Maize Lethal Necrosis Disease Spreads To Uganda

April 4, 2013 by 1 Comment

Maize plants showing Maize Lethal Necrosis disease © CIMMYT via Flickr (License CC-BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Maize plants showing Maize Lethal Necrosis disease © CIMMYT via Flickr (License CC-BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Maize Lethal Necrosis disease, which was first reported in Kenya and Tanzania, has now spread to Uganda, raising concerns for food security in the country. The Ministry of Agriculture has warned that Maize Lethal Necrosis has been reported in districts in eastern Uganda, including Busia and Tororo.

A spokesman for the Agriculture Research Organisation, Robert Anguzo, has said that Ugandan scientists are working in collaboration with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT) to find management solutions to the disease.

More information about the pests and viruses associated with Maize Lethal Necrosis and the management of the disease can be found on the Plantwise Knowledge Bank

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How Mobile Technology is Transforming Livestock Farming In Kenya

March 4, 2013 by 3 Comments

A fish farmer in Nigeria using a mobile phone to communicate to buyers in the capital © Reboot via Flickr (CC-BY-NC 2.0)

A fish farmer in Nigeria using a mobile phone to communicate to buyers in the capital © Reboot via Flickr (CC-BY-NC 2.0)

Farmers and vets across Africa are increasingly using mobile phones to issue alerts about potential pest and disease outbreaks. The recent introduction of mobile phones that use the open source Android operating system or the iPhone iOS operating system and include GPS and Google Maps have provided new opportunities for developing mobile phone applications, allowing communication between field workers and their project databases. ‘Smartphones’ offer computer like functionality and internet connectivity with built in Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers that give a detailed location reference.

Mobile phone applications can be installed on the phone to issue early warnings of pest and disease outbreaks. In Kenya, where three out of four people are reported to have a mobile phone, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has partnered with the Royal Veterinary College and local NGO VetAid to support pilot testing of a mobile phone application called EpiCollect, developed by a research team led by David Aanensen at Imperial College London. EpiCollect is a generic software developed for Android and iPhone which allows multiple data records to be entered and stored on a mobile phone and linked to a central web application that allows mapping, visualisation and analysis of data from a central database. The latitude, longitude and altitude of the current position of the user is returned from the GPS unit of the phone.

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Improving Food Security Using Agroforestry Schemes

February 27, 2013 by 2 Comments

Agroforestry is an integrated system of trees and shrubs and/or crops and livestock within a managed agriculture area and has potential in improving food security in developing countries by fully utilising land, improving crop yields, diversifying farmer income and improving environmental sustainability.

Last month the United National Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) published an “Advancing Agroforestry on the Policy Agenda” guide, detailing case studies from countries including Kenya, Costa Rica, Ghana, Nigeria and Cameroon.

To read more about agroforestry and how it can be beneficial in farming systems see this recent article “How agroforestry schemes can improve food security in developing countries” by Caspar van Vark in The Guardian newspaper. 

Faidherbia is an indigenous African acacia which has been found to be useful in agroforestry systems due to the fact it sheds its nitrogen rich leaves in during the early rainy season when crops are being planting, thereby fertilising crops. Studies have found that Faidherbia-maize intercropping can increase maize yields by up to 400% in one area in Malawi. This photo shows Borassus palm intercropped with Faidherbia in Burkina Faso © Marco Schmidt via Wikimedia Commons (CC-BY-SA 2.5)

Faidherbia is an indigenous African acacia which has been found to be useful in agroforestry systems due to the fact it sheds its nitrogen rich leaves during the early rainy season when crops are being planting, thereby fertilising crops at an important time. Studies have found that Faidherbia-maize intercropping increased maize yields by up to 400% in one area in Malawi. This photo shows Borassus palm inter-cropped with Faidherbia in Burkina Faso © Marco Schmidt via Wikimedia Commons (CC-BY-SA 2.5)

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Parasitic Witchweed defeated in Kenya

February 13, 2013 by 1 Comment

Striga Weed in a rice field © AfricaRice (License CC-BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Striga Weed in a rice field © AfricaRice (License CC-BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Striga, a parasitic weed (also known as Witchweed,) has long been a problem in African nations; causing farmers to lose billions of dollars’ worth of crops annually. To make matters worse, the weed flourishes in conditions that characterise that of poor farming communities (small plots, mono-cropping, lack of oxen and natural manure and lack of agricultural inputs.)

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How mobile technology could improve agriculture

January 28, 2013 by 5 Comments

A farmer looking at symptoms of cocoa black pod on a tablet device © CABI

A farmer looking at symptoms of cocoa black pod on a tablet device © CABI

Technological innovation is becoming increasingly important in agricultural development and productivity. The use of mobile ICT (information and communication technology) in agriculture provides a more efficient and cost-effective method for sharing and exchanging knowledge more widely. Farmers are benefiting  as they can access key information such as pest and disease reports, weather conditions and market prices. It can also improve communication between farmers and extensions workers, who are unable to visit farmers as often as both parties would like. Enhancing communication between farmers, extension workers, researchers and policy makers is essential to the improvement of agricultural efficiency.

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Plantwise 2012 Highlights

January 9, 2013 by Leave a comment

Plantwise 2012 Logo

As we move into the New Year and all that 2013 has to offer it seems like a good time to review some of the achievements of 2012 . Here are a few of the Plantwise highlights of 2012!

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Coffee Production in Hot Water- The Impacts of Climate Change on the Future of Coffee Crops

November 13, 2012 by Leave a comment

Roasted Arabica coffee beans. Arabica coffee is highly prized as having the best flavour and quality of all coffee varieties, but the future of Arabica coffee is threatened by the impacts of climate change © Sage Ross, via Wikimedia Commons (License CC-BY-SA 3.0, 2.5, 2.0, 1.0)

Coffee (Coffea) is the one of the world’s favourite drinks and the second most traded commodity after oil, accounting for annual retail value of US$ 90 billion. The two main species used in the production of coffee are Arabica coffee (Coffea arabica), which accounts for 70% of coffee production, and Robusta coffee (Coffea canephora). The productivity of Arabica and the distribution of many coffee pests and diseases are strongly linked to climate and seasonality. A series of recent studies have forecast the predicted effects of climate change on both the present and future distribution of Arabica coffee and the effects of climate change on the distribution and lifecycle of the world’s worst coffee pest, the Coffee Berry Borer (Hypothenemus hampei).

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Plantwise plant clinic at the Nairobi International Trade Fair

October 19, 2012 by 1 Comment

Visitor to the Plantwise stand at the Nairobi International Trade Fair

Visitor to the Plantwise stand at the Nairobi International Trade Fair © CABI

by Kimani Chege and Abigail Rumsey

Plant clinics have been running in Kenya since 2010. There are currently 35 clinics throughout Kenya, to which farmers can bring their crops and receive a diagnosis of the pest or disease that is causing them problems. These clinics are organized and run by the Ministry of Agriculture extension services with support from the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI), Kenya Plant Health Inspectorate Services (KEPHIS) and CABI. While plant clinics are mainly organized in marketplaces in Kenyan towns, they mostly interact with rural populations keen to get diagnosis of their crops and better their production. However, this October, for the first time, plant doctors had an interaction with urban farmers during the Nairobi International Trade Fair. Read more of this post

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Kenyan initiative aims to get more cash from cashews

September 27, 2012 by Leave a comment

Raw cashew nuts © Sakurai Midori (CC BY licence)

A new initiative in Kenya is seeking to increase the profitability of the country’s declining cashew sector. The project aims to increase yields as well as improve the price the farmers get for their yield by replacing aging trees, educating farmers on crop management and improving access to markets. It is hoped that by 2015, the output of cashew nuts will be quadrupled to 40,000 tons per year.

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New Research on Maize Lethal Necrosis Disease in Kenya

September 5, 2012 by 6 Comments

Maize showing symptoms of Maize Chlorotic Mottle Virus © CIMMYT (CC BY-NC-SA license, via Flickr)

Update [March 2013]: More information about the pests and viruses associated with Maize Lethal Necrosis disease can be found on the Plantwise Knowledge Bank.

The production of maize, Kenya’s staple food crop, is severely under threat from a fast spreading maize disease known as Maize Lethal Necrosis (MLN) disease. The disease is the result of a combination of two different viruses occurring together in the same plant. One virus is Maize Chlorotic Mottle Virus (MCMV), which when combined with another virus Sugarcane Mosaic Virus (SCMV) results in the development of MLN disease, leading to serious plant damage. MLN disease was first reported in the Bomet district in Kenya September 2011. To date the highly destructive disease has reduced maize production by as much as 60% in south, central and eastern Kenya. A study by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in July 2012 observed that MLN disease has affected more than 16,000 ha of land, with the potential of destroying 80% of maize crop. Read more of this post

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