New improved cassava varieties to boost production in Nigeria released

By Ochieng’ Ogodo

Journalist-Kenya

[NAIROBI] Nigeria has released improved cassava varieties that is hoped will to boost productivity and secured farmers livelihoods.

The country released two improved cassava varieties on 3 January in an effort to maintain its lead as the world’s largest producer of the root crop, improve incomes of farmers and make them smile according to the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA).

The two verities known as UMUCASS 42 and UMUCASS 43 respectively were developed through a collaborative effort between IITA and the Nigerian Root Crops Research Institute (NRCRI), Umudike.

“Both varieties performed well in different cassava production regions of Nigeria with high yield, high dry matter and good disease resistance.  The roots of these varieties are yellow and contain moderate levels of pro-Vitamin A,” says Dr Peter Kulakow, IITA Cassava Breeder in a press release.

They are capable of giving farmers between 49 and 53 tons per hectare, according to pre-varietal release trials that conducted between 2008 and 2010 while local varieties produce less than 10 tons per hectare.

Another advantage is that they are also resistant to major pests and diseases that affect cassava in the country including cassava mosaic disease, cassava bacterial blight, cassava anthracnose, cassava mealybug and cassava green mite.

Chiedozie Egesi, NRCRI Cassava Breeder, who presented the varieties before the Nigeria Varietal Release committee—the body in charge of officially releasing varieties—said the varieties have several distinctive features.

They are good for high quality cassava flour—a sought after trait by researchers for the cassava transformation agenda in Nigeria. They also have dry matter which is positively related to starch and crucial for cassava value chain development

Another outstanding feature is high leaf retention which is positively related to drought tolerance and is crucial for cassava production in the drier regions and in mitigating the impact of climate change, and they also have moderate levels of betacarotene for enhancing nutrition.

Cassava has over the years been transformed from being a “poor man’s” crop to a cash crop as well as an industrial crop as it is being processed to products such as starch, flour, glucose and ethanol. This transition has placed demand on cassava.

According to researchers, developing new improved varieties is one ways that will boost the steady supply of cassava roots to this ever increasing demand.

Egesi said that continuous breeding of such improved new varieties will help in stabilising production, processing and marketing of cassava products.

“The impact of these efforts will be felt in areas such as rural employment and a virile cassava industrial sector,” he added.

New scientific report says a 4°C world will be devastating but avoidable

By Ochieng’ Ogodo

Journalist-Kenya

 

[NAIROBI] The world could be as much as 4°C warmer by 2060 without further action to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions, according to a recent World Bank report

 If this happens then it will cause severe food shortages, extreme weather and sea-level rise, according to the report: Turn Down the Heat: Why a 4°C Warmer World Must be Avoided. 

The report released 18 November and focusing on the impacts of a world 4°C hotter by the end of the century, predicts sea-levels rise by more than a meter by 2100, flooding cities in Mozambique, Bangladesh and Venezuela and devastating small island states and river delta regions when combined with projected increased intensity of tropical storms.

Increase in droughts and extreme rainfall incidences are predicted in the report to double in magnitude in a 4°C world, and will damage ecosystems, increase species extinction, and impact on food security.

“This report should be a wakeup call to the world that we must work harder and faster to combat climate change,” said Durwood Zaelke, President of the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development.

“Rapid cuts in CO2 emissions are necessary to stabilize long-term temperatures, but in the near-term, aggressively addressing short-lived climate pollutants (SLCPs) such as black carbon, methane, tropospheric ozone, and HFCs can provide rapid climate, health, and food security benefits, particularly in the critical vulnerable regions that are already suffering some of the worst impacts of climate change,” Zaelke said.

Cutting SLCPs can reduce global warming rate in half for the next several decades, cut the rate of warming over the elevated regions of the Himalayan-Tibetan Plateau by at least half, and the rate of warming in the Arctic by two-thirds over the next 30 years, while saving millions of lives per year and preventing billions of dollars in crop losses. 

Fast-action strategies to reduce SLCPs combined with necessary reductions in carbon dioxide are essential for slowing already accelerating extreme weather events in the near-term, while maintaining global temperature at or below 2°C above preindustrial levels through the end of the century.

“Reducing emissions of these short-lived climate forcers is critical for protecting the world’s vulnerable peoples and vulnerable ecosystems,” said Zaelke.  “When we talk about sustainable development,” Zaelke added, “this is precisely what we mean. These measures reduce climate change, save lives, provide access to clean energy, and improve food security all at once.”

http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/2012/11/18/new-report-examines-risks-of-degree-hotter-world-by-end-of-century 

Gambia to receive US$20.28 million IFAD grant to boost rice and vegetable productivity

By Ochieng’ Ogodo

Journalist-Kenya

[NAIROBI] The Gambia will receive US$20.28 million grant from the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) to help improve livelihoods of smallholder farmers with a particular attention to rural women and youth.  The focus will be on increased rice and vegetable production.

IFAD announced 20 December that it will provide a US$20.28 million grant to Gambia and the financing agreement for the National Agriculture Land and Water Management Development Project was signed today by Abdou Kolley, Minister for Finance and Economic Affairs of the Republic of The Gambia, and Kanayo F. Nwanze, President of IFAD.

Agriculture is an important sector for the country’s economy, employing over 72 per cent of the population and contributes about 30 per cent to the gross domestic product.

Most people living in rural areas in Gambia are extremely poor and depend on agriculture for their livelihoods. According to IFAD women in particular, who make up a large proportion of this group, lack economic opportunities and access to productive resources like credit, land, skills and services.

The project, it is hoped, will enhance rice and vegetable production nationwide through sustainable land and water management practices to help smallholder farmers increase their incomes. It will increase the productivity of limited farm land and support improvements to infrastructure such as water and roads, and also strengthen farmers’ organizations to help commercialize their activities to boost household incomes.

According to a press release by IFAD, the project aims to transform the Gambian agricultural sector from simply subsistence farming to an increasingly efficient market system. This will help meet the objectives of both the Gambia National Agricultural Investment Plan and Programme for Accelerated Growth and Employment.

Co-financed by the government of The Gambia and the Islamic Development Bank, the project will be implemented by the Ministry of Agriculture of The Gambia. About 22,000 poor rural households, including 660 young rural women and men will directly benefit from the project.

This project brings to 10 programmes and projects financed by IFAD in The Gambia for a total investment of approximately $73.9 million benefitting 149,200 households since 1982.

Global conference on plant viral disease in 2013 coming to Africa.

By Ochieng’ Ogodo

Journalist-Kenya

The 12th International Plant Virus Epidemiology (IPVE) symposium will take place in Arusha, Tanzania, between January 28 and 1 February 2013. It will bring together scientists from across the world and will provide researchers a platform to share the latest knowledge, brainstorm and come up with a road map to contain the spread of plant virus diseases.

Themed “Evolution, Ecology and Control of Plant Viruses,” the conference will take place at a time when the battle against plant virus diseases is becoming more complex and the need for food security is demanding more global attention.

It will be the first time the meeting is taking place in Africa—a continent plagued by plant viruses of key staple crops, driven by a climate that is getting warmer.

According to Dr Nteranya Sanginga, Director General of the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) plant viruses are spreading rapidly to new places, and are frustrating efforts to boost the food security and livelihoods of millions of people. 

“These viruses include the deadly cassava brown streak, banana bunchy top disease, rice yellow mottle, and maize streak virus, among others,” he said in a press release.

“Poor small-holder farmers--who are majority of the population and of the food growers, with their limited resources are bearing the brunt of these virus diseases. They are least able to invest in inputs such as pesticides and herbicides and improved disease-resistant varieties,” he said. This, he added, calls for “Science-based solutions to these challenges.”

The meeting will enable exchange of latest knowledge and technologies to control virus diseases and pave the way for an African and global strategy to combat emerging and re-emerging plant virus diseases.

The meeting is being co-organized by IITA, CGIAR, Bioversity, Mikocheni Agricultural Research Institute (MARI) in Tanzania, the National Agricultural Research Organization (NARO) of Uganda, AVRDC—The World Vegetable Center, and West and Central African Council for Agriculture Research and Development (WECARD/CORAF) under the auspices of the International Committee on Plant Virus Epidemiology (ICPVE).

Past hosts include the United Kingdom, Australia, United States, France, Italy, Israel, Spain, Peru, Germany, and India played host to IPVE meetings.

The IPVE is a specialist committee on plant virus epidemiology of the International Society of Plant Pathology (ISPP). The Committee has previously conducted 11 international symposia in different parts of the world. Distinguished virologists from over 40 countries are expected to attend this symposium. 

Ochieng’ Ogodo is a Nairobi based journalist whose works have been published in various parts of the world including Africa, the US and Europe. He is the English-speaking Africa and Middle East region winner for the 2008 Reuters-IUCN Media Awards for Excellence in Environmental Reporting. He is the chairman of the Kenya Environment and Science Journalists Association. He can be reached at ochiengogodo@yahoo.com or ochiengogodo@gmail.com

'Concrete proposals' for Africa to benefit from the Green Climate Fund

By  Ochieng’ Ogodo

Journalist-Kenya

The African Development Bank (AfDB), in collaboration with Vivid Economics, has come up with a report making concrete proposals to help facilitate access by African countries to the Green Climate Fund.

Launched on the sidelines of the UN climate change conference (COP18) in Doha 26 November to 7 December, the “Getting Africa Ready for the Green Climate Fund” report strongly put forward a series of recommendations for the Green Climate Fund board and African nations that will increase the possibility of African countries accessing increased flows of climate finance from this source, with the support of the AfDB.

“African countries are not fully prepared to effectively benefit from all the possibilities the Green Climate Fund might allow”, said Anthony Nyong, AfDB’s manager in charge of Safeguards and Compliance in a press release.

“This report, he said, highlights actions that will help African countries overcome those challenges, with adequate assistance from the African Development Bank.”

The report, drawing from experiences of existing funds, has identified a number of key steps for African countries to maximise the possibilities that comes by the GCF.

“While the GCF might provide domestic institutions greater responsibility and accountability for flows of public climate finance raised from international sources, the existing experience of direct access demonstrates that many countries, including some in Africa, have had challenges in realising the opportunities provided by direct access,” said John Ward, from Vivid Economics.

The report has listed ten actions on the board that should be triggered to better meet African countries’ needs. These include capacity building resources being fast-tracked while more difficult design aspects of the GCF are reviewed.

The report also makes a very strong case for direct access and project applications to be processed and evaluated in many languages, including French as opposed to the current situation in which applications for the Adaptation Fund, another global climate finance mechanism of the UNFCCC, can only be done only in English.

Where English is not the first language,” the report says, it puts off some countries from even applying.  About Some 200 million people who are most vulnerable to climate change on the continent do not have English as a main language. The GCF can learn from this.

The report also strongly encourages African countries to prepare credible, robust pipeline of funding opportunities derived from national or regional green growth or climate change action plan.

Another key recommendation is that African countries take early steps to prepare the infrastructure needed to access the GCF, and each country will have to establish a Designated Authority as the focal point for interaction with the GCF.

The report also invites African countries to build a cross-departmental dialogue, on the opportunities provided by direct access, but also engaging with civil society and the private sector and, as appropriate, link this to broader fiscal reform processes.

The report has identified six areas of action for the AfDB as a way of helping African countries overcome all those challenges. “The African Development Bank can play an important role in enhancing direct access to the GCF by African countries”, says the report.

It recommends that the AfDB puts a strong emphasis on supporting the capacity of the national bodies, before and after accreditation. “An often missed point is that this capacity building support may be required even after accreditation of a national body”, notes the report.

The AfDB, the report says, should also support the development of Africa-specific climate change growth action plans.

Ochieng’ Ogodo is a Nairobi based journalist whose works have been published in various parts of the world including Africa, the US and Europe. He is the English-speaking Africa and Middle East region winner for the 2008 Reuters-IUCN Media Awards for Excellence in Environmental Reporting. He is the chairman of the Kenya Environment and Science Journalists Association. He can be reached at ochiengogodo@yahoo.com or ochiengogodo@gmail.com

Concert on maternal & newborn deaths in Uganda

By Ochieng Ogodo

Journalist-Kenya

Each passing day, Uganda loses over 20 women from preventable pregnancy and childbirth related causes. The rate of teenage pregnancy in Uganda also stands at 30 percent, the highest in Sub-Saharan Africa

Half of Ugandan girls give birth before the age of 18; with young teenagers as young as 11 becoming pregnant.

It for this reason that the Seventh Day Adventist Church, Makindye District Youth Executive Committee has organized a youth music festival with the theme “Zero Tolerance to Maternal & Newborn Deaths, Change Starts with You!” to be held in Kampala on Sunday, 25th November, 2012.

The festival will raise awareness on maternal and newborn health amongst the youth and the community. It will be used to call on the individual youth, church leaders and role players in the community to take action and promote maternal and newborn health.

 Young people will be the target because they make the biggest proportion of Uganda population and the mothers who are losing their lives and babies every day.

Youth groups from 15 local SDA churches of Makindye District will converge at Soya Bunga SDA church along Ggaba Road, Kampala on Sunday, 25th November, 2012 from 10:00AM to raise awareness on maternal and newborn health through music, dance and drama, poetry and photography.

Messages emphasizing behavioral change amongst the youth, abstinence and delaying sex encouraging young people to stay longer in school and avoid unsafe abortions will be spread.

They hope to achieve this through emphasizing behavioral change, abstinence and delaying sex; encouraging young people to stay longer in school, avoid unsafe abortions. The youth will also greatly emphasize male involvement ensuring that every pregnancy is planned for and supported. 

The problem of maternal and newborn health in Uganda and its magnitude is big and claiming many lives that would be saved.

According to Government of Uganda statistics (Uganda Demographic Health Survey, 2011), over 20 women die every day from preventable pregnancy and childbirth related causes. The rate of teenage pregnancy in Uganda stands at 30 per cent, the highest in Sub-Saharan Africa. Half of Ugandan girls giving birth before the age of 18; with young teenagers as young as 11 becoming pregnant! This is attributed to early sex, early marriages, dropping out of school, and rape among other causes, which result into unsafe abortion leading to complications, disabilities and at times death

The World Health Organization guidance on abortion-related services reveals that in Uganda, about 300,000 abortions are carried out every year.

Professor Florence Mirembe of the department of obstetrics and gynaecology at Mulago hospital said that abortion related complications were one of the leading causes of admissions to gynaecological wards in hospitals across the country.

 The youth especially girls are also at a high risk of contracting HIV/AIDS, thus contributing to the 20 mothers who die daily due to preventable pregnancy and child birth related causes.

A new collaboration to help guide selection and prioritization of Malaria Vaccine Candidate

By Ochieng’ Ogodo

Journalist-Kenya

[NAIROBI] The PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative (MVI), the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) up and Imperial College London today teamed up to measure the capacity of different vaccine candidates in human clinical testing to elicit an immune response aimed at protecting against deadly malaria parasites.

“Until now, malaria vaccine scientists have struggled to directly compare the cellular immune response elicited in humans by one vaccine to that of another, and this has hampered the ability to prioritize a portfolio of vaccine candidates,” said David C. Kaslow, MD, director of MVI in a press release.

He added, “We are fortunate to have in IAVI and Imperial College London partners with a track record of developing validated human immunological assays. Through this new collaboration, we look forward to being able to make better informed decisions about if and how various malaria vaccines elicit immune responses at the cellular level in humans.”

The lack of uniform validated techniques and processes among the various laboratories used by MVI and its collaborators specifically to evaluate T-cell immunity has been one of the obstacles to comparing the cell-mediated immunity elicited by different malaria vaccine candidates.

In an effort to identify a more consistent understanding of how multiple vaccine candidates were performing at a cellular level, IAVI and its Human Immunology Laboratory (HIL) at Imperial College London refined and validated specific tests that measure vaccine-induced, cell-mediated immunity. The HIL is accredited in Good Clinical Laboratory Practices (GCLP), an internationally recognized quality standard.

In 2006, the wider scientific community cited in its Malaria Vaccine Technology Roadmap the development of a standard set of assays with standardized procedures to enable comparisons of the immune responses of vaccines. This was one of several priority areas critical to accelerating the pace of malaria vaccine development. Kaslow noted that this new collaboration directly addresses the need identified in the Roadmap as well as a critical gap faced in managing a portfolio of malaria vaccine projects—that is, the need for fully comparable data to guide transparent, objective, data-driven portfolio decisions.

“We are pleased that IAVI can contribute to informed, data-driven decisions on vaccine approaches,” said Margaret McGlynn, President and Chief Executive Officer of IAVI. “Many of the methods and strategies employed in AIDS vaccine development could be of use in efforts to develop a malaria vaccine. Our collaboration will allow investments in AIDS vaccine R&D to benefit efforts to prevent another disease of great relevance to global health.”

Under the agreement, IAVI and its laboratory partner at Imperial College London will focus on providing two types of assays for MVI and its collaborators as they move vaccine candidates into clinical trials: the Interferon-gamma ELISpot assay and a multi-color flow cytometry assay. These tests will be used to detect the disease-fighting cells, or T cells, that may be present in the blood of volunteers after vaccination.

“These tests can provide quantitative information, such as how many cells responded to the vaccine, along with qualitative information, such as the different cell types that were stimulated,” said Professor Gavin Screaton, Head of the Department of Medicine at Imperial College London. “Both types of information can be important in determining the power of the overall vaccine-induced immune response.”
“We’re delighted to be hosting this work at Imperial, which builds on our longstanding fruitful association with IAVI,” he said. “We’re also looking forward to working more closely with MVI as part of our commitment to vaccine research and international health.”

MVI’s Kaslow said the tests will help MVI prioritize investments and allow scientists to refine vaccine strategies by showing whether a particular formulation, delivery approach, or vaccine adjuvant elicits a superior cell-mediated immune response. However, he emphasized that results from the assays are just one piece of evidence that MVI will use to guide Go/No-go decisions in malaria vaccine development. He noted that while the collaboration with IAVI and Imperial College London will provide MVI with a central “reference” laboratory for measuring cell-mediated immune responses, MVI encourages malaria vaccine developers to continue performing their own tests as well.

“At MVI, we need standardization of these assays because when we analyze the results from various trials and look at the data on cell-mediated immunity, we need to be sure that any differences are not caused by variations in how the tests were done,” Kaslow said.