Salinity Reducing Food Security and Financial Returns from Rice Production in Rwanda

Rice is a crucial food crop and source of income for smallholder farmers in Rwanda. Its annual consumption in 2012 was estimated at about 104,000 tons with about 48,000 tons of this covered from imports. In recognition of the great potential of rice in improving food security and household incomes, the government of Rwanda and donors have invested over US$10 Million to improve rice production. The average rice yield is estimated at 5 tons/ha but the government rice policy is targeting 7 tons/ha through improved seeds and better agronomy. Most of rice production is done in the marshland. Patches of some crucial marshlands have started exhibiting stunted rice growth, yellowing and low crop yields of less than 3 tons/ha irrespective of use of the right seeds and good agronomy, hence threatening the rice improvement targets. Recently, we evaluated one of the marshlands (Muvumba marshland) to understand the causes for such yield decline. The marshland was demarcated into affected and non-affected patches. The visual and lab analysis of soil and water from affected patches linked declining rice yields to salinity suggesting gradual development of salinity in Muvumba marshland. This paper uses Muvumba data to discuss salinity, the indicators, potential impact of salinity on returns to rice production. Salinity decreased rice yields by about 30$ 1,500 per hectare of affected patches in Muvumba. We recommend remediation of salinity through improved drainage and better fertilizer management. In case these measures do not work, salt tolerant rice species should be adopted for these sites

4Kenya School of Government

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT A pigeonpea fallow-maize crop rotation trial was carried out over a period of 4 seasons in western Kenya. The trial compared six high altitude long duration pigeonpea varieties i.e. ICEAP 00020, ICEAP 00040, ICEAP 00048, ICEAP 00053, ICP 9145 and ICP 13076 and a medium duration variety i.e. ICP 13211 for productivity, post fallow maize crop yield and financial returns indicators. Long duration pigeonpea varieties take 140-180 days to mature while medium duration varieties take >200 days to mature. Continuous maize cropping acted as a control. Depending on the variety, pigeonpea grain yield ranged between 1.3 and 1.9 t ha -1 . Post fallow maize grain yield from each of pigeonpea variety plot was approximately 3 fold higher than yield from continuous maize plots. The medium duration pigeonpea plots yielded significantly higher maize grain than the long duration (ICEAP 00053, ICEAP 00040) pigeonpea variety plots. Relative to the control, incremental returns to land were highest for medium duration pigeonpea fallow plots (619 USD ha -1 ) and lowest for ICEAP 00040 fallow plots (305 USD ha -1 ). We estimated that by selecting an appropriate pigeonpea variety for a fallow-maize rotation system, a household could produce sufficient food for consumption and remain with a surplus of approximately 2.8 tons for sale. For widespread adoption of pigeonpea based technologies in western Kenya, there is a need for policy improvement on issues related to improved seed production systems, cost of fertilizers, extension services, and market for the end products

Multispectral Sorting Based on Visibly High-Risk Kernels Sourced from Another Country Reduces Fumonisin and Toxigenic Fusarium on Maize Kernels

Fusarium species infect maize crops leading to the production of fumonisin by their toxigenic members. Elimination of microbes is critical in mitigating further postharvest spoilage and toxin accumulation. The current study investigates the efficacy of a previously described multispectral sorting technique to analyze the reduction of fumonisin and toxigenic Fusarium species found contaminating maize kernels in Kenya. Maize samples (n = 99) were collected from six mycotoxin hotspot counties in Kenya (Embu, Meru, Tharaka Nithi, Machakos, Makueni, and Kitui County) and analyzed for aflatoxin and fumonisin using commercial ELISA kits. Aflatoxin levels in majority (91%) of the samples were below the 10 ng/g threshold set by the Kenya Bureau of Standards and therefore not studied further. The 23/99 samples that had >2,000 ng/g of fumonisin were selected for sorting. The sorter was calibrated using kernels sourced from Ghana to reject visibly high-risk kernels for fumonisin contamination using reflectance at nine distinct wavelengths (470–1,550 nm). Accepted and rejected streams were tested for fumonisin using ELISA, and the presence of toxigenic Fusarium using qPCR. After sorting, there was a significant (p < 0.001) reduction of fumonisin, by an average of 1.8 log ng/g (98%) and ranging between 0.14 and 2.7 log ng/g reduction (28–99.8%) with a median mass rejection rate of 1.9% (ranged 0% to 48%). The fumonisin rejection rate ranged between 0 and 99.8% with a median of 77%. There was also a significant reduction (p = 0.005) in the proportion of DNA represented by toxigenic Fusarium, from a mean of 30–1.4%. This study demonstrates the use of multispectral sorting as a potential postharvest intervention tool for the reduction of Fusarium species and preformed fumonisin. The spectral sorting approach of this study suggests that classification algorithms based on high-risk visual features associated with mycotoxin can be applied across different sources of maize to reduce fumonisin