RIU - Research Into Use

Better sweet potatoes boost farmers from subsistence to the market economy
Sweet potato growers in Uganda have gone from not having enough produce to eat, to wondering how best to market all the sweet potatoes they harvest. Previously, vines for planting sweet potato crops were in extremely short supply. Plus, sweet potato virus severely damaged tubers. Now, farmer groups produce and market plenty of quality planting material - varieties resistant to virus disease. The new sweet potatoes, high in beta-carotene, also help reduce serious vitamin A deficiencies which affect 30% of children and 50% of women. Quality sweet potatoes for export fetch high prices. A new growers association is already working to export the new varieties. The potential is huge and the improved varieties have spread to D.R. Congo, Kenya, Tanzania, Sudan and even Chad. (Ref: CPP53)
New techniques multiply success with potatoes
A new method for multiplying potato tuber seed is helping poor smallholders to overcome a deadly potato disease known as bacterial wilt. The seed production system includes field inspection and on-farm detection of bacterial wilt. Collective marketing activities through a new Seed Producer Association are ensuring that the increased production translates into improved livelihoods. The members of the association have acquired skills in marketing and post-harvest handling. Simple potato storehouses are preserving tuber quality and extending product life. Local committees control distribution of the seed potatoes to ensure that all members receive their fair share, giving priority to women and poor households. The successful techniques have now spread to farmers in Kenya and Uganda. (Ref: CPP02)
Farmers take the lead in learning
Farmer Field Schools (FFS) are helping to turn research results into improved livelihoods for the poor in Kenya, Mozambique, Uganda and Tanzania. In these open-air schools, farmers participate in evaluating new technologies, methods and knowledge. They also select the crops they wish to focus on, identify the problems they need to solve, and select the technologies they want to use. This approach fosters rapid uptake and has helped to improve the production of maize, beans, sweet potatoes, sorghum and tomatoes. Junior Farmer Field and Life Schools bring together orphaned youths in areas with high HIV/AIDS prevalence. They place a strong focus on health, nutrition and income generation and use drama and theatre to develop self esteem and confidence among the youths. (Ref: CPP07)
Combating potato pests safely in Bolivia
Potato farmers in Bolivia, and their children, are learning about biological controls and integrated pest management. The potato is the staple food in Andean countries as well as the main cash crop. But pests and diseases cause huge losses each year. So, farmers use more and more pesticides, threatening human health and damaging the environment. Books for farmers, teachers and children introduce the ideas of integrated pest management. Children help in the potato fields, so raising their interest at an early age could pay off later. Farmers are also testing traps baited with natural extracts. These could help safely control the Andean potato weevil. Locally made traps intercept weevils heading for the potatoes. Other farm communities are keen to test the traps so demand could grow significantly. (Ref: CPP57)
Genetically-engineered resistance to potato nematodes
Potatoes that are genetically modified to resist nematodes are ready to use. Nematodes are parasites that cause huge crop losses - about US$125 billion a year - or enough to provide for 50 million people in Africa. Already accepted in Bolivia, Peru, India and China, nematode-resistant potatoes could boost potato harvests worldwide. People just need to be reassured that they are completely safe, both as food and for the environment. Breeding nematode resistance in potatoes by conventional methods takes ages - up to fifty years. Now, the gene technology makes it possible very quickly. So, the technology has a huge potential for crops that are important for reducing poverty but are neglected by profit-oriented plant breeders. (Ref: PSP21)
Life is sweet with new sweet potato varieties
Hundreds of thousands of farmers in central Uganda and Tanzania are counting on improved sweet potato varieties to boost their nutrition and incomes. These sweet potatoes were chosen through a process involving farmers at all stages. Some varieties were selected from available materials, under local smallholder farming conditions: taste, market characteristics and resistance to pests and diseases were some of the things farmers were looking for. Farmers and scientists also worked side by side to develop new varieties through client-orientated breeding at decentralised, on-farm communal sites. This process has provided - in addition to the new sweet potatoes - knowledge among farmers about the potential of variety development, as well as scientists’ insights into farmers’ needs. (Ref: CPP20)
Capturing farmers’ demands and involving them in research
A new menu of methods now helps farmers and researchers work together more productively. Farmers want and need change. So finding out what they want isn’t a one-off process, it’s continuous. And, like everyone else, there are things out there that farmers don’t know about, so they don’t know whether or not they might need them. Then, when suggestions are made to meet their needs, they like to be involved in testing them out. Development agencies, research organisations, foundations and non-government organisations already use the methods. Teamwork between researchers and farmers relies on social principles. These principles work as well with new equipment for draught animals as with integrated pest management, whether the topic is potato, rabbits or rice. (Ref: CPP58)
Quick, accurate tests identify plant diseases
Easy-to-use test kits now help laboratory staff in developing countries diagnose diseases rapidly. The traditional tests are expensive and time-consuming. This means that diseases, such as bacterial wilt in potato, groundnut and tomato, and leaf spot in banana, are often not correctly detected, or not detected in time. So, crop losses from these diseases in Africa and Asia are devastating. Now, laboratories in Mauritius, Malaysia, Tanzania, Zimbabwe and Trinidad use cost-effective kits to detect these diseases quickly and accurately. The design of the kits takes into account the often poor conditions in these laboratories. The tests have great potential for certifying crops for export and import, as well for meeting food safety standards. Many plant pathology laboratories around the world have already asked for them. (Ref: CPP79)
A well-known lifesaver finds new promise
Consumers and farmers in Africa will soon be able to benefit from the huge untapped potential of sweet potato thanks to a series of new findings. They include improved selection methods, guidelines for consumer tests, new breeding strategies, and knowledge of the factors that cause damage during handling and storage, among others. Sweet potato is considered the most under-exploited of the developing world’s major crops. The new knowledge can be used in programmes across Africa to ensure that this crop will fulfil its promise in fighting hunger, contributing to livelihoods and combating vitamin A deficiencies among the poorest of the poor. (Ref: CPH34)
Farmers learn to make the most of seed
Good crops start with good seed. A new manual and set of posters are now available to help farmers make the most of seed. Most farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa don’t buy seed: they save their own or trade with other farmers. But, this arrangement often doesn’t work - drought, pests, diseases, civil wars or other troubles mean they just don’t have enough good quality seed. Over 1000 smallholder vegetable farmers in Kiambu District, Kenya, learned the best ways of choosing, drying and storing seed by discovering for themselves. Now, government staff in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania use these methods to help extension workers and other farmers make sure they have reliable supplies of healthy seed for vegetables, sorghum, yam, cassava, groundnuts, sweet potato, maize, and beans. (Ref: CPP69)
Farmers learn to profit from not saving seed
Seed-tuber production schemes are helping farmers in Kenya and Uganda to produce quality potato planting material. Previously, because of the difficulties smallholders faced in purchasing good quality seed-tubers, they found themselves forced to depend on tubers saved from their own harvest. Yet infected home-saved tubers often carried bacterial wilt over to the next crop. A method known as the ‘seed-plot’ technique now allows smallholders with limited access to land to multiply seed-tubers effectively, lessening the impact of home-saved seed practices. Farmer associations, market chains, and communication and management structures support these production schemes. Materials designed to strengthen farmers’ knowledge of marketing, finance and group dynamics help to ensure success. (Ref: CPP10)
Learning is made easy by new sweet potato guides and manuals
New learning tools are providing a fast, easy way to access important knowledge on pre- and post-harvest management of sweet potato in East Africa. The materials include information on the farmer field school (FFS) approach, validated in Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania, as well as on the control of important sweet potato diseases. Posters, leaflets and training guides are available in English, Ateso, Swahili and Luganda. A manual with comprehensive technical information for farmers and facilitators has also been field-tested and published as individual farmer guidebooks in local languages. The materials, relying heavily on photos, are specially designed to help in training people who are illiterate or for whom the language of the materials is not their native tongue. (Ref: CPP21)
New sweet potato technologies make more the merrier
A programme designed to help farmers make the most of surplus production has identified 20 local and 300 potential global markets for fresh sweet potato grown in Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda. More than 2000 farmers were able to access new markets and cut their on-farm post-harvest losses by 20-30%. Previously, these farmers were unable to appreciate the benefits of new, high-yielding varieties that produce three times as much as the former ones. The programme promoted a range of orange-fleshed sweet potato-based products. At the industrial scale, at least three private firms now absorb over 80 MT of dried sweet potato chips per month. (Ref: CPH44)
Sweet potato boosts health and incomes
Simple techniques for improved sweet potato transport, curing, packaging and storage can help farmers, market traders and consumers to cut their post-harvest losses. This crop’s hardiness and, more recently, its promise for combating vitamin A deficiency have rightfully gained it a reputation as a lifesaver. Yet problems after the harvest limit its contribution to incomes, food security and health. These technologies, which have enormous potential for saving lives and improving livelihoods, have been tested in Tanzania with good results and are now ready for wide dissemination. Consumers also have shown their approval of new vitamin A-rich orange fleshed varieties, which are being promoted in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Mozambique, Ghana, Nigeria, Rwanda, Ethiopia and Zambia. (Ref: CPH40)
Transgenic banana could feed millions
A safe transgenic banana could prevent nematodes (worms) destroying around 6 million tonnes of bananas a year. This is enough to feed the 60 million people in Uganda, Rwanda, Ghana, Nigeria and Cameroon for whom banana is a staple food. Because bananas are sterile, it’s very hard to breed resistance to nematodes by conventional plant breeding methods. And the chemicals that are used to control nematodes are harmful both to humans and the environment. The gene introduced into East Highland African Bananas stops the nematodes growing and laying eggs, but does not affect humans at all. This technology is already being used in the UK, and also in Uganda on local cooking bananas. The transgenic method is also being applied to develop nematode-resistant potatoes and rice. (Ref: PSP20)

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