Annual Report 2012 - African Agricultural Technology Foundation

20 AATF Annual Report 2012
Striga Control in Maize Project
Imazapyr herbicide
registered in Tanzania
as country gears for
commercialisation of
maize varieties to fight
the Striga weed
A Maasai dance in Kenya
As the project progresses into 2013,
the focus will be to follow up on the
registration of the Imazapyr herbicide
in Uganda and to support enhanced strategic
demonstration work in all the countries to
upscale adoption of the technology
that is bound to make food security an
achievable dream.
Dr Gospel Omanya, Seed Systems
Manager, AATF
Farmers in Tanzania whose maize production has continued to suffer
from the infestation of the noxius Striga weed will soon have access to
Imazapyr Resistant (IR) maize varieties that control the weed. This follows
the official registration of the Imazapyr herbicide by Tanzania’s Tropical
Pesticides Research Institute in November 2012. The herbicide is used to
coat maize seed giving them resistance to Striga. This makes Tanzania
the second country after Kenya to benefit from this technology that is
improving maize yields under Striga infestation in parts of Kenya.
Striga is a major parasitic weed that infests about 20 million hectares
of arable land in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Serious infestation by the
weed often results in total crop loss and even abandonment of some arable
land, leading to increased food insecurity and rural poverty among an
estimated 120 million households in SSA. Tanzania is the most infested
country in East Africa with more than 600,000 hectares in 11 regions under
the weed causing cereal yield losses estimated at 1.7 million tonnes valued
at approximately USD 356 million.
Deploying agricultural technologies for farmers