The project was initiated by Klein Karoo Seed (KKS) and its Dutch affiliate, Bakker Brothers, in conjunction with a Dutch governmental development agency, says Lomo van Rensburg, manager of the seed marketing group. He said Bakker Brothers and KKS had presented the project plan to development agency EDV, which works mainly in developing countries.

As a result, EDV would build the plant, possibly before the end of the year, and would also fund the cultivation project while Klein Karoo Seed would provide land for the building and greenhouse.

Van Rensburg said what was needed was five hectares of irrigation land. “We invite farmers and land owners who have suitable land for our project to approach us with a view to selling.”

He said the plant would comprise a laboratory and facilities to clean, dry and store the pumpkin seeds. It would include a training centre and administrative buildings. The plant and greenhouse would each be 1000m² in area.

“People ask us why pumpkins. Pumpkins are healthy and contain vitamins A, C and E, as well as beta-keratone, which fights free radicals in the body. They‘re ideal for Africa because of their longevity. We want to cultivate a pumpkin that has a unique resistance to viruses and other diseases. Once that is achieved, we want to distribute the seeds in South Africa, Africa, Australia and South America.”

In the first three years of cultivating pumpkins, some 60 jobs would be created, he said. Once the project was in full production, further job opportunities would become available. In addition, emerging farmers would receive free training in cultivating the seeds.

Project manager Pierre Maritz said construction was expected to begin by the end of the year.

The Herald

South Africa will stick to its ambitious plan to put 30 percent of farmland in black hands by 2014, even though it is lagging way behind target, a senior government official said on October 1.

Land restitution is a racially sensitive issue in South Africa, troubled by the decline in agriculture in neighbouring Zimbabwe where white commercial farmers were often violently evicted by President Robert Mugabe's government.

After the fall of apartheid in 1994, the government set itself a target of handing 30 percent of all agricultural land to the black majority by 2014. So far, however, it has only acquired 4 percent of land from private owners for redistribution, and says it needs to accelerate the process. Authorities have gradually embarked on seizures to return land to blacks whose land was forcibly taken under previous governments.

"We have no intentions of changing that target. That is where we are going and that is what we would want to see," Thozi Gwanya, director general in the department of land affairs, told an agriculture conference in the capital Pretoria. "The plan may have been ambitious, but if we had no plan at all then there (would have been) no change," Gwanya said.

Farmer groups say the delays in land reform are slowing investment in agriculture, stunting the sector's growth and hampering the goals of lifting poor blacks out of poverty.

In an effort to try to speed up the land reform process, the government tabled an expropriation bill in parliament in July that would allow it to forcibly seize land from farmers if willing-buyer, willing-seller negotiations failed. But the bill was shelved after opposition parties, farmer bodies and other civic groups protested. They said it was unconstitutional and would be similar to Zimbabwe's land grabs, which disregarded property rights and were a major factor behind the country's economic decline.

The groups fear the bill could be reintroduced following changes in South Africa's government after the ruling African National Congress (ANC) forced President Thabo Mbeki to resign.

Analysts say the powerful COSATU trade union federation, which is allied to the ANC and the Communist Party and has called for speedy land reforms, may have more influence with new President Kgalema Motlanthe's government.

"As far as we understand the bill has only been shelved. It has not been permanently withdrawn," said Nichola de Havilland, deputy director general at the Centre for Constitutional Rights. "Dependent on the role that the (ANC) alliance partners are given in the new government, we could see the bill resubmitted after elections next year," she told the conference.

ANC leader Jacob Zuma is expected to become president after the general election due around April.

Officials say mainly white farmers have stalled the land reform programme by demanding excessive prices. The whites farmers blame bureaucratic shortcomings for slow progress.

"We understand that there may be some pressure on the government politically on the land issue, but I don't much see the point of doing something in the wrong way," said wheat farmer Jaco van Rensberg. "Doing it right may well save us some embarrassment later on, or going the way of Zimbabwe."

Reuters

Zimbabwe's tobacco selling season officially ended last week with deliveries dropping 40 percent from a year ago, the Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board said.

Farmers brought 45 million kilograms (99 million pounds) of the leaf to auction houses by Sept. 26, compared with 75 million kilograms a year earlier, said Andrew Matibiri, chief executive officer of the Harare-based board. Unofficial sales will continue to be held every two weeks.

``There is still a lot of tobacco on the farms,'' Matibiri said.

Zimbabwe produces mainly high-grade flue-cured tobacco that rivals the U.S. for quality, and flavors cigarettes such as Marlboro and Benson and Hedges. Production has plunged since 2000, when President Robert Mugabe began seizing white-owned commercial farms for redistribution to black farmers deprived of land under British colonial rule. Tobacco output that year was 236 million kilograms.

Deliveries have slowed this year because of a shortage of diesel needed to transport the crop to auction houses, said Lovegot Tengundu, executive director of the Farmers' Development Trust. Growers are also dissatisfied with the exchange being offered for their tobacco, said Zimbabwe Tobacco Association President Andrew Ferreira.

``Prices have been good in U.S. dollar terms, but the interbank rate of exchange isn't realistic,'' Ferreira said.

Zimbabwe has the world's highest inflation rate and is in its 10th year of economic recession. One U.S. dollar traded at 129 Zimbabwe dollars on the interbank market today, while on the black market, where most Zimbabweans buy their foreign exchange, it is worth 1 million Zimbabwe dollars.

Tobacco exports earned Zimbabwe $145 million so far this year, compared with $181 million a year earlier.

Bloomberg

The project was initiated by Klein Karoo Seed (KKS) and its Dutch affiliate, Bakker Brothers, in conjunction with a Dutch governmental development agency, says Lomo van Rensburg, manager of the seed marketing group. He said Bakker Brothers and KKS had presented the project plan to development agency EDV, which works mainly in developing countries.

As a result, EDV would build the plant, possibly before the end of the year, and would also fund the cultivation project while Klein Karoo Seed would provide land for the building and greenhouse.

Van Rensburg said what was needed was five hectares of irrigation land. “We invite farmers and land owners who have suitable land for our project to approach us with a view to selling.”

He said the plant would comprise a laboratory and facilities to clean, dry and store the pumpkin seeds. It would include a training centre and administrative buildings. The plant and greenhouse would each be 1000m² in area.

“People ask us why pumpkins. Pumpkins are healthy and contain vitamins A, C and E, as well as beta-keratone, which fights free radicals in the body. They‘re ideal for Africa because of their longevity. We want to cultivate a pumpkin that has a unique resistance to viruses and other diseases. Once that is achieved, we want to distribute the seeds in South Africa, Africa, Australia and South America.”

In the first three years of cultivating pumpkins, some 60 jobs would be created, he said. Once the project was in full production, further job opportunities would become available. In addition, emerging farmers would receive free training in cultivating the seeds.

Project manager Pierre Maritz said construction was expected to begin by the end of the year.

The Herald

In an interview on September 26 Egyptian Ambassador Reda Abd el Rahman Bebars denied claims attributed to Cairo’s Agriculture minister that Uganda had offered over 2 million acres of land to his country, insisting that no figures were agreed upon.

“They talked about the possibility of growing wheat in Uganda and exporting Uganda’s organic beef to Egypt,” Mr Bebars said. “The President very much welcomed the initiative of [economic] cooperation for the benefit of the people of the two countries.”

The Daily Monitor, quoting the Egyptian weekly newspaper, reported on September 25 that Egypt’s Agriculture Minister Amin Abaza had claimed that Uganda had offered his country 2 million feddans of arable land for establishing wheat and corn plantations. The next day Parliament demanded an explanation from the government, prompting Lands Minister Omara Atubo to issue a statement denying the Egyptian land claim.

Mr Dennis Obbo, the Spokesman for the Ministry of Lands, in a statement issued on September 26, however, said officials from the two countries had discussed the issue.

“It is necessary to recall that when the two Egyptian Ministers of Foreign Affairs and Agriculture visited Uganda in June 2008, they paid a courtesy call on President Yoweri Museveni,” the statement read in part. “The Egyptian Minister for Agriculture indicated that his Government could promote research and growing of wheat by local farmers where the soil and climate permit. No request for allocation of 2 million acres was made or discussed.”

The Egyptian envoy, however, confirmed reports in the same paper, that a delegation comprising Egyptian entrepreneurs and scientists would visit Uganda in October to carry out soil analysis on the preferred farmland and ascertain its suitability. This, he said, would help the investors determine which variety of the cereals to plant for optimal yield.

The team will hold substantive deliberations with Ugandan counterparts on the location and size of land obtainable for the project; its tenure conditionality, and move to assess the rain pattern in the country as well as explore the possibility of establishing an irrigation scheme for the initiative.

Mr Tamale Mirundi, the Press Secretary to President Museveni spoke in favour of the agricultural scheme, saying opposition leaders who have questioned the deal are intent on “scaring away investors and inciting people against the government.”

Egypt is largely a desert country that relies on irrigation, using water from the River Nile, to feed its population of 81 million.

With global food prices soaring, many countries, including oil-rich but arid countries from the Middle East, are looking at buying land in naturally gifted fertile countries to set up huge commercial farms.

It has also emerged that Egyptian businessmen are also interested in setting up abattoirs to process and export Ugandan beef.

The Monitor

"Hopelessness approaches, but you realize that hopelessness makes you crazy," said Jose Miguel Zabala, a cattleman in Tostado, a town full of hungry, thirsty animals. "You give up hope, but there is no solution, there is no one who can alleviate the problem."

Zabala is managing 900 head of cattle, 130 short of his usual complement.

So far this year, fewer than 200 millimeters (7.9 inches) of rain have fallen, less than a third of the 600 millimeters that usually have fallen by this time.

Salt that has concentrated in the remaining well water is slowly poisoning his remaining animals. He and his fellow cattlemen know that more deaths are inevitable.

The country's farm sector had already been hurt this year during four months of strikes held to protest an export-tax hike ordered in March by President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner.

Meanwhile, it's not just the old and weak cows that are at risk. Young, pregnant cows are dying, too.

Government figures indicate that the drought is responsible for the deaths of about 15 percent of the area's 1 million head of cattle.

And the impact is creeping into other farming sectors.

JatrophaWorld Hamburg 2008 will provide a platform for Jatropha investors, venture capitalists, financiers, government officials, agronomists and biodiesel producers from all four corners of the globe to discuss several key success strategies that include:

• Choosing the best location for Jatropha projects in terms of local legislation, funding, agro–climatic conditions, labor and logistics.
• Adopting best practices in Jatropha Agronomy and Processing for maximum income returns.
• Setting up a profitable Jatropha plantation.
• Mapping global biofuel blending specifications and demand for Jatropha oil.
• Complete utilization of Jatropha Curcas L, including biowaste and seedcake.
• Evaluating risk for a realistic view of Jatropha project potential for long–term forecasting.
• Meeting and networking with strategic people to attract expertise, investors and government support for Jatropha projects.

"Best Practices for Long–term Jatropha Development," the update to Dr. R. Rajagopal´s highly successful November 2007 position paper "Sustainable Biodiesel Feedstock: Jatropha: A Strategic Option" is expected to be a hot topic of discussion at the conference.

A free download of "˜Best Practices for Long–term Jatropha Development´ is available by visiting http://www.futureenergyevents.com/jatrophapaper/

A highlight of JatrophaWorld Hamburg 2008 is the Jatropha Practitioner Workshop that will provide a practical approach to setting up and running a Jatropha project. During the workshop, a panel of experienced Jatropha practitioners from Asia, Africa & South America will present Jatropha planting best practices for plantation set up and management.

To gain access to latest developments and insights into how to maximize returns on Jatropha, as well as network with other key players in the Jatropha industry, register for JatrophaWorld Hamburg 2008 at http://www.futureenergyevents.com/jatropha/attend/

Organizers said on September 23 that the October 5-9 conference is expected to launch an ambitious and unprecedented 10-year effort aimed at transforming what is now largely a subsistence crop, into a major cash earner for millions of Africa's rural poor.

The conference, sponsored by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Technical Centre for Agriculture and Rural Cooperation (CTA), the Belgium Directorate General for Development and Cooperation (DGDC) and other public and private organizations, will concentrate on banana markets and trade, production and technical innovation, with the goal of producing a tangible 10-year strategy to realize the potential of this crucial crop to alleviate poverty and generate wealth. Conference speakers will offer, among other things.

"The Banana and Plantain in Africa Conference represents a first comprehensive attempt to create stronger global and local market links in the region for a crop valued at 1.7 billion U.S. dollars in East Africa alone," the statement said.

The five-day meeting has been organized by the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA), in partnership with Bioversity International, the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA), the International Society for Horticultural Science(ISHS) and the Kenyan Agricultural Research Institute (KARI).

According to the statement from IITA, researchers will present results from a wide range of groundbreaking studies that point to numerous opportunities in fields, labs and markets for substantially boosting the production and earning power of a crop that currently feeds more than 100 million Africans but whose potential has yet to be tapped.

"The speakers will offer among others concrete evidence that concerted efforts to improve market access for the small farmers who grow the bulk of Africa's bananas and plantains could double or even triple their earnings," it said.

A blueprint for boosting incomes in marginal areas through improved banana processing will be also the discussed.

In Africa, diverse products are derived from the banana crop, including beer, wine, juice, sauce, mats, handbags, envelopes, postcards, flour, soap and breakfast cereals.

Yet, as a result of low investment in processing and market development, most income from bananas still comes mainly from the sale of perishable fruit for immediate consumption.

The statement said new insights into the fight against numerous diseases and pests, enhancing nutritional quality and raising production through new banana hybrids and crop management techniques will be discussed at the Mombasa meeting.

"This will include a discussion of the role of biotechnology in the overall push to improve banana production in Africa," it said.

A recent report from an African agriculture research consortium found that Uganda's reliance on homegrown bananas for food and income was a key reason why during the recent global farm commodity crisis, the food price index rose only 10 percent in Uganda, compared to the global average of 56 percent.

South Africa’s Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) has received the green light to undertake greenhouse trials on genetically modified sorghum.

An appeal board earlier this month set aside an earlier ruling by the regulating authority, the Executive Council of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO), denying the CSIR a permit to undertake contained greenhouse trials on transformed sorghum.

The appeal board was appointed by the Minister of Agriculture and Land Affairs, Lulu Xingwana, in accordance with the country’s Genetically Modified Organisms Act.

The CSIR filed an appeal in March 2007, as provided for by the GMO Act.

The research council is one of the scientific contributors in an international research project to nutritionally enhance grain sorghum for use in Africa.

The Africa Biofortified Sorghum (ABS) project seeks to develop a more nutritious and easily digestible sorghum that contains increased levels of essential amino acids, increased levels of vitamins A and E, and more available iron and zinc. The project brings together seven African and two US organisations. The South African organisations include the CSIR, the Agricultural Research Council and the University of Pretoria.

The application was approved “in view of the potential scientific impact of the project in the long term,” says CSIR Biosciences executive director Gatsha Mazithulela. “This process proves that South Africa has robust regulation. We respect the fact that decision-makers have an obligation towards safety and that rigorous investigations are part of the process. Work on the project will now continue in our level three biosafety greenhouse,” says Mazithulela.

Sorghum is an African crop that is the staple food of millions of people in sub-Saharan Africa. While it is one of the few crops that grow well in arid parts, it lacks the most essential nutrients and it has poor protein digestibility.

The CSIR reports that scientific evidence has shown that deficiencies in essential micronutrients – such as iron, zinc, vitamin A and others – can cause impaired immune systems, blindness, low birth weight, impaired neuropsychological development and growth stunting.

Malnutrition remains a leading direct and indirect cause of the rise in the many noncommunicable diseases, especially in Africa, hence, the ABS project, argues the CSIR.

This project is funded by a grant from the Grand Challenges in Global Health Initiative, with a budget of $18,6-million over a period of five years. The Grand Challenges initiative was launched by the Gates Foundation in 2003, to help apply innovation in science and technology to the greatest health problems of the developing world. The ultimate goal of the initiative is to create health tools that are effective, inexpensive to produce, easy to distribute, and simple to use in developing countries.

Engineering News

Government subsidized fertilizer will be available to Kenyan farmers by late October.

Tenders for the supply of the 180 thousands tonnes of the fertilizer will be floated this month.

Agriculture minister William Ruto says the government has set aside eleven billion shillings for the exercise which is expected to force the cost of fertilizer to come down.

The move comes as farmer's hue and cry persists over the high cost of the commodity.The price of a fifty kilo bag of fertilizer is trading at an all time high of 4500 shillings from less than 2000 thousand shillings a few months ago. This has been blamed on the high cost of energy and the high demands from China and India.

In an effort to cushion farmers against high cost of farming the government promised to import subsidized fertilizer on a 30 to 70 basis.

Ruto says in an effort to address the issue effectively the government is in talks with Athi River Mining Company over the construction of a multi billion shillings fertilizer company in the country.

He further revealed that African Development Bank is willing to finance the construction of a regional fertilizer company.

KBC

JatrophaWorld Hamburg 2008 will provide a platform for Jatropha investors, venture capitalists, financiers, government officials, agronomists and biodiesel producers from all four corners of the globe to discuss several key success strategies that include:

• Choosing the best location for Jatropha projects in terms of local legislation, funding, agro–climatic conditions, labor and logistics.
• Adopting best practices in Jatropha Agronomy and Processing for maximum income returns.
• Setting up a profitable Jatropha plantation.
• Mapping global biofuel blending specifications and demand for Jatropha oil.
• Complete utilization of Jatropha Curcas L, including biowaste and seedcake.
• Evaluating risk for a realistic view of Jatropha project potential for long–term forecasting.
• Meeting and networking with strategic people to attract expertise, investors and government support for Jatropha projects.

"Best Practices for Long–term Jatropha Development," the update to Dr. R. Rajagopal´s highly successful November 2007 position paper "Sustainable Biodiesel Feedstock: Jatropha: A Strategic Option" is expected to be a hot topic of discussion at the conference.

A free download of "˜Best Practices for Long–term Jatropha Development´ is available by visiting http://www.futureenergyevents.com/jatrophapaper/

A highlight of JatrophaWorld Hamburg 2008 is the Jatropha Practitioner Workshop that will provide a practical approach to setting up and running a Jatropha project. During the workshop, a panel of experienced Jatropha practitioners from Asia, Africa & South America will present Jatropha planting best practices for plantation set up and management.

To gain access to latest developments and insights into how to maximize returns on Jatropha, as well as network with other key players in the Jatropha industry, register for JatrophaWorld Hamburg 2008 at http://www.futureenergyevents.com/jatropha/attend/

More than 350,000 small-scale farmers in Africa and Central America will soon begin selling produce to the UN in an initiative that could transform the way food aid is purchased.

Announcing the five-year $76m (£41m) pilot project, the UN's World Food Programme said it would buy surplus crops from low-income farmers in 21 countries to help boost fragile economies. The food will be used for regional hunger emergencies and safety net schemes, such as school feeding projects.

While the WFP currently buys about 80% of its stocks locally in the developing world, virtually all of it comes from traders and large-scale farmers who can supply significant quantities of staples such as maize, sorghum and beans.

"The world's poor are reeling under the impact of high food and fuel prices, and buying food assistance from developing world farmers is the right solution at the right time," said Josette Sheeran, WFP executive director, who described the Purchase for Progress scheme as a "win-win."

"We help our beneficiaries who have little or no food and we help local farmers who have little or no access to markets where they can sell their crops."

Charitable foundations established by Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft, and Howard Buffett, son of billionaire investor Warren Buffett, are funding the project, which targets some of the world's poorest countries, including Sierra Leone, Malawi, Ethiopia and El Salvador. It is expected that 40,000 metric tons of food - enough to feed to 250,000 people for a year - will be purchased from small-scale farmers in the first twelve months.

The farmers who sign up will be required to form into local collectives, and to set up a bank account in the group's name. The usual UN requirements for the growers to provide surety bonds, transport and packaging materials will be relaxed or waived.

By selling directly to the WFP rather than middlemen it is expected that the farmers will receive higher-than-normal prices. There are also plans to negotiate seasonal contracts with the smallholder collectives to give them additional security.

The announcement was made at the UN general assembly, where world leaders are discussing the progress made towards achieving the millennium development goals, whose targets include halving the 1990 poverty and hunger levels by 2015. Speaking at the launch, Bill Gates said that the new initiative "represents a major step toward sustainable change that could eventually benefit millions of poor rural households in sub-Saharan Africa and other regions".

The WFP, which bought $612m (£330m) of food supplies in the developing world last year to feed 86 million people, said that it will ensure that local markets are not distorted by only purchasing from farmers with surplus crops. In time, it is hoped that the farmers will also be connected to other local and regional markets.

The Guardian

The solution, Mr Chartres and others contend, is more efficient use of water or, as the sloganeers put it, “more crop per drop”. Some 1.2 billion people, about a fifth of the world’s population, live in places that are short of water. Farming accounts for roughly 70% of human water consumption. So when water starts to run out, as is happening in northern China, southern Spain and the western United States, among other places, farming tends to offer the best potential for thrift. But governments, whether to win votes or to protect the poor, rarely charge farmers a market price for water. So they are usually more wasteful than other consumers—even though the value they create from the water is often less than households or industry would be willing to pay for it.

The pressing need is to make water go further. Antoine Frérot, the head of the water division of Veolia Environnement, a French firm, promotes recycling, whereby city wastewater is treated until it can be used in industry or agriculture. This costs about a third less than desalination, and cuts pollution. He expects his recycling business to quadruple in the next decade.

Yet as Mr Frérot himself concedes, there are many even cheaper ways to save water. As much as 70% of water used by farmers never gets to crops, perhaps lost through leaky irrigation channels or by draining into rivers or groundwater. Investment in drip irrigation, or simply repairing the worst leaks, could bring huge savings.

Farmers in poor countries can usually afford such things only if they are growing cash crops, says David Molden of IWMI. Even basic kit such as small rainwater tanks can be lacking. Ethiopia, for example, has only 38 cubic metres of storage capacity per inhabitant, compared to almost 5,000 in Australia. Yet modest water storage can hugely improve yields in rain-fed agriculture, by smoothing over short dry spells. Likewise, pumping water into natural aquifers for seasonal storage tends to be much cheaper than building a big dam, and prevents the great waste of water through evaporation.

Even when water is scarce, it is often squandered. Mr Molden cites the example of cotton-farmers in Uzbekistan, who used to receive a fixed allocation of water for irrigation whether they needed it or not, in a holdover from the days of Soviet central planning. Simply putting farmers in control of the irrigation network, and allowing them to decide how much water they needed, cut consumption by 30%.

Similarly, rice farmers can sharply cut water consumption by flooding paddy fields only some of the time. Wheat growers in hot places such as India and Australia can conserve water by minimising tilling, leaving a layer of mulch on the fields’ surface to absorb rainwater and limit evaporation. In arid regions like the Middle East, Mark Zeitoun of the London School of Economics suggests substituting thirsty crops such as oranges with more abstemious olives and dates. Ideally, countries that are short of water would concentrate on growing the most valuable cash crops, and use the proceeds to import staples.

Agronomists are beginning to devise tools to help monitor the efficiency of water use. Some have designed algorithms that use satellite data on surface temperatures to calculate the rate at which plants are absorbing and transpiring water. That allows governments and development agencies to concentrate their efforts on the most prodigal areas.

But efficient use of water, cautions Pasquale Steduto of the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation, is just one step to better agricultural yields. Even if farmers use the right amount of water they also need decent seeds and enough fertiliser. In Africa in particular, these and other factors such as pest control, storage and distribution are a bigger drag on yields than a shortage of water.

Raising yields does not always involve greater water consumption, especially when farms are inefficient. It would take little extra water to double cereal output in many parts of Africa, Mr Molden argues. IWMI reckons that some three-quarters of the extra food the world needs could be provided simply by bringing yields in poor countries closer to those of rich ones. That is more palatable than the puritanical alternative: giving up meat and other thirsty products altogether.

Economist