ILRI News

Collaborative agricultural research in Africa gets a welcome boost

In recent months, an initiative of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) called the Regional Plan for Collective Action in Eastern & Southern Africa (now simply called the ‘Regional Collective Action’) updated its ‘CGIAR Ongoing Research Projects in Africa Map’: http://ongoing-research.cgiar.org/ This collaborative and interactive map will be launched in the coming weeks through fliers, displays and presentations at agricultural, research and development meetings that have Africa as a focus. Although much of Africa’s agricultural research information has yet to be captured in this map, 14 centres supported by the CGIAR have already posted a total of 193 research projects and much more is being prepared for posting.

The newsletter of the Regional Collective Action—Collective Action News: Updates of agricultural research in Africa—continues to elicit considerable interest and feedback. Recent issues reported on the CGIAR reform process (November 2009) and agriculture and rural development at the recent climate change talks in Copenhagen (December 2009). The January 2010 issue reflects on the achievements of the Regional Collective Action since its inception three years ago (http://www.ilri.org/regionalplan/documents/Collective Action News January 2010.pdf). Several high-profile African networks, including the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA), the Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network (FANRPAN) and the Association for Strengthening Agricultural Research in Eastern and Central Africa (ASARECA), are helping to disseminate the newsletter of the Regional Collective Action as well as information about its consolidated multi-institutional research map.

Coordinators have now been appointed to lead each of four flagship programs of the Regional Collective Action. Flagship 1 conducts collaborative work on integrated natural resource management issues and is coordinated by Frank Place at the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF); Flagship 2 conducts research on agricultural markets and institutions and is led by Steve Staal of ILRI; Flagship 3 conducts research on agricultural and related biodiversity and is led by Wilson Marandu of Bioversity International with support from Richard Jones of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT); and Flagship 4 conducts research on agriculturally related issues in disaster preparedness and response and is led by Kate Longley and Richard Jones of ICRISAT.

These four flagships programs of the Regional Collective Action are expected to play crucial roles in advancing collaborative discussions and activities in the new CGIAR, which is transforming itself to better link its agricultural research to development outcomes.

ILRI’s Director of Partnerships and Communications, Bruce Scott, represented the CGIAR Centres at the December Meeting of the ASARECA Board of Trustees. ‘ASARECA continues to value the work of the CGIAR Centres in this region and welcome the Regional Collective Action,’ Scott said. With the four Flagship Programs off and running, the interactive Regional Research Map live on the web, and Collective Action News reporting on regional agricultural issues regularly, collaborative agricultural science for development in Africa appears to have got a welcome boost.

Bio-resources Innovations Network for Eastern Africa Development (Bio-Innovate) announce USD10.67 million grant from the Swedish International Development Agency (Sida)

The New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) and the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) today announced a SEK80 million (USD10.67 million) grant from the Swedish International Development Agency (Sida) to support the set up of a multidisciplinary competitive funding mechanism for  biosciences and product-oriented innovation activities in eastern Africa (Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda).

The Bio-Innovate Program will focus on delivering new products through bioscience innovation systems involving a broad sector of actors, including scientists, the private sector, NGOs and other practitioners. The program will use modern bioscience to improve crop productivity and resilience to climate change in small-scale farming systems, and improve the efficiency of the agro-processing industry to add value to local bio-resources in a sustainable manner. Bio-Innovate will be user-, market- and development-oriented in order to make a difference on the ground in poverty alleviation and sustainable economic growth.

Ibrahim Assane Mayaki, Chief Executive Officer of the NEPAD Planning and Coordinating Agency, says: “African governments have recognized the importance of regional collaboration in science and technology to enable the continent to adapt the rapid advances and promises of modern biosciences. In 2005, under the auspices of the Africa Union (AU) and NEPAD, African countries designed and adopted Africa´s Science and Technology Consolidated Plan of Action (CPA). The plan puts emphasis on improving the quality of African science, technology and innovation through regional networking and developing more appropriate policies. Biotechnology and biosciences are prioritized areas in the plan, as has been demonstrated by the work of a high-level AU/NEPAD African Panel on Biotechnology, whose findings are in the publication Freedom to Innovate—Biotechnology in Africa´s Development.”

An Africa-based and Africa-led initiative, Bio-Innovate will draw upon existing expertise and resources from Africa, while forming connections with both African and global institutions to add value to Africa’s natural resources and develop sound policies for commercializing products from biosciences research. Bio-Innovate builds on the achievements of the BIO-EARN program funded by Sida from 1999 to 2009 and has been developed by a team appointed by BIO-EARN governing board. “The program will benefit a lot from the facilities available at the Biosciences eastern and central Africa (BecA) Hub”, says Hassan Mshinda, Chair of the BIO-EARN Governing Board.

“We recognize the importance of the Bio-Innovate initiative to complement and strengthen the biosciences research in eastern and central Africa,” says Carlos Seré, Director General of ILRI. “We appreciate the support from Sida and are convinced that this innovative program will strengthen Africa’s capacity in using biotechnology for economic development.”

“Sida sees the Bio-Innovate Program as an important platform for pooling eastern African expertise through a regional bioscience innovation network, enabling cross-sectoral and interdisciplinary R&D and policy and sustainability analysis. The Bio-Innovate Program will be integrated into ongoing regional programs and structures and promote bioscience innovation in support of sustainable development in the region”, says Gity Behravan, Senior Research Advisor at Sida.

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The New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD): The New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) is a socioeconomic development program of the African Union (AU).  The objective of NEPAD is to stimulate Africa’s development by filling gaps in agriculture, health, education, infrastructure, science and technology. NEPAD explicitly recognizes that life sciences and biotechnology offer enormous potential for improving Africa’s development. Through NEPAD, African countries have committed themselves to establish networks of centres of excellence in biosciences. Four sub-regional networks have been established: the Southern African Network for Biosciences (SANBio), the Biosciences Eastern and Central Africa Network (BecANet), the West Africa Biosciences Network (WABNet) and the North Africa Biosciences Network (NABNet). A recent AU decision to integrate NEPAD into structures and processes of the AU gives the NEPAD Planning and Coordinating Agency (NPCA) the mandate to facilitate, coordinate and implement the NEPAD agenda.

The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI): The Africa-based International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) works at the crossroads of livestock and poverty, bringing high-quality science and capacity building to bear on poverty reduction and sustainable development. ILRI is one of 15 centres supported by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). It has its headquarters in Kenya and a principal campus in Ethiopia. It also has teams working out of offices in Nigeria, Mali, Mozambique, India, Thailand, Indonesia, Laos, Vietnam and China. ILRI hosts the Biosciences eastern and central Africa (BecA) Hub at the invitation of the African Union/New Partnership for Africa’s Development (AU/NEPAD), as part of the AU/NEPAD’s Africa Biosciences Initiative. The BecA Hub is part of a shared research platform on the ILRI campus in Nairobi. The BecA Hub has been established over the past two years, with strong support from the Government of Canada, through the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), and ILRI. For more information, please visit our website: www.ilri.org

Voice of America reported yesterday (‘Regulation Can’t Keep Pace with Livestock’, 22 Feb 2010) that the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) says that ‘livestock production is growing faster than our capacity to safely manage it’. A new FAO report, The State of Food and Agriculture, underscores the importance of supporting the world’s one billion poor people who depend on livestock to make their living. What poor animal keepers need, say scientists at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), is a ‘third way’ of producing milk, meat and eggs that copies neither harmful industrial-scale factory farming of animals in rich countries nor inefficient subsistence-level practices currently used to wrest a living off marginal lands in poor countries. ILRI staff argue, most recently in the world’s leading science journal, Science (‘Smart Investments in Sustainable Food Production: Revisiting Mixed Crop-Livestock Systems’, 12 Feb 2010), that more sustainable animal agriculture is particularly needed in developing countries, where livestock production is growing fast, natural resources are being degraded and lost, and small-scale mixed crop-and-livestock farmers are already feeding most of the world’s poor people.

The authors of the Science paper, who come from ILRI and other centres of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), also see this ‘third way’ of livestock production as particularly vital for the new ‘food frontiers’ of the world. These, they say, are the many farmlands currently being used to raise animals as well as to produce maize, rice and other major food crops that lie between the high- and low-potential agricultural lands of developing countries. ‘It is these relatively extensive medium-potential mixed-production farmlands that have been neglected until now,’ says lead author and ILRI scientist Mario Herrero, ‘that should now be the focus of agricultural development policymakers and aid agencies. These are the lands that are key to feeding the world’s extra 3 billion people over the next 4 decades.

Click here for the Voice of America news item about the FAO study.

Click here to read the Science paper by ILRI and other CGIAR researchers on the import of mixed and extensive crop-livestock farming for food security.

A paper written by several centres of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), Smart Investments in Sustainable Food Production: Revisiting Mixed Crop-Livestock Systems, is published in the current issue (12 February 2010: Vol. 327. no. 5967, pp. 822–825) of Science magazine. The paper argues that the world’s small-scale mixed crop-and-livestock farmers are the farmers feeding most of the world’s poor today, are the farmers likely to feed most of the world’s growing poor populations tomorrow, and are the farmers most neglected by current investments and policies worldwide. Lead author Mario Herrero, an agricultural systems analyst at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), says that with the right investments and policy support, the ‘relatively extensive’ mixed crop-livestock farming systems – located in most tropical developing regions of the world between intensively farmed fertile highlands and semi-arid low rangelands – could be the future breadbaskets of the developing world.

The abstract of the paper follows.

Smart Investments in Sustainable Food Production: Revisiting Mixed Crop-Livestock Systems

M. Herrero P. K. Thornton, A. M. Notenbaert, S. Wood, S. Msangi, H. A. Freeman, D. Bossio, J. Dixon, M. Peters, J. van de Steeg, J. Lynam, P. Parthasarathy Rao, S. Macmillan, B. Gerard, J. McDermott, C. Seré, M. Rosegrant

Farmers in mixed crop-livestock systems produce about half of the world’s food. In small holdings around the world, livestock are reared mostly on grass, browse, and nonfood biomass from maize, millet, rice and sorghum crops, and in their turn supply manure and traction for future crops. Animals act as insurance against hard times and supply farmers with a source of regular income from sales of milk, eggs and other products. Thus, faced with population growth and climate change, small-holder farmers should be the first target for policies to intensify production by carefully managed inputs of fertilizer, water and feed to minimize waste and environmental impact, supported by improved access to markets, new varieties and technologies.

Read the full text

Learning from successes in agricultural development is now more urgent than ever. Progress in feeding the world’s billions has slowed, while the challenge of feeding its future millions remains enormous and is subject to new uncertainties in the global food and agricultural systems.

Recently ILRI Nairobi had the pleasure of hosting a special policy seminar titled Millions Fed: Proven Successes in Agricultural Development, organized by The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and CGIAR Collective Action for ESA. The key speaker was Dr. David Spielman, one of the authors of Successes in Agricultural Development: Lessons Learned from Millions Fed, a study from IFPRI, with support from The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, embarked on to identify and assess interventions in agricultural development that have substantially reduced hunger and poverty; to document evidence about where, when and why these interventions succeeded; to learn about the key drivers and factors underlying success; and to share lessons to help inform better agricultural policy and investment decisions in the future. Following a rigorous review process, the project ultimately identified 20 proven successes in agricultural development, several of which highlight policies, programs and investments in sub-Saharan Africa.

This event presented what worked, why it worked and what we can learn from these successes. Decisions rotated around topics of importance on communicating successes in agricultural development, accumulating rigorous evidence on agricultural development and continued investment in agricultural development.

Visit www.ifpri.org/millionsfed further details.

Livestock researchers at ILRI believe that rather than trying to rid the world of livestock it’s preferable to find ways to farm animals more efficiently, profitably and sustainably.

More on livestock and poverty: challenges at the interface

View the film:

Arusha—East Africa has some 63 out of the total number of 100 species of Acacia trees found in Africa. Acacias, the poor-man’s fuel and forage, have developed highly specialised characteristics that make them superbly adapted to the challenges of living in Africa—a continent with all its variability and year-on-year extremes of climate change. The temperate world worries when it gets a few inches of rain. The African world worries when, for three successive years it gets none. If the world at large is really concerned about man’s impact on climate change, it does not need grant-dependant scientists in East Anglia to fiddle with its data; it just needs to see what man is doing to Africa by counting the dwindling numbers and varieties of Acacias.

Drive the Makayuni to Mtu wa Mbu stretch of road in northern Tanzania, a wonderfully smooth length of 30 kms of Japanese-laid tarmac and compare this with the Meserani to Makayuni road, a somewhat longer stretch of Italian-laid tarmac. In the former there are still some different species of Acacia trees to count, in the latter there are whistling thorn (Acacia drepanolobium). The latter stretch had a variety of trees, according to residents of the area. The rapidly thinning stands in the former suggest that it will not be long before it joins the latter, as yet another man-made arid and relatively unproductive bit of mismanaged African rangeland. Does anyone care? Not really, as it is those funny, red-robed peoples, along with their progressively emaciated cattle, who are the immediate apparent losers. That we are ultimately all going to be losers has not yet penetrated the policy-making classes peering out of their air-conditioned offices in the commercial capital city of Dar es Salaam at the immaculate and well-watered green surroundings.

Acacias are characterised by having thorns—in fact their name comes from the Greek “akis” and means “barb” or “sharp point” (See Najma Dharani’s book – “Field Guide to the Acacias of East Africa”). Their thorns take on quite impressive features, as dramatically portrayed in the film, “The Gods must be Crazy” when one notoriously hooked thorned variety, the “Wait a bit” thorn (Acacia mellifera) catches the leading lady’s underwear, requiring the leading man—playing the part of an accident-prone elephant dung expert—to untangle the situation. The Acacia’s thorns have a survival purpose, by restricting how much they are browsed by livestock and wildlife, and when the barbs are braved, swarms of biting ants and rapidly rising levels of toxic leaf sap, as second and third lines of defence, further deter the browser’s attention. Left alone to themselves, and despite the animals and the odd bush fire, the Acacias generally do ok—it’s just man that they are defenceless against. The cut of the hard steel axe and the subsequent rising column of smoke from the charcoal burners mound spell a rapidly increasing doom for the species—especially the better hard wooded more productive varieties such as Abyssinica, Gerrardii, Hockii, Nilotica, Tortillis and Xanthoplea. It is the mature, pod-bearing trees that go first, providing more bucks for the effort of cutting them down, and pod bearers provide the seeds for the next generation. No pod bearers, no next generation.

But surely open treeless rangeland is much better than being “invaded” by all that spikey useless bushy Acacia stuff. Where the species are of predominately of the less useful varieties this might to some extent be true—but in reality the arid and semi-arid rangelands need Acacias for all the multitudinous benefits they confer. Being leguminous, their number one value is in improving soil fertility supporting rangeland productivity and providing a critically needed dry season reserve of digestible protein for livestock and wildlife alike. They are also highly valuable for their root systems, which counter soil erosion and create water catchments whilst their foliage provides life-saving shade. Lopped branches and fallen trees for fuel wood, honey production from twice-yearly flowering gums and traditional medicinal products from roots and bark infusions are sustainable uses that man has practised for generations. In many traditional societies the value of the Acacias is well recognised and there are strictly applied controls on what and how much is harvested and by whom.

The advent of the urbanisation and dramatic increases in predominately impoverished populations have created an ever upwards spiralling demand for low-cost fuel for cooking the daily diet of maize meal and, if lucky, beans. Much of this fuel comes from charcoal produced largely from the seemingly infinite tracts of Acacia once found growing freely throughout African rangeland. Now, as the Meserani to Mto wa Mbu road is telling, that infinity has a horizon which is rapidly being approached.

I will leave it to the better-informed scientists to tell us how much carbon is captured by well-managed and productive rangeland as compared to the rapidly evolving treeless wastelands. I just know that it is a lot and stated to be significantly in excess of the carbon captured by rain forests. So why do we not have any “Save the Rangeland” appeals? Do East Anglians prefer to take their holidays in the Amazon? I will also leave it to the scientists at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) in Nairobi to tell us that African rangeland-reared cattle contribute less than 3% of all methane emissions attributable to livestock production, whilst at the same time supporting the livelihoods of some several million pastoralists and providing Nairobi, and much of the rest of Africa, with an affordable, organic and renewable source of high quality animal protein. Just to put one in the eye of Paul and his fellow advocates for a meat free world it has been shown (not, I hasten to add, by scientists from East Anglia) that just 3 grams of meat, or equivalent livestock product, a day in the diet of a growing African child has a significant and readily measurable benefit in terms of cognitive development and ultimate success in developing a fully functioning intelligence. I am not one for denying them this chance but I need to remember that this time, I am talking trees.

So what to do? Grow trees, the right varieties of Acacia, and plant them, in the right places. Simple really, except for one small problem—the seeds do not readily germinate. It’s just another Acacia thing. In order for its seeds to survive the long periods of insufficient rain and not infrequent droughts, the seeds are coat hardened to withstand the strongly desiccant environment. It is said by many that the seeds need to be tenderised in order to germinate either by passing through the stomach of a ruminant and/or be subject to the heat of a bush fire. The latter may be true, though more die than survive, but the former not so true— though those seeds that receive just enough but not too much grinding by the ruminant’s molars are more likely to germinate than those fully ground or not ground at all. The Acacia hard wood species tend to have fleshy pods which are highly edible and nutritious for ruminants, providing a particularly protein-rich food source in the dry season. Their ingestion and passage through the ruminant’s gut leads, ultimately, to the seeds being distributed far and wide, as testified by my friend’s Acacias, which have largely derived from the cow manure they have used on their well-watered lawn!

The challenge “boils down” to how to grow Acacias, what varieties and where to plant them. It is a lot to do with caring for an environment where climate challenge [change to challenge is easily done] is an established fact of life, whilst it is the actions of uncaring fellow citizens and the misinformed/weakly applied policies allowing them, that seem to me to be the real change of concern. Just count the trees and see each day their number dwindling. Ruminant guts and bush fires apart, by application of the appropriate technique, Acacias can be induced to germinate and that magic moment of life, its reproduction, follows. Such a technique is likely to include the physical collection, storage with insecticide, preconditioning [soaking Acacia seeds in hot water works for some species but not the harder tougher ones—more physical abuse, otherwise known as scarification, is needed] and sowing of the seeds in long-range weather forecasted periods of prolonged rains. Maybe someone should ask Copenhagen to allocate a proportion of the carbon funds for the management of rangelands inclusive of the planting of Acacias—a present for the earth that will last longer than Xmas.

[COPENHAGEN] A “masterplan” for agricultural research and technology transfer was unveiled at the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen today by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), the world’s largest alliance of agricultural scientists.

The 45-page strategy calls for, on the one hand, action that harnesses multiple advances that the group says are waiting to be rolled out. The second strand is to boost research into longer-term solutions.

The report thus calls for an intensive effort to “speed the development and dissemination of dozens of existing improved technologies”, including hardier crop varieties and more efficient ways to manage water, trees, soils, livestock, fish and forests. These have emerged from more than 30 years of research, the group says.

“Turning this wealth of knowledge into action will create immediate benefits, bolstering food security and adapting agriculture to climate change impacts in the near term, while mitigating future impacts through reduced greenhouse gas emissions,” said Thomas Rosswall, chair of the CGIAR Challenge program on climate change, agriculture and food security.

“A quick response now will also buy us time to develop the more potent climate change solutions that will be needed 10 years from now.”

CGIAR experts also argued that the proposed adaptation fund – to enable developing countries to cope with the impacts of climate change – should cover agriculture.

“Agriculture is part of the [climate change] problem and part of the solution,” said Rosswall.

Agriculture contributes to a third of the total global greenhouse gas emissions but is also highly vulnerable to changes in temperature and rainfall, and extreme weather events.

An International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) analysis published this month (December) predicts a 10–40 per cent decline in crop yields by 2050. Food prices are projected to rise by 30–70 per cent by 2050 even without climate change — and by an additional 30–100 percent due to the impact of climate change.

The CGIAR report highlighted the use of computer modelling to inform decisions about difficult trade-offs, such as those between environmental impacts and socioeconomic benefits in the global livestock sector.

The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) in Nairobi, for example, is modelling ways of making crop and livestock production more profitable without depleting natural resources, said Philip Thornton, senior scientist at ILRI.

It has prepared maps indicating where the environmental pressures of such production are most intense.

Computer simulations are also helping to explore the potential of crop substitution — for example, replacing beans, a major crop that is declining in many parts of Sub-Saharan Africa, with the more drought-tolerant cassava.

Scientist whose work has enhanced the food supply of hundreds of millions of people
in sub-Saharan Africa is honoured in Ethiopia

At a reception at the National Palace in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, following a ‘Dialogue on Agricultural Development in Ethiopia’ on 12 November 2009, Ethiopia’s president, H.E. Ato Girma Woldegiorgus, bestowed his country’s highest award for achievement on Prof Gebisa Ejeta, an Ethiopian-born sorghum breeder and recent World Food Prize Laureate. In response, Prof Ejeta announced that he will use his USD250,000 World Food Prize award to establish a foundation that will help meet the educational needs of Ethiopian and other African children and to establish an annual dialogue in honour of his friend and mentor, Dr Berhane Gebre-Kidan, formerly of Ethiopia’s Alemaya College of Agriculture.

At his Palace reception, Ejeta was visibly moved by his country’s honour.

‘To receive from my country the highest recognition any Ethiopian can receive is overwhelming,’ said Ejeta. ‘All other recognitions I have received I have taken on behalf of the causes I have served. But I am happy to take this particular recognition personally.’

Ejeta, a self-described ‘typical Ethiopian’, said he had spent his life working to serve three principles: humility, integrity and loyalty. ‘I have always tried to remain in check with myself, my own sense of purpose,’ he said. ‘You have to have some cause bigger than yourself. Mine has been to work in service of humanity and the poor.’

Ejeta said, ‘With the money I received from the World Food Prize, I am putting together a foundation. We will use this award money to help meet the educational needs of Ethiopia and other African children.’

He then went on to make a second announcement.

‘Dr Berhane Gebre-Kidan has served as a friend and mentor since I met him at my alma mater, the Alemaya College of Agriculture. I want to establish an annual dialogue, the “Berhane Gebre-Kidan Dialogue”. I cannot think of a better venue to make this announcement, honouring my mentor.’

The 2009 World Food Prize was presented to the Ethiopian-born plant scientist, now an American citizen conducting research at Purdue University, in ceremonies in Des Moines, Iowa, on 15 October 2009. The prize, which comes with a USD250,000 award, is given annually to people who have helped address the world’s food needs. This year’s prize honours Ejeta’s life-long work to improve the production of sorghum, one of the world’s most important grain crops. It also honours his efforts to make his discoveries matter to the farmers who need them the most.

Humility
Ejeta’s desire to help others is rooted in his own childhood poverty. He grew up in a one-room thatched hut in rural Ethiopia. His mother’s commitment to his education helped make him a standout. Poor as she was, she found a place for Ejeta to study, and a place to stay, in a town 20 kilometres away. Ejeta walked there. He studied there. He worked hard there. He excelled there.

Lowell Hardin, an emeritus professor at Purdue University who has known Ejeta for 25 years, says, ‘Because he grew up in very, very modest circumstances — a single mother in a remote village in Ethiopia — he knew poverty. He knew hunger. And when he was fortunate enough to get an education thanks to his mother’s pushing, he decided he was going to apply his talents in this direction.’

Integrity
Ejeta has spent his entire professional life in research to reduce threats to Africa’s food crops. He applied his talents to fighting a weed called Striga, or witchweed, which threatens crops that feed more than 100 million people across sub-Saharan Africa. Ejeta says the parasitic weed can ruin fields of sorghum, a major staple in hot, dry regions of Africa.

‘If you grow a crop susceptible to infection by the parasite,’ he says, ‘and if your soil is contaminated, you have no chance of growing a crop. And most of these soils are becoming contaminated.’

Researchers had tried for years to control the weed without much success. Its seeds can lie dormant in the soil for decades. But Ejeta and his team at Purdue University discovered the chemical signals produced by the sorghum plant that ‘wakes up’ the Striga seeds. They then found sorghum varieties that didn’t produce the signals, and bred a line of Striga-resistant plants that thrived in a broad range of African growing conditions. These new varieties produced up to four times more grain than local types, even in drought-plagued areas.

Loyalty
With this research breakthrough, Ejeta immediately set about ensuring that his disease- and drought-resistant varieties were made available to the African farmers who needed them most. Once the new variety was developed in 1994, he worked with non-profit groups to distribute eight tons of seed to twelve African nations.

Carrying research to the next level is typical of Gebisa Ejeta, who has always understood the importance of getting technology into the hands of African farmers. Just out of graduate school, he bred a high-yielding, drought-tolerant variety of sorghum. When the new hybrid variety was introduced in 1983, Ejeta worked with Sudanese farmers’ cooperatives to scale up production of his drought-resistant sorghum.

Today, Ejeta is working with local partners to connect brewers, bakers, and flour millers with farmers growing the improved sorghum. By working along the entire chain, from farmers’ seeds to consumers’ plates, his work is helping to lift people out of poverty—and providing a powerful weapon in the war on hunger.

Dialogue
The 12 November 2009 ‘Dialogue on Agricultural Development in Ethiopia’ was organized by the Ethiopian Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development in Ejeta’s honour. Supported by the International Livestock Research Institute and other organizations, the Dialogue was opened by H.E. Ato Girma Woldegiorgis, President of the Federal Republic of Ethiopia.

President Woldegiorgis called Ejeta ‘an Ethiopian champion whose prize is a commitment to others. Through much of our history, we have made scientific discoveries. With this recognition of Dr Gebisa, we reclaim that history.’

In his welcome address, H.E. Ato Teferra Derebew, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, noted how much the Ethiopian Government has emphasized agriculture in its development program and said, ‘Gebisa represents a new generation of agricultural researchers. The farming and pastoral societies of Ethiopia are grateful.’

Ejeta on Ethiopia’s challenges and opportunities
In his presentation, Prof Ejeta spoke about Ethiopia’s role in enhancing science-based development in Africa. Whereas most African governments have invested too little to create impact, he said, Ethiopia is an exception.

‘No other African country has committed more internal resources to agricultural development,’ Ejeta said. ‘I have grown positive about Africa lately. Ethiopia is at the cusp of a major agricultural revolution. Ethiopians are among the most resourceful people I know. They can focus and get it done.’

He extolled two great examples of technology transfer in Ethiopia: the Chilalo Agricultural Development Unit in 1970s and the work of Sasakawa Global 2000 in 1990s. ‘Neither,’ he said, ‘was sustained.’ Why not?

‘I am defined,’ Ejeta said, ‘by the modest background that I come from and the great education that I have received in both Ethiopia and the United States.’ In his experience, he said, both Alemaya College of Agriculture and Purdue University shared a ‘land grant university model’ that takes the results of research and delivers it to communities.

‘More buildings and more students don’t make a college,’ he warned. ‘The quality of education in Africa needs to be improved. We need to go back to the model we used 40–50 years ago. We need to get our colleges linked to outstanding universities overseas. The most significant mark that we can make is capacity strengthening.’

Among his worries, Ejeta said, were an uncoordinated national agricultural research framework and what he called the ‘seasonality and fragmentation of development efforts.’

‘For too long we have relied on external funding,’ he said. He warned of the tendency of non-governmental organizations to lobby for boosting social service spending and the susceptibility of donors to embracing paradigm shifts, from sustainable agriculture in the 1990s, for example, to today’s integrated value chain approach. Such frequently changing paradigms, he said, ‘have led to a series of failed starts and are partly responsible for our lack of traction on the ground in agricultural research for development.’

‘African science-led agricultural development needs to be country led,’ he said. ‘Our country programs must be front and centre, with international agricultural research institutes and non-governmental organizations working to support them.’

Ejeta advised the Ethiopian agricultural research-for-development community to ‘Loosen up, be open and take risks’ and to focus on three things: accelerating technological development, investing in institutions and pushing for policy and ownership.

Panel on climate change and African agriculture
Three other presentations on the achievements and future of Ethiopian agriculture and agricultural research were followed by a panel discussion. Several of the panel members spoke on the new challenges Ethiopian and African food producers face with climate change. Dr Mata Chipeta, working for the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in its Ethiopia sub-regional office, said, ‘Climate change is likely to worsen our food security problems. Climate change could become just the latest excuse for Africa not to be food sufficient. Last year’s fuel price hikes and then fertilizer, food and financial crises are all interlinked. Africa must become master in its own house. It must stop feeling entitled to free assistance. It must invest its own resources. Only then will we get a future that we drive.’

Dr Carlos Seré, director general of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), whose principal campuses are located in Ethiopia and Kenya, spoke of the need to enhance the capacity of societies to learn quickly and respond to climate and other changes. ‘I don’t think there is a trade-off between climate change and food security,’ Seré said. ‘Our agricultural and climate challenges have much in common. Agriculture has to be central to climate change discussions.’

The ILRI director general remarked on Ethiopia’s rare agricultural, biological, human and institutional diversity: ‘There will be a lot of variability in how the climate changes. Ethiopia has greatly diverse farming regions. It has great biodiversity. How can we use cutting edge science to understand that diversity and use it better? Lessons learned in one place may be valuable in another. We need to empower people at the local level to provide solutions. Science can quicken this work. The centres of the CGIAR have been working side by side with the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research and other institutions in this country. We stand ready to deepen our cooperation with the diversity of institutions in Ethiopia.’

Regular dialogue begins
Fittingly, the person whose remarks closed the Dialogue was Prof Ejeta’s mentor, Dr Berhane Gebre-Kidan, who had attended the October World Food Prize ceremony in Iowa, where he watched his protégé be honoured.

Recalling that Ejeta had attended Jimma Agricultural Technical University, Alemaya Agricultural University and then Purdue University, Gebre-Kidan said that each of these institutions shared the land grant philosophy, which combines education, research, and extension, all involved in the development of its local communities.

‘I wait for the day,’ Gebre-Kidan said, ‘when this triangle is recognized in each of our colleges of agriculture. We are recognized as a country unable to feed itself. We have to change that image. We have a world-class scientist in the person of Prof Gebisa Ejeta, which we can exploit. We need to establish a think tank that will think outside the box about Ethiopian agriculture. We need to institute a regular dialogue to move Ethiopian agriculture forward.’

It appears from Gebisa Ejeta’s announcement at Ethiopia’s National Palace that that ‘regular dialogue’ is about to begin.

Support for the Dialogue honouring Prof Ejeta was provided by the Ethiopian Government as well as the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, the Canadian International Development Agency, the International Development Research Centre (Canada), the International Livestock Research Institute, the Japanese International Cooperation Agency, OXFAM America, OXFAM Great Britain and the United States Agency for International Development.

For more information about the 12 November 2009 Dialogue in Addis Ababa, go to: www.ilri.org/ilrinews/index.php/archives/tag/dialogue

For more information about Prof Gebisa Ejeta, go to: World Food Prize Laureate.

It's time for climate negotiators to put meat on the bones
of the next climate agreement

By Carlos Seré, Director General, ILRI

Worldwide our climate is changing, and livestock, which are vital to food security and to agricultural systems in most marginal regions of the world, must adapt to survive, as must the herders and farmers who keep them.

Livestock systems are a major global asset. They occupy 45% of the earth’s surface, employ at least 1.3 billion people, and are valued at about 1.4 trillion US dollars. They provide 17% of the calories and a third of the protein we consume. According to FAO, milk is the world’s number one agricultural commodity, worth about $144 billion annually, and meat from cows, pigs and chickens rank 3, 4 and 5, respectively.

These statistics, however, hide stark differences in how livestock are raised. In poor countries, most livestock are raised on small farms or herded by pastoralists. Throughout their (usually long) natural lives, they survive largely on grass and other vegetation, including the stalks, leaves and other ‘wastes’ of food crops after the grain has been harvested.

In contrast, most livestock in wealthy countries are ‘factory-farmed’ using industrial processes. These short-lived animals are quickly fattened by feeding them vast quantities of corn and other grains – food that could be eaten by people.

Livestock contribute about 18% of the global greenhouse gas emissions generated by human activity. The vast majority of these emissions come from wealthy countries practicing factory farming. All of Africa’s ruminants combined, for example, account for only 3 percent of the global methane emissions from livestock.

Most farmers in developing countries practice either mixed-crop and-livestock farming or pastoral production on rangelands. These smallholders and herders leave tiny environmental footprints in terms of inputs. Even so, investments that increase their efficiency and productivity in terms of breeding and feeding could remove millions of tons of methane and carbon emissions from the atmosphere.

Livestock play central roles in the lives of the poor. If livestock are lost, households can slip into chronic “poverty traps”. Experts believe that climate change is particularly hurting Africa’s livestock and other food producers and the ecosystems on which they depend. And they predict things are going to get worse on the continent, probably much worse. The productivity of rain-fed cropping systems is likely to drop, and do so dramatically in some areas; water shortages will become more common; and important human, livestock and crop diseases are likely to spread to new regions and become more severe.

Many of the world’s small-scale livestock keepers will have to adapt, for example, by changing the mix of livestock species they keep and the types of crops they grow, or switching to new sources of feed for their animals. Some will probably have to get out of agriculture altogether.

When negotiators meet later this year in Copenhagen to finalize the global climate pact, they must pay attention to the many small farmers and herders who are already feeding most of the world’s poor. And they must begin to pay attention explicitly to farm animals that remain neglected by policymakers even as they become increasingly important to food security and raising smallholder incomes. African negotiators in particular need to be champion the cause of small-scale animal agriculture, which remains the backbone of their nations’ economies.

Food security and climate change are inextricably linked. Policymakers must become adept at moving on both fronts simultaneously. And if our climate negotiators hope to address the needs of more than a billion animal keepers n the world, they must begin to provide differentiated policies that support rather than neglect the multifarious small livestock enterprises that make food production possible throughout the developing world.