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CIMMYT Shows Partners in Kenya New Breakthroughs in Maize and Wheat Research

The director of KALRO’s Food Crops Research Institute, Joyce Malinga (left), the director of CIMMYT Global Maize Program, B.M. Prasanna (center), and CIMMYT’s Regional Representative, Stephen Mugo, open the maize seed cold room in Kiboko (Photo: Joshua Masinde/CIMMYT)

On the first day, CIMMYT invited IMIC researchers to evaluate Material Under Development at the Kiboko site. These maize lines are not publicly released yet but are available to IMIC partners, so they can select the most promising ones for their research and crop improvement work. Each seed company was looking for certain traits to develop new hybrid varieties. For instance, Samit Fayek, from Fine Seeds Egypt was looking for ‘erect type’ maize, as he wants higher crop density and grains that look big. Christopher Volbrecht, from Lake Agriculture in South Africa, was looking for “cobs that stick out as this is what farmers want.” Josephine Okot, from Victoria Seeds in Uganda, said that “seed companies often look at drought tolerance only, but we need now to integrate resistance to Maize Lethal Necrosis.”

Next on the tour to Kiboko, partners visited various stress-tolerant breeding materials, sustainable intensification cropping demonstrations and the Doubled Haploid facility. Vijaya Chaikam, Maize Doubled Haploid Scientist, explained how CIMMYT uses this methodology to cut down breeding time from six to two cycles, which drastically reduces costs.

Reflecting on Science, Society and GMOs

The GM controversy
Beyond rejecting GM technology based on unfounded health risks, there are hefty concerns about the power concentration in the biotechnology market, best exemplified by the antipathy towards companies like Monsanto and Bayer. Despite strong public demands to act upon monopolistic market structures, leading political parties often defend and support powerful multinationals. Van Montagu, among others, argues that it is the lack of alternative narratives that leads to this contradiction:

“Multinationals have the physical and financial power. Why are so many people from liberal and conservative parties supporting multinationals? Because they believe that you cannot do it otherwise. They believe that you need some ‘industry captain’: some sort of dictator leading the corporation. Nevertheless, I do believe that you need persons with initiative, not inhibited by the fear of the unknown.”

Why Every Drop of Water Counts in Feeding A Growing Population

By Bimal Kantaria

Water is life. So we hear. But nowhere has this been aptly captured than in feeding a burgeoning world population. Globally there is an estimated 842 million hungry people meaning one in eight people in the world suffer from chronic hunger.

Serious concerns about how prepared the country is in feeding the growing population with the same, or even shrinking land space would be addressed have been raised. The idea is to ensure a smooth food system that allows uninterrupted processes from farm to fork.

With Kenya having two thirds of its land under arid and semi-arid zones, concerns on how to exploit these lands to keep the nation food secure in the wake of changing weather patterns and dwindling agricultural land has been rife.

When Corruption Violates Human Rights: The Right to Food in Kenya

Hunger is a violation of human dignity and an obstacle to social, political and economic progress. Yet millions of people in Kenya are prevented from realising the fundamental human right to be free from hunger because of government corruption and abuse of power.

In 2012, officials of the Kenya National Federation of Agricultural Producers (KENFAP) accused the government of economic sabotage. According to KENFAP, government corruption led to artificial food shortages in the North Rift. Specifically, the government is accused of deliberately and consistently delaying the disbursement of funds to the National Cereals and Produce Board (NCPB) for the buying of maize. KENFAP alleges that such delays force farmers to sell their produce at throwaway prices to agents working with high powered syndicates connected to government operatives. The maize is then sold by the syndicates at inflated prices in times of scarcity or exported at high prices.

Is Kenya’s Food Security a Mirage?

An analysis of Kenya’s 2018/2019 budget in relation to food security

Experts say the government has not allocated enough resources for the 2018/2019 of food security and nutrition. New report released yesterday on the 2018/2019 budget analysis stated that Kenya’s quest to become food secure will remain a mirage unless urgent and deliberate reformed are implemented. This is despite the agriculture sector receiving sh.1.45 billion more this financial year compared to the last budget.

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