MALNUTRITION: US–Nepal hybrid maize project runs into criticism

[KATHMANDU] Smriti Mallapaty : 30 November 2011
 Flickr/CIMMYT: Critics are concerned about the loss of local maize varieties


Uncertainty hangs over a proposed partnership between US and Nepalese scientists to promote hybrid maize in the Himalayan country, after the project sparked local concerns over the potential loss of traditional local varieties and weak biotechnology regulation.
The pilot project of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), Nepal's Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives and US agricultural corporation Monsanto — announced earlier this year (13 September) on USAID's website — aims to train 20,000 farmers on hybrid maize production practices, and facilitate links between producers and end-users.
But concerns have been expressed by civil society organisations, as well as some government officials, and now neither USAID nor the ministry will confirm whether the project is going ahead.
Nepal imports half of the estimated 270,000 tonnes of maize it uses a year, at a cost of about 200 million Nepalese rupees (US$2.5 million).
Hybrid seeds are formed under controlled pollination conditions between two plants selected for specific traits such as high yield or pest resistance. The first generation of hybrid seeds has higher yields than the locally available varieties, but farmers need to obtain new seeds from suppliers each year if they are to maintain these high yields.
Members of civil society organisations expressed concerns at a meeting this month (15 November) that foreign hybrid maize seed could replace local varieties, increase Nepal's dependence on imported seed and pave the way for the introduction of genetically modified (GM) crops later because of weak biotechnology regulation.
But Monsanto's Nepal representative, Kiran Dahal, told SciDev.Net: "The farmers are already using hybrid seed; we are just trying to support them".
Monsanto has been importing conventionally bred seeds into Nepal for the past 15 years, including 100 metric tonnes of hybrid seeds in 2010, he said. He added that the partnership was pending the Nepalese government's approval.
But government officials declined to comment on when this might happen or what the final deal will look like.
Hari Dahal, a spokesperson for the ministry, said it was unlikely the agreement would be signed in its current form.
"Mass importation of hybrid seed goes against our obligations under the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture," he told SciDev.Net. "If the partnership seeks to improve our own hybrid seeds, then an agreement is possible."
A senior ministry official told SciDev.Net on the condition of anonymity: "If we import hybrid seed our local varieties will disappear. The rights of the farmers will be in the hands of private companies."
Nepal's agriculture policy, announced in 2004, encourages the production and use of hybrid seed varieties; and their distribution after testing, certification and registration.* Since 1960, Nepal approved 25 maize varieties, hybrid and non-hybrid, of which 16 are local. The nine foreign maize varieties include three Monsanto varieties listed in the pilot project.
http://www.scidev.net/en/agriculture-and-environment/agri-biotech/news/us-nepal-hybrid-maize-project-runs-into-criticism.html

POVERTY: KENYA: Tackling aflatoxin - if the price is right

NAIROBI, 30 June 2011 (IRIN)

 Photo: Kate Holt/IRIN : Aflatoxin is not always obvious, and maize that looks normal could actually be infested with high levels of the fungus (file photo)

A treatment that could control a deadly fungus, aflatoxin, from infecting maize is being tested in Kenya in a project donors hope will result in a commercially viable product with regional application, officials say.
However, farmers expected to buy and use the bio-control agent, known as Aflasafe, want financial incentives to rid the market of what is often an invisible attacker.
The UN World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that literally billions of people in the developing world are chronically exposed to aflatoxin, which causes cancer, suppresses the immune system, retards growth and causes liver disease as well as death in both humans and animals, according to the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), a partner in the 18-month project.
Aflatoxin is not always obvious, and maize that looks normal could actually be infested with high levels of the fungus, which thrives under poor storage conditions.
Testing will focus on creating a locally successful hybrid of fungi, which, when applied to crops in the field, "crowd out" the toxins. Scientists expect to know by December 2012 which combination is best for Kenya, which has a particularly virulent strain found nowhere else in Africa.
But the project also needs to answer some key questions about how to market aflasafe.
"Can the farmer afford it? Can she see a return on investment? We need a mechanism by which she can recognize value,” said Prem Warrior of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which is providing the project’s $1.2 million budget.

Cost
For farmers, the question of affordability and added value is central, and could determine whether or not they use the product, no matter how effective it is.
There is currently no quote for the cost of Aflasafe, since no one is producing it at scale, Ranajit Bandyopadhyay, a principal investigator with IITA, told IRIN.
However, Bandyopadhyay estimated it would cost a farmer US$10-12 per hectare. The average farm in Kenya is just less than 2.5 hectares, according to Acumen Fund, a non-profit global venture firm.

 Photo: Jane Some/IRIN : If farmers do not get higher prices for treated crops, some may not be willing to pay out of pocket for Aflasafe (file photo)

Steve Collins, chief of party for the Kenya Maize Development Project, said Kenyan commercial farmers could afford to pay but small-scale farmers would require subsidies to get started.
Wilson Songa, the permanent secretary in Kenya's Agriculture Ministry, said there needs to be a plan to take Aflasafe from a handout to something farmers can buy on their own.
He said the Aflasafe project would immediately "touch the lives" of the 46 percent of Kenyans who live in poverty. "Some of the farmers are too poor to buy the product," said Songa. "We will ensure that the product gets to them free of charge initially."
Songa said 450 trainers would be sent out to provide education and information to farmers.
"We needed a project like this yesterday," said Songa. "The whole region is waiting."
The Ministry of Agriculture also promised to buy up 2.3 million infected bags of maize last year, but did not, saying it did not have the funds. It is unclear where it will find the money to pay farmers to start using Aflasafe.
If farmers do not get higher prices for treated crops, some may not be willing to pay out of pocket for Aflasafe.
"The farmers take on the cost and yet they don’t always benefit in terms of market price," said Paula Bramel, IITA's deputy director.

Better yields
"We have been going out and talking to farmers to see what they’d be willing to spend," said Collins, whose organization surveyed 2,300 farming families in eastern and western Kenya. “They would be prepared to pay if they could get a better price.”
Collins said there was a good chance they could do so because protecting maize from aflatoxin also results in a better product, less likely to be rejected by traders.
Fungus-free crops will also yield more grain. Collins said yield per unit could be doubled, tripled, or maybe even quadrupled.
Paula Bramel, IITA's deputy director, said there is currently no low-cost testing method in Kenya, and the government does not regularly test maize for aflatoxins. For the 70 percent of farmers in Kenya who trade informally, even government testing might provide little incentive to pay out of pocket for Aflasafe.
"The only way it will get to scale is if famers have a direct financial incentive," said Kola Masha, the managing director at Doreo Partners, a venture capital and consultancy firm tasked with developing a commercial strategy for Aflasafe.
Regulating the market is key for this to succeed, he said, because it is the only way farmers would be able to profit from compliance. The only other way to create incentive is to turn Aflasafe into a product that also increases yield, for example by bundling it with fertilizer, he said.
Masha said a "very aggressive outreach programme" would be the final step in ensuring farmers grow and consumers demand aflatoxin-free crops.
Farmer Henry Zoka and his wife Patricia Maitha grow maize, beans, kale, and other crops on their farm 50km west of Nairobi. They are not sure if their maize has ever been infected with aflatoxin.
Zoka said the decision about whether or not to buy Aflasafe “would depend on the cost.” He said he would spend 1,000 shillings ($11.4) a season on the treatment. "We feel if we could get assistance it would be better."
But Aflasafe alone might not even be enough to combat the deadly fungus.
"There's no silver bullet in terms of a solution," said Collins. "That’s why you have to take a holistic approach."
Education, training, and communication about correct farming and storage practices are just as important as bio-control agents like Aflasafe, he said.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=93105

MALNUTRITION: South Africa: Alarm raised over decline in maize crop

NIREN TOLSI - Jun 03 2011

 

The production of maize, a staple for millions of South Africans, is predicted to plummet by 35% in Southern Africa by 2030 if climate change continues unabated, a report published this week by Oxfam warns.

The report, "Growing a Better Future - Food Justice in a Resource-Constrained World", also warns that the price of maize exports is likely to increase by 180% in the same period, exacerbating hunger and malnutrition.
"Higher prices will translate into a depressed demand for food in the [sub-Saharan] region, which already has the world's lowest calorific intake," the report states.
According to it, sub-Saharan Africa faces "some of the gravest threats" to its population's wellbeing, with child malnutrition levels likely to "revert to the same level as [at] the turn of the 21st century -- around 30-million" by 2050.
The report warns that "atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases is already above sustainable levels and continues to rise alarmingly".
Most of the blame for this is placed at the door of Western governments for their inertia over response strategies to climate change, which the report, in turn, attributes mainly to lobby groups associated with big business.
But if adaptation strategies gain momentum, the report forecasts that export maize price increases could be restrained to about 50% by 2030.
The report does come with a caveat -- it notes that its research and projections "highlight plausible outcomes based on business-as-usual scenarios [in the response of governments and big business to climate change]. Other futures are possible."
Raj Patel, the author of the bestselling book, Stuffed and Starved, which criticises the global food system, warned that Southern Africa is "likely to be one of the epicentres of hunger and malnutrition in decades to come if current policies are maintained". He told the Mail & Guardian: "The South African government has made poor choices in its agriculture policy, choosing to shore up the status quo of pre-apartheid land ownership. But with higher food prices South Africa's unequal food economy looks increasingly unsustainable."
He also warned that food instability in South Africa would not just be constrained to hunger and malnutrition: "Look to the continent to see what happens when people reach a zenith of frustration with high food prices, persistent unemployment and a government that won't listen. Policymakers here and around [the world] know all too well -- high food prices are revolution's kindling."
Patel said that Oxfam's report was "teasing the consequences of our present system out into the future … What Oxfam are pointing towards is the compounding effects of climate change. This matters in particular for Southern Africa, which is projected under some models to experience a 5°C increase in temperature by the 2080s.
"Food prices have been driving inflation recently. Higher global food prices themselves are the result of high oil prices, food price speculation, bad weather and poor government policies. It's important to ask, though, why these factors matter, why ought oil to have anything to do with food? Why do we allow speculation in markets? Where are the grain reserves to protect us from external price shocks? Why have we become vulnerable to bad weather?
"Answer these questions and you begin to see that the real culprit is the international food trading system, which discourages grain reserves, encourages the world to be dependent on a few grain-producing countries and requires oil-fuelled industrial agriculture," Patel said.
http://mg.co.za/article/2011-06-03-alarm-raised-over-decline-in-maize-crop/

POVERTY: Peru relaxes GM rules … for now

Zoraida Portillo : 9 May 2011
 Flickr/iied.org
Peru is home to a high biodiversity of crops such as potatoes

After nine years of discussions, Peru's government has passed an agricultural biosafety regulation intended to promote biotechnological research and help the country's researchers catch up with other Latin American nations.
The Biosafety Rules for the Agriculture or Forestry Sectors will regulate the research, production and trade of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), activities that were not previously allowed apart from the import of GMOs for food and limited permission to study GM potatoes.
But the regulation, signed into legislation by the president, Alan Garcia, last month (15 April), has had a cool reception from both public and private sectors, including some scientists. Critics fear the law will open the floodgates to GMOs, jeopardising the country's biodiversity — Peru is home to many unique wild relatives of staple crops such as potatoes and maize.
The Peruvian Society of Environmental Rights has said farmers do not need GM crops to be productive and has called for the country to heed the precautionary principle of the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety, which Peru signed in 2004.
But Jorge Alcantara, head of genetic resources and biotechnology at the National Institute of Agrarian Research (INIA), has denied that the regulation opens the door to indiscriminate GM crop production. "On the contrary, it will regulate all activities related to the use of GMOs under strict scientific control measures," he told SciDev.Net.
Under the law, INIA will be responsible for the security of biotechnological activities in the agricultural sector and for developing GM research. Critics have said that this makes INIA "judge and the jury" for any decisions regarding GMOs.
To ease concerns, INIA has started mapping areas containing wild varieties of maize, cotton and potatoes to minimise the risks of cross-fertilisation between GM and non-GM crops in any future field trials.
If there is an application for planting GM crops close to these native varieties, "it would be very difficult to approve a release," Alcantara said.
He added that the Cayetano Heredia and San Martín de Porres universities, the International Potato Center and INIA will be the first to benefit from the law as it will allow them to conduct research.
Phytogeneticist Maria Scurrah, president of Mountain Research Initiative, Lima, told SciDev.Net the benefit of the regulation is that it will allow research with real GM cultivars, not just computer simulations.
She added there should be more investigation into both the potential benefits and the risks of GM technology for Peru, and "regulation is a good way to start doing that".
Marcel Gutierrez-Correa, director of the Laboratory of Mycology and Biotechnology at the National Agrarian University La Molina, said the regulation makes it easier to obtain research funding for crops and areas that big corporations are not interested in, such as developing GM papaya resistant to ringspot virus.
But there are moves to restrict the new law. Next week Peru's Congress is scheduled to discuss another bill that would set a 15-year moratorium on the entry of any GMOs into the country, apart from those for research purposes and drugs containing GMOs that are not available in other forms.
The environment minister, Antonio Brack Egg, who heads the movement, told SciDev.Net that a moratorium is needed "to scientifically analyse the potential impacts, and to have infrastructure and institutional capacity to face an eventual presence of GMOs in the country".
But the agriculture minister, Rafael Quevedo, said that, if the moratorium is approved, Peru will suffer trading reprisals and jeopardise free-trade treaties, without any scientific evidence of risk for either human health or the environment.
http://www.scidev.net/en/news/peru-relaxes-gm-rules-for-now.html

MALNUTRITION: GM maize contaminates non-GM crops in Uruguay

Daniela Hirschfeld : 5 May 2011
 Flickr/nchenga
Pollen from GM maize may fertilise non-GM plants

Contamination of traditional maize crops planted near genetically modified (GM) maize fields may be common in Uruguay, where the cultivation of GM maize has been permitted since 2003, scientists have said.
A study published in Environmental Biosafety Research (25 March) has found GM seedlings in three traditional maize fields. It is said to be the first report of cross-fertilisation between GM and non-GM maize in South America.
Studies on the unplanned presence of GM maize and the contamination of non-GM crops in Latin America have led to some controversial cases, such as a retracted 2001 Nature study from Mexico and a 2007 Peruvian study that led to a libel case against one of the scientists who challenged the findings and a subsequent campaign for freedom of speech for scientists.
And Monsanto's GM maize trial in Mexico has recently re-ignited the debate in the country that boasts the most diverse maize genetic resources.
But, unlike Mexico and Peru, Uruguay permits the cultivation of GM maize. The varieties MON810 and Bt11 were approved for commercial planting in 2003 and 2004, respectively.
Governmental regulations specify that GM and non-GM crop fields should be more than 250 metres apart to avoid cross-fertilisation and ensure their "regulated coexistence", and that 10 per cent of the field should be non-GM to provide a refuge area for biodiversity.
In the latest research, scientists from Uruguay's University of the Republic analysed five pairs of commercial maize fields where farmers planted GM maize at about the same time as a nearby non-GM crop.
Studying commercial fields is better than using experimental plots, which may not correspond to the real-life situation, the scientists argue.
In three cases they detected foreign genes from GM maize, the 'transgenes', in seedlings produced by seeds taken from the non-GM crops. The transgenes were presumably blown over in pollen from the GM fields.
The highest percentage of transgenic seedlings was 0.83 per cent in a field 100 metres from the GM maize field.
In one case, the cross-fertilisation occurred despite a Eucalyptus tree barrier (12 metres high, 30 metres wide) separating the fields, and another case involved cross-fertilisation between fields more than 250 metres apart.
Cross-fertilisation may therefore be "a common situation in Uruguay", the authors said, adding that the area planted with GM maize in the country is increasing.
"These results also show that the current regulation in Uruguay is insufficient and that the actual 'coexistence policy' is not well known among farmers," Pablo Galeano, the study's lead author, told SciDev.Net. "I think that to talk about 'regulated coexistence' without the necessary tools to make it viable is nothing more than rhetoric."
But Galeano cautioned that the findings may not necessarily apply to other crops or other countries.
"Cross-fertilisation depends on topography, size and orientation of fields, type of maize, wind direction during the flowering time, temperature and humidity, so it is hardly possible to generalise our results to other crops, areas or countries," he said.
Daniel Bayce, manager of Uruguay's National Seed Institute, told SciDev.Net that the findings were not representative because cross-fertilisation was detected mostly where the fields were too close, and even then "the frequency of GM contamination was very low".
http://www.scidev.net/en/news/gm-maize-contaminates-non-gm-crops-in-uruguay-1.html

Olivia Kumwenda Mar 31, 2011
(Additional reporting by Beatrice Gachenge in Nairobi and Elias Biryabarema in Kampala, Editing by Ed Stoddard and Jane Baird)

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - An increasing number of African countries are likely to start growing genetically modified crops, with Kenya leading the way, after the continent for years has lagged in global adoption of the technology.
Africa is under increasing pressure to grow more food as its population increases. Although genetically modified (GM) crops might help boost output, some African countries have banned GM, fearing it could be harmful to humans and animals, hamper exports and hurt small farmers.
South Africa was the continent's sole cultivator of GM maize, cotton and soybeans until 2008, when Egypt began growing GM maize, and Burkina Faso started growing GM cotton.
Now Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Malawi, Mali, Zimbabwe, Nigeria and Ghana are conducting research and field trials of GM crops including maize, rice, wheat, sorghum and cotton, which could prove to be the first step toward adoption.
"There is increasing support to test biotech in several African countries," said Diran Makinde, director of the African Biosafety Network of Expertise.
Other countries are keenly watching to see whether Kenya adopts the technology, said Felix Mmboyi, deputy director of Africa Biotechnology. In East Africa's biggest economy, GM imports have been a controversial issue.
Kenya now is looking to conduct open trials of GM crops this year after enacting biosafety regulations, the main hurdle that had been holding them back. Industry officials expect the draft regulations to be published in May.
"Kenya will be open to cultivate GM crops. I can assure you Kenya will be the fourth country to allow GMO," Mmboyi said.
Ephraim Mukisira, a director at the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute, said: "We should rely on biotechnology to prevent further losses in yields and performance of crops. We need to expedite scientific methods that reduce time needed to develop new crop varieties."

RED TAPE
Beyond the usual debates about GM effects on health and the environment, there have also been concerns the presence of GM crops might reduce export opportunities -- a key reason that Zambia banned them years ago.
Potential legal pitfalls pose another concern.
Makinde said 23 countries in Africa have biosafety laws but with 'strict liability' clauses, which make someone liable for any mishaps, without the need to prove any fault on their part.
"No private sector will invest in a country where they can be sued for the slightest or even imaginary damage. This is a no-go area for the biotech crop developer," said Makinde.
The high costs of GM are another hurdle for Africa's small farmers, who account for 70 percent of the region's population and 60 percent of its agricultural output. GM can add to the difficulties of poor farmers in competing with commercial farms.
"Subjecting (small-scale farmers) to GMs would mean that they will lose control over their seeds and that they have to constantly depend on suppliers for seeds every season. How will they afford this?" asked Josephine Akia, policy and advocacy officer at the National Organic Agricultural Movement of Uganda.
In South Africa, the GM maize area was recorded at 1.878 million hectares in 2009 -- the latest year for which figures are available -- with small-scale farmers cultivating only 19,000 hectares of the total.
"You can't market GM technology as being a way out of poverty for small-scale farmers ... if you do that you are being dishonest," said Mariam Mayet, director of the African Center for Biosafety.

UNTAPPED MARKET
Nevertheless, GM crops have expanded so rapidly in other areas that African countries are not likely to fend them off much longer.
A report issued by the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA) shows that an 87-fold increase in crop area was recorded globally between 1996 and 2010, making biotech crops the fastest adopted crop technology in the history of modern agriculture.
The continent's untapped market has caught the attention of big U.S. firms DuPont and Monsanto, which are pushing to sell GM seeds on the continent.
Growing foreign investment in African agriculture is likely to bring a greater interest in GM crops as well.
"Investors' appetite is increasing for investing in African agriculture. The combination of fertile land and the demand for soft commodities in Africa makes it a good case," said Bernd Schanzenbaecher, a partner in EBG Capital, an asset management and advisory boutique.
Meanwhile, countries such as Malawi, Mauritius, South Africa and Zimbabwe have enacted biosafety laws, removing what had been a major hindrance to GM adoption. Most other African governments are also drafting guidelines and regulations.
"Of course we must be alert and responsible in the development of GM crops ... but if we are really serious about food security in Africa, emotional propaganda about these issues will never get us there," South Africa's deputy agriculture minister, Pieter Mulder, said earlier this month.
Researchers say that with food prices expected to be high in 2011, African countries need to work hard to ensure there are enough calories on the continent.
"Biotech is not going to fix all the problems, but it has the potential to make a difference," said Johannesburg scientist Sandy Evans, speaking for biotechnology group AfricaBio.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/31/us-africa-gmo-idUSTRE72U2QA20110331

MALNUTRITION: FOOD: Biofuels make a comeback as prices rise

JOHANNESBURG, 18 April 2011 (IRIN)

 Photo: Manoocher Deghati/IRIN
An increase in the price of a staple cereal triggers a domino effect in grain markets

The combination of higher fuel prices and increased biofuel production, a main driver of the 2007/08 maize price hike, is back in the news because stocks are at their lowest levels in 30 years in the US, the world's largest exporter.
Maize prices have more than doubled since April 2010, said Abdolreza Abbassian, secretary of the Intergovernmental Group on Grains at the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). An increase in the price of a staple cereal triggers a domino effect in grain markets as people opt for cheaper alternatives.
Higher food prices since June 2010 have forced an additional 44 million people into hunger, the World Bank noted in a new report.
2010 ended with food prices at their highest since 2008. In January 2011, IRIN looked at whether the world was headed for another crisis but experts thought price escalation had not yet hit the benchmark for a crisis as recorded in 2008, when global supplies of all staple grains were affected.
Christopher Barrett, a food expert who teaches development economics at Cornell University in the US, said maize stocks in the US were "down to less than six months' consumption”.

Are we in a crisis?
No, say the experts, but their level of concern has gone up a notch since January. High crude oil prices, a weak US dollar, widespread unrest in the oil-producing regions of the Middle East and North Africa, and the situation in Japan, where damaged nuclear reactors raise demand for conventional fuel while the threat of radiation exposure decreases food supplies, are not a recipe for price stability any time soon. "The next few months will be critical," said Abbassian.
Crude oil prices surged by 10.3 percent in March and were 36 percent higher than at the same time in 2010, the World Bank noted in its Food Price Watch for 2011. "These oil price increases impact the price of food - a 10 percent increase in crude oil prices is associated with a 2.7 percent increase in food prices in the World Bank Food Price Index."
Crude oil is maintaining prices well above US$100 per barrel, which they last reached in the 2007/08 food price crisis.
High fuel prices mean that more maize, vegetable oil and sugar cane are used to produce biofuel. The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) in its World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates report, released in April 2011, reported that the use of maize to produce ethanol rose from 31 percent of total maize output in 2008/09 and would reach a projected 40 percent in 2010/11.
High fuel prices also mean more expensive farm inputs such as energy for irrigation and transport, and other production costs. The World Bank said maize prices had increased in Tajikistan, Azerbaijan and the Kyrgyz Republic in the past year, reflecting increased transport costs from Kazakhstan.
Abbassian said US-made maize ethanol could possibly compete with high petrol prices without any subsidy in the long term, which was "worrisome." He was also concerned about tight maize supplies in China, where production was affected by weather conditions in 2010. There was also uncertainty about the level of Chinese imports in 2011.
Stocks of other staples, "in particular, wheat and soybeans… haven't seen nearly the same draw-downs," Barrett said. "Production has been pretty good in South America, and thus far the USDA reports that indications in the US for the 2011 harvest are good, so the supply-side issues are mainly inadequate growth in yields to keep pace with demand."
Abbassian pointed out that in the first week of April 2011, wheat prices were 84 percent higher than in the same period in 2010, whereas the price of rice was up by only six percent.

Are developing countries affected?
Although it takes time for global price hikes to be transmitted to domestic markets, the impact is determined mostly by local conditions.
Poor rains in the Horn of Africa have seen the price of white maize rise in Kenya, Somalia, Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Benin, with the biggest jump - 80 percent - in Mogadishu, the Somali capital, between January and February 2011, and a year-on-year increase of 340 percent compared to the same period in 2010.
Production uncertainties pushed up global rice prices by 18 percent between June and December 2010 and led to large importers increasing domestic stockholdings, said the World Bank. Prices have been coming down in countries like Bangladesh and Mozambique.
In West Africa, depreciation of the CFA franc against the US dollar has driven up prices by 10 percent to 20 percent since March 2010, according to FAO.
Conflict in Côte d'Ivoire has disrupted supplies of processed foods such as dried milk, sugar and vegetable oil to the landlocked countries of Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger, making these commodities more expensive, the World Bank said. Prices were rising in Sudan, Ethiopia, India and Colombia, and the impact of high wheat prices was also being felt in Mongolia, which depended largely on imports.
On the upside, high prices have encouraged farmers in the European Union (EU), Russia and Ukraine to plant more wheat, resulting in bigger harvests in 2011. "But if you have another bad weather spell [like the drought in Russia in 2010] we could be facing a crisis," said Abbassian.

What should countries do in the meantime?
Countries that buy most of their food should monitor import tariffs and reduce rates to keep prices low, suggested Barrett. "In many countries, a domestic currency naturally strengthening against the [US] dollar will already be serving that anti-inflation purpose, although pushing the exchange rate as a means of stemming inflation is a dangerous strategy because of likely consequences for their agricultural and other tradables (e.g., the light manufacturing and tourism) sectors."
Abbassian said countries should have had enough time since the last crisis in 2007/08 to contemplate safety nets. "If not, start putting a strategy in place now."
Barrett noted that higher market prices for staple cereals gave farmers and countries an opportunity to invest in upgrading irrigation and other improvements that could bring long-term benefits.
The World Bank focused on what Arab countries, the largest net cereal importers in the world, could do to reduce costs and found that logistics contributed substantially to the price of imported wheat. For instance, vessels carrying wheat routinely wait up to 10 days before they unload cargo. The Bank suggested improving capacity and upgrading infrastructure in ports to lower costs.
In times of unforeseen crisis - floods, unexpected disasters affecting production - countries should take steps to protect themselves from the large margins between the contracted price and the delivery price, so that they do not pass on a price shock to the local markets.
The Bank suggested that small regional humanitarian reserves be set up in disaster-prone, infrastructure-poor areas, such as the Horn of Africa, to meet emergency needs quickly.
The US Agency for International Development (USAID), aid arm of the US government, the world's largest food aid donor, has a warehouse in Djibouti, in the horn of Africa, where food aid is prepositioned for possible emergencies in Africa and Asia.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=92502

POVERTY: ZIMBABWE: Dry spell ends prospect of good harvest

 Photo: Kate Holt/IRIN
Small farmers who lack irrigation have been most affected by the dry weather. A woman stands outside of her temporary home and dried up maize crop in Epworth, in Harare, Zimbabwe


HARARE, 11 March 2011 (IRIN) - A dry spell that has persisted for over a month, adversely affecting crops in many parts of Zimbabwe, could mean a lean year ahead for farmers.
"I am not even looking forward to picking a few green mealies [corn on the cob] to roast from my maize crop,“ said Merjury Mapanda, 55, a widow who looks after three grandchildren in Chirumanzu district, some 120km southeast of Gweru, capital of Midlands Province.
“All my sweat has gone to waste because the rains went away when the maize crop had reached a crucial stage and needed water very much," she said.
Mapanda planted her maize in early November 2010 and the crop was doing well until the end of January 2011, when the dry weather started.
"I assumed that the rains were giving us a break to tend our fields, but when the scorching sun persisted for more than three weeks, I became worried," she told IRIN. "The rains returned for only one day... up to now, we have had to watch as the crops wilted."
Even if the rains did return, it would be too late. "It is better to have the cattle and goats feeding on the crops because we are not going to harvest anything, with the exception perhaps of a few who planted early in October."
In the Goromonzi district in Mashonaland East Province, Josphat Ngwerume, 48, a communal farmer, had also been looking forward to a bumper harvest after a good start to the rainy season, but he has not been able to bring himself to visit his fields for the past two weeks.
"It reminds me of how much sweat I shed for nothing, and how much money I wasted. I harvested only enough to last me for three months last year and have been buying maize meal from the shops,” he told IRIN.
“It seems the situation is worse this year, and I don't know where I will get the money to buy food for the children."
Denford Chimbwanda, president of the Grain and Cereal Producers Association (GPCA), described the lack of rain as "devastating".
"Farmers are facing a very serious situation because of the dry spell. As an organization, we have done a preliminary assessment… and discovered that thousands of hectares of farmland on which different types of crops were being grown have been destroyed,” he told IRIN.
"Communal and resettled farmers are the most affected because they don't have irrigation facilities, but even commercial farmers will have their harvests crippled by the dry spell. The net effect of this is that Zimbabwe will have to depend on imports to meet its food requirements," Chimbwanda said.
Zimbabwe's 10-year economic crisis has taken a heavy toll on the country's agricultural sector. The high cost and shortage of inputs like seed and fertilizer saw steep declines in maize production, the main staple.
Harvests improved in 2009 and 2010, but about 1.7 million people are still food insecure and in need of assistance according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and World Food Programme (WFP).
Innocent Makwiramiti, an economist based in the capital, Harare, said the need to import food would drive up prices, particularly maize, with a negative impact on the food security of poor households in rural as well as urban areas.
"They will not have enough money to buy adequate food, since the majority of them are already struggling to make ends meet," he noted.
However, Catherine Manase, spokesperson for the Food Security Network (FOSENET) a national NGO, told IRIN that while the dry spell had severely stressed crops, it was still too early to assess the extent of the damage.
"Assessments of the effects of the dry spell on food security are being carried out by various organizations, and it will not be possible to quantify the damage before they complete their studies," she said.
"The major problem is that farmers are no longer able to properly time their planting because of the changing climatic patterns, a situation that makes it vital for experts to trace the new trends and come up with conclusive recommendations on when to plant."
The Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET), which monitors food security in the region, noted in its latest update that "a positive crop production outlook [for Zimbabwe] has been halted by low rainfall", with the southern half of the country most affected.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=92158

POVERTY: LESOTHO: Floods take heavy toll

THABA-TSEKA, 15 February 2011 (IRIN) -
From a distance, the fields of maize that cover almost every hillside in Lesotho's Thaba-Tseka District look green and lush. On closer inspection, the plants have a sickly yellowish hue and the heads of corn that should be ripening in time for the April harvest are nowhere to be seen.
For most of the farmers in this remote, mountainous district, and in many other parts of Lesotho, there will be no harvest this season. Heavy rains which started in December and are expected to continue through much of February have washed away top soil and nutrients and left fields waterlogged and weed infested.
The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that in some of the worst hit districts up to 60 percent of crops have been destroyed while nationally at least 4,700 livestock, mainly sheep and goats, have died. [ http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/50394/icode/ ]
Lesotho's mountainous topography and erratic weather mean it already produces only enough grain to meet about 30 percent of its needs. [ http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=86910 ] The country had increased its production of maize - the main cereal crop - and sorghum during 2010, but the heavy rains are likely to reverse those gains.
"It's going to affect food security in the worst way because Lesotho doesn't produce enough food as it is," Matsiliso Mmojaki, head of the national Disaster Management Authority (DMA), told IRIN.
Out of a population of just over two million, Mmojaki estimated 250,000 will need food assistance in the coming months.

Not a disaster?
In the village of Phaila, in Thaba-Tseka District, Tsepo Phaila, 31, watched one afternoon in early January as a river of water swept down a hillside, tearing up the trees he and his family had planted for firewood, and flooding their maize field. By the time the water receded, only a few broken stalks poked up from the mud.
"We can't plant there any more because the topsoil has washed away," Phaila said.
The family has one other smaller field where maize plants are still standing but are too rain-damaged to produce a harvest. "There's nothing we can do right now," said Phaila, explaining that the maize and the firewood provided the only source of income to support himself and nine other family members.
Many other households in the village and across northern Lesotho are facing a similar predicament, but the government has yet to declare the situation a disaster.
"Should we say because the government hasn't declared it a disaster, it's not a disaster?" asked Teboho Chalane, the Ministry of Agriculture's extension officer for Thaba-Tseka District. "A lot of people have been affected; there will be no maize for them, so we need to do something to make sure they get something to eat."
He added that if seeds could be distributed quickly, there was still time for affected households to grow vegetables before the start of winter. In the longer term, said Chalane, communities needed to become less reliant on maize and start keeping livestock such as poultry and pigs that could be bred and sold.
As for the fields of stunted maize plants, his advice to farmers was: "Take a scythe and cut them all down."

Costly response
Like many parts of Southern Africa, Lesotho had been warned to expect a heavier than usual rainy season due to the La Niña phenomenon, [ http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportID=90980 ] but Mmojaki of the DMA said "the intensity [of the rains] was just beyond our imagination; it has never really happened here."
A rapid assessment of the damage conducted in January found that in addition to the extensive crop losses, a number of roads had been washed away making some health facilities unreachable. Stocks of essential medicines, including antiretrovirals (ARVs) and drugs to treat diarrhoea, an outbreak of which had spread across the country, were running low.
The DMA has developed a contingency plan and submitted it to the government for approval. It includes urgent repairs to roads, bridges and water supply systems as well as assistance to farmers in the form of subsidies, seeds and fertilizers.
The plan comes with a price tag of US$68.5 million, an amount that economic policy head in the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning Motena Ts'olo said the government would struggle to raise at a time when the global economic slowdown and reduced revenues from the Southern African Customs Union (SACU) [ http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportID=90208 ] were already straining the national budget.
"The rain has created even more pressure and I don't know how we'll manage, but somehow we'll have to," she told IRIN.

Http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=91925

POVERTY: The cost of eating more meat

 Photo: Jaspreet Kindra/IRIN

NEW DELHI, 14 February 2011 (IRIN) - If people in rich countries, as well as in more developed emerging economies like China and Brazil, were to start eating less meat now, this could help ease pressure on the price of some staple grains in another 15 years, but would not enhance food security in most poor countries in the immediate future, a new study has found.
Mark Rosegrant, a senior researcher at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), and co-author of the study, said the impact of eating more meat was felt on the cost of maize, which was used as livestock feed, rather than on the prices of wheat and rice, the main staples in most developing countries.
But in Sub-Saharan countries, where maize is a staple, lower meat consumption could reduce the number of malnourished children younger than five by a million by 2030. In countries outside of Africa, the effect on the number of hungry children was not as great, said Rosegrant.
The study by Rosegrant and Siwa Msangi, another IFPRI researcher, was prompted by an ongoing debate on the pressure of a surging demand for meat and dairy products on the supply and global prices of staple grains, particularly in developing countries.
The IFPRI report was one of three on the issue released during a three-day International Conference on Leveraging Agriculture for Improving Nutrition & Health, in New Delhi, India, which ended on 12 February.
The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), in a study and an assessment for a forthcoming book, sounded an alarm over the possible spread of animal diseases as more people in developing countries were able to afford meat, and an intensive form of livestock production gathered pace.
The authors, Delia Grace and John McDermott, warned that the intensification of livestock production in many developing countries was focused on increasing food production and making more money, with little regard for the potential effects on human health.
Animals transmit about 61 percent of all human pathogens and 75 percent of new human pathogens, according to the ILRI. The resulting illnesses are called zoonotic diseases, such as avian influenza and the Nipah virus infection, which causes inflammation of the brain and respiratory ailments.
Livestock diseases could not only endanger food security in poor countries, where some 700 million people keep farm animals and up to 40 percent of household income depends on them, but also threaten human health when viruses spread from their animal hosts to human beings.
The economic repercussions could be huge. In a 2010 study, the World Bank estimated that if avian influenza became transmissible from human to human, the potential cost of a resulting pandemic could reach US$3trillion.

Give up on meat?
“I am not suggesting people in developing countries should give up on meat - I am all for balanced diets and sourcing minerals, such as zinc, from meat naturally,” said McDermott. “What we want to highlight is the need to manage the risks.”
He said better surveillance systems and incentives to farmers and governments, encouraging them to become more transparent about disclosing infections, would help early detection. Getting countries to work across sectors by integrating veterinary, medical and environmental expertise in a “one-health” approach to manage the risks, would also help.
Rather than focusing on reducing meat consumption, the IFPRI paper suggested that developing countries ensure good economic growth. This would provide incomes that allowed their people to access food and invest in agricultural and infrastructure development, such as irrigation, domestic water supply, good roads, communications, and effective markets, resulting in improved food security.
Eating less meat could help, Rosegrant said, and diversifying diets to include vegetables and fruits would have additional health benefits.
Meat consumption was a subject of debate until the last session of the conference. Food expert Ricardo Uay, a professor of nutrition at the London school of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said people did not require a meat-based diet.
He suggested that meat not be subsidized and prices kept real, which could deter people from consuming more of it. Uay cited the example of Japan, where meat was not subsidized, yet people were healthy.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?Reportid=91903

POVERTY: KENYA: Act now to mitigate drought effects

 Photo: Ann Weru/IRIN: On the water trail...again

NAIROBI/ISIOLO, 19 January 2011 (IRIN) - Kenya can best mitigate the devastating effects of recurrent drought by strengthening the livestock sector so that it becomes a viable money-based economy, and improving pastoral food and water security, say aid officials.
“Responding to drought has largely remained a reactive mechanism over the years,” Enrico Eminae, Action Aid Kenya’s Northeast Regional Coordinator, told IRIN. “There is also a lack of a coordinated approach by CSOs [civil society organizations] and government in addressing drought-related issues at all levels.”

According to the Kenya Red Cross Society (KRCS) Secretary-General, Abbas Gullet, drought mitigation should focus on addressing vulnerability factors through activities such as dam construction and investments in irrigated farming in marginal areas.
The prevailing drought is expected to hit an estimated 1.8 million people, says the KRCS, mostly pastoralists, agro-pastoralists and those in marginal agricultural areas in the Coast, Eastern, North Eastern and the North Rift of Kenya.
In the northern Isiolo, Marsabit, Moyale and Samburu districts, at least 150,000 people urgently need food aid, most of them women, children and the elderly. Long distances to relief food centres and the inability to secure manual work have added to their vulnerability.
"The situation is tough, but most families have taken different steps to cope with the hardships. Some are skipping meals; some have taken their children to school so that they can get food under the school-feeding programme. In some cases, families are [eating] wild fruits," Bitacha Sora, a KRCS officer in the north, said.
The story of drought and famine is almost becoming a cliché in Kenya
Food and milk prices have risen, driven by reduced availability as herders migrate. A lack of water for domestic and livestock use is also forcing residents to rely on water vendors, who are charging exorbitant prices - 60 shillings (US$0.75) per 20-litre water can.

Conflict concerns
In the coastal Tana River region, drought could lead to conflict between residents and migrating livestock herders, some of whom have come to the more fertile Tana Delta area from northeast Kenya and neighbouring parts of Somalia, warned the Assistant Minister for Information and Communication, Dhado Godana.
"We have lost most of our livestock due to the lack of pasture and water," Abdallah Musa, a herder in Tana River’s Bangale area, told IRIN.

On 14 January the KRCS launched a KSh1.5 billion ($18.75 million) appeal for about 1.8 million people over six months. The response will focus on water provision and livestock destocking programmes - an estimated 20 million heads of livestock are judged at risk.
“Water trucking is no real solution and it is very costly, but it must be done,” said KRCS’s Gullet. “We need to operate before things happen. We shouldn’t wait until people die to call it [drought] a national disaster.”
But on 18 January the government said the drought did not qualify as a disaster, adding that there were sufficient food supplies to meet the present needs.
Farmers in regions that enjoyed bumper maize harvests, such as parts of Rift Valley and Western Kenya, following favourable rains in 2010, are demanding higher prices. The government has set the price at KSh1,800 ($2.25) per 90kg bag, but farmers are demanding KSh2,200 ($2.75).
In the 2005-2006 drought, livestock worth more than KSh70 billion (about $0.9 billion) was lost in the North Eastern Kenya region alone; a subsequent drought in 2008-2009 resulted in the belated trucking of thousands of dying livestock to the Kenya Meat Commission, noted the officer in charge of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Kenya, Choice Okoro.

"The story of drought and famine is almost becoming a cliché in Kenya," noted Damaris Mateche, environmental security analyst at the Institute for Security Studies in Nairobi. "Despite the existing drought early warning systems in the country, drought disaster response mechanisms and coping strategies remain miserably wanting. More often, drought and famine situations degenerate into dire humanitarian crises before the government takes substantial action."
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=91666

POVERTY: ZIMBABWE: Upbeat about the 2011 harvest

  Photo: Kate Holt/IRIN: Poor harvests a thing of the past?

HARARE, 14 January 2011 (IRIN) - Timely access to fertilizers, seeds and good rains have set Zimbabwe on course for a good harvest, say agriculture officials.
The Agriculture Minister, Joseph Made, told journalists the area planted with cereals such as sorghum and maize had increased by thousands of hectares this season from 2009-2010.
However, he cautioned that a good crop was only expected if rains persisted during January. Zimbabwe’s Meteorological Services has predicted heavy rains in the coming weeks.
The area planted with maize was up from 530,000ha in 2009-2010 to 660,000ha this season, said Made. Other grains had also seen their coverage increase from 110,000ha to 174,000ha.
In a decade marked by socio-economic instability, food production has begun to improve in Zimbabwe in the past two years.
A joint mission in 2010 by the UN World Food Programme and Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reported that after the 2008 season, when less than 500,000 tons of maize was harvested, production more than doubled in 2009 and 2010, to 1.27 and 1.35 million tons respectively
Although expensive, maize seeds and fertilizers, unlike in previous years, have been available in the market.
The pro-ZANU-PF daily newspaper, The Herald, reported in December 2010 that the government had provided loans worth US$122.2 million to farmers for support during the 2010-2011 season, with banks providing $286 million to buy inputs.
More than 900,000 poor households have been given agricultural inputs, noted the FAO in its latest update.
But FAO said it was concerned about food price increases: between September and November 2010, the price of maize rose by some 26 percent in the capital, Harare, after having been stable in the previous months.
The price of maize meal, a staple food, has begun to climb in the past two months.
An estimated 1.7 million Zimbabweans will face severe food insecurity in the peak hunger period of January to March 2011, according to the 2011 UN Consolidated Appeal for Zimbabwe. About 38 percent of the $415 million appeal will take care of food-related needs - down from 50 percent in the last appeal for 2010.
The peak hunger period is when crops are planted and nurtured to maturity.
The appeal in December 2010 has received a little more than $680,000 funding so far, with pledges worth $2.9 million.

Army-worm outbreak
There has been a scare for the agriculturally rich provinces of Mashonaland Central and East in the north after army-worm caterpillars destroyed more than 50ha of planted maize. Farmers in the region said it was one of the most serious attacks in recent years.
The Herald newspaper said the attack threatened national food security, with another 800ha of planted sorghum, maize and pasture land at risk. But it quoted an agricultural official, Godfrey Chikwenhere, giving assurances that they had enough chemicals to deal with the caterpillars.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=91632

MALNUTRITION: SOUTH AFRICA: Too much maize

  Photo: IITA:  Maize production has been booming in South Africa

JOHANNESBURG, 13 January 2011 (IRIN) - After a record maize harvest, a bid by South African farmers to form a pool to export the surplus – enough to feed its food insecure neighbours, Swaziland and Lesotho, for several years – has raised questions about the future of the crop and the manufacture of biofuel.
The country’s Competition Commission rejected the bid on 11 January. "We wanted to start a debate in the country. Surpluses of this magnitude are unusual; food prices are going up globally. We have suggested the farmers consider storing the surplus,” the Commission's Oupa Bodipe told IRIN.
“In the long run they should look at growing maize more for animal feed, or at alternative crops such as sunflower for oil." He said the surplus should challenge the government and the agriculture sector to broaden their options and suggested the farmers consider using the surplus to manufacture biofuel.
South Africa has produced surpluses for several years. The Competition Commission said the farmers' plan to take the latest surplus off the market would raise the price of maize-meal – a staple food in South Africa – and make animal feed more expensive.
Commercial farmers harvested more than 12.8 million tonnes of maize in the 2009/10 season – the biggest crop in three decades – but local annual consumption of between eight million tonnes and nine million tonnes will leave a surplus of about four million tonnes. Lesotho consumes about 344,000 tonnes per year and Swaziland 140,000 tonnes.
The Competition Commission acknowledged that "The existence of the surplus may well result in lower-than-expected returns to farmers, and financial difficulties for some. Ultimately, this may negatively affect the country's productive capacity of maize in the long run."
Johan Willemse, a professor of agricultural economics at the University of the Free State, said the Competition Commission did what it was mandated to do - take steps to keep food prices down - but it had brought the focus on the government to firm up its commitment to agriculture.
"With the inability to find other markets outside South Africa, the long-term effect will be that farmers are going to plant less, as dictated by the domestic market," he noted.
Poor agricultural infrastructure also limited access to domestic and regional markets. "It is ironical, when we have such a massive surplus, that poor communities in poor provinces such as the Eastern Cape do not have access to cheap maize because of the poor roads - in fact, Eastern Cape does not even have a maize-milling plant," Willemse said.

End of the road for maize?
The existence of the surplus may well result in lower-than-expected returns to farmers, and financial difficulties for some
Investment in better crop varieties over the years had doubled yields per hectare and maize production in South Africa had "saturated", said John Purchase, chief executive officer of the Agricultural Business Chamber.
Maize prices had remained consistently low but there was scope for investment to broaden local markets. "Maize within South Africa was still cheaper than globally, even during the hike in 2008,” he noted.
“Unfortunately, it has not meant cheaper maize-meal – consumed by most of our people – because of added costs such as fuel and energy, which have remained high, but maize-meal prices are still cheaper in South Africa, compared to the rest of Africa," Purchase said.
Maize accounts for 70 percent of the country's grain production and covers 60 percent of its cropping area. Purchase and other representatives of the agriculture sector are debating how to deal with the future of maize - the backbone of the sector.
According to the International Food Policy research Institute (IFPRI), South Africa produces half of Southern Africa's maize, the main staple food in the region.
But as maize harvests have improved in other Southern African countries like Malawi and Zambia, which have also reaped surpluses, demand for the staple has shrunk. Besides, South Africa mainly produces genetically modified maize, which has few takers.
Maize exports have also been hit by the strong rand, which dropped from around R8 to the US dollar at the beginning of 2010 to about R6.80 at present.
Purchase said they were considering growing maize for markets outside the continent. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) noted in its latest update that the Republic of Korea was the top importer of South African maize in 2010.
Kobus Laubscher, head of Grain SA, the agricultural body that applied to the Competition Commission, said they appreciated the debate on the future of maize farming getting underway. Lower prices and the inability to sell the surplus had been discouraging some farmers.
FAO said preliminary estimates indicated that the area planted to maize in South Africa was likely to decline by about 10 percent compared to 2010 levels.
"We urge the government to come up with alternatives, including a biofuel strategy which calls for the mandatory blending of biofuel [with retail petrol or diesel]," Laubscher said.
South Africa does not allow staple grains such as maize to be used for the production of biofuel, but has announced ratios for blending biofuel with commercially sold fossil-fuel based petrol and diesel.
This is not mandatory as it is in Malawi, which has been using ethanol-blended fuel since the energy crisis in the early 1970s.
South Africa's agriculture minister, Tina Joemat-Pettersson, recently said the government should review its biofuel policy.

The rationale for the pool
The Commission was more optimistic. "The surplus in itself is not indicative of an industry in decline. Surpluses and deficits arise due to changing market circumstances, and markets adjust accordingly. There is no evidence that this industry cannot survive such an adjustment."
Ronald Ramabulana, chief executive officer of the National Agricultural Marketing Council, agreed, saying the situation was temporary. "With farmers planting less, the supply in the market will reduce and the situation will correct itself."
Abdolreza Abbassian, secretary of the Intergovernmental Group on Grains at FAO, said he was concerned about the impact of the Commission's decision on the farmers, and that it could disrupt maize supplies in the long run. "But the commission must have done its own cost benefits analysis for the country."
The farmers' desire to form an export pool was prompted by two reasons: "One was to ring-fence the four million [tonne surplus], hoping it would then probably push prices to a level which could help them," said Willemse.
The other reason was that it was beyond any farmer's capacity to export such a quantity on his own. "It now time for the government to seriously engage with the farmers," Purchase suggested.
In the past few days agriculture minister Joemat-Pettersson has been travelling to various provinces to meet with commercial farmers.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=91615

POVERTY: Africa could feed itself, says development expert

Mićo Tatalović : 2 December 2010

  Flickr/gbaku
Can Africa start feeding itself in a generation?

Africa could feed itself within a generation through the application of science-based techniques to agricultural production, according to the editor of a report on how to do this, which will be discussed by East African heads of state today.
The continent has a window of opportunity in which to take decisions to increase food production that would enable it to feed itself, said the report, put together by a 20-member board under the Agricultural Innovation in Africa project, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
The report, 'New Harvest: Agricultural Innovation in Africa', sounds a note of optimism amidst warnings about the threats to African agriculture against a background of global warming and soaring population.
Co-ordinated by Calestous Juma, professor of the practice of international development at Harvard University, United States, its core message is that the continent currently has a critical mass of both leaders who are sympathetic to the transformational potential of science and technology, and the expertise needed to make that transformation happen.
The report outlines how science and technology can be integrated into agricultural development discussions and strategies.
It cites success stories such as that of Malawi — where imports of improved seed and provision of subsidised fertiliser doubled the country's maize yields and enabled it to export maize in just two years — and argues that such approaches could be scaled up across the continent to improve agricultural output.
"Africa now has access to a large body of scientific knowledge, both on the continent and from elsewhere, countries are building regional markets within Africa and there is a new generation of leaders who are willing to use science and innovation and to invest into agriculture, which all guide our optimism," Juma told SciDev.Net.
He said that outside observers often fail to notice the progress that African policymakers and leaders have been making in embracing knowledge-based improvements in agriculture and the economy.
"Focusing simply on how much money goes to research and development is missing an important shift towards more regional knowledge-sharing and a greater willingness to embrace science and technology," he said.
The presidents of Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda were due to consider the report today at a retreat on food security and climate change, organised ahead of the 12th Ordinary Summit of the Heads of State of the East African Community.
Experts in African food security gave the report a cautious welcome.
Bruce Campbell, head of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research's (CGIAR) programme on climate change, agriculture and food security, said: "While Juma's book is optimistic, one needs to recognise that there are tremendous challenges that are not very simple to solve".
Mark Rosegrant, director of International Food Policy Research Institute's environment and production technology division, said: "I think this report is significant because he's [Juma] pulled the evidence in a very integrated fashion. He's got the grasp of social sciences and economics as well as the straight science."
Rosegrant highlighted South Africa, which "has generally done better than others in long-term investment", and Kenya, Ethiopia and Uganda, which "have longer term and significant investments in agricultural research and seem to be sustaining those and reforming that area.
"In the north, Morocco is doing very well in terms of research and green and sustainable policy structures — Morocco could potentially be one of the big successes of the future." But he added: "The goals should be to grow what they do best and generate incomes, not necessarily to be self-sufficient in food production".
And Philip Thornton, a senior scientist at International Livestock Research Institute in Kenya, who led a recent study that concluded global warming could spell a catastrophe for Africa's agriculture, warned that "there are many [climate change] factors that are not under Africa's control".
These will work in the opposite direction to improvements in yields and new crop varieties, he said. "I was a little surprised when reading the press release about the report as it doesn't make much mention of climate change."
http://www.scidev.net/en/news/africa-could-feed-itself-says-development-expert.html

MALNUTRITION: ZAMBIA: Orange maize to curb vitamin A deficiency

Photo: Robyn Allscheid Stevens/HarvestPlus

Maize biofortified with beta-carotene could provide vitamin A throughout the year

10 November 2010 (IRIN) - Most Zambian children regularly tuck in to `nshima’, a stiff maize porridge, but if they can be persuaded to eat an orange-coloured variety made of biofortified maize, their health prospects could be greatly enhanced.
More than half of Zambia's under-five children are affected by vitamin A deficiency, which can increase the risk of illness, retard growth and cause blindness, according to the government's National Food and Nutrition Commission.
The government tried fortifying margarine with vitamin A in the 1970s and sugar since the 1990s, but neither of these efforts proved to be very successful. A study by the Commission in 2003 found vitamin A deficiency levels to be as high as 54 percent in children under five, and 13 percent in women aged 15-49.
"People in the rural areas do not eat margarine," explained Eliab Simpungwe, a scientist involved in efforts to grow biofortified crops and orange maize in Zambia. Simpungwe works with HarvestPlus, a global alliance of research institutions and implementing agencies working together to breed and disseminate crops for better nutrition.
"Vitamin A degenerates very quickly in sugar. Transportation of sugar to rural areas takes a long time and by the time it gets to the people, there is very little trace of the vitamin in it," he said.
In the past few years, developing countries have launched several programmes to fortify staples with vitamin A and iron. Biofortification is the process of breeding higher levels of essential micronutrients such as vitamin A, iron, and zinc in food crops.
Beta-carotene
Zambia has also made its own efforts to biofortify maize with vitamin A - led by the government's Zambia Agricultural Research Institute (ZARI), which is collaborating with HarvestPlus.
After three years of work - identifying maize varieties with high beta-carotene content and then cross-breeding them to increase the content naturally - the scientists appear to have been successful.
Beta-carotene which is converted in the body as vitamin A is naturally found in maize, explained Simpungwe. The researchers led by ZARI have managed to develop a maize variety with a beta-carotene content of nine milligrams per gram, which should improve levels of vitamin A in consumers quite substantially, he said.
"We are aiming to get to a maize variety which will provide 10-15 milligrams of beta-carotene per gram, which is the optimum level," said Simpungwe. The researchers arrived at the figure after taking into account the amount of maize an average Zambian consumed in a year, which is 160kg.
"We are going to roll out seed for evaluation to at least 10,000 farmers in three maize-producing provinces - Eastern, Central and Southern - in 2011," said Simpungwe.
The researchers found that beta-carotene in maize was converted to vitamin A at a higher rate than beta-carotene in vegetables, including spinach and carrots
Based on the evaluation findings, the varieties will be released to reach at least 25,000 farmers in 2012.
The team got a boost earlier this year with the publication of the results of a study by Iowa State University in the USA which found that maize bred to contain increased levels of beta-carotene is a good source of vitamin A.
The researchers found that beta-carotene in maize was converted to vitamin A at a higher rate than beta-carotene in vegetables, including spinach and carrots.
The breakthrough comes as the first global conference on biofortification began in the USA on 9 November.
Taste and acceptance
In a country where white maize is still preferred to yellow maize, would the bright orange variety find acceptance?
Zambians have been lukewarm about yellow maize because of its taste and the perception it is "drought food", as it was frequently distributed as food aid, according to a HarvestPlus study.
Another study - assessed and approved by the research ethics committees of the University of Zambia and the University of Greenwich, and which also involved the National Institute of Scientific and Industrial Research - found that orange maize was "likely" to be accepted by consumers in Zambia.
Simpungwe said he had run his own trials at home and found the maize to be a hit with his children and friends. "Unlike white maize which has a flat taste, the orange maize has a sweetish taste which the children loved."
But there remain challenges around wide acceptance, noted a report prepared for the International Center for Research on Women and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which has helped fund efforts to biofortify maize in Zambia.
Women play a key role in deciding what is consumed in households, said Miriam Chaiken, a researcher at New Mexico State University, and author of the report.
Variables such as flavour, ease of cooking and perceived digestibility for children matter to them, and these need to be tested further in a Zambian rural context to create effective marketing strategies. People also need to understand the linkages between illness and vitamin A deficiency.
She suggested targeting women’s groups and small-scale farmers with information, possibly through community radio, and by distributing orange maize seeds.
Simpungwe said the seeds will be made freely available initially, and subsidized thereafter.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=91049

MALNUTRITION: KENYA: Fears of surplus maize harvest going to waste

Photo: Jane Some/IRIN
A surplus maize harvest has drastically reduced produce prices (file photo)

 29 October 2010  After poor harvests due to erratic rains that culminated in a drought in early 2009, most maize farmers in Kenya are enjoying better times due to enhanced March-May long rains. However, they are struggling to offload a surplus harvest of the key staple amid fears that short October to December rains could lead to heavy post-harvest losses.
The long rains maize harvest accounts for more than 80 percent of national output.
“We are not complaining about food security now as we have enough; production has been staggered because of the rains since November 2009. We have not had a distinct season, farmers are harvesting and planting simultaneously,” Muthoni Kirui, the Njoro district agricultural officer (DAO), told IRIN.
“Whatever stocks we have, we are estimating they can last us for a year but farmers will sell off about 50 percent of their produce.”
Njoro is in Kenya’s “grain basket” region of Rift Valley.
The sale of surplus maize to meet other needs is a problem. In the Lare Division of Njoro, for instance, a 90kg bag of maize is selling at only KSh700 (about US$9). “The farmers are not breaking even but selling at a loss,” she said.
“After the selling spree, the same food will come back for sale at a higher price,” Kirui noted, adding that middle men are to blame.
According to farmer Bernard Maina, this is inevitable, especially for farmers without alternative income.
“Even if we are told that education is free, there are other school expenses. The teachers may have been lenient with us during the 2009 drought but now they will make us pay; they will say now you have maize to sell,” said Maina.
“We are putting a lot of emphasis on our children’s education now since farming has become a vicious cycle. After every five years there is a big drought for two years. If my children cannot study they will just end up like me.”
Lare experienced total crop failure in 2009. To cope, farmers were forced to seek casual jobs in exchange for food in the neighbouring divisions of Mauche and Mau Narok. “Some women abandoned their husbands as there was no harvest, not even fodder for the cows. What kind of life is that?” asked Maina.
Storage challenges
The good harvests in 2010 have brought with them other challenges for Maina - proper harvesting and storage.
With the farmers reliant on the sun for maize drying, there are fears of inadequate drying, which could predispose the produce to aflatoxin contamination and other losses due to ongoing rains.
“There is a need for cheaper drying technologies because it is now raining most afternoons,” said DAO Kirui. “We are training them on preservation as they are bringing in rotten samples of maize.”
People still want to produce maize irrespective of market availability and weather suitability. On any farm opening up new land they will plant maize and beans
Most farmers have been forced to leave their ready maize crop un-harvested or harvested but stacked in the fields.
“Prospects for enhanced rainfall in the western sector of the country, including the ‘grain basket’, may disrupt or even delay harvesting of long rains maize. As a result, increased pre- and post-harvest losses may occur, somewhat compromising national output. Nevertheless, beneficial effects of enhanced rains in the western areas could be substantial as long as the rains are not excessive,” noted the Kenya Food Security Outlook for October to March 2011.
La Niña conditions are expected to have the converse effect in most of the rest of the country. This, warns the outlook, could increase food insecurity over the period for urban households, because of high food prices.
Bridging loans
To help farmers with surplus produce take advantage of the expected higher prices, the government has introduced a storage programme, whereby receipts issued for the maize enable farmers to access micro-loans.
However, most farmers have been slow in embracing it. The cost of the monthly storage fee, cost of transport and access is a problem.
Maina, for example, told IRIN he would not be storing his expected harvest of about 100 90kg bags of maize at the warehouses. “I will keep it in the house as that is my bank. If I need some money, I can easily take out a bag of maize and sell it and keep the rest until prices improve,” he said.
Another farmer, Joseph Kuria, has invested in a greenhouse for tomato production. He is also harvesting water and diversifying his crops. “Maize farming is not good for us. Before maize matures, it takes six months compared to faster-growing potatoes and cabbage. What you get when you sell maize compared to the growing period is not beneficial for farmers.”
The reluctance to adopt other drought-tolerant crops persists, Lare agriculture extension officer, James Mwangi, said. “Generally, people still want to produce maize irrespective of market availability and weather suitability. On any farm opening up new land they will plant maize and beans.”
Http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=90919

MALNUTRITION: Donors have been urged to provide nutritious food aid to help fight malnutrition among children.

A sick and displaced woman watches as her malnourished infant sleeps at a health clinic run by the medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) Holland in Kerfi, a site for thousands of displaced Chadians some 50 kilometres south of the eastern town of Gos Beida, June 10, 2008. MSF have urged donors to provide nutritious food aid to help fight malnutrition among children
By LUCAS BARASA
 October 15 2010
Medicins San Frontieres (Doctors without borders) launched the campaign at a function attended by two MPs and other stakeholders at the Kenyatta International Conference Centre on Thursday evening.
Currently, it said only 1.7 percent of food aid addressed nutrition.
MSF said donors should cease in-kind donations and instead provide cash to finance food aid interventions based on medical needs and at a cheaper cost.
“This is particularly true for the US for whom such a shift could save approximately $600 million-close to double the global amount estimated to focus on malnutrition in any given year,” MSF said in a statement.
It regretted that the current food aid by major donors, Japan, US and Australia lacked necessary vitamins and minerals for children's growth.
The organisation called for the signing of a petition to pressurise the food donors to change their policy and provide adequate food for young children.
It accused the major donors of double standards saying food donated as relief, including maize, was not consumed by children in their countries
http://www.nation.co.ke/News/-/1056/1033366/-/view/printVersion/-/7i959w/-/index.html

MALNUTRITION: Malawi, Food surplus creates political storm

2 September 2010 (IRIN) -
A surplus production of maize, Malawi's staple food, will not prevent at least one million people from being food insecure, a forecast that has not pleased President Bingu wa Mutharika. "I am disappointed that despite the ministry of agriculture and food security releasing crop estimates that Malawi has actually posted surpluses in the production of the staple crop, maize, some newspapers are reporting that over a million Malawians will require urgent food aid," he reportedly said. Mutharika has threatened "to close down [local] newspapers that lie and tarnish my government's image", which has led to the rapid politicization of food production. Two crop assessments appear to have given rise to the situation. Reports by the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWSNET), and the Food Security Early Warning System of the regional body the Southern African Development Community, concur on the number of food insecure. "The [multi-agency] Malawi Assessment Committee (MVAC) assessment projects that the food insecure population will increase to 1.1 million by October 2010," FEWSNET said in its August 2010 Food Security Outlook Update. SADC noted in its July 2010 report that the "final crop forecast indicates a 2010 cereal production of 3.57 million tons, which is 7 percent below the 2009 harvest of 3.83 million tons, but still 23 percent higher than the last 5-year average harvest of 2.9 million tons." "The overall surplus is made up of 1.16 million tons of surplus maize and 17,000 tons of surplus sorghum/millet, less deficits in wheat and rice of 38,000 tons and 19,000 tons respectively. This is the fifth year running that the country has had surplus maize," the regional body's report commented. Malawi's spike in food insecurity from 147,492 people in 2009 to 1.1 million in 2010 is a consequence of "the severe dry spells which affected the highly populated Southern Region of the country," SADC said. Malawi's annual maize consumption is about 2.2 million tons by a population of roughly 15 million. An aid worker who declined to be named told IRIN this was the second successive year that adverse weather conditions had caused a production deficit in the south, increasing the vulnerability of the region's inhabitants. "Most households in Malawi are net buyers of food. Once food stocks run out, people rely on the market. The major issue [in the south] is a combination of factors: there is a production deficit [of maize], complicated by the failure of cash crops," the aid worker said. "Despite large government food stocks, response plans remain unclear and the government reports that they lack funds to transport grain to the south," FEWSNET said. "If assistance is provided before October, southern areas currently classified as highly food insecure would likely shift to moderate food insecurity for the October-to-December period ... [Assistance] will most likely take the form of either direct food distribution or cash transfers to facilitate purchasing from markets."
*This story, titled 'Malawi: Food surplus creates political storm' and released on 1 September has been amended. The original contained unsubstantiated allegations against President Bingu wa Mutharika. IRIN apologizes for the error.

MALNUTRITION: SOMALIA: Good rains hardly make a dent in numbers needing help

24 August 2010 (IRIN) - Two million Somalis, an estimated 27 percent of the total population, still need emergency and livelihood assistance, despite above-average seasonal rains boosting livestock farming and creating a bumper harvest of maize and sorghum, says a study by the Nairobi-based Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Union (FSNAU) of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). "Despite improvements in food production generating a drop of 25 percent [in the numbers needing assistance] compared to six months ago, if the next rainy season is poor, the numbers are likely to rise again," said Graine Moloney, FSNAU's chief technical adviser. "We need to increase the resilience of the local population through projects aimed at boosting small farmers' output, improving their market access and incomes, as well as rebuilding essential irrigation infrastructure and improving integrated pest management and storage techniques." A prolonged drought in 2009 damaged crops and killed livestock, leaving 7.5 million people in Somalia needing aid. This year, the first, or "gu" rainy season started in February, two months earlier than usual, and reduced the need for relief efforts in the agriculture and livestock sectors. Since the beginning of the year, rainfall estimate data indicates exceptional rainfall compared with the average in Southern regions and in the Northwest. The FSNAU study reports good production in most cereal-producing districts of Shabelle and Bay regions, both in Southern Somalia, with improved output of sorghum in the northwestern areas of Hargeisa and Borama, and of maize in the southern districts of Jamaame and Afmadow. "Pasture conditions have generally improved throughout Somalia, particularly in the north, but it will take many years of good rains for pastoralists to recover from droughts of previous years," Moloney told IRIN. FSNAU data indicates that general local cereal prices are likely to come down by September while access to milk has increased in the past six months, particularly in the south, where prices fell. "The situation is still worrisome in the south-central Hiran region, one of the most insecure areas in the country," Moloney noted. The Hiran region has an estimated 51,150 displaced people, according to the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR, and is inaccessible to humanitarian agencies. FSNAU reports that 205,000 people - about 62 percent - of the total population need assistance. This represents a decline in the overall number of people in crisis in the region, with FSNAU reporting an estimated 80 percent of the population needing food aid six months ago. According to the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), although Somalia's nutrition situation has improved in the north, 90 percent - an estimated 35,000 - of Somalia's severely malnourished children are concentrated in the insecure south-central region. With one in six children acutely malnourished and one in 22 severely malnourished in the area, the situation still remains one of the worst in the world, said Luca Alinovi, FAO Somalia's newly appointed officer in charge.

MALNUTRITION: A long history but slow uptake of drought-tolerant crops

5 August 2010
In his opinion article, Drought-tolerance: a learning challenge for poor farmers, Travis Lybbert points to a growing interest in drought-tolerant (DT) crops in recent years, largely motivated by impending climate change.
In fact, research and development of DT crop varieties have a much longer history. For decades DT crops have provided the basis for viable dryland agriculture in semi-arid regions such as Australia, the Canadian Prairie, parts of Latin America, the Mediterranean and the Midwestern United States.
As early as 1932, the US maize breeder, M.T. Jenkins, described his selection of DT maize hybrids in Agronomy Journal. And the Rockefeller Foundation has been very active in supporting the development of DT rice in South East Asia since the 1990s — before the issue of climate change became such a dominant topic of concern.
Progress in DT breeding has been slow because selection criteria have focused merely on yield, and in most cases high drought tolerance is negatively associated with high yield potential. When developing a DT variety, breeders have difficulties accepting that its yield under normal conditions might be mediocre.
I have met breeders in developing countries who avoid showing the results of their field DT trials to their superiors, because the results look terrible. But if you question a poor drought-prone farmer he will indicate that he prefers a DT variety with a low but stable yield over a variety that yields extremely well in a good year but fails completely in a dry one.
Lybbert's misconceptions about breeding DT varieties and their adoption may stem from questionable assumptions he makes in his model of farmers' decisions to adopt DT crops. [1] These include the assumption that at extreme drought pressure DT varieties are virtually indistinguishable from non-DT varieties.
It is true that both DT and non-DT crop varieties reduce yield as drought stress increases, but the rate at which DT yields reduce is comparatively smaller. The yields of DT crops are often lower under favourable conditions but they are almost always better as conditions become very dry, and are certainly distinguishably higher than non-DT crop yields.
http://www.scidev.net/en/editor-letters/a-long-history-but-slow-uptake-of-drought-tolerant-crops.html