Making food safe: Two projects to combat mycotoxin contamination in Tanzania launched
The fight to control contamination of key staple foods in Africa by mycotoxins – poisonous chemicals secreted by naturally occurring fungi which attack crops in the field and during storage, making them unfit for human and livestock consumption at high levels of contamination – has been stepped up in Tanzania with the launch of two [...]
Plantain gains defense against devastating microscopic worms
For the first time, scientists have built into plantain a viable defense against microscopic worms – called nematodes – that infests the plant’s roots, making them easily topple over and significantly reduce their production. Apart from bacterial wilt diseases, nematodes are considered to be one of the most economically devastating pests of banana and plantain, [...]
Use of fertilizer and better farming methods can double Uganda’s coffee output, says study
Dar es Salaam, The use of inorganic fertilizers and improved farming practices by small-holder farmers can significantly increase, and even double, coffee production in Uganda -the world’s eleventh largest producer of the crop. This in turn would translate into more income and better lives for the estimated one-quarter of the population economically dependent on the [...]
IITA to intensify fight against deadly cassava disease in sub-Saharan Africa
Dar es Salaam (IITA) – The International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) and its partners the Agricultural Research Institute (ARI), Tanzania, and the National Agricultural Research Organization (NARO), Uganda, have received a US$2.4 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to identify and use molecular markers for faster and more accurate breeding of [...]