{"id":3383,"date":"2020-10-13T12:03:39","date_gmt":"2020-10-13T12:03:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/recirculate\/?p=3383"},"modified":"2020-10-13T15:50:39","modified_gmt":"2020-10-13T15:50:39","slug":"pesticides-and-food-production-in-africa-what-do-you-think","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/recirculate\/2020\/10\/pesticides-and-food-production-in-africa-what-do-you-think\/","title":{"rendered":"Pesticides and food production in Africa- What do you think?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Building international networks to help improve<\/strong> pesticide use across Africa<\/strong><\/p>\n

Given RECIRCULATE\u2019s focus on the circular water economy<\/a>, you may be asking how a blog about pesticides belongs in The FLOW?\u00a0 Well, there are a number of reasons for that.\u00a0 One is that while the circular water economy may not fit my own scientific and commercial interests, RECIRCULATE\u2019s focus on eco-innovation and building networks<\/a> certainly do.\u00a0 Beyond that, there is the project\u2019s focus this month on food security<\/a>. That, especially the discussion around the topic in the PARTICIPATE Whatspp group, was the real stimulus for me wanting to write this piece.\u00a0 So what can someone from a UK-based SME (small-medium sized enterprise) bring to this discussion?<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s start with eco-innovation and building networks. To give you a potted biography, I did my Masters and PhD at Lancaster University.\u00a0 My PhD was in plant-pest interactions but then I took a side-ways step to research how crops grown in polytunnels respond to different types of cladding material.\u00a0 That led me to join another ex-Lancaster researcher, Dr Wagdy Sobeih<\/a>, in his company Arid Agritech<\/a>, which specialises in light-based eco-innovations for sustainable food production. Arid Agritech greatly values its long-term link with Lancaster University. We are co-located in the Lancaster Environment Centre<\/a> and we have worked closely with Lancaster\u2019s flagship Centre for Global Eco-Innovation<\/a> (CGE) on collaborations with several Lancaster researchers.<\/p>\n

So, in a sense, I have lived the \u2018journey\u2019 between research and research exploitation that RECIRCULATE has explored with its partners across Africa.\u00a0 I know first-hand the immense value of effective dialogue between researchers and research users. I see technically-aware SMEs, like Arid Agritech, as key mediators in that dialogue. \u00a0I also know first- hand how being co-located on the Lancaster campus<\/a> brings many benefits to an SME like Arid Agritech. It\u2019s a great way to stay up-to-date with the relevant research environment and to link to the University\u2019s wider networks.\u00a0 That\u2019s how I became aware of RECIRCULATE, and that\u2019s what brings us back to pesticides.<\/p>\n

Being based in LEC gave me the opportunity to meet with some of the RECIRCULATE residents<\/a> when they were based at Lancaster.\u00a0 That was a huge opportunity for Arid to learn more about the challenges facing food production in sub-Saharan Africa.\u00a0 One thing I learned about was the pressing need for effective pest control. That\u2019s partly driven by the current major multi-national challenges of the worst locust outbreaks in decades<\/a> and the scourge of armyworm<\/a>. Related to that was the concern that chemical pesticides although vital, may be being used inappropriately in some situations.\u00a0 That last point brought a new understanding of a challenge that I had heard about before from Prof Cris Halsall, one of LEC\u2019s environmental chemists<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Arid Agritech has been developing a new collaboration with Cris that\u2019s focussed on how pesticides break-down in different locations with contrasting levels of sunlight.\u00a0 We want to apply that knowledge to develop a web-based \u201cpesticide break-down tool\u201d. As the name suggests, this will predict how quickly a pesticide will be broken-down on crops- which we see as having great commercial potential for farmers. It will allow them to more accurately understand the safe period between pesticide application and harvesting to avoid unwanted residues in their crops, especially fresh produce like fruit, vegetables and salads.<\/p>\n

What my meetings with the RECIRCULATE residents brought in to sharp focus was what Cris had told me about his long-standing collaboration with Dr Justina Ukpebor at University of Benin<\/a>. University of Benin is a key partner<\/a> in the RECIRCULATE project, and through the project, Cris also developed links with Dr Edu Iman at Oyo University.\u00a0 Working together, and with Ekeoma Ogwo<\/a>, a PhD student at Lancaster University, the team surveyed hundreds of smallholder farmers in southern Nigeria to understand the type of pesticides used and how they are applied and stored.\u00a0 Whilst the results of the survey are complex, they confirm that smallholder farmers are increasingly using a wide variety of chemicals (insecticides, herbicides etc.) often sourced from local markets. As others have found, it also seems that unintentional misuse is commonplace and that label instructions regarding correct application and dose are not always followed. That\u2019s a worry, because if not used or stored properly, these chemicals can lead to health problems for farm workers and their families, with residues ending up on foodstuffs as well as contaminating the environment.<\/p>\n

With that in mind, my discussions with the RECIRCULATE residents were something of a \u2018Eureka moment\u2019 for me. We\u2019d been thinking about our pesticide break-down tool as useful mostly to large scale growers, particularly in greenhouses and polytunnels.\u00a0 That\u2019s always going to be important for us- Arid Agritech is a business and that will be our commercial product. But what if we could also make some form of the tool available to help small-holders use pesticides more efficiently and more safely?\u00a0 What if could make a simple version of the tool available free to anyone with a mobile phone or via a text messaging service?\u00a0 Would that help \u2018make a difference\u2019 to pesticide use in African countries?<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not a rhetorical question: Cris and I would really like to know what you think. The excellent recent contribution<\/a> to The Flow by Stephen Yeboah and Patricia Oteng-Darko highlights that \u201cits good to listen\u201d.We agree- so we are listening. Do you agree that pesticide misuse is a problem?\u00a0 Would a mobile phone based \u201cinformation system\u201d be accessible and useful \u201cin, with and for<\/em><\/a>\u201d the communities that you work with?\u00a0 It\u2019s also a real question because I think there are opportunities to make this technology real.\u00a0 It seems likely that UK funding might become available to allow a company like Arid Agritech to work with research partners in the UK and in Africa on new technologies that would have commercial value, but much more than just<\/u> that. Your insights will help us work out the best way to put this technology into the hands of the people who need it most across the African continent.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/td>\nDr Jason Moore<\/strong> is Research Director Arid Agritec based at Lancaster Environment Centre where he\u2019s also an Honorary Researcher. His commercial interests are focused on developing transformative technologies for increasing yields \/ quality and reducing chemical inputs in global agri-hort. Jason has a BA(hons) in Economics from Leeds University and an MSc (Environmental and Ecological Science) and PhD (Plant Science) from Lancaster University. He developed links with a number of RECIRCULATE Fellows when, during their visit last year, they became interested in a technology he developed with his PhD supervisors for a radical approach to protecting major food crops from pest attack which could offer farmers around the globe an environmentally sustainable approach to crop protection. Alongside the project detailed in this blog he is currently working with those Fellows to test that technology against Armyworm which is becoming a major problem in the region.<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

 <\/p>\n

All articles in The FLOW<\/strong> are published under a Creative Commons \u2014 Attribution\/No derivatives license,<\/a> for details please read the RECIRCULATE re-publishing guidelines<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Building international networks to help improve pesticide use across Africa Given RECIRCULATE\u2019s focus on the circular water economy, you may be asking how a blog about pesticides belongs in The FLOW?\u00a0 Well, there are a number of reasons for that.\u00a0 One is that while the circular water economy may not fit my own scientific and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1342,"featured_media":3390,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[40,44],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ke","category-the-flow"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/recirculate\/files\/2020\/10\/Liz-sampling-CROPPED.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9hFf1-Sz","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/recirculate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/recirculate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/recirculate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/recirculate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1342"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/recirculate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3383"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/recirculate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3383\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3393,"href":"https:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/recirculate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3383\/revisions\/3393"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/recirculate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/recirculate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/recirculate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/recirculate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}