News brief
 Smart fertilizers only do what's required |
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| Biodiversity: a crucial issue for the world's
poorest |
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Foot and Mouth adds to trouble in Zimbabwe
Foot and Mouth has spread to several parts of Zimbabwe since it was first detected during mid August 2001 after ruling party militants released diseased animals from quarantine areas on white-owned land. Six properties in the southwestern and southern provinces have been confirmed with FMD and over 7,000 head of cattle are to be slaughtered in an effort to contain the disease. The government has imported vaccines from neighbouring Botswana and has suspended the movement of cattle as well as beef and dairy products. Preliminary tests have identified the FMD serotype as SAT Type 2. The disease will cost Zimbabwe's struggling economy at least £28 million in lost exports, further deepening the country's hard currency crisis: inflation is currently running at 64% for the year to June 2001; fuel shortages are affecting the tourism industry and food shortages are expected in coming months. Milk and dairy products and bread have doubled in price in less than a year.
Fruit basket genetics
Bananas are to be unzipped to
discover their genetic code. Following work on mustard cress, Arabidopsis thaliana, and rice, sequencing
of a wild banana from east Asia is to be undertaken during the next few years
by the Global Musa Genomics Consortium led by INIBAP (International Network
for the Improvement of Banana and Plantain). The work is to focus on discoveries
that will benefit smallholders who grow 85% of the world's bananas, such as
overcoming problems of sterility, which affect half the world's edible bananas,
and the range of pests and diseases that affect the fruit. For instance, a
gene that would protect bananas against the devastating black Sigatoka fungus
would be invaluable. All gene sequences will be posted on the Web as soon
as they are available.
The range of citrus fruits available today has been discovered to be the result of accidental hybridisation and spontaneous mutations, selected by farmers throughout the last four thousand years. Recent research conducted at the University of Florida has concluded that there are only three citrus species, the pomelo from south-east Asia, the citron now grown for candied peel and the mandarin. All other citrus, including lime, lemons, oranges and grapefruit are now thought to be combinations of these three species.
World Food Summit
In November 2001, the Food and Agricultural Organisation will host The World Food Summit. The summit will focus on why nearly 800 million people in the world are still food insecure, and why progress remains slow against the 1996 commitment to halve the numbers of undernourished by 2015. As a contribution to this debate, the UK Department for International Development (DFID) is preparing a Food Security Strategy Paper. The paper suggests that by taking a more systematic and comprehensive approach to poverty reduction that takes account of food security concerns, and by developing better tools for assessing hunger, faster progress may be made in reducing global hunger. In addition to the Strategy Paper, the UK Secretary of State for International Development will address the IFPRI/BMZ 'Sustainable Food Security For All By 2020' in Bonn during early September 2001, providing a preliminary opportunity to discuss ways forward.
Cuban sugar - going sour?
Sugar, once the
undisputed champion of the Cuban economy, is losing ground to tourism and
nickel mining, which have both overtaken it as earners of foreign currency. The
sugar harvest this year is expected to be less that 3.6 million tons, 10% down
on last year and only half of what the country produced in the 1960s. Poor
weather and badly maintained machinery are cited as two reasons for this year's
poor figures, but many sugar workers are abandoning the industry in favour of
working in tourism, where they can earn dollars instead of pesos. Minister for
sugar, Ulises Rosales del Toro, has been keen to look on the bright side of the
industry's decline. Cuban sugar, he says, is being produced more efficiently,
and its improved quality is fetching higher prices on the international market.
However, his predictions that the industry will bounce back to much higher
levels of production may owe more to national sentimentality than market
realities.
The income from cotton is important for many farmers in Benin and
for the national economy. But the problems of 'misuse' of pesticides is
damaging both the health of farming families and the environment. Although
pesticide poisoning incidents are poorly recorded, proportionately, the largest
group affected as a result of pesticide exposure is children with 46% of all
deaths recorded in 2000. Overwhelmingly, the main cause of accidents and deaths
has arisen from consumption of contaminated food. For instance, villagers
believe that washing insecticide-coated grain with water is sufficient for
removing any residues. Problems of misuse are particularly linked to the
pesticide endosulfan, which has been introduced after the development of insect
resistance to the widely used pyrethroids. Although education and awareness
raising has helped to reduce some of the worst cases of misuse of pesticides it
is realized that in many instances, poor farming communities are unable to
change their practices and the only viable solution is for alternative
approaches to pest control to be developed. (See In Print '
Biodiversity: a crucial issue for the world's poorest
Thousands of tiny
cassava plants are being hurried from Nigeria to the Democratic Republic of
Congo, in a bid to halt the spread of a new, destructive strain of mosaic
virus. The new virus-resistant varieties, bred at the International Institute
of Tropical Agriculture in Ibadan, should be growing in up to 11 provinces by
the end of the year. Cassava is the staple crop in the Congo, and is well-known
for its ability to need little water or attention, attributes that have made it
invaluable in dry and war torn regions. Improved varieties have also been
distributed among farmers in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Angola, where they are
helping to maintain food supplies. The new strain of virus originated in
Uganda, where it has devastated harvests. It is believed that it was spread
into the Congo by refugees, who may have brought diseased plants with them.
