DONORS TO AFRICAN AGRI RESEARCH COME ON FIRE

Erle Frayne Argonza

Magandang umaga! Good morning from Manila!

Africa seems to be the favorite destination today for aid funds from everywhere, most specially from European countries. We wonder whether this is Europe’s way of expiating its guilt over the European powers’ enslavement, plunder and colonization of Africa.

A recent issue concerning aid funds dovetails on agricultural research. While there are clear positive benefits to donated funds, there are gaps that must be addressed. This identification of a new problem is already a brightening news for the continent, as the problem can be addressed more squarely.

The news is contained below.

[Writ 05 October 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila. Thanks to SciDev database news.]

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African agricultural research ‘neglected ‘ by donor policies

Christina Scott

24 September 2008 | EN

Flickr/MikeBlyth

[CAPE TOWN] A lack of emphasis on agricultural research in development policy over the last quarter of a century is one of the main reasons for the deterioration of African farming, according to a UN report released this month (15 September).

The UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) report on Africa’s economic development also cites the small size of each country’s research stations, isolated researchers and high staff turnover as other factors that helped “prevent the attainment of a critical mass of scientific and technical staff”.

“In Sub-Saharan Africa there are problems with agricultural research, which determines the rate of technological change,” Sam Gayi, lead researcher of the report told SciDev.Net.

As a result, except for maize and more recently cassava, “most of Sub-Saharan Africa has no immediately applicable crop technology that might, with adequate price incentives, substantially increase the profitability of investments in agriculture,” the report concludes.

“Only a quarter of the total crop area of Sub-Saharan Africa is planted with modern crop varieties,” says Gayi.

Credit provision for farmers, as well as investment in infrastructure and research, were abandoned by donor-dictated development policies in many parts of Africa, with long-lasting detrimental effects, the report says.

The authors also criticise many state agricultural budgets for being skewed towards administrative costs rather than research.

They say gaps in communicating research and policy developments, combined with shortages of credit — particularly the dissolution of marketing boards that often gave cash advances to small-scale farmers — have made it more difficult for improved government policies to be translated into improved yields in the fields.

The report singles out Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana and South Africa as countries that have managed to improve their agricultural exports. Côte d’Ivoire continues to benefit from “huge investments”, including government funds for research, made in the 1960s in a diverse range of crops.

The authors also say that restrictive standards on exports are placing a burden on African nations, who struggle to meet them.

“Several African countries do not have the technical capacity or resources to comply with the required standards,” says Hezron Nyangito, former director of the Kenya Institute of Public Policy Research and Analysis (KIPPRA) and newly-appointed deputy governor of the Central Bank of Kenya.

KIPPRA research suggests that Kenyan farmers would have to increase agricultural spending tenfold and Uganda would need to spend about US$300 million to upgrade its honey-processing plants to comply with European Union standards.

HAIL SUPER-CASSAVA! HAIL AFRICA!

Erle Frayne Argonza

If I were a Nazi youth, I’d say “Hail Hitler! Hail cassava! Hail cassanova!”

You see, the “superior race” may have failed to distinguish between ‘cassava’ and ‘Cassanova’, that between the two it is the former that brings life, while the latter drains one of life (pardon me Cassanova, please!).

Who knows, cassava could be among the formula to make the White pupils of America increase their aptitude and IQs that were found to be, well, less ‘superior’ than expected? And these White pupils should study science a lot, as they’ve been found wanting in Science and Math aptitude, in contrast to their Asian fellows who are, well, “monkeys with no tails” that perform the highest in the same subjects?

Surprisingly, Melinda Gates, an American White lady, is herself involved in ensuring the bright potential of cassava. The anti-hunger campaigns worldwide, including my own country’s, will benefit a lot from this development.

The great cassava news is contained below. I feel like wagging my tail!

[28 August 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila. Thanks to SciDev database news.]   

Scientists target ’super cassava’

Source: AllAfrica.com

12 August 2008 | EN | FR | 中文

Selling cassava in Indonesia

 

Cassava, the primary source of nutrition for 800 million people worldwide, is receiving attention from a project seeking to boost its nutritional value.

The BioCassava Plus project, supported by US$12.1 million in funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, involves researchers from Colombia, Kenya, Nigeria and Tanzania.

The scientists have been seeking to fortify a single 500 gram adult portion of cassava with essential nutrients, including vitamins A and E, iron and zinc.

Other goals include making the crop more disease-resistant, extending its shelf-life from one day to two weeks and reducing cyanide toxicity.

The scientists now claim to have “demonstrated proof of practice for all the target objectives in three years” since their 2005 start date.

The transgenic cassava plants have undergone a stringent biosafety approval process in the United States, and field trials are currently being carried out at a US Department of Agriculture site in Puerto Rico.

Next on the agenda are field trials in Kenya and Nigeria in 2009, before researchers attempt to combine the traits into a single plant.

Link to full article in AllAfrica.com 

BRAZIL’S GM SOYA RESISTANT TO PEST

Erle Frayne Argonza

We may as well dance a lot of samba today as many news about new breeds of agri-products that are resistant to pests and drought have been filtering in.

From down south comes the Brazilian news that invites samba dances in the streets, regarding new breeds of soya that are resistant to pests and related diseases.

Happy reading!

[04 August 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila]

Brasil lanza dos variedades de soja transgénica

Catarina Chagas

22 junio 2008 | ES

La soya es el cultivo genéticamente modificado más cultivado en Brasil

USDA

Después de diez años de investigación, la Empresa Brasileña de Investigación Agropecuaria (Embrapa) lanzó dos variedades de soja genéticamente mejoradas para adaptarse a plantaciones en el norte y noreste del país, regiones de gran importancia en la producción agrícola.

Embrapa está vinculada al Ministerio de Agricultura, Ganadería y Abastecimiento y a la Fundación de Apoyo a la Investigación del Corredor de Exportación Norte.

Las variedades de soja BRS 278RR y BRS 279RR, además de presentar alta productividad y estar adaptadas a las condiciones climáticas locales, son especialmente recomendadas para áreas que tienen dificultad con las malezas, pues presentan alta tolerancia al herbicida glifosato.

Los investigadores afirman que la BRS 278RR es estable en varios ambientes, lo que permitiría plantarla en áreas de distinta altitud. A su vez, la BRS 279RR es especialmente resistente a plagas que causan problemas en la región.

Los investigadores crearon ambas semillas después del cruzamiento sucesivo de especies de soja, hasta alcanzar las características deseadas. Luego, hicieron pruebas para estudiar el desempeño de las semillas una vez plantadas en lugares con condiciones como las del norte y noreste de Brasil.

“Esta diversificación de semillas permite al agricultor elegir cómo manejar o diversificar sus modos de producción, permitiendo optimizar el uso de máquinas e implementos, tanto en la plantación como en la cosecha”, explicó a SciDev.Net el ingeniero agrónomo José Ubirajara Vieira Moreira, de Embrapa.

Lo anterior se debe a que ambas variedades tienen ciclos de crecimiento distintos y si el productor desea usar diferentes tipos de semillas, podrá sembrar y cosechar en tiempos diferenciados cada sector de su plantación.

Para otro especialista de Embrapa, José Francisco Ferraz de Toledo, el lanzamiento refuerza las nuevas e interesantes posibilidades de mercado de la soja transgénica.

“Con las nuevas tecnologías hay formas de introducir en la soja cualidades deseables de otras especies, abriendo nuevas oportunidades de avance de la agricultura”, dijo.

La soya genéticamente modificada está permitida en Brasil desde el año 2005, a pesar de las controversias alrededor del tema (ver Brazil delays GM crops and cloning bill  y Brazil says ‘yes’to GM crops and stem cell research).

COMMUNITY-DIRECTED HEALTH CARE

Erle Frayne Argonza

Who says that community-based health care systems won’t work? In the Philippines this has been an on-going effort, with the University of the Philippines leading. Couples of communities were adopted by the U.P. Manila in other regions precisely to study the effects of intervention via community organization.

Below is a news caption about a study that shows the effectiveness of community-based health care. Community-based health care has already been revolutionizing access to health care by many poor folks in the south.

Enjoy your read!

[02 August 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila. Thanks to SciDev database news.]

Community-directed healthcare ‘effective’, finds study

Abiose Adelaja

23 June 2008 | EN

In the strategy, family members help deliver drugs and administer treatment, instead of patients visiting a clinic

Flickr/CharlesFred

Community-administered healthcare is effective in combating a range of illnesses including river blindness and malaria as well as micronutrient deficiencies, according to a study of over two million people in three African countries.

The researchers say restrictive health department policies on who can administer medications should be altered so that other illnesses can be tackled in a similar fashion.

Community-directed drug intervention (CDI) has proved successful in delivering the drug Ivermectin to treat river blindness, also known as onchocerciasis. In the strategy, family members help deliver drugs and administer treatment, instead of patients visiting a clinic.

The study looked at the effectiveness of CDI in strategies to fight river blindness, later pairing it with treatments against malaria, tuberculosis and micronutrient deficiencies, in Cameroon, Nigeria and Uganda. Community dispensing of drugs, vitamin A supplements and insecticide-treated mosquito nets was compared with conventional delivery strategies over three years.

Researchers found that the number of feverish children receiving the right antimalarial treatment doubled, exceeding the 60 per cent target set by the Roll Back Malaria campaign. The use of insecticide-treated bednets also doubled.

Vitamin A supplementation coverage was also significantly higher in districts using CDI compared with those that did not. But community-directed interventions for tuberculosis proved only as effective as treatment from clinics.

Samuel Wanji, a researcher at the University of Buéa who conducted the southwest Cameroon part of the study, says the African Programme for Onchocerciasis Control — linked to the WHO and with 19 health ministers on the board — has given the go-ahead to extend the use of CDI for river blindness in countries that have lower, but still significant, levels of the disease.

The expanded programme will investigate whether CDI works as well in places where disease infection is less intense, and is scheduled to begin before the end of the year. Dispensing of other medications will be added as the programme progresses.

“The study’s approach is very useful for increasing access to health and will reduce the burden on health facilities,” says Hans Remme of the WHO Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Disease.

But a shortage of drugs and other materials remains a drawback, according to a WHO report of the study.

 

Link to WHO CDI report

ACCESS TO ENERGY INCREASED VIA RADICAL STOVE

Erle Frayne Argonza

England has launched an award system recently to innovators around the world who can revolutionize stove technology. The purpose of stove innovation is to increase access of people and market end-users to energy by utilizing fuel resources available in the locality, such as coconut and wood wastes.

Below is a heartwarming news about a stove innovation from South Asia that won the award. As reported, it surely has made energy available to many people in India which lacks sufficient energy due to the rapidly rising demand for fuel.

Enjoy your read!

[29 July 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila. Thanks to SciDev database news.]

 

Stove projects stir up energy award success

Katherine Nightingale

20 June 2008 | EN | ES | 中文

A TIDE cooking stove in use

Ashden Awards/TIDE

Innovators bringing sustainable energy to communities in developing countries were recognised last night (19 June) at an awards ceremony held in London, United Kingdom.

Projects from Bangladesh, Brazil, China, Ethiopia, India, Tanzania and Uganda were all awarded prizes of £20,000 (around US$40,000) at the annual Ashden Awards for Sustainable Energy.

The Technology Informatics Design Endeavour (TIDE) project, which designs safer and more efficient wood-burning stoves, was crowned the overall Energy Champion, winning a £40,000 prize.

These TIDE stoves are a boon for an estimated eight million people working in small industries in southern India — for example, in textile dying, spice drying and street food vendors.

Svati Bhogle, chief executive of TIDE, said the award “gives us the motivation to venture into uncharted terrain, to first break new ground and then develop it into a beaten track”.

The stoves can use waste material such as coconut shells as well as wood. Improved heat transfer, insulation and combustion creates less heat and smoke, resulting in improved working conditions. They were designed with each industry specifically in mind, with users contributing to the development.

Bhogle said 10,500 stoves are now in use in 12 industry sectors, saving 140,000 tonnes of fuel and 200,000 tonnes of emitted carbon dioxide.

“There is a serious energy crisis in rural India, but access to energy and its efficient use, accompanied by well-conceived and well-implemented enabling mechanisms, has the potential to transform rural areas.”

Other stoves were prominent among this year’s winners. The Kisangani Smith Group in Tanzania designed a stove that uses compressed waste sawdust or rice husks, rather than expensive charcoal.

The GAIA association has opted to use ethanol fuel produced from the waste molasses of the sugar industry in their stoves, which they have distributed to Somalian refugees living in a large camp in eastern Ethiopia.

Elsewhere, both the Aryavart Gramin Bank in India and Grameen Shakti in Bangladesh — a 2006 winner and recipient of this year’s Outstanding Achievement Award — provide affordable loans for people without access to the electricity grid to install solar power in their homes.

The Ugandan project, Fruits of the Nile, harnesses the power of the sun to dry fruit.  Simple solar dryers, constructed from a wooden frame covered with plastic, let the light in, keep insects out and use natural convection.

Ashden also published a report, commissioned by the UK Department for International Development, analysing ten previous winners. More ways must be found to provide financial and human resources for innovative research and development, it concluded, with clear national energy policies to guide projects.

EARTHWORMING WAFERS, VERMICULTURE APPRAISED

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

[Writ 03 May 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila]

Dios ta aggawaw! (Ibanag equivalent for ‘good day’!)

It may seem yucky a reportage to many obsessive-compulsives out there to hear that earthworms serve the most noble purpose of reinforcing our food needs. I mean not only the wormy task of processing our soil, but the true-blue blending of processed earthworm to produce biscuits and wafers.

 

That technology—of vermiculture—was born for way back three (3) decades today. I was just an entry level community development staff at the Ministry of Human Settlements’ RLO (regional liaison office) in 1981 when I had my first taste of wafers containing vermiculture inputs. The wafer was distributed by my agency to disaster refugees, often alongside the nutri-bun or bread reinforced with protein.

 

Protein is the nutrient so potently contained in the worm. And the agency’s Technology Resource Center (today’s Technology Livelihood Resource Center) was itself among the developers and distributors of the technology, aside from the National Science Development Board (today’s Department of Science & Technology). The wafer, as you ought to realize, tasted so damn delicious you’re going to ask for more packs right after your first taste.

 

When I was moved to livelihood as a coordinator, my reverie about this deli-earthworm wafer was jolted by the arrival of a team of entrepreneurs, young and ebullient, right at my office. The year was late 1981, and the team was bullish about installing a full-production base of vermiculture, right in my hometown of Tuguegarao. “Vermiculture in this semi-sleepy town! Hello!”

 

Upon a cursory review of the business plan forwarded by the team (both gentlemen, names now escape my memory), and then moving my focals back to the gentlemen, I recognized not only the feasibility of the project but also its vitality for Cagayan province that was essentially agriculture till these days. I told myself, “these guys are pretty serious!”

 

Cognizant of the competence of the team, who were already trained in vermiculture as indicated by their certificate, I immediately arranged for a visit to their demo site that was inside the home of the main partner. Right in front of my eyes I beheld these worms so huge I thought they must be some extra-terrestrial earthworms. But no, they were the simple backyard worms we know, though grown specially or in controlled environment. A sample worm was as stout as my forefinger and as long as 14 inches. Wow!

 

Not only that, but the two gentlemen (who applied as a partnership for funding thru the Kilusang Kabuhayan at Kaunlaran or KKK) even demonstrated before our eyes (I was with some junior staff) that the worms can be prepared salad-style. Vinegar and salt with pepper was prepared, and voila! The worms, still alive, were dipped right into the salad dressing and eaten raw. By golly! You’d puke if you’re not prepared for this.

 

Well, to cut the story short, I had this project recommended for priority funding and take off. The team knew what they were doing, from production to marketing of the products. They already had some commitments with their end-users that they attached to the application documents. In 1982, it became one of our showcase livelihood projects in Tuguegarao, and the gentlemen had their feast of invitations for demo lectures, radio interviews and recognition in the KKK Recognition Day (held once monthly).

 

Now, as to tasting the ‘dancing salad’ of live worm, well, hmmmm I’d prefer the wafer (smile). No, no, I can’t eat any raw live animal thing, my stomach is quite weak and sensitive. Let them cook the worm, and maybe I’ll try it. Well, that’s a culinary item, so let’s just hope someone’s got to write something about nice spicey earthworm cuisine.