Rome, Italy
October 31, 2007
Source:
FAO
Global
plant genetics policy and research unite with emergency
operations against lethal crop disease Bujumbura/Rome – Just as
a system for the world wide exchange of plant genetic resources
was made operational by the international community in Rome this
week, farmers in Burundi kicked off a new season, planting
cassava free of a deadly disease that brought hunger to
thousands of people in the Great Lakes region.
For a long time, African farmers were not especially alarmed
when the leaves of their cassava plants occasionally became
patchy and failed to grow as big as usual. They tended to enjoy
the sweeter taste of them, rather than worry about Cassava
Mosaic Disease (CMD), the virus behind it. The damage it caused
to yields, never exceeding 25 percent, was deemed acceptable.
In 1989 however, things changed for the worst when an aggressive
strain of CMD appeared in Uganda, unleashing an epidemic that
decimated harvests throughout the Great Lakes region. For a
region already disrupted by civil war and struck by climatic
adversities, such losses were disastrous, particularly because
of the heavy dependence of its people on subsistence
agriculture.
In Uganda, for instance, where CMD has destroyed 150,000
hectares of cassava since the early nineties, a loss estimated
at 60 million US$ per annum, food shortages resulting from the
disease led to localised famine in 1993 and 1997.
Teamwork
The urgency of developing disease-free cassava and getting it to
the people who needed it most, led to an unlikely, but highly
fruitful alliance of genetic researchers in their laboratories
and agronomists more accustomed to the rough life of
emergencies.
“An excellent example of the sustainable use of plant genetic
resources,” says Shakeel Bhatti, Secretary of the International
Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture. At a
high-level meeting in Rome this week, delegates from the
Treaty’s more than 110 member countries made its multilateral
system for the exchange of plant genetic resources operational -
an important contribution to sharing the benefits of plant
genetic material globally. Or, in case of the Great Lakes
region, to fighting CMD.
“Plant genetic resources are fundamental to combat hunger,” Mr
Bhatti adds. “In the case of a disease like CMD, or challenges
such as climate change, it is the genetic diversity that counts,
because it provides the means to adapt to change. Therefore it
is extremely important to conserve agricultural biodiversity and
work together to make genetic resources available to farmers and
researchers in all continents. That is exactly what the Treaty
aims to achieve.”
Tackling the CMD epidemic began in the laboratories of the
International Institute of Tropical Agriculture in Ibadan,
Nigeria. Through a process of genetic selection, starting with
100,000 genetic varieties collected from all over the world, its
scientists developed a series of disease-free cassava seedlings,
which were distributed to a wide array of organizations involved
in the combat against CMD.
One of them, FAO, developed a regional campaign to boost the
ongoing efforts of individual countries in the Great Lakes
region. The initiative was launched in 2006, with the financial
support of the European Commission’s Humanitarian Aid department
(ECHO).
A new season
Its aim was to bring CMD-free planting materials to vulnerable
households in Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda
and Uganda. The initiative targeted people uprooted by conflict
and struck by recent drought spells and erratic rainfall, in
particular those returnees who, thanks to the region’s relative
peace, are coming home.
“In Burundi the people said: ‘we see that peace is coming, so
how about our stomachs now?’” says Salvator Kaboneka, an FAO
agronomist involved in the operation.
Thanks to rapid multiplication and distribution of disease-free
cassava achieved over the past few years, the operation reached
its final stage: mass distribution to the population.
With the 1,600 hectares available, and with each hectare
producing enough cuttings for around 150 families, almost
250,000 families were expected to start growing healthy cassava
again at the beginning the 2007 planting season in October.
‘By the end of next year, this country might be self-sufficient
in cassava again,’ says ECHO’s Eric Pitois. ‘And that, I think,
is really a success.” |
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