News brief

Wiping out witchweed	Good business rewarded
Putting the Summit into perspective	Pot luck
Silk industry cocooned by cash	Warning signals
Mimicking beetles to collect fog	Milk from discerning cows
PAAT united	Resistance warning
Leather collection	Fuss-free fumigation
Making IPR work better for developing countries

Wiping out witchweed

Applying a low-dose coating of herbicide to herbicide resistant maize can increase yields four-fold at a benefit cost ratio of 25:1 say researchers at CIMMYT. The technology, which has been developed in collaboration with the Weizmann Institute of Science, controls the parasitic weed, striga (witchweed), without harming other crops and at a cost that is within the financial reach of poor farmers.

The technology works because the systemic herbicide, imazapyr, prevents striga from attaching itself to the roots of imazapyr-resistant (IR) maize. Imazapyr not taken up by the maize seedling, diffuses into the surrounding soil and kills ungerminated striga seeds. The effect is to keep a field of maize free from striga throughout the entire season although, where the season is longer than usual or later maturing maize varieties are used, it may be necessary to use higher dose rates.

IR maize lines are not transgenic. Herbicide resistance is derived from a naturally occurring gene in maize originally identified by Pioneer International and made available to CIMMYT. The agrochemical company, BASF, which produces imazapyr is also collaborating with CIMMYT in order to commercialize the technology and make it available to farmers.
further info: www.cimmyt.org

Putting the Summit into perspective

At the conclusion of the Summit in Johannesburg, the UK governments Secretary of State for International Development, Clare Short, summed up the summit by saying, we do not need more, big, multilateral, agenda-setting conferences; we need a real period of intensive implementation. In a follow up note on the Summit, DFID emphasizes the need for the international community to deliver on the promises made at Doha and Monterrey. Fairer trade and improved market access are recognized as essential to efforts to achieve poverty reduction and sustainable development. Also highlighted are those sections of the Summits Plan of Implementation that deal with efforts to provide affordable energy services for the poor, improved access to sanitation, the commitment to restore depleted fish stocks and the need to make patterns of consumption and production more sustainable. See also Perspective.
More information can be obtained from www.johannesburgsummit.org

Silk industry cocooned by cash

A new thread is being woven into the silk industry in Uganda with grants in cash and machinery valued at nearly US$300,000. The support comes from the African Development Fund (ADF), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the International Centre for Insect Physiology and Entomology (ICIPE) which is providing technical advice.

Part of the money will go towards the construction of a silk processing plant with the capacity to reel 200 metric tonnes of silk cocoons per year at Kawanda Agricultural Research Centre. The plant will also be able to produce carpets, mats, silk fabrics, material for making parachutes and facilities for blending silk with cotton. Funds will also be available for crop finance and transport. 800 silk association members in 34 Ugandan districts should benefit.

In the past four years Uganda has exported 750 kg of silk yarn earning US$17,500, and 445 kg of de-gummed cocoons earning US$33,948, to the United Kingdom, Japan, Egypt and South Africa. Production of silk cocoons is improving. Western Uganda leads with 1,246 kg, central Uganda 166 kg and eastern Uganda 162 kg. Income from sericulture competes favourably with income from other crops and farmers choosing to work full time on cocoon production can earn about US$110 per month. Dr Nicholas Kauta, commissioner for Livestock Production, said attempts are being made to diversify the sericulture export base. He said processing machines have been installed to add value to exportable products. These latest efforts are expected to give new life to the silk industry which became infamous in the late 90s when it collapsed shortly after receiving US$2 million from the European Union.

Mimicking beetles to collect fog

The ability of beetles that live in the Namib desert in Africa to collect water from early morning mists is now being mimicked in man-made devices for use for the same and other purposes. The Stenocara beetle collects water on tiny water-attracting bumps on its cuticle, water which aggregates on the bumps as it is repelled from wax-covered water-repellent valleys between the bumps.

Now British scientists Andrew Parker of the Oxford Department of Zoology and Chris Lawrence of the Farnborough company QinetiQ, who discovered the beetles' ability, have mimicked their water-collecting structures on a large scale on plastic sheets. These, tests have shown, are several times better at collecting water from fog than the nets in place in 22 countries on six continents.

Four out of five companies shown the prototype beetle structures are interested in producing them. A London company of environmentally conscious architects plan to incorporate beetle-type water-collectors into houses they are designing for Africa. Other applications could include irrigation, collecting steam in industrial condensers, and removing fog from airfields.
further information: email andrew.parker@zoo.ox.ac.uk

PAAT united

In a further development on tsetse and trypanosomiasis control, (See Points of View) a statement in late September by the panel of PAAT advisory group members said that the final objective is best achieved through concerted efforts towards intervention, in a sequential fashion, with the focus on those areas where the disease impact is most severe and where control provides the greatest benefits. A significant stage in achieving this objective is the creation of tsetse-free zones through the integration of appropriate and environmentally acceptable technologies, including SAT and SIT, as economically justified.

Leather collection

Efforts are to be made to improve the collection and quality of hides and skins from smallholder livestock production systems in Botswana, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Tanneries currently source hides and skins from centralized, large scale abattoirs and there is no formal collection or grading system from rural butcheries or abattoirs. The UN Common Fund for Commodities is making US$1.9m available as part of a $2.5m project to be executed by ESALIA (Eastern and Southern Africa Leather Industries Association) to try and improve inspection, marketing and trade using price incentives and building capacity where needed.

Livestock producers in southern Africa are failing to gain from the increasing world demand for leather because, once de-haired and fleshed, it becomes apparent that hides are scratched, cut, pierced or branded to an extent that spoils their subsequent use for leather. Furthermore, the capacity of small scale tanneries needs to improve if they are to meet the tighter quality and environmental standards that are now required by the global market.

Making IPR work better for developing countries

Higher standards of intellectual property systems should not be pressed on developing countries without a serious and objective assessment of their impact on development and poor people, according to the recently published final report of the Commission on Intellectual Property Rights. The Commission, appointed by the UK governments Department for International Development, comprised members from developed and developing countries with backgrounds in law, ethics, economics, industry, government and academia. The Commissions task was to consider whether the rules and institutions of IP protection, as they have evolved to date, can contribute to development and the reduction of poverty in developing countries. The final report, Integrating Intellectual Property Rights and Development Policy, clearly sets out the issues and suggests comprehensive guidelines to ensure that IPR systems are not detrimental to the interests of developing countries. The report is available at www.iprcommission.org
See also In Print ISNAR Briefing Paper 53: Defensive Publishing: A strategy for maintaining intellectual property as public goods

Good business rewarded

A fair trade company that produces and distributes organic spices and single origin coffee is the only US company to have receive the 2002 World Summit Award for Sustainable Development Partnerships. ForesTrade won the award for implementing an effective business model that integrates social and environmental concerns in its dealings with local producers in Guatemala and Indonesia. (See also New Agriculturist 02-1 Focus on Spices - Organic spices fuel the peace in Guatemala)

Pot luck

Iron cooking pots may help to reduce anaemia, according to a joint study by Cornell University, USA, and the Agricultural Research Service of the US Department of Agriculture. Iron deficiency anaemia is among the developing worlds most prevalent nutritional problems. Intrigued by the lower incidence of iron deficiency in the population of north western China than in other poor regions, researchers compared aluminium and iron cooking pots using recipes typical of the north west. These include rice vinegar and fermented cabbage. To measure the bioavailable iron, researchers used a fake gut to simulate human digestion. Chinese cabbage was cooked fresh, with or without vinegar, and fermented as sauerkraut. In each case, the dishes cooked in iron pots had more iron than those cooked in aluminium pots and the greater the acidity of the food, the more iron was leached from the pot. For a meal rich in iron, the recipe should begin take one iron cooking pot.

Warning signals

Corn earworm caterpillars, which feed on over 100 different plants including maize, cotton and tomatoes, can overcome the host plants natural defence system. Entomologist, May Berenbaum and her team at the University of Illinois, USA, have discovered that earworm caterpillars can intercept jasmonate and salicylate, the chemical signals, that plants release when attacked. Those chemical compounds signal that the plant is building up its capacity to produce chemicals that are toxic to the attacking pest. However, the pest insect seems able to intercept the signals and produce stomach enzymes to destroy the specific toxins that the plant is about to produce in its defence.

It has long been known that a plants chemical cry for help attracts predators to the pest, and it had been thought that those same chemical compounds could be harnessed to provide environmentally friendly crop protection. It now seems that the pests have stolen a march on the crop protection industry and used those same warning signals to protect themselves.

Milk from discerning cows

Growing mixtures of plant species separately in a field, rather than intermingled, and allowing cows to graze in a concentrated way upon the species they prefer, has a dramatic effect on milk yields, say researchers from the University of Melbourne, Australia. Cows that had a choice of a grass area or a clover area ate more and gave nearly 30% more milk, says behavioural scientist, Danielle Marotti. There would be practical farming problems in introducing split pastures but the indications so far are that taking greater account of the discerning tastes of cows could bring greater profits to their owners. Furthermore, when cows eat a diet rich in forage crops, such as red clover, their milk contains higher levels of beneficial fatty acids, according to the Institute of Grassland & Environmental Research which is based in Wales. Clover is a good source of linolenic acid, one of the polyunsaturated fatty acids that are generally seen as beneficial in the human diet, and cows pass this compound through to their milk.

Resistance warning

The discovery of a single gene that gives vinegar flies (Drosophila sp.) resistance to a wide range of pesticides, even to those that the species has never encountered, reveals new risks in the chemical control of pest insects. Researchers at the Centre for Environmental Stress and Adaptation Research (CESAR) and the University of Melbourne, Australia, warn that future options for chemical control may become severely restricted unless current methods of pest management are reassessed. The vinegar fly gene that confers resistance does so by producing up to 100 times more than the normal level of protein that breaks down DDT and other pesticides. Scientists were surprised that a single version of one gene could be associated with such widespread resistance and that this resistance also applied to a wide range of compounds that bear no resemblance to each other in structure or mode of function.

Fuss-free fumigation

credit: Igrox Ltd

Organic coffee from Mexico and Nicaragua is being shipped to the UK and fumigated using carbon dioxide. The importers, Eniti Ltd, need to ensure that the coffee is completely free of all infestation, even if none is visible, before it is moved further down the supply chain to processors. The coffee arrives in the UK in hessian bags packed on to pallets. These are wrapped in oxygen barrier film, the seams are heat welded and bottled CO₂ gas is then administered until a concentration of over 60% is achieved within the sealed film. This concentration may be held for up to three weeks to ensure that all pests have been eliminated. The process, which is approved by the Soil Association for use on organic food, has until recently been used only in the context of artefacts for museums but, with the growing market in Europe for organic food, CO₂ fumigation is likely to increase.