News
NRI Launches the European Centre for IPM
- 21 December 2011
- Rory Hillocks
Building
on a long history of research and development on integrated pest
management [IPM] technologies for agriculture in developing countries
and in the UK, NRI has inaugurated the European Centre for IPM. The
EUCIPM was publically launched at the annual meeting of the Royal
Entomological Society held at the UoG Medway campus in September 2011.
Development and promotion of IPM is the main pillar of the European Commission’s approach to decreasing pesticide use in European farming. EC Directives on pesticide registration and use, have resulted in the loss from the UK market, of some important crop.... Read full news post
Poverty and agriculture in Rwanda
An
NRI and Concern Worldwide joint report was launched on Monday at the
Houses of Parliament, which calls for more targeted investment in
agriculture for the poorest and most vulnerable farmers.
Farming for Impact: a case study of smallholder agriculture in Rwanda by Lora Forsythe from NRI and Robin Willoughby from Concern Worldwide, is based on a longer report of a study on promising practice in supporting resource-poor and vulnerable smallholder farmers to increase their agriculture productivity. This was based on an examination of the Concern Worldwide Rwanda agricultural programme, operating in three.... Read full news post.
NRI scientists working to stop spread of deadly African crop virus
Scientists at the University of Greenwich are in a race against time to tackle a deadly virus threatening to cause a famine in Eastern Africa.
Experts at the Natural Resources Institute (NRI), based at the university’s Medway Campus, are busy researching on cassava – an annual crop which provides food for more than 200 million people in Africa. Cassava is essential because it can be grown all year round and provides valuable food in periods when other food staples are not available. Its edible, starchy tuberous roots are a major source of carbohydrates, and it is better equipped than many crops to resist the effects of climate change as it can withstand drought and grow in poor soils.
All these benefits of cassava are, however, threatened by cassava brown streak disease (CBSD), one of the world’s seven most dangerous plant.... Read full news post.
New Publications on Climate Change from NRI
We are pleased to announce several new publications by NRI authors on aspects of climate change and agriculture
Agricultural advisory services (also known as extension services) face significant challenges in responding to climate change challenges in the 21st Century. A new NRI report. commissioned by the African Forum for Agricultural Advisory Services (AFAAS), explores the potential issues for advisory services in tackling climate change and how services in Africa are currently able to respond. The report concludes by setting out the man AAS can become more ‘adaptive’ in their governance, vision, management, capacity and advisory methods, and how AFAAS can support.... Read full news post.
Key presentations to Standards and Trade Development Facility at the WTO
A team from NRI recently gave presentations at the Standards and Trade Development Facility (STDF) Working Group meeting at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in Geneva about their work on the "Agrifood Standards - Compliance Increases Trade for Developing Countries (ASEC)" Programme. The presentations took place on 21 October 2011 and the NRI team consisted of Ulrich Kleih, Hanneke Lam, and Dr Diego Naziri. They were accompanied by project collaborator Andrew Edewa, who works for UNIDO in Nairobi, Kenya. Andrew is also registered as a PhD student at NRI.
The presentations deal with (a) Toolkit to strengthen sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) coordination.... Read full news post.
New Armyworm biological control facility for Africa completed
In Arusha, Tanzania, a new facility has been built for the mass production of a biological control agent for African armyworm with technical help from David Grzywacz and colleagues at NRI. This is the first biological control production laboratory in Tanzania and is the culmination of a series of research projects lead by NRI that pioneered the use of biological control for African armyworm. This initiative to bring the fruits of earlier sponsored research into practical use was funded by the DFID Research into Use Programme (RIU).Dr Andy Frost (Deputy Director, RIU) comments “this initiative brings good science (from UK Research Council and DFID funded projects) into meaningful use adopting a much more business-like approach – whilst the commercial operation is very much in its infancy, the future is very positive and it will bring about sustainable benefits for poor farmers in the region”. The facility.... Read full news post.
NRI and Conservation Agriculture
Dr Helena Posthumus of NRI attended the 5th World Congress on Conservation Agriculture (www.wcca2011.org) in Brisbane, Australia (26-29 September 2011). Conservation Agriculture is a farming system approach based on three principles (minimum soil disturbance, permanent soil cover and appropriate crop rotations to reduce pests and diseases) that is seen as a sustainable way of rainfed agriculture in areas with erratic rainfall and degraded soils. Scientists from all over the world came together for four days to discuss the latest findings and advances in conservation agriculture and farming systems design....Read full news post.
Building Capacity on Tropical Roots and Tuber Crops
A very successful training course on proposal writing, research methods and intellual property rights for early career researchers and extensionists working with tropical root and tuber crops from six Pacific nations was held at the University of the South Pacific in mid-September 2011 by an NRI-led team.
The course was one of eight being provided during the three-year ACP/EU Science and Technology project entitled “Science and Technology for Enhancing the Contribution of Tropical Root Crops to Development in ACP countries”(http://www.nri.org/projects/tropicalroots)”. The project is implemented byNRI working in collaboration with the International Society of Tropical Root Crops (www.istrc.org) and research organisations from West, East and Southern Africa and the Caribbean. The week-long course, organised in Fiji in collaboration with...Read full news post.