News brief

Making a new 'start' with starter packs

Transport problems, due to a shortage of locomotives and poor maintenance of lines from the northern Mozambican port of Nacala, have continued to disrupt the movement of emergency food aid into landlocked Malawi. The maize shortfall is estimated to be 700,000 tonnes. Approximately 3.2 million people will be affected and in need of emergency food assistance by December. For the longer term, plans are currently underway for a new Starter Pack Programme that would provide essential maize and legume seed and fertilisers to 300,000 farming families with access to small irrigated gardens. It is expected that this would produce an additional 30-40,000 tonnes of maize which, if imported, would cost around US $10 million. The scheme, funded by the Malawi Government, the UK, EU, Norway and the US, will cost US$2 million.

In Zambia, a project to encourage community recovery programmes is being supported by CARE International through a Food for Work programme covering 65,000 households in the worst affected areas. Distribution of food in Zimbabwe by the Government continues to be criticised due to its political bias particularly as Zimbabwe is generally self-sufficient but has produced only one quarter of its maize needs in the past growing season. WFP has received 23% funding for its new appeal for Zimbabwe and donors are working to develop joint monitoring of its programme.

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Drought and flood in India

In India, late monsoon rains have partly mitigated the effects of drought in some States, but have brought further tragedy to others. In Bihar, over 1.5 million hectares of cultivated land have been inundated, washing away standing crops; nearly 8000 villages have been submerged. While the late rains will improve the situation for pulses sown in the central and southern parts of the country, in the northern States the sowing season has been lost. Large numbers of smallholder farmers and agricultural labourers have begun moving to cities in search of jobs, threatening urban areas with even greater over-crowding.

Food-for-work schemes are being implemented by many States to support food security, and the government has come under pressure to release money from the central Calamity Relief Fund. Longer term responses are being planned by the Ministries of Agriculture and Rural Development, including an ambitious watershed enhancement programme which aims to bring a further 65 million hectares of land into cultivation over the next 25 years. However, the main concerns at present among the population are the proper implementation of relief measures and effective control of food grain prices.

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Bananas in Uganda - wilting under pressure?

A banana wilt disease, which struck parts of central Uganda earlier this year, is steadily spreading through movement of planting material and rain droplets blown by the wind. Agricultural scientists now fear that the disease could seriously affect this staple crop, much as a similar wilt disease has affected coffee in recent years, if adequate control measures are not put in place. Farmers are currently cutting down infected plants and the government has imposed a quarantine in the two worst hit districts of Kayunga and Mukono in central Uganda. Ugandan State Minister for Agriculture, Dr Israel Kibirige Sebuynya, has announced that the government has allocated 200 million Ugandan shillings (US$110,000) to the two most affected districts to procure cassava stems, potato, cocoa and coffee seedlings for farmers.

The wilt disease was first reported in January 2002 and scientists at CABI have now confirmed that the bacterium Xanthomnas campestris pv mosacearum is the most likely cause of the disease. Symptoms include yellowing, wilting and premature ripening in young plants. In the absence of other symptoms, if the banana fingers are cut, a pink-purple coloration confirms the presence of the disease. The Kawanda Agricultural Research Institute is working with the crop protection department and local agricultural officers to eradicate the disease.

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Making the CAP fit

A radical reform of the EU's 40 year old Common Agricultural Policy has been put forward with a view to protecting Europe's farmers while at the same time moving away from product subsidies which are difficult to defend under WTO rules. EU Agriculture Commissioner, Franz Fischler, announcing the proposals in mid July, claimed that the new system would not distort international trade but should improve opportunities for developing countries.

The main changes are to break the tie between subsidies and production. A single allocation of income support would be introduced for farmers in the arable crop, beef, sheep, grain legumes and starch potato sectors. This would allow farmers to produce as they see fit rather than in order to attract subsidies. This direct aid would be conditional upon farmers' respect of environmental, animal welfare and food safety laws. The reforms will insulate EU farmers from the cost-increasing effects of higher EU standards whereas non EU producers will have to carry these extra costs on the sale price of their produce, squeezing their profit margins at a time of declining EU prices.

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Tightening up cattle movement in Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe's Department of Veterinary Services has announced a new ban on livestock movement in disease-prone areas of the country in an effort to prevent any outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD). The ban has been imposed in the Lupane and Nkayi districts of Matabeleland North province, and comes in the wake of the country's controversial land resettlement programme, which has seen communal farmers moving livestock to the newly allocated farm lands. This has posed a risk in some cases where the resettled farmers have moved cattle from red zones to the FMD-free green zones. In a bid to prevent the risk of an outbreak, the Veterinary Department, has also stopped issuing permits for any cattle movement within the specified areas in the southern part of the country. The latest ban is a measure to protect future beef exports into the prime European Union market, for which Zimbabwe has an annual quota of 9 100 tonnes.

As the cattle movement ban was being enforced, an outbreak of FMD was reported in the Zhombe and Gokwe districts of the Midlands province. As a result, the cash-strapped Department of Veterinary Services has stepped up vaccination efforts, offering free vaccination to communal farmers in Matabeleland South. However, these efforts are being constrained by the shortage of vaccines. Currently, the Department of Veterinary Services has placed an order for 250 000 doses of the FMD vaccine, worth US$300 000, from the Botswana Vaccine Institute. Department director, Stuart Hargreaves, confirming that the FMD vaccines were in short supply, said the vaccination programme which was expected to vaccinate at least 300 000 cattle, has been hampered. A deterioration in the FMD situation could jeopardise plans to export Zimbabwean beef to new markets in Libya and Malaysia.

In Britain, the Royal Society - the country's top academy of science - has published a report recommending that ring vaccination should be used to control any future outbreaks of foot and mouth disease in the UK. Under the new guidelines, all animals within a certain radius of an outbreak would be vaccinated to stop the infection spreading. The recommendation follows improvements in tests which can now distinguish vaccinated animals from infected animals.

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Bread and water getting scarcer

The Earth Policy Institute has highlighted the critical water shortages now facing many countries, in particular Yemen and Iran. Water tables under Yemen's capital city, Sana'a, are falling by 6 metres annually, and are expected to be completely depleted by the end of the decade. Test wells drilled to 2km in Sana'a's basin have failed to find new sources of water and the country will need to decide whether to bring water from outside the area, perhaps from coastal desalting plants, or relocate the city. Eastern Iran is also facing a huge water deficit, particularly under the agriculturally rich Cheneran Plain, where last year the water table fell by 8 metres, following 3 years of drought and over-pumping. Many villagers have been forced to migrate to other areas, as their village wells dry up.

The fall of water tables is one factor that has reduced world grain harvests to a level below consumption for the third consecutive year. The total shortfall for 2000, 2001 and 2002 is estimated to be 149 million tonnes, and grain stocks now stand at their lowest level in thirty years. In northern China, the wheat harvest has fallen in four of the last five years, as irrigation from aquifers has become increasingly difficult. Low grain prices at planting time, and record high temperatures combined with low rainfall, have also led to reduced harvests.

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Highland coffee affected by new price low

Mexico, the world's fourth largest coffee producer, is suffering from coffee prices that have slumped to a new low. A national census has shown that coffee cultivation, which once provided jobs for three million people, has dropped from two million to 1.3 million acres in recent years. Experts are also worrying about the environmental effects of farmers clearing their coffee fields. Upland Arabica coffee is grown in the shade of hillside forests but in Veracruz the invasion of cornfields and sugar cane on the slopes of the Orizaba volcano are changing the landscape. Until recently, coffee was one of Mexico's main exports but in three years, export income from coffee has fallen from £513 million to £160 million. The continued glut of low-quality robusta coffee produced by countries, such as Vietnam and Brazil, is bringing ruin to the already impoverished highlands of Central America and Colombia. Since April 30,000 small producers in Nicaragua have laid off most of their 150,000 workers.

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India's Endosulfan debate

Following the controversy over Bt cotton, Indian agriculture is currently embroiled in another dispute, this time over the pesticide Endosulfan. A report in the Centre for Science and Environment's monthly journal, 'Down to Earth' has linked the unusually high incidence of deformities and disease in a village in Kerala, with the organochlorine pesticide. Endosulfan has been used in Kerala's cashew plantations for more than twenty years, despite being banned or restricted in many countries. Samples collected in the study found residues to be very high, and concern about the possible poisoning has prompted government action at national and state level. In Kerala the government has banned aerial spraying of the pesticide. However, this has prompted the Indian pesticide industry to commission its own study, which has cleared Endosulfan of the poisoning charge. As a result, the industry has threatened anti-Endosulfan campaigners with legal action.

India is the world's largest producer of the pesticide, which is used in many areas of the country. If harmful effects could be proved, the industry could face an expensive series of health related claims. With neither side ready to concede, the issue is set to dominate Indian agriculture for the rest of the season.

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Agriculture at WSSD

One of the many side events at the Summit included the presentation by the UK Secretary of State for International Development, Clare Short, of the DFID issues paper, Better livelihoods for poor people: The role of Agriculture. This 30-page document demonstrates that there is a case for taking specific interest in agriculture as part of the agenda to tackle poverty. It also accepts that whereas much could be done to improve agriculture in developing countries, many of the global distortions in agriculture emanate from domestic policy in developed countries. The report is available in pdf format on the DFID website at www.dfid.gov.uk.

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Rabbit control? Inconceivable!

A genetically modified strain of the myxoma virus developed by an Australian research team could represent a solution to the country's rabbit pest problem. The immunocontraceptive virus, which once introduced into wild rabbits would quickly spread through the population, gives the rabbits a mild fever for a few days, but also has a sterilising action on females. Potentially it could help to prevent the hugely destructive rabbit plagues that each year cause hundreds of millions of dollars worth of damage to agricultural production and the environment. In two trials in May this year, the virus was found to sterilise eight out of eleven females; if such a success rate could be achieved in the wild, rabbit densities could be reduced to the much less damaging levels found in Europe. However, releasing a genetically modified virus into the wild would be controversial. While the chance of it transferring to non-target species is thought to be low - no greater than for a normal myxoma virus, which has not affected other mammals during its fifty years in Australia - it would be easy for the virus to spread to other continents, either accidentally or with human assistance.

The researchers, who work at the Pest Animal Control Cooperative Research Centre in Canberra, are seeking permission for field trials of another virus, used to sterilise mice. (see Reproductive restraint revealed in mice) In laboratory trials the virus has proved to have a 100% sterilising effect on female mice; the application for the field trials will be made later this year. Further research is focussing on immunocontraceptive viruses to control predator populations, such as foxes in Australia and stoats in New Zealand.

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Mycorrhizal fungus boost to biofertilisers

Legumes play a major role to play in many crop rotations as Rhizobium bacteria in their root nodules fix nitrogen, adding it to the soil and making it available for following crops. However, scientists are now showing that, in order to function efficiently, this symbiotic relationship often needs a third partner, a mycorrhizal fungus. Working in Zimbabwe, scientists from ICRISAT and Penn State University have shown that both legume growth and nitrogen fixation are limited by the amount of phosphorus in the soil. Phosphorus, although present in most soils, is often 'locked up' in insoluble forms. Mycorrhizae, fungi that form a close association with the roots of many plant species, are able to mobilise this phosphorus and make it available to the plants.

The scientists tested their ideas by first enriching peanut fields with mycorrhizal fungi and found that the plants' nitrogen content was significantly increased. However, for rotation purposes, peanut is not an ideal crop as most of this extra nitrogen is harvested with the nuts. The research team is therefore now focusing on another legume, known as lablab, which grows more vigorously and which retains nitrogen in its leaves and stems. The lablab can then either be ploughed in directly or grazed, allowing the animals to naturally manure the field.

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Nigeria takes biosafety on board

Nigeria has joined Egypt, Kenya and South Africa to become the fourth African country to adopt biosafety guidelines for the promotion and control of bio-technologies. Written by an inter-ministerial committee that included representatives from the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA), the guidelines also make recommendations for developing Nigeria's research institutions to ensure adequate levels of safety. Stressing the importance of the new guidelines, Dr Christian Fatokun, an IITA geneticist commented, 'without the adoption of the guidelines by the government, we cannot test any transgenic crop plant in the country.' Having adopted the guidelines, Nigeria is now ready to set up a biosafety committee that will be responsible for decisions over the handling and testing of genetically modified organisms.

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Anti-virus technology for peanuts

India's Department of Biotechnology has given the approval for field trials of a new, genetically modified groundnut (peanut), which crop scientists believe will be resistant to a major viral pest, peanut clump virus (PCV). The new variety has been developed by scientists at ICRISAT, using genes supplied by the Scottish Crops Research Institute, after attempts to find traditional sources of PCV resistance, which included the screening of over 10,000 groundnut varieties, failed. PCV is a serious problem in India and several West African countries, causing estimated losses of up to US$40 million per year. The virus is particularly difficult to control as it can survive dormant in the soil for years, and chemical treatments are unavailable. Virologists are keen to begin trials in West Africa to see if the new groundnuts are also resistant to African versions of the virus.

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Russian farmers (re-)turn to the church

In Russia, a revival of collective farming is helping to restore some stability to the agricultural sector, which has been in chaos since the fall of communism. Tens of thousands of peasant farmers have joined their small plots of land to farms owned by the Russian Orthodox church, and are now working on the expanded church farms for payment in grain, potatoes and other foods. The farms are being run by monks, a system practised in tsarist times, and used as a basis for the Kolkhoz collective farms of the soviet era. The Russian parliament has approved of the development, and planned a further expansion of the system. It recently made a proposal to restore to the church 3 million hectares of land seized after the 1917 revolution.

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