photographs by Gerald Businge Ateenyi
 

To view videos on this topic, please click here.

Mali is one of the largest countries in Africa and also one of the poorest countries in the World. Half the population lives below the international poverty line and a third of the population depend on cotton to survive.

videography and production by Amanda Martinez

White Gold: Tracing Cotton and Fashion in Africa from Amanda Martinez on Vimeo.

Mount Kilimanjaro is the highest mountain in Africa and one of the most fertile areas in the continent of Africa. One million people depend on the land for agriculture.

Sebastian Chuwa is a botanist in Tanzania. To fight against deforestation and drought, he decided to promote the planting of trees. He chose a species — the Mpingo, a tree whose wood is used to make clarinets. In twenty years, he has planted two million trees. Below is a trailer for the film.

Teaser “The revival of Mt. Kilimanjaro” from David Castello-Lopes on Vimeo.

To view the full published piece by David Castello-Lopes in French, visit Le Monde.

Similar to Sub-Saharan Africa, the Central Valley’s thriving market has had to deal with drought, pesticide use, polluted air, water scarcity, urbanization and the introduction of technology. Read and watch what the class learned.

A Glance into the Central Valley
Q&A and photo slideshow by Paige Ricks

Technology and its impact on technology
video by Jerome Hubbard

Interview with Eric Holt-Gimenez
video by Bryan Gibel and Elizabeth-Laure Njipwo

Central Valley agriculture and technology
video by Laurel Moorhead and Lily Mihalik

Final curtain for the pink boll worm
story by Noemie Bisserbe

Is goodwill enough?
story by Fabiane Stefano

A holistic approach to reduce pesticide risk
Q&A by Bernice Agyekwena and Neelima Mahajan

story by Neelima Mahajan and Bernice Agyekwena

Ongoing research on biological control of aflatoxins in pistachios in California has proven successful with a reduction of 50 percent in aflatoxin infection rates in the second year of research. In the first year, infection was reduced by 10 percent and advance estimates suggest a reduction of 50 percent or more in the third year.

Biological control of aflatoxin in cotton seeds and peanuts is already going on in Arizona and other parts of the United States. This was revealed by Professor Themis Michailides, a Plant Pathologist at the University of California’s Kearney Agricultural Research Center, Fresno. He said biological control of aflatoxins in maize in Nigeria has been successful and the product was registered early this year and is currently in use. “We are hoping the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will grant registration for biological control of aflatoxins in pistachios to take off in the fields next year,” he said.

The rationale for biological control involves the use of extoxigenic aspergillus flavus and aspergillus parasiticus strains of fungi that do not produce aflatoxins to control the toxigenic strains that produce aflatoxins.

Aflatoxins are forms of mycotoxins which are poisons produced by toxigenic fungi when they infect and feed on certain crops including pistachios, peanuts, maize, figs and cotton.
They are regarded as number one carcinogens and when ingested in small quantities accumulate in the body because they cannot be metabolized, causing liver cancer and yellowing of the eyeballs which eventually leads to death. However, consuming large quantities at one go leads to instant death.

Q&A by Bernice Agyekwena and Neelima Mahajan

Q. Dealing with pests is one part of the problem and dealing with pesticides is another. When we talk of reducing pesticide risk, is there a safer and more sustainable approach to follow?

A. For reducing pesticide risk you need a systems approach that takes into account the whole ecological system. You use pesticides as little as possible and when you have to, you try and use reduced risk pesticides. You also bring in cultural changes – so you can control the cultivar, control cultural practices, understand the pest-host relationship and use a calculator to see when you need to spray pesticides. You might be able to reduce pesticide risk just by understanding your pests and understanding under what conditions they can lead up to an economic threat. You use the pesticide only when there is an economic threat.

Besides, you can have a variety or cultivar that helps manage pests and diseases. So if you have a root stalk that’s resistant to a root-borne disease or to a pest, then you don’t have to treat for that disease or that pest. You might also be able to find natural enemies – a predator or a parasite – that will be able to control disease. You can do DNA work where you can determine whether a variety will cause you an economic problem. If you use a system, you can find the best method in the environment that you are in for the specific pest that you have. The US is trying to use reduced risk pesticides that are not as harmful to the environment, animals and people.

photo: Laura Van Der Staay is the Program and Facility Coordinator, IR-4 Field Research Center Director at the Kearney Research Center, University of California Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources

By FRANCIS KAGOLO

Jatropha plantation in Kimina, Masini, in Uganda

KIMINA, Uganda — The motorbike trip to the remote village of Kimina in Masindi district is distressing; the road is narrow, potholed and dusty. After an hour of a draining ride, we “wake” up to the shock of a large plantation of ebiti (unknown trees), as they are commonly known in this part of western Uganda.

The “trees” are of jatropha, a plant whose non-edible seeds can be harvested to make biodiesel. From a distance, everything looks green. It is a beautiful plantation. The owner, Joseph Kasigwa, a father of four, is proud of it too. It was abject poverty and lack of school fees for his children that pushed him into growing the crop. He now foresees big earnings once harvests start.

Despite the flourishing jatropha, however, Kasigwa will have to spend much of his income on buying food for his family. He has foregone food production for the biodiesel crop. And he is not alone; there are thousands of farmers in Masindi and neighbuoring districts like Hoima and Lira, who have either abandoned or reduced on food crop production in favour of jatropha.

In the past, the crop was used to demarcate people’s plots especially among people in Buganda (central Uganda), with no commercial value. But the global quest for clean energy has changed this. A number of countries across the world now grow the crop to produce power to lessen dependence on fossil fuels. It is widely hoped that the use of biofuel will solve several problems including reduction of greenhouse gas emission, provide a renewable and therefore sustainable energy source and increase income for the rural poor, mostly in developing countries.

According to Andrew Ndawula, the commissioner for renewable energy in the ministry of energy and mineral development, diesel from jatropha seeds is good for powering vehicles. It does not produce toxic gasses when used.

When a plan for large scale production of agrofuels was first unveiled in 2006, hope of overcoming energy deficiencies in Uganda swayed even the most senior Government officials. Since then, there has been a steady move towards massive biodiesel production in the country, with government using incentives like tax holidays to woo foreign investors into the sector. Nexus Biodiel LTD has planted over 400 hectares of jatropha in Isimba, Masindi, which is three hours north of Kampala. There are four other companies yet to start production of biodiesel, virtually from the same crop.

Farmers in Masindi, Hoima and Lira are reportedly enthusiastic about the crop.

Nexus alone boasts of more than 2,000 registered outgrowers in the three districts, according to Edward Mugenyi, the field manager. Only 36 of these have planted over 190 acres of jatropha. Jatropha production also exists in Mukono and Luweero districts of central Uganda among other areas.

Aside from jatropha, other crops being fronted for biodiesel include castor (nsogasoga) and candlenut (Kabakanjagala) seed. African Power Initiatives LTD (API) has planted about 2,000 acres of caster oil and jatropha in Namalu, Karamoja region, officials said last year. The companies promise to start production of diesel soon this year.

Ndawula says the goal is to increase the use of modern renewable energy from the current 4 to 16 percent of the total energy consumed in Ugnada by 2017.  The ministry also says biodiesel is needed to meet the increasing energy demand in the country which it predicts to reach 1,809MWh in 2025. But more importantly, government wants to reduce on fossil fuel imports. It also thinks biodiesels can boost development in rural communities.

The programme has provided the rural population with new alternative cash crops, and thus additional employment. But the move has sparked off vehement criticism. Environmentalists and food rights activists though admit that curbing fuel shortages is crucial for development, warn that the biofuel industry is laced with worse consequences especially on food security.

Geofrey Kamese, the programme officer for energy and climate change at the National Association of Professional Environmentalists (NAPE), a local NGO, says biofuel production will more likely worsen food shortages, hamper poverty alleviation efforts and eventually deter Uganda’s ability to achieve most of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Biofuels take large chunks of land

He says producing biofuel will demand a lot of land at the expense of food production. Indeed, Robert Nabubolo and Godfrey Bukomba, managers of the Nexus jatropha plantation in Masindi, revealed that an acre of land can plant only about 430 trees.

Each tree produces five kilograms of seed a year, which generate just one liter of diesel. This means only 430 liters of fuel can be produced from an acre of land each year. This is just enough for one car, yet Uganda has over 600,000 vehicles, according to statistics from the works ministry. To move just 2,000 of these vehicles, for instance, it means millions of hectares of fertile land must be put under jatropha and not food production.

Mugenyi says it is possible to intercrop jatropha with some crops like ground nuts and beans to fight hunger, but the hurdle is few farmers are ready to buy this advice. Hence, most of the plantations only have jatropha trees. Besides, Mugenyi also admits that intercropping can be done until jatropha is three years. Beyond that, the trees would have acquired branches and thus unfit for intercropping.

Many other biofuel feedstocks like soybeans, corn and sugarcane are also key sources of food for people. “It does not make sense to starve our people because a few rich ones want fuel to drive cars,” Kamese remarks. “Converting food crops into fuel means more and more people will stay hungry and eventually die.”

It is upon this background that activists warn Government to tread carefully. “Biofuels are coming to compete for the small land that was used to grow food crops. In order to produce an extra litre of diesel, we shall have to convert more land from food crops to produce biofuels as more people go hungry,” Kamese warns.

Environment threatened

In the process, therefore, a lot of rain forests have to be cut to create ample land for jatropha plantations, as the case has been in some parts of Masindi near Murchison Falls National Park. This comes with disastrous environmental impacts, especially now that the country and the world at large, already suffer from the brunt of climate change. Last year, for instance, crops failed due to prolonged droughts, leading to famine that killed over 50 people mainly in the East.

Activists also castigate the monoculture system used for growing biofuel crops for involving excessive use of fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides. “It affects soil fertility and destroys biodiversity, causing both environmental degredation and food insecurity,” NAPE said in a recent publication. NAPE, therefore, believes that biofuel production would increase greenhouse gas emissions and intensify rather than mitigate global warming.

This is in line with a 2007 study by African Biodiversity Network (ABN) which indicated that biofuel projects in Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Benin could lead to “environmental and humanitarian disaster on the continent.”

Experts also envisage a sharp upsurge in food prices as more farmers take on biofuels. In a press release, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) attributed the 2008 rise in food prices partly to the “competition (for land) between biofuels and food.” The urban poor, who make up 10% of Ugandan’s urban population, will be hit hardest by the high food prices and will have to stay empty stomach for more days, experts say.

WFP country director, Stanlake Samkange, said in an exclusive interview that although jatropha was another cash crop, there was need to balance cash crops with food production. “Biofuels is not a bad move per se. But we want to be assured that food security will be guaranteed,” Samkange noted.

Aside, Kamese thinks that Uganda’s potential to benefit from the biofuels is very limited. “Our fear is that rich countries are the ones driving the biofuel industry by promising to buy most of the produce. We shall producing fuel for foreign markets as our people bear the burden of feeding their families,” he said.

The global perspective

Since 1930, countries have proposed different approaches to the soaring petroleum fuel prices and shortages; but biodiesels have picked up so rapidly that they seem to dominate the global debate on renewable energy today.

Biofuel production based on agricultural commodities increased globally more than threefold from 2000 to 2007. Statistics show that in 2005, for instance, a total of 994 million gallons or 3,762 million liters of biodiesel were produced across the world. Germany alone produced 1,921 million liters that year mainly from rape seed. Currently Brazil is said to be the leading producer of biofuels, mostly from ethanol and crops like soybeans and jatropha. In the US, biodiesel is produced mainly from corn. Other countries include Austria, France, UK, and Italy among others.

But fears of biofuels exacerbating hunger have reportedly forced China to be cautious when it comes to this new source of energy. With 20% of the world’s population to feed, diverting foodcrops to fuel production has reportedly been a deeply controversial issue in China. In 2007, for instance, China’s State Council halted the use of grain crops for ethanol production.

As biofuels promoters promise a source of environment-friendly energy that would also be a boon to the world’s farmers, skeptics argue that biofuel production will threaten food supplies for the poor and fail to achieve the environmental benefits claimed.

In an apparent concern over the negative repercussions biofuels had to food security, the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) in 2008 asked nations to rethink the move towards widespread biodiesel production.

FAO also came up with a number of guidelines necessary to ensure environmentally, economically and socially sustainable biofuel production. It said national policies must protect the poor and food-insecure; ensure agricultural, rural development, and environmental sustainability. It also called for international system that are supportive of sustainable biofuel development.

Way forward

Besides the caution from WFP representative, who speaks from a hindsight having spent billions of dollars providing food relief to Ugandans hunger-stricken areas like Karamoja, there are specific challenges that need to be addressed in Uganda.

Top on the agenda, Kamese says, is the quick enactment of a national policy governing the biofuel industry. “If a person has 10 acres of land, how much of it must he put to growing jatropha or other fuel crops? A carefully scrutinised policy should guide local communities on such issues,” he says.

The policy, he adds, is also needed to protect people with insecure land tenure systems from being deprived of the opportunity of growing food crops. Plus, there is need to control prices such that even those engaged in biofuel production can afford to buy food.

Samakange says it is important that government looks at the overall balancing of food security with biofuels by encouraging farmers not to abandon food crops completely.

Other environmentalists say it would be prudent to explore several renewable energy sources for curbing the energy crisis other than emphasising biofuels. One route would be by promoting the use of solar and wind energy. Kamese also believes that small holder energy projects would be a better option for local communities than large scale biofuel plantations.

But in order to benefit the poor, and to make viable economic and environmental contributions, experts believe that biofuel technology needs further improvement, and investments and policies facilitating better agricultural innovation and trade be considered. Serious caution is sounded against Uganda turning food crops like maize into fuel.

Francis Kagolo is a staff reporter for Uganda’s national daily newspaper, New Vision.

Generations of experts have dedicated their careers to finding ways to make sure children around the world have enough to eat. As Beth Hoffman reports from Uganda, some are turning to an overlooked bird to provide food and income.

This story was first broadcast on Living on Earth, an independent weekly environmental news program.

JOHANNESBURG — As most of South Africa gets ready for the World Cup, a not so small group of followers got together and celebrated another form of arts and entertainment in Sandton City–fashion.  Joburg Fashion Week kicked off last Wednesday at the Sandton Convention Center, and the verdict is in—chictopia is the theme. Designers, stylists, guests and South African fashion elite—including Dr. Precious Moloi-Motsepe, president of African Fashion International—packed into the convention center to talk fashion, business, the collections, and to show off their impeccably styled outfits.

A piece from Spero Villioti's couture collection

But while fashion was the foreground, designers were faced with the question of whether a booming African fashion industry could bolster a possible African textiles industry. While a tricky subject for many to explore, designers and fashion elite all agreed that developing a textiles industry is important for the growth of the continent.

South African designer Machere Pooe of House of Machere, whose collection packed an entire auditorium, stressed the importance of using traditional African textiles in her line. She explained that the inspiration from the current collection comes from the colors and traditional designs of evening dancers of the Tsonga tribe. One of the dresses uses Mocheka, a traditional Tsonga fabric with a graphic called “mother with baby on her back.”

“I’m South African.  I wanted my collection to represent who I am,” she said. “If I travel to New York I want to look like I’m from here. I don’t want to look like I’m from Atlanta. We’ve got so much culture, so much history in South Africa.”

House of Machere

The collection was a mix of fabrics and colors, with silhouettes that would flatter any woman’s figure, whether size 0 or size 22. It was sexy and classy, with a number of pieces that could be worn everywhere from work, to dinner, to a garden party with simply adding or taking away a jacket or sweater.

David Tlale, whose much anticipated autumn/winter collection that showed on Friday, talked about his evolution as a designer, and why his collections moved from more traditional textiles to rich fabrics from all over the world.  Incorporating leather and silks in his installation piece titled “Fantastical Structures,” the show left almost all guests ready to place orders.  As fashion week ended on Saturday January 23 designers like Vesselina Pentcheva, whose houndstooth and polka dot combinations strayed from the traditional South African textiles, but received several nods from fashionistas in house.  For many designers East meets West was the true sentiment of the event; being true to South African roots while creating clothes that are wearable anywhere.

Question Box operators in Uganda taking questions from farmers. (Photo courtesy of Grameen Foundation via flickr)

A number of studies and funding have in recent years been dedicated to develop mechanisms through which Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) like mobile phones, Internet (e-mail and Web sites), radios, printed media forms and video among others can be used to improve farmers’ access to information relevant to farming and improving their livelihoods. Question Box is one of the latest initiatives that is being fronted as effective in helping farmers access the information they need. The initiative involves setting up “question boxes” where farmers can ask questions on any issue and get answers.

Gerald Businge interviewed Rose Shuman, the founder and CEO of Question Box on how this initiative is different from other initiatives and why it is important to agricultural development.

Q. What is Question Box all about?

Question Box is a project of Open Mind, a nonprofit corporation headquartered in Santa Monica, California, USA. Question Box is an information service we are undertaking in Uganda and India. The core of our service is live, local language information. In Uganda, 40 community knowledge workers are being utilized to promote our service, person-to-person in rural areas. In India, we are delivering information via our signature Question Boxes.

Q. What exactly is the Question Box and how is it related to giving information to farmers?

The Question Box is a simple telephone intercom through which we connect farmers to our live Internet information service. It requires no literacy or computer skills. Users place a free call by pushing the green button on the question Box. They connect to an Operator sitting in front of a computer with internet access. Users ask the operator questions in their local language. The operator goes online and finds their answers, translating English results into the local language and relay the information back to the farmers. It enables farmers to get the information they need and boost their farming.

Q. How is information accessed by farmers important in agricultural development?

Many farmers today need to be knowledgeable on many things, including soil, plant cycles and different types of farming practices. Farmers need information to make the right decisions. But many farmers normally lack the information they need to improve their farming.

Q. How is Question Box helping farmers to access information they need in ways different than what is currently being done?

In our experience, farmers in most developing countries lack literacy skills. Extension workers through which most farmers are supposed to receive information and guidance on farming are few, and it is very expensive to provide agriculture extension workers for every village. Some programs have focused on providing information to farmers in ways that require reading, including information provided on the internet. But the majority of farmers are only comfortable with talking and listening. So instead of teaching farmers to read and write in order to benefit from the wealth of information available and accessible through the internet, we said why can’t we enable farmers to access information they need, through talking and listening. With the advent of mobiles phones which are widespread in much of developing countries like Uganda, it is now possible to reach many farmers with the specific information they need.

Q. What technologies were there that Question Box is building on to help farmers access information they need to improve their agriculture?

There are a number of them. Internet sites providing updates and information for particular farmers. There is Google SMS, where farmers can sms a question and get back an answer of the best guess the search engine generates. In India, there are ICT centers where farmers can leave a video question and come back later to get a video answer to their questions. There are quite a number of ICT led initiatives targeted at farmers.

Q. So why then is Question Box important if other technologies are already helping avail relevant information to farmers?

Our observation is that the internet has brought so much information and opportunities for sharing information to the world, but still the world’s four (4) billion people who have never been online are not accessing this wealth of information. They have no access to the internet and might not have access since most of the adults undertaking farming find it hard to learn new things. So why not bring the internet to the farmers through the mobiles phone which is already easily accessible. Researchers have shown that there is a mobile phone in every village, and everyone has a friend or relative with a mobile phone, or at least they know someone with a mobile phone who can help a farmer to use the phone to ask a question and get an answer.

Because of low population density in Uganda’s villages to optimally use Question Boxes, we decided to use mobile phones though Grameen Foundation’s Applab community knowledge workers who are trained and equipped with mobile phones, they are sent to the communities and they go around so that local farmers can ask questions to our operating centre where our staff search for answers from our online database and relay back the information to the farmer. In Uganda, this is currently being done in Mbale and Bushenyi as a pilot.

Q. What inspired you to start Question Box?

Question Box as a technology and initiative is very flexible, allowing farmers to get information they need. Farmers ask and get information they need. It is important to have a gadget or system out there where people can ask and get the important information they need. For me, it is bringing the promise of the internet closer to the poorest people, by letting them also get the information that they need when they need it.

Q. What kind of questions do people ask when they call in?

Banana wilt disease, best ways to plant coffee, cattle and animal diseases, planting practices and many questions, some not related to farming. One important lesson we have learned is that there is a great need for health care information. Many people call in and ask health-related questions, but we don’t have funding for a health care expert. Because the way we work is that we partner with some agricultural experts, who are on call to answer some of the questions asked by farmers. In Uganda, we are working the National Agriculture Research Organization. In case we don’t have the information the farmer wants in the database, we send the question to the agriculture expert in that field, who answers back in at most a day and we relay the answer to the farmer. We also add such new information to our database so that other farmers can access it if they need it.

We are hoping some stakeholders in healthcare can join us in this initiative so that we provide both agriculture and healthcare information. We know from the pilot that if you care about farmers, you have to care about their health. Health has a lot of implications for farming to succeed. When they get sick, farmers cannot farm. A lot of farmers also spend scarce money on treatment they are not sure about.

Q. What in your experience are the most types of information that farmers want?

Farmers mostly want to know about market prices and extension experts’ help. Question Box wants to help as many farmers access this information without expecting extension workers to visit every village. Farmers are able to access the information they need quicker and at less cost. This is about being practical to the realities on the ground. If you want farmers to access any information today, the best choice is to talk to them on the phone.

Q. What role does information play agricultural development and ensuring food security?

Anything that helps farmers safeguard their crops will promote yields and help food security. Even though pesticides or technologies might exist, timely information is an important step to secure crops from diseases; knowing the best market for one’s produce is important to the farmer earning income. Information is very important to successful farming.

Q. So where do you think Question Box will be in the long term, in terms of helping farmers?

It depends on the help and partnerships we get. Our pilot projects in India and Uganda have demonstrated that Question Box does increase access to information that farmers want, and not what you think they want. Farmers normally need information and they need it right away. Many cannot read or write, so sms approaches might not be helpful to all. The farmers need to be enable to call and ask, and they are given the information they want and when they want it. We are currently seeking funding to expand this tool to improve lives of farmers who need information and are currently difficult to access. We are ready to work with all those targeting rural people so that information can reach the rural people in ways that are relevant with their situations. We want to see people enabled to call for free on the Question box or through the mobile phones or community knowledge workers to get answers to their questions.

There are a number of people and projects already collecting information for farmers benefit and we are building on their efforts by making it easy for farmers to get the information.

Q. Any more information on Question Box that you want readers to be aware of?

While this is called Question Box, we have developed a package of of tools beyond the physical Question Box. With the help of Applab, we have developed a software that can help you set up a call center in your office or any location, search you databases and search the internet for any information that is required by the users of the call center. We want to make this software available to whoever wants it by mid-November 2009. It is free source software for anyone in the world. We are looking at integrating sms in the system, but emphasizing calls by farmers to ask the questions for the answers they want. This software and model can work for all types of information by enabling you provide rural people the information that they need. It is better to let every individual ask the information they want instead of always pretending we know what they want.