OPINION By Dr. Robin Buruchara
I, like millions of others in Africa, can’t imagine what it would be like to live without beans.
Venture onto any small farm in Uganda at meal time, and I can guarantee you that you will find beans on your plate.
Come to think of it, venture onto any smallholder farm, low income urban home or boarding school across Africa at meal time, and you are more likely than not to find beans or some kind of pulse on your plate.
And that’s despite the most severe drought that parts of the continent have seen in decades. Rains have been late or not come at all; water scarcity has devastated harvests, and incomes have been crippled.
Yet beans remain a staple in the African diet, for more reasons than one. They’re inexpensiveand easy to grow, with seeds sourced from neighbours or family members. They’re nutritious: high in protein, fibre, carbohydrates, folic acid, iron and zinc.
Our studies in Rwanda, for instance, show eating iron-fortified beans can actually reverse anemia and iron deficiency.
They come in many shapes, sizes, colors and tastes. In many countries they a good source of income as they are easy to sell. And farmers know beans are a good bet to plant, because if most of their harvest fails and they can’t sell anything - at least they have some food at home.
That’s why the Pan-Africa Bean Research Alliance (PABRA), works with national bean programs to strengthen cropping systems across 30 countries in Africa.
But growing more beans is not a panacea for tackling malnutrition, improving soil fertility and improving incomes. And, significant challenges block the road to improve production.
Despite the prominence of beans in the local diet and their versatility, the production and improvement of beans is not as high a priority in agricultural and nutritional policies as it ought to be. Their nutritional benefits are not incorporated into nutrition programs; their ability to combat climate change and make farmers’ fields more resilient are not spelled out in climate policy.
It’s unlikely that farmers throughout sub-Saharan Africa – where nitrogen is a commonly lacking crop nutrient – know that beans and other pulses can be used as an alternative or complementary source of nitrogen.They convert atmospheric nitrogen into nutrients the plant can use, by-passing problems associated with excessive fertilizer use - including water and air pollution, not to mention cost.
They might not know which beans can be sold for a good income twice a year at the local market – especially important for women, who traditionally control earnings from the crop. They might not know which varieties can tackle anemia, or improve soil health.
They probably don’t know that beans use less water and energy compared to most other protein sources, and that they are also relatively drought resilient compared with other crops.
This needs to change. These are vital factors for farmers in Africa, who must prepare for more drought, longer dry seasons and shorter spells of unpredictable rainfall. Until our agricultural systems become fully irrigated, our farmers need more resilient crops, and beans are an excellent case in point.
In too many places, new bean varieties and agronomic packages don’t reach farmers or advisory services. To inform farm-scale decision making and agricultural policy, we need to spread the word about the full set of impacts that can be felt by integrating pulses into cropping systems.
It’s true: we do need more research into which beans fit within specific cropping systems.
Agronomic management is a central pillar of pulse production that relies on developing options suited to local contexts. Yield and environmental benefits of pulse production vary widely across agro-ecological contexts.
But already we have evidence to show the yield increases farmers can expect in their fields; the extra income they put into their pockets, and the huge nutritional benefits they can gain from eating beans.
What remains to be seen is how the private sector and public sector can work together to make sure better beans get to more people. To make sure farmers growing them can make more money from them; or feed their families more nutritious diets with them.
We’re tackling these challenges head on. And raising awareness about how exactly beans contribute to our welfare this Global Pulse Day, is among the many routes we can take to beat them.
Dr Buruchara is the Director of the Pan-Africa Bean Research Alliance (PABRA)
Yaoundé (PAMACC News): A new scientific Report published on 11 January, 2017 shows that the Congo Basin Forest is not only the biggest and diverse on the planet after Amazon, but possesses the world’s largest peat soils that contain huge amounts of fossil fuels estimated to have accumulated since more than 10,600 years ago.
The report published by scientists from UK and Congo led by Prof Simon Lewis and Dr Greta Dargie, from the University of Leeds and University College London shows that peat deposit cover the biggest ever vegetation area in the world.
“We find extensive peat deposits beneath the swamp forest vegetation. Radiocarbon dates indicate that peat began accumulating from about 10,600 years ago, coincident with the onset of more humid conditions in central Africa at the beginning of the Holocene. The peatlands occupy large inter-fluvial basins, and seem to be largely rain-fed and ombrotrophic-like (of low nutrient status) systems” the report said.
The researchers said they mapped the Cuvette Centrale peatlands using a combination of on-the-ground field surveys and satellite data. Core samples helped researchers plot peatland depths.
The field measurement by the scientists of the depression in the central Congo Basin where the peat soil is found shows that it is the world’s most extensive regions of swamp forest, covering over 145,500 sq km and could contain over 30 billion tones of carbon stock , making the region one of the most carbon-rich ecosystems in the world, a record or data that was previously not known.
“We estimate that the peatlands store approximately 30.6 petagrams of carbon belowground, a quantity that is similar to the above-ground carbon stocks of the tropical forests of the entire Congo Basin,” the report stated.
Scientists say peatlands act as carbon sinks, removing carbon from the atmosphere through plant growth. Thus the rich Congo Basin peat soils and its waterlogged environment provides a huge opportunity to lock up carbon and fight against climate change .
However experts say this opportunity will only produce the desired results if the rich forest and its Peatsoil are left undisturbed.
“If the Congo basin peatland complex was to be destroyed, this would release billions of tonnes of carbon dioxide into our atmosphere,” the scientists said in their report
Partners of the Congo Basin Forest in Kigali, Rwanda, for the 16th meeting of the organization in November 2016 to discuss the problems facing Africa’s rich ecosystem and seed pathways to help solve them pointed on the need for collective efforts and reinforced research efforts to help better protect the resources.
“Millions of people in the Congo Basin Forest and its immediate vicinity rely on the forest for subsistence and this is very important to reinforce measures to protect the resources contained therein” said African Wildlife Foundation President, Kaddu Sebunya, in an interview in the meeting.
Over 340 million dollars is spent in conservation efforts in the Congo Basin Forest today because of its importance to not only the natural ecosystems and the fight against climate but also in its role in socio-cultural wellbeing of the forest communities, experts say.
Dr Emma Stokes, Director of the Central Africa Program of the Wildlife Conservation Society said: "This research highlights the immense significance of these swamp forests for the stability of our climate. However, these forests, in the geographical heart of Africa, are also a vital refuge for many thousands of great apes, elephants and other large forest mammals that are threatened by developments in the surrounding landscape.
"The RoC government is considering the expansion of Lac Tele Community Reserve, a move that could safeguard an additional 50,000 square kilometres of swamp forest – much of it overlying peat -- from future disturbance. We strongly support this move and commend the RoC government for this initiative. We urge both countries to continue efforts to protect these habitats from industrial transformation."
NAIROBI, Kenya (PAMACC News) - The leopard population in Kenya’s Nairobi National Park is on the decline due to what scientists think is disturbance of their migratory corridors.
A seven year study has found out that encroachment of the leopard’s migration corridor is restraining the female to venture out to look for a male. This disrupts their mating cycles.
For instance, the study, conservation biology for the leopards in Kenya, says a male leopard needs to control a terrain of about 100 square kilometers.
The Nairobi national park, which hosts about 17 leopards is 117 square kilometers big. This means only a single male can control this territory, explains Yumi Yamane, a guest researcher at Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS).
“It can lead to violent confrontation for females and territory among the males leaving them severely wounded,” explains Yamane. “This can affect their mating ability.”
But the leopard also likes to live in secrecy and explore its territory under the cover of the bush, she says.
“This means the female leopard cannot go out to look for a mating partner because the migratory corridor has been disturbed by infrastructure development,” argues Yamane.
According to the researcher, Nairobi national park is a very important habitat for the leopard because it likes to perch on trees.
But huge infrastructural projects in road, railway and housing have led to the felling of trees within the leopards’ migratory corridor to pave way for construction.
“Leopards like to perch and move around where there is plenty of tree cover,” argues Yumi. “If the migratory corridor is disturbed then their numbers will decline very soon.”
KWS officials say they are trying to solve the problem by relocating the Nairobi leopard into other habitats like Meru national park.
However, this is proving difficult because the newcomers must fight for acceptance in the new habitat.
Oftentimes, the bullied cats stray into communities leading to increased human-wildlife conflict, argues Geoffrey Bundotich, an official at the Meru national park.
“The communities are against the re-introduction of leopards from other parks because the cats often move and resettle outside the parks,” explains Bundotich.
It is a challenge that KWS is grappling with, and according to Yamane, there is no solution in sight since the leopard is very difficult to monitor.
However, Edin Kara, KWS officer in charge of parks and reserves, says the important thing is continued monitoring to find out how the re-introduced animals can be able to adopt.
NAKURU, Kenya (PAMACC News) – Many Counties in North Eastern Kenya, Eastern and Coastal region are currently staring at starvation right in the face, as residents drop dead due to famine caused by the ongoing dry spell.
The country is already going through power rationing due to the reduced amount of water used for geothermal power generation, as the sun burns with vengeance across the entire country.
It is for such reasons that Egerton University, one of the major training institutions in Africa has convened am international conference, and climate change and variations are to be among the main topics to be discussed.
The conference that will run from 29th-31st March 2017 at the university’s main campus in Njoro-Nakuru County will also discuss natural resources as well as health and environment under a main theme “Knowledge and Innovation for Social and Economic Development.”
The chair of the conference committee who is also the university’s Deputy Director in charge of Research and Extension says the above subthemes have been inspired by the need to address climate change as “a developmental threat that will affect agriculture and the economy.”
While looking forward to presentations on climate change adaptation and mitigation during the conference, among others, Bockline Bebe, a Professor of Livestock Production says as that Kenya should lead the way in providing solutions to climate change, given that it hosts the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
This is not the first time that the University, known for agriculture, is including the above subthemes that directly touch on climate change in the conference. However, Dr. Gilbert Obwoyere the Dean Faculty of Environment and Natural Resource Development (FERD), enough attention has not been given to the phenomenon that has caused havoc in many parts of the world.
Dr Obwoyere says, however, there is need to also focus on the positive attributes of climate change apart from just looking at it from a negative perspective.
“For instance areas that had too much rainfall will receive little (or perhaps, manageable) rainfall,” he points out while citing out “food security, infrastructure and growing economies” and their relation to climate change as three of the most urgent areas that need to be researched on.
Like Dr. Obwoyere, Peter Macharia a Nakuru based Consultant on environmental issues agrees that there exists a gap on climate change research.
For him there is need to research on the relationship between economics and demographics on matters that influence climate change, among other issues.
“What pushes people to subdivide land for example when it has a direct impact on climate change,” he points out.
There has been an intensified debate at the international level on matters of climate change in the recent past. While Kenya has always been part of this debate it has gone ahead to even pass a specific law on climate change.
The law, Climate Change Act (2016) “provides for a regulatoryframework for enhanced response to climatechange; to provide for mechanism and measures toachieve low carbon climate development.” It aims at integrating climate change response mechanisms at both the national and county government level.
Macharia says for climate change policy to succeed there is need to have a bottom-up approach in both the formulation and the implementation of the same.
The deadline for the submission of abstracts for the Egerton University conference is 20th January, 2017.
