difficult for the region's residents to grow their own food or to find food they are able to buy for themselves.

The use of pesticides is being blamed for polluting water and causing health problems. Villagers accuse the company of destroying their own fields to expand the banana plantations after obtaining land leases from the government. And with less local crops, food prices are going up for all Cameroonians.

Bieleu says the problem exists across Africa as agricultural land is increasingly becoming a prized commodity for foreign investors, to the detriment of local residents.

"When a company arrives and just shows the money, the big cash, what happens is the government just gives them the land that they want and these people cannot defend themselves because they do not have any rights on that land."

Bieleu says pre-colonial principles of traditional rights to land quickly disappear when confronted with government corruption.

An organizer of the film showing, Emira Woods, with the U.S-based Institute for Policy Studies, says she believes what many activists are calling the "land grab" is the biggest issue facing Africa this century.

"The structure of the problem has to be changed so that more, and particularly small and medium-sized farmers, have the opportunities to remain on their land. And at the moment because of threats from multinational corporations, from sovereign wealth funds, whether it is Saudi Arabia or Iran, the list is actually growing of countries that are looking to Africa as a source of access to land when arable land is becoming much more scarce on this planet," said Woods.

The organizers said they hoped Washington policy makers would be in the audience so they would better understand the need to work for the protection of local and diverse food production around the world, including Africa.

The movie was also recently shown in the U.S. state of Oklahoma, where Bieleu said some small farmers even cried, saying they had no idea this was happening to their counterparts in Africa.

VOA News

Ivory Coast upsets hit banana growers too

It is not just the cocoa industry which has been disrupted by Ivory Coast's political turmoil, but banana operations too, Sipef revealed, as it revealed "severe" disruption to trade.

The instability fostered by the stand-off between Alassane Ouattara, who won Ivory Coast presidential elections in November, and Laurent Gbagbo, who refused to quit and was forced out earlier this month, had "disrupted" banana operations, Sipef said.

The plantation group's banana production fell 12.7% to 5,100 tonnes, while "both transport and export facilities were severely hampered, so that the fruits could not be delivered to our clients in Europe".

And Mr Gbagbo's overthrow as head of the world's top cocoa producer, if mid-ranked banana grower, had not yet brought a "normalisation of economic activities and export facilities".

"Hence the contribution of our banana activity will temporarily remain lower," Sipef said.

The setback was among a number that the Belgian-based group suffered in the January-to-March period, with wet weather in Indonesia depressing palm oil output at some plantations, although Papua New Guinea output notched up a 31% rise.

Indonesia tea production fell 17.0% to 625 tonnes "on a generalised lack of sunshine, that dropped to less than half of the average.

"This had a negative effect on the growth of green leaf."

A fall of 4.7% to 2,776 tonnes in rubber output was blamed on a timing issue at Papua New Guinea operations, which would prove only a temporary hiccup.


Nonetheless, with production set for a recovery later in the year - tea output is already "slowly coming back on track" - and prices set to remain firm, Sipef forecast an increase in profits this year.

The group has already sold 60% of its forecast palm oil production at $1,200 a tonne, including freight.

Tea prices ran, at $2,910 a tonne, 4.3% higher in the first three months of 2011 than a year before, also supported by industry production losses to dry weather in Kenya, the top exporter, and heavy rains in Sri Lanka.

Banana prices were, at $1,251 a tonne in Europe, up 23% year on year.

Sipef shares stood 1.4% higher at E70.51 in morning trade in Brussels.

Agrimoney

As disease threatens country's staple banana food, Ugandan scientists grow GM varieties

by Xan Rice


Most countries would resent being called a banana republic. Uganda prides itself on it. A typical adult here eats at least three times his or her body weight in bananas each year, more than anywhere else on Earth. Different varieties are steamed, boiled, roasted, turned into gin and beer, or simply peeled and eaten raw, such as the tiny sukali ndizi, considered by some experts to be finest banana in the world.

"Breakfast, lunch and dinner, 365 days a year," said Arthur Kamenya, whose taste for the fruit is so strong he quit his job as a graphic designer to grow it commercially. "And people still crave more."

But it is a craving under threat. In recent years a devastating bacterial disease has swept across Uganda and, to a lesser extent, neighbouring countries, causing annual banana crop losses to the region of more than $500m (£310m). The rapid spread of banana Xanthomonas wilt, or BXW, which destroys the entire plant and contaminates the soil, "has endangered the livelihoods of millions of farmers who rely on banana for staple food and income", according to an article in the journal Molecular Plant Pathology last year.

With no resistant varieties or chemical cures available, growers such as Kamenya have been forced to destroy large sections of their plantations. For smaller farmers the damage has been so severe many have given up on the fruit.

But local scientists have not. On a sprawling campus outside Kampala, Wilberforce Tushemereirwe and his colleagues at the National Banana Research Programme have been on a quest to defeat the disease by building a better banana. This has involved adding to the fruit a sweet pepper gene that has already improved disease resistance in several vegetables.

Laboratory tests on the genetically modified bananas have been highly promising, with six out of eight strains proving 100% resistant to BXW. Field tests have now started in a fenced-off, guarded plot on the edge of the campus.

Results from the trials, expected later this year, could have a strong bearing on the country's future food security – and indeed its entire policy on agriculture. GM crops are still banned in Uganda, and the scientists had to get special permission just to conduct their tests. While acknowledging that it is a highly controversial topic, Tushemereirwe says the risk of doing nothing is too great.

"If we just leave this, bananas will slowly disappear from Uganda," he said.

BXW was first reported in Ethiopia in the 1960s, but was only identified further south in 2001, initially in Uganda and then Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Burundi and Tanzania. Uganda was particularly vulnerable because of the scale of its banana production, second only to India which has a population 35 times larger.

With a single plant lasting for many years and providing a large bunch of fruit every few months, bananas are a key crop for small farmers. They are also a crucial source of sustenance, accounting for more than 30% of Ugandans' daily calorie intake. According to Tushemereirwe, the average adult eats 200-250kg (440lb-550lb) of bananas a year – and twice that in some areas.

Most of that is matooke, a long green banana, which is usually steamed and mashed and eaten with beans, peanut sauce or meat. That's what Kamenya planted six years ago on his farm in Galamba, about an hour's drive from the Ugandan capital. But soon he realised some of the plants were sick, with yellowing leaves and the fruit ripening prematurely.

Kamenya, a powerfully built 37-year-old, was forced to dig up 1,500 of his 4,500 plants, destroy them, and allow the soil to lie fallow for at least six months. He also had to sterilise his farm tools. This eventually helped control the disease, though he still has problems. "Look how this plant has rotted," he said, slicing through the trunk of a banana plant with a knife to reveal yellow ooze.

Few areas of Uganda have escaped the disease, which is transported by insects such as bees and wasps. But traditional farming practices also ensured its rapid spread. Infected "suckers" – young shoots of banana plants – are shared with neighbours, while the use of banana leaves to cover bunches of fruit headed to market quickly transferred the disease to new areas.

In central Uganda, one of the main banana-growing regions, BXW hit up to 80% of farms, sometimes wiping out entire fields. Small-scale farmers, who could not afford to let their gardens lie empty for months before replanting, switched to other crops.

Tushemereirwe, with the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA) and African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF), decided a GM solution was the best way forward. Academia Sinica, the Taiwanese research institute that pioneered the sweet pepper gene technology, agreed to issue them with a royalty-free licence. The sweet pepper gene – successfully transplanted into the other vegetables, but never before a banana – produces a protein that kills cells infected by disease-spreading bacteria.

Leena Tripathi, a plant biotechnologist at IITA who helped steer the project, said introducing the gene did not affect the quality of the banana and presented no health risks. "The beauty of the genetic engineering is that you can be very precise," she said.

Other GM banana experiments are under way in Uganda, including one to fortify the fruit with iron and vitamin A. But concern about GM foods in Uganda means they could face a long battle before any of the transgenic bananas find their way on to the market.

A study by Enoch Kikulwe, assistant professor of international food economics at the University of Göttingen, Germany, revealed more opposition to GM crops among the elite than those in poorer villages. Most studies show that better education led to more acceptance of GM foods, he said.

But for Kamenya the farmer, – who falls into the elite category – the anti-GM stance was hypocritical. "Most of the people against this have choices," he said, a pot of matooke steaming nearby. "Somebody who is hungry does not have a choice. GM, organic or whatever – you have to feed the people."
How to eat them, Uganda style

The super-sweet dessert bananas are the easy option. The home-brewed banana gin is a choice for only the highly adventurous. For authenticity, however, matooke, the national staple that looks like buttery mashed potato on the plate, is the only way to go.

Also known as east African highland bananas, the green matooke fruits are for cooking only – ideally steamed on an open fire. To start, water is poured into a large pot and covered with banana stalks. The peeled bananas are wrapped in the plant leaves, with the bundle lowered into the pot, resting on the stalks, above the water.

The fruit is then steamed for a few hours, going from hard to soft, white to yellow. Still wrapped in the leaves, the bananas are then mashed.

The dish can then be served on a new leaf, together with beans, other vegetables or peanut sauce.

It is an acquired taste, and to the uninitiated it can seem heavy and bland. But once you've got it, Ugandans say, there's no going back to rice and potatoes.

The Guardian 

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Uganda's disease-hit banana crops will not be saved by GM science

by Emma Hockridge


Your report states: "A plant disease has led to devastating crop losses. GM could be the only answer" (A nation's staple is under threat – but can science save Uganda's bananas?, 9 March). Readers with long memories will recall that the promise of the GM industry to save banana crops has been around for ages (at least since 2001), without any evidence to back it up so far.

Despite vast amounts of time and money put into research, and PR invested in its promotion, GM has failed to deliver. Your report claims "laboratory tests on the genetically modified bananas have been highly promising", yet many other GM crops never pass the field trial stage because they are just not suited to practical farming systems, or behave in ways which are unexpected. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation, the biggest threat to the health of the banana arises from genetic uniformity, ie not enough variety in its genetic stock. Genetic engineering actually reinforces this uniformity.

Better resilience would come from farmers using a greater diversity of crops alongside proven and effective growing techniques – such as using crop rotation to help build soil fertility and plant health naturally. These so-called "agro-ecological" solutions are increasingly being championed by the UN and development organisations, because they offer a much better deal for farmers, and food production that doesn't depend on chemicals and oil-based fertilisers.

The UN's "green Marshall Plan", published recently, argued that large-scale, chemical-intensive approaches to agriculture are not the best way to increase food production. It instead promotes the benefits of agro-ecology for developing countries, which improves their resilience to climate change. Research from the UN has shown adoption of organic and near-organic farming practices in Africa has doubled yields. The claim in your report by Leena Tripathi of the GM research body, the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture, that "the beauty of the genetic engineering is that you can be very precise" has not been borne out by facts.

In the early days of GM, the Soil Association and other opponents of genetic engineering believed that it was a highly risky and uncertain technology. Developments have shown this to be true. Evidence is continually mounting of the problems that growing GM crops are causing: weed resistance to glyphosate has become a major problem in GM herbicide tolerant crops, while the cost of GM seeds is cutting into farmers' incomes in the US.

To market GM as a panacea to issues of food security is not borne out by the facts, and to try and dupe farmers in developing countries into accepting this is simply dishonest. The future of feeding a growing world population, in the face of all of the challenges of climate change and resource depletion that face us, is crop variety, soil fertility, and farming systems like organic which don't rely on costly inputs. Not chemical and agribusiness controlling the research and food markets of a GM-inspired future.


Guardian Comments

EU lawmakers OK banana duty cuts for Latin America

by Juliane von Reppert-Bismarck and Charlie Dunmore

European Union lawmakers have approved a deal to cut EU import tariffs on bananas from Latin America, ending the world's longest-running trade row, a European Parliament official said.

A majority in the European Parliament voted to cut duties on Latin American bananas by 35 percent over six years, potentially improving the competitive edge of producers such as Chiquita and Dole over smaller growers in Africa, the Caribbean, Pacific and the European Union.

"This agreement is already being implemented provisionally and now needs final approval from the members of the World Trade Organization," the parliamentary spokeswoman said.

Once rubber-stamped by the WTO later this year, the deal will mark a victory by the world's largest banana producers in a near 20-year battle for cheap access to the EU, the world's largest consumer of the fruit.

It is expected to persuade the United States and 11 Latin American countries, led by Ecuador, to drop a legal challenge accusing Europe of imposing illegally high tariffs to protect banana producers in its Caribbean territories and the Canary Islands, as well as in former colonies of member states.

The deal will cut duties on imports from Latin America to 114 euros ($158) per tonne in 2017, from 176 euros at present.

The EU banana import regime, dating from 1993, had given duty-free access to mostly small producers in former colonies and imposed tariffs on Latin American bananas, most of which are produced by the large U.S. multinationals.

Latin American countries planning free trade agreements with the EU -- such as Peru and Colombia -- have already secured duty cuts to about 75 euros, so Thursday's deal will largely benefit Ecuador, which in 2009 refused a trade pact with Europe.

African, Caribbean and Pacific producers, who oppose the cuts, will retain their duty-free access to EU markets.

Separately, the EU will now decide on an aid package worth up to 200 million euros to support fledgling banana production in Ivory Coast, Cameroon, the Dominican Republic and Suriname. Lawmakers will also debate aid for European producers.

"The future for small banana producers and sustainable production is now even more uncertain," said Catherine Greze, a Green Party EU lawmaker who voted against the motion. She said funds for encouraging banana production could reduce the EU's available budget for other development projects.

The EU imported about 4.8 million tonnes of bananas in 2008 worth a total of some 2.9 billion euros, according to European Commission data.

.Reuters

Small-scale banana farmers in Zimbabwe capacitated to increase yields, incomes

by Elton Mudyazvivi,

For producers in Zimbabwe there is no better time to invest in banana than now. With a formal market deficit estimated at 50% (that is about 20 000 metric tonnes) partly attributed to a decline in commercial sector production, there is a clear opportunity for smallholders to make money.

Some four thousand households in Honde and Rusitu Valleys of Manicaland province in Zimbabwe depend on bananas for more than a third of their income.

However, despite clear demand in formal markets located mainly in urban areas, smallholder farmers have in the past failed to supply consistent quantities of high quality bananas to the market. Production had been declining since the late 90’s, as the public extension system weakened amid dwindling budget support from government.

A closer look showed that smallholder productivity lagged far behind commercial sector levels. For instance, average productivity was only 16 tonnes per hectare whilst commercial output was above 40 tonnes per hectare.

In the past year, SNV’s banana value chain development programme organized a consortium of extension organisations to deliver banana production skills to producers, using mainly the demonstration approach. These included local and national farmers associations, the Government extension arm (Agricultural Technical and Extension Services), local service providers and private companies. The consortium seconded extension staff who trained farmers at demonstration sites under the guidance of an expert consultant, himself a former banana commercial farmer.

Results at demonstration sites as well as early adopters are testimony to the potential that smallholders have. For instance, banana bunch sizes rose to 25 kgs from an average of 15kgs. As a result, more and more farmers are rehabilitating their old plantations, while others are planting new ones. However, access to inputs such as banana blend and clean planting material, has been a limiting factor.

The demonstration plots and newly established plantations are providing planting material in the meantime. There are some investments by a private company to support contracted farmers but there is still a long way to go.

“The new knowledge on improved banana production practice has set us on the path to prosperity,” Mr Musoro, chairperson of a banana association in Honde Valley. With increases in productivity and quality, a household can get an average annual income of US$ 1000.

There has been increased interest from banana buyers, both big companies and small traders. Buyers are strengthening supply ties through, for example, allocating packaging material, transport and technical management personnel for the smallholders.

Recently, SNV started an agro-inputs restocking programme to make agricultural inputs widely available at economic prices in all corners of the country. The programme works with input wholesalers who supply consignment stock to a network of local agro-dealers. This development is expected to meet rising demand for agro-inputs in banana growing areas. The programme also has a credit fund for contracting companies.

The success of the demonstration approach in revitalizing banana production can be replicated into other crops and areas. With capacity utilization in many industries low, concerted approaches are required by value chain actors and support organisations to address production challenges that bedeviled most small-scale producers in the past decade.

SNV Zimbabwe

Uganda prepares to plant transgenic bananas

by Linda Nordling

Scientists in Uganda will this week start field trials of a banana variety genetically engineered to resist a bacterial disease that has been decimating crops across central Africa.

The new variety is part of a wider effort to improve the East African Highland banana, a fruit so important to Ugandans that its name, matooke, is synonymous with 'food' in one of the local languages. But delays to a law regulating the commercial growing of genetically modified (GM) food in the country means it is not clear when the improved banana could be released to farmers.

The bananas have a gene from green pepper to protect against banana Xanthomonas wilt (BXW), which costs farmers in Africa's Great Lakes region an estimated half a billion dollars every year. Bananas infected with BXW ripen unevenly and prematurely, and eventually the entire plant wilts and rots. The disease was originally found in Ethiopia, but was discovered in Uganda in 2001 and has rapidly spread to the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Kenya, Tanzania and Burundi.

The sweet pepper gene produces a protein called HRAP that strengthens the plant's ability to seal off infected cells. The idea was pioneered by scientists at the Academia Sinica in Taiwan, where it has been shown to improve the disease resistance of vegetables including as broccoli, tomatoes and potatoes.


The Ugandan research team, based at the National Agricultural Research Laboratories in Kawanda, received a royalty-free licence to use the technology in 2006.

Six of the eight GM banana strains developed with the green pepper gene showed 100% resistance to BXW in the lab1.

"This is the first time this gene has been used in Africa, and it is the first time the technology is going to be tested in the field," says Leena Tripathi, a biotechnologist from the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture in Kampala, and lead investigator of the Ugandan project.

The field trials will also screen GM banana varieties with resistance to BXW for resistance to fungal diseases and analyse whether the breed affects the composition of microorganisms in the soil. These plants will grow side by side with another GM banana variety developed at the laboratory, which has been fortified with vitamin A and iron to help to combat blindness and anaemia in rural areas.


But the future of Uganda's biotechnology advances remains uncertain. Scientifically, Uganda is one of Africa's leaders in developing GM varieties of local staples. But its government has yet to pass a law to regulate the commercial release of GM organisms.

"Uganda is doing very well with the resources that it has at the moment," says Felix M'mboyi, executive director of the African Biotechnology Stakeholders Forum, which is based in Nairobi. "They have built their own local capacity, especially doing research on their own variety of banana."


Three African countries — South Africa, Egypt and Burkina Faso — are growing GM crops commercially, and Kenya expects to start doing so in 2012. Several others are hosting field trials or are about to start hosting them. Many will focus on local staples such as cowpea (or black-eyed pea), cassava and sweet potato.

Uganda's biosafety law has been stuck in the country's legislative system for years. A draft law exists, based on a biotechnology and biosafety policy adopted in 2008, that would allow controlled commercial releases of GM crops.

But with general elections expected to be held in February next year, MPs will be too busy focusing on re-election to have time to debate the law before then. Although political resistance to the introduction of GM food has softened in recent years, several MPs remain sceptical. And once the new parliament has been elected, resistance could grow once more, says M'mboyi.

Urban Ugandans are more opposed to GM crops than their rural counterparts are, according to a PhD thesis published earlier this year2.

But many city dwellers change their tune when they realise that they may unwittingly have eaten GM maize, for example, in breakfast cereals imported from South Africa, says Wilberforce Tushemereirwe, who heads the country's National Banana Research Programme. "Every time you tell them that, they say 'Oh, is that it?'" he says. He says that the current delays are a temporary setback. "There will be a law in one to two years time."

But the situation is not satisfactory for the country's researchers, concedes Maxwell Otim, deputy executive secretary of the Uganda National Council for Science and Technology, which coordinates the country's interim biosafety regulations. "There is an anxiety, which must be alleviated," he says.

Nature