Annual Report 2012 - African Agricultural Technology Foundation

Striga Control in Maize Project
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In Kenya, the partners coordinated by Maseno University concentrated
on scaling up the commercialisation and adoption of Western Seed 303
(WS 303) StrigAway® maize variety. This involved engaging more agrodealers
to stock the variety and increasing the adoption of other Striga
control and soil health improvement technologies in an effort to reduce the
Striga weed threat and increase food productivity. In addition, the Project
engaged in building the capacity of NGOs, farmers and agro-dealers on
Striga control, soil health and data collection. Trained agro-dealers are
seen as real change agents capable of hosting on-farm learning sites that
can be used to create more awareness through on-farm demonstrations
and during field days.
During 2012, over 27 tonnes of IR maize seed was produced and
distributed to 24 agro-dealers out of which over 23 tonnes was sold
to farmers and another 4.8 tonnes used to set up demonstrations for
promotion of the technology. In the process, the Project trained 73 agrodealers
on how to stock IR maize seed and advice farmers.
The Kenya team also trained 30 District Crop Officers and 347
Divisional Agricultural Extension staff on Striga and soil health. In
addition, 119 farmers were trained on Striga biology, soil health and value
chain in agriculture. Outreach activities reached about 30,000 farmers.
In the area of project management, the IR Maize Project Steering
Committee for Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania, held one meeting in August
2012 to guide and follow-up on Striga control activities in the region. The
committee also continued to work with the Integrated Striga Management
in Africa (ISMA) Project in Kenya through which four roundtable meetings
were held to review and plan Striga work in the country. ISMA is a
partnership coordinated by the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture
(IITA) and brings together AATF, BASF, the International Maize and Wheat
Improvement Center, the International Center for Insect Physiology and
Ecology, and the Tropical Soil Biology and Fertility of the International
Center for Tropical Agriculture. AATF’s role in the Project is to support IR
maize technology delivery and stewardship of seed dissemination.
‘As the Project progresses into 2013, the focus will be to follow up on
the registration of the IR herbicide in Uganda and to also 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,’
says Dr Gospel Omanya, the Seed Systems Manager at AATF.
Deploying agricultural technologies for farmers