You know those little boxes or driedcalabashes that some householdshave, where the person who has committed a small misdemeanour has to pay a modest, educational fine? Well, a similar idea, a kind of global ‘fine box’, is being developed to deal with the causes of climate change, or at least those changes which have been induced by human behaviour and which are start- ing to affect weather systems all over the world. After many years of doubt and double-checking, most scientists now agree that the world has become a warmer place in general and that the weather and seasons are more volatile. The office of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) now talks of rising concentrations of ‘greenhouse gases’ (GHGs) in the Earth’s atmosphere, resulting from economic and demograph- ic growth over the past two centuries since the industrial revolution. The effect of GHGs – especially carbon dioxide (CO2), the most abundant from human sources – is to act like a blanket over the Earth’s surface, keeping it warmer than it would otherwise be. The UNFCCC is assisted by an Inter- national (scientific) Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and the IPCC has fore- cast that global surface temperatures will increase on average by 1.4–5.8°C by 2100. Global sea levels are expected to rise by 9–88 cm by 2100, flooding many low- lying coastal areas, including much of downtown Dakar, Durban, Kingston, Lagos, Mombasa and Suva, as well as elim- inating many island nations in the Pacific and Indian Oceans. Changes in rainfall are predicted, increasing the threat of SPORE 108 • PAGE 1 Climate change and emissions trading Where there’s muck, there’s money 1 Agricultural extension End of the line ? 3 Tropical fruits development Where do you go to, my lovelies? 4 IN BRIEF 6 LINKS 10 PUBLICATIONS 11 BETWEEN US 14 VIEWPOINT Biotechnology The benefit of no doubt 16 Website: spore.cta.int Information for agricultural development in ACP countries Number 108 DECEMBER 2003 In this issue Inventiveness – and its fruits, inventions – run strong in your latest Spore. Who would believe an economic model that encourages and enables the poor to improve their land and environment, and fines those far away whose polluting days will soon be over? If you were losing your faith in humanity’s ability to solve our shared problems, this could restore it: emissions trading, in our main article. Inventive responses there are, too, to the flounderings of the extension profession, and to expanding yet further the market for tropical fruits in two feature articles. The spark of human creativity shines through also in news about island agriculture; prizes and popcorn; the power of belief in the Viewpoint on being a biotechnologist; the depth of despair, and the height of conquest, in a meeting on HIV/AIDS; and the usual books, letters, news, views and links. Invent away. Climate change and emissions trading Where there’s muck, there’s money Should you profit from strangers who cause pollution? If they pay their fines to you, aren’t you encouraging them to err again? A moral question of global proportions. Where do you stand? Ill us tr at io n T. A nd on © L ou m a pr od uc tio ns drought or floods in many regions. Over- all, the climate is expected to become more variable. When these changes will actually occur is hard to say. A Spore edi- tor was stopped in his sandy tracks one day (see Spore 84 special Millennium issue) by a fisherfolk leader interested in rising sea levels: “Ok, so we have to move. It’s your doing, but we’ll go. Just tell us when. Will it be a Wednesday morning, or a Thursday morning?” A matter of time Today’s changes have been a long time coming, no matter how fast they seem to be happening. Sometimes people’s imagi- nations play tricks with time and our own very natural wish to intervene and solve a problem immediately is thwarted by the more gradual changes in nature. We must make haste, patiently. The carbon dioxide emitted by a wood stove, or the methane gas (CH4) released by a herd of cows 200 years ago, is only really having its effect today. And that effect is aggravated many times by the industrial pollution of the past century, not only from carbon dioxide and methane, but also the other four GHGs: nitrous oxide (N2O), hydrofluorcarbons (HFCs), perfluorcarbons (PFCs) and sul- phur hexafluoride (SF6). These last four gases are manufactured industrially and used in refrigeration, insulation and coat- ing electric wires, for example. The best known GHG, CO2, comes from the car- bon which is stored in organic materials: a rotting tree stump, a freshly ploughed field, or a truck or factory powered by fos- sil fuel (such as petroleum) which origi- nated in rotting plants dating back millions of years. When we exhale, we release CO2. Our emissions today, how- ever, will affect the world’s atmosphere in three or more score years and ten, not tomorrow. Two steps at a time Dealing with climate changes today is one thing. In tropical agriculture, we are rush- ing, rather too leisurely, to cope with changed rainfall, more frequent droughts, shrinking mountains snows, new infesta- tions and a pace of vegetation change that moves faster than the dependent species (including farming communities) can keep up with. Nightmarish enough. Slowing down climate change tomorrow or, more realistically – take your place in future history – in a century or more, concerns the even more complex, but ulti- mately clear, question of reducing GHGs. That was the basis of the Kyoto Protocol, adopted by world governments in 1997 (see Spore 74) but still not properly ratified today, thanks mainly to Russian tomfoolery and a spurning United States of America. Kyoto formalised the steps to be taken: by the period 2008–2012, 41 (industrial) countries should reduce their GHG emis- sions to 95% of the 1990 levels. Develop- ing countries have no such reduction targets (those come in 2015). Instead, for an unlimited period, they will be support- ed in building up alternative (renewable) energy to fossil fuels and in developing practices of ‘GHG sequestration’ (after the Latin word sequestrare meaning ‘remove into storage’). Now a high-density science involving tens of thousands of scientists, economists, farmers, bankers and environmentalists, GHG sequestration has five main thrusts. Four are non-agricultural: the capture of GHGs at production; storage in oceans; underground deposits; and conversion into other materials, such as the ice-like magne- sium carbonate. One scenario claims that the world’s entire CO2 emissions in 1990 could be stored in a space 10 km x 10 km x 150 m. Not in my back yard! – NIMBY for short. The fifth method of carbon sequestra- tion overcomes most NIMBY-style objec- tions in developing countries. It has two approaches, under Kyoto’s provisions for the land use, land-use change and forestry sector (LULUCF). First, land use. Accord- ing to FAO, agricultural soils can sequester about 12% of human-induced emissions – if progressive soil management methods are used, such as conservation tillage, water management and erosion control. A win- win situation: the farmer wins, and the world wins. One typical programme involves the Earth Institute of Columbia University, the University of Wageningen, the International Fertiliser Development Corporation, local NGOs and SOS Sahel in such soil enhancement work in Benin, Burkina Faso, Ghana and Mali. The use of forests as a place to collect CO2 – in ‘carbon sinks’ – is slightly less win-win. Trees store carbon only while they live: when they die, decomposition releases the CO2 back into the atmo- sphere. There is also the risk posed by monoculture forests, which are fine as sinks, but of no agricultural or environ- mental value. Variant methods, such as agroforestry, have more promise. Credit where credit is due For an ACP farmer, the emergence of funding mechanisms such as the Commu- nity Carbon Fund in the LULUCF sector must be a sight for sore eyes: a perhaps guilty, and undoubtedly challenged, industrial world is willing to fund you to improve your soil, enhance your yields and nurture your agroforestry plots. Has the world seemingly gone crazy and then finally returned to its senses? But wait. It gets better (if you’re into accumulating wealth for you and yours). As well as funding programmes, Kyoto also promotes the notion known as ‘emis- sions trading’. The 41 industrialised coun- tries with reduction targets are allowed to compensate for some excess emissions by purchasing ‘carbon credits’ from other countries which are succeeding in produc- ing less than the maximum allowed emis- sions, or who are sequestering increasing volumes of GHGs. It is as simple as it looks, despite highly chicane equations by the UNFCCC on how long carbon credits last, and how lit- tle they can be seen as giving the polluter the ‘right’ to pollute. In a sentence: if your village can demonstrably reduce emissions by changing its tillage methods (by, say, 2 tonnes of CO2 a year), and also capture and store 3 tonnes of CO2 in agroforestry plots a year, more than it used to, then a CO2 producer in, for example, Europe who is having problems reducing emis- sions will be glad to hear from you and ‘buy’ your 5 tonnes. Of course, the trad- ing mechanism is complex, and few farm- ers’ organisations can expect to become full players on the new emissions trading exchanges which are developing in Chica- go, New York, Brussels, Tokyo and Syd- ney without a good measure of capacity building and mediation. Nonetheless, “these are openings that the fullest advan- tage should be taken of ” hummed a November report in the Guyanese ‘Land of Six Peoples’ media service. This new ‘emissions economy’ seems to be more secure than the flopped new ‘Internet economy’ of the late 1990s: it has a large dollop of ‘we have to’ to it. Long may it last, and long may it serve the ACP farmer. And then, it will be time for the ‘hydrogen economy’. That’s another story, a long one about water, electricity and clean energy. See Links SPORE 108 • PAGE 2 Even when we have Zero Emission Vehicles, in 2010 or sooner, making concrete, moving earth and laying roads will still cause greenhouse gas emissions, as here in Johannesburg, South Africa. Ph ot o B. Fa vr e © Lo um a pr od uc tio ns Climate change and emissions trading • Agricultural extension End of the line? A redoubtable past, a turbulent present. Does extension work have a future? It is never easy being stuck between a rockand a hard place. Any intermediary – andwho isn’t one these days? – will tell you this, confirming what you already know. But few know better than an extension worker just how painful it can be. Being an extension worker in the early 21st century is perhaps the hardest of all tasks in agricultural communication. In most ACP countries, the size of govern- ment-run extension services has been cut down drastically, or just plain cut off. The causes? Severe pruning of the statal apparatus for a start: when, in the 1980s, structural adjustment programmes sliced deep into the body politic of most develop- ing countries, it was not just the central offices that were targeted for cost-cutting and job losses. Across the board in health, education, agriculture and rural develop- ment, the cohorts of field staff – paramedics, teachers, extension workers – were reduced or removed. Add to this the collapse of the economic system on which many countries’ agriculture was based, and you soon have a scenario in which, throughout the ACP countries, hun- dreds of thousands of extension workers found themselves without support, salaries or – even worse – a clear idea of their role. Here, take this Just before their demise a decade ago, classi- cal extension approaches ranged from the centralised top-down parachuting of mes- sages from Ministries and Marketing Boards, to a host of self-indulgent and somewhat casual experiments in participation. The diversity of ‘extension’ had come a long way from its origins. Kamlesh Shashi Prakash of Fiji’s Ministry of Agriculture, source of many recent initiatives in extension such as the daily newsletter for all its agents (see Spore 99: ‘The morning news’), has noted that ‘extension’ in fact derives from the 1850s; it was then that traditional universi- ties such as Oxford and Cambridge in the UK developed a social role to broadcast their knowledge and serve the educational needs of rapidly growing local communities. In the centralised models of agricultural extension that held until the 1980s, many countries were locked into ‘command agriculture’, as in the ‘command economy’ so often associated, sometimes unfairly, with the centralised planning of the now-defunct Soviet model. This often translated into centrally set targets for cocoa, coffee and cotton harvests, centrally fixed producer prices and centrally paid (sometimes) subsidies for inputs, stor- age and transport. It was the job of the extension agent to pass on information about these targets and how to attain them. Those days of unreality are, to a great extent, behind us. What’s in a name? If their recent past has made them look like victims of a slash-and-burn raid, what will become of extension services now? What budding new extension plants, what new sturdy trees of knowledge and communica- tion, are emerging? The “practice is changing so fast that nobody knows what to think anymore” was a visionary remark made in 1995 by one of the Dutch uncles of extension, Professor Niels Röling. The major categories – each with an adulating donor or international non-governmental organisation (NGO) promoting them – have embraced training- and-visit (also known as T&V to some, and ‘train-and-vanish’ to one impish African minister of agriculture), contract farming, strategic extension campaigns, farmer-to- farmer extension, farmer field schools, part- ner-centred extension and participatory extension. These dabblings in farmers’ liveli- hoods, well-intentioned though they are, have masked the real, radical change in extension: privatisation by government through pro-active sub-contracting or through neglect and the hope that NGOs and community-based organisations (CBOs) will fill the gap – as they often have. Doctor Tunji Arokoyo, of Nigeria’s Nation- al Agricultural Extension and Research Liai- son Services (NAERLS), recognises the entrance of NGOs into extension delivery as a “major feature” of the sector. In Mozambique, involvement of the pri- vate sector, whether NGOs, companies, consultants or farmers’ organisations, was a major part of the National Extension Master Plan which ended in late 2003. It had a bumpy ride: private bodies did not easily adapt to working with statal bodies; former civil servants seemingly lacked entrepreneurial attitudes once they became sub-contractors and – take note, all those who have rushed into this sector – there were too few farmers’ organisations, and most of these too poorly equipped, to take on the new tasks. Change has been relatively smooth in more technical and commercially viable areas such as contracting for livestock pro- duction extension with private veterinari- ans. The Mali project for support to the private livestock sector (PASPE) has demon- strated how public-private partnerships can work, drawing on the entrepreneurial spirit of private vets, the dedication of CBOs and the regulatory role on pricing and product quality of the public sector. Show us the way All these changes, and every ACP country has its tell to tale here, will be more secure with access to reliable information through new information and communication tech- nologies (ICTs) – although, as noted at the CTA 2003 Observatory on ICTs and exten- sion, there is a need to differentiate among ICTs and to promote, through legislation, their availability in rural areas. (See In Brief: ‘From a distance’). When the dust settles on the recent fever- ish years of re-modelling extension, we could well find that it no longer exists in a recognisable form. The name ‘extension worker’ is fading away, with possible replacements such as ‘mobile knowledge intermediaries’ being conjured up by word- rich, experience-poor technocrats. Yet the need for such intermediaries remains. Perhaps there will be no centre pushing to dictate or facilitate production goals. Maybe the market will indeed pull farmers into yields and revenues that can drive their development. Maybe farmers and traders can make meaningful partner- ships. Surely researchers will need to be found and put to work for the community. And there will always be a need for some- one to help show the way. Just don’t call it extension any more. SPORE 108 • PAGE 3 Ill us tr at io n M .R oe sc h Take-over or make-over? I f colours could speak, here you wouldhear a babble, one heckuva babble.Reds, yellows, greens, blues, browns, ambers, oranges, a collection of fruits and vegetables, set out on a trader’s stall, each so vivid, each so different in shape and size, that for once the word ‘wonderful’ fits the bill. Standing up close, close enough to touch, you see that none bears a blemish or a dent; standing back, they blend into a pas- tiche of vivid colours. There they nestle, the main attraction at the entrance to the glass and steel-roofed market. Mounds of carambola star fruits, pomegranates, baby bananas, red bananas, plantains, Asia pears, mangoes, Maya papayas, maradol papayas, peach papayas, guava, aloe vera vegetables, coconuts (labelled ‘easy-to-open’) and – the only ones labelled ‘organic’ – avocados and blue maize. Most busy shoppers bustle past into the market to its stands of sturdy root and leaf vegetables and shelves of prepared meals. A typical market scene, except that there are no vendors, only cashiers at the supermarket’s exits. Tune in more carefully to the babble of the customers, and you’ll pick up layers of language: not just the English, Spanish, Por- tuguese and Caribbean Creole which domi- nate this Atlantic coastal city, but also several dozen of the 108 African languages reportedly represented at the meeting next door of the African Studies Association. Outside, all the leaves are brown – or red or orange – and the sky is grey; many dele- gates are out for a shop and a walk; it is almost a winter’s day in November, at the dark end of the season known here as ‘the fall’. The largely African-American cos- tumes and banter of the conference abscon- ders add an extra drop of exotica to the cosmopolitan city of Boston, Massachusetts, in the United States of America. This one grows on trees The sight of Northern societies hosting sizeable diaspora communities from ACP and other developing countries, blended with the displays of tropical fruits and veg- etables in their markets, is one of the clear- est expressions of recent drastic shifts in migration and in international trade. Not that external trade is the only engine in this vitamin-rich sector: more than 95% of the world’s tropical fruit production is consumed on the domestic market, increasingly in processed form in the urban marketplace. In the past decade, world production of tropical fruits has increased by almost 50%, reaching an estimated 66.9 million tonnes in 2002, according to data from the Tropi- cal Fruits Network. About 98% is in devel- oping countries, the most notable increases being with mango, papaya and avocado. Mangoes account for 38% of all tropical fruit output in the world, papaya 14% and avocado 4%. And pineapples remain popu- lar at about 21% of the output. SPORE 108 • PAGE 4 Tropical fruits development Where do you go to, my lovelies? Invest in fruit: the Thai case Fruit production has become one of the most important businesses in Thailand, accounting for a sizeable share of national income. The total production of tropical and subtropical fruit in 2000, the latest year for complete figures, amounted to about 10.5 million tonnes. Thailand export- ed about 1.1 million tonnes of fresh and processed fruit (about 10% of its total pro- duction); the export value was about US$ 645 million (t 555 million). Production levels and export earnings can still grow. In addition to more investment in improved productivity and quality, more emphasis should go on increasing the funds available for growers. Almost all the own- ers of small and medium-sized orchards are resource-poor and they require loans from private capital sources. Despite occasional loan liquidity problems, the fruit sector has grown over the past two decades, thanks largely to a coordinat- ed campaign of quality assurance aimed at small producers and an aggressive export marketing strategy by a national authority. Tropical fruits are a market success waiting to happen. An efficient supply chain, a sector of empowered producers and a rare flair for marketing are all you need. Some mangoes, individually packed, travel 10,000 km to reach the market stall (here in CTA’s host town Wageningen) at the peak of ripeness. Rock bottom price: 3 for t 1. Ph ot o E. H ei jm an s Ph ot o R. A nt ho ny © H ol t St ud io s Ph ot o R. A nt ho ny © H ol t St ud io s Ph ot o E. M ill er © A EN S SPORE 108 • PAGE 5 • Tropical fruits development The so-called minor tropi- cal fruits now account for almost 25% of output (15.5 million tonnes) and include lychees, durian, rambuttan, guava and passionfruit (granadilla) – the lat- ter, as one may expect from its name, being the focus of intensely patriotic claims about who has world supremacy. Just as Jamaica’s coffee constantly – and, no doubt, justifi- ably – claims to be the world’s best and probably the finest, so too it would seem that South Africa’s granadilla deserves the most passion. According to the Tropical Fruits Com- modity Notes of the FAO, the recent dra- matic rise in production is now leveling out, but the surge in exports continues. It is not only the growing diaspora which is feeding the growth, although the develop- ment of such markets as the English fruit import centre in Birmingham has been almost solely driven, and managed, by immigrant traders. It is also a growing pop- ulation, a wave of interest in things exotic, and a general trend towards healthier eating. Part of this export surge has carried some ACP producers with it: in most of Europe, mangoes from Mali and Burkina Faso are just as common on supermarket shelves as their sisters from Brazil or even Israel. Mind you, the word in the warehouse is that if Pakistan ever decides to unleash its delicious mangoes on Europe, all other suppliers will be wiped off the map. In the United States of America, ACP suppliers from the Caribbean are often the preferred source: Jamaica’s papayas and the Domini- can Republic’s coconuts head the list of many a supermarket chain’s order book. High quality required The road from fruit picker to fruit eater, especially for many small, developing country producers, is full of potholes, both real and figurative. Hygiene, packaging, storage, shipping and tight delivery sched- ules are just some in terms of quality con- trol, not to mention the necessary, but highly intrusive, international regulations on food safety. The requirements now imposed by importing nations, such as the maximum permitted residues of chemical inputs (see Links, Spore 107), also have the effect – though undoubtedly not the intent – of throwing up a new barrier to trade. These food safety barriers, however, have to be taken firmly in one’s stride if one is a member of the tropical fruit sector in an ACP country. A shortcoming in quality will not be forgiven by any health authori- ty – nor, even more important – by a dis- cerning consumer market. To add to this is the phasing out of methyl bromide, the multipurpose pesticide used to fumigate fruits, which, according to the FAO, is proving difficult to replace – the stated rea- son for the United States of America’s reaf- firmation, in mid-November 2003, of its continued use, despite its effect on the ozone layer in the Earth’s atmosphere. Techniques such as irradiation, hot water treatment and forced hot-air treatment remain prohibitively expensive, and work best only when the importer shares the costs – as has been the case in projects involving the producer Cook Islands, Fiji and Vanuatu and the importing New Zealand. Be assertive This, then, is a market as precarious as it can be profitable, but it can be made safer with sound investments. As the success story of Thailand shows (see box), long- term and reliable investment in producers is the only sensible point of departure. This requires access to credit and to affordable and reliable market information. Invest- ment in quality and reliability in the sup- ply chain is essential too: research priorities range from ‘tougher’ fruits which travel well, sturdy but environment-friendly packaging to extending shelf life and the proper measurement of residual pesticides. Another key line of research is in organic cultivation, and the focus of the interna- tional Tropical Fruits Network (TFNet) on associated crop-based guidelines could help this niche sector. Such thrusts by producing countries will work if there is a genuine market to which they can sell. It is a market that is still wide open: the conventional markets of Europe, North America and Japan have room for growth, as do domestic markets. And, as in so many other sectors, the Chinese market is booming and could provide a new – and as yet unrecognised – opportunity for ACP fruit producers. When will the supermar- kets of Beijing or Shanghai be displaying Malagasy lychees, red bananas from the Comoros or papaya from Belize (shipped trans-Pacific)? Remember, it was not so long ago that many everyday fruits and vegetables in the markets of the North were once unfamiliar. In that Boston supermarket showing off its latest exotic fruits, stacked away on its traditional stands were yams, pineapples, tomatoes, potatoes and other former exotics. Will the next surge come from ACP farmers? See Links You are what you eat Almost 80% of fresh tropical fruits exports are imported by developed countries. In 2000, the European Union (EU) imported some 40% of the pineapples traded inter- nationally, with the United States of Ameri- ca (USA) importing 35% and Japan 11% – in Japan, a single pineapple can sell for US$ 30 (t 25) or more. The USA was the major market for mangoes, importing 44% of the world’s total output, while the EU accounted for 24%, Hong Kong/China for 11% and Japan 2%. The EU was the major purchaser of avocadoes, importing about half of global exports, followed by the USA (33%), Canada (6%) and Japan (4%). - Tropical Fruits Network Biotech research In addition to conventional breeding, includ- ing variety rootstock trials, efforts are being made to embrace molecular approaches. Var- ious biotechnology tools, such as artificial seed, micro-propagation and genetic trans- formation, are being used for the conserva- tion, multiplication and improvement of many major fruit crops. Both developing and developed countries are involved in this transgenic research. As well as industrialised country-based pro- grammes in Italy (citrus), France and Belgium (bananas and plantain), Singapore (banana) and Australia (banana, mango, pineapple, papaya), developing country initiatives include those in Kenya, Costa Rica and South Africa (banana tissue culture), Egypt (citrus), Brazil and Thailand (papaya), the Philippines (banana, coconut, mango, papaya) and Malaysia (pineapple, papaya, mango, durian and banana). Input traits, which are designed to emulate conventional techniques of enhanced protec- tive inputs, have included improved virus resistance in papaya. Other traits set to be bred into fruit aim at improving herbicide tolerance, insect tolerance and disease resis- tance. Products with output traits – of enhanced production – or those that have special characteristics of enhancing nutrition and post-harvest processing are also under development, as are the possibilities of pro- ducing edible vaccines. - ISAAA When apples or boxed bananas or citrus fruits travel afar, is the profit margin just as tasty? Ph ot o C . P en n © P an os P ic tu re s Ph ot o P . W ol m ut h © P an os P ic tu re s Ph ot o E. H ei jm an s ■ With the global demand for meat growing, it is good to be on the lookout for more efficient sources. Normally, to produce 1 kg of beef takes up to 10 kg of feed. An alternative to beef, higher in protein content and requiring only 3 kg of tree leaves to produce 1 kg, is the caterpillar. In southern Africa, the mopane worm – the caterpillar of the mopane emperor moth (Gonimbrasia or Imbrasia belina) – is an industry in its own right. There are few data on how much is harvested in the wild annually or on the worm’s role in the income and diets of rural people, but each year an estimated 1.6 million kg are traded in South Africa alone and hundreds of tonnes are exported from Botswana and South Africa to Zambia and Zimbabwe. But, as with all good things, if nothing is done it might all come to an end soon. The worm has been over-harvested and in some parts of South Africa it is already extinct. This threat led the ethnoecologist Rob Toms and his team at the Transvaal Museum to study local know- ledge about the mopane worm (also known as ‘ashonzha’ or ‘masonja’). They found that most people, including biology teachers, knew little about its life cycle. It lays eggs from which small worms hatch and moult a few times before reaching matu- rity. The adult worms which survive the harvest leave the trees and pupate underground. Leaving worms behind while harvesting is essential for a new generation of worms, making it important to dispel a local myth that the worms just go under- ground to die. The researchers have made a poster depicting the worm’s life cycle, which they distribute to schools and sell in the museum shop to encourage people to adopt more sustain- able harvesting for their own benefit. Another option under investigation is to domesticate the mopane worm and develop a silkworm-like industry. ✍ Rob Toms Ethnoecology Research Transvaal Museum, PO Box 413 Pretoria 0001, South Africa Email: toms@nfi.co.za See the poster at: www.nfi.org.za/Ethnobiology/mopane _worm_life_cycle_and_metam.htm In brief • Gender and forestry The Worldwide Symposium on Gender and Forestry will take place at the University of Dar es Salaam in Arusha, Tanzania on 1–10 August 2004 and is being organised by the Gender and Forestry Working Group of International Union of Forest Research Organisations and ENVIROCARE. Its aim is to discuss how to improve local communities’ access to forest resources while encouraging sustainable forestry management. ✍ Professor Ruth Meena Email: envirocare_2002@yahoo.com A repelling mix Farmers in India intercrop the herb fenugreek (Trigonella foenum-graecum) with green gram or mung bean to keep termites away from fields. Sowing a mixture of 1 kg of fenugreek seeds with 10 kg of bean seeds gives good results. Another tip: storing dried stalks of fenugreek with other stored crops helps to repel termites. Multi-purpose prize In order to develop protocols for long-term seed storage and assess the genetic diversity of the multipurpose tree Uapaca kirkiana, Tanzanian William Chrispo Hamisy has received the first Abdou Salam Ouedraogo Fellowship of US$ 10,000, awarded by the International Plant Genetic Resources Institute (IPGRI). Common in sub-Saharan Africa, the tree thrives on poor shallow soils at an altitude of about 1,000 m and is popular for its fruits. The research will be hosted by the National Plant Genetic Resource Centre, in Arusha, Tanzania where the winner works. Fishing with borders To end cross-border fishing conflicts, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda have started issuing licences for fishing in Lake Victoria. The districts along the borders and the lake have been mandated to issue the permits. Conflicts arise mainly over the Nile perch, which is in high demand. How far apart? In the search for the optimal spacing between coconut trees, researchers of the Central Plantation Crops Research Institute (CPCRI) in India have announced after 23 years’ of experiments that 7.5 metres on the square is the winner: average yield 129 nuts per palm. SPORE 108 • PAGE 6 ■ Indigenous vegeta- bles are easier to grow, more resistant to pests and more acceptable to local tastes than exotic vegetables, and pro- vide an often under- utilised, yet nutritious, range of foods. Breeding pro- grammes to improve vegetable varieties are increasingly making use of local varieties. Researchers at the African branch of the Asian Vegetable Research and Development Cen- ter (AVRDC) have developed new lines for two species indigenous to sub-Saharan Africa: African egg- plants (Solanum aethiopicum) and cherry tomatoes (Lycopersicon escu- lentum var. cerasiforme). For the African eggplant (or aubergine), trials with the line DB3 have shown a 30% higher yield than that produced by Manyire Green, a popular cultivar of East Africa. DB3 produced 57 fruits per plant and a fruit yield of 37 t/ha. The cherry tomato grows easily, matures early, has high yields and is a rich source of vitamins A and C. After extensive testing, AVRDC has identified lines that yield 45–50 t/ha. Since they are open- pollinated and self-pollinating, seeds can be saved by farmers. ✍ Dr M L Chadha AVRDC Regional Center for Africa PO Box 10, Duluti, Arusha, Tanzania Fax: +255 27 255 31 25 Email: info@avrdc-rca.co.tz Or avrdc-arp@cybernet.co.tz Worming your way to a sustainable harvest From a distance ■ With the agricultural exten- sion profession at sixes and sev- ens about its future role (see ‘End of the line?’ in this issue), what solutions might informa- tion and communication tech- nologies (ICTs) offer? That was the key question addressed by the 6th consultative expert meet- ing of the CTA Observatory on ICTs, held in Wageningen, The Netherlands, from 23 to 25 September 2003. Various schools of extension practice were represented, as were ICT sparkies and field practitioners, from all ACP regions and beyond. The answer was a firm “it depends … ”, with a follow-up “ … and it’s probably a mobile phone.” With the dismantling of many extension services, many more people are now directly seeking and sharing information. Which ICT can help them will depend on their familiarity with technology, and its availability. Mobile phones, and hand-held computers con- nected by phone calls such as in the Manobi farmer data exchange programme in Senegal are now the hot items. But, the meeting observed, the technology is nothing if the communication networks can- not attain financial sustainabili- ty. And that, it cautioned, without any concrete solution at hand, requires an enabling leg- islative environment, something which CTA should investigate further. It is easier to observe than to enable, obviously. www.cta.int/observatory/2003/ Now who would want a can of these Imbrasia belina? Ph ot o A .L ar se n Ph oto C. La na ud English aubergines, American eggplants, Arabic al-b ãDinjãn, Persian bãdingãn Ready to pluck Agoraphobic chickens Marian Dawkins, professor of animal behaviour at Oxford University, UK, has found that free-range chickens do not use their freedom to roam very much if there aren’t at least a few trees around. She argues that this stems from the survival of chicken ancestors’ instinct for using trees as a shelter against sunshine, wind and predator birds such as crows. Is it the same with people who hug trees, we wonder? Wanted: beetle crushers The increase in rhinoceros beetle infestations of coconut palms in the Pacific has led to an alarming situation. Samoan coconut plantations have been particularly heavily affected by this dark, horned, thumb-sized scourge of palms. Tracing and burning breeding nests and using insect traps and bio-control agents are common control measures for the beetle, which has no natural enemies. Scientists in Palau have released a baculovirus to biologically control the beetle and Fijian government officials have called upon coconut farmers to maintain proper sanitation standards in their plantations to prevent the development of breeding habitats favoured by the beetle. Organic growth Although organically labelled coffee still has but a modest share of the consumer market, this share is definitely growing. A World Bank study published in early October reports a rise of 12% in organic coffee consumption in Europe in the period 2000–2001, Germany being the biggest consumer and France and Italy the leading producers. Be bio but be better ‘Redbio 2004’ is the 5th Latin American and Caribbean meeting on Agricultural Biotechnology, set for 21–25 June 2004 at Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic – and, we are assured, wide open to ACP participation. Sponsored by the regional cooperation network (network is ‘red’ in Spanish) on plant biotechnology (REDBIO/FAO), its topics include nutrition genomics, molecular farming, agricultural competitiveness, public perception and regulatory frameworks, plus crop-specific workshops and a massive BioShow trade fair. Working languages: English and Spanish. ✍ Fax: +1 809 564 6339 Email: redbio2004@redbio.org Website: www.redbio.org • In brief SPORE 108 • PAGE 7 ■ Succulent plants in southern Somalia are being stolen and smuggled into neighbouring Kenya. From Kenya they are exported to Europe and North America “as part of the illegal horticultural garden trade” according to the Nairobi-based United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). The plants have thick, cactus- like leaves which are used in the manufacture of ornaments and skin lighteners. At a meeting in August of the Governing Coun- cil of the 1999 Lusaka Agree- ment to end trade in wildlife between Congo, Kenya, Lesotho, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia, UNEP Executive Director Klaus Toepfer said that the trade amounts to theft of Africa’s bio- logical resources. “The illegal trade is a poten- tially worrying phenomenon; it involves sophisticated opera- tors,” said Clement Mwale, chief intelligence officer of the Lusaka Task Force which implements the Agreement. The Task Force also reported that 25 python skins have been seized in Nairobi in the past year after being smuggled out of Uganda. Other illegal wildlife and wildlife parts confiscated include ivory, weighing 45 kg, seized in Kenya’s Bungoma region. ■ Thousands of small dams have been constructed in the semi- arid regions of eastern and south- ern Africa, but their effective life is limited by excessive siltation (sediment). Under a project implemented by a UK-based company HR Wallingford, fund- ed by the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID), guidelines have been developed for predicting siltation rates. These could be used in small dam projects to predict the lifetime of dams. Sediment rates in catchment areas range from tens to thou- sands of tonnes a year and there are often few reliable data. Phil Lawrence, HR Wallingford’s project manager, says that a regional sediment yield predic- tor has been developed to pre- dict small dam catchment sediment yield, rainfall and catchment area, soil type, “vege- tation cover and obvious signs of erosion”. He describes the sediment yield predictor as “a procedure, a method of walking through the catchment area, characterising the features that affect sediment yield”. Assess- ments are also based on infor- mation collected from people living nearby. The sediment yield predictor procedure “has sufficient accu- racy to highlight where the problems of excessive sediment- ation are likely to occur so that remedial measures can be started in the sediment, or the project moved to another location,” says Lawrence. ✍ HR Wallingford Ltd Howbery Park Wallingford, Oxon OX10 8BA UK Fax: +44 1 491 83 22 33 Email: info@wallingford.co.uk Raiding fields for profit ■ “If there is no rain we die of thirst. When the rains come, we die by drowning.” These lyrics from a Cape Verde song sum- marise the fickleness of weather in this hilly archipelago. By the 1960s, the arid Sahelian climate, together with a fragile ecosystem and the adverse effects of farm- ing practices introduced in the 15th century, had led to severe erosion and the almost total dis- appearance of vegetation. Less than 1% of the land was still cov- ered. It was time for action if the islands were to remain fit for human habitation. Small rock walls and terraces were con- structed, waterfalls controlled and hedges planted to retain water and fertile topsoil. New plant and tree species such as Prosopis jubiflora, adapted to local conditions, restored the vegetation cover and provided fuelwood and charcoal. At the same time, the market for butane gas – as an alternative to wood – was liberalised and energy-saving cooking stoves were introduced. The results of these efforts are an impressive sight. More than 80,000 ha (20% of the land) is now covered with trees again. Horticultural produce, once rare or available only as imports, is now grown locally, albeit that prices are still high on local markets. What was the secret of this success? Local people emphasise the concerted nature of the pro- grammes, and that their needs and opinions were taken as the starting point. Government poli- cies were reshaped accordingly, with changed investment priori- ties such as new crop varieties and irrigation infrastructure. That the programmes met a direct need explains part of the success. ‘First the stomach, then the future’ will remain the pre- dominant attitude of many. Tackling siltation in small dams The patience of success Ph ot o G . P iro zz i © Pa no s Pi ct ur es Fill´er up to here! Community dam building in Tonga, Zimbabwe. The arid maritime climate of the Cape Verde archipelago Ph ot o N . C oo pe r © Pa no s Pi ct ur es ■ By puffing maize and rice into a tasty new snack, a Kam- pala-based food processing machine maker in Uganda is getting into actual processing – and making extra cash. “It’s not good to only make machines,” said Joseph Kavu- ma. “It’s better to also go into business with the machine.” He produced a snack called Puffi using an extruder he had bought in Vietnam in November 2002 on a study tour sponsored by the market infor- mation service FOODNET and the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA) for machine makers and food processors. The extruder cooks whole grains at high temperature and pressure. The opera- tor pours maize, rice or the local cereal Simsim down the metal funnel into the cylinder. There, a screw driven by an electric motor creates pressure, and the tem- perature of the grain is raised to above 150˚C, cooking it almost instantly and forcing it through a small hole. Seconds after the grain enters the cylinder, it pops out of the machine, all puffed up. Salt and sugar are added for flavour, and Kavuma also plans to add vitamin A to make this snack more nutritious. He employs three packagers to seal the puffed grain in plastic bags and a marketer to find buyers. Schools and hostels are buying Puffi in bulk because it’s an affordable snack for students. Kavuma started selling 600 bags per day, and aims to reach 2,400 within weeks. “It’s light in the mouth, it’s sweet and people want to eat it,” says Kavuma, who also plans to make and sell extruders to other entrepreneurs. Aquaculture conference in Africa? At an FAO meeting on aquaculture (fish-farming), held in August in Trondheim, Norway, governments resolved to provide a better framework for the sustainable contribution of this fast-growing sector to world food security. FAO will organise technical consultations on small-scale rural aquaculture and possibly a major conference in Africa to formulate a strategy for its development on the continent. A livelihood focus for PRSPs Planners! NGO leaders! Donors! Pack a real livelihood punch into your Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (see Spore 107) after a 3-week course on ‘Livelihoods Analysis for Poverty Reduction’ starting on 28 June 2004 at Britain’s Overseas Development Group. Pricey at GBP 3,500 (t 5,300) but with DFID donor support, high quality for high fliers. ✍ ODG Training Office University of East Anglia Norwich NR4 7TJ UK Fax: + 44 1603 591170 Email: odg.train@uea.ac.uk Website: www.odg.uea.ac.uk Safe to tell Following the September 2003 meeting on ‘Safe Work in Agriculture’ at the International Labour Organization (ILO) in Geneva, the organising Workers’ Activities section (ACTRAV) has updated its information on worker safety in the field, on the farm and in the food factory, and provided background information for advocacy campaigns to get ILO Safety and Health Conventions ratified and implemented by member states. www.ilo.org/actrav - AgriculturAlly magazine Some creatures more unwelcome than others Cultivation is under threat in Tanzania’s Ngorongoro Conservation Area, whose authority claims that the large numbers of people and animals in the area are damaging the environment. It wants cultivation to be made illegal and residents to move. Some 50,000 Maasai pastoralists and hunter- gatherer groups live in the area, which covers 828,800 ha. Of this, under 4,000 ha is cultivated – less than 0.5% – and cultivation is critical to local livelihoods. In brief • SPORE 108 • PAGE 8 ■ How much more can HIV/AIDS hurt agriculture? Reports from field agencies at a mid-November workshop on its impact on rural communities and agricultural productivity in southern Africa in Maputo, Mozambique, confirmed what Spore 107 urged in August 2003: prepare for the worst. Everyone’s imagination is already sorely stretched, both in grasping the enormity of the impact and in finding solutions for today – and tomorrow. Top priorities are to care for victims and halt the pandemic’s spread, whilst overcoming the prevailing deadly mix of fatalism and poverty. The third priority – mit- igating the impact – focused the meeting’s energies into five key areas: labour, with shared labour and redesigned tools; land use, with ‘easier’ crops, improved seeds, intercropping and low tillage; food security, with under- utilised crops, medicinal plants and improved nutrition; live- stock, with a focus on small ani- mals; and social capital. The workshop, organised by the Austrian Development Cooperation, Ireland Aid, VETAID, EU Food Security and CTA, brought together more than 60 people from 14 coun- tries of eastern and southern Africa: representatives of farmers’ organisations, policy-makers, extension services, agro-industry, ministries, mitigators and, a new acronym, APLWHA: associa- tions of people living with HIV/AIDS. As we all are. Imagination without frontiers All puff, no huff Conform, or perish ■ Coming to terms with the increasing number of health requirements imposed by food importers in Europe and else- where in the North has become an obsession for many ACP food producers. You either toe the line of the law, or you don’t get a foothold in the international market now shaped by food safe- ty rules, maximum permitted residues of pesticides or fertilis- ers in foodstuffs, and required practices such as the Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP). Knowing what has to be done, and doing it, are often separated by a chasm of out-dated infor- mation, lack of training and poor institutional capacity. It was to bridge this gap that 66 horticul- tural specialists and producers from nine Central African coun- tries gathered in late September 2003 in Brazzaville, Congo at a co-seminar on safety require- ments for fruits and vegetables. Organised by the Francophone business forum, COLEACP (see Spore 107), FAO, the Centre for the Development of Enterprise (CDE) and CTA, the seminar drove home the issue of food quality and the burden, especial- ly for small enterprises, of meet- ing food safety standards. As well as HACCP, the European market also requires adherence to the norms of the European Retailer Produce Working Group (EUREP) and favours Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) of integrated pest control and plant manage- ment. How many delegates must have muttered: “There’s too much paper work in vege- tables these days.” A sales puff? “Even with 10 other entrepreneurs, we can’t satisfy the market.” Ph ot o A . M cC ul lo ch • In brief Power – in a nutshell! The shells of macadamia nuts are being used to supply electricity to people in Queensland, Australia. In a joint venture between State-owned Ergon Energy and a private company, 5,000 tonnes of shells a year will be used in a generation plant to supply electricity to over 1,200 households and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by some 9,500 tonnes. Fence could increase crop land A 320-km electrified fence is being erected around the Aberdare National Park in Kenya to stop wildlife from straying and damaging neighbouring farmland. The fence will allow farmers “to grow crops up to the edge of the Aberdare Forest without worrying about destruction by wild animals,” says Charles Njonjo, chairman of the Kenya Wildlife Service which is coordinating the project. Add to your value The Cassava Biotechnology Network is holding its 6th international scientific meeting on 8–14 March 2004 in Colombia on ‘Adding Value to a Small-Farmer Crop’. ✍ CBNVI Secretariat Apartado Postal 6713, Cali Colombia Fax: +57 2 445 0073 Email: ciat-cbnvi@cgiar.org Website: www.ciat.cgiar.org/biotechnology/ cbn/index.htm A bridge to farm Quite a find in the gender jumbles! Based at Sussex University’s Institute of Development Studies in England, the BRIDGE (Gender and Development Information Service) team operates an active and well-fed database of gender and development materials under the name Siyanda – ‘we are growing’ in isiZulu. Much of the database embraces, or is rooted in, agriculture and rural development. www.siyanda.org - AgriculturAlly magazine A week in Georgetown A busy Caribbean Agriculture Week, with support from CTA, in Guyana’s capital, in October 2003, hosted a Caribbean Agricultural Research and Development Institute (CARDI) meeting, launched the regional agricultural policy network (see Spore 104), and, by no means last, saw some lively strategising on mainstreaming women and youth in agricultural information. ■ How Mother Earth must have glowed warm, real warm, in the chilly Dutch town of Arnhem at the end of October 2003 when some 85 people gathered to discuss ‘Information support for sustainable soil fer- tility management’ – the topic of the CTA annual seminar. For four days, these planners, poli- cy-makers, practitioners, NGOs and researchers – from all six ACP regions and the EU – paid homage to the soil and the ele- ments that feed and wash it. And undivided attention is sure- ly what the soil needs now, to restore soil fertility and halt land degradation (see Spore 105: ‘Are you still beating your Mother Earth?’). The attention was, it must be said, a wee bit divided, but no matter. A tiny spat (what the locals call a spatje) between del- egates during the opening ses- sion in fact led into a lively and productive seminar by stimulat- ing everyone to be particularly alert to the debate and profes- sional exchanges. At stake was whether to prioritise soil inputs – nutrients, fertilisers and, above all, water management – or to nurture the soil itself. More of both, with properly planned and checked informa- tion, was the major conclusion. And, feet on the ground, the participants emphasised the human side of improved, inclu- sive policy-making and informa- tion provision. More training, more enhancement of informa- tion management and commu- nication skills. It does all depend on people, plus Mother Earth. The co-sponsor, David Dent, director of the Wageningen- based ISRIC-World Soil Infor- mation, wrapped it up thus: “Poor soils make poor people.” Indeed. But can poor people make rich soils? www.cta.int/ctaseminar2003/ Mother’s Day? Mother’s Week! That’s me in the spotlight ■ A flurry of global awards towards the end of 2003 has helped raise the profile of food and agriculture on the global agenda. One of the 25 ‘genius awards’ or fellowships from the MacArthur Foundation went to Pedro Sanchez (see Spore 105), chair of the UN Hunger Task Force. He is the person behind the idea of promoting school meals using local produce as the way to energise local farming, and is also laureate of the 2002 World Food Prize. The 2003 World Food Prize was awarded in October to Catherine Bertini, former head of the World Food Programme, in recognition of its extensive efforts to bring food to the hungry. The October ceremony, rich in the monarchist pomp that only young republics go for, was held in the State of Iowa in the Unit- ed States of America – the grain bowl that supplies the food aid programmes which, in the opin- ion of many people, disrupt local food market mechanisms. Earlier prizes went mainly to scientists for their work on plant protec- tion and improved varieties. The Right Livelihood Award 2003, a sort of alternative Nobel prize, was bestowed on Walden Bello and Niconor Perlas for their explanations of the links between globalisation and pover- ty. And, still struggling to sepa- rate their goal from their workstyle, in November the Slow Food movement announced 10 recipients of the 2003 Premio SlowFood for Protection of Bio- diversity. Three of these were ACP organisations: the Union Namanegbzanga des Groupe- ments villageois de la zone de Tanlili (UNGVT) of Burkina Faso, for their work on cultiva- tion techniques; the Ethio- Organic Seed Action of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on farmers’ seed supply; and the Tefy Saina Association of Madagascar, for their system of (traditional) rice intensification. SPORE 108 • PAGE 9 Rice: crispy messages ■ Food historians sometimes claim that the first Green Revo- lution in the late 1960s was given an important push by 1966 being the ‘Year of Rice’. Now that the second Inter- national Year of Rice 2004 (IYR2004) is upon us, is the second Green Revolution on the horizon? And if so, what will make it work in Africa? Water, soundly distributed water, is the key, the FAO Director-General, Jacques Diouf, told Spore at the launch of IYR2004, implying that a continent that uses less than 5% of its available water has a great productive potential. For rice is seen as a great puller: IYR2004 is not only about rice varieties and yields (see Spore 105), but also about rice-based systems which con- tribute to employment, rural culture, enhanced food security, environmental care and much more, right down to the use of rice straw in handicrafts and solar cells. Quite a crop, and quite a message. And it’s a mes- sage that is being pushed hard: at the launch of IYR2004 in the United Nations headquarters on 31 October 2003, while Diouf was enthralling one chamberful of delegates, others were stop- ping at the strategically installed IYR2004 exhibition in the cor- ridor leading to the building’s major café and to the room where all the heads of UN agen- cies were gathering for their annual retreat. They all got the point. And now the message, and news of events, media cam- paigns and contests for youth and scientific writers, are being shared with the public and, not least of all, the farmers. ✍ International Year of Rice 2004 Secretariat c/o FAO Viale delle Terme di Caracalla 00100 Rome Italy Fax: +39 06 5705 6347 Email: rice2004@fao.org Website: www.rice2004.org Hamidou Ouédraogo, founder of UNGVT, one of the recipients of the 2003 Premio SlowFood SPORE 108 • PAGE 10 Links • It is not at all a bizarre combi-nation – it could be a won-derful opportunity for win- win-win income, prestige and financial sustainability. No guar- antees though. The market is fundamentally the same as any marketplace or stock exchange which trades goods or services without them being physically present, but – be warned – it is still in evolu- tion. It has not yet fully devel- oped its regulatory structures, nor have the key market exchanges been defined. Several financial centres are vying to add this highly attractive trade to their portfolio. It is in a state of opportunity, but also of opportunists. Its practices are those of the trading floor, not of the niceties of the trade fair, and far, far removed from the usual shades of cordiality of develop- ment partnerships between donors and doers. How it works One of the core mechanisms of exchanges between the signato- ries of the Kyoto Protocol (full details from the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, UNFCCC), emissions trading is also prevalent, even more so, in the United States of America (USA). The USA may not yet have fallen in line with Kyoto, but the need to reduce, and thus trade in, emissions is evident worldwide. Most mechanisms focus, at the time of writing, on carbon dioxide and leave aside the five other greenhouse gases (GHGs). Except for methane, they little concern the agriculture sector, other than in their use in food cooling. They will soon be embraced: the emissions mar- kets already trade in them. Some inclusive recommendations were due to be made at the 9th Con- ference of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol, scheduled by UNFCCC for mid-December 2003 in Milan, Italy to cover all six GHGs in all funding mech- anisms, together with an insis- tence that all sequestration projects (‘sinks’) have elements to protect and promote biodi- versity rather than monocultur- al approaches. You’ll find the formal players in the market through the national and international asso- ciations of emissions traders, through the International Emissions Trading Association (IETA). Traders – and potential traders – in Europe also need to be aware of the European Union instrumentarium under which their national stakeholders oper- ate. A splendid overview of the technologies, the mechanisms for calculating and exchanging credits, is provided in the (elec- tronic only) documents of the GreenTrading Summit, held in New York, USA, in April 2003. Enablers and watchers Most of the funding for carbon projects (which, when success- ful, will be able to trade on the emissions market) comes through the World Bank’s Car- bon Business Finance, ENV. This acts as an umbrella for two nationally funded initiatives, the Italian Carbon Fund and the Netherlands Clean Develop- ment Mechanism Facility (CDM); they aim at linking with local community initiatives in agriculture, forestry and ener- gy projects. That goal is shared with the Community Develop- ment Carbon Fund (CDCF), currently going through the cul- ture shock now traditional to the World Bank when it tries to work with local community- based organisations. Persevere with them, and gently soften up their rigid mindsets: there is US$ 100 million (t 85 million) at stake, and it is for you, not them. Want to check your roots? Some civil society organisations have ethical doubts about this sort of trading, claiming that it justifies pollution. Not with the political will and intention of governments to genuinely reduce, rather than beautify, their economies’ emissions. The booklet The sky is not the limit (52 pages, 2002, by Climate Trade Watch) available from the Transnational Institute (free PDF 700Kb from www.tni.org) gives a standard, sturdy analysis of the mechanisms’ shortcom- ings, albeit restricted to carbon. These, and much information on climate change, are coolly examined with a refreshingly wide scope and political matu- rity by the Climate Change Networks, normally an uncom- promising bunch. Their politi- cally incorrect, but spot-on ‘Fossil of the Month’ Website has become a cult area. Try it. After all this, maybe you want to get back to the land, and start building up your carbon credits? The Soil Carbon Sequestration Section of the Land and Water Development Division of the FAO has a set of practical Web- pages and publications. And if we’ve enticed you to look beyond the age of GHGs and into the hydrogen economy (see main article), try Jeremy Rifkin’s new classic: The hydro- gen economy. It explains what it will leave behind, the new tech- nology and its safeguards for being ‘green’, and the new ‘bot- tom-up’ distribution of energy. For further information: United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) PO Box 260124 53153 Bonn, Germany Fax: +49 228 815 1999 Email: secretariat@unfccc.int Website: unfccc.int International Emissions Trading Association (IETA) 4 Chemin de Conches 1231 Conches-Genève, Switzerland Fax: +41 22 839 31 81 Email: info@ieta.org www.ieta.org European Union (EU) europa.eu.int/comm/environment/ climat/emission.htm Green Trading Summit www.greentrading.biz Carbon Funds at World Bank • Netherlands Clean Development Mechanism Facility (CDM) • Italian Carbon Fund • Community Development Carbon Fund (CDCF): www.communitycarbonfund.org • BioCarbon Fund (CDCF): www.biocarbonfund.org all at: Carbon Finance Business, ENV The World Bank 1818 H Street, NW Washington, DC 20433 United States of America Fax: +1 202 522 7432 Email: helpdesk@carbonfinance.org Website: www.carbonfinance.org Climate Action Network (CAN) International Website has links to 14 regional offices (Africa: 4) www.climatenetwork.org also: www.fossil-of-the-month.org CAN Europe Climate Action Network Europe Rue de la Charité, 48 1210 Brussels, Belgium Fax: +32 2 229 52 29 Email: info@climnet.org Website: www.climnet.org Carbon Trade Watch (CTW) Transnational Institute Paulus Potterstraat 20 1071 DA Amsterdam, The Netherlands Fax: +31 20 675 7176 Email: ctw@tni.org Website: www.tni.org The hydrogen economy: The creation of the worldwide energy web and the redistribution of power on Earth by J Rifkin, Tarcher/Putnam, New York, 2002. 294 pages. ISBN: 1585421936. US$ 24.95 • t 21.15 Emissions trading Just have a word with your broker Is your – or a nearby – farmers’ organisation interested in becoming a major player on the world market for trade in ‘greenhouse gas emissions’ and ‘carbon credits’? Ph ot o © A EN S SPORE 108 • PAGE 11 Growing tropical fruits… ■ A specialist standard, describing the diseases – and causal agents, symptoms, epidemiology and management options – of 20 fruits. Diseases of tropical fruit crops Edited by R C Ploetz, CABI Publishing, 2003. 544 pp. ISBN 0851993907 GBP 99.50 • t 142.50 For CABI’s address see elsewhere. …or mainly bananas? ■ If, having read the above book’s chapter on bananas, you want to specialise. Mycosphaerella leaf spot diseases of bananas: Present status and outlook Proceedings of the 2nd international workshop held in San José, Costa Rica, 20–23 May 2002. Edited by L Jacome et al., INIBAP France, 2003. 318 pp. ISBN 2 910810 57 7 PDF (1.7 Mb) at www.inibap.org/publications/proc eedings/sigatoka2002.pdf Printed copy free upon request: INIBAP Parc scientifique Agropolis II 34397 Montpellier Cedex 5 France Fax: +33 4 67 61 03 34 In line with real needs ■ Practical help for policy- makers in aligning agricultural research at African universities with national priorities for sustainable development. Improving agricultural research at universities in sub-Saharan Africa: A study guide H Michelsen et al., ISNAR, Research Management Guidelines No. 6, 2003. 114 pp. ISBN 92 9118 065 3 PDF 538 Kb at: www.isnar.cgiar.org/ publications/pdf/rmg6.pdf Or from Earthprint Ltd. (distributor) Stock number: ISNAR331 US$ 25 • t 21.20 Earthprint Ltd. PO Box 119 Stevenage Herts SG1 4TP UK Fax: +44 1438 748 844 Email: customerservices@earthprint.com Squeeze for profit ■ Hands-on manual, plus lists of African manufacturers of processing equipment. Small-scale palm oil processing in Africa By K Poku, FAO, 2002. 66 pp. ISBN 9251048592 US$16 • t 13.55 FAO Sales and Marketing Group Viale delle Terme di Caracalla 00100 Rome Italy Fax: +39 06 5705 3360 Email: publications-sales@fao.org • Publications Here’s a little secret kept by professional cooks: you never follow recipes literally, but instead use your experience and create new recipes. If the pot is too hot you reduce the heat; when the stew is too mild, you add spices to taste and when the dish is not ready yet, you leave it to simmer some more. You change your menu regularly and your work is highly consumer-focused and demand-driven. With your team in the kitchen, you try and taste, adopt and adapt, and change and learn. This all becomes, automatically, part and parcel of your organisation. That is precisely what the book Evaluating capacity development is all about. Evaluation is not an external or isolated exercise; it is part of the process of improving the performance of organisations by continuously evaluating them, learning from this experience and making the necessary changes. Based on studies of agriculture- related research and development organisations, such as an NGO in Bangladesh, a plant genetic resource centre in Ghana and an agricultural faculty in Nicaragua, this is an interesting book for those involved in and responsible for organisational capacity devel- opment. Evaluating capacity development. Experiences from research and development organizations around the world By D Horton et al., ISNAR – IDRC – CTA, 2003. 188 pp. ISBN 92 9118 069 6 CTA number 1144. 40 credit points PDF file 3000Kb at www.cta.int/pubs/isnar2/index.htm Making evaluations effective Publications A pest in your crop is the last thing you want right now. Insects, weeds and diseases are an unfortunate reality that has worsened over the years due to the spread of monoculture, fewer possibilities for sound crop rotations, new varieties ill-adapt- ed to diseases, and the rapid spread of diseases between regions and continents. At a time when sustainability, environmental care and occupa- tional health are key issues, com- bining biological control with integrated pest management (IPM) is a logical step. Many examples of such combinations have been documented and are widely known, but comprehen- sive overviews are still rare. This standard reader brings together 20 distinct IPM systems in Africa that use biological con- trol methods. Some chapters focus on certain crops (such as coffee and cowpea) and some on commercial forestry, while oth- ers take as their starting point a specific pest or plant, such as the grain borer, banana weevil, water hyacinth or striga. In the tradition of CABI, this is a real whopper, a hardcover volume and a store price that is a bit steep. But if you have enough CTA credit points, it could be affordable! Biological control in IPM systems in Africa Edited by P Neuenschwander et al., CABI – CTA – SDC, 2003. 436 pp. ISBN 0 85199 639 6 CTA number 1141. 80 credit points Cultivate the enemy They are great in omelettes, fine in soups, good with meat and very tasty on their own. How well would they do on your farm, and in the mar- ket, fresh or dried? Mushroom cultivation is a great asset for any- one anywhere in the world who wants to embark on mushroom cultivation. Not only is the market for edi- ble mushrooms and toad- stools growing, these fungi are also used for making dyes, for medicinal purposes and – more recently – for the bioremedi- ation (restoration) of polluted soils. This revised edition has grown massively into a practical and technical standard work. New are the more detailed descriptions of the world’s most important mushrooms – white button, oys- ter and shiitake – and the latest developments on growing white button mushrooms, commercial- ly the biggest of them all. Mushroom cultivation: Appropriate technology for mushroom growers By P Oei et al., 3rd revised edition, Cpoint – CTA – DG GICOM – Backhuys, 2003. 442 pp. ISBN 90 5782 137 0 CTA number 1146. 40 credit points Funky fungi futures SPORE 108 • PAGE 12 Organic all the way ■ This topical reader gives insights into ‘organic’ agriculture as seen in OECD countries (Europe, North America, Australasia, Japan and South Korea). Organic agriculture: Sustainability, markets and policies Published by OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development), 2003. 400 pp. ISBN 0851997406 GBP 49.95 • t 71.50 CABI Publishing Wallingford Oxon OX10 8DE, UK Fax: +44 1491 83 35 08 Email: cabi@cabi.org What goes on ■ This lively and productive workshop (see Spore 102) examined agrobiotech priorities, under the amazed and learning eyes of the region’s environmental journalists – who set up a network en passant. Agrobiotechnology and food security in Southern and Central Africa Proceedings of a workshop, held from 30 September to 4 October 2002, at the University of Zambia, Lusaka, Zambia. By M Minderhoud Biotechnology and Development Monitor Netherlands, 2003. 88 pp. t 10 (hard copy) (Digital copies available for free at the email address below) M Minderhoud ILEIA PO Box 2067 3800 CB Amersfoort The Netherlands Email: m.minderhoud@ileia.nl Agriculture’s allies ■ AgriculturAlly is the network bulletin of the World Summit Task Force of Agricultural Media Professionals (Ampacta) (see Spore 101). Issue 4 looks at the World Summit on the Information Society in December 2003, reveals the MEAD network, lists journalists’ Top 10 of changes in agriculture and sparkles with news and resources. AgriculturAlly Quarterly bulletin, Ampacta, 2003. 4-8 pp. t 35 per issue. Free to Ampacta members. Ampacta Willem-Alexanderpoort 46 1421 CH Uithoorn The Netherlands Fax: +31 297 523 020 Email: agriculturally@ampacta.org Website: www.ampacta.org Publications • ‘Feed the soil, not the plant.’ An old saying with a lot of truth. Soil is in many ways the foundation of agriculture, hence its maintenance is vital, as was noted at the CTA seminar on sustainable soil fertility manage- ment held in Arnhem, The Netherlands, in October 2003 (see In Brief). Soil management is more than just physical and chemical maintenance. Keeping soil structure and fertility at opti- mal levels depends on the vari- ables of cropping systems, the available workforce, knowledge and finances. It is thus integral to the socio-economic situation of the farming families living on and from that very same soil. In Soil fertility management in Africa, 32 scientific contributors – mainly from Africa – apply a holistic approach to analysing soil management in several dis- tinct cropping systems in differ- ent eco-regions. These vary from the West African Sudano-Sahe- lian zone through lowland humid forest zones to the semi-arid zones of southern Africa. It is a fascinating read, rich in detail and variety. The social, economic and political aspects of soil fertility management, how- ever, could have been explored and compared a little more than is done in the often brief, stage-setting descriptions in this volume. Soil fertility management in Africa: A regional perspective Edited by M P Gichuru et al., ASP – CTA – TSBF – CIAT, 2003. 322 pp. ISBN 9966 24 063 2 CTA number 1140. 40 credit points When a commodity trader – especially one intent on reforming the international trade system – rattles the bars of his or her cage, it makes an awesome sound, but the din may mask the intended message. That, in Stolen fruit, is clear enough: the contin- uing crisis of low commodity prices is fatal, literally, for many producers of coffee, cocoa, rub- ber and other commodities in developing countries, and it is imperative to ensure sustained, satisfactory prices. The method – argued earlier by the book’s author in Viewpoint in Spore 90 – is simple: supply management, whereby producer countries restrict the production of a given commodity and control its flows onto the global market where it can thus command decent prices from ravenous purchasers. It is a call, somewhat naïve, for solidar- ity among trading players who currently operate more like sharks than soul brothers. But surely, prevailing thinking goes, the forces of liberalised markets serve poor countries well? “Oh no they don’t,” argues Peter Robbins, with much pas- sion but with less persuasion: it screws them, ever more deeply, into a ground that has lost its fertility. The idea of supply manage- ment has much appeal, not only because drastic situations require drastic measures. In his own deal- ings with the World Trade Orga- nization (where, as a former trader, he now advises ACP countries on negotiating stances), he has even established that this sort of market manipulation would not be in breach of WTO rules. Let’s believe that when we see it. Sadly, the book has an attitude problem, which makes it easy to miss the message. You get a fine tour of commodity institutions and their policies and practices, and decent background informa- tion on the major tropical (biomass and non-mineral) com- modities. Good. But many of its references and arguments are dated, and pre-pre-Cancún (see Spore 107). The editing and indexing is, in a word, lax; factu- al errors abound and the sourc- ing of some quotes is shameful. Worse still: Robbins’ swipes, almost personal, at the moral cor- ruption of managers and policy- makers in international finance institutions provide these people with a heaven-sent reason to reject his thinking. But, never bring down the messenger. These ideas, challeng- ing the precepts of commodity trade, deserve to succeed. And, by heck, they have to! Stolen fruit. The tropical commodities disaster. By Peter Robbins CTA/ZED Books, 2003, 188 pp. ISBN 184277 281 3 CTA number 1148. 20 credit points ■ Despite this book’s insinuating title, you’d better leave the pro- duction of eggs to chickens. But for organising the production, packaging, storage and marketing of eggs, this practical manual will definitely come in handy. Its copi- ous ‘how to’ information is useful both for the farmer who wants extra income from the sale of sur- plus eggs and for the entrepreneur who likes to think big. Egg marketing. A guide for the production and sale of eggs FAO Agricultural Services Bulletins, 2003. 136 pp. ISBN 9251049327 US$14 • t 11.85 FAO Sales and Marketing Group Viale delle Terme di Caracalla 00100 Rome Italy Fax: +39 06 5705 3360 Email: publications-sales@fao.org Passion and pricing don’t mix Being egg bound? A firm footing SPORE 108 • PAGE 13 Fish futures ■ Three highly readable documents on how developing countries – and fish farming – will dominate the world’s fish industry by 2020. Outlook for fish to 2020: Meeting global demand (Food Policy Report, 36 pp.) By C L Delgado et al., International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and the World Fish Center, USA, 2003. Single copies free: Order Code PR15 As download: PDF 341 Kb Outlook for fish to 2020: Supply and demand in changing global markets (book, 226 pp.) Single copies free: Order Code OC44 As download: PDF 731 Kb The future of fish: Issues and trends to 2020 (Issue Brief, 6 pp.) Single copies free: Order Code IB15 As download: PDF 436 Kb IFPRI, 2033 K Street NW, Washington, DC 20006-1002, USA Fax: +1 202 467 44 39 Email: ifpri@cgiar.org Website: www.ifpri.org All together now? ■ All about how some members of co-operatives have more say than others. Gender, democratic practice and member control in agricultural primary co-operative societies in Uganda By E I Basirika, Gender issues research report series No. 16, Organization for Social Science Research in Eastern and Southern Africa, Ethiopia, 2002. 44 pp. ISBN 16086295 GPB 3.95 • t 5.65 Stock ID oss013 African Books Collective Ltd. (distributor) The Jam Factory 27 Park End Street Oxford OX1 1HU, UK Fax: +44 1865 70 92 65 Email: abc@africanbookscollective.com Website: www.africanbookscollective.com Or in Africa : OSSREA, PO Box 31971 Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Fax: +251 1 55 13 99 Email: ossrea@telecom.net.et Home, sweet home ■ A macro-look at micronutrients in country-wide programmes on tackling vitamin A and iron deficiencies in South Africa, Swaziland, Uganda and Tanzania. Increasing the consumption of micronutrient-rich foods through production and promotion of indigenous foods FAO-AVRDC international workshop proceedings, Arusha, Tanzania March 2002. By J Aphane et al., The World Vegetable Centre (AVRDC), Taiwan 2003. 78 pp. ISBN 92 9058 130 2 Price available on request M L Chadha AVRDC Regional Center for Africa PO Box 10, Duluti, Arusha Tanzania Fax: + 255 27 255 31 25 Email: info@avrdc-rca.co.tz • Publications ■ Dairy development is very much in the ascendant (see Spore 102). In agricultural extension and community group organis- ing, many agents are setting up milk producer groups. This man- ual is perfect for them! The Milk producer group resource book is useful in several respects. As well as a detailed chapter on milk production, it deals with organisation building, group processes and participato- ry tools. Human resource aspects are given much space – on select- ing leaders, treasurers and secre- taries, on networking and reaching agreements, and on cop- ing with conflicts within the group. The combination of group organising and milk production may seem strange (if you’re a dairy person), but it is a sensible way forward, given that milk is usually produced in small amounts by a large number of producers. Milk producer group resource book. A practical guide to assist milk producer groups By J Draaijer, FAO Animal Production and Health Division, 2003. 86 pp. Available for free (limited stock). Also in HTML format on: www.fao.org/ag/AGA/AGAP/LPS/ dairy/DAP/mpo/mpocover.htm J C Lambert AGAP – FAO Viale delle Terme di Caracalla 00100 Rome Italy Fax: + 39 06 5705 5749 Email: jeanclaude.lambert@fao.org A milk-run to business Land matters ■ Much has been said and writ- ten of late about ‘the commons’, particularly from the perspective of common property resources being increasingly subject to over exploitation due to population pressure. In time, though, the tide could turn. This is argued by the dozen Zimbabwean scientists whose examples of common property management – their successes, failures and challenges – are anal- ysed in this book. Some concern cases of local and community- based management of forestry, mineral, fisheries and wildlife resources. Others deal with trans- boundary initiatives, including managing the Zambezi River Basin and transboundary nature reserves. Despite its southern African focus, the book will be interest- ing for academics and policy- makers in other regions. Managing common property in an age of globalisation. Zimbabwean experiences Edited by G Chikowore et al., Weaver Press, Zimbabwe, 2003. 204 pp. ISBN 1779220103 GBP 14.95 • t 21.40 Stock ID WEA019 African Books Collective Ltd. (distributor) The Jam Factory 27 Park End Street Oxford OX1 1HU UK Fax: +44 1865 70 92 65 Email: abc@africanbookscollective.com Website: www.africanbookscollective.com Or in Africa: Weaver Press Ltd PO Box 1922 Avondale, Harare Zimbabwe The remedy for the commons? ■ “There will be no conclusion to land matters in Melanesia, because land matters. There will always be voices to be heard, and the old voices have not been sat- isfied yet. There is nothing wrong with hearing new voices, unless we decide that some voices should not be heard at all.” This sentiment, expressed in the con- cluding chapter of Culture and progress, reflects the stance taken in this intriguing book which will be of interest to people outside as well as inside Papua New Guinea (PNG). In many ACP countries, land used to be – or still is – ‘owned’ collectively, or in a mix of com- munal and private ownership. Often, (colonial) governments regarded ‘communal’ the same as ‘public’ and they changed the use of many such lands without any consultation, let alone consent. This alienation of land added insult to injury in the develop- ment of communities. There is, though, more to land matters than ownership. These 20 essays paint a picture of what land really means for people in PNG: life, identity, roots and, above all, an expression of rela- tionships – much more than merely an economic commodity. This honest book also evalu- ates earlier land reform initiatives and official policies for land reg- istration and ownership. Culture and progress: The Melanesian philosophy of land and development in Papua New Guinea Edited by N Sullivan DWU Press, 2003. 288 pp. ISBN 9980 9976 4 8 PGK 40 • t 10.10 (excl. P&P) Divine Word University Press PO Box 483 Madang Papua New Guinea Fax: +675 852 28 12 Email: dwupress@dwu.ac.pg I t’s a funny old world, you may well say,when the likes of the World Bank starttalking about ‘collective action’. Where, 25 years ago, Bank officials at a seminar on the participatory design of agricultural tech- nology were spluttering out “Watch out – Communists!” at the very mention of ‘col- lective’, now collective management is all the rage, and community control of devel- opment programmes the goal. How has this change come about? Main- ly through the concept of ‘social capital’ which, in a tad more than a decade, has soared from oblivion to underpinning countless development strategies. In CTA’s Strategic Plan and Framework for Action 2001–2005, social capital is identified as one of three cross-cutting issues which run through all CTA activi- ties. The other two are gender and infor- mation and communication technologies (ICTs); of late, youth has been added to make it a foursome. As old as the hills Social capital, as a concept, is so much part of a society that it has rarely commanded attention. As a new term, however, it has helped to fill a critical gap in the thinking around development processes. The World Bank definition: “Social capital refers to the institutional relationships and networks that shape the quality and quantity of a society’s interactions. It is not just the sum of the institutions which underpin a society – it is the glue that holds it altogether.” It is about the benefits of people working together, car- ing, sparing and sharing or, as a contempo- rary slogan in The Netherlands puts it: “Society? That’s you.” One of the more lucid writers on social capital, Professor Jules Pretty (see Agri-Cul- ture book review in Spore 105), admits to the longevity of the concept: “For as long as people have managed natural resources, they have engaged in forms of collective action. As a result, constructive rule and norms for resource management have been embedded in many cultures and societies. But in recent agricultural and rural devel- opment, it has been rare for the importance of local groups and institutions to be rec- ognized.” In emphasising the value of con- nectedness and trust between people, the concept of social capital increases their con- fidence to invest in collective activities. In terms of CTA’s focus on the manage- ment and accessibility of information, and SPORE 108 • PAGE 14 Between us • Mailbox You may have caught the following bit of news of late, in the press or by email: ‘Aoc- cdrnig to rscheearch at an Elingsh uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer is at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it, bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter by itslef but the wrod as a wlohe.’ So, while writing to Spore, even a little spelling mis- take is no problem. Write away, right away! Undercover The benefits of having a pond on your farm to harvest rainwater for growing vegetables and fruits are well known. “However, the farmers are under threat to some extent,” writes Teshome Bulcha, crop production expert of Amaro Special Weleda Agricultural Office. “Different water-borne diseases will be formed in the pond.” He explains that not everybody has a suitable cover for their pond. Whose side are you on? Klaas Johan Osinga of the Northern branch of the Dutch Farmers’ Union (NLTO) asks: “Having read the two articles in Spore 106 (August 2003), ‘Who’s splitting whom?’ and ‘GM: get mature’, can we now safely assume that CTA is clearly in favour of GMOs?” CTA replies: “Thank you for your interest in Spore. The purpose of the articles is to pro- vide information to our readers about some of the current thinking on GMOs, including the perceived risks and benefits. The Centre’s goal is to provide a platform for the exchange of ideas and experiences on topi- cal issues of interest to the ACP States. While it is not for the Centre to take sides on such issues, it has to expose a range of views as part of the process of trying to improve ACP stakeholders’ capacities to manage the acquisition and use of information.” Words women wield The focus of the work of the Akwaata Empo- la Women Development Association in Ugan- da is on gender sensitisation in agriculture, in part through organising sensitisation sem- inars, explains Sophia Nabukeera Kaggwa, AWENDA’s public relations officer: “Spore has helped us to disseminate information in our areas of operation, namely Wakiso Sub County. We would like to know the proce- dures one follows to apply for the GenARDIS fund.” That’s a very good question – it’s been a very popular initiative (see Spore 106). The proce- dures for the 2004 GenARDIS grants have not been finalised yet, so keep an eye on the CTA Website or Spore. Social capital Let’s stick together Spore magazine Spore is the bi-monthly flagship publication of the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA) – ACP-EU. CTA operates under the Cotonou Agreement between the countries of the Africa, Caribbean and the Pacific (ACP) Group and the European Union. © CTA 2003 - ISSN 1011-0054 Publisher: Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA) – ACP-EC Cotonou Agreement. CTA: PO Box 380, 6700 AJ Wageningen, The Netherlands Tel: +31 317 467100 Fax: +31 317 460067 – Email: cta@cta.int Website: www.cta.int Compiling editors: Managing director: Bernard Favre, Louma productions, 3 rue Neuve, 34150 Aniane, France. Fax: +33 4 67 57 01 80 – louma@louma.fr Editorial director: Paul Osborn, Médiateurs, Willem-Alexanderpoort 46, 1421CH Uithoorn, The Netherlands. Fax: +31 297 540514 editor@spore-magazine.org This issue of Spore was compiled by Marcel Chimwala, Bernard Favre, Erik Heijmans, Louise Kibuuka, John Madeley, Paul Osborn and Jacques Sultan with editorial guidance from CTA. Layout: Louma productions Printer: Imprimerie Publicep, France @ Remember, enter our drawing competition before 1 February 2004 (see Spore 107) SPORE 108 • PAGE 15 • Between us Reader services Say it in Spore Write to Spore Mailbox, CTA, PO Box 380, 6700 AJ Wageningen, The Netherlands Fax: +31317460067 Email: spore@cta.int Subscribe to Spore in print • Free to organisations and individuals at addresses in ACP (African, Caribbean and Pacific) and EU countries: CTA Spore subscriptions, PO Box 173, 6700 AJ Wageningen, The Netherlands or spore@cta.int • Paid subscriptions for all other addresses: t 36/ GBP 24 annually (6 issues) from commercial distributor (see below). Subscribe to Spore Ennouncement Subscribe to the free Spore email summary (90 Kb) at spore.cta.int, or send a blank email to: join-spore-en@lists.cta.int. For text-only: join-spore-text-en@lists.cta.int See Spore on a screen Web distribution: spore.cta.int Satellite distribution: capture Spore ’n More broadcasts on the Afristar channels of the WorldSpace Foundation’s multimedia programmes. Details from: sporenmore@spore-magazine.org Reproduce Spore – with permission: Articles in Spore can be freely reproduced for non- commercial use, if credited as coming from Spore. Please send a copy to the editors. Reproduction for commercial use requires prior permission. Email: reproduction@spore-magazine.org Publications in Spore: how to get them Some publications listed in the news and publications sections of Spore are on CTA’s publications list. They are indicated by the green leaf symbol, and are available free-of-charge to subscribers to CTA’s Publications Distribution Service (PDS). All other readers can buy them from CTA’s commercial distributors. ■ All other publications, indicated by an orange square, are available from the publishers listed, or through commercial booksellers. Consult the CTA publications list in CTA’s electronic catalogue www.cta.int • Publications Distribution Service Each PDS subscriber is assigned a number of free credit points annually for purchasing publications on CTA’s list. Only agricultural and rural development organisations, and individuals resident in ACP countries can apply for PDS subscriptions. • Commercial distributor Non-PDS subscribers, and subscribers with insufficient credit points, can buy publications on CTA’s list from our commercial distributor: CTA Publications, ITDG Publishing, 103–105 Southampton Row, London WC1B 4HL, UK, Fax: +44 20 7436 2013 Email: cta@itpubs.org.uk Website: www.itdgpublishing.org.uk ✍ Push and pull A specialist in integrated pest management, Ole Zethner of the Scanagri consulting team in Denmark, has some earnest comments on the article ‘The insect – our main rival’ in Spore 103. “Whereas it is correct that con- ventional chemical control of stem borers is inadequate, this is not correct with the men- tioned control methods, such as habitat man- agement, biological control and cultural practices.” He refers to research carried out by the International Centre of Insect Physiol- ogy and Ecology (ICIPE) “that led to cultural practices that significantly limit the damage and losses caused by stem borers.” This prac- tice works with grasses, interplanted with maize, that ‘push’ stem borers out of the maize field, and with grasses planted around the field that ‘pull’ the insects to the edge of the field (see article on weeds in Spore 98). According to Mr Zethner, Bt maize – geneti- cally modified maize that incorporates the insect pathogenic bacteria Bacillus thuringiensis – may be a valuable tool in the future but “we know very little about its long-term effects, its limitations, costs and potentials under different ecological condi- tions … It seems very doubtful that Bt crops are miracle crops that permanently will solve pest problems. The pests are likely to devel- op resistance to Bt, as experienced with con- ventional chemical pesticides during the past half-century.” Mother’s big helper John Mansaray works for the Womankind Association (Box 12 Awutu C/R, Accra, Ghana) on the SurvFival Gardening project with refugees. “We received some moringa seeds from the organisation ECHO and planted them. The moringa tree is some- times called mother’s best friend due to its medicinal properties. We now have more seeds and we wish to give them away to those who are interested.” As long as stocks last, Womankind Association can send you a set of five seeds, at US$ 1 (make that t 1) to cover postage. “Our sole school of life” A training course on forest conservation for local extension workers is what Sylvain Okito Lodi from the Democratic Republic of Congo wants CTA to organise, referring to CTA as “our sole school of life”. “Here at our organ- isation Solidarity for Communal Develop- ment (SODEC), CTA even helps us – with their refined examples, strategies and conclusions – to cope with various situations and crises that we are experiencing at first hand.” Sorry, CTA does not organise local training courses. Spore has asked the CTA training team to put Mr Lodi in touch with other ‘schools of life’ in his region that could assist. How clear is your water? You probably know that the transparency and turbidity of water in fish ponds, rivers, lakes and seas can tell you a lot about what the water is best for. Algae, zooplankton (tiny grazing animals) and soil run-off all affect its transparency and can be indicators of its biological, chemical and physical char- acteristics. The traditional device for measuring water transparency is called the secchi disc – named 100 years ago after Father Secchi, a scientific advisor to the Pope who had to measure the transparency of the Mediterranean Sea. The disc usually has a diameter of 25 cm with four quadrants of two alternating colours. It is lowered into the water and the depth at which the disc is about to disappear from sight is the secchi disc reading. Ajayi Olarewaju, of the Nigerian fisheries research institute, NIFFR, adapted this tech- nology for measuring water for aquaculture and fish ponds. He calibrated the rope attached to the disc and developed a direc- tory card. “If the value obtained is below or above the favourable ranges, the card sug- gests to fish growers what to do to make the water favourable.” Quite a catching idea! Ajayi Olarewaju Envionmental Division, Limnology Programme NIFFR PMB 6006, New Bussa, Niger State, Nigeria the accompanying institutional frameworks in ACP countries, how should the Centre incorporate the concept of social capital into its programmes in a systematic fashion? Does it offer a genuine way to enhance the Centre’s performance? The potential to do so is there. The (re-)creation of a communi- ty’s social capital is very much based on ongoing interest in ‘local group formation’ – a participatory process in which informa- tion and communication have essential roles. Here CTA is constantly involved in, for example, seven sectors which are widely seen as crucial: watershed/catchment man- agement; irrigation management; micro- finance delivery; forest management; integrated pest management; wildlife man- agement; and farmers’ research groups. Transformation for change As one of five ‘capitals’ in which develop- ment activities should invest (the others are natural, human, physical and finan- cial), social capital is, at the end of the day, all about the coherence and cohesion of a group. It offers the same to CTA itself, but its acceptance is not necessarily a given. At a CTA internal seminar in February 2003, Jules Pretty cautioned: “This is an inevitable part of any transformation pro- cess. The old guard adopts the new lan- guage and implies that they were doing it all the time, and nothing really changes. But this is not a reason for abandoning the new. Transformation must occur in the way we all think if there are to be real transformations and improvements in bio- diversity and the lives of people.” Social capital and connectedness: Issues and implications for agriculture, rural development and natural resource management in ACP countries J Pretty, CTA, 2003. 30 pp CTA Working Document 8032. 5 credit points. Outside, it’s mega-networking time.Several hundred movers and shakers,and a few discordant draggers, in the world of biotechnology and plant protection are noisily at lunch, making points with forks. Inside, we just talk about food – and fear and fuss. “A lot of fear comes from ignorance. Once you can learn, you can talk clearly,” Florence offers. So what had she learned herself? “I spent two years during my PhD in rural communities finding out how to control the viral diseases of sweet potatoes. I concluded there was no long-term control. When you look at methods in America and Europe using certified seeds, you see they work well because farmers do not give each other seedlings. They buy from a certified dealer, and use chemical sprays to keep the virus’s vector insects out.” “In Africa the situation is totally different. Even with clean, certified seeds the rate of infection is high. The disease comes back so fast because of tropical conditions; the insects are active all the year, with no winter to break their dormancy and the disease cycle.” “Secondly, there are farmers’ cultural prac- tices; when they give each other cuttings they spread the disease. It’s an African custom you cannot change. African farmers believe that seeds have to be shared, so we need a tech- nology based on the seed. And therefore a genetic transformation that puts the technol- ogy into the seed becomes very user-friendly in Africa, unbelievably friendly. You don’t have to train farmers how to handle the seeds, they’re professionals, they have always done it, their grandmothers did it.” My own sweet potatoes “In 1991, I got a USAID fellowship to go to Monsanto [a crop science company in the United States of America] to train with this new technology for three years. For Monsan- to, sweet potato is not a business line so I took my own sweet potatoes from Africa. Monsan- to thought it was a really good experience; they could conceptualise Africa from a per- son rather than from a book.” So they read you instead of a book? “Yes, it changed their attitude and perception,” she twinkles, “to an extent.” Later, she emphasis- es her opposition to Monsanto’s Terminator technology [which sterilises a seed so that it cannot be resown]. “It must not come to Africa.” “Back home, at the ISAAA, I had four major projects: on the multiplication of tree seedlings using biotech; on maize and DNA markers; on banana tissue culture; and, most important, the genetically modified sweet potato.” “We have now done field trials. And Kenya has a Biosafety Committee with people trained in the Cartagena Protocol, and the Kenya Plant Health Information Service. We have permits for Bt cotton, Bt maize and for people working with flowers. Above all, we have a bio-transformation lab at KARI so that our scientists can now work with us and not in Europe or America.” Farmers’ ownership “We cannot do biotech in a vacuum: it has to be around facilities that train people, help them to build experience and to communi- cate. There are genuine consumers and farm- ers, with no pre-set issues, and they truly want to know because they see this as an opportu- nity. They need to get in with an informed, science-based decision.” “The places where we are carrying out our trials, out in the country, as well as around Nairobi, they are not protected by the police. The farmers there know that this is their product, it is being developed for their own good, so there is ownership, and if something good comes out of this, it will benefit them. When some Greenies came to incite them, saying ‘genetic modification’ (GM) is a very dangerous thing’, the farmers said ‘No, we know about it. We are informed and we are interested’.” “When we do data analysis in the trials, we invite farmers around, to sit together, to see what’s happening. This is key – we cannot do this work without engaging local communi- ties. The debate about GM is about social issues, not safety issues.” No little prayer “When people are ignorant – because they have not been informed or empowered – they will become a victim of the fear-mongering and the manipulators. Where people have been empowered – and that takes time – they will not listen to them.” “The other extreme, with organisations like Greenpeace, is that they are not interested if there is some benefit in the technology. They have made up their mind and will not change. Why waste time with such people?” She moves on to talk of the immorality of some donors and NGOs. “It is not moral to judge other people by your own attitude, and to try and impose your own opinion on peo- ple who are hungry, when you have food and you have choices. People in America have been eating this (GM) food and none of them has gone sick or died.” Was she perhaps under threat, defending a minority position? “No. The NEPAD [New Economic Pro- gramme for African Development, of African governments] has endorsed FARA’s position: agriculture is the economic driver for Africa and in agriculture, biotech – including GM – is one of the drivers, alongside irrigation, use of organic and inorganic fertilisers and soil fertility.” Okay, but how do you feel about the crit- ics? “People who fear need information. If you know your position is not sound, you need to lie. It is unethical, and they will be ashamed.” Do you pray for them? “They don’t need prayers. You can cheat some people some of the time, but you cannot do it all of the time. Sooner than later, when people realise they were doing the wrong thing, they will see they went too far.” SPORE 108 • PAGE 16 Viewpoint • The opinions expressed in Viewpoint are those of the authors, and do not necessarily reflect the views of CTA. Florence Wambugu PhD has worked at the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI) and has been director of the ISAAA Afri-Centre of the International Service for the Acquisition of Agribiotechnology Applications. She sits on the UN Hunger Task Force and the board of the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA). Biotechnology The benefit of no doubt Her work on sweet potatoes was first covered in Spore in 1993. Now a high-profile biologist of great stature, and director of Harvest Biotech Foundation International, Florence Wambugu opens up to Spore’s Paul Osborn on the emotions in science. “The debate is about social issues, not safety issues“