“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.”
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The impact of postharvest losses of staple cereal grains in Sub-Saharan Africa is being shown to the world on YouTube. Following the publication by the World Bank of ‘Missing Food: The case of postharvest losses in Sub-Saharan Africa’ (prepared from an initial draft by NRI staff Rick Hodges, Ben Bennett, Tanya Stathers and Paul Mwebase), the essentials from the report are displayed in a very imaginative cartoon, relaying the message that “reducing postharvest losses is an essential pillar in a successful food strategy”:
Dr Gay Gibson (NRI, University of Greenwich) and Prof Ian Russell (University of Sussex) and their team of scientists have discovered that mosquitoes use that irritating whine to communicate with each other (Gibson & Russell, 2006 and Pennetier et al 2009).
The aim of the project is to discover how female Anopheles gambiae mosquitoes (the most dangerous carriers of malaria in the world) find the right mosquito to mate with, so we can find new ways of eliminating malaria and understand how disease carrying in mosquitoes evolves in the first place.… Read full news post.
A Guidebook on Technologies for Climate Change Adaptation in the Agriculture Sector, co-authored by Jeremy Haggar, NRI's Head of Agriculture, Health and Environment, has just been published by UNEP and Practical Action. This publication provides guidance for government agricultural development agencies, NGOs and farmers organisations in developing countries affected by climate change on how to structure processes of adaptation and a selection of 22 of the most promising technologies that can contribute to adaptation. The guidebook will be presented by UNEP in regional capacity building workshops across Latin America, Asia and Africa over the coming weeks, and is available to download (7 MB). (permalink).
On , the annual awards ceremony was held at Rochester Cathedral. Although not all graduates were able to attend the ceremony it was a pleasure to welcome more than 25 higher degree, Masters degree and post-graduate award holders. Four PhD students received their awards.
The Partnership for African Fisheries programme (PAF) is a flagship programme of the NEPAD Agency, funded by the UK Department for International Development, (DFID). The PAF programme is advancing African fisheries thinking, investment and outputs by:
Working with the Development Bank of South Africa (DBSA), NRI has helped to establish a working group which is seeking to promote investment in small to medium scale enterprises that work in the fisheries and aquaculture value chains in Africa. Read full news post.
The University of Greenwich won the award for ‘Outstanding Departmental Administration Team’ at the Times Higher Education Leadership & Management Awards ceremony in London on Thursday, June 16.
Professor Andrew Westby, Director of NRI, added:
“The Institute's administrative staff underpin all that our scientists achieve. Their work is very much appreciated and I am delighted to see them honoured in this way.”
See the University of Greenwich Press Release for further details.
Details of the awards are available on the Times Higher Education website.
In early June, World Bank and FAO hosted a sub-regional workshop in Ghana on the advantages of reducing postharvest losses, for policy makers and technical specialist. This included the launch of the World Bank's new report ‘Missing Food: the case of postharvest grain losses in Sub-Saharan Africa’. This was prepared from an initial document drafted by NRI staff Rick Hodges, Ben Bennett, Tanya Stathers and Paul Mwebase.
African farmers are constrained by lack of resources and one approach to alleviating the problem is to reduce the amount of food lost after harvest. Reducing postharvest losses offers a means of increasing food supply without any further increase in the use of vital resources such as land, labour, water and agricultural inputs. Read full news post.
NRI has recently completed study on the implications of climate change for Fairtrade in agricultural products. The study, Climate Change, Agricultural Adaptation and Fairtrade: Identifying the Challenges and Opportunities by Valerie Nelson, John Morton, Peter Burt, Tim Chancellor and Barry Pound was commissioned in early 2010 by the Fairtrade Foundation, the UK national labelling initiative which licenses use of the FAIRTRADE Mark on products in the UK in accordance with internationally agreed Fairtrade standards. The study indicates that climate change is projected, with high degrees of certainty, to have mainly negative impacts upon agricultural production, food security and economic development, especially in developing countries. It thus poses significant challenges for the Fairtrade movement. Read full news post.
On the 21st April 2011, Local MP for Rochester and Strood, Mark Reckless paid a visit to the NRI to attend a series of short presentations regarding our work in developing nations, researching pest and disease control to support farmers in Africa, and helping poorer nations adapt to the effects of climate change.
Mark Reckless says:
I was delighted to spend time at the Natural Resources Institute, which is, in many ways, an academic jewel in the crown of my constituency.
I learned about their extremely impressive range of resource work. As an economist, I particularly enjoyed discussing their work to help less developed countries deal with private, as well as public, trade standards.
I congratulate the Natural Resources Institute for everything it does for my constituency, the country and the developing world.
Read the full press release in the University of Greenwich news archive.
NRI’s rodent expert, Steven Belmain, is a co-author of a research paper recently published in BMC Genetics1. The paper describes the surprising discovery of a rat species normally found in Japan and the Far East, Rattus tanezumi, is also found in southern Africa. The Rattus genus contains some of the most invasive and adaptive mammal species known, particularly the black rat, Rattus rattus, and the Norway rat, Rattus norvegicus, both of which have spread around the world from their original Asian origins by hitching a ride on human transport. Dr Belmain led a team of field researchers in South Africa to trap rats in rural and urban communities as part of a research project to assess dangerous diseases carried by rats… read full news post.
Farmers within the catchments of the Cassava Adding Value for Africa (CAVA) in Ogun and Ondo States of Nigeria have hailed the TME 419 cassava variety promoted by the project as an alternative to local low yielding cassava varieties. This news was reported in The Daily Nation Newspaper in Nigeria. The first farmer to harvest from the planted TME 419 cassava stems planted in 2009 late season, Alhaji AbdurRahman Kolawole Otun of Otun Farm, Asooro Village, Ewekoro Local Government Area, said: “The cassava tubers were uprooted and the weight doubled that of the traditional cassava, such as the ‘idi leru’ (root heavy species).”
Otun said after the sales, the money he realised on the TME 419 cassava tubers doubled that of the traditional varieties.
At inception in 2008, Kolawole Otun participated in a C:AVA initiated trial where he planted the old and new cassava varieties on separate land at the same time. He explained that he discovered a great difference during the harvest time both in quality of output and quantity. He stated: “They were planted on different spaces but on the same land size, side by side but the yield from TME 419 doubled that of the traditional cassava.”… read full news post.
Don Reynolds is a co-author of a paper just published (9 March 2011) in Proceedings of the Royal Society B. The study used specially-designed radars to compare the migratory performance of Silver-Y moths and songbirds migrating between their summer breeding grounds in northern Europe and their winter quarters in the Mediterranean region and beyond. Surprisingly, migratory speeds and directions were found to be remarkably similar in the two groups, despite the obvious differences in size and flight capacity. This similarity results from contrasting strategies: moths fly only on favourable tailwinds so gaining the maximum degree of wind assistance, whereas birds… read full news post.
NRI is pleased to support the International Women's Day Centenary to celebrate women's economic, political and social achievements around the world.
This year?s theme, decent work for women, focuses on equal access to education, training and science and technology, of which agriculture is a vital part.? Yesterday, with the release of the State of Food and Agriculture Report 2010-2011, the FAO stated that equal access to land, technology, financial services, education and markets for women would increase agricultural production and reduce the number of hungry people by 100-150 million...read full news post
Over the last decade, Fairtrade sales increased dramatically, reaching €2.89bn globally by the end of 2008. In line with this growth there is increasing demand to demonstrate the difference that engagement with Fairtrade is having for participating producers and workers, their families and their communities.
To this end, the Fairtrade Foundation commissioned NRI to conduct a series of desk and field studies over the last three years. These started in 2008 with the meta-analysis of over 80 academic and development agency reports about Fairtrade impact (organisational, social, economic and environmental) by Valerie Nelson and Barry Pound.
Further to this, a series of longitudinal field studies by Barry Pound and local partners was initiated in late 2008 with smallholder Fairtrade sugar in Belize, continuing with studies of Fairtrade tea, sugar and groundnuts in Malawi in 2009/10. These field studies are to be repeated at two and four years to track the changes due to Fairtrade and other endogenous and exogenous factors…read full news post.
NRI welcomes the major new report from the UK Government Foresight Programme The Future of Food and Farming: Challenges and Choices for a Sustainable Future.
The report tells us that we are at a unique moment in history as diverse factors converge to affect the demand, production and distribution of food over the next 40 years. A growing world population needs greater access to vital resources such as water, energy and land at a time when these are becoming increasingly scarce. The food system must increase productivity, whilst adapting to climate change and substantially contributing to climate change mitigation. There is a need to redouble efforts to address hunger, which continues to affect so many. Deciding how to balance the competing pressures and demands on the global food system is a major task facing policy makers.
The University of Greenwich was strongly represented at the Ministerial Conference on Higher Education in Agriculture in Africa which was held in Kampala, Uganda on 15-19 November. The Conference was hosted by the Government of Uganda and organised by Makerere University supported by the Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture (RUFORUM). The aim of the Conference was to highlight the measures that are needed to develop human capacity in the agriculture sector in order to contribute more effectively to growth and development in Africa. The University’s Vice-Chancellor, Baroness Tessa Blackstone, made a presentation in which she emphasised the important contribution that international partnerships make to capacity building and referred to several initiatives in which NRI is involved. She also drew attention to the urgent need to provide greater support for womens’ education...read full news post.