A 10-year strategy for the banana sector in Africa

The Banana 2008 Conference held in Mombasa, Kenya, provided the opportunity for developing a strategy to help propel the banana industry as an important engine of growth in Africa. It was attended by more than 300 participants from the research and development arena, the private sector, and the business development, production and processing, policymaking, and marketing sectors

Invasive floating water weeds – killing life and commerce

Weeds by definition are plants that grow in the wrong place. When their seeds or other plant parts are transported to other regions where their natural enemies are absent, they can multiply unhindered. Indigenous plants, especially those that are adapted for invading disturbed areas, can also become weeds. The first category is a particularly good target for classical biological control. Insects, mites and micro-organisms that feed on them are imported from their original area and released against the new invader. Against indigenous plants however, biological control is far less promising. By the end of 1980s, many of the water bodies in West Africa were invaded by alien plant species considered to be among the world’s worst aquatic weeds: water hyacinth Eichhornia crassipes, water lettuce Pistia stratiotes, and water fern Salvinia molesta. They were accidentally or deliberately introduced as ornamentals or for use in aquariums from their native range South America to many parts of the world where they have become invasive

The effect of participation in the Ugandan National Agricultural Advisory Services on willingness to pay for extension services

Uganda’s National Agricultural Advisory Services (NAADS), established in 2001, is a demand-driven extension program for developing farmer organizations and improving farmer production and welfare. The program is expected to be 50% client funded after 25 years. However, varying returns to extension services and inconclusive evidence about their effectiveness suggest that farmers may not be willing to pay for these services. Using a choice experiment, this study found that longer participation in NAADS increased farmers’ willingness to pay and that NAADS had a cost beneficial effect at farm level. The findings suggest that farmers are willing to pay for extension advice (US$0.20, which is higher than that found for most other African extension systems) if they see they are given good information, though they should not be asked to pay the full cost. Longer association with NAADS promoted the adoption of new crops, reduced the vulnerability of farms by increasing technology adoption and improved farmer welfare

The impact of climate change on interdependence for microbial genetic resources for agriculture

Interactions among crops and microbes influence the quality, productivity, and sustainability of food production systems. Microbes, both beneficial and antagonistic, and the array of functions they perform are currently underestimated. Nutrient cycling microbes, endophytes, mycorrhizae, and natural enemies of pests and diseases contribute to durable farming systems, while other microbes are responsible for devastating diseases and toxin contamination of crops. Crops and microbes must therefore be considered together when considering why, and the extent to which, countries are interdependent upon them. In this context, microbial genetic resources (MGRs) are defined as functional units of heredity such as DNA or RNA and do not include biochemical extracts (Glowka 1995)