“NRI's mission is to provide distinctive, high quality and relevant research, consultancy, teaching and advice in support of sustainable development, economic growth and poverty reduction.”
“NRI's mission is to provide distinctive, high quality and relevant research, consultancy, teaching and advice in support of sustainable development, economic growth and poverty reduction.”
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The Natural Resources Institute (NRI) welcomes the publication of the recently released Inquiry Report from the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Agriculture and Food for Development entitled 'Growing out of Poverty'.
Andrew Westby, Director of NRI at the University of Greenwich stated "This is a very important and timely report from the APPG that highlights the need to focus on small-holder agriculture as a means of enabling the poor in Africa, especially women, escape from poverty, meet their nutritional requirements and provide the means to educate their children. Linking small-holders to markets, working to develop small and medium scale enterprises, reducing both crop production and post-harvest losses and supporting farmers to be resilient to climate change are important areas where NRI’s work can make a significant contribution”.Drawing upon evidence from some of the world's most eminent authorities on food security and agricultural development, the Report builds upon the Group's first Report in 2010 which asserted that profitable small-holder agriculture must be the central tool for assisting the social and economic development of low income countries if Governments and Donors are to build long-term resilience into the livelihoods of the very poorest citizens in the developing world.
Lord Cameron, the APPG Chair, hopes that the APPG inquiry will be instrumental in helping DFID and other donors to identify and explore the best ways to support African agriculture and to help 450 million small-holders worldwide to grow themselves out of poverty.
The report highlights the importance of working with developing countries on multiple levels from investing the required political capital to understanding the small-holder farmer’s long-term needs. There is a growing body of literature which highlights the importance of agriculture in the developing world, which the Report contributes to,
not only in helping deliver upon MDG1 and reducing the 1 billion people currently suffering from hunger, but also in building resilience into the livelihoods of the poorest and most marginal citizens.
NRI have extensive experience in this area and are currently undertaking the project Cassava: Adding Value for Africa (C:AVA), backed by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, to link more than 70,000 small-holder households to national and international markets. The project aims to assist small-holder farmers to turn their cassava crop into high quality processed flour which can be sold at premium price in partial substitution for imported wheat. The institute has been working to support rural and agricultural development in developing countries for over 100 years, conducting world class agricultural research, consultancy and capacity building with partners and grassroots organisations in over 80 countries each year.
The Natural Resources Institute (NRI) have created a brand new and innovative Masters degree entitled MA Rural Development Dynamics to focus on the social and economic aspects of rural development, a recognised strength of the Institute. The programme will include substantial coverage of issues affecting rural change as well as training in social research principles, approaches and "This course would help me improve my skills to serve rural communities better, for a positive change. I will have the opportunity to also share my experience on different aspects of rural development” - Interested Applicant 2011methods; applied research tools for use in diagnostic and baseline studies, action research, situation and gender analysis, process monitoring, and evaluation and impact assessment. The MA will be led by Agricultural Economist Claire Coote within the Food and Markets Department at NRI. The staff involved have extensive rural development experience, and undertake research, consultancy and training across many countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean and the Pacific for a range of public and private sector clients. NRI experts conducting teaching and supervising for this course will include Professor John Morton, renowned for his work with mobile pastoralists and climate change impacts; Adrienne Martin, a lead author on the International Assessment of Agricultural Science for Development and Julian Quan, author of a background paper for the UK Government’s Foresight Report on the future of Food and Farming.
Climate change, volatile markets, conflict, emergent diseases and major migratory pests are increasing the vulnerability of rural areas in developing countries, and are thus presenting major challenges to the livelihoods and wellbeing of rural communities. It is a key concern for NRI and the international development sector to understand the consequences of these challenges, and to undertake research in order to monitor and assess the outcomes of research and development programmes, and to advise policy makers on appropriate policies. The Rural Development Dynamics programme is an exciting opportunity to develop and be a part of these initiatives.
Some 65% of NRI’s work in Development Studies was assessed as internationally excellent or internationally recognised under the last HEFCE Research Assessment Exercise in 2008. This new Masters programme in Rural Development Dynamics aims to develop a cadre of professionals able to increase the impact orientation of development activities and contribute more effectively to the development process. Participants will develop transferrable skills to enable them to take a more active role in development organisations, or to obtain a good foundation for undertaking a research degree.
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 protection products. The continuing review process could result in the removal from sale of many more pesticides commonly used in UK and EU farming. Farmers in the UK and other EU States are faced with having to produce more food profitably and sustainably, using fewer pesticides, while trying to avoid rapid development of pesticide resistance.
EC Directive 2009/128, requires the implementation of IPM on all farms in Member States, by the end of 2014. These developments in EU policy re-focus attention on IPM and offer an opportunity for EUCIPM to make a contribution to local, national and European sustainable farming, through the development and promotion of IPM component technologies and systems. NRI offers a wealth of knowledge and expertise to help the British and European farming industries meet the challenge of delivering profitable food production, while maintaining and enhancing biodiversity and ecosystem services.
The goal of the EUCIPM is to contribute technologies and to the policy debate, for the delivery of competitive food production and enhanced ecosystem services, through adoption of cost-effective IPM systems. The EUCIPM will provide IPM services to the farming and horticultural industries to manage the implementation of EU pesticide reduction strategies, enabling sustainable production of high quality food. Our vision is of a rural landscape which meets the aspirations of all sectors of the community, from producers through to consumers. This will require the concerted application of natural and social sciences to reduce the losses caused by pests and diseases, improving food security through profitable farming and provide safe and healthy food, while sustaining biodiversity, protecting the environment and decreasing agriculture’s carbon footprint.
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 of the poorest districts of Rwanda from 2007 to 2011.
The programme demonstrated that working together with the Government of Rwanda and strong implementing partners to deliver a holistic package of support to resource-poor and vulnerable smallholder farmers can not only increase agricultural productivity, but also contribute to food security, hunger reduction and insulate countries from rising food prices. Analysis of the programme’s impact reveals positive outcomes for the most poor and vulnerable in rural areas, consisting largely of female headed households and people living with HIV/AIDS.
The agricultural programme delivered a package of support consisting of new and improved agro-techniques including planting techniques and erosion control; assistance in developing household vegetable gardens; access to inputs such as improved seeds and fertiliser; a participatory livestock distribution scheme to increase livestock ownership as a capital asset and source of manure, and savings and loans facilities through pre-cooperative membership.
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 universitys 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 worlds seven most dangerous plant crop diseases, that can cause total loss of the cassava crop, with potentially devastating consequences for those who rely on it as a major source of food. The disease causes complete rotting of the infected tubers, making them unfit for consumption or marketing.
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization has warned that CBSD is nearing an epidemic in parts of Africa. As highlighted by the BBC on 17 November 2011, the UN scientists are urging that action is taken immediately to help resolve the problem. This virus was first identified during a collaborative project between NRI scientists Dr Susan Seal and Dr Rory Hillocks, and Professor Gary Foster at the University of Bristol. Subsequently, Dr Maruthi Gowda, Dr Rory Hillocks and Professor John Colvin (also from NRI) were the first to identify the elusive vector of the disease: a tiny whitefly, just one millimetre in size. In addition, NRI scientists have developed practical control measures and cost-effective, cutting-edge technologies for accurate virus diagnosis, essential for African scientists to use in their local laboratories. These diagnostic tests and knowledge of the epidemiology have been vital in the fight to prevent CBSD spread and in developing resistant varieties.
Scientists at NRI are using this information to develop methods and design strategies to find cassava varieties that have the best resistance to the viruses causing CBSD. In this regard, a team led by Dr Maruthi Gowda has made an important breakthrough using the latest state-of-the art real-time PCR technology for the quantification of viruses that cause the disease. The team has identified cassava varieties in which the amount of virus in a resistant variety is about 100-fold lower than the tolerant or susceptible cassava varieties. The technology developed by the team is highly valuable as we can define the nature of resistance to the disease for the first time in cassava, allowing the scientists to identify virus-resistant varieties rapidly.
Scientists from NRI are also active members of several international consortia that coordinate research efforts on cassava viruses to minimise their devastating impact on food security in African cassava growing regions. The research on cassava carried out at NRI has long been recognised as providing major breakthroughs, as highlighted in the UK Governments report Perspectives on Pests: achievements of research under the UK Department for International Developments crop Protection Programme, 1996-2000.
NRI leads several large international projects aimed at improving the livelihoods of smallholder households in Africa who rely on cassava. This includes the Cassava: Adding Value for Africa supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.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 this process. The report is available to download: Emerging Approaches for Responding to Climate Change in African Agricultural Advisory Services: Challenges, Opportunities and Recommendations for an AFAAS Climate Change Response Strategy by Richard Lamboll, Valerie Nelson and Nick Nathaniels, for the African Forum for Agricultural Advisory Services (2011)
We are also pleased to publish two new papers in our Working Paper Series on Climate Change, Agriculture and Natural Resources, on the gender dimensions of biofuel developments developments which are partly driven by climate change mitigation imperatives. These papers were co-authored by Valerie Nelson, NRI and Yianna Lambrou, FAO. These reports are available here: Working Paper No.2 (2011) Gender and Modern Biofuels: A Guidance Paper for Policy-Makers, and Working Paper No. 3 (2011) Scoping the Gender Issues in Liquid Biofuel Value Chains. A thematic review and extensive bibliography on gender, age and social protection issues has also been commissioned by ODI and has recently been published on their website and is also available here: Gender, Generations, Climate Change and Social Protection: Thematic Review and Annotated Bibliography. A study commissioned by CIAT and the Pan African Bean Research Network on Climate Change, Gender and Smallholder Agriculture, by Valerie Nelson has been published on the CIAT website.
All these and a range of other publications from NRI and by NRI staff are available at our web-page on Climate Change Publications.
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, assess the impact of SPS notifications and analyse the costs and benefits of control measures; and (b) Commodity Based Trade (CBT) - Namibia case study on the feasibility of meat exports from the Caprivi strip.
The presentations formed part of the wider ASEC Programme, which is managed by Dr Andy Graffham. The programme, which is supported by the Policy Division of the UK Department for International Development (DFID), has the following three components:
For further information about the ASEC programme, please contact Dr A Graffham at: a.j.graffham@gre.ac.uk
In addition, NRI is managing a complementary programme of policy research examining corporate responsibility and accountability in agriculture in the global South. Building on earlier NRI work on natural resources and ethical trade, this work seeks to improve understanding of how different standards, value chains and private sector interventions have an impact on the livelihoods of farmers and workers. It includes the power and governance dimensions of this dynamic field of activity. Topics under this programme of work include:
For further information about this programme, please contact Valerie Nelson at: v.j.nelson@gre.ac.uk or Adrienne Martin at: a.m.martin@gre.ac.uk
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 will be operated by a local Tanzanian company Eco Agri Consultancy Services Ltd, whose director Mr Wilfred Mushobozi was a very active partner during research said “The research outputs generated from these projects are of critical importance in addressing armyworm challenges in the region”.
The African armyworm Spodoptera exempta is a major migratory crop pest over much of Eastern and Southern Africa. Crops are damaged by plagues of the armyworm caterpillars, which at densities 100-1000 per m2 destroy staple grain crops such as maize, wheat, rice and strip pastures. After each outbreak the larvae pupate in the ground and later the emergent swarms of moths move to new areas following the seasonal rains. Armyworm outbreaks disperse from the primary outbreak areas in Tanzania and Kenya and may spread to other vulnerable countries in sub-Saharan Africa. In serious outbreak years, hundreds of thousands of hectares of can be attacked and damaged over the six to eight month armyworm season and this poses a serious threat to the food security of millions of people. Control of these armyworm plagues has been reliant on the spraying of chemical pesticide. However, the high cost and limited availability of chemical pesticides means that up to 70% of subsistence farmers in outbreak areas cannot access pesticide. International aid donors are also unwilling to fund the purchase of chemical pesticides for armyworm control due to environmental concerns about their wide scale use in areas of rich biodiversity.
The biological control of armyworm is based on the use of the Spodoptera exempta nucleopolyhedrovirus (SpexNPV). This is a virus disease that is specific to African armyworm and completely safe for non-target insects, wildlife, livestock and humans. This virus can naturally appear in armyworm outbreaks spreading rapidly and quickly killing up to 98% of the larvae, however its natural appearance is usually too late in the season to prevent crop damage or halt armyworm spread. Research has shown that by spraying outbreaks with SpexNPV they can be destroyed as effectively as with pesticides1 without any of the negative environmental impact of chemical pesticides. Key research identified how to produce SpexNPV in the laboratory or field3 2 and this knowledge will be applied to mass produce it in the new facility more cheaply than chemical pesticides.
The new facility draws on the knowledge generated by earlier NRI projects and also the recent BBSRC-DFID project on armyworm baculovirus ecology led by Professor Kenneth Wilson of Lancaster University and in which NRI was a partner. Professor Wilson’s BBSRC project untangled the epidemiology of natural SpexNPV outbreaks and also developed an armyworm forecasting database which promises to be a key tool in helping to forecast, locate and treat outbreaks in time to maximise the effectiveness of the biocontrol agent preventing crop damage and the further spread of armyworm outbreaks. Prof Wilson said “This successful collaboration between NRI, Eco Agri Consultancy Services Ltd and Lancaster University has demonstrated that long-term projects by partners in the north and south that integrate high-quality science and fundamental research can bring immense benefits for resource-poor farmers in Africa”.
As well as producing SpexNPV for armyworm control it is planned that the new facility will also promote and distribute other biological pesticides and biotechnology products urgently needed by Tanzanian farmers for the safe control of many crop and horticultural pests. This will help Tanzania to not only solve its food security problems, but also to expand its horticultural export industry to generate local economic growth and employment.
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. Helena made a poster and oral presentation on the ABACO project (Agroecology Based Aggradation-Conservation Agriculture: targeting innovations to combat soil degradation and food insecurity in semi-arid Africa)
Some of the take-home messages of the congress included:
The EU-funded ABACO project aims to do this in seven countries in semi-arid Africa over the period 2011-2014. The project seeks to increase farmers’ innovative capacity by facilitating on-farm experimentation and learning, supported by controlled experiments and modelling to optimise productivity as well as tradeoffs between different agro-ecological functions. These different sources of knowledge and research outputs will be shared and evaluated in innovation platforms, bringing multiple stakeholders together. The ABACO project is led by the African Conservation Tillage Network (ACT); the consortium exists of the following partners: ACT, CIRAD, CIRDES, EMBRAPA, FOFIFA, SOFECSA, NRI, Wageningen University, and Yellow Window.
