Mechanise Africa’s agriculture to transform economies

Workers at a dairy facility pour fresh milk Copyright: Panos

By: Eldon Opiyo

Agricultural mechanisation in Africa can raise productivity and make rural employment more attractive, thus ensuring the continent’s future growth and poverty alleviation, experts say.

The experts, in a report launched in Malawi last month (10 July), examined seven countries — Ethiopia, Mali, Malawi, Morocco, Rwanda, Tanzania and Zambia —  that are at the forefront of mechanisation and how their successes could be replicated across Africa.

The report was published by the Malabo Montpellier Panel, a group of 17 African and international agricultural experts.

“Africa is the region with the least mechanised agricultural system in the world,” says the report. “African farmers have ten times fewer mechanised tools per farm area than farmers in other developing regions.”

“This report provides evidence needed to shape successful strategies on mechanisation and experience-sharing in the African context.”

Noble Banadda, Makerere University

According to the report, the seven countries selected for the case studies had average annual agricultural machinery growth rates ranging from 2.73 to 3.12 whereas that of their average annual agricultural output rates ranged from four to 8.5 between 2005 and 2014.

The success stories include the Moroccan government having a department of agronomy and agricultural machinery that designs and develop machines and tools for use by Moroccan farmers while Rwanda has, among others, village mechanisation service centres operated by the government.

Noble Banadda, a member of the panel and chair of the Department of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering at Uganda’s Makerere University, tells SciDev.Net that more than 70 per cent of the young population in Africa live on less than US$2 a day as they struggle with high unemployment.

The report makes seven recommendations including a need to elevate national agricultural mechanisation investment strategies within national agricultural plans, design socially and politically mechanisation pathways that are sustainable and prioritise the entire agricultural value chain mechanisation.

“The Malabo Montpellier Panel seeks to provide actionable recommendations for African policymakers on agricultural mechanisation,” says Banadda. “This report provides evidence needed to shape successful strategies on mechanisation and experience-sharing in the African context.”

The experts examined policies, institutional changes and programmatic interventions these countries have made, and their likely impact on the food value chains.

Mechanisation, according to Banadda, is necessary along the whole value chain, including production, post-harvest handling, processing, transport and marketing stages. “Technologies make these stages more efficient and lucrative, especially for the youth,” he notes.

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The benefits of mechanization along the agricultural value chain

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Banadda adds that mechanisation needs not replace labour but can provide millions of jobs in processing, packaging, marketing and transport.

“More and more Africans can be employed as the food and beverage market grows,” he explains, citing the opportunity to bring value addition to Africa, for example, turning cocoa into chocolate and converting maize into breakfast cereals.

Banadda explains that mechanising agriculture to make it more lucrative and tech-savvy would encourage young people into agricultural jobs. “Start-ups and app developers such as Hello Tractor, which links tractor owners to [Nigerian] farmers, are a great example of this.”

Nuhu Hatibu, regional operations head for Tanzania, Rwanda and Uganda at the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, says it is high time Africa mechanised agriculture as a pathway for alleviating poverty.

The continent, Hatibu says, needs to adapt already existing technologies such as small engines that are affordable, and can be operated with solar energy and make them affordable, and usable by smallholders instead of going for the expensive technologies.

“Planners do not need to be paralysed by past failures and they should go for licenses to support adaptation, build local capacity and mechanise the entire agricultural value chain including value addition to agricultural products,” he says.

This piece was produced by SciDev.Net’s Sub-Saharan Africa English desk.

References

Mechanised: Transforming Africa’s agriculture value chains (Malabo Montpellier Panel, 2018)

Why climate-smart agriculture is crucial to Africa

Harvesting peanuts Copyright: Panos

By: Eldon Opiyo

[NAIROBI] Agriculture is a risky business in Africa due to dangers such as uncertain weather and poor rural infrastructure but a new detailed guide on the status of and opportunities for climate smart agriculture (CSA) could offer farmers the much needed break.

The detailed guide for CSA that cover 14 African countries is aimed at guiding future investments and reduction of risks in implementing the approach.

According to the FAO, CSA is an approach that helps boost agricultural systems to effectively support development and ensure food security in the midst of climate change.

The guide launched in Kenya last month (16 May) by scientists from the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) at the African Climate-Smart Agriculture Summit gives a comprehensive understanding of CSA, including country institutional, policy and financial environments for the adoption of the practices.

“The CSA country profiles inform governments, development partners, civil society and the private sector on key climate risks in agriculture.”

Sebastian Grey, CIAT

“While there is high-level support for CSA, the adoption of CSA remains low, largely due to the lack of knowledge on CSA practices and the often high upfront economic capital costs, among other barriers,” says Sebastian Grey, a climate change scientist at the CIAT.

Grey adds that the CSA profile concept was designed to guide a US$250 million-sponsored World Bank CSA project but the development of the guides for African countries began in 2016. Profiles have since been produced for Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Kenya, Lesotho, Mali, Mozambique, Niger, Rwanda, Senegal, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

The CSA country profiles give an overview of the agricultural context and challenges in each country through a CSA lens, and provide a snapshot of the key issues, challenges, constraints, opportunities and enabling factors for scaling up the adoption of climate-smart agricultural practices along specific value chains, he explains.

This riskiness in agriculture leads to finance and insurance often being unavailable or only available at high double-digit lending rates and extremely high insurance premiums.

“The CSA country profiles inform governments, development partners, civil society and the private sector on key climate risks in agriculture and which CSA practices have greatest potential to reduce these risks in specific locations,” Grey tells SciDev.Net, adding that the guides highlight the barriers and opportunities for where investments could best be made with greatest returns in terms of the three CSA pillars: increasing productivity, improving resilience and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

The profiles, according to Grey, provide key information needed to de-risk agricultural investments, helping to make agriculture resilient to climate change.

 “De-risking is critical for unlocking agricultural finance by allowing investors, project developers and governments to reduce the possibilities of negative or unsatisfactory outcomes,” he explains.

According to Chris A. Shisanya, an expert in climatology and integrated watershed management tells SciDev.Net that these guides are timely and provide the much needed evidence for guiding investors interested in CSA.

Much as business is about taking risks, the guidelines provide a framework within which the investors in climate smart agriculture could minimise these risks, Shisanya adds.

“CSA is neither a prescribed system or practice nor a specific technology that can be universally applied,” explains Shisanya, who is a professor and dean, School of Humanities at Social Sciences at Kenya’s Kenyatta University. “Rather, it is an approach that necessitates context-specific assessments of social, economic and ecological conditions in order to identify appropriate farming technologies and practices.”

Shisanya tells SciDev.Net that governments could play a key role in enabling scaling up of CSA in Sub-Saharan Africa.

“The successful adoption and scaling up of CSA practices require a good understanding of the political, socio-economic and agro-ecological contexts,” he adds.

 This piece was produced by SciDev.Net’s Sub-Saharan Africa English desk.

Improved cowpea in the offing for Ghanaian smallholders

Copyright: Panos

[ACCRA] Ghanaian smallholders could by the end of this year get access to new, disease-resistant cowpea varieties that mature early and improve yields, says an expert who developed the varieties.

According to researchers, cowpea is a major source of plant protein in the diet of Ghanaians but suffers up to 100 per cent yield losses from stress induced by drought, viruses and Striga gesnerioides also called cowpea witchweed. Examples of recipes in Ghana that include cowpeas are tubaani (steamed cowpea pudding) and waakye (rice and red or brown cowpeas cooked together).

“The three newly developed cowpeas with resistant traits to all known races of Striga in West Africa were first to have been reported,” says Aaron Asare, principal investigator of the project that developed the new varieties. “These novel cowpeas will sustain the cowpea industry and provide foundation for further breeding and improvement of the crop.

“These novel cowpeas will sustain the cowpea industry and provide foundation for further breeding and improvement of the crop.”

Aaron Asare, Ghana’s University of Cape Coast.

“Cowpea seeds may be initially distributed free to farmers if funded and subsequently certified seeds will be produced by seed companies for farmers to buy from agro-shops and Ghana’s Ministry of Food and Agriculture.”

The new varieties require eight weeks to mature, have yield potential of  almost four tonnes per hectare unlike existing yields with almost three tonnes per potential, and are highly tolerant to drought, rust and several viruses that attack cowpeas including cowpea severe mottle virus and cucumber mosaic virus.

The new cowpea varieties are subject to approval by Ghana’s Ministry of Food and Agriculture based on recommendation by the National Varietal Release and Registration Committee, adds Asare, who is head of the Department of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology at Ghana’s University of Cape Coast.

During an inspection workshop which took place at the University of Cape Coast last month (18 September), Asare told SciDev.Net that the evaluation and selection of the cowpea varieties involved farmer and consumer participatory activities.

The project, which began in April 2016 and is to end in April 2019, has partners including Ghana’s Council for Scientific and Industrial Research and US-based University of Virginia.  The novel cowpeas were developed through classical breeding techniques involving genetic crosses of Striga-resistant parental donor with recipient parents.

Michael Timko, a professor of biology and public health at the University of Virginia, says that breeding improved cowpea varieties that are disease- and pest-resistant and can cope with climate change ensures future food security for people in Sub-Saharan Africa.

“The lives and livelihoods of smallholders depend on their abilities to produce cowpea for food, forage and economic value, thus having improved varieties is essential,” he explains.

Richard Akromah, an associate professor of crop science and plants breeding at Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, tells SciDev.Net that the varieties can benefit small-scale farmers who cannot afford irrigation and thus depend on rain-fed agriculture.

“During the trials, whereas other varieties were failing due to erratic rainfall patterns, the new varieties were performing better, which would benefit Sub-Saharan Africa due to similar ecological conditions,” explains Akromah, who is a member of Ghana’s National Varietal Release and Registration Committee.

This piece was produced by SciDev.Net’s Sub-Saharan Africa English desk.

Conservation agriculture increasing yields, incomes

Copyright: Apollo Habtamu - ILRI

By: Baraka Rateng’

[NAIROBI] Smallholder farmers in Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania are benefiting from sustainable intensification practices that increase their capacity to adapt to climate change.

The farmers have improved soil health and increased yields through a food security Sustainable Intensification of Maize-Legume Cropping Systems for Food Security in Eastern and Southern Africa (SIMLESA) project launched in 2010 by the Australian Centre for International Agriculture Research.

SIMLESA is encouraging adoption of ‘conservation agriculture’ (CA)-based methods such as zero tillage, crop residue retention and production of improved fodder crops.

Diversified farming system

 “A first step towards food and nutrition security is a diversified farming system. In addition to maize, sorghum and different types of pulses, SIMLESA farmers have vegetable crops, fruit trees, and livestock on their farms,” Daniel Rodriguez, associate professor at the Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation, which has provided support to SIMLESA’s research, told SciDev.Net this month (18 May).

“In Kenya, farmers are working closely with scientists to identify higher-yielding and stress-tolerant varieties for high- and low- potential agro-ecological zones.”

Charles Nkonge, SIMLESA-Kenya

The project aims to increase maize-legume productivity and reduce production risk by 30 per cent for 650,000 farming households by 2023.

Farmers have also been supported by the project through agriculture knowledge exchange forums known as innovation platforms, to take part in variety selection trials for maize and legume seeds.

Thus, drought-tolerant maize lines and legume and fodder varieties more resilient to climate change and suited to the SIMLESA conservation practices have been selected and scaled out, says Goshime Muluneh, a researcher at the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research, Ethiopia’s SIMLESA partner organisation.

“The main purpose of including farmers in the variety selection trials was to understand what they needed from the seeds,” says Muluneh. “We were then able to screen and produce seed varieties according to the farmers’ selected criteria.”

Ferdinand Makhanu, a smallholder from Kenya, says because of skills learnt during CA techniques demonstration in 2010 held by the Kenya Agriculture and Livestock Research Organisation on his neighbour’s farm, he adopted spraying herbicide on his 0.8 hectare farm instead of ploughing, dug holes only in seed-planting spots to reduce soil disturbance and retained crop residues to facilitate soil nutrient retention.

With traditional farming practices, Makhanu says, his harvest was limited to six bags of maize, and less than one bag of beans. The CA-based techniques have increased his harvest to 30-35 bags of maize per acre, and he predicts yields increase as crop residues improves the organic matter in the soil.

He no longer hires farm labour to plough, thus cutting labour costs by about 60 per cent. His diversified productions include more nutritive legume crops such as pigeon peas, lablab, velvet beans, soybean and cowpeas.

Through the project, over 40 new farmer-selected maize varieties have been released, which have been found to yield 30-40 per cent more than traditional seeds under drought conditions, and 20-25 per cent more under optimum conditions, says Mulugetta Mekuria, SIMLESA project leader and a senior scientist and regional representative at International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center, Zimbabwe.

Farmer-scientist enterprise

“In Kenya, farmers are working closely with scientists to identify higher-yielding and stress-tolerant varieties for high- and low- potential agro-ecological zones,” says Charles Nkonge, country coordinator for SIMLESA-Kenya. “Farmers have achieved maize and bean yields of 4.5 and 2.5 tonnes per hectare respectively, compared to 1.6 and 0.6 tonnes per hectare before the project.”

In Ethiopia, data gathered from 900 farming households shows that the adoption of CA has increased net maize income by up to 35 per cent. Incomes increased further when such practices were combined with complementary inputs including improved seed varieties.

Goshime Muluneh, a farmer from Ethiopia, says scaling up conservation agriculture is the next crucial step. “The government needs to implement CA practices. If it does not promote conservation agricultural practices, farmers simply won’t get the benefits,” Muluneh explains.

“Industrialising Africa’s CA will potentially cut postharvest losses accounting for up to US$48 billion each year.”

Richard Munang, UNEP Africa Regional Climate Change Programme

According to Richard Munang, coordinator of UN Environment Programme Africa Regional Climate Change Programme, SIMLESA project is an intervention maximising Africa’s farm-level productivity.

“It not only builds climate resilience by safeguarding soil health, but it is compatible with the approaches used by smallholder farmers in Africa who produce up to 80 per cent of the food on the continent,” he tells SciDev.Net.

“Industrialising Africa’s CA will potentially cut postharvest losses accounting for up to US$48 billion each year, and potentially reverse the need for imports currently costing the continent US$35 billion each year. This measure will inject over US$80 billion annually worth of enterprises, jobs and incomes into the continental economy.”

Efforts to scale up CA, Munang explains, must be in tandem with efforts to scale decentralised clean energy dedicated to powering agro-value processing, efforts to ensure affordable, market driven financing for farmers, efforts to establish adequate infrastructure systems that link production areas to markets and collection points  towards building sustainable agro-industries.

According to Munang, CA approaches are compatible with those used by African smallholders.
     
Holistic interventions crucial

Inclusion of farmers in the variety selection trials is important as end-user feedback is always a critical aspect in ensuring research and development that responds to potential user priorities.

To reap maximum benefits, policymakers across various complementary ministries should prioritise harmonising their policies to scale up CA from farm-level production to the entire value chain to build sustainable agro-industries, Munang says.

Jonathan Muriuki, Kenya country representative of the World Agroforestry Center, says conservation agriculture has been proven to increase productivity in pilot projects across the world.

But CA presents challenges to farmers mainly from weed management and competition for biomass required to be used for soil cover and livestock feed at the same time. Muriuki says continuing scientific investigations are geared towards overcoming these challenges

Change of mindsets needed

In principle, there are gains in labour savings as well as productivity increases but the main challenge to smallholder farmers is a change of mindsets to adopt reduced till approaches, especially those involving judicious use of herbicides and access to the specialised equipment necessary for production efficiency.

“Use of conservation agriculture as well as intercropping of cereals and legumes, even enhanced by inclusion of trees, is a winner for current and future generations,” Muriuki says.

Farmers are the main investors in agriculture and expend their land, labour and management skills in agricultural production while informed by specific objectives.

Understanding the farmers’ context from their own intellectual contribution ensures breeding and agronomic efforts are better targeted and have a chance at application, which translates to success. “Leaving out farmers in innovation platforms fails to take fine-scale context in scientific investigations,” explains Muriuki.

Conservation agriculture is necessary for policymakers, especially because of massive land degradation, climate change and pollution challenges.

Scientists, however, need to package conservation agriculture’s evidence in ways that are appealing to policymakers to boost its scale-up, Muriuki adds.

The SIMLESA, says Muriuki, is one of the earliest projects to acknowledge the role of agro-ecological interactions at play in the desirable sustainable agriculture referred to as ecological intensification.

This piece was produced by SciDev.Net’s Sub-Saharan Africa English desk

Stettler County declares agricultural disaster

Timm Bruch, CTV Edmonton

 

A county in Alberta has declared an agricultural disaster as the weather continues to impede their crop harvest.
Stettler County made the declaration during their council meeting on Wednesday, a week after a provincial report showed only 43 per cent of crops have been combined in the central region. That’s compared to the five-year average of 79 per cent in the same area.
The news comes as the county continues to deal with less than ideal conditions.
Dry conditions in the spring were followed by high amounts of snow in September and October. That meant many farming crops had to remain in the field because the precipitation made it difficult to harvest. It’s a major problem for farmers, who could see their product decrease in value as time goes on.
Cattle producers are also affected by the conditions. The low harvest means grazing land is still occupied by crops.
Council agreed on Wednesday that their declaration could bring provincial or federal attention to their situation. They hope the governments could initiate programming to assist the producers.

Nigeria: Harvest Threatened as Floods Wash Away Thousands of Farmlands

By Aliyu M. Hamagam

Dutse — Ringim Local Government Area of Jigawa State is likely to experience food deficit this harvest season, following the flood that washed away thousands of farmlands in the area.

Rice, cow pea, sorghum, millet, sesame and tomato farms belonging to over 46,000 people majority of whom are small holder farmers along River Hadejia were submerged.

The river, which has its source from Tiga and Challawa dams in Kano State, reportedly overflowed its banks, flooding farm lands and houses along the way.

Our correspondent reports that the flood wreaked havoc in six out of the 10 political wards of the local government area. All crops in the affected farms were said to have been damaged with the exception of millet which the farmers rushed to harvest prematurely.

In Dabi village, which is worse hit by the flood, over 5000 hectares of farmland was said to have been destroyed by the disaster, while in Kaura village, over 100 hectares of tomato and garden egg were destroyed.

When Daily Trust visited Dabi village which has been cut off from the main road, most of the farms have virtually disappeared under flood waters.

Speaking to Daily Trust, the council chairman, Alhaji Abdulrashid Illah Ibrahim, said his council was worried it is not likely to witness the usual bumper harvest this year because about 70 percent of the farms have been destroyed by flood.

He recalled that the last time Ringim LGA experienced such a disaster was in 2003, and that it led to the relocation of some communities to highland areas.

The council chairman noted that the areas affected by the flood were the most fertile part of the council.

He, however, said once the flood receded, the farmers could go back to their farmlands for re-cropping as they traditionally produced thrice in a year.

According to him, over 50,000 farmlands were destroyed in the disaster, and most of the cash crops which included rice, cowpea, sesame, hibiscus and tomato were completely washed away.

"The local government area will experience a shortage in terms of what it will produce by about 70 percent this year's harvesting season as a result of the flood. It is scaring for such huge volume of food to be lost in a single harvest season.

"All farmlands along the bank of River Hadejia were destroyed. The most disturbing aspect of the whole matter is the volume of the flooding water, which is increasing by the day. If it continues unabated, the havoc will not be limited to what we are talking about now.

"Communities in six out of the 10 political wards that make of the local government area are affected. Over 46,000 farmers have been affected by the disaster. The flood which is a result of over flooding of River Hadejia, which has its source from Tiga and Challawa dams in neighbouring Kano State destroyed over 50,000 farmlands in the Ringim LGA," he said.

The chairman of tomatoes association and garden eggs farmers in Kaura village, Ahmadu Markalle, said over 100 hectares of tomato and garden eggs plants were destroyed by the flood in Kaura, adding that the farms were washed away in a way they never experienced in the areas.

He explained also that he has five hectares of farmlands located in different places from which, he said, at harvest period he usually realised N500,000 to N700,000.

He said, that with the development, unless there is intervention interms of either farm inputs or cash relief that will enable farmers to go back to farms, many will be out of business this year.

"About 80 percent of tomatoes and garden eggs production is affected. This suggests that there will be acute shortage of the stuff this year. About 100 hectares of tomatoes and garden eggs farms have been washed away while about 90 farmers lost their farmlands to the flood in Kaura. There will be shortage of these commodities this year, unless there is intervention."

Also speaking to Daily Trust, the Ringim Local Government Area chairman of All Farmers Association of Nigerians (AFAN), said this year promised to be the best farming season with high hope of bumper harvest in the LGA, considering the support enjoyed by farmers from both state and federal governments.

He however lamented that the hope has been dashed following the flood.

He stated that in Dabi village alone, which was most hit by the disaster, over 5,000 farmlands belonging to over 500 farmers were washed away by the flood, adding that the destruction affected about 90 percent of what was expected to be harvested in this year.

Rice farming up to twice as bad for climate change as previously thought, study reveals

Levels of overlooked greenhouse gas are up to 45 times higher in fields that are only flooded intermittently

• Josh Gabbatiss Science Correspondent @josh_gabbatiss The Independent

Rice is a vital crop that provides people with more calories in total than any other food ( STR/AFP/Getty Images )

Rice farming is known to be a major contributor to climate change, but new research suggests it is far bigger a problem than previously thought.
Techniques intended to reduce emissions while also cutting water use may in fact be boosting some greenhouse gases, meaning the impact of rice cultivation may be up to twice as bad as previous estimates suggest.

Scientists at the US-based advocacy group the Environmental Defense Fund suggest the short-term warming impact of these additional gases in the atmosphere could be equivalent to 1,200 coal power plants.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Carbon dioxide pollution is making rice less nutritious, finds study

Considering the importance of rice as a staple food crop, providing more calories to the global population than any other food, the researchers have recommended ways to adapt farming practices and make its cultivation more climate-friendly.

Past estimates have suggested that 2.5 per cent of human-induced climate warming can be attributed to rice farming.
The main culprit is methane, a potent greenhouse gas emitted from flooded rice fields as bacteria in the waterlogged soil produce it in large quantities.

However, there is another gas produced by rice fields that can have a harmful climate effect. Nitrous oxide, commonly known as laughing gas, is also produced by soil microbes in rice fields.

10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change

 

Partly in a bid to reduce methane emissions, several international organisations have promoted intermittent flooding of rice fields, but this practice comes with problems of its own.
“The full climate impact of rice farming has been significantly underestimated because up to this point, nitrous dioxide emissions from intermittently flooded farms have not been included,” said Dr Kritee Kritee from the Environmental Defense Fund, who led the research.
Analysis by the team showed that process of alternately wetting and drying rice fields – while reducing methane levels – is producing up to 45 times more nitrous oxide than constantly flooded fields.
The intermittent flooding and airing of the fields results in pulses of microbial activity that in turn leads to increased nitrous oxide levels.

• 
  India must ditch rice to feed growing population, scientists warn

These results, obtained by working with farms in southern India, were published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
“Increasing pressure on limited water resources under a changing climate could make additional rice farming regions look to intermittent flooding to address water limitations and concerns about methane emissions,” said Dr Kritee.
“Water management on rice farms needs to be calibrated to balance water use concerns with the climate impacts of both methane and nitrous oxide emissions.”

Despite being a powerful greenhouse gas in its own right that traps even more heat in the atmosphere than methane over long time periods, most rice producing countries do not report their nitrous oxide emissions.

Nicola Sturgeon mocks Donald Trump over climate change ahead of UK visit

Dr Kritee said it was essential that scientists began investigating this overlooked threat so that nations can tackle it effectively.
“We now know nitrous oxide emissions from rice farming can be large and impactful,” said Richie Ahuja, a co-author of this study.
By considering each farm individually and taking into account their methane, nitrous oxide and water use, the scientists suggest that specific strategies can be used that can minimise emissions of climate harming gases.
“We now also know how to manage the problem. Major rice producing nations in Asia are investing to improve the agriculture sector and could benefit from the suggested dual mitigation strategies that lead to water savings, better yields, and less climate pollution,” said Mr Ahuja.

Agriculture Minister Calls on Farmers to Utilise New Irrigation Technology

 

Photo: Nickieta Sterling Minister of Industry, Commerce, Agriculture and Fisheries, Hon. Audley Shaw (right), tours Isratech’s retail outlet with Vice President of Sales and Marketing, Benjamin Hodara, prior to the official opening of the company’s new complex in Reading, St James, on Wednesday (October 10).

Minister of Industry, Commerce, Agriculture and Fisheries, Hon. Audley Shaw, has called on farmers to utilise new irrigation technology to improve crop quality and to increase production.
Mr. Shaw said of the close to 200,000 acres of irrigable lands in Jamaica, about 12 to 13 per cent have been irrigated, adding that it is an issue that needs to be corrected.
Giving the keynote address at the opening ceremony for Isratech Jamaica Limited’s new retail outlet and complex in Reading, St. James, on Wednesday (October 10), the Minister said the technology is available to erect cost-effective irrigation systems for both small and large farmers.
In this regard, he urged farmers to take advantage of the products manufactured and supplied by Isratech to get their lands irrigated, especially for farms cultivated on slopes.
“The land is sloping, so you get your plastic tanks and you put them on the hillside and you get some Isratech lines with the drip irrigation and you run them into the fields where you’re planting. No energy is needed, because gravity will take the water from the hillside down into the fields,” the Minister said.
In the meantime, Mr. Shaw has renewed the call for Jamaicans to invest more in farming on idle lands across the island.
“We have idle lands in St. Catherine, Clarendon, some areas of Westmoreland and Trelawny, all waiting on the promise of sugar to come back. Sugar is not going to come back to use the volume of idle lands that we have here in Jamaica,” he emphasised.
Mr. Shaw said that while the Ministry has received hundreds of applications from farmers for investment in the agricultural sector, more persons need to utilise lands made available from the decline in sugar-cane production.
The Minister declared that Jamaica’s economy cannot grow unless agriculture grows.
By Nickieta Sterling 

Controlled-environment farming advancing with improved technologies

Controlled environment agriculture is viewed as another important technology to feed a growing world population.

John Hart | Oct 05, 2018

Thanks to advances in LED (Light Emitting Diodes) lighting, producing crops indoors is now a reality. But will indoor agriculture replace outdoor farming as the technology progresses?
Speakers at a forum on indoor production systems or controlled environmental agriculture held at the North Carolina Biotechnology Center in Research Triangle Park, N.C., agreed that the new technology is just one more tool needed to feed a growing world population, but it will never replace conventional outdoor agriculture. However, they all see great promise for the technology.

“I’m excited about controlled environment agriculture. There is a lot of potential now that we can control these environments and cater to what the plants really need. We can focus a lot more on quality traits, on flavor and nutrition,” said Dr. Matt DiLeo, director of Elo Life Systems, based in Research Triangle Park, N.C.

DiLeo said controlled environment agriculture combined with a suite of new technologies that includes gene editing, genotyping and gene discovery will drive forward improvements in crops faster than has been possible with previous generations of technology.
AeroFarms is a Newark, N.J.,-based company that produces greens in a converted steel warehouse that does not require sunlight or soil. The company has built indoor farms that can produce food using a technology called “aeroponics.” Plants are not grown in soil, but in air canals spayed with water mist. This provides the roots with the necessary water to grow.
AeroFarms is marketing Dream Greens, a retail brand of blends of baby greens that feature baby kale, arugula, ruby streaks and baby watercress produced through the indoor farming system.
Michael Barron, director of research and development for AeroFarms, emphasized the technology is not designed to replace conventional agriculture, but to add to it.
“It is one more step in feeding more people. We don’t see ourselves replacing field faming. It’s more of a complement to current systems. There are a lot of innovations that are needed to address food security worldwide, and this is just one of many advances that will be taking place,” he said.
“With the increased control you can produce more, and you can also have it be higher quality. You can change the nutrition of it. There is lot more you can do. It gives you a lot more control over the crop and the production of the crop,” Barron said.
In fact, Barron notes that with the advances AeroFarms has made in its production system, the growing cycle of producing baby greens has been reduced from 30 to 45 days in the field to two weeks under controlled environment conditions.
Meanwhile, DiLeo points to the benefits-controlled environment agriculture can offer to plant breeding, particular in improving the quality, flavor and nutrition of produce.
“For those involved in breeding, it’s a pretty tough environment out there for plants. Breeders first focus on yield because wherever you are growing your crop, you need to have it survive and produce enough so farmers can make money,” DiLeo said.
“After that you have to have storage and shipping traits because you may be sending your fruits and vegetables 2,000 miles away. They might have to sit in storage for six months or longer. And only after that is quality, flavor, nutrition. As important as that is that comes way below these other practical concerns.”
Through controlled environment agriculture, food can now be grown right next to where the consumer lives and at any time of the year. “That’s going to give us on the breeding and genetics side the ability really to focus on quality in a way that was never really possible before” he said.
DiLeo said controlled environment agriculture will make the breeding cycle faster and produce crops that offer the diversity of flavors and nutritional qualities consumers demand.
At North Carolina State University, Dr. Ricardo Hernández, associate professor in the Department of Horticultural Science, is leading research efforts on controlled environment horticulture. His work focuses on indoor production systems, including greenhouses, vertical farms/plant factories and tissue culture.
Hernandez notes that improvements in LEDs allow scientists to focus on the effect of light quality or spectrum, light intensity and the interaction of light with other environmental factors to produce crops indoors.
“Controlled environment agriculture increases the amount of product you can get for every kilowatt hour of energy,” Hernández explains.
“By doing this, we like to see the interaction between the different components that compromise plant growth such as light, light quality, air velocity, C02, humidity and temperature and then see through a combination of these if we can actually reduce the amount of light needed and increase the amount of grams produced for every kilowatt hour.”
Like Barron and DiLeo, Hernandez emphasizes that indoor farming or controlled environment agriculture is just one more tool to increase global food production and will not replace, but complement conventional agriculture.