IFAD 21 August 2015 - In the scorching sun, Lake Grimay, a smallholder farmer from the town of Atsbi in northern Ethiopia, proudly shows off his newest potato patch to Mawira Chitima, an IFAD water expert. The Tigray Region where Lake farms is very dry and rugged, and is perhaps best known internationally for images of famine victims that were broadcast around the world in the mid-1980s.

Once a rice exporter, Côte d’Ivoire has spent in recent years nearly USD 500 million annually on rice imports. Now, the country has set its sights on becoming West Africa’s rice granary through a program estimated to cost more than USD 1.3 billion from 2012 to 2016.

Researchers from FredSence Technologies in Canada developed a simple, cheap, and efficient tool to monitor water quality. The new tool is called FRED, which stands for Field-ready Electrochemical Detector. It uses genetically enhanced bacteria that sense different water-borne contaminants and then emit an electrical signal that indicates the intensity of contamination.

The Genome Analysis Centre (TCAG) in UK and the Agriculture Genetics Institute (AGI) in Vietnam are working together to characterize the genetic diversity of traditional rice varieties from Vietnam and develop genomic markers related to disease resistance and salt tolerance. Thirty six (36) local rice varieties have been analyzed as part of the first phase of the project.

The Office of the Gene Technology Regulator (OGTR) of Australia issued a licence to the University of Queensland (UQ) to conduct field trial of GM sugarcane with enhanced sugar content. OGTR allowed the trial to take place from August 2015 to May 2020 in Burdekin, Queensland. The maximum area for the trial is 5ha for field testing with additional 200m² for nursery facility and 1,000m² for storage and disposal of plant material.

The governing board of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) met in Islamabad, Pakistan on August 12, 2015 to exchange new technologies, research findings, and germplasm to ensure food security in the region.

USDA Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) released the Global Agricultural Information Network (GAIN) Reports on Agricultural Biotechnology for several countries. Here are the some highlights of the reports:

The CPF 2012- 2016 takes a results-based approach that builds on FAO’s comparative strengths and partnerships at national and international levels, with the aim of increasing the impact and effectiveness of FAO’s support at the level of policy and strategic dialogue, and enhancing resource mobilization opportunities for this purpose.

In India, zinc (Zn) is now considered as fourth most important yield limiting nutrient in agricultural crops. Zn deficiency in Indian soils is likely to increase from 49 to 63% by 2025. India is leading in groundnut acreage but behind the China in production due to less productivity. Apart from raindependant cultivation and mineral nutrition play a vital role in groundnut productivity. Among the nutrients, Zn deficiency cause yield loss to the maximum of 40% in groundnut.

The answers to these will be discussed by Robert S. Zeigler, director general of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), when he addresses delegates to the smarter food production session of the Global Forum on Research and Innovation for Health (Forum 2015) on 26 August at the Philippine International Convention Center (PICC) in Manila.