South Africa Says Monsant's 'Drought Tolerant' GM Maize Seed No Better Than Conventional Seed

South Africa's Agriculture Minister, Thoko Didiza, has upheld a decision to reject agriculture chemical company Monsanto's application for the commercial cultivation of its triple stacked ‘drought-tolerant’ maize seed.

The maize is genetically modified (GM) to be tolerant to drought as well as resistant to certain insects.

Didiza made a final decision on an appeal lodged by Monsanto SA against the decision taken by the executive council regarding the general release application of a GM maize event, MON87460 x MON89034 x NK603.

Its refusal was based on the fact "that kernel count per row and kernel count per ear showed that there were no statistically significant differences between the MON87460 x MON89034 x NK603 maize event and conventional maize in water limited conditions.

"The yield benefits associated with the MON87460 x MON89034 x NK603 maize event were inconsistent and in some trials the MON87460 x MON89034 x NK603 maize event had lower yields than the conventional maize.

"The insect resistance data presented was insufficient since it was only collected from one trial site for two planting seasons," her department said in a statement issued October 04 m2019 .

Monsanto lodged an appeal in November against the refusal of its general release application by the executive council.

The appeal board upheld the decision to refuse the application and recommended more sites and seasons were needed to demonstrate efficacy of the drought tolerance gene.

On August 28, Didiza made the final decision, upholding the appeal board's decision "and as such the refusal of a general release application for the MON87460 x MON89034 x NK603 maize event is sustained".

The African Centre for Biodiversity (ACB) welcomed the "landmark decision", after more than a decade of "battling Monsanto’s bogus drought tolerant maize project".

The decision, it said, was a "triumphant win" for the ACB and other civil society organisations on the continent that had "tirelessly resisted the introduction of these GM varieties in SA, Mozambique, Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania.

"The Minister's decision was made following the abject failure of the GM varieties to increase yield under drought conditions during repeated field trials in SA.

Full article...

Kenyan Farmers Abandon Food Crops to Grow Herbal Stimulant

At this time of year, Albert Njeru's farm would usually be blanketed with shoulder-high rows of maize.

But not anymore. Now the fields of grain are gone, replaced by 2 acres (0.80 hectares) of bushy green muguka leaves, a potent legal stimulant that relieves fatigue.

"Muguka gives me a lot of money. Farming maize or beans used to give me losses," said the 45-year-old farmer at his home in Kanyuambora, a village in central Kenya.

As drought and erratic weather wreak havoc across rural Kenya, a growing number of farmers are abandoning traditional crops like maize and rice for the more lucrative muguka.

Njeru can make 30,000 Kenyan shillings ($290) in just one week selling muguka - five times more than he used to make selling maize or beans.

"It is green gold," he said.

A variety of khat, which produces a mild high when chewed, muguka is fast-growing, making it less vulnerable to large swings in weather conditions, and uses about half as much water as maize, Njeru explained.

The strain grown in Embu County, home to Njeru's farm, is strong and so consumers can buy less than with the other popular variety, miraa, which is grown further north in Meru. That is good news for muguka producers like Njeru, who said he was struggling to cultivate enough to keep up with demand.

But it is bad news for food supplies, said agriculture experts and local politicians, who warned of a potential food crop shortage as farmers clear their fields of staples to make way for muguka.

"Farmers are not interested in growing maize anymore. They want money in their pockets. Muguka is giving them that and a lot more, since they can use the profits to buy more nutritious food," said Martin Mwangi, a member of Embu County's assembly.

"But the long-term consequences could lead to food insecurity due to reduced production."

He pointed to neighbouring Kirinyaga County, where farmers are known for growing Kenya's highest-quality rice.

"Water used for irrigating rice is now being diverted into muguka fields," he cautioned.

DRUGS OR FOOD?

There is no official record of how many farmers have switched from growing food crops to muguka, said Mwangi. Nor is there data on how much land is being used for muguka, according to Kenya's Agriculture and Food Authority (AFA).

But Francis Kimori, chairman of the Mbeere Muguka Farmers Sacco, a savings and credit cooperative, estimated four out of every five households around the Mount Kenya region, including in Embu County, are farming the stimulant in some quantity.


Many have upgraded from mud huts to modern stone houses, he said. "It is changing livelihoods," he added.

Factors like failing rains and new pests, linked to climate change, have likely played a role in muguka's popularity at the expense of time-honoured crops such as maize, said Dickson Kibata, a technical officer at the AFA. Yet despite the extra income muguka brings, Kibata warned against relying solely on the narcotic plant.

"Cash-crop farming cannot be the silver bullet that will pull farmers out of poverty, because consumption patterns keep changing," he said by phone. "My advice to muguka farmers is to mix it with food crop farming to ensure the family food basket is secure, even as they look for money."

FOREST WARNING

Environmentalists and lawmakers have also voiced concerns over the impact of the stimulant cultivation boom on forests.

Every few months, the Atiriri Bururi ma Chuka community conservation group in Tharaka Nithi County reports several locals illegally growing an edible form of cannabis known as bhang in local forests, said its chairman Ngai M'Uboro. He expects it is only a matter of time before he and his colleagues start uncovering muguka farming in the area.

"If the forest is already suffering because of grazing and bhang, it will not be long before we see muguka growing in the forest," he said.

Muguka's potency is also making the authorities uncomfortable. In 2018, legislators in Mombasa and Kwale counties lobbied unsuccessfully for a sales and consumption ban on muguka over fears of addiction among young people.

The National Authority for the Campaign Against Alcohol and Drug Abuse supported the move, citing social and health worries.

"Muguka is worse than hard drugs because of its highly addictive nature. It is ruining homes, the country's youth and should be banned," said Victor Okioma, its chief executive.

SUPERMARKET SHELVES?

Yet, even with all the risks attached to muguka, many Kenyan farmers are hoping it will save their livelihoods.

Along a 300-km (185-mile) stretch of cropland from the edges of the capital Nairobi to the lowlands opening into northern Kenya, maize farmers have been struggling with drought.

Purity Muthoni, 32, a farmer from Kiriani village in central Kenya, said she would not hesitate to switch to muguka if she could. But the weather and soils where she lives, some 150 km from Njeru, are not suitable for growing the plant, she said.

Noting the risks of depending on one crop as a source of income, the Embu County government last year said it would start distributing macadamia and avocado seeds to farmers to help them diversify their cash crops.

But Njeru is not convinced any other crop can earn him the same returns he gets from muguka. If local leaders really wanted to help farmers, he said, they should find ways to add value to the plant by enhancing their access to industrial processing and retail opportunities.

"I will be very happy the day I see packaged muguka being sold in supermarkets as a quality-assured product," he said.

($1 = 102.9000 Kenyan shillings)

Original article...

Rain Failure Worsens Armyworm Attack On Kenyan Maize Farms

This is the third year in a row that the pest is attacking maize in the east African nation, with agriculture experts noting that the vagaries of climate change are getting worse.
The armyworm attack is expected to be worse this season due to insufficient rainfall, according to agricultural experts. This is because the current dry weather following failed rains offers perfect conditions for the fall armyworms to reproduce and spread faster to other areas.

Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization, a government agency, has warned that this year’s armyworm invasion would be worsened by the erratic rainfall.

Besides pesticides, the ministry of agriculture is advising farmers through an SMS service to use ash and even soapy water to eliminate the pests.

Full article...

Zambia: Drought in 2018/19 Crop Season Causes Mixed Fortunes For Yields

by Jeff Kapembwa

 Zambia has recorded a mixed production of various crops following prolonged droughts that hit most parts of the country in the 2018/19 farming season with maize dropping by over 400,000 tonnes, a report by the Ministry of Agriculture has revealed.

Production of potatoes is forecast to increase to 38,786 tonnes from 13,546 tonnes recorded a season earlier, mixed beans set to rise in output to 58,705 tonnes from 52,451 tonnes, representing 12 percent increase.

Burley tobacco output is set to rise up to 8,417 tonnes from 5,102 tonnes, virgin tobacco production is set to slow down by four percent to 12,839 tonnes from 13,382 tonnes. but other crops were affected by army worms and over four months of dry spells.

Groundnuts production is set to decrease by 28 percent to 130,825 tonnes from the previous 181,772 tonnes with rice output forecast to decrease by 31.3 percent to 29,584 tonnes from an earlier 43,063 harvested in 2017/18 season.

National cassava flour production for 2018/19 season is poised to decrease by two percent to 1,009,146 tonnes from 1,025,575 tonnes of cassava flour, equivalent produced during the last season. Sorghum is seen declining by 49 percent to 6,684 tonnes from 13,130 tonnes yielded last season.

Millet is seen slowing down by 23 percent to 24,845 tonnes from an earlier 32,278 tonnes harvested last season. Soya beans is likely to decrease by seven percent to 281,389 tonnes from 302,720 tonnes. This is on account of 19.6 percent reduction in the national yield from 1.46 tonnes per hectare last season to 1.18 tonnes per hectare this season and reduced rainfall in some parts of the country.

Seed cotton production is forecast to reduce by 17.8 percent to 72,508 tonnes from 88,219 tonnes last season, Sweet potato production output is likely to slow down to 109,336 tonnes from 183,280 tonnes produced in the last season, representing a fall of 40 percent in output.

Cowpeas is likely to decline in production by 47.8 percent to 3,566 tonnes from 6,824 tonnes last season, sunflower is also expected to decline in output to 34,208 tonnes from, representing 28 percent.

Minister of Agriculture, Michael Kalombe, announced in a crop forecast report that maize output declined to 2,004,389 tonnes from last season’s 2,4 tonness, representing a decline of 16 percent.

Small and medium scale farmers are expected to contribute up to 94.5 percent or 1,893,845 tonnes to the total maize production, while the large scale farmers are expected to produce 110,544 tonnes.

National average yield rate for maize declined to 1.29 tonnes per hectare from 1.72 tonnes per hectare last season. Small and medium scale farmers recorded an average maize yield rate of 1.24 tonnes per hectare, representing a reduction from 1.68 tonnes per hectare. Large scale farmers recorded an average maize yield rate of 3.74 tonnes per hectare on account of reduced rains in the growing season.

Katambo noted that although there is a significant reduction in maize outturn, Zambia will carry over a total 474,515 tonnes of maize, it had as at 1 May this year. The Food Reserve Agency is holding 303,475 tonnes, and the Grain Traders Association has 51,474 tonnes.

The Millers Association of Zambia is bringing 21,204 tonnes while large scale farmers are holding 36,362 tonnes and small and medium scale farmers have 62,000 tonnes.

Total supply of maize available for the 2019/2020 marketing season is 2,478,389 tonnes. Of the 17 million maize consuming population in Zambia, the country requires 1,9 million tonnes, with 1,6 million tonnes reserved for human consumption and 409,018 tonnes for industrial consumption.

To ensure food security in Zambia, the country banned all export of maize and maize meal.

“All maize and mealie meal exports remain suspended,” added Katambo.

Recently, some stakeholders expressed reservations at government’s export policy inconsistencies, which have cost the country a staggering US$1.4 billion in earnings from foreign markets, where the crop is fetching an average US$290 a tonne, which if allowed to trade, would have helped ease foreign currency pressures.

Zambia’s foreign reserves fell to a low of US$1.2 billion in February, representing two months of import cover, according to central bank data.


Southern Times

Namibia's 2019 Maize Harvest A 'Catastrophe'

In the absence of the much needed late rains in March, maize producers in Namibia will only be able to supply less than 30 percent (some 30 000 tonnes) of local demand. This will be some 25 000 tonnes less than last year when the country harvested 57 000 tonnes and supplied 47 percent of domestic demand.
The CEO of Namib Mills and Namib Poultry, Ian Collard, says Namibia requires roughly 120 000 tonnes of white maze for human consumption and some 50 000 tonnes of yellow maize for animal fodder.

... Namibia will have to import some 180 000 tonnes of maize this season. The most lucrative of these products is white maize, and the local marketing scheme ensures local millers must first use all local white maize before the deficit can be imported.
Due to the government’s agreement with producers and manufacturers the harvest increased from some 5 000 tonnes in the 1990s to more than 10 times that in 2018, but this season everything has been undone.

Collard says yields are lower in Namibia due to rainfall, soil quality, farm practices as well as the fact that only non-genetically modified organism (GMO) seed is allowed to be planted in the country.

Full article...

Drought Leaves Up To 85% Of Somalia's Cropland Unproductive

The drought is largely due to the persistent lack of rainfall since last October that has left nearly 18 percent of the population in urgent need of food.

“A significant lack of rains in April and early May has rendered dry and barren up to 85 percent of the croplands in the country’s breadbaskets, and according to the latest projections, food grown during the “Gu” season is likely to be 50 percent below average,” Senior Economist at the FAO and lead of the Global Information and Early Warning System (GIEWS), Mario Zappacosta said.
Although some rains are still expected this month June 2019), they will be insufficient and arrive too late for crop and pasture recovery before the onset of the dry season.

Full article...

Southern Africa 2018/19 Rainfall Amount Lowest In 38 Years

The Southern African Development Community (SADC) region recorded the lowest rainfall in nearly four decades in the 2018-2019 cropping season, sparking fears of increased food insecurity and water shortages. A SADC Food Security Early Warning System Agromet update for the 2018-2019 cropping season indicates that a strong drought affected central and western parts of the region during the just-ended rainfall season.

Only a few areas in the SADC region received good rainfall for much of the season.These include northern Malawi, northern Mozambique, parts of Tanzania, and north-eastern Zambia. Three SADC countries had to declare a state of drought disaster due to the low rainfall. Namibia, which has been hit by successive droughts since 2013, has declared a state of emergency over the situation which has left more than 500 000 people without access to enough food and water. The country has lost more than 60 000 domestic animals over the past six months.

South Africa too has declared the current drought affecting some parts of its provinces a disaster. Tropical Cyclone Idai brought heavy rainfall and strong winds to Malawi, Mozambique and Zimbabwe between March 5 and 19, 2019, causing severe flooding which led to loss of lives, destruction of infrastructure, disruption of livelihoods and destruction of crops.

Full article...

Namibia: Hydroponic Grain Sprouts To Counter Drought-Caused Forage Shortage

As farmers clutch at straws to save their livestock in the face of a crippling drought gripping the country, a Namibian company has thrown them a lifeline.

Agritech Namibia is training farmers in hydroponics to produce fodder to be harvested in eight days. This is growing plants in water without any soil.

“We have been training farmers in hydroponics fodder production and we believe this can help them save their livestock at a fraction of the costs of conventional feeds,” said one of the instructors, Lawson Manyika.

So severe is the drought that president Hage Geingob declared it a state of emergency and the government set aside N$570 million (1 US$ = 14.86N$: June 2019 for mitigation programmes.

Manyika said in the face of the drought and high costs of feed, hydroponics fodder gives farmers an affordable and sustainable source of fresh fodder to see the livestock through their drought.

“With hydroponics we grow fodder from maize or barley and harvest in eight days.In fact, from day four it can be fed to poultry, from day six to rabbits and on day seven or eight to cattle, goats and sheep,” he said and advised farmers they can use untreated maize from granaries, as long as it can germinate. He said 40 kilogrammes of seed can give a farmer 400-500 kilos of fodder in seven to eight days.

Explaining the process, Manyika said seed is soaked in water for four hours to absorb enough moisture for germination. It is then put in a germination chamber for 24 hours until sprouts appear, then it is moved to growing trays.

“The seed has enough nutrients and energy for germination and when shoots appear it is able to survive to a certain stage.

“By the third day the plants will be five to 10 centimetres and from day four to six they will reach 20-25 cm. At this stage the seed will still have some nutrients stored so the fodder can be fed to poultry, rabbits and pigs.

“By day seven and eight the plants will be 25 to 30 cm and the seed will be depleted of nutrients. This is the time to harvest for cattle before the farmer incurs extra costs on fertiliser,” Manyika said.

Full arrticle...

Botswana's Cattle-Rearing Culture Threatened By Drought

Longer and harsher droughts are driving a growing share of Botswana's traditional cattlemen to give up their animals.

According to an agricultural census released by Statistics Botswana last year, the country's estimated cattle population has fallen from 2.5 million in 2011 to 1.7 million in 2015. The number of households raising cattle also has plunged, from about 75,500 in 2004 to 39,000 in 2015, a more than 45 percent decline, it noted.

In a country where cattle have long been a rural stash of savings, smaller herds affect how families... feed their children, buy school uniforms, and pay for everything from weddings and to burying the dead.

The loss of cattle also threatens the country's traditions and culture. Cattle skins have long been used to produce traditional dance attire for men, women and children, as well as clothing for traditional chiefs. But more recently cotton cloth and blankets, worn as shawls, have begun to replace hide clothing.

Botswana these days earns 70 percent of its earnings from diamond exports, not agriculture, which today produces less than 3 percent of GDP. But livestock still accounts for 80 percent of the southern African country's agricultural earnings.

Boikhutso Rabasha, a spokeswoman for the Ministry of Agriculture, said she worries about the country's continuing ability to produce enough beef. Beef exports from Botswana have been declining for the past 35 years, she said.

Full article...

South Africa: Difficulties Of Financing Farmers During Drought

Commercial banks in South Africa face enormous credit risks due to agricultural producers defaulting on loans and being increasingly unable to provide security for loans.

... 61% of the approximately R160 billion (1US$=14.8ZAR; June 2019) in farming debt in South Africa was owed to commercial banks...many farmers were unable to repay their loans due to failed harvests, ever-increasing input costs, and low livestock prices.
“Agricultural land is typically offered as security by a farmer when applying for credit and a mortgage bond is [then] registered on the property. Decreasing value of agricultural land and the uncertainty about loss of ownership [due to land expropriation without compensation], negatively impacts the value of the collateral held by banks.”


Besides having outstanding debt, defaulting farmers would no longer have access to loan facilities for planting or rebuilding livestock herds.

Many emerging farmers did not own land to use as security for funding, and the limited capital they have would, in all probability, be “swallowed up” during a drought.

Many farmers had left and would continue to leave the sector in search of more lucrative and less risky business opportunities.

Full article

Drought causes massive reductions in Namibia cereal production

A large swathe of southern Africa experienced below-average rainfall in the 2014/15 summer cropping season, causing big drops in the yields of many staple and other crops.

A report released by the Namibian government indicates that communal areas of mostly small scale subsistence farming experienced maize production reductions of as much as 80% below average, and 73% below harvests for the 2013/2014 season. Even in areas of large scale commercial farming, the maize harvest showed a drop of 46% less than last season’s harvest and 12% below the average production.

The national coarse aggregate production (maize, millet, sorghum and wheat) is estimated at 67 800 tonnes, reflecting a substantial decrease in the harvest of about 46% below the average production and 49% lower than last season’s harvest. (...more)

 Even in normal times a large coastal desert and a generally hot, dry climate contribute to Namibia having among the world's lowest maize yields of less than half a tonne a hectare.

African Agriculture

The un-asked background questions as Tanzanian farmers give drought-tolerant maize a try

Maize varieties being developed by the Water Efficient Maize for Africa (WEMA) are being tested in an arid area of Tanzania where farmers had increasingly abandoned ‘ordinary’ maize because of the low rain and low yields.

A May 14 Reuters AlertNet report says the results have been very encouraging, with initially skeptical farmers now enthusiastically talking about their greatly improved maize yields.

“I was not sure these seeds would be any good, but it’s amazing - they require little water and they grow fast,” said farmer Balisidya Jacob.

Marijani Mrisho said “It was very dry but the researchers told us to sow them,” he said. “I did not have to do any irrigation yet the seedlings looked good. I have filled up 30 bags of maize this season on my small farm. If I used normal seeds I could hardly get five bags. That’s why most farmers here shunned the crop initially,” he said.

Not only are the yields said to be much better than those for conventional seed (up tp50% higher, according to a WEMA researcher quoted in the report), maturity is said to be achieved in an average 75 days versus the normal 90 days.

It sounds good, although it uncomfortably also reads like a WEMA-sponsored visit by the reporter, with no tough questions being asked or featuring in the report.

Interestingly, there is no mention that WEMA project is based on gene-modification. That matters not necessarily as a judgment of gene-modification, but because it is so controversial as an answer to Africa’s crop yield challenges. Not mentioning that relevant detail almost seems as if the reporter, the publication or WEMA deliberately want to hide or downplay this aspect of the project, instead of tackling it head on.

Great about the claimed high yields even in very low rainfall conditions. What about the cost of the new seed varieties versus perceived affordability by the farmers?

This is not dealt with directly, but we are told ‘The researchers say villagers will eventually pay a subsidized rate of 200 Tanzanian shillings (about $0.13) per kilo.’

That’s nice, but how long will this subsidy last? Who is doing the subdizing? The mention of a subsidy implied that the WEMA promoters think/know that farmers would not be willing/able to pay the full unsubsidized prices for their new maize varieties. If so, what are the implications of this when the subsidy funds run out?

Finally, the article mentions that poor maize yields had made many of the farmers shift from growing their preferred maize staple to less-preferred but more drought-appropriate grains like millet and sorghum. That seems like a smart move, and does not put the farmers at the risk of depending on WEMA, outside seeds and subsidies that may not always be available in the future.

Question: Are the interests of the WEMA people for there to be an outlet for their seeds going up against the locally developed, locally-relevant adaptation strategies of the farmers? Are the farmers being inappropriately enslaved to a crop that they should fundamentally be moving away from growing and relying on as their main food staple?

WEMA has no incentive to encourage the asking of these important questions, but their absence represents  gaping holes in an otherwise interesting article.

African Agriculture

Is South Africa on the brink of a 15 year cyclical drought period?

The vice president of South Africa's most prominent farmers' union says the country has traditionally had a  cycle of alternating 15 year periods of drought and abundant rain. He cautions that a dry period is about to begin, and worries that a government grappling with many other pressures is unprepared for this possibility and its consequences.

Theo de Jager is vice president of AgriSA, representing the country's dominant white farmers, who parts of the majority rule black government consider as privileged relics from the apartheid era who are always moaning and groaning about one thing or another because of the trauma of losing political control. Tensions between the black government and the white farmers rise and fall but are pretty much ever-present, particularly over the hanging sword of the inevitability of land reform to try to 'de-racialize' land holding and farming.

However, de Jager has earned himself a reputation of being of the more modern, reformist wing of what is politely called 'conservative' commercial farmers whose attitudes their critics argue are out of step with the political and demographic realities of the new, post-1994/post-apartheid South Africa.

What does bit of political history have to do with preparing for a possible long drought? Plenty, because the ruling ANC's strong, historical suspicion of/antipathy to groups like AgriSA, many of whose members were a prominent, important part of the still painfully-remembered, despised old racial order, means the warnings by de Jager even about a 'neutral' subject like preparing for drought may be ignored by those who need to make policy decisions to counter such a possibility.

de Jager says the last two decades of relative rain abundance for South Africa have also coincided with majority rule. This means a severe, prolonged dry spell would be a far-reaching crisis for which the majority rule ANC government has had no experience in handling since coming to power in 1994.

“The current government has never had to manage a drought … You think people are angry about e-Tolls, imagine how angry they will be when the costs of their food shoot up as harvests drop,” de Jager warned.

Among the coping strategies the Mail and Guardian article mentions as being required are to look at water in a regional rather than just national context. A water expert quoted says ''the value of water has to be seen
differently. Any future plans therefore have to involve a lowering of water intensity and trade-offs between the different sectors of the economy.''

Water scarcity and the need for improved management are pressing issues allover Africa and beyond, but in most places, policy makers are many steps behind farmers and others who will be most affected by the water crises that there are already many signs off allover the globe.

The Mail and Guardian article is headed 'Farming out South Africa's water worries.'

African Agriculture

Some Zimbabwean farmers find climate change coping advice differs from their own experiences

In coping with less rain, some farmers in Zimbabwe’s perennially arid southern regions are relying more on the results of traditional knowledge and their own experimentation than on the advice given to them by government extension services.

According to a Reuters Alertnet report, ‘That is producing mixed results – and considerable frustration for government agricultural experts, who believe traditional knowledge alone will not be sufficient to protect farmers against changing rainfall conditions.’

For several decades, the use of hybrid maize seed has been the norm even amongst small scale farmers in Zimbabwe, driven by well developed seed marketing and research services. In recent years farmers have been encouraged to plant more ‘short-season’ and drought-resistant maize varieties to cope with shorter, increasingly erratic rain seasons.

But one farmer interviewed said that the newer varieties have not consistently produced a good crop on her community’s land, apparently because of very poor rains. Susan Gama and other farmers do not automatically reject planting advice from government experts, but they have found it necessary to find their own locally relevant coping strategies.

As an example, “What we do is mix our planting and combine the harvested seed from the previous year and what we buy from the shops and compare outcomes," she said.

According to villagers, this mixing of seeds has helped improve the harvests. According to villagers, this mixing of seeds has helped improve the harvests.

Where Gama’s plot previously produced 50 bags of maize at 90 kg each, last season she harvested 70 bags, spurring others in this small farming community to experiment with her method.

Other farmers are resorting to more frequent crop rotation, and to greater use of mixed cropping on different parts of their land, to decrease the chances of a total failure of their crops.

more…Reuters Alertnet

Could drought threaten South Africa's rooibos tea?

by Pumza Fihlani

The world has developed a taste for South Africa's rooibos tea in recent years, mainly because of its perceived health benefits.

Annual exports have quadrupled since 1999 to 8,000 tonnes, proving a rare lifeline for residents of the harsh Suid Bokkeveld region where it grows. But the tea only grows in this small area and erratic weather patterns - blamed by some on climate change - mean the plant and the new industry are now under threat.

Small-scale farmer Jan Fryer, 53, has been growing rooibos on a communal farm for the past seven years. Despite growing tea for more than 20 years, Mr Fryer says the new climate rhythm has made him something of a novice in the field.

"The temperatures are definitely getting hotter and because of this is it more difficult for the rooibos plant to grow," he says. "The soil becomes too hot and the root of the plant burns and dies making the seedlings wilt and die before they even get a chance to become proper plants. We've had to change how we plant because of this."

The Suid Bokkeveld has always been a tough place to live – temperatures drop to 0C during winter and rise to a scorching 48C in the height of summer. But farmers say rooibos has become increasingly difficult to work with in recent years. As a result the planting season has changed from June-July to November, says Mr Fryer.

The industry is labour-intensive and provides about 4,500 jobs with a lot of work done by hand mainly by non- or semi-skilled workers.

The main foreign markets for the herbal tea are the UK, Germany, Netherlands, the US and Japan, according to the Department of Agriculture.

In 2000, about 4,500 tonnes of the leaves were sold abroad, more than twice the amount for 1999 and exports have now doubled again.

Rooibos is particularly vulnerable to changes in the weather as it only grows in about 20,000km sq of the Suid Bokkeveld due to the region's biodiversity. The herbal plant needs specific bacteria and fungi to be present in the soil as well as certain bees and wasps which are only found here.

There are two types of the plant - cultivated rooibos and wild rooibos. Wild rooibos has flourished in the region for many centuries and only recently became a commercial product. With a stronger taste, this more exotic tea fetches a higher price on the local and international markets.

But in 2003 the area was hit by a severe drought, which lasted for three years. More than half the cultivated rooibos was destroyed; it was the wild plants which helped sustain the industry.

"During the drought it became important for us to teach farmers to shift their focus from farming cultivated rooibos to wild rooibos, which proved more resilient to drought and changing conditions," says Noel Oettle of Environmental Monitoring Group (EMG).

Farmers have also moved from planting rooibos seedlings to planting seeds directly into the soil. While they take longer to germinate, seeds are more resilient and stand a better chance of yielding any kind of harvest, experts have told farmers here.

Today environmentalists warn that a similar drought is on the cards in the next few years. They say the future of this herbal brew is squarely in the hands of the farmers.


BBC

Bad rains in 2012 further expose the dangerous unsuitability of maize as the basis of African food security

by Chido Makunike

Across southern Africa, February is normally about halfway into the rain season. But in many countries, rains that were expected in October only significantly began in  December. There have been reports of long in-season dry spells in addition to the late rains.

Even if those rains are now heavy from now on until the end of the season in April/May, these conditions represent a potential food security disaster for the entire region. All of central/southern Africa defines ‘food security’ mainly by how much maize is harvested every year.

Optimum maize yields depend on quite precise cultivation requirements, including most favorable planting dates, nutrient amounts and water distribution. The current season’s weather conditions mean that none of these optimal conditions exist.

Unusually but necessarily early, there is alarm being raised about the huge implications of this. Malawi, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe are just some of the countries that have already begun to significantly revise downwards their maize yield forecasts. In recent years the good maize performance of Malawi and Zambia has helped plug the gap in neighboring countries, but this year the whole region will likely be suffering a maize deficit.

Good rains between now and May could salvage the situation somewhat, but the reality is that the likelihood of the maize harvest forecast becoming worse seems stronger than the chances of conditions getting better, for several reasons.

Malawi has been lauded for its inputs subsidy programme, which has helped it achieve maize self-sufficiency and surplus in recent years. Several other countries in the region have less well-known and perhaps less extensive than Malawi’s subsidy programmes of their own. All of them are based on supplying farmers seed and fertilizer for an October/early November planting. Farmers proceed to plant on the basis of a mixture of watching the weather, meteorological and historical data; with the first signs of the soil-soaking rain from mid-October being sign as the go-ahead to plant. In previous decades of much greater climate predictability than now, some farmers would even plant by date rather than by watching the skies; so taken for granted could be the first rains.

In 2011, the subsequent long dry spells that followed these early rains have led to many farmers having to dig up their wilting or wilted maize plans in December. Many replanted when the rains eventually ‘properly’ came, but under obviously very different conditions from those of October. The farmer who planted with subsidized fertilizer and hybrid seed in October will not again have access to them in December/January. That means much of the replanting will be without fertilizer, and with previously saved seed, rather than with fresh hybrid seed. Particularly where soils are poor and hoped-for subsidy fertilizer access has been the exclusive soil fertility ‘strategy,’ these factors alone mean a vastly reduced yield is almost certain.

Add to this the fact that there is no guarantee that the rest of the rain season is going to be ‘normal.’ It could continue to be characterized by low rainfall and long dry spells, depressing expected yields even further.   

It remains to be seen whether the rest of the season will be such as to ‘merely’ mean greatly lowered maize yields (Zimbabwe has already forecast a stunning 35% reduction in the expected harvest) or a disastrous regional famine.

Reliance on rain fed maize for food security means that if next season’s climate conditions are similar to this season’s, a food calamity similar to that in parts of East Africa is not alarmist to contemplate. Even in what can be considered ‘normal’ rain seasons, there are perennially dry parts of many of the countries of southern Africa that are almost always quietly in maize famine anyway.

None of the climate change mitigation strategies that are talked about (or perhaps more cynically but accurately, ‘talked at’) envision a changed farming scenario so immediate and so drastic. What has been talked about/at as something needing solutions at some time in the future is here right now.  

The coping strategies being half-heartedly discussed are totally inadequate to the scale and immediacy of the problem. In fairness, there are simply no easy answers. However, the potential African maize famine of 2012 is another pointer at what many refuse to wrap their minds around accepting: the increasing unsuitability of maize as the basis of African food security.

A fertilizer subsidy is of little help when there is no rainfall. It would be interesting to know to what extent applied fertilizer that was not then followed by sufficient rain actually scorched developing maize plants. The much hyped Water Efficient Maize for Africa (WEMA) project will no doubt get more publicity in the coming weeks and months. Perhaps it will play some role in extending maize cultivation in areas whose ability to support this crop is clearly falling. However, strategies like WEMA only address the symptoms of Africa’s now unsustainable maize dependence, not the basic problem itself.

But there seems no escaping the fact that there are many and increasing signs that the fundamental problem is no longer how to grow maize in Africa’s increasingly maize-unsuitable conditions. Instead, the fundamental problem is one of mind set: refusing to accept that this iconic food crop should simply no longer be the basis on which hundreds of millions of African define their food security. It has long been obvious that it is time to concentrate minds, resources and efforts on alternatives, new or old, to maize.

Apart from the huge difficulty of such a mindset change, there is a humongous local and international multi-sector, multi-linked ‘maize cartel’ whose interests would obviously suffer from any decrease in the importance of maize in Africa: researchers, traders, governments, politicians, the aid ‘industry,’ farmers, and countless others. Yet their combined power and interests are simply not going to enough to change the fact that maize dependence is one of the greatest threats to Africa’s security. If anything good is to come out of the great African maize potential famine of 2012, it is to make it clearer than ever before how Africa’s ‘love’ for carbohydrate/starch that comes from maize is a form of tyranny even worse than the most autocratic government.

All the issues that will be discussed are now pretty standard and well known. However, as long as the next low-rainfall famine does not spur more discussion about why there continues to be so much focus on maize, a crop there is now clearly much evidence of no longer being suitable for cultivation in large parts of Africa, much of the weeping and wailing will merely be hypocritical crocodile tears.

It’s time to topple the tyranny of Africa’s dependence on maize for food security with a fundamental mindset change. The answers may still not be easy, but they are likely to not be forthcoming at all as long as so many remain stuck in the un-necessary linkage of food security in Africa to maize. There is nothing particularly special about maize as a source of starch, while much of Africa’s climate and soils are screaming out the message that maize is an increasingly inappropriate crop. At least part of the reason for famine is that no one is listening to this very clear message. The impending maize harvest disaster that the current farming season’s rainfall pattern suggests will hopefully make that message clearer.

 

African Agriculture

Political unrest and drought endanger Ivory Coast cocoa output

Political unrest in the Ivory Coast, where 40 per cent of the world’s cocoa beans are grown, has ‘significantly’ depleted the number of certified fair trade cocoa farmers. Many have fled the West ­African country, while fair trade training programmes have also come to a halt because of the danger farmers face in rural areas.

The situation is already affecting chocolate manufacturers, who are facing the highest cocoa prices for over 30 years. Prices jumped by 10 per cent this month alone. Analysts are predicting they could soon hit $3,720 per metric tonne - a level last seen in January 1979.

more...Daily Mail

Meanwhile, Reuters reports that lower than normal rain and hot weather in late January may also cocoa Ivorian reduce yields

Farmers, who need abundant rainfall and spells of sunny weather to grow cocoa, the main ingredient for making chocolate, said the long dry spell had killed many young trees.
African Agriculture

Tea research key to a growing industry

by Julie Frederikse

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

allafrica.com

Erratic rain threatens Zambia's food security

by Shamaoma Musonda

The government of Zambia has said the erratic rainfall being experienced in the country could affect the 2011-2012 maize harvest and threaten the national food security.

Agriculture Minister Emmanuel Chenda said in the government was "very concerned" about the rainfall pattern, saying he had also seen farmers plant the seed late and wondered whether the rains would be able to sustain late planting. He said a poor harvest, which could come off the back of a back-to-back bumper harvest including last season’s record 3.1 million tonnes of maize, could affect planning in the next farming season.

"We are obviously very, very concerned at the erratic rainfall in the country, some other places have been totally dry while others saw farmers plant as late as January 1. We have sent officers in the field to make an assessment and we shall do another assessment in February," he said.

He said government now wanted to know what levels of damage the drought could have on Zambia’s staple food and hoped that the farmers who were planting late were using the right maize variety, one which could mature early. Chenda admitted that rainfall in the beginning had not been good enough with the pattern being patchy but was hopeful that the situation would change for the better. He hoped there would be enough rain to at least meet the almost two million tonnes national consumption.

Zambia's planting season normally starts with the onset of the rains in October.

Previously, Chenda announced that the Food Reserve Agency (FRA) had increased the national strategic reserve of the staple crops in view of patchy rains bordering on the drought.

This is coming after Zambia exported more than 496,000 tonnes of maize valued at K427 billion to its neighbours from September last year to October this year. This is after a bumper harvest left a surplus of 1.6 million tonnes.

The maize was exported to Zimbabwe, Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Mozambique, South Africa, Botswana, Burundi and Namibia. About 300,000 tonnes valued at K250 billion kwacha was sold on the local market.

The total maize stocks held by FRA by October 2011 amounted to more than 1.9 million tonnes, including about 300,000 tonnes in carryover stock from the 2009/2010 season.

The FRA planned to sell slightly more than one million tonnes of maize soon and use the proceeds to pay back loans the agency obtained from commercial banks.

Times of Zambia

Drought-tolerant maize faces rain aplenty in Zimbabwe

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CIMMYT