Biological Control Of Fall Armyworm Shows Promise

An egg parasitoid, Telenomus remus, could prove an important biological weapon in the fight against the devastating fall armyworm (Spodoptera frugiperda) that threatens the food security of more than 200 million people.

Dr Marc Kenis, Head of Risk Analysis and Invasion Ecology at the CABI Centre in Switzerland, led an international team of researchers from seven countries, who suggest Telenomus remus provides a 'great opportunity for the rapid deployment of a biological control agent' for fall armyworm in Africa.


Full Article...

Original Research Paper...

Contradiction between climate change findings and crop cultivation recommendations to Africa

There are now many studies which suggest that rising temperatures and reduced rainfall will make the farming of many African staples more difficult. So there is nothing particularly new or surprising about a new CGIAR study that says yields of maize, wheat and rice may significantly decrease as a result of climate change.

Among other things, the study says that in Africa maize output may decline by 10 to 20%. Irrigated wheat and rice could drop by 13 and 15% respectively in developing countries.

Yet just a few weeks ago there was a much publicized suggestion that Africa could and should be growing more wheat.

What should African countries do about wheat in light of these seemingly clashing findings?

Strictly speaking there is no real contradiction in them. The wheat study said Africa was in general only using up to about 15% of its wheat growing potential. So even if that full potential is going to be reduced, there is still a lot of scope to increase African wheat cultivation from its current low base.

But if African countries are already battling to raise lower-than-needed levels of the more basic staples, rice and maize, should they further thin their resources by significantly attempting to increase wheat production, even if they theoretically can? Would they perhaps be better advised to put all their energy and resources on increasing production of rice and maize before worrying about the 'luxury' staple of wheat?

The answers to these questions are far from easy.

Chido Makunike

African Agriculture

Virus-resistant gene-modified cassava developed

A Swiss team has developed a strain of cassava resistant to cassava mosaic disease and cassava brown streak virus.

The gene-modification technology involved to accomplish is being shared with laboratories in several African countries. It is hoped that this 'localization' of the techniques will help to overcome some of the resistance that many African countries have shown to gene modification.

It is not yet clear when the GM cassava will be available for cultivation.

full article...Scidev.net

An example of blended agro-ecological and conventional farming: growing maize with 'fertilizer trees' and reduced inorganic fertilizer

Nitrogen-fixing 'fertilizer trees' have long been used by farmers in farming-difficult areas such as parts of the Sahel. Rainfall is poor, the soils are often sandy and infertile, and yet there are several varieties of acacia and other nitrogen-fixing trees which do well there.

That these trees benefit other crops growing under or between them has long been known. What is perhaps fairly new in recent years is the more scientific study of the phenomenon, and its deliberate encouragement in parts of Africa that have not previously widely used these trees as an additional soil fertility supplementation strategy.

Given all this, 'Can Integration of Legume Trees Increase Yield Stability in Rainfed Maize Cropping Systems in Southern Africa?' seems like a somewhat superflous question whose answer is already known.

Nevertheless, researchers at the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) have been undertaking a 12 year study to find answers to the question. The 'hook' they used to justify the study and give the impression of finding something new was that they were studying the 'stability' of the yields of maize intercropped with Gliricidia sepium.

Amongst the findings:

* the control fields of conventional (inorganic fertilizer-using) maize monocultures had the highest

* close behind were the yields for maize intercropped with Gliricidia sepium and then supplemented with 50% of the inorganic fertilizer that would normally be used in 'conventional' maize monocultures.

This is an interesting practice long used by 'resource poor' farmers-using 'agro-ecological' farming techniques to stretch out and supplement the relatively small amounts of inorganic fertilizers they can afford to buy. This is real world small holder farming, not the pie-in-the-sky 'fully organic or death' mantras mouthed by activists in cushy donor-funded offices in town, worlds away from the realities of scratching out a living from the land..

The study's conclusion: "Maize yields remain more stable in maize–gliricidia intercropping than in fertilized maize monoculture in the long term, although average yields may be higher with full fertilization."

Hardly a ground-breaking study or findings, but still interesting.

African Agriculture

China to help Mali build agricultural research center

China has extended a U.S.$9 million loan to build an agricultural research station.

The center, which will be constructed on a 20-hectare piece of land in Koulikoro region, will be used for purposes of "experimentation, research and technical training as well as for the development of sustainable agriculture."

The center will mainly be used for the development of rice and maize farming.

Peoples' Daily 

Kenyan research bodies clash over cause of Maize Lethal Necrosis

by Gatonye Gathura

The disease threatening to wipe out this year’s maize crop had by the end of August spread to four provinces.

A task force established by the government to look into the crisis says the disease, which was first reported in Bomet last year, has spread to Rift Valley, Nyanza, Eastern and Central provinces.

It has destroyed crops on more than 90,000 hectares, according to the task force which presented its findings for the first time in public on Thursday.

“Where the crops were infected when young, losses are up to 100 per cent, ” Dr Anne Wangai, a member of the task force and a senior researcher with the Kenya Agricultural Institute (Kari), said.

The report reveals glaring conflicts between what the researchers have found out and what the Ministry of Agriculture has been telling the public.

Dr Wangai says the disease is caused by two different viruses working in cahoots.

She told the annual Open Forum on Agricultural Biotechnology in Africa in Nairobi that extensive trials both locally and abroad had confirmed that the infection was a viral disease.

But a statement issued by Agriculture minister Sally Kosgei in June, and posted on the ministry’s website, said the disease was also caused by a fungus.

“Confirmed results now indicate the combination of disease causing pathogens as mainly viruses and fungi... a fungus has been detected as one of the pathogens involved in the disease complex,” the statement said.

However, independent research by Kenya Plant Health Inspectorate (Kephis) was categorical that the disease was caused by a fungus.

Following Dr Kosgei’s statement, Kephis managing director James Onsando changed position but maintained that this was a new disease caused by a combination of viruses and fungi.

Kephis are part of the task force investigating the disease; so are several seed companies.

“The minister’s statement does not contradict our findings,” Dr Onsando told Saturday Nation without elaborating further.

However, scientists at International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT) are also categorical that the disease is caused by a virus.

“A combination of two viruses has been confirmed to be responsible for the Maize Lethal Necrosis Disease. This fact is now well established,” Dr Fred Kanampiu of CMMYT said.

Asked why Kephis could have got it so wrong, if indeed they are wrong, Dr Wangai argued that just like HIV, where an infected person is easy target for opportunistic infections, this may have been the case.

“A plant infected by these viruses has low immunity and will succumb to other infections, including fungal,” she said.

But scientists, who did not want to be identified for fear of victimisation, attributed the conflicting findings to sibling rivalry between Kari and Kephis, with the minister choosing to appease both. “One is dead wrong and the government knows which one, but does not want to hurt anybody’s ego,” a source said.

But the confusion between facts, politics and commercial interests does not end there.

The government in its statement is also categorical that the disease is not transmitted through seeds.

“The disease affects all varieties of maize and we have confirmed that it is not seed borne,” Dr Kosgei said. “There is therefore no fear of spreading the disease through seed that is supplied by seed companies.”

But it has emerged that researchers have not established this as a fact. In fact they are screening seeds to determine whether they could be spreading the disease.

“We are conducting tests to verify seed transmission of viruses in local cultivars,” Dr Wangai said.

According to the task force report, a study done elsewhere in 1991 found seeds to be a possible transmission route.

Speaking on condition of anonymous, scientists attending the Thursday meeting and another one for science journalists in Nakuru a week ago, said seed companies afraid of compensating farmers and hurting their businesses are fighting against any attempt to link the disease with their products in spite of the facts.

While new in Kenya, Dr Wangai said the disease was first detected in Peru in 1973 and later in the US, Argentina and Mexico.

However, the report from Kephis suspects the disease to have originated from a maize seed production farm in Taveta, which had a similar problem in 2003.

Daily Nation

Rust-resistant Zimbabwean soya bean varieties raise interest in Brazil, US

The dominant narrative in many media about Zimbabwe and farming is that it is the country that went from 'regional breadbasket to basket case.' This is attributed to a controversial land reform exercise that dispossessed the country's once-dominant white farmers and parcelled out the land to (take your pick depending on your point of view) (a) hundreds of thousands of established and aspiring black farmers from whose fore bearers the land had been grabbed a hundred years ago by colonial governments or (b) 'Mugabe's cronies,' who can't tell a pick from a shovel, or a grain of seed from a grain of fertilizer.

All of this is simplistic and incomplete nonsense, but so many people all over find the mere mention of the word 'Zimbabwe' such a blood pressure-raising subject that few are interested in doing anything more than venting their spleen on the issue.

What is not widely known is that part of Zimbabwe's agricultural success invloved a sophisticated research capability, and that portions of it have endured the ten years of general economic and political upheaval from about 2000 to 2010.

The production of soya beans, used in pressing for oil and as an important part of livestock feed, suffered tremendously and is still battling to recover. Nevertheless, research in soya production has produced much sought-after rust-resistant soya bean varieties that have attracted interest as far as Brazil and the US, both countries soya research and production powerhouses, according to Zimbabwe's agriculture minister.

"We are the largest producers of rust-resistant soya bean," Joseph Made boasted at a Harare conference in April. "That material (soya bean) we are now sending to Brazil and the US (is) developed in our own seed houses," he said, while emphasising government's long-held position against the importation of genetically
modified grains.

Despite this success, the many problems still plaguing agriculture mean that the new in-country developed rust-resistant soya varieties have not led to the recovery of Zimbabwe's soya bean self-sufficiency.

The Financial Gazette (20 April 2012) reports that local 'cooking oil processing industries have been spending US$180 million year on imports to make up for Zimbabwe's soya production shortfall.  An industry executive said the country imported 60,000 tonnes of soya seed oil from South Africa annually, valued at US$90 million. 144,000 tonnes of soya meal are also annually imported from India.

''We have the ability of sending US$180 million per year to India and South Africa for these two products; (but) our farmers require US$120 million per year to produce them. Why not give our farmers the money and save US$60 million?" asked the executive.

Banks in Zimbabwe are as chicken about agricultural lending as anywhere else, a fear compounded by the lingering after-effects of the still unresolved discussion over post land reform farm property rights and security of tenure/collateral issues.

African Agriculture

International potato diseases detection workshop; Harbin, China; July 2012

What: 2012 International training workshop on potato diseases detection techniques.

About: Sharing China's know-how/techniques of the detection of the diseases of seed potatoes.

Where: Harbin, Heilongjiang Province, China.


Organizer: Ministry of Agriculture of China (Harbin); Supervision & Testing Center for Virus-free Seed Potatoes.

Working Language: English


Expenses: Accepted participants are to fund their own travel to and from their countries to the airport or railway station of Harbin. Accommodations, group traveling and insurance in Harbin will be taken care of by the Chinese government.

When: July 5- July 24, 2012.

Closing date for applications: June 1, 2012.

Contact and Application Details:  
 
Contacts: Liu Weiting (Angela)

Mobile: 86-138 4512 9354

Tel: 86-451-86677452

Fax: 86-451-86677452

E-mail: potatotraining@yahoo.com

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

        

Research grant to fund vegetable pests’ research in three African countries

The German government has granted €1.2 million (about US$1.6 million) for research into pest management of tomato and pepper in Tanzania, Kenya, Madagascar and Thailand.

The project will also introduce interventions that will significantly lessen reliance on chemical pesticides in vegetable farms, consequently reducing hazards to farmers’ health and the environment.

The initiative will be led by the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) and implemented in partnership with the World Vegetable Centre (AVRDC). Researchers from the University of Bonn in Germany, Kenyatta University in Kenya, and Kasetsart University in Thailand. National agricultural research services, NGOs, private sector, and vegetable farmers’ groups in the four countries will also take part.

CGIAR-IITA

Genetically engineered green beans ‘show promise for Africa’

by Amanda Garris

Slender green beans air-freighted from Kenya to markets in Western Europe are a profitable crop for high-altitude farms across sub-Saharan Africa. Breeding efforts at Cornell University in New York State, USA, could help their lower altitude neighbors also harness the crop's economic potential.

Green beans are Kenya's most important horticultural export, earning farmers five to 10 times more than the dry beans they traditionally grow. However, there are two significant barriers to the expansion of this lucrative market: the varieties available are sensitive to high temperatures during flowering and susceptible to the common bean rust fungus.

"Green beans are typically grown at altitudes higher than about 5,000 feet, which can have a temperate climate despite their proximity to the equator, but competition and land prices at these higher altitudes has increased," said Phillip Griffiths, vegetable breeder and associate professor of horticulture.

“The ability to expand green bean production into marginal areas at lower altitudes would provide new opportunities for farmers, but it requires the development of new varieties that combine heat tolerance with multiple rust resistance genes."

Because these two traits are also important for U.S. growers, Griffiths and his colleagues Tim Porch, Ph.D. '01, and Talo Pastor-Corrales of the USDA Agricultural Research Service, already had sources for both in hand, ready for breeding into the specific types of slender green beans needed for eastern Africa.

The funding for the breeding came from several sources, including the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, the Toward Sustainability Foundation, Cornell's Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies and the Cornell Assistantship for Horticulture in Africa (CAHA), a recently established doctoral scholarship established by an anonymous donor.

Kenyan Charles Wasonga, Cornell PhD graduate of 2010, the first recipient of the CAHA fellowship, took the field trials of the new green beans through two years at six sites, including partner institutes in Kenya and Tanzania. He identified promising types with comparable yields at lower altitudes (about 3,600 feet) and a combination of rust resistance genes that protected against all known rust strains in the region.

Breeding and evaluating beans for Africa from upstate New York turned out to be an effective approach.

"For these particular traits, the performance of the plants in high-temperature greenhouses in New York and selection for rust resistance n the USDA's Maryland greenhouses correlated very well with field performance in Puerto Rico, Kenya and Tanzania," said Griffiths.

There may be a second opportunity to leverage the research and resources at Cornell for the benefit of sub-Saharan Africa.

Sukuma wiki (kale) is the most important leafy green vegetable in the Lake Victoria region. It is a dietary staple that is produced for local consumption rather than for export. It also happens to be a variant of cabbage with some of the same production challenges facing growers in New York, including black rot. An endemic disease in eastern Africa, black rot typically renders 50 percent to 80 percent of the leaves unmarketable.

"By moving resistance from Cornell's cabbage breeding program into sukuma wiki, marketable yields could be significantly increased," said Griffiths. "It is a project requiring a sponsor focused on people, not profits."

http://www.physorg.com/

Gene-modified tobacco may give you lung cancer, but will fight off malaria

In what appears to be serious news, Xinhua news agency has reported that scientists at Israel’s Hebrew University of Jerusalem have developed genetically altered tobacco plants which contain artemensin, a natural compound that is increasingly used in drug-resistant malaria therapy.

Artemensin comes from the sweet wormwood plant but due to its small quantities and high price, millions of people cannot get access to it.

Although cigarettes are known to kill millions of people every year, Professor Alexander Vainstein and his research team spliced the wormwood enzymes that carry artemensin’s genetic code into tobacco plants, which then produced the drug.

Vainstein's development is being marketed through the Hebrew University's Yissum Research Development Company.

"The technology provides, for the first time, the opportunity for manufacturing affordable artemensin by using tobacco plants," said Yissum CEO Yaacov Michlin.

Approximately half a billion people suffer from malaria each year in Africa and East Asia, with a child dying every 30 seconds of this disease. Most of them have no means to purchase medicines to treat the illness.

This will present interesting new scenarios for major tobacco growing countries like Malawi and Zimbabwe. Malaria drug manufacturers may now bid for tobacco at the countries’ tobacco auctions alongside cigarette makers. Perhaps this will firm tobacco prices, which in some cases low in Malawi in 2011.. The low prices made many Malawian farmers abandon cultivation of the country’s main cash crop for other crops in 2012. Industry sources say Malawi’s 2012 tobacco harvest may be as low as half of that of 2011 as a result.

Will the artemensin in tobacco be smoke-able in its malaria-fighting properties, or will it have to be extracted? If the former, people now have the new, bizarre ‘lifestyle choice’ of dying from tobacco smoking-induced lung cancer, but at least being cured of their malaria before that. Health professionals who have always thought of tobacco as a killer may now have to wrap their brains to thinking about it as a lifesaver as well.

It’s almost stranger than fiction.

African Agriculture

Tea research key to a growing industry

by Julie Frederikse

Pelly Malebe's research on helping plants withstand drought is personal as well as scientific. She grew up in South Africa's drought-prone northern province of Limpopo, where crop failures are frequent.

If the affected crop is food for family consumption, the result can be hunger. If it is a crop for trade or export, the loss of earnings can also mean too little food on the family table, as well as threatening commercial farmers, both large and small.

As a doctoral student at the University of Pretoria, Malebe is studying the drought-survival mechanisms of tea plants under stress – and has identified a DNA marker for those plants more able to withstand drought. "This can be used to identify suitable drought-tolerant cultivars to benefit the commercial tea industry," she says.

In effect, Malebe has found a shortcut that suggests that a particular tea plant will tolerate drought conditions, without having to wait to see if and how the plant grows. Happily, the drought-tolerant plants can adapt to excess moisture, which means they can survive rainy weather as well.

Malebe's research is supported by RISE, the Regional Initiative in Science and Education, aimed at building capacity for science research and teaching in African universities. Funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, a charitable foundation, RISE works through a series of thematic networks, including Sabina, which stands for the Southern African Biochemistry and Informatics for Natural Products Network.

Sabina members include the Tea Research Foundation of Central Africa and the universities of Malawi, Namibia and Dar es Salaam [Tanzania], as well as South Africa's universities of the Witwatersrand and Pretoria. South Africa's Council for Scientific and Industrial Research also participates.

Biochemistry Professor Zeno Apostolides, founder of the University of Pretoria's Tea Research Laboratory, is a Sabina faculty advisor supervising three PhD students, including Malebe and fellow researcher Nicholas Mphangwe.

Before he was accepted into the Sabina programme, Mphangwe had been working as a plant breeder for the Tea Research Foundation in his home country of Malawi, where tea provides about 30 percent of the country's foreign exchange and about five percent of the world's tea crop.

Since one of Rise's goals is to enhance scientific skills among scientists in mid-career, Mphangwe was able to take leave from his job to become part of the Sabina programme. In the lab, he is probing genetic markers to identify cultivars more adaptable to African growing conditions and more resistant to drought, insects, diseases and low temperatures.

"In Malawi, Zimbabwe and Zambia, the main work on tea is being carried out at research stations, so we tea breeders are still continuing to go into the field and visually assess promising cultivars," Mphangwe said. "I hope eventually to develop cultivars with good off-season growth, so as to extend the growing season."

Once he earns his PhD, Mphangwe plans to return to Malawi to work with the Tea Research Foundation of Central Africa. This non-profit organisation is funded by Malawi and Zimbabwe tea growers to improve technologies. Some of the tea cultivars it has developed are also grown in Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda, as well as outside Africa.

Camellia sinensis, the biological name for the plant that produces black and green tea, is grown in some 50 countries and is the world's most widely drunk beverage after water. Apostolides says tea production in southern African is growing at about 20 percent per year, so the region could challenge India for first place in tea production by about 2020. "India produces 900,000 tons of tea per year," he says, "while Sri Lanka and Kenya, which are always competing for second place, produce 300,000 tons each, and all the African countries combined produce about 400,000 tons, so as a region we are in second place."

The Tea Board of Kenya reported that Kenya's tea exports last year overtook horticulture – flower production – to become the country's largest foreign exchange earner. Uganda, Malawi and South Africa are Africa's other leaders in tea production.

Pelly Malebe's work has included finding a feasible way to send cultivars to research labs. "Developing countries lack skills for the isolation of genetic material," she says. "What is needed is a simple leaf-drying method so that the tea leaves can be transported to laboratories where genetic material can be extracted and usable genomic DNA can be isolated and stored."

After testing various methods of drying tea plants – blanching, pressing, freeze drying and placing it in bags with silica gel – she determined that using silica gel in sealable plastic bags gave the best results. That encouraging finding could point the way to a simple methodology for obtaining and storing genetic material, applicable to other products and places.

Before publishing her research on DNA markers for drought resistance, Malebe conferred with Apostolides. The scientists had to choose whether or not to patent the cultivars. She and her advisor decided that she would write up the research results without claiming them as intellectual property. So this breakthrough from Africa will soon become free knowledge to the international scientific community.

allafrica.com

Insect experts to help diagnose disease affecting Rwandan coffee

The expertise of entomologists at the University of California, Riverside has a worldwide impact..

Now Thomas Miller, a professor of entomology and a Jefferson Science Fellow, will travel to Rwanda, Africa, to help solve a mystery surrounding the country's specialty coffee sector – a sector that accounts for 26 percent of the country's agricultural exports.

A defect called "potato taste" – thought to be caused in part by the antestia bug – is threatening to deter international buyers from purchasing Rwandan coffee.

"When stink bugs feed on plants, they can affect the taste of the fruit from the plants," Miller explained. "For example, the brown marmorated stink bug feeding on tomatoes changes their taste. Certain tea plants, when fed upon by leafhoppers, produce leaves with improved taste. Much of the underlying reasons for these are not known."

Determining the specific cause of potato taste is a major challenge Miller and Christian Cilas, a French scientist, face after they travel to Rwanda on Jan. 7. Currently, there is no definitive link between potato taste and antestia bug, only hypotheses.

Miller will stay in Rwanda for two weeks – one week will be comprised of meetings, including three national workshops for stakeholders across private sectors, research, academia, and government; the other week will be used in field visits. He expects to get a better understanding of potato taste and its causes, gather samples for analysis in the United States, and begin collaborations with Rwandan scientists.

"We will devise a multi-pronged strategy for ridding Rwanda's specialty coffee of potato taste defect," Miller said. "And we will also assist Rwanda in reaching out and making contacts with people grappling with similar problems globally."

Starting Jan. 9, Miller and Cilas will join a group of researchers from the National University of Rwanda to solve the mystery surrounding potato taste.

The collective effort to eliminate potato taste in Rwandan specialty coffee is being organized under the auspices of the Global Knowledge Initiative (GKI), an international non-profit. Through the Learning and Innovation for Network for Knowledge and Solutions (LINK) Program, GKI helps scientists, innovators, and entrepreneurs worldwide construct purpose-driven networks to tackle challenges like the one Miller and Cilas will confront in Rwanda. A full analysis of LINK Rwanda will enable the international team to maximize efforts and leverage shared resources.

University of California Riverside

South Sudan: Africa’s next farming frontier

by Catherine Riungu

In yet another development that brings South Sudan closer to the East African Community, the country has become the newest state to join the regional agricultural research network.

The world’s newest country was recently unanimously accepted to become the 11th member of the Association for Strengthening Agricultural Research in East and Central Africa (Asareca) during its first general assembly that was held in Entebbe, Uganda.

According to Harvard professor, Calistous Juma, who gave the keynote address, South Sudan will play a key role in developing agriculture in the region by providing opportunities to apply the latest technologies on untested ground.

“South Sudan is lucky because it will get started with the latest and best agricultural technologies as it embarks on developing its economic base,” he said adding that since agriculture is the most viable industry the country can tap into and reap substantially because of being endowed with unfarmed soils and plenty of irrigation water from the Nile, it has potential to feed the region and generate more for selling into a food deficit world.

By an interesting coincidence, a young Sudanese researcher who is studying in Kenya at the Kenyatta University’s department of biotechnology Rashar Omer has made history by developing the first drought-resistant maize gene that was unveiled at the conference and named Asareca gene.

Slated for commercialisation in 2018, the gene is being touted by scientists who are excited by the breakthrough as having the potential to finally lead Africa to an agrarian revolution that has evaded the continent for decades.

The gene and the entry of South Sudan were not the only good news coming out of the Asareca assembly. The continent, known for shameful scenes of hunger, malnutrition and starvation is slowly emerging out of the jinx and headed towards becoming the world’s bread basket.

Experts say African scientists are coming up with continent specific research products while the political leadership that has for long shunned agriculture is beginning to lead from the front.

According to Asareca director general Seyfu Katema, 60 per cent of the world’s arable land is in Africa but the continent has failed to mine this potential due to low uptake of technology and poor leadership condemning it to perpetual food shortages.

In the middle of this darkness is emerging a flicker of light. Professor Juma, who is booking a place for himself among world leaders by crusading for a hunger-free Africa says four of the continent’s Heads of State are showing that with the right approach and a growing passion, it can be done.

“I am following and working very closely with presidents who are leading the way with incredible results, and it is their passion that is going to change Africa’s agriculture,” he says citing Guinea’s Lansana Conte, Malawi’s Mbingu wa Mutharika, Ghana’s John Atta Mills and closer home, Tanzania’s Jakaya Kikwete. “Never in the history of Africa have presidents taken agriculture so seriously as it is in these four countries with amazing results,” he added.

In Rwanda, President Paul Kagame directly supervises the Ministry of Agriculture.

The East African

Give biotech scientists the benefit of the doubt

by Otieno Otieno

A day out with scientists isn’t quite anyone’s idea of fun. But I found it surprisingly enjoyable visiting with Dr James Gethi of the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (Kari) and Dr Stephen Mugo of International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) on their research field in Kiboko in Ukambani.

With 52 years of crop breeding experience between them, Dr Gethi and Dr Mugo have a way of explaining complex scientific terminology like one would do to a five-year-old. More importantly, the two gentlemen see themselves as part of the solution to one of Kenya’s long-standing problems: hunger.

For the past four years, they have been hard at work developing a maize variety that can withstand drought with a helping hand from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and agribusiness firm Monsanto.

Similar research under the ambitious project known as Water Efficient Maize for Africa (Wema) is being undertaken in Uganda, Tanzania, Mozambique and South Africa. The Kenyan project is only in the second phase of field trials and is not expected to yield the super maize seed until 2017.

But Dr Gethi and Dr Mugo are extremely patient and disciplined souls. They believe they have already learnt enough from the first two harvests from their experimental farm to be positive about a breakthrough.

Like all scientists, they can’t wait for the Eureka moment and the sense of personal fulfilment that normally comes with it. But it is the opportunity of being part of efforts to transform agriculture in the country’s mean dry lands and solve the chronic food security problems that most satisfies them.

The African Agricultural Technology Foundation has negotiated a royalty fees waiver with Monsanto, which means that the super maize seed will be available in the local market at an affordable price for small-scale farmers.

However, the scientists’ optimism is tempered with a sense of frustration — at being somewhat unloved and unappreciated. They fear that their work might run into the same headwinds of myth, scare mongering, political rhetoric and corporate wars that have in the past characterised public debates on biotechnology in the country.

“It is like you come to me for a solution that can transform lives but when I provide it you turn on me with a whip,” said Dr Gethi.

That got me thinking. Granted, legitimate health, environmental and ethical concerns remain about biotechnology. But isn’t it about time we at least gave these scientists the benefit of the doubt?

The Nation

Nigeria to release Vitamin A-rich, yellow-fleshed cassava

In December 2011, Nigeria's National Variety Release Committee announced three winning varieties in a 12 year contest between thousands of entrants. The contest, in reality a joint breeding programme of IITA* and Nigeria's National Root Crops Research Institute, had just one goal: to identify high yielding, disease resistant cassava varieties that could help to tackle one of Nigeria's most serious forms of malnutrition.

Vitamin A deficiency, which lowers immunity to disease and causes impaired vision or even blindness, affects almost 20 per cent of pregnant women and nearly one third of children under five in Nigeria. Standard white-fleshed cassava is eaten by more than 70 million Nigerians every day, but contains virtually no beta-carotene, a substance converted by the body into Vitamin A. In contrast, the newly released varieties, which have yellow roots, contain around six micro-grams of beta-carotene per gram, enough to provide up to 25 per cent of daily needs.
Screening, selecting and testing

The breeding work, which has used conventional methods and has been funded for the last eight years by the HarvestPlus programme, screened up to 100,000 cassava seedlings a year for high beta-carotene content and other desirable traits. Hundreds of the most promising plants were then investigated further in multi-locational trials in 13 states, covering Nigeria's major agro-ecologies from rainforest belt to northern guinea savannah. Farmers have been key participants, both in the early stages of selection, in order to ensure that yellow-rooted varieties perform well against the full spectrum of farmer preferences, and in on-farm trials of the most promising candidates.

Measuring the beta-carotene levels in cassava poses its own challenges. The roots deteriorate quickly once harvested, restricting the number of samples that can be tested; this has prompted research into long-term storage strategies. But the breeding process has grown significantly faster over the life of the programme, with greater gene frequency achieved for Vitamin A and improved selection and screening. As a result, while the three new varieties took 12 years from first being crossed to being ready for release, a second group of varieties has reached almost the same point in just six years and contains nearly double the quantity of beta-carotene. Even higher pro-vitamin levels are currently being pursued, with the breeding programme aiming to achieve a target concentration of 15 micrograms per gram by 2015.
Decentralised and demand-driven

Changing the colour of a staple food is normally risky, since it can prejudice adoption by consumers. In the case of cassava, however, local processors often add palm oil to white cassava flour when producing the most popular cassava-based food, gari, giving it a golden hue. As a result, the yellow colour of the new varieties was no deterrent, and was even preferred by some processors. Farmers involved in evaluation trials were also impressed, the new varieties yielding up to 20 tonnes per hectare, comparable with popular white varieties, and having similar starch levels and processing characteristics.

Cassava stems are bulky and quickly lose quality when transported, so multiplying and distributing the new cassava varieties in significant quantities requires a localised approach. The programme is initially focussing on four key states, with ten local governments per state each cultivating a one hectare plot to provide planting material for village level multiplication. By 2013, the plan is to produce enough stems to supply 25,000 households, which will be available at no cost, on condition that recipients supply stems to two other households in the following year.

Providing financial incentives is part of the scaling-up strategy. Private sector companies and NGOs have been enrolled to train farmers in multiplication techniques and encourage young farmers to enter a potentially rewarding business. "It's a win-win situation," says Samson Odedino of Envoy Consultancy Services, which has worked with farmers to establish multiplication plots. "Farmers selling stems will make money, rural people will enjoy better health and everyone will be happy."

For HarvestPlus, which supports conventional crop breeding to address a range of nutritional deficits, the work in Nigeria is a pilot. The programme currently has similar work underway in the Democratic Republic of Congo, but beyond this looks to promote policies and institutional supports that encourage acceptance of biofortification as a strategy and yellow cassava in particular, across many more countries, including Benin, Ghana, Cameroon and Uganda.

New Agriculturalist

Resistant wheats and Ethiopian farmers battle deadly fungus

When a devastating stripe rust epidemic hit Ethiopia last year, newly-released wheat varieties derived from international partnerships proved resistant to the disease, and are now being multiplied for seed. Wheat farmers and breeders are embroiled in a constant arms race against the rust diseases, as new rust races evolve to conquer previously resistant varieties. Ethiopia’s wheat crop became the latest casualty when a severe stripe rust epidemic struck in 2010.

“The dominant wheat varieties were hit by this disease, and in some of the cases where fungicide application was not done there was extremely high yield loss,” says Firdissa Eticha, national wheat research program coordinator with the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR). “This is a threat for the future because there is climate change—which has already been experienced in Ethiopia—and the varieties which we have at hand were totally hit by this stripe rust.”

Ethiopia is not alone; stripe rust has become a serious problem across Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, with epidemics in 2009 and 2010 which many countries have struggled to control. What’s new is the evolution of stripe rust races that are able to overcome Yr27, a major rust resistance gene that many important wheat varieties rely on. Although recent weather conditions have allowed the new rust races to thrive, they first began to emerge more than a decade ago, and CIMMYT’s wheat program, always looking forward to the next threat, began selection for resistance to Yr27-virulent races in 1998.

“CIMMYT has a number of wheat lines that have shown good-to-excellent resistance to stripe rust without relying on Yr27, in screening in Mexico, Ecuador, and Kenya,” says Ravi Singh, CIMMYT distinguished scientist and rust expert who leads the breeding effort in Mexico. Many of these are also resistant to the stem rust race Ug99 and have 10-15% higher yields than currently-grown varieties, according to Singh. The current step is to work with national programs to identify and promote the most useful of the resistant materials for their environments—a process that was underway in Ethiopia when the epidemic struck.

Eticha is leading his country’s fight against stripe rust. Reflecting on the disease, he says: “For me it is as important as stem rust. I find it like a wildfire when there is a susceptible variety. You see very beautiful fields actually, yellow like a canola field in flower. But for farmers it is a very sad sight. Stripe rust can cause up to 100% yield loss.” There is no official figure yet on the overall loss to Ethiopia’s wheat harvest for 2010, but it is expected to be more than 20%.



The other common name for stripe rust is yellow rust. Severely-infected plants look bright yellow, due to a photosynthesis-blocking coating of spores of the fungus Puccinia striiformis, which causes the disease. These spores are yellow to orange-yellow in color, and form pustules. These usually appear as narrow stripes along the leaves, and can cover the leaves in susceptible varieties, as well as affecting the leaf sheaths and the spikes. The disease lowers both yield and grain quality, causing stunted and weakened plants, fewer spikes, fewer grains per spike, and shriveled grains with reduced weight. Epidemic flourishes with damp weather Normally, Ethiopia has two distinct rainy seasons, one short and one main, allowing for two wheat cropping cycles per year. However, 2010 saw persistent gentle rains throughout the year, with prolonged dews and cool temperatures—perfect weather for stripe rust. Most wheat varieties planted in Ethiopia were susceptible, including the two most popular, Kubsa and Galema, so damage was severe. Under normal conditions, the disease only attacks high-altitude wheat in Ethiopia, but last year it was rampant even at low altitudes. This could reflect the appearance of a new race that is less temperature sensitive, or simply the unusual weather conditions; Ethiopian researchers are currently waiting for the results of a rust race analysis.

There was little Ethiopia could do to prevent the epidemic; imported fungicides controlled the disease where they were applied on time, but supplies were limited and expensive. Newly-released, resistant varieties provide a way out of danger. In particular, two CIMMYT lines released in Ethiopia in 2010 proved resistant to stripe rust in their target environments: Picaflor#1, which was released in Ethiopia as Kakaba, and Danphe#1, released as Danda’a. Picaflor#1 is targeted to environments where Kubsa is grown, and so has the potential to replace it, and Danphe#1 could similarly replace Galema. Both varieties are also high-yielding and resistant to Ug99.





Seed multiplication of resistant CIMMYT varieties As soon as the situation became clear, EIAR and the Ethiopian Seed Enterprise (the state-owned organization responsible for multiplication and distribution of improved seed of all major crops in Ethiopia) worked together to speed the multiplication of seed of these varieties, using irrigation during the dry seasons. This is happening now, with almost 500 hectares under multiplication over the winter—421 of Picaflor#1 and 70 of Danphe#1. Financial support from this project came from the USAID Famine Fund. Two resistant lines from the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) were released in Ethiopia in 2011, and will add to the diversity for resistance.

Eticha does not foresee any difficulty encouraging farmers to adopt the new varieties. In 2010 they were grown by 900 farmers on small on-farm demonstration plots, as part of EIAR’s routine annual program, so they have been seen—free of stripe rust—by thousands of farmers, and there will be more demonstration plots as more seed becomes available. However, “farmers are at risk still even if the varieties are there,” he says, “the problem is seed supply.” Some seed will reach farmers this year, but the priority will be ongoing multiplication to build up availability as fast as possible.

Hans-Joachim Braun, director of CIMMYT's Global Wheat Program, visited Ethiopia in 2010. “The epidemic was a real wake-up call,” he says. “Researchers have known for more than ten years that the varieties grown are susceptible. Farmers are not aware of the danger, so it is the responsibility of researchers and seed producers, if we know a variety is susceptible, to replace it with something better."






Exploring rust solutions in Syria


The ongoing fight against the wheat rust diseases is an international, collaborative effort involving many partners in national programs and international organizations. CIMMYT works closely with ICARDA, which leads efforts against the wheat rust diseases in Central and West Asia and North Africa. At the International Wheat Stripe Rust Symposium, organized by ICARDA in Aleppo, Syria, during 18-20 April 2011, global experts developed strategies to prevent future rust outbreaks and to ensure the control and reduction of rust diseases in the long term.


Other participating organizations included CIMMYT, the Borlaug Global Rust Initiative (BGRI), the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) of the UN, the International Development Research Center (IDRC, Canada), and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). More than 100 scientists from 31 countries presented work and shared ideas on wheat rust surveillance and monitoring, development and promotion of rust-resistant wheat varieties, and crop diversity strategies to slow the progress of rust outbreaks.


CIMMYT was represented by Hans-Joachim Braun and Ravi Singh. “Wheat crops and stripe rust like exactly the same conditions,” says Braun, “and they both love nitrogen. This means that where a farmer has a high yield potential, stripe rust takes it away, if the wheat variety is susceptible. In addition to the really devastating epidemics, the disease is very important because even in bumper years, farmers who grow susceptible varieties still can’t get a good yield.”


One thing all the attendees agreed on was the immediacy of the rust threat. New variants of both stem rust (also known as black rust) and stripe rust (or yellow rust), able to overcome the resistance of popular wheat varieties, are thriving under the more variable conditions caused by climate change, increasing their chances of spreading rapidly. Breeders in turn are quickly developing the varieties farmers need, with durable resistance to stem and stripe rust, as well as improved yield performance, drought tolerance, and regional suitability.


Other major areas of focus are the development of systems for monitoring and surveillance of rust to enable rapid response to initial outbreaks, and overcoming bottlenecks in getting resistant seed quickly to farmers. There is much to be done, but Singh is confident: “If donors, including national programs and the private sector, are willing to invest in wheat research and seed production, we can achieve significant results in a short time.”



"Ethiopian scientists responded quickly to the epidemic", says Braun, "but there were heavy losses in 2010. What we need is better communications between scientists, seed producers, and decision makers to ensure the quick replacement of varieties.”

Building on a strong partnership The value of the collaboration between CIMMYT and Ethiopia is already immeasurable for both partners. CIMMYT materials are routinely screened for rust at Meraro station, an Ethiopian hotspot, in increasing numbers as rust diseases have returned to the spotlight in recent years. CIMMYT lines are also a crucial input for Ethiopia’s national program.

“The contribution of CIMMYT is immense for us,” says Eticha. “CIMMYT provides us with a wide range of germplasm that is almost finished technology—one can say ready materials, that can be evaluated and released as varieties that can be used by farming communities.” Ethiopia has favorable agro-environments for wheat production, and the bread wheat area is expanding because of its high yields compared to indigenous tetraploid wheats. “Wheat is the third most important cereal crop in Ethiopia,” explains Eticha, “and it is really very important in transforming Ethiopia’s economy."

Bekele Abeyo, CIMMYT senior scientist and wheat breeder based in Ethiopia, works closely with the national program. CIMMYT helps in many ways, he explains, for example with training and capacity building, as well as donation of materials, including computers, vehicles, and even chemicals for research.

“In addition, we assign scientists to work closely with the national program, and facilitate germplasm exchange, providing high-yielding, disease resistant, widely-adapted varieties.” Speaking of the stripe rust epidemic, Abeyo says, “last year, the Ethiopian government spent more than USD 3.2 million just to buy fungicides, so imagine, the use of resistant varieties can save a lot of money. Most farmers are not able to buy these expensive fungicides. During the epidemic, fungicides were selling for three to four times their normal price, so you can see the value of resistant varieties.”

“I think East Africa is colonized by rust. Unless national programs work hard to overcome and contain disease pressure, wheat production is under great threat,” says Abeyo. “It is very important that we continue to strengthen the national programs to overcome the rust problem in the region.”

With Yr27-virulent stripe rust races now widespread throughout the world, Ethiopia’s story has echoes in many CIMMYT partner countries. The challenge is to work quickly together to identify and replace susceptible varieties with the new, productive, resistant materials.

CIMMYT

Drought-tolerant maize faces rain aplenty in Zimbabwe

For Mary Sikirwayi, maize is life to her and her family, and she grows a number of varieties. Mostly she eats white maize, which she grinds and cooks to produce Zimbabwe’s staple food, sadza. In 2011 she participated in on-farm trials of drought tolerant varieties, part of the Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa (DTMA) project. Her farm produced 5.5 tons of maize, increased from only 3.5 tons last year. She also grows yellow maize (left) as feed for her chickens and other livestock, and a local red maize (right) that she uses for medicinal purposes, milling it into a special sadza to treat ailments from indigestion to heart problems.

Lack of rain is usually the biggest problem for maize in Murewa District, Zimbabwe, where drought tolerant varieties are being tested with local farmers, but high levels of rainfall in 2011 offered a different challenge.

For farmers like Mary Sikirwayi, maize is life. Although she also grows wheat, peanuts, and beans, maize is her most important crop and her staple food. This year, she tried out drought tolerant maize for the first time, participating in a program of on-farm trials, and for her its performance shone even though the sun didn’t. Last season, her farm produced only 3.5 tons of maize, but this season she was able to produce 5.5 tons. The new drought tolerant maize varieties have proved able to hold their own under conditions of high rainfall, and are producing up to 25% higher yields than commercial varieties, according to Oswell Ndoro, CIMMYT research officer in Zimbabwe.

Maize varieties for dry conditions are a major focus for CIMMYT breeders, especially with climate change predicted to make droughts more common across most of the globe. However, star performances under drought are not enough; the maize crop must do well whatever the weather, even with excessive rain. “If CIMMYT develops varieties of maize which are drought tolerant, then that’s great," says Ndoro. "But if these same varieties are unable to produce high yields with varied levels of rainfall, then farmers lose confidence in the product. All it takes is one bad season for farmers to lose confidence in a seed variety.”

Normally Murewa District, about 75 kilometers north-east of Harare, is subject to recurrent droughts, making it a perfect testing-ground for drought tolerant maize. CIMMYT has been working with local agricultural extension workers and farmers to test varieties as part of the Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa (DTMA) project, a CIMMYT-led partnership involving researchers from 13 nations in sub-Saharan Africa that aims to accelerate drought tolerant maize development and deployment.

DTMA focuses on areas where consistent drought is a chief constraint on maize production, but plentiful rain during the 2011 growing season in Murewa posed farmers with an unusual problem. Rainfall from January to July was 1,054 mm, more than double the average. “This is a highly-populated area, and has often suffered from drought-related food deficits, but this year, the issue was more nitrogen deficiency from the excessive rains,” explains Ndoro, who is responsible for on-farm participatory trails in Murewa. If they are to provide useful solutions, scientists must develop versatile varieties that provide reliably good yields and have other important traits too, such as resistance to pests and diseases. “DTMA maize breeders are doing just that,” says Ndoro.

Successful on-farm trials mean close cooperation with local partners; in Murewa CIMMYT works in collaboration with the Zimbabwe government’s Agricultural, Technical and Extension Services Department (AGRITEX) to test and disseminate drought tolerant varieties. Even the best varieties will struggle without good management, so the training provided by extension workers on topics such as crop management and identification of pests and diseases is vital. AGRITEX extension workers meet with farmers 2-3 times a week, and CIMMYT research officers also visit each trial participant several times during the growing season.

New things can be daunting, and not all farmers are willing or able to participate in these initial trials; they must be committed and able to keep records. However, Nevis Moronbo and Nogate Zvereza Moronbo, a farming couple who feed 12 children on the maize, wheat, beans, and other crops from their 4 hectares of land, are in no doubt that the effort was worth it. “I’m happy about the trial and expect to do it again,” says Nevis. “I wanted to know more about improved varieties of maize and I’m happy about the results. I’ve tested three varieties on my farm. They were all very good. Hopefully I’ll be able to sell the surplus to invest in poultry and cattle.”

The Moronbo family’s newfound prosperity paves the way for other farmers. “With DTMA, we test the best commercial varieties against CIMMYT-developed varieties, both on the experiment station in Harare and through participatory on-farm testing,” says Ndoro. “We use a wide gene pool, developing the best germplasm from local lines and CIMMYT germplasm.” By working in partnership with national maize programs and private seed companies, DTMA brings together CIMMYT’s international network of breeders and wealth of germplasm resources with the power to test varieties extensively under local conditions, drawing on the expertise of farmers and extension workers to produce maize varieties ideally suited to the region. Thanks to its greater productivity, this drought tolerant maize has the potential to increase farmers’ yields and incomes and improve regional food security.

CIMMYT

Millennium Villages - a lasting impact?

by Bill Hinchberger

Haruni Odhiambo Nyariru is making an addition to his home. Martin Omondi Onyango bought a cow and a goat, covers his younger brother's school fees and is building a house for his mother.

Now that she is harvesting 30 bags of maize (of 90 kilogrammes each) instead of 12 from her two acres, Wilfreda Ongonda Ochieng says that her family is eating better and that she has a surplus to sell. These farmers attribute the small but real changes in their lives to gains made since the advent of the Sauri Millennium Villages Project in western Kenya.

For their higher yields and incomes, they credit new seed varieties and fertilizers. "I used to apply fertilizer before, but since the Millennium project, we have gotten a real boost from the fertilizers," says Wilfreda, a 45-year-old widow who heads a homestead of 11 people, counting some of her children and a few in-laws.

Launched in 2004, the Sauri project was the first of what would grow to become 14 clusters of Millennium Development Villages (MDVs) in 10 countries in sub-Saharan Africa. The MDVs receive concentrated support from a slew of foundations and companies - including an A-list of brand names like Sumitomo, which provides mosquito nets, and Ericsson, which donates mobile phones to health workers and others.

The effort is led by a triumvirate comprised of the UN Development Programme (UNDP), the New York-based non-profit Millennium Promise and the Earth Institute at Columbia University, also in New York. The village clusters are meant to serve as pilot projects that can be expanded and repeated elsewhere as part of the broader effort to attain the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015, as set by a UN summit in 2000. The MDGs include specific targets for things like poverty reduction, health and the empowerment of women.

The 11 villages that comprise the Sauri cluster are home to an estimated 75,000 people, covering an area of 132 square kilometers. Some 98 per cent of households are engaged in some form of farming.

The jump in Wilfreda's maize yield may seem remarkable. Yet it is about average for participants in the programme. The overall average yield is up threefold. Partly as a result, chronic infant malnutrition is down significantly. "The seeds and fertilizer gave us some quick wins," says Jessica Massira, the project team leader and cluster manager.

With yields on the upswing, the programme has been able to focus on diversification, providing farmers with multiple income streams that flow at different times of the year, thus cushioning them against low prices during the post-harvest glut.

"Farmers need food but they also need money," says Ms. Massira. "With horticulture, dairy farming and fish farming, farmers can quickly pick up extra cash. We have had remarkable results." As Willy Diru, agriculture coordinator, put it, "After food security, we started working with a range of enterprises. Onions, tomatoes, cabbages and chili peppers - there is also a cooperative for fresh produce."

With better and more diversified yields, farmers are contributing to a school lunch programme that is credited with helping to boost school attendance to 94 per cent in the Sauri project area. Kids around the world may often hate going to school, but for poor kids and their families in rural Africa, "attendance for lunch" seems a reasonable trade-off.

Statistically verifiable gains extend beyond agriculture and its spin-offs. Communities have protected over 200 springs, which serve drinking water to more than 26,000 people. They have built walls and installed pipes to channel drinking water into faucets for collection. Villagers have built fences to keep livestock away from sources meant for human consumption. As a result, access to improved water supplies in Sauri has jumped from under 40 per cent in 2006 to about 90 per cent today.

Health problems are also being addressed. Notable is the reduction in the incidence of malaria with the distribution of mosquito nets and frequent testing by health workers who make home visits. The prevalence of malaria in the region dropped from 45 per cent in 2005 to 7 per cent in 2008.

Despite those statistics, the Millennium Development Villages have received a barrage of criticism. Most comes from development workers, social-environmental activists and academics, but it hits from all directions:

Reliance on imported fertilizer will create dependence on those inputs.
Intensive agriculture will place strains on the water supply and soil, leading to negative side effects akin to those in India after the Green Revolution.
Barriers to development that come from outside the villages themselves, notably corruption, are ignored.
Data that compares progress between MDVs and those that do not receive such aid is scarce, making it hard to evaluate the effectiveness of the effort.
Too much time, money and attention is focused on too few people.

The accusations go on, and often vary according to the ideological or political orientation of the critics. But one issue persists, partly because it is fundamental to the MDV strategy: aid dependence - and efforts to reduce it. The MDVs might be the only large-scale development effort whose proponents truly aspire to develop an exit strategy. But will it be successful?

Success in reducing aid dependence is easier to imagine where independent revenue streams can be created, as with higher agricultural yields and diversification in farming. For example, fertilizer, while donated by manufacturers, is not given to farmers for free. Instead it is provided as a loan that farmers pay back at harvest time. The relationship becomes a commercial one, less likely to foster dependency than handouts. Schools are raising money by allowing people to use their computers to print documents after classes.

However, a visit to Sauri's sister project, the Millennium Cities Initiative (MCI) in Kisumu, the provincial capital, demonstrates just how difficult achieving self-sufficiency can be in the health sector. According to one hospital worker, the Millennium project tops up supplies of things like disposable medical gloves that the government is supposed to provide but does not, either in sufficient numbers or in a timely fashion. Foreigners maintain the ambulances that traverse the territory, and the Israeli government brought its own materials and team to build the sparkling emergency room at the Kisumu hospital. "The Israelis brought in everything and did it all in 17 days," said Belinda Opiyo-Omolo, MCI public health specialist. "I am sorry to say it, but Kenyans maybe would have taken six months. But it was good for the locals to see that if you put your mind to it you can do it."

"Sustainability is a challenge," admitted Ms. Massira, when asked about the health sector. "We realize the need to demonstrate and hand things over to the government and the people. If the people become accustomed to the services, they will demand them from the government."

Bart Knols, chairman of the advisory board of the Dutch Malaria Foundation, has visited Sauri and has extensive experience in Africa. He called the anti-malaria effort "commendable, in the sense that efforts to offer a complete 'package' [drugs, vaccination, health and education] may bear fruit." But he quickly added, "Where I am more skeptical is in the sustainability of this approach when handing over takes place and the Kenyan government has to supply these services."

Beyond the capacity of governments, another measure of sustainability is whether people in the communities pick up the ball and run with it. There is some evidence that this is happening. For example, farmers who want to try bee-keeping are organized into groups of 10 to work together. The groups choose one member to receive extra training, who then returns to pass along the lessons. Jared Omondi Onyango, Martin's brother, learned how to build and maintain greenhouses with the Sauri project. Now he builds them for others.

The most interesting initiative in community self-sufficiency may be the Manyatta B residents' water task force, which supplies running water to 8,000 households in Kisumu and has been adopted as a partner by the MCI. After an initial grant from the French government, the community organized itself to build and run the system. They charge themselves a fair price, but one considerably lower than the rates commanded by private water truck operators. The revenue allows them to maintain the system, with enough cash left over to train and hire locals to run it.

Among international observers, the jury may still be out on the Millennium Development Villages. But for the most part local people seem positive. "I think they will succeed because the programme was made to last," comments Stephen Onduu, procurement officer at the Kisumu hospital. "They will succeed if they sit down the community and talk about the exit strategy."

Bill Hinchberger is a freelance journalist and communications consultant based in Paris, France. He visited Kenya with a project organized by the Brussels-based European Journalism Centre and paid for by the Dutch government.

Africa Renewal (United Nations)