Baroness Blackstone Visits NRI Collaborators in Ghana

February 2008

The University of Greenwich’s Vice-Chancellor Tessa Blackstone learnt about the production, processing and marketing of cassava during her recent visit to Ghana. The VC was visiting Accra to see aspects of the University’s Tabeisa Project, which recently won a Queen's Anniversary Prize for its work in encouraging entrepreneurship in Africa. While there, she also visited some of NRI’s collaborators in research and development projects on the key staple crop cassava, as well as our colleagues in capacity building for agricultural research more generally.

 

Tessa Blackstone finds out about cassava in the field, at market and in a rural processing plant, in Ghana © University of Greenwich

 

Baroness Blackstone had meetings with Dr Monty Jones, the Executive Secretary of the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA) and members of his team. She visited NRI’s fellow scientists at the Food Research Institute (FRI), where she signed a memorandum of understanding that recognizes and enhances the long-established collaborative links between NRI and FRI. Tessa Blackstone also saw at first-hand the production and marketing system for cassava in visits to cassava farms and small-scale processing plants to the north of Accra.

 

For more information on NRI’s work on cassava in Ghana, contact Prof. Andrew Westby (A.Westby@gre.ac.uk)

Chinese Conservation Ecologists Visit NRI

February 2008

Between November 2007 and early February 2008, NRI was delighted to welcome eight trainees from the People’s Republic of China, who attended courses in Conservation Ecology, Tools for Sustainability and Tropical Forest Ecology and Management. All the trainees work in aspects of conservation and forestry for the Chinese government and were selected from eight different provinces across China. During their time at NRI they had the opportunity to revise some basic aspects of their subjects as well as learn about more recent advances and case studies.

Chinese students on the completion of their courses in Conservation Ecology, pictured here with Prof. Andrew Westby (Director of Research amd Enterprise), Dr. Peter Burt, Ms Claire Coote and Dr. Colin Tingle. © University of Greenwich

 

On successful completion of their studies, they were presented with course certificates by Professor Andrew Westby, Director of Research and Enterprise (centre bottom). Also pictured are Dr Peter Burt (middle), leader of the MSc Natural Resources programme, and two of the course lecturers, Ms Claire Coote and Dr Colin Tingle.

 

University’s Tabeisa Project Wins Queen’s Anniversary Prize

16 November 2007

'Design4Life Ghana' is now being extended to 'Design4Life Africa' © University of Greenwich

The University of Greenwich has won a prestigious Queen’s Anniversary Prize for Higher & Further Education, for the work of the Tabeisa Project to encourage and support entrepreneurship in Africa. The Tabeisa Project is led by Professor John Humphreys of the University of Greenwich, working with partners in Coventry University and four higher education institutions in Africa. This is the third time that the University has won a Queen’s Anniversary Prize, and the second time that it has won one for work that aims to improve livelihoods in the developing world.

 

Professor Andrew Westby, NRI’s Director of Research and Enterprise, says: “NRI is delighted that the Tabeisa Project team has won this Prize. Tabeisa’s aims are clearly related to NRI’s enterprise development activities, and John Humphreys has been working very closely with NRI’s research teams in recent years. The Tabeisa Project is another example of the commitment of the University of Greenwich to poverty reduction and economic development in Africa.”

 

The Tabeisa Project consortium aims to tackle poverty among communities in sub-Saharan Africa by supporting small business entrepreneurs and social enterprise projects. Since 1994, Tabeisa has supported over 1000 commercial start-up enterprises, developed more than 200 social enterprises, created over 2000 new jobs, and has also distributed 150,000 AIDS awareness packs. One of its high-profile successes has been a tie-up with a leading fashion store to sell ethically-produced clothing made by women’s collectives in Ghana, and the concept of the successful initial promotion ‘Design4Life Ghana’ is now being extended to ‘Design4Life Africa’.

 

The Tabeisa initiative has attracted £11M funding from the European Union, the British government and other backers in Africa and Europe. Bill Rammell MP, the Minister of State for Higher Education, who has visited Tabeisa project activities in Africa, says “I wish to congratulate the University of Greenwich, and all the partners involved in the Tabeisa project, on winning this prestigious prize. I visited the Tabeisa project in Ghana and was impressed by how it helps build capacity and reduce poverty in the African economy through English and African University partnerships. This project is an excellent example of government, universities, communities and young people working together to improve their future. The Department for Innovation, Universities & Skills supported this very worthwhile project through its England-Africa Partnerships programme.”

 

For more information on the Tabeisa project, contact the University’s Press Officer Nick Davison (n.a.p.davison@gre.ac.uk).

Long-Term Views of Migrant Pests

26 October 2007

Professor Robert Cheke of NRI – a specialist on migrant pests such as quelea birds, locusts and armyworms – has published a commentary on recent research examining thousand-year long data sets. The article ‘Thinking Long Term’ appeared in the Perspectives section of the journal Science on 26 October 2007 (volume 318, pp. 577–578). It discusses the implications, in relation to climate change, of analyses of the dynamics of larch budmoths in the European Alps based on tree growth rings from as far back as 1173 years ago, and of data on the Chinese migratory locust from as long ago as 707 BC. Recent analyses of these data sets have illustrated how such long series can reveal insights and improve predictions of pest outbreaks. Prof. Cheke considers the implications of these records for our understanding of the impacts of climate change, and proposes that the foresight and long-term commitment that created the records of the Chinese locusts should be applied to current data collection programmes. A summary of the article can be found here. The full text can be found here.

 

For more information about NRI’s work on migrant pests, contact Prof. Robert Cheke (R.A.Cheke@gre.ac.uk).

Tsetse Project Short-Listed for Times Higher Award

October 2007

A team led by NRI’s Reader in Veterinary Entomology, Dr Stephen Torr, has been shortlisted for the prestigious Times Higher Award for ‘Research Project of the Year’, for work on controlling tsetse fly in Africa, to reduce the fatal disease of sleeping sickness spread by these flies. Dr Torr is a leading expert in the control of tsetse flies, and for this project he teamed up with colleagues in the University of Edinburgh to find better ways of using pesticide against tsetse whilst reducing costs and limiting environmental damage. He explains the background to the research: “Sleeping sickness spread by the tsetse fly is a dreadful problem in Africa, killing 30,000 people and two million cattle every year. Although insecticide is effective for controlling the tsetse, it has not been widely used as it is too expensive for farmers and may reduce the immunity of cattle to diseases that are spread by ticks.”

 

Steve Torr discusses disease vector problems with villagers in Pangani, Tanzania © University of Greenwich

 

Dr Torr’s project found that a more focused application of a smaller amount of insecticide is actually more effective. Using a form of DNA fingerprinting, the team showed that tsetse prefer to feed on the larger and older cattle in a herd, and that they mainly feed on the legs and bellies of the cattle. “So farmers don’t need to spray the whole cow with insecticide and they don’t need to spray every cow – thus cutting pesticide costs to just £1 per cow per year,” Steve points out.

 

The project’s findings have been translated into a practical scheme, using an interactive programme – a ‘virtual entomologist’ – to help livestock farmers to plan operations against tsetse. To date, 200,000 cattle in Uganda have been treated under the new system, as part of a wider campaign to eradicate sleeping sickness, and trials have also been carried out in Ethiopia, Kenya, South Africa, Tanzania and Zimbabwe. The research was supported by DFID’s Animal Health and Livestock Production Programmes, and the field work involved many NGOs, government veterinary departments and community-based projects in these countries.

 

The winner of this Times Higher Award will be announced at a ceremony in London on 29 November.  Meanwhile, Dr Torr is focusing his attention on finding similar solutions for control of the biting midges (Culicoides spp.) that are vectors of the recent outbreak of bluetongue disease among ruminant livestock in eastern England.

 

For further information about this research on control of tsetse and other livestock disease vectors, contact Dr Steve Torr (S.Torr@gre.ac.uk).

Market-Oriented Agricultural Advisory Services

October 2007

On 8-9 October 2007, NRI hosted a small, but important, workshop to analyse the services needed by farmers in developing countries in order to obtain better access to markets, and to consider how those services should be funded and delivered.

 

Market stall in Afghanistan (photo Barry Pound) © University of Greenwich

 

The workshop, on Market-Oriented Agricultural Advisory Services (MOAAS), was part of a process of development of a working paper on the subject for the influential Neuchậtel Initiative – an informal group of donor agencies and academic institutions, including NRI, that are involved in agricultural development. The Neuchậtel Initiative is one of the very few international forums that focuses on agricultural extension, with the aim of developing a common understanding of current issues. MOAAS can play a key role in transforming pro-poor rural-development efforts from merely ‘helping poor farmers’ into actions for long-term growth and poverty alleviation: a subject in which NRI has particular interest and expertise.

The prime purpose of the workshop was to undertake a critical review of a draft version of the working paper, to identify any gaps in the content and to provide additional case-study material. The workshop brought together the collective expertise and experience of several NRI staff (Uli Kleih, Ruth Butterworth, Czech Conroy, Dr Rory Hillocks, Adrienne Martin and Barry Pound), and the authors of the initial draft paper – Ian Christoplos (Sweden), Elisabeth Katz (Switzerland) and Sanne Chipeta (Denmark) – plus Andreas Springer-Heinze (GTZ) and Felicity Proctor. The participants also worked on key messages for a common MOAAS framework, and agreed the next steps needed to finalize the working paper and to develop a new Neuchậtel Initiative Green Booklet on the subject.

 

The workshop, organized by Barry Pound with assistance from Caroline Troy, was very successful, and the participants expressed their appreciation of the hospitality provided by NRI’s Director Dr Guy Poulter and Director of Research & Enterprise Prof. Andrew Westby. The content of the working paper was substantially supplemented and revised, and significant progress was made in developing a new Green Booklet. These documents will now be presented to the November 2007 meeting of the Neuchậtel Initiative representatives in Montpellier, which will be attended by Barry Pound.

 

For further information on MOAAS, visit the Neuchậtel Initiative website or contact Barry Pound (B.Pound@gre.ac.uk).

'Outstanding Paper Prize’ for Honeybee Research

October 2007

The editors of The Journal of Experimental Biology have awarded their journal’s ‘Outstanding Paper Prize for 2007’ to NRI’s Visiting Fellow in Ecological Entomology, Dr Don Reynolds, and four colleagues from Rothamsted Research for their paper entitled “Honeybees perform optimal scale-free searching flights when attempting to locate a food source”. In this research, the flight patterns of foraging honeybees searching for an artificial feeder were recorded using harmonic radar – a technique previously developed at NRI by Prof. Joe Riley and Alan Smith. Bees were ‘tagged’ with a small electronic device (a transponder) that allowed their subsequent flights to be monitored over scales of several hundred metres. The experiments showed that the bees’ flight patterns have scale-free (Lévy-flight) characteristics that constitute an optimal searching strategy for locating the feeder. This collaboration between mathematical, physical and ecological scientists is leading to better predictive models of insect flight patterns over landscape scales.

 

A honeybee forager tagged with a harmonic radar transponder (photo Andrew Martin) © University of Greenwich

For further information about NRI’s collaborative research with Rothamsted on the use of harmonic radar to study insect behaviour and ecology, contact Dr Don Reynolds (D.Reynolds@gre.ac.uk).

IPCC Awarded Nobel Peace Prize

October 2007

NRI welcomes the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), jointly with Al Gore. The Nobel Committee’s announcement notes that “Through the scientific reports it has issued over the past two decades, the IPCC has created an ever-broader informed consensus about the connection between human activities and global warming”.

 

In the IPCC’s response, its Chairman, Rajendra Pachauri, said that “This is an honour that goes to all the scientists and authors who have contributed to the work of the IPCC”. NRI’s Associate Research Director (Social Sciences) and Professor of Development Anthropology, John Morton, is amongst those thus honoured, being one of the 450 Lead Authors who worked on the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report, published this year, in the area of ‘Climate Change Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability’. His contribution was based on his considerable expertise in livestock and pastoralist development, with a particular interest in issues of drought management and irrigation, and his substantial field experience in Africa and South Asia.

 

Professor John Morton in the field with pastoralists in Gujarat © University of Greenwich

 

On hearing the news, Prof. Morton commented that “The award of the Nobel Peace Prize recognizes the importance of global climate change to all aspects of human society, including the dangers of conflict over natural resources that lie ahead if warming goes unchecked. The IPCC process has been a collective international and multi-disciplinary effort. I am very proud to have been involved in the agricultural chapter on ‘Food, Fibre and Forest Products’ [PDF 920Kb], in which we were able to review the serious potential impacts, objectively and with full recognition of how complex and locally-specific they will be.” As well as being a Lead Author on this agricultural chapter, Prof. Morton was also a Contributing Author to the chapter concerned with specific climate change impacts in ‘Africa’ [PDF 1.8Mb].

 

For more information on NRI’s activities relating to the impact of climate change, especially for small-scale agriculture in Africa, contact Prof. John Morton (J.F.Morton@gre.ac.uk).