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From: Berhane Habtemariam (Berhane.Habtemariam@gmx.de)
Date: Thu Aug 26 2010 - 08:47:54 EDT
Drought tolerant maize to hugely benefit Africa-study
Thu Aug 26, 2010 12:01am GMT
* Drought tolerant maize boosts yields up to 25 percent
* Gains from full adoption: $907 million - $1.53 billion
* Africa suffers worsening drought linked to climate change
By Tim Cocks
ABIDJAN, Aug 26 (Reuters) - Distributing new varieties of drought tolerant
maize to African farmers could save more than $1.5 billion dollars, boost
yields by up to a quarter and lift some of the world's poorest out of
poverty, a study found.
The study published on Thursday by the Mexico-based International Maize and
Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT), with input from other food research
institutes, focused on 13 African countries in which it has been handing out
drought tolerant maize to farmers over the past four years.
It described maize as "the most important cereal crop in Africa", a lifeline
to 300 million vulnerable people.
The Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa plan aims to hasten the adoption of
maize varieties that withstand dry weather.
"The vision of this project is to generate by 2016 drought tolerant maize
that ... increases the average productivity of maize under smallholder
farmer conditions by 20-30 percent on adopting farms (and) reaches 30-40
million people."
It also aims to add an annual average of $160 - $200 million worth of
additional grain to Africa's harvest, it said.
Wilfred Mwangi, a Kenyan agricultural economist on the project, said the
drought resistant maize shows comparative yields that beat other varieties
even if there's no drought.
"We are saying that comparing with whatever farmers are growing now, these
varieties will outperform what they are doing," he told Reuters in a
telephone interview.
DRY CONTINENT
Africa's droughts are worsening.
Many scientists blame climate change they say is linked to human emissions
of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, but climate talks since last year
have failed to yield binding emissions targets, thrusting climate adaptation
to the fore.
Repeated droughts have scorched millions of hectares of food crops in
southern Africa, the Horn of Africa and the Sahel belt from Mauritania to
Sudan in the past decade. Niger and Chad have been particularly badly
affected after rains failed this year, with millions facing hunger.
The study found that in zones with the lowest drought risk, the tolerant
maize varieties could translate into yields 22-25 percent higher than 2007,
when the project started, by 2016.
But in very dry, disaster-prone areas where crops fail 40 percent of the
time, the improvement was only 7-10 percent.
In case of the existing maize being fully replaced, the extra maize grown
would gross $907 million on a conservative estimate. On an optimistic one,
it could bring $1.53 billion.
Even if farmers only replace their plants with what the maize project hands
out, it would bring $532 million to $876 million on the conservative and
optimistic views, respectively.
The biggest percentage gainers in production would be Kenya, Zambia and
Zimbabwe, it said. (Editing by Jon Hemming)
C Thomson Reuters 2010 All rights reserved
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