Tanzania is among several African Countries poised to gain from a project designed at developing drought tolerant maize varieties to help cushion peasants from famine and hunger. Dubbed WEMA –the Water Efficient Maize for Africa project –the project will also involve Uganda, Kenya and South Africa. Its aims are very much along the lines of initiatives being championed by major agricultural development bodies in recent months to counter the effects of global food shortage. The acting coordinator of the project in Tanzania, Dr Alois Kullaya said the Tanzania project will be implemented in 10 years with the first five being for valuation of the good land area for agriculture and the last five for project development. Targeted regions in the country are those with arid and semi-arid conditions such as Singida, Dodoma, and Lindi. Farmers will now no longer have to rely purely on weather conditions to bring in a harvest.
http://allafrica.com/stories/200806160464.html
2 comments:
This seems like a good solution for the short run, but what happens later, when there's an overproduction of corn? Droughts tend to be cyclical--will older varieties of the grain be used in non-drought times? I certainly hope that other countries don't start creating nutritionally inadequate (and some harmful) corn byproducts like the US has done.
We have to bear in mind that the farmers targeted by this project are small scale farmers without the means for large scale farming. It is unlikely that they could produce an overabundant supply of the crop which will not be consumed by their market. As it is there is a massive food shortfall and these farmers using these new varieties could go a long way in alleviating poverty and hunger especially in the rural areas where they reside. Africa needs for these farmers to be bringing in a bumper harvest.
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