A new collaboration, known
as Improving Maize for
African Soils (Imas), aims to improve food security
and the livelihoods of people across Africa by developing
better maize varieties that can thrive on the little fertiliser being used on the continent’s farms.
Imas, which was launched during March, will strive to increase maize crop yields by up to 50%.
The collaboration is further strengthened by the support in kind from market-driven science company DuPont, along with the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute and South Africa’s Agricultural Research Council (ARC) through the provision of significant contributions of staff, infrastructure, technology, training and know-how.
DuPont regional director for sub-Saharan Africa and spokesperson for collaboration partner Pioneer Hi-Bred Carlman Moyo says that the project will, initially,
only benefit South Africa and Kenya, but that the rest of sub-Saharan Africa will benefit from the project from within the next four to nine years.
“On average, African farmers apply just one-fifth of the nitrogen needed to help grow vigorous crops. Nitrogen is extremely
expensive, yet it is critical to the development of crops, particularly in Africa, where soils have been farmed for thousands of years and depleted of natural organic nitrogen,” Moyo says.
Further, the Imas project will apply scientific innovations to provide long-term solutions for African farmers, as well as
develop maize varieties suited to South Africa’s diverse farming ecologies. The maize varieties will be better at capturing the small amount of fertiliser that African farmers can afford. The varieties also consume nitrogen more efficiently to produce grain.
Imas participants will use cutting-edge biotechnology tools, such as molecular markers,
or DNA ‘signposts’, to mark traits of interest and transgenic
approaches to develop varieties that ultimately yield 30% to 50% more than current varieties, with the same amount of nitrogen fertiliser applied on poorer soils.
Meanwhile, the Humboldt Forum for Food and Agriculture (HFFA), in Zurich, Switzerland, reports that, globally, about one-billion humans are currently undernourished. The organisation reports that prospects for achieving world food security in the next couple of decades look bleak. Global food demand is likely to double before 2050.
As a result, the prices of key agricultural commodities are expected to be between 50% and 100% higher by 2020 than in 2000. Further, the HFFA warns that higher food prices would dramatically increase the number of undernourished people and may have the potential to trigger
violent food riots and mass
migration away from food-
insecure countries.
Further, the organisation adds that agriculture uses about 60% of all fresh water. In the past, agricultural production growth has always been paralleled by
increasing water withdrawals for farming and, therefore, future food production growth is
increasingly constrained by water resource availability.
Meanwhile, a high-powered delegation of agricultural scientists from Poland visited South Africa earlier this year for a
genetically modified (GM) maize fact-finding mission, and were impressed with South Africa’s progress in the development of GM maize over the past 11 years, reports biological technology
developer AfricaBio.
The scientists visited
GM maize farmer Hans van Rensburg’s farm,
near Bronkhorstspruit, in Mpumalanga province. He has been planting GM maize for the past ten years on 1 560 ha of dry land and has 340 ha under
irrigation.
Van Rensburg reports
that, since switching to GM maize, his yield has increased by about 15%. He has also saved money on chemical products, owing to reduced spraying, which previously had amounted to R400/ha, and labour is now being employed more productively.
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