Cassava, one of the most staple foods in Nigeria, has low nutritional content, but this can be improved using biotechnology, a modern approach in improving agricultural yield. Chinyere Amalu, in this piece, examines the issue.

In many countries, economic growth and sustainability depend on the strong performance of the agricultural sector. Biotechnology which has proved to be one of the modern tools of improving agricultural yields, when combined with the science of breeding, has produced varieties that deliver increased value globally.

Application of some scientific processes (like biotechnology) has in recent times helped in improving nutritional content of some stable foods such as cassava, maize and rice, which about 70 percent of the African populace, including Nigeria, depends for survival on daily basis.

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CAMEROON – Heifer International, an international integrated animal-agriculture development organisation, is to pilot a biogas production project in the country using pig manure.

Speaking to Cameroon Tribune recently in Yaounde, the Country Director, Dr Njakoi Henry, said the experiment will be conducted in the South West and Littoral Regions where there are large concentrations of pig farmers who are located close to the market in Douala.

“Producing biogas using pig manure is quite challenging because you need much of it to supply biogas digesters. It has worked well with poultry and dairy cow manure, and we now want to try pig manure,” said the Heifer International Cameroon boss. He however, pointed out that appropriate dimensions of biogas digesters have to be determined in order to ensure the success of the project.

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Following a meeting in Japan between members of the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety, Mariam Mayet says there ‘is a huge disconnect between the rather timid, insipid and potentially dated work of the Protocol and the huge biosafety challenges presented on the domestic level in many countries’.

Ten years after the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety (Biosafety Protocol) was adopted, the Parties to the Protocol met in Nagoya Japan between 11 – 15 October 2010 to adopt a new treaty, the ‘Nagoya – Kuala Lumpur Supplementary Protocol on Liability and Redress to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety’ (Supplementary Protocol).

This new treaty will need to be ratified by at least 40 parties to the Biosafety Protocol before it can come into effect. Its consequent implementation will take place within the overall framework of the Biosafety Protocol in an integrated manner.

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Small-scale dairy farmers are set to benefit from a piloting project that seeks to develop 8,000 domestic biogas plants in rural areas. The five year programme is aimed at strengthening Kenya’s biogas sector into a viable market through financial and technical upgrades.

Kenya has the potential to sustain about 4,923 biogas units for every district – making a total of 172,312 biogas units in 35 technically stable districts.

Kenya National Federation of Agricultural Producers said biogas, apart from being used as a source of energy, also produces digested biomass which is an environmentally-improved and more efficient fertilizer compared to raw manure.

Farmers can maximize their crops’ uptake of nitrogen by spreading digested livestock manure onto fields during the growing season. The decomposition process in the biogas plants turns soil nutrients into food which the crops can take up more easily. The digested biomass can be separated into a fibre portion and a liquid portion (slurry).

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Philip Brasher, Des Moines Register (Iowa) (Blog), Nov. 25, 2009

Africa must do something to produce more food, given the challenges of climate change and a fast-growing population. Kenya alone is expected to need nearly three times as much maize, or corn, to feed its population in 2050 as it does today.

Could genetically engineered crops be the answer? I’m going to look into that question over the coming weeks in Kenya, where research is underway on new drought-tolerant varieties of corn, and in South Africa, the only country in sub-Saharan Africa that has commercialized a biotech food crop.

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