Beer brewer provides bigger market for Uganda’s sorghum, barley farmers

Uganda Breweries Limited (UBL) has launched a recruitment programme for large scale sorghum farmers in Kapchorwa. This follows successful large scale sorghum growing trials carried out in Uganda’s Sebei region in 2011 as part of UBL's local raw material sourcing programme.

The recruitment drive coincided with the commissioning of the Kapchorwa Commercial Farmers (KACOFA), storage and processing plant in Kapchorwa on February 7, 2012. KACOFA has been one of the brewers’ key suppliers since 2003.

A company official said the programme will initially target over 5,000 acres. So far 2,000 have been identified.

Uganda Breweries Limited began its local farmer programme in 2001 primarily focusing on Teso and Lango regions and Ibanda in Western Uganda. Over 17,000 farmers have benefited under the sorghum and barley programmes which provide farmers with access to quality seeds, fertilizers, equipment and extension services.

Business Week

Scientists characterize barley plant-stem rust spore ‘communication’

Traditional thought holds that a disease-causing organism has to penetrate a plant to initiate resistance. Now, two Washington State University scientists have established that a barley plant recognizes an invader and begins to marshal its defenses within five minutes of an attack.

The discovery, along with the scientists’ successful cloning of barley’s disease-fighting gene and the pathogen’s signaling gene, could help to revolutionize the battle against cereal crop enemies such as stem rust.

Unless carefully controlled, stem rust has the potential to destroy a grower’s entire crop. It has caused the loss of millions of dollars of grain. Meanwhile, new threats are on the horizon. For example, Ug99 is becoming a threat to wheat, posing a new threat to global food security.

Andy Kleinhofs, professor of molecular genetics in WSU’s Department of Crop and Soil Sciences, has been working with assistant research professor Jayaveeramuthu Nirmala to understand the mode of action of Rpg1, a gene that provides barley with resistance to the pathogen that causes stem rust.  The scientists’ latest work involves a deeper understanding of how Rpg1 and the genes that activate it work to trigger resistance to stem rust.

In the course of their investigations, Kleinhofs and Nirmala found that that the plant recognizes the pathogen within five minutes of the spore touching the leaf, before penetration of the leaf takes place.

The plant’s initial reaction to attack is invisible to the human eye, Nirmala said, but she succeeded in monitoring subtle changes in plant chemistry that demonstrated the plant not only recognized it was under attack but was starting to muster its resistance. 

Visible signs of the stem rust spore’s impact come within an hour, when pad-like lesions connecting the spore to the leaf cell begin to appear.

Camille Steber, a research geneticist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service at WSU, said Steber said the discovery is a game-changer for plant scientists.

"This is the first example where the lock-and-key of cereal-pathogen response is clearly understood,” she said.

Kleinhofs said, "There is still a lot to be learned,” he added. "As with any new discovery, more questions arise than have actually been answered, but it’s a good start.”

Contacts:

Andy Kleinhofs, professor, Department of Crop and Soil Sciences and School of Molecular Biosciences, 509-335-4389, andyk@wsu.edu

 

Jayaveeramuthu Nirmala, assistant research professor, Department of Crop and Soil Sciences,509-335-5272, nirmala@wsu.edu

Kathy Barnard, Marketing, News, and Educational Communications, 509-335-2806, kbarnard@wsu.edu

Tanzania brewery contracts small-scale farmers' groups to supply barley

by Namtasha Mgaya

Tanzania’s leading brewery, Tanzania Breweries Limited (TBL), is consolidating the local barley industry by arranging to purchase the cereal from 10 local farmers groups.

The firm has empowered small holder growers of malting barley in the Southern Highlands of the country by signing agreements for purchasing the raw material locally.

Limitations to barley growing is blamed on lack of modern farming techniques by the majority of local farmers, lack of appropriate technologies and basic farming equipment, acidic soils in the area that requires massive liming applications, and unreliable rainfall patterns particularly in the northern highlands.

These challenges have compelled the brewers to device a programme named Kilimo Saidiana, which has achieved a milestone towards increasing local procurement of malt by signing agreements with the 10 organized groups of small holder producers.

These organized groups of smallholders cultivate 3,917, are expected to produce and supply to TBL approximately 4,000 metric tons of malting barley starting the 2010/11 season. TBL requires 50,000 tonnes annually.

This is an initial step towards fulfilling the aims of TBL to produce as much as possible of its malting barley from smallholders in the country and thereby contribute to the eradication of poverty in the rural areas.

In conjunction with the Stanbic Bank, TBL has obtained a secured pre-financing facility to contracted barley farmers seeking working capital loans for operational expenses, with the loan deducted from the farmer's proceeds at delivery time.

TBL external affairs director Phocus Lasway said under the programme the firm will import less malting barley from international markets.

"You know the problem is not the availability of the product in the market, but if you have it locally you can maintain the price. At one time the price of malting barley went up from US$400 to US$1,200 per metric ton on account of a three-year long drought in Canada, Russia and China," he said.

When growers manage to grow efficiently four metric tons per acre the profit is relatively good, but it needs modern farming techniques, he explained.

The organized villages are in the districts of Kilolo, Mbozi, Makete, Iringa in Njombe, Mufindi where some 6000 individual farmers will be engaged in barley farming.

TBL officials say this is an initial outcome of a partnership between Kilimo Trust and TBL to organize viable groups of smallholder producers to undertake contract farming business.

Kilimo Trust is a non-profit organization dedicated to linking farmers across the East African Community (EAC) region, to profitable national, regional and global markets.

This linkage requires helping most small farmers to graduate to enterprise owners or agri-SMEs capable of utilizing market opportunities, executing contracts within value chains and attracting private sector commercial financing (credit and equity).

In Tanzania, Kilimo Trust is also in partnership with Agra and Stanbic Bank that established an agribusiness loan scheme to increase access of smallholder farmers and SMEs to commercial financing, and expand business relationships between large agribusinesses and smallholders.

Kilimo Trust CEO in East Africa, Prof. Nuhu Hatibu, said smallholder farmers are not investing to increase productivity and production, not because they do not know what to do --but because they do not have incentives to do it.

TBL managing director Robin Goetzsche says agriculture plays a vital role towards poverty reduction and this being the case, every effort must be taken in this sector to change the prevailing subsistence agriculture to modern commercial agriculture.

East African Business Week

Field trials of GM maize, barley in Europe

Several genetically modified crop varieties are scheduled for limited, non-commercial release in Iceland, Romania and Spain this month:

* Five transgenic maize lines developed by Pioneer Hi-Bred AgroServicios Spain. The maize lines were modified to resist insect pests in Spain such as the western corn rootworm and the European corn borer.

* Syngenta's Bt11 and Ga21 maize and their hybrids also for release in Spain, as required for the registration of the maize varieties in the country's Official Commercial Varieties Register.

* Insect resistant maize varieties developed by Monsanto Company and Pioneer Hi-Bred, NK603 and DAS-59122-7 respectively, in Romania.

* A growth-factor expressing transgenic barley in Iceland developed by ORF Genetics.
Certain measures, such as maintaining an isolation distance of 200 meters and destruction of GM plant materials after trials, will be adopted by the applicants to prevent transgene escape.

GMO

Global food crisis increases investor interest in African agriculture

Historically, there have been tenuous links between farmers and food producers, with many companies having scant knowledge of how and where their ingredients are grown.

But as the prices of raw materials soar – from the barley used to make beer or the cocoa used to make chocolate – leading brewers and food manufacturers from Cadbury Schweppes to Diageo are increasingly recognising their businesses will benefit from investment in agriculture.

Nicolaus Cromme, project manager for foodstuffs at the Common Fund for Commodities, a branch of the UN, says the group has received approaches from companies that want to develop projects in Africa.

Multinational companies traditionally had only “so-so” interest in agricultural development, he says. “That has really changed.”

Mark Lundy, senior research fellow at the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research, which was created by the World Bank in the early 1970s to find ways of producing more food, claims food producers can no longer afford to ignore farmers.

“It used to be very much a buyers’ market ... now companies have to position themselves as good partners.”

Last month,Barry Callebaut, the Swiss group that claims to be the world’s biggest maker of chocolate, bought a 49 per cent stake in Biolands, an exporter of organic cocoa based in Tanzania. Biolands runs a smallholder programme involving 20,000 farmers, paying farmers for delivering beans. It also trains them and gives them seeds.

Cocoa prices are highly volatile – prices rose by almost 50 per cent between September and February – but by investing in producers, Barry Callebaut gets to control part of its cocoa supply. “We try to buy more and more cocoa directly from cooperatives or other organisations because it’s giving us full control over the quality,” the company says.Biolands plans to extend the Tanzanian project to other countries.

Meanwhile,Cadbury Schweppes, which created the “Cadbury Cocoa Partnership” with the United Nations Development Programme this year, plans to invest $59m over the next decade in cocoa farms in Ghana, which provides nearly three-quarters of its cocoa.

In Cameroon,Diageo, the British drinks group that owns the Guinness brand, is investing £250,000 in local farms over the next five years to encourage farmers to grow sorghum. Diageo says this will create a “sustainable market” for local grain, enabling it to reduce its reliance on imported barley, with which it has traditionally made its beer.

Nick Blazquez, managing director of Diageo’s Africa business, says the company benefits by sourcing raw materials locally.“It reduces our need for foreign exchange, shortens our supply lines and develops our relationship with the local community,” said Mr Blazquez.

SABMiller, the London-based brewer, is also trying to get closer to farmers as rising global prices for barley raises its costs. Andy Wales, head of sustainable development at the company, says: “We are looking at more direct relationships with farmers ... as competition for commodities increases, obviously businesses want to get hold of the right quality.”

Mr Wales said the brewer had run into “a land competition” with the biofuel industry in Ecuador, and needed to develop better relationships with farmers so that they would grow rice for SABMiller rather than maize for biofuel producers. SABMiller uses rice in the brewing process to add starch to beer.

SABMiller also has several projects running in Africa encouraging farmers to grow sorghum. Mark Bowman, managing director for SABMiller Africa, says that by switching to locally-grown sorghum, the brewer is creating a new market for farmers.

Financial Times

Tanzanian firm secures loan for barley, wheat production

The Tanzanian firm H.H. Mosha and Company Ltd has secured a $1 million loan from Bank M (Tanzania) Ltd to produce barley and wheat for export and local consumption.

The funding will enable the firm to acquire more farming equipment to work its 1,300 hectares of land as well as planting over 10,000 trees around its two farms — Matadi and Olmolok — to boost environmental conversation. Henry Mosha, managing director of H.H. Mosha, said the investment will enable the farm to increase its barley and wheat output to about four tonnes per hectare.

Mr Mosha said financial institutions ought to help the agricultural sector step up production since the sector has lagged behind largely because many farmers lack the necessary inputs to run their farms commercially. He said his farm produces a total of 1,300 tonnes of wheat and barley, but can easily double production.

Wheat is present cultivated on only 144,000 hectares of land, which is under partial or full-scale irrigation. Potential irrigatable land is estimated at 933,000 hectares. The country needs more than 60,000 tonnes of barley annually to meet the demands of the local beer brewing industry.

Sibu Kalyango, head of Bank M’s credit risk division, said the bank has allocated a share of its loan portfolio to the agricultural sector . “The Tanzanian economy is heavily dependent on agriculture and we’re determined to give special emphasis to the sector; we have resolved that by our third year of operations, we should have set aside 25 per cent of our loan portfolio for the agricultural sector,” he added.

Jimmy Mosha, deputy managing director of H.H. Mosha Farm, said his company needs more than $2 million to go into full irrigation and buy new equipment to produce enough wheat and barley to satisfy the country’s demand.

He said the two farms were currently producing five bags per hectare, but had the potential to produce up to 10 bags per hectare.

The East African

North Africa to develop drought, salt-tolerant barley

Agricultural researchers in Algeria, Egypt and Tunisia have teamed up to create drought-resistant and salt-tolerant varieties of barley better suited to the North African region.

The project, funded by the Canadian International Development Research Centre and overseen by the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) North Africa Biosciences Network, will see thirty scientists from five organisations spending the next two years developing the barley varieties.

Barley is traditionally used as animal feed in much of North Africa, but lack of alternative food sources is leading to human consumption.

Algeria's National Institute of Agricultural Research (INRAA), Egypt's National Research Centre and Agricultural Genetic Engineering Research Institute, and Tunisia's Centre of Biotechnology and National Institute of Agriculture Research will be involved in the project.

The researchers met in Borj Essedria in southern Tunisia in February to discuss genetic techniques — including genetic modification — that could be used to increase barley's nutritional quality, as well as make it drought- and saltwater-tolerant.

"We want to develop two varieties of barley in each country, making a total of six varieties expected to be resistant to drought and high salinity," says Hussein Irikti, coordinator of scientific activities and research for INRAA, which is overseeing Algeria's role in the project. "If we succeed in achieving the goal, we will launch another programme bigger and broader than this," he adds.

Irikti says they are focusing on barley because it is "exceptional, very adaptable to different climates, resisting drought and high temperature compared to other cereals — in addition to containing vitamins that are not found in other grains. It is a strategic challenge for North Africa, which suffers from drought and high degree of salinity."

Skander Mekersi, deputy director of INRAA, said researchers would share skills and equipment, adding that INRAA has invested equipment worth US$20,000 into the project.

SciDev.net

Tanzanian brewery partners agrochemical company to increase barley, wheat production

Wheat and barley farming in Tanzania's Manyara region are set to benefit from a deal between Tanzania Breweries Ltd (TBL) and agrochemical firm Syngenta to significantly revamp them.

The new strategy will almost double productivity from 15 bags per hectare to 25 bags, a move that will directly address farmers' income.

An expert with Syngenta, Ramadhani Chambuya, said they were engaged in campaigns to raise awareness among farmers in Manyara on modern strategies in pest control, safety and effective use of pesticides and insect management in a bid to boost the crops' production.

So far, nearly 100 wheat and barley growers in three strong farming areas ... have been trained on soil and fertilizer requirements, production protocol, land preparations, time of planting, varieties, weeds, insects and diseases control as well as harvesting.

"We will set up at least two demonstration sites in each village. During this year's long rains demonstrations will be conducted," Chambuya said.

An area covering 10 acres of barley will be developed according to this protocol and a similar adjacent area will be grown with the same crops based on local practices. A field day would be held towards the end of the season involving farmers from other barley growing areas. Before the start of the demonstrations, a soil analysis service would be carried out by Syngenta to determine the nutrient requirements of the site where the demo will be conducted.

"A good weed control programme starts with good land preparation and using seeds free of weed seeds. Grass weeds such as wild oats and ryegrass can be scientifically be controlled," Chambuya said.

Syngenta is planning to apply an insect control strategy that uses a combination of seed treatment and foliar spray.

"Our long run aim in to ensure that growers increase production of the multi-use crop to 40 bags per hectare so as to obtain 30,000 tonnes of barley and satisfy TBL's demand," Chambuya explained.

The size of land under cultivation in Manyara region is standing at 25, 000 hectares occupied by nearly 600 farmers, according to statistics from the TBL.

The Northern Zone of Tanzania, especially Manyara, Arusha and Kilimanjaro are potentially able to produce best varieties of barley and wheat on the African continent.

TBL's barley development manage David Bategereza told the Guardian that his company was planning to make use of malt from 100 percent locally-grown barley, starting next year, if all goes as planned. The company currently is importing nearly 60 percent of its malt demand from Europe, while the remaining 40 percent is being procured from locally produced barley.

IPP Media

Heavy rain threatens Kenya grain crops

Barley, wheat and maize farmers in parts of Rift Valley province are facing losses following heavy rainfall in the region. The farmers from Nakuru district fear a repeat of last year’s experience in the Mau Escarpment when hailstorms and flooding washed away big portions of wheat and barley plantations.

The Nakuru branch chairman of the Kenya National Federation of Agricultural Producers, Mr Samuel Gitonga, predicted a fall in wheat production in the region by more than 40 per cent following the rains.

Large scale farmers say they cannot use combine harvesters on the farms as soaked wheat has fallen on the ground, making it difficult for the machines to pick it up. But leaving the crop on the farms is equally unwise. Gitonga said the few farmers who have managed to harvest the crop were incurring heavy costs in drying it.

Millers buy wheat with 14 per cent moisture content, while what the farmers are harvesting now contains 30 per cent moisture content.

“It means that a farmer is paying up to Sh320 ($4.80) per bag to dry the wheat,” Gitonga said. August and September are usually dry months, but this time round heavy rain has prevented most farmers from harvesting their crops. Gitonga said the country could soon experience an acute wheat shortage, as demand for the commodity on the international market has shot up following crop failure in leading European wheat producing countries, France and Germany.

A 90kg bag of wheat is currently going for Sh2,800 ($42) up from Sh1,800 ($27) last year as only few farmers have managed to harvest their crop due to the rains.

Middlemen are cashing in on the farmers’ plight, purchasing the produce at between Sh2,200 and Sh2,400 at the farm level. “The price of wheat flour will shoot up possibly by the end of the year as a bag of imported wheat will not cost less than Sh4,500,” he said. The country imports up to 75 per cent of wheat every year.

On the other hand, East African Malting Limited, which requires barley farmers to maintain stringent quality standards of their produce, has introduced a crop insurance cover for its contracted farmers in the region beginning next planting season. The move is meant to cushion them against natural hazards.

Business Daily Africa

Barley insurance scheme launched in East Africa

East Africa Maltings (EAM), a subsidiary of East African Breweries, has launched a crop insurance cover for farmers it has contacted to grow barley.

The policies that are expected to cover the crops beginning the next planting season, are being sold to farmers to cushion them against possible loss of crops through natural calamities such as bad weather.

Mr. Phillip Kalii, the general manager East Africa Maltings said crop cover is part of the raft of measures the company decided to put in place to make barley farming profitable.

Barley growing has been facing stiff competition from other cereals such as wheat and maize, which farmers say earn them better returns.

A study done by Githongo and Associates indicate that barley farmers get only marginal income of Sh20,000 ($300) per acre compared to Sh28,000 ($420) per acre on maize, in what was mainly attributed to the high cost of growing barley. EAM has since increased barley purchase prices and there are indications that the company may increase the current transport subsidy of 50 per cent.

Mr Kalii said unpredictable weather patterns recorded in the barley growing region of the Rift Valley over the past 10 years had prompted the EAM management to think about crop insurance as part of the solution.

John Gangla, an assistant service manager with Aon Minet’s Industry and Mining Division — the brokers of the crop insurance policy — said recent studies had revealed that the barley growing region was ripe for such a cover to cushion farmers from losses brought about by natural elements.

The policy covers barley farmers against losses that may arise from fire outbreaks, hailstones, drought, excessive rain, pest and disease and wind.

The crop cover is provided by a consortium of four insurance companies including Insurance Company of East Africa, Heritage Insurance, Lion of Kenya and UAP with Suisse Re is the re-insurer. According to the arrangement, banks linked to the insurance companies in the consortium pay the premium of 3.5 per cent of the sum assured on behalf of the farmer and recover the money from produce sales.

Gangla said the concept of crops insurance was fast gaining popularity among cash crop farmers in Kenya. UAP Insurance broke new ground last year when it took crop insurance out of its traditional flower industry market with a cover for Dominion’s rice farm in Nyanza Province.

“In our case, a farmer doesn’t have to sell his assets to finance this insurance cover,” said Mr Kalii.

Unlike general and life insurance products that are aggressively marketed by insurance firms, Kalii said information about crop insurance is scanty among farmers who are the potential buyers of the policy. He said his company is talking to the government for a partnership that will enable it use the Ministry of Agriculture’s extensive network to pass on the information.

Tejpal Honjan, a barley farmer who lost his entire crop to bad weather last December said he had decided to take the policy because it offers him the possibility of salvaging part of his investment in case a calamity strikes. The cover, he said, would fill the gap that was left after the Guaranteed Minimum Return (GMR) scheme to farmers was withdrawn.

Government paid farmers the GMR through the company in case of crop losses to factors beyond farmers’ control. Unlike crop insurance, cover where farmers face deduction for premium cost, GMR was free and government sponsored.

Farmers also lamented that EAML’s Advisory Services Officers are too few to handle all the 400 contracted barley farmers.

Business Daily Africa

Brewery barley outgrowers in Kenya say new quality requirements are unfair

Contracted barley growers in Kenya's Rift Valley Province have disagreed with a subsidiary of East African Breweries Limited (EABL) over the introduction of new quality standards for the grain. East African Maltings Limited issued the guidelines to contracted farmers late last year, with a warning that it would only purchase produce that meets the new standards.

Part of the guidelines require farmers to ensure that the barley meets a 97 per cent minimum germination requirement, up from the previous 95%. The brewer also demands that the nitrogen content be maintained at 2.2 per cent, the grains be of 2.3 millimetre in size and 13 per cent (from the previous 14) per cent moisture content.

The Barley Growers Association of Kenya (BGAK) chairman Samuel Gitonga appealed for the brewer's intervention to save farmers from possible losses. "Failure to meet the set parameters is usually due to factors that are completely outside the control of farmers such as the weather," he said.

Gitonga argues that once the firm has recruited farmers, it should be prepared to purchase any produce that comes from their farms. "If there is a shortage of rainfall, the barley grains will ultimately be small and with high nitrogen content," he said. He further describes the 13 per cent moisture requirement as an unrealistic condition that is bound to increase the cost of production.

Farmers also complained of high transport costs that consume between 40 and 60 per cent of their earnings. Besides production issues, the barley farmers are also pushing for the establishment of a pricing mechanism that reflects the brewer's performance. The farmers reckon that the payments for their produce are too low compared to the brewer's profits.

Gitonga said a committee to look into their grievances was appointed by the brewer.

Business Daily