Donors keen to spur global agricultural research

By SENIORL ANZU of NARI

Agricultural research in developing countries attracts global funding

The notion of Agricultural Research for Development (AR4D) is increasingly getting internationally attention, both technically and financially.
In a new powerful display of solidarity with the world’s poor, a key donors and stakeholders meeting in Washington, D.C. early this month took a decisive step toward harmonising funding for AR4D.
This is a much-appreciated development at a time when a lot of the national agricultural research systems (NARS) globally are focused on meeting real needs of resource poor farmers in the context of AR4D.
AR4D is a paradigm shift of making agricultural research more effective in creating positive development impact, especially for smallholder farming and rural communities.
The 2008 World Development Report’s focus on agriculture for development is a direct manifestation of this shift, especially in its bid to address the millennium development goals.
The focus is to reduce and eradicate extreme poverty, assure food security, improve livelihoods, and bring in sustainable and equitable growth and development for the overall welfare of individuals and communities in the world.
The Washington meeting agreed to channel their collective support into major strategic research initiatives that will decisively confront hunger and poverty in developing countries, while cushioning climate change impacts and curbing natural resource destruction.
Inger Andersen, Fund Chair of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) says the agreement “represents a bold response to the major challenges that agriculture faces today”.
Andersen is also Vice President for Sustainable Development, World Bank.
“A more collective approach for supporting agricultural research will give new impetus to the work of the 8,000 scientists and other professionals of the CGIAR, building on a strong record of major positive impact on human well-being.”
The new agreement establishes a multi-donor trust fund (the CGIAR Fund), connecting donors with the Consortium of International Agricultural Research Centers.
Approval came after deliberations by the CGIAR Fund’s decision making body, the Fund Council, on November 1-2.
Director General of PNG’s NARI, Dr Raghunath Ghodake, is a member of this Fund Council, which is a 22-member apex body responsible for allocating research funds to international agricultural research centres and national research and development organisations.
The CGIAR Fund is a new multi-donor, multi-year funding mechanism that provides strategic financing to support agricultural research.
The fund is focused on reducing poverty and hunger, improving human health and nutrition, and enhancing ecosystem resilience through high-quality international agricultural research, partnership and leadership.
This is supported by creating and accelerating sustainable increases in the productivity and production of healthy food by and for the poor; conserving, enhancing, and sustainable use of natural resources and biodiversity to improve the livelihoods of the poor in response to climate change and other factors; and promoting policy and institutional change that will stimulate agricultural growth and equity to benefit the poor, especially rural women and other disadvantaged groups.
More specifically, the CGIAR Fund will finance research guided by the Strategy and Results Framework that sets out common goals, objectives and results for the new CGIAR partnership. The strategy will be implemented by the CGIAR-supported Centers and their partner institutions through a portfolio of Mega Programs, ambitious research programs that aim to address today’s most pressing AR4D challenges.
Over the course of 2010 the Fund is being set up at the World Bank, which will serve as Trustee for the Fund.
Fund donors also confirmed new leadership and members of the CGIAR’s Independent Science and Partnership Council.
CGIAR Fund donors further agreed to support two new strategic research programs – one dealing with rice-based farming systems and the other with climate change, agriculture and food security.
Building on consultations with hundreds of collaborators around the world, the rice program underwent rigorous external review and revision.
The result is a broad research agenda centering on major rice ecologies and fostering critical developments in rice genomics, genetics, agronomy, postharvest handling and policy.
To ensure maximum impact, the research will be carried out jointly by three CGIAR Centers and major international organizations in France and Japan in collaboration with hundreds of partners, including the private sector, NARS and civil society.
Partners will officially launch the new initiative on November 10 at the Third International Rice Congress taking place in Hanoi, Vietnam.
The initiative on climate change, agriculture and food security, developed with the Earth System Science Partnership (ESSP), will involve all CGIAR Centers and a wide coalition of partners.
It will offer developing country farmers new options for coping with current climate variability, adapting to emerging impacts in the coming decades and mitigating climate change through a “carbon-friendly” agriculture that also strengthens food security and reduces poverty.
This program will be launched during the United Nations Climate Change Conference in early December at Cancún, Mexico.
CGIAR is a global partnership that unites organizations engaged in research for sustainable development.
The funders include developing and industrialized country governments, foundations, and international and regional organizations.
The work they support is carried out by 15 members of the Consortium of International Agricultural Research Centers, in close collaboration with hundreds of partner organizations, including national and regional research institutes, civil society organizations, academia, and the private sector.

Cook Islands’ Meyer is Miss South Pacific

By JUNIOR UKAHA

Miss South Pacific Joyanna Meyer, surrounded by fellow contestants (standing from left) Miss Tokelau Meleka Mativa, Miss American Samoa Cindy Fonofili Silao and Miss Solomon Islands Fuantino Malasa. (Front seated) Miss Samoa Jolivette Menime Ete, Miss Aotearoa NZ Angella Cudd and Miss Fiji Sera Tikotikoivatu. – Nationalpic by JASON GIMA WURI

MISS Cook Islands Joyanna Meyer is the new Miss South Pacific Queen 2010-2011, The National reports.
The 21-year-old Meyer beat 10 other Pacific beauties, including PNG’s own Rachel Sapery James, on Saturday night at the Sir John Guise indoor complex to win the pageant.
In the lead-up to the crowning, she also scooped three of the eight awards on offer – Miss Photogenic, Miss Sarong and Miss Talent.
An eager local media contingent could not talk to Meyer after the crowning as she was ushered to her hotel by chaperones who promised that “media will be allowed to talk to her first thing Sunday morning”.
Despite initial hiccups at the start of the evening, which was televised lived by EMTV, it was also disappointing our own contestant failed to win a single award.
Meyer won the crown after scoring the most points in each of the four different categories the Miss South Pacific pageants were judged on sarong (laplap), talent, traditional island and stage interview.
One of the judges, New Zealander Moana Maniaopoto, confessed it was difficult to come up with a final winner as all the contestants were equally superb in the different categories they were judged on.
“I must admit it was quite difficult for us to actually come up with a winner,” she said.
“All the girls put on a great performance.
“But at the end someone has to be crowned,” Maniaopoto said.
The first runner-up was Miss Aotearoa (NZ) Angella Cudd followed by Miss Samoa Julivette Menime Ete (third), Miss Hawaiian Islands Pomaikai Klein (fourth) and Miss Fiji Sera Tikotikoivatu (fifth).
The other award winners were Miss Elegance Pomaii Klein, Miss Tourism Sera Tikotikoivatu, Miss Internet Julivette Menime Ete and Miss Friendship Mafi Tui’nukuafe (Miss Tonga).
The winner of the float procession hosted during the day went to Miss Niue Maria Mitimeti who had the best decorated float that drew a huge crowd.
The outgoing Miss South Pacific queen Marawalesi Nailatikau, while handing the crown over to Meyer, said she was happy her journey ended and that it was time to pass on the reign to the new queen
“My journey ends here and her journey begins,” she said
She said all the contestants were queens in their own rights and that there were many issues in the Pacific regarding women that needed to be addressed.
Next year’s Miss South Pacific contest will be held in Apia, Samoa, the birthplace of the event.

Pacific group seeks 30% cut in tuna catch

A GROUP of Pacific fishing nations, including Papua New Guinea, has called for a near-30% cut in next year’s tuna catch as concern about over-fishing increases, The National reports.

The eight members of the parties to the Nauru agreement (PNA) group control waters where a quarter of the world’s tuna is caught, Radio Australia reported at the weekend.

At a meeting in Majuro, in the Marshall Islands, last week they agreed to cut licensed fishing days from 40,000 to 28,469 next year.

The PNA nations operate a system known as the “vessel day scheme”, selling “fishing days” instead of licensing a set number of vessels to fish in the region.

But during the three years the scheme had been in place, the Pacific nations have had difficulty enforcing it, reducing its effectiveness for conservation.

The PNA is a sub-regional agreement on terms and conditions for tuna purse seine fishing licences in the region.

Apart from PNG, the other parties are Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Palau, the Solomon Islands and Tuvalu.

These countries own waters which supply 25% of the world’s tuna, an estimated US$2 billion worth of fish every year.

PNA fisheries policy makers met to discuss how to skyrocket fishing revenue by establishing connections with industry so the islands could become involved in all aspects of the tuna business – to compete on the same level as industry-leading Thai canneries and tuna suppliers, Ansform Aqorau, director of the PNA office in Majuro, Transform Aqorau, said.

He added that island nations must integrate boats with processing facilities and marketing into Europe and North America, PacNews reported.

“PNA is looking for long-term linkages with processing plants,” he said.

Aquorau said it would be necessary for the Pacific Islands to compete with Thai tuna products.

“The islands have set hard limits but have had difficulty in actually doing it,” Phil Roberts of Tri-Marine International, one of the world’s largest suppliers of tuna, who attended the talks in Majuro, said.

He told AFP: “The proposal to cut to 28,000 fishing days in 2011 means they will have to cut back a lot of boats.

“If they don’t, they will never get fishing under control.”

 

 

Lightning kills 4

20 more burnt as storm hits market

 

By YVONNE HAIP

 

FOUR people were struck dead by lightning on Saturday in the upper Mendi area of the Southern Highlands, The National reports.

Twenty others received serious burns in the electric storm at about 3pm at Egari village, 18km outside Mendi, provincial disaster and emergency relief coordinator Martin Pat said yesterday.

He said the dead included a male teenager and three women, two in their early 20s.

Locals at the Egari market, recently built by Mendi MP Pr Isaac Joseph, took shelter as the storm hit and could do little to save the casualties.

Mendi General Hospital chief executive officer Joseph Turian confirmed that four people were pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital.

He also said that at least 20 people were treated at the hospital, kept overnight and discharged yesterday.

Three with more serious wounds were retained, Turian said, adding that others who received minor injuries were treated at the Mongol Health Centre on Saturday.

He said the hospital was quick to respond as soon as word of the disaster reached the accident and emergency section in the afternoon.

Pat said a provincial disaster and emergency relief team visited Egari village yesterday to assess the damage, saying that about 400 people were at the market when the electric storm struck.

They were astounded by its intensity, he said, adding that lightning struck two trees and the three women who were sitting nearby on one of the market benches.

Pat did not say how the teenager was killed, however, his team had assured relatives of the deceased that they would work with relevant authorities to make sure that some form of relief assistance was provided.

He also commended Mendi hospital staff for ensuring that the patients received care and treatment.

He identified the deceased as Job Peand, 13; Janet Simon, 25; Rita Samal, 24; and an elderly woman Ogon Nonpi.

The wounded were recovering from shock, he added.

People in the area said a child was struck dead by lightning last year in a similar electric storm.

 

 

Villagers give notice on deep-sea mining

By ISAAC NICHOLAS

 

WEST coast central New Ireland landowners will ask the Supreme Court to stop any deep-sea mining in the area until the current mining laws governing sacred fishing grounds are properly interpreted, The National reports.

Nautilus Minerals had obtained national government approval to begin deep sea mining off the coast of New Ireland and East New Britain.

Namatanai MP Byron Chan and the provincial government have joined forces with the West-coast Central Seabed Mining Landowners Association to fight for benefits from the mining operations.

Landowner representatives including chairman Benson ToMarum, secretary Eugene Pasmet and technical adviser Roboam Paka and Chan held a joint media conference in Port Moresby last Friday to announce the legal challenge.

“We will make an application to the Supreme Court in Kokopo for an interpretation of the Mining Act,” Paka said.

He said the current memorandum of agreement has three signatories, which is the state, the developer and the two provincial governments of East New Britain and New Ireland.

“We have engaged lawyers to go to court to seek interpretation whether we can claim ownership of the sea.”

Paka said villagers, who used the ocean area to be mined for food,  had not been consulted, simply because the Mining Act was not clear on the sea aspect.

“We want the seaowners to be part of the MoA and pre-project financing be enjoyed by the locals.”

Paka said the rights of landowners to fish and visit their sacred sites out at sea must be protected.

“The state has resolved that we are not owners of the sea.

“The state seems to think

that ownership ends at

the waterfront,” he said.

Paka said the people had a long association with the sea around the St George Channel through fishing and sacred shark-calling activities.

“Our cultures are linked to the sea and we want that to be addressed in the MoA.”

Chan said four main issues were equity, mining facilities and operations, seaowners being part of the MoA and pre-project financing.

“We are taking the matter to court for legitimacy of the current Mining Act to ensure the rights of our people are protected,” he added.

 

 

East New Britain MPs pledge to work together

By ELIZABETH VUVU

 

ALL five national members of parliament from East New Britain have pledged their undivided support and cooperation to ensure the province is developed further to the next level, The National reports.

The ENB leaders’ summit held at parliament house last Thursday evening was attended by Governor Leo Dion, Pomio MP Paul Tiensten, Rabaul MP Dr Allan Marat, Kokopo MP Patrick Tammur and Gazelle MP Malakai Tabar.

The summit was a follow-up to the inaugural meeting held in July last year to discuss issues affecting the development of the province.

According to deputy administrator for policy, planning and evaluation, Bernard Lukara, the summit provided a real opportunity for the leaders to discuss issues and organised and facilitated annually by the provincial administration.

Provincial administrator Akuila Tubal also gave a brief statement to the leaders at the summit on the development status of the province, including the vision, mission and values for the new provincial strategic development for the province 2011-21, New Britain highway, 2011 provincial budget themes and strategies and recommendations from the ENB-WNB joint development meeting held last month.

Dion thanked all leaders for attending saying the show of support among the leaders was for the good of the province.

Tammur commended his colleagues and thanked Dion for his leadership.

The need for research and development in smallholder agriculture in Papua New Guinea

By WORKNEH AYALEW of NARI

Food and nutrition insecurity, and particularly seasonal scarcity of staples, have become a national challenge in Papua New Guinea as a consequence of human population growing faster than that of agricultural output in recent years.

Golden Pine (Bulolo) inland fish project by NARI

With 87% of the human population dependent on agriculture for their livelihoods, almost all of whom are smallholder farmers, it is imperative that national agricultural research and development efforts aim at enabling the smallholder agriculture sector produce enough to meet family subsistence needs for food and agriculture, supply urban markets and even contribute to export markets.
As the World Development Report 2008 of the World Bank maintains, the relatively large size of this sector also means that the most-effective and direct way of improving food security and alleviating poverty in countries like PNG is to enhance productivity of this sector.
Similarly the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) emphasises that only the smallholder farmers themselves can put an end to rural and peri-urban food insecurity and poverty.
Unfortunately these largely-subsistent family crop and livestock farms are often considered traditional, old-fashioned and backward that resist efforts to improvement and modernisation, and that only large scale intensive commercial farms are deemed to provide the only hope of modernising agriculture in countries like PNG.
Such erroneous notions tend to influence national policy decision making for research and development.
The purpose of the article is to highlight the strategic importance of research to improve smallholder family farms for overall national economic development with particular reference to the smallholder livestock raising.
In the first instance, what are the key reasons for paying attention to the smallholder livestock farmers?
1. The small farms produce most of the food and some petty income to support livelihoods of the majority of the rural population. They therefore provide direct realistic opportunities for improving rural livelihoods;
2. The majority of livestock in the country, particularly pigs, chicken, ducks, goats and sheep, are maintained by smallholder subsistence farmers, and any desired improvement of these resources should focus on these small family farms;
3. The aggregate of small sustained improvements achieved at individual farm level add up in economic significance at local, regional and national levels, so they can be an engine for economic development;
4. Small family farms are essentially an enormous reservoir of labour and skilled manpower that can be tapped into to enhance livestock production, which otherwise can potentially overwhelm urban areas through voluntary migration; and
5. As is the case with coffee, cocoa, coconut and other export crops, smallholder livestock farms can also be a source of important export commodities, such as meat, skins, hides and other products.
Agricultural research has potential to deal with these issues and develop appropriate remedial technologies in collaboration with smallholder farmers, provided adequate human and material resources are made available to run these research projects. Furthermore, research can be effectively used to:
1. Explore the yield potential of livestock and the ways and means to improve yields;
2. Identify and investigate constraints to production;
3. Develop new and improved ways of production and product handling;
4. Adapt suitable technologies and innovations developed elsewhere;
5. Develop more efficient practices of managing natural resources such as livestock, land, soil, water and even human labour, and
6. Explore strategies for managing current and arising emergencies such as outbreaks of diseases.
Various research tools can be used to ensure that such research is based on the needs and priorities of target smallholder farmers.
In fact when the smallholder farmers are a dominant element of the agriculture sector, it is reasonable to focus on the farmers’ indigenous practices with the view to strengthening the natural forces towards intensification of traditional agriculture.
The history of rapidly-growing economies in Asia with well-developed agriculture sectors shows that assisting the masses of smallholder farmers to have access to improved agricultural practices can bring about lasting transformation of the sector.
Testing and refinement of farmers’ traditional practices and innovations led to significant gains in productivity of smallholder subsistent agriculture until intensive commercial agriculture took a more prominent role.
International research and development institutions are advising that to promote growth in agricultural productivity over the longer term, developing countries like PNG should greatly increase their investment in agricultural research and development, rural infrastructure and market access for poor farmers.
A key requirement for boosting productivity growth is to invest in research aimed at preserving and making better use of diverse indigenous genetic resources for crop and animal improvement.
In the face of recent global crisis on grain supplies, governments are being called to renew their commitment to the development and dissemination of improved agricultural technologies as the only viable long-term solution for ensuring that affordable food is available to poor consumers both in rural and urban areas.
Without strong growth in disposable incomes imported food commodities will become increasingly unaffordable.
Technological innovation, in combination with policy reforms, has worked well in the past in the transformation of agriculture in many Asian countries.
According to the World Development Report 2008, investment in agricultural research has paid off generously, emphasising that further investment is needed in research and development targeting the predominant smallholder farming sector.
The current level of annual public investment in research, science and technology in the agriculture sector in PNG is only 0.5% of agricultural GDP of K4 billion, while the internationally recommended rate is 2.0%.
The prevailing global food crisis, the ominous threat of global climate change, and pressure from globalisation all call for greater emphasis in long-term investment in agriculture to ensuring sustainable agricultural development.
More public funding for research and rural development is needed to utilise the huge potential of the smallholder livestock sector to assure food security, increase incomes, generate gainful employment and contribute to rural as well as national economic development.