Utilisation of agricultural biodiversity in times of need

By JEFFREY WAKI and SENIORL ANZU of NARI

PNG has a taro dversity of over 800 varieties

The United Nations proclaimed 2010 to be the International Year of Biodiversity, and people all over the world are working to safeguard this irreplaceable natural wealth and reduce biodiversity loss.

This is vital for current and future human wellbeing.

 It is a concern that is uttered everywhere that rich diversities in biological resources are being lost at an accelerated rate because of human activities.

This impoverishes us all as it weakens the ability of the living systems, which we depend on, to resist growing threats such as climate change.

The biodiversity that is currently utilised and which is continuously sourced to bring about increased dependence on agriculture is under the greatest challenges.

Climate change is imposing an unprecedented threat to livelihoods and food security with great impacts overtime and across diverse locations globally.

This will seriously affect millions of farmers whose livelihoods depend on subsistence agriculture.

The Tsukuba Declaration on adapting agriculture to climate change unanimously declared that throughout the Asia-Pacific climate change will significantly increase regional temperature, reduce water availability and erode coastal land as sea level rises.

Papua New Guinea is known to experience cyclic dry and wet periods induced by El Niño and La Nina, which can severely cut back crop production by reducing the duration of cultivation and increasing threats from pest and disease occurrences.

In subsistence communities, a single crop failure can spell disaster for farmers and their families. Already, there appears to be an intensification of pest and disease problems in PNG, including late blight on potatoes, leaf scab on sweet potatoes, varroa mites attack on pollinator bees and cocoa pod borer.

There are projected reductions in the length of growing seasons which could force large regions of marginal agriculture totally out of production.

This could lead to a reduction in crop yield of up to 50% in some countries.

Hence, adaptation strategies are urgently needed!

The PNG agriculture sector needs to mobilise, prioritise and allocate its resources in anticipation of the predicted calamities.

In response, NARI is currently executing a study to match seeds to the needs of farmers for adaptation in times of climate change.

 In this new initiative, agricultural stakeholders of PNG and abroad are focusing on matching local varieties of sweet potato and taro with regions in PNG that are under threat from the phenomenon.

Sweet potato and taro have been chosen because they are PNG’s most important staple crops and that National Agriculture Research Institute (NARI) also conserves highest number under ex situ (i.e. away from their native habitat) condition.

Sweet potato alone accounts for 66% of total staple crop production in the country while taro receives first and second staple status in most coastal regions.

This research supported by the Global Crop Diversity Trust (a multinational organisation) is underway in PNG to screen highland sweet potato germplasm for climate induced stresses.

Other complementary work includes an ongoing project on sweet potato pests and diseases, and sweet potato post-harvest handling.

For taro, a NARI project is identifying hybrid lines that are resistant to leaf blight disease and the Global Crop Diversity Trust project is underway on drought and salinity tolerance in the lowlands.

The project titled ‘Matching Seeds to Needs: using locally available varieties for adapting to climate change and improving the livelihoods of farmers in PNG’ was launched in June 2010 in Lae.

 The activities will be undertaken by NARI and key stakeholders over the next three years.

The initiative is funded by Bioversity International- UK to the value of US$300,000.

The other partners include the Fresh Produce Development Agency (FPDA), PNG Women in Agriculture Development Foundation (PNGWiADF), and the Centre for Pacific Crops and Trees (CePaCT), Fiji.

Under this initiative, the regions in PNG under greatest threat from climate change will be identified by using the global climate models.

Varieties of sweet potato and taro that are well-adapted to the predicted future climates will be matched to these target areas so that they can continue to have optimum yields under future climatic conditions.

Seeds of these adapted varieties will be made available to farmers through community-based seed multiplication and delivery systems with the help of local community based organisations, churches and agri-businesses.

With seeds adapted to their needs, communities at risk will be able to sustain agricultural production despite changes in climatic conditions.

By working with the partners, including local communities and women’s groups, the project’s activities will strengthen the resilience of agricul tural systems by identifying more stress-resistant varieties of sweet potato and taro currently being conserved to ensure that small farmers who maintain native staple crop diversity do not fall deeper into poverty.

 NARI conserves up to 1,500 and 700 accessions of sweet potato and taro respectively collected throughout PNG in various expeditions.

Under the arrangement, Bioversity will be responsible for climate predictions and application of state-of-the-art models for identifying well-adapted crop genetic diversity.

NARI will provide crop passport and other associated information, planting materials and field personnel in conducting the various components of the project.

Both organisations will be responsible for identifying the most useful varieties with participation from targeted farmers.

The CePaCT will maintain elite lines selected through this project and make available planting materials and information to researchers and farmers in PNG and other countries.

Technical contributions, including training will be provided through complementary funding from the Global Crop Diversity Trust.

The PNGWiADF will play a key role in ensuring the participation of women farmers while FPDA will link communities on a broader scale with their established rural network in variety selection and dissemination effort.

By improving the resilience and adaptation of agricultural systems in PNG, this project will safeguard both food security and livelihoods of local farmers.

Preparing Papua New Guinea for likely drought in near future

By RAGHUNATH GHODAKE and MARTIN MOSE of NARI

There is a high possibility of occurrence of a strong El Niño event, causing severe drought in Papua New Guinea within the next three to four years (2011-2014).  

 In fact, there are strong indications for El Niño conditions developing in the later part of 2011.

 Strong El Niño events causing severe drought conditions in PNG have increased in frequency over the last 100 years. 

Prior to 1972, the average interval between such strong El Niño events was about 30 years; whereas in recent past such interval has been reduced to 10-15 years.

 Besides, the recent El Niño events have been much stronger and have been producing increasingly more severe drought conditions in PNG.  

This suggests another El Niño event causing severe drought in PNG is highly likely within the next three to four years. 

During the 1997 drought there were severe shortages of food and water, with garden produce declining by 80%, 1.2 million people without locally-available food, declined health and increased mortality, and huge exodus of people to towns (Bang et al. (2003) ESCAP CGPRT Centre Working Paper 73). 

 By considering the increasing severity of the recent El Niño events, it is expected that the next drought may also be more prolonged and more damaging than that of the year 1997, and that would put the lives and livelihoods of many thousands of people at risk throughout the country.

It should however be noted that reliable assessment and indications of El Niño occurrence can only be known two to three months ahead of such event and that would be too late to prepare for adaptation to and mitigation of adverse impacts of such severe drought, particularly in a country like PNG where the majority of population is in remote areas with weak communication and infrastructure.  

Therefore there is need to have an appropriate understanding and preparedness to face such events much in advance.   

Food production in PNG is highly vulnerable to El Niño-induced droughts and even other seasonal events of droughts.  

Unless action is taken to empower and equip our farming and rural communities with appropriate technologies and information, people would be exposed to food insecurity, malnutrition and hunger.   

It is advisable that PNG has contingency measures in place which can be activated at short notice to deal with drought and food shortage situations under such a highly likely scenario.  

National Agriculture Research Institute (NARI) and its sister institutions like the National Disaster Centre (NDC)  are raising awareness, nationally, of the prospect of a drought in the near future and generating debate on how best to prepare rural communities for such a scenario.  There is certainly a need to empower farming and rural communities with information on and access to drought-coping strategies such as water and food conservation techniques, drought-tolerant crops, their species and management practices, and understanding of El Niño and drought events.  

These activities need to be undertaken in partnership with government and non-government organisations, community-based and church organisations and progressive communities.

Besides food and water shortages (both in rural and  urban areas), severe droughts can cause disease outbreaks, population out migration, school closures, bush and forest fires, hydro-power shortages, breakdown of transport and communication infrastructures and law and order problems. 

Drought management will therefore require a multi-sectoral partnership through a national drought management task force.

NARI and NDC are working closely with other organisations such as National Weather Service and other stakeholder groups in this endeavor and are strongly advocating for a national drought preparedness strategy to coordinate and manage the numerous emergency issues associated with likely severe drought in near future.

The challenge is for all in preparing PNG for such an event.

United against hunger

By SENIORL ANZU of NARI

Research organisations and governments working together. Such is a positive move against  hunger in PNG

The need for greater collaboration and partnership at all levels in the fight against world hunger is a strong call at this year’s World Food Day, which took place last weekend – October 16.

This is the message from the theme, ‘United Against Hunger’, which was chosen to recognise the efforts made in defeating world hunger at national, regional and internationals levels. This theme is closely related to last year’s in ‘achieving food security in times of crisis’.

Uniting against hunger becomes real when state and civil society organisations and the private sector work in partnership at all levels to defeat hunger, extreme poverty and malnutrition, according to the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations.

There are regional and international partnerships emerging around this course.

International organisations, particularly the Rome-based United Nations agencies [Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), World Food Programme (WFP)] have realised the key strategic role they play in directing global efforts to reaching the Millennium Development Goal # 1 - eradicate extreme poverty and hunger – which calls for halving the hungry people in the world by 2015.

The World Food Security initiatives are shouldered by the UN system and other players in the area of food security and nutrition.

They include the civil society, NGOs and representatives of all relevant people affected by food insecurity, international agricultural research institutions, financial institutions and development banks, donors, trade organisations, and will be open to the private sector and philanthropic foundations.

In some 30 countries, national alliances composed of civil society organisations and government agencies are actively collaborating together to promote advocacy and awareness-raising activities.

In 2009, the World Summit on Food Security, or hunger summit, adopted a declaration renewing the commitment made at the 1996 World Food Summit to eradicate hunger sustainably from the face of the earth.

The declaration also called for an increase in domestic and international funding for agriculture, new investments in the rural sector, improved governance of global food issues in partnership with relevant stakeholders from the public and private sector, and more action to face the threat climate change poses to food security.

In 2009 also, the “1 billion hungry project” commenced reaching out to people through online social media to invite them to sign the anti-hunger petition at www.1billionhungry.org.

The petition is a reflection of the moral outrage of global hunger situation.

The PNG Department of Agriculture and Livestock announced the concept last week, inviting citizens to participate in signing the hunger petition in Port Moresby.

Immediate dialogue and collaborations in PNG and the Pacific are paramount.

This is so especially when the country is faced with challenges in climate change, pest and disease outbreak (potato late blight, cocoa pod borer), El Nino and La Nina cycles, land degradation and population pressure.

 The country is classified among 80 with Low Income Food Deficit by FAO, a categorisation based on the increasing quality of food imports, particularly cereal, as well as the per capita energy supply.

Further, the malnutrition rates are among the highest globally.

There is widening gap between the growing demand for food, particularly in the urban areas, and static domestic production which is largely filled by food imports, according to PNG National Food Security Policy 2000-2010 (PNGNFSP).

 This is the blueprint developed to create awareness and seek support to increase and diversify food production, processing and preservation, marketing and distribution in order to achieve greater self-sufficiency in food and attain for security at the national, provincial, district and household levels by the year 2015.

Threats to food security may arise from shortfalls in subsistence food production, very low cash income or both, according to agricultural expert, Mike Bourke.

The threats may be long-term (such as those caused by an extreme climate event) or short-term (such as a very low cash income and no access to land).

However, when there have never been so many hungry people in the world on this World Food Day 2010, FAO encourages the world population to reflect on the future.

“With willpower, courage and persistence – and many players working together and helping each other – more food can be produced, more sustainably, and get into the mouths of those who need it most.”

PNG also has the chance to improve its production and productivity of food and livestock and become food-assured and self-reliant.

PNG must not only produce enough for her own consumption but also for export to many needy countries.

PNG has the advantage because of its huge resource base and potential which are yet to be explored.

 This nation has just six million people with enormous agricultural resources such as vast land mass, fertile soils and favourable climate for various types and kinds of crops.

PNG has a rich bio-diversity and a variety of food species, fruits and nuts, and cash crops. Farmers can grow various crops including cereals and pulses together with a range of livestock species.

There are also abundant land and bio-mass, creating opportunities for bio-fuels as well.

PNG has made modest advances on the technology front in terms of improved varieties and practices for a range of agricultural commodities and environments.

This also means that there must be favourable policies towards agriculture with adequate funding.

These must be supported by governance and management of agricultural programmes and projects at all levels.

Managing potato late alight disease in Papua New Guinea

By DAVID MINEMBA and ANTHONY KERRU of NARI

The potato late blight disease is successfully controlled in this healthy sequoia potato patch in Tambul with the use of Echo, a Chlorothalonil-based fungicide.

The potato late blight (PLB) disease, caused by a fungus, Phytophthora infestans, is considered one of the most economically-important diseases of potato in the world.

It is a century old disease and was responsible for the great potato famine reported in Ireland in the 1840s.

This airborne fungal disease is reportedly present in almost all the countries where potato is cultivated.

Papua New Guinea was free from the PLB disease until January 2003.

It was first reported in the Surinki plateau, Enga province, and within few months it moved very quickly into the Western Highlands Province and eventually to other parts of the highlands.

By May 2003, it was found in all parts of the PNG mainland wehre potato crops are grown.

It must be accepted now that the PLB disease is here to stay, and effective, affordable and sustainable management methods are needed to control it.

Nature and effect of PLB in PNG

PLB is a poly-cyclic disease (it can complete a single life cycle within three to five days and can have as many completed life cycles in one potato cropping season, producing a large number of disease spores).

 The disease spores are easily transported by wind and can be carried over long distances in a short period of time.

This was evident in early 2003 where many potato gardens were completely destroyed within few months, causing the fall of the PNG potato industry which was estimated around K20 million - based on annual seed production figures.

One reason for this massive negative impact was that the industry entirely dependent on a single potato variety, sequoia, which is highly-susceptible to the PLB disease.

Research efforts in controlling PLB

The presence of the PLB disease in the highland has affected the livelihoods of many farming communities.

Many rural growers could not continue to cultivate potatoes.

Those that live in the high altitude regions (areas about 1800 – 2400 metres above sea level) suffered most as potato is considered their major source of food and cash income.

They were disadvantaged by lack of knowledge and unavailability of adequate resources to manage the disease.

Potato has then become a rich man’s crop; only those who can afford the costs associated with the use of chemical fungicides are able to grow potatoes.

Since the disease outbreak, NARI mobilised its resources with funding support from AusAID and the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research to develop a cost-effective and integrated disease management strategy for PLB for potato farmers in PNG.

Cost effective fungicide use

Use of chemical fungicides was the option immediately available to control the PLB disease in PNG after its outbreak in 2003.

Many farmers still had stocks of sequoia seeds and needed a control method against the blight.

 At that time, available chemical fungicides listed for use on PLB were tested on sequoia with the aim to develop a highly cost-effective fungicide application system. 

Cost-effective in the sense that it is profitable, user friendly and can be sustained over a long period of time.

The evaluations were specifically conducted to assess the optimal application rates of different fungicides and wetting agents, the effective spray frequencies, effectiveness of fungicides with curatives properties against those with systemic mode of actions and the effectiveness of integrating systemic and protective fungicides.

Results from these trials showed that the Chlorothalonil based fungicides such as Barrack^®, Echo^® and Banis^® were highly effective in controlling the disease. Although this group of fungicides are more expensive compared to copper-based fungicides such as Copper Nordox^® and Kocide^® , higher gross margins are achieved, hence higher profits for potato growers.

The Chlorothalonils effectively controlled the disease when applied at three to seven days interval.

The copper-based fungicides also worked well when applied at three to seven days but needed thorough coverage on plant canopy to ensure that the potato plants are protected well from invasion of PLB.

This requires a lot of time, skills and efforts which proved difficult for many farmers when potato plants grow into larger canopies.

The project also assessed the fungicide Agri-Phos^® which has a systemic mode of action.

This group of fungicides seemed to have worked well on potato varieties with increased levels of resistance against PLB with much longer spray intervals at 14 to21 days.

The findings from the fungicide trials presented the opportunity to integrate different fungicides in a manner that can substantially reduce the cost incurred by fungicides in potato production.  

Integrated disease management

The ultimate aim of the project on PLB management in PNG by NARI is to develop an integrated disease management (IDM) strategy.

 This IDM would involve the combination of different disease control methods such as cultural control, sanitation (e.g. removal and proper disposal of plant debris) and fungicide application but central to the IDM concept is a suitable potato variety with good level of resistance to the disease.

NARI therefore imported 56 potato clones, specifically bred for PLB resistance from the International Potato Centre in Peru, South America.

 These clones were evaluated under PNG’s growing condition and selections were made based on characters comparable to Sequoia which was used as a standard variety.

A NARI research trial  in Tambul showing rows of sequoia potato badly infected by PLB vs imported potato clones resistant to PLB.

The performance of the CIP clones were assessed based on set characteristics acceptable for potato markets available in PNG under field condition through to post-harvest.

To date, eight different potato clones have been selected for farmer evaluation.

On-farm trials have been established in 12 different locations in Western Highlands, Enga, Eastern Highlands and Morobe provinces.

 Once suitable potato clones are selected, an appropriate IDM strategy will be developed to control the PLB disease.

This should reduce the cost of potato production significantly and enable subsistence farmers to grow more potatoes again.     

Biological control of weeds in Papua New Guinea

By ANNASTASIA KAWI and WAREA ORAPA of NARI

Siam weed affected and its growth stunted by Gall Fly - an example of successful bio-control of invasive weeds in PNG

Weeds cause serious obstructions to land use systems worldwide.

Many introduced weeds are serious impediments to agriculture productivity by causing significant production loss and threat to food security.

These impediments pose immense challenges to farmers and other land users.

 Managing these weeds is a critical defy in any attempt to get the maximum output.

And Papua New Guinea is no exception!

While plantation agriculture and some subsistence or semi-subsistence farmers generally use physical and chemical control measures to reduce the negative impacts of weeds in PNG, the use of bio-control methods has been significantly effective in managing some introduced and invasive weed species.

Bio-control, or biological control, of weeds is defined as the use of host-specific natural enemies such as herbivorous insects and mites or disease causing plant pathogens for the regulation of the population of weeds.

Papua New Guinea agriculture is still reliable on manual labour for weeding.

Cultural methods are also used to suppress weeds.

The use of herbicide and manual means (such as hand-pulling) is practical only in very limited situations such as small subsistence food gardens.

 In smallholder semi-subsistence farming situations, it becomes necessary to employ chemicals with large numbers of labour.

 These conventional methods of control are not practical as they are costly, time-consuming and often labour-intensive.

In natural systems where farming is not important, but weeds are a threat to ecosystems or the survival of important native species of fauna and flora, such control measures are not feasible at all.

Bio-control is seen as the only sustainable and cost-effective means to control introduced and invasive weeds, both in production areas (agricultural, forestry and fisheries) and natural areas (natural ecosystems such as rivers and rainforests).

Once released and established in an area, a bio-control agent can take two to six years before the benefits are measured.

When it works, bio-control is permanent, cheap and self-sustaining, requiring very little or no intervention in the long-term as the weed and bio-control agent reaches a point where they regulate each other’s population.

In PNG, there have been 15 bio-control agents introduced for weed control compared to 42 species of parasitoids for insect pest control and four against snail pests.

Generally, weed bio-control has been more successful in terms of establishment and control of the target weeds compared to the effectiveness of bio-control agents used against arthropod pests and snails.

The high level of success of weed bio-control maybe attributed to the fact that successful host-specificity research was done elsewhere before importing into PNG for local use.  

Some textbook examples of successful weed bio-control in PNG include the successful control of salvinia (Salvinia molesta) and water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes) in the Sepik River, the recent control of Siam weed (Chromolaena odorata) in New Ireland, Sandaun and East New Britain and the dramatic decline of the broomstick weed (Sida ) in the Markham Valley and Central province.

In the Sepik River case, almost 250 sq km of water surface was covered with the floating fern salvinia, directly impacting the daily livelihoods of river dependent villagers in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

People were not able to travel using canoes and even motorised boats suffered from continuous entangling of the outboard motor and heavy fuel consumption in heavily-infested situations. Fishing for protein became restricted and tourist access to backwater villages was denied due to the thick blankets of floating salvinia and the much larger water hyacinth in the 1990s.

 With the introduction and release of a tiny weevil called Cyrtobagous salviniae, from the Amazon basin in South America where Salvinia originates from, the weed population crashed from the high 250 sq km to a negligible 2 sq km within two and half years!

Life returned to normalcy for the people living along the river and others such as tourists.

A lot of awareness and publicity was made to the people along the Sepik River and other affected areas in PNG have acknowledged the importance of biological control. 

Similarly, the introduction and establishment of gall fly and Arctiid Moth have contained the Siam weed.

Currently, National Agriculture Research Institute (NARI) is implementing a bio-control programme against a major agricultural weed known as ‘Mile-a-minute’ (Mikania micrantha) in PNG and Fiji.

Funded by the Australian centre for International Agricultural Research, the collaborative programme involves the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (Fiji), Queensland Department of Primary Industries (Australia), and PNG’s Cocoa and Coconut Institute and Oil Palm Research Association.

The overall objective is to introduce bio-control agents to suppress the growth and presence of Mile-a-minute in order to minimise its impact on food security, income, and to increase national and regional capacity to undertake future biocontrol programmes against weeds.

One of the major activities of the project is to increase awareness of the bio-control to the farming communities and the general public.  

The bio-control agent used is a rust forming fungus called Puccinia spegazzinii which was supplied to PNG and Fiji by the Commonwealth Agriculture Bureau International, UK, after having collected it from Eastern Ecuador in South America and testing in London.

 The rust has been released in 14 lowland provinces in PNG since early 2009.

Scientists are working with communities in observing the progress.

Subsistence farmers and the commercial plantation sector can anticipate a positive outcome as the control materialises in the near future.

 Biological controls have been proven to be cost-effective and sustainable means of managing weeds for agricultural and land use systems and eventually enhance greater food production and improved livelihoods.