Africa Closer to a Cure for Banana Disease

A farmer showing a banana affected by the Banana Xanthomonas Wilt (BXW) whose signs include premature ripening of the bunch and rotting of the fruit. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe, Dec 14 2015 (IPS) - In one Ugandan dialect, ‘kiwotoka’, describes the steamed look of banana plants affected by the Banana Xanthomonas Wilt (BXW) – a virulent disease that is pushing African farmers out of business and into poverty.


A bacterial pathogen affecting all types of bananas including sweet banana (Cavendish type) and plantain bananas, a staple for more than 400 million people in developing countries, BXW is so destructive that there is a 100 per cent crop loss where it strikes.

Smallholder farmers and the other actors in the banana value chain lose more than half a billion dollars in harvests and potential trade income across East and Central Africa. Signs of the disease first identified in Ethiopia more that 40 years ago, include wilting and yellowing of leaves with plants producing yellowish bacterial ooze, premature ripening of the bunch and rotting of the fruit.


Currently, there is no cure for BXW. It is spread by insects or using infected tools and has been controlled through a combination of methods. Farmers have been taught to remove and destroy affected plants, taking out the male bud which is the first point of attack by BXW, using sterilized farm tools and destroying single infected stems. But the disease has forced many smallholder farmers in Africa to abandon growing bananas, which hold the potential to improve food nutrition and income security. This is in line with the new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) agreed to by more than 160 global leaders in September 2015.

For farmer Lubega Ben from the Kayunga district in Uganda, a cure is long overdue. Each banana plant claimed by BXW on his 15-acre plot is one too many. Growing bananas for the past 40 years has helped Ben provide food and income for his family.

“Bananas are and have been very important for providing food and income for my family,” says Ben, who has been growing bananas for 40 years. “Though my children have all grown up and left home, bananas are what has seen them through their schooling and also fed them.”

Ben is convinced the 200 banana bunches he harvests each year could be more with better methods if the banana bacterial wilt is controlled.

From control to a cure
In addition to the package of efforts to control the disease, in 2007 researchers turned to science for a cure.
Scientists at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) headquartered in Ibadan, Nigeria in partnership with the National Agriculture Research Organisation (NARO) in Uganda are close to a breakthrough after more than eight years researching solutions to BXW.

In 2007, IITA and NARO, together with the African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF) and Taiwan-based Academia Sinica successfully engineered resistance of the African banana to BXW using genes from green pepper in the laboratory. Green pepper contains what researchers call ‘novel plant proteins’ that give crops enhanced resistance against deadly pathogens.

The genetically modified (GM) banana varieties with resistance to the banana bacterial wilt disease were developed using genetic engineering. Genetic modification refers to techniques used to manipulate the genetic composition of an organism by adding specific useful genes. These useful genes could make crops high-yielding, flood, drought or disease resistant – key traits important for smallholder farmers in Africa who are experiencing weather variability linked to climate change.

IITA biotechnologist, Leena Tripathi, has been part of the research team leading the fight against the Banana Xanthomonas Wilt.
“We are still a long way. The project has a plan for commercialisation of the GM bananas resistant to BXW in 2020 for use by farmers,” Tripathi told IPS. ” We have tested ten independent lines we picked from bigger trial of 65 lines and have found them to be completely resistant to BXW compared to the non transgenic plants for several generations in two different trials confirming durability of the trait.”

The transgenic varieties have undergone confined field trials in Uganda, a major grower and consumer of banana in Africa. The results are so encouraging that smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa could soon be growing the new varieties commercially soon, says Tripathi.

According to Tripathi, with the encouraging results so far, IITA and NARO are working on Matoke varieties which are preferred in Uganda and dessert varieties preferred in Kenya.

“With a few more trials starting next year, then meeting the biosafety, environmental safety and satisfying regulatory processes, we hope by 2020 to get approvals and deregulation for commercialization and dissemination to farmers,” Tripathi said.

Raising the Africa Banana Export Potential
Developing GM banana cultivars resistant to BXW is seen as economically viable because of the banana’s sterile character and long growth period which have been a challenge in developing a resistant banana through conventional breeding.

“Genetic engineering is one of the most important crop breeding tools in the 21st century,” Daniel Otunge, Regional Coordinator of the Open Forum on Agricultural Biotechnology (OFAB) told IPS, adding that biotechnology has given breeders a faster, cleaner and certain way of producing crop varieties resilient to climate change, resistant to pests and diseases and that are nitrogen and salt-use efficient.

“Africa should be celebrating these crops because they provide us with the best chance to be more food secure and nutritionally robust,” said Otunge.

Researchers estimate that farmers will adopt GM bananas by up to 100 per cent once it is released, with an expected initial adoption rate of 21 to 70 per cent. The financial benefits could range from 20 million to 953 million dollars across target countries where the disease incidence and production losses are high, says research study, Ex-Ante Economic Impact Assessment of Genetically Modified Banana Resistant to Xanthomonas Wilt in the Great Lakes Region of Africa published in the PLOS ONE Journal in September 2015.

Concerned about the march of BXW, nine Uganda farmers got together in 2011 and formed a non-profit community-based organization, the Kashekuro Banana Innovation Platform (KABIP), to specifically control the pathogen on their plantations. More than 300 farmers in the Sheema District lost their plantations and 200 others were forced to replant or open new fields when BXW hit. They hope a solution lies in GM bananas.

“Our farmers have not been exposed to GM bananas. Therefore, we need to try them and test whether they can be a solution,” says Anthlem Mugume, the coordinator of KABIP representing more than 2000 farmers, told IPS.

Arguably one of the world’s favourite fruit, banana are the forth most important staple crop after maize, rice, wheat, and cassava with an annual world production estimated at 130 million tonnes, according to the African Agricultural Technology Foundation. Nearly one-third of this production comes from sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), where the crop provides more than 25 per cent of the food energy requirements for over 100 million people.

East Africa produces and consumes the most bananas in Africa, with Uganda being the world’s second largest producer after India.

According to the WorldTop Export, a website tracking major exports, banana exports by country totaled 11 billion dollars, a 32.8 per cent overall increase in 2014. A cleaner, healthier banana, offers Africa a sweet opportunity to break into the global export markets, reduce poverty and boost business for smallholder farmers.

Ethiopian flower industry flourishes

The Ethiopian flower industry is flourishing, with the help of government incentives and low labor costs, experts told Anadolu Agency on Friday.

The country is now the second-largest flower exporter in Africa, with over 100 flower growers on 1,700 hectares (17 000 000 square meters or 182,986,477 square feet).

“We are now second in Africa only to Kenya, and we expect to overtake them soon,”Berhanu Ludamo,  Promotion and Information Service Head of Ethiopian Horticulture Producers Exporters Association told Anadolu Agency.

 “Ethiopia earned $250 million from horticulture export in 2014. The amount is expected to increase this year due to the expansion of horticulture farms.” Berhanu said. The area will grow to 3,000 hectares in the coming five years and the revenue is projected to increase to $550 million, according to Berhanu.

Climate is a major competitive advantage. Parts of the country south of Addis Ababa are 2,000 meters (6,561 feet) above sea level, and this makes it an ideal environment for floriculture, according to Shiferaw Mitiku, a researcher and agricultural marketing consultant in Addis Ababa.

“The export-oriented agricultural policy, attractive incentives, macro-economic stability and cheap labor constitute the competitive edge for the Ethiopian flower industry,” he said.

According to Ethiopian Investment code 2001, flower growers are offered “a five-year tax holiday, duty free imports , access to bank loans and farm lands as well as an 100 percent exemption from payment of export customs duties.”

Berhanu said the competitive advantages are attracting foreign flower growers.

“They are coming from Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda and from Ecuador,” Mitiku said.  The Netherlands, which is the world center of the flower trade, is also investing in local flower farms.

Gizachew Wondimu, manager of one of the biggest farms, Gallica Flowers, which moved in 2008 from Ecuador to Ethiopia, told Anadolu Agency that  “availability of adequate water and human labor encouraged the farm  to move to Ethiopia.”

 “The   farm is located at 2,600 meters above sea level, which is suitable for growing best quality flowers,” Gizachew said. “We grow 82 premium quality flower stems per hectare annually on average and export to Italy, France, Germany, Middle East, Korea, Japan, Russia, Cameroon, Nigeria and South Africa.”

“The farm exported 6 million best quality flower stems last year,” he said. Private investment will help the farm grow to one of the largest in Africa, Gizachew said.

 But the “Ethiopian brand” is not yet established in the world flower industry, according to Shiferaw. “Some countries re-export Ethiopian cut flowers and the brand disappears.”

“We have very few experts,” he said. “And incorporation of the rural community is also a serious issue,” he added.

A floriculture entrepreneur, who asked for anonymity, told Anadolu Agency that the industry is led by foreign investors, and foreign demand.

 “Local demand is insignificant,” he added.

Berhanu said that the Netherlands is specialized in adding value to and re-exporting flowers it imports  from different countries including Ethiopia.”

The Netherlands exported the highest dollar value worth of flowers amounting to $4.7 billion during 2014. Brazil is also a competitor, although a newcomer to the industry, with $25.8 million in flower exports in 2014.

Dutch floriculture in Ethiopia is reaching the global markets, however: Afriflora, from Ethiopia won a Dutch Flower Award on Nov. 5.

Okowa uncovers 70% fake farmers under Agric Scheme

Delta State Governor, Dr Ifeanyi Okowa, might have placed his finger firmly on why several agricultural and job creation schemes by government in the past failed to yield the desired results as most of the people who applied for inclusion in the state’s agricultural programme were found to be “fake farmers”.

Okowa revealed that over 70 percent of the applicants in the multinational agricultural empowerment scheme who claimed to be farmers were found not to be farmers during a verification exercise carried out by his government.

Specifically, the governor said that when verification was done to authenticate the list of thousands of farmers from across the state applying for the state’s agricultural loans, “only 25 percent of the first list prepared and submitted were real farmers.”

The governor made the startling revelation as the special guest of honour at the 2015 Media Week organised by the Delta State Council of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) held in Asaba on Wednesday.

The theme of the Media Week is “Reporting Okowa’s S.M.A.R.T Agenda: What Benefits To Deltans.”
Okowa, who took the opportunity to reel out some of the programmes, activities and achievements of his administration so far, however, expressed happiness that past beneficiaries of the state’s microcredit schemes had begun to pay back the soft loans they received following recent enlightenment and encouragement by the government.

The governor stressed the importance of the press in the development of a peaceful, progressive and egalitarian society where meaningful development was possible, while noting that this task placed a “huge moral burden on the media practitioner” he must ensure fairness and balance while remaining objective and truthful.

Okowa said, “As far as I am concerned, if a reporter publishes the truth, it is for the good of the society, as long as the principles of fairness, equity, observance of professional ethics and balance are followed.
“What is unacceptable is to embark on creative writing and invention of sensational stories to discredit government or persons; you cannot build on falsehood and expect it to stand, because, sooner or later, it will surely crumble.”

“It is important for government to allow the journalists to carry out their watchdog role in the society if any positive impact is to be made in socio-economic and political development of the society.

Nigeria’s future depends on agriculture –Nkem-Abonta

Hon. Uzoma Nkem-Abonta is a PDP member representing Ukwa East and Ukwa West Federal Constituency of Abia State. Currently, he is sponsoring a bill for an act to provide for the establishment of the Chartered Institute of Export and Commodity Brokers of Nigeria that has just passed second reading. In this interview, he spoke with GEORGE OPARA on the objectives and merits of the bill and other political matters. Excerpts.

What informed your sponsoring of the bill for an act to provide for the establishment of the Chartered Institute of Export and Commodity Brokers of Nigeria ? 
 Well, you see, it depends on where you have interest. Mine is on agriculture and adding value to agricultural products. You can see that we now depends on oil and having one single form of revenue wouldn’t be healthy for any nation. Currently, oil is no longer doing well. The oil price is falling internationally and nationally which is giving us a great concern. Be that as it may be, we have to virtually depart from oil-based revenue, diversify and seek ways and means through which we can increase our revenue. Any country that depends on import will never have a foreign exchange reserve.

Therefore, the essence of this is to make sure we begin to export what is exportable, add value to agricultural products and then see what we can do. You see, most Nigerian agricultural products cannot meet export requirements because they don’t have the required improvements on them. We must add value. If, for instance, you want to export cocoa, you must add some value. May be in terms of packaging and preservation and so on .So, there will be nothing to lose, we have all to gain, if we have the institute that will be able to control, regulate, research and improve what we can produce.

This bill seeks to establish the chartered institute of export and commodity brokers of Nigeria to be charged among other things with the responsibilities to determine the level of education needed before a person can become a member of the institute and to practice export and commodity trade as a business. It further seeks to establish a governing council of the institute which shall have the responsibility of managing the institute, setting up operational standard for educators and practice requirements.

Objectives of the bill are not far fetched. The main objective of this bill would be to promote industry and commerce particularly exports and international trade which is the corner-stone of every country’s foreign exchange earnings. So, what do we do in Nigeria if we don’t export? The bill also seeks to research and locate all exportable products from agriculture, mineral resources and manufactured goods that are available in Nigeria for export.

If we are to research for these goods, locate them, put them in exportable form and export them our country will be better for it. Also, the institute would partner with relevant agencies and companies in creating an interchange point between the commodity producers, Nigerian distributors and export merchants for the storage of their products and to quicken product’s inspection for export.

And liaise with federal, state and private sector, local governments and relevant agencies in Nigeria on how to make all export processing zones in Nigeria to be functioning, viable and to see that more of such are established for the promotion and exportation of make in Nigeria goods. You can see that most free zones are not functioning.

What happened to TINAPA? What happened to most free zones? They are not working. They are not functional and are not optimally used because of lack of knowledge, interest and not been adequately informed and even when informed, they don’t know how to export. Therefore, the bill seeks to train most Nigerians on commodity trade, practical approach to export as a business and on how to benefit from untapped commodity wealth in Nigeria. What is Malaysia and Singapore doing today?

Malaysia is exporting agricultural products like palm oil. What about cocoa? Ghana is surviving from cocoa. That’s what they are doing. Can’t we export our ginger? Can’t we export our cassava, groundnut or palm oil? Do you know that palm oil is more expensive than crude oil? A litre of petrol is N90.00 and a bottle of red oil is N300.00. And a drum of crude oil internationally is less than 50 dollars which if converted to naira is less than N15, 000. A drum of red oil is over N100,000. So, why are we wasting time? This is God-given.

Therefore, you can see that the responsibility of the commodity brokers will be to research and identify all products be it agricultural or mineral resources in either semi-manufactured or finished products for export and, serve as intermediary between the commodity producers and export merchants.

So, if you look at the merits of the bill, it will improve success factors of government export promotion policy and associate with government for better export policy implementation. Which means our export policy will be encouraged. The government ideas or concern for export must be pushed. It must be private sector-driven.

And this bill seeks to establish the institute that will drive that If you say government says export, if it is not private-driven, we are going nowhere because government has no business in doing business. That’s why the export promotion council with part of its objectives to encourage export is not doing much. And it is not going to do much better. It can only do what it is doing now.

But with this institute, it will be able to research and determine what is exportable and how we can harness the government policy to achieve what we want? That is what I considered and that is why I sponsored this bill for consideration.

What about the roles of the commodity brokers?
The commodity brokers are to research and identify all products be it agriculture, mineral resources and manufactured goods either semi-manufactured or finished goods for export. And the brokers serve as intermediary between the commodity producers and export merchants. Let me give you an example, if you need to export palm oil, you must be able to have them in exportable quality, in good shape and well stored. And you know that you can get the best quality of palm oil if you mill them within 2-3 days of harvest.

These local farmers cannot do that. They don’t even have the machine to mill it. Therefore, a commodity broker who installs a mill will lure the local farmers to come there and mill and they pay the cost of what is milled. He secures it and gets a buyer who comes to the point to trade. So, the commodity broker is the link between the producer and buyer. Also, this method and process can be applied to other products for export trade.

Thus, it will create employment, it will create economic viability. It will also get us foreign exchange. Recall, former President Obasanjo went into cassava initiative without even making plan for export. That year, the whole country was flooded with cassava. There was cassava slump.

We could not preserve and export the cassava. The farmers lost. The following year, they refused to farm. So, this institute will be able to fill that gap through research, warehousing etc. why is it that when you order one shipload of rice from America, they get it for you? It is because of the brokers who have arranged production, adding value, storage shipping and packaging. And that problem is gone off the farmer.

The farmer only produces, makes his money. Somebody adds value, stores and arranges for export. And those who want to import will go to accredited exporters who are licensed, well known, and credible and would place the order. That is how it should be. So let’s get the agricultural sector organized if we must forge ahead.

What is the progress of the bill in the house?
The bill has scaled through the second reading and has been referred to relevant committees. I am sure the 8th assembly in the ear of change will work assiduously to see that the bill gets to the senate and Mr.
President for his assent,so that we may have a turnaround in agriculture, our hope is only in agriculture. But this bill had some challenges in 2006 and 2014. I didn’t quite appreciate what you mean by challenges. The making of laws is a rigorous process.

I know I introduced this bill in the 7th assembly; they argued it but in the wisdom of the house, didn’t see the need for the institute to be because they had thought that government has no business in establishing and funding such an institute. But whatever that can bring the policy of government to grow now that it is very clear that we know that oil revenue is dwindling, we must look for an option. And the next thing is agriculture. So, the challenges from the dwindling oil revenue have exposed the need why this bill will now scale through so that we can go on as a country.

You were in 6th, 7th and now 8th assembly. What do you think is peculiar with the present assembly?
I know that in the 6th and 7th Assembly of Rt. Hon. Dimeji Bankole and Rt Hon. Tambuwal, we have parliamentary disagreements that influenced how we took off but there were stability until the end of the sessions, though with few defections from the PDP to APC in the 7th assembly. However, the 8th assembly came with its challenges with the PDP as opposition which also made the house to be robust in its parliamentary engagements. Those of us in the PDP have to tight up our belt and face the work.

You were a member of the House of Representatives who used to playing the politics of the majority but now you are in opposition. How do you feel?
I have no ill-feelings. Opposition is a good thing in democracy. It is credible. All we need to do is to play credible opposition. To be in opposition does not mean you are not part of government. Opposition has a very important role to play. We must be on the watch of the ruling APC to save Nigeria. I am happy to be doing an opposition job. It is not a bad job except we have ill-feelings. Opposition will even help the ruling party to achieve and also save Nigeria

Nigerian banks budget N300b loan to SMEs, agric sector

Emefiele, CBN governor

The Bankers Committee said it had set a target of N300 billion to boost lending to Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (SMEs) and the agriculture sector in 2016.

The Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mr Godwin Emefiele, said this while briefing newsmen on the communique released after the 7th Annual Bankers Committee Retreat held in Lagos from Dec. 10 to Dec. 11.

The theme of the conference was “‘Creating an Enabling Environment for SME Growth’. Emefiele said that the facilities would not only be for SMEs, but also to large scale farming companies.

On the agriculture, he said its value chain needed to be de-risked to allow banks to grant facilities to farmers to stimulate growth in the economy.

Emefiele said that the bankers agreed that de-risking those value chains in the agriculture would encourage large scale farming and boost productivity in the sector.

According to him, achieving this will increase lending to the sector, while the monetary and fiscal authorities must work together to improve local production.

He said that increased local agriculture products like rice, tomatoes, wheat, fish, sugar, among others, would reduce the demand for foreign exchange.

Emefiele said this would help to boost country’s foreign exchange reserves and by extension strenghten the naira. The central boss said that banks believed that there was need to improve the level of infrastructure.

He said that the retreat, which allowed stakeholders to share ideas, also afforded them the opportunities to review the performances of the outgoing year of 2015 and set agenda for banking industry in 2016.

The CBN boss said that the retreat also gave the opportunity to exchange ideas with invited ministers about their agenda and plans.

He said that the banking industry would continue to support government’s effort to diversify the economy because of the ongoing challenges facing the global market.

“I must say that the Nigeria is not an exception given that today we are affected adversely by the drop in crude oil prices which in itself has adverse impact on nation’s revenue.

“We had extensive discussions on some of the previous outcomes of the bankers committee which have helped to increase lending to the manufacturing sector, facilitated finance to the power and aviation sectors.
“It has also helped to sensitise lending to the agriculture secture where we have seen lending increasing from as low as one per cent in 2010/ 2011 to as high four per cent in 2014/2015,” Emefiele said.

Those in attendance at the conference included the Governor of Lagos State, Mr Akinwunmi Ambode, the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Mr Audu Ogbeh, the Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Mr Raji Fashola and the Minister of Transport, Mr Rotimi Amechi.

Also in attendance were the Minister of Solid Minerals, Mr Kayode Fayemi, the Minister of Finance, Mrs Kemi Adeosun,and chief executives of banks, Development Finance Institutions (DFIs), SME operators and those in agriculture and power sectors.

Paris talks, fossil fuel divestment, Abengoa’s woes

The planet is halfway to dangerous levels of global warming, with the average temperature for 2015 set to eclipse last year’s record, the United Nations said, just days before the COP21 climate talks began in Paris.
This year’s average temperature will be “approximately” 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) above the 1880-1899 mean for the first time, the UN’s World Meteorological Organization said on  25 November. That compares with the 2-degree threshold beyond which scientists say the effects of climate change risk becoming catastrophic.

The data was released in time to spur envoys from 195 nations into action as they prepare for two weeks of talks on a new climate change deal intended to limit warming to 2 degrees. More than 130 world leaders gathered at the UN conference on 30 November to open the negotiations, six years after a similar attempt failed in Copenhagen.

China, the world’s second-biggest economy, has become a driving force for a possible deal in the French capital and has promised to cap emissions by 2030 and to cut carbon intensity by 60-65% from 2005 levels.
In 2014, China added 35GW of new renewable power generating capacity—greater than all the capacity online today in sub-Saharan Africa’s 49 nations combined, excluding South Africa and Nigeria—and attracted $89bn in all types of new clean energy capital, the report said.

Climate funding has become a theme in Paris. Industrial countries and the UN are shining a bit more light on how a key pledge to boost climate-related finance will reach $100bn by 2020.

Three separate announcements set out plans for $2.75bn to flow to poorer nations. That’s dwarfed by the at least $38bn that six development agencies pledged in support for the 2020 climate-aid goal, and those programmes have the potential to leverage billions more from other groups.

“Given the pledges we’ve received, reaching the $100bn goal is perfectly within reach,” French Finance Minister Michel Sapin said. The $100bn is a “floor” that may be looked at every five years as greenhouse gas targets are reviewed.

The economics of fossil fuels are coming under increased scrutiny as some investors consider long-term prospects and risks. German lenders with holdings in conventional power generation are being asked to justify the investments as companies like Allianz switch funds into cleaner forms of energy.

Europe’s biggest insurer has said it will reduce its coal investments and double its spending in renewables from about EUR 2bn ($2.1bn). The move is a gesture of support to the Paris climate talks and to “send a signal to our branch and to capital markets,” said Allianz’s chief investment officer Andreas Gruber in a ZDF television interview.

Allianz’s announcement adds to pressure on German lenders and investors to examine exposure to coal after Economy and Energy Minister Sigmar Gabriel said the nation will close all of its lignite plants, which supply about a quarter of German power. Germany’s biggest banks including Deutsche Bank, Commerzbank as well state lenders like BayernLB retain direct and indirect investments in lignite valued at EUR 8.7bn, the Urgewald climate lobby group said in a report.

“We are now thinking about our position about coal,” Frankfurt-based Commerzbank spokesman Martin Halusa said in an interview after Allianz published the report from Urgewald. Commerzbank has about EUR 3bn linked to lignite, according to Urgewald.

Across the border in France, Caisse des Depots & Consignations, the country’s largest state-controlled financial institution, said it plans to divest shares of companies that don’t make efforts to cut greenhouse-gas emissions. It aims to reduce the average carbon footprint of its listed-stock portfolio by 20% percent from 2014 to 2020, the Paris-based company said. The group and its CNP Assurances and Bpifrance units, which hold shares in 100 French companies listed on the SBF120 index, valued the portfolio at EUR 55bn ($58bn) at the end of last year.

“If the voluntary reduction of emissions by companies held in the portfolio is insufficient in the medium term, the group will reallocate” investments, Caisse des Depots chief executive officer Pierre-Rene Lemas said.
Demand for fossil fuels could wane, according to non-profit think tank Carbon Tracker. Oil, natural gas and coal producers are risking $2.2 trillion by investing in projects for which there will be no demand if the world meets a United Nations target of limiting the rise in temperature to less than 2 degrees Celsius, the group said.

No new coal mines are needed, oil demand will peak around 2020 and growth in gas will disappoint industry expectations, Carbon Tracker Initiative said in a report. The US has the greatest exposure with $412bn of projects at risk up to 2025, followed by Canada with $220bn, China $179bn, Russia $147bn and Australia $103bn, according to the think tank.

The world still needs a lot of coal, gas and oil and carbon-based fuels will meet three-quarters of energy needs over next 30 years, Exxon Mobil chief executive officer Rex Tillerson said 7 October in London.
The industry is divided. The head of Eni, one of the world’s biggest oil and natural-gas explorers, said it’s time to scrap the planet’s reliance on fossil fuels. The industry wants to be part of the solution to global warming but needs a consistent set of policies out of the Paris conference that encourages more climate-friendly fuels, Claudio Descalzi, chief executive officer at Eni, said during a forum on 23 November in New York.

“We have to change the model, a model we’ve built over the last 200 years, which is based on fossil fuels,” said Descalzi, whose Rome-based company is the world’s seventh biggest oil producer by market value.
In corporate news, Abengoa’s bonds and stock tumbled to records after the embattled renewable-energy company said it was seeking preliminary protection from creditors following the breakdown of talks with a new investor.

Abengoa, which employs more than 24,000 people worldwide, has been seeking to reassure investors that it can generate enough cash to service its debt pile of about EUR 8.9bn of consolidated gross debt.
Green bonds continued to make headlines, with HSBC Holdings issuing its first green bond, raising EUR 500m ($531m).

The senior unsecured debt will pay an annual coupon of 0.625%, maturing in five years. HSBC France was the issuer. HSBC joins a handful of commercial banks such as Credit Agricole Corporate & Investment Bank, DNB and National Australia Bank that have issued climate debt.

“This is HSBC’s debut green bond,” group treasurer Bryan Pascoe said. “The success of this trade shows the appeal of green bonds beyond the traditional investor base and shows how the private sector can play an important role in sustainable finance.”

In the UK, the government shed more light on its renewables policy, when Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne said spending on renewable heat subsidies will be capped and expenditure on energy efficiency measures will be cut in an effort to curb costs to consumers.

The U.K. also scrapped funding of GBP 1bn ($1.5bn) for a competition to spur carbon capture and storage, a blow to efforts to clean up fossil-fuel pollution from factories and power plants.

The cash will no longer be available for so called CCS technology, which takes emissions blamed for global warming and sequesters them underground, the Department of Energy and Climate Change said. The two groups competing for the funds were a partnership between SSE and Royal Dutch Shell, and another between Alstomand BOC Group.

Nuclear, however, was given a nod. The U.K. plans to build one of the world’s first small modular nuclear reactors in the 2020s, the Treasury said. Britain will plough GBP 250m ($378m) into research and development for the reactors over the next five years, the Treasury said. A competition for funding will be held “early next year,” it said.

Deals in the past week were dominated by Portuguese and French companies. EDP Renovaveis said it will sell its stake in a US wind portfolio with a net capacity of 340MW to a group of investors led by Axium Infrastructure.

The equivalent enterprise value is $590m based on the transaction price and the outstanding and expected tax equity liabilities of the projects, the Madrid-based renewables developer said. The US wind portfolio has seven wind farms with a total installed capacity of 1GW and long-term power purchase agreements. The stake sale is part of EDPR’s “asset rotation program” that generates funds for re-investment and growth.
Electricite de France, the biggest operator of nuclear plants, plans to keep spending EUR 2bn ($2.1bn) to EUR 2.5bn per year to build wind farms, solar parks and hydroelectric dams to almost double its renewable energy capacity by 2030.

The utility will boost that capacity to more than 50GW from its current 28GW by adding about 5GW in France and the rest mainly in Latin America, Asia, the Middle East and Africa, said Jerome Cahuzac, head of EDF’s renewable energies.

UDSM on project to understand dynamics of Africa`s fish trade

There is great potential in the fisheries sector to enhance Tanzania's food and nutrition security and help reduce poverty at both the household and national levels.(File photo)

Tanzania, like many African countries is endowed with very rich fish resources from the India Ocean, several lakes, rivers, floodplains and fish farms. Fish from these water bodies generate a range of benefits including but not limited to food and nutrition security, livelihoods, exports and ecological resilience.

According to the Food and Agriculture (FAO) the State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture report (2014), the value added by the fisheries sector as a whole in 2011 was estimated at more than US$24 billion, representing 1.26 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of all African countries.

It is also estimated that the fisheries sector in Africa directly employs 12.3 million people as full-time fishers or full-time and part-time processors. Additionally, the livelihoods of millions more are directly dependent on the fisheries sector.

World Fish Center (2015) reports that Africa’s GDP growth in the recent years has been impressive, although the continent plays an insignificant role in global trade.

It is estimated that Africa's shares in global exports is barely 3 percent. Furthermore, African countries trade more with the rest of the world than they do among themselves.

In 2012, the formal intra-African trade was estimated to be around 11percent of the continent's total, compared to 54 percent in Asia; 32 percent in advanced economies of America, and 66 percent in Europe
There is great potential in the fisheries sector to enhance Tanzania’s food and nutrition security and help reduce poverty at both the household and national levels.

But the trade in fish in Africa is constrained by inadequate market infrastructure such as impassable roads during the rainy seasons and inhibiting policy and institutional frameworks.

The latter has led to a vibrant informal trade system that is thought to be higher than trade through the normal way. There seems to be a lot of fish which crosses the borders to various destinations which are unreported, unrecorded and untaxed.

The poor infrastructure has led to high transport costs, complex trade rules and inadequate market information, all which have prevented Tanzania and Africa as a whole, from optimising the social and economic benefits available from fish trade.

The University of Dar es Salaam, together with eight other universities from across Africa, is part of a game-changing project called “Improving Food Security and Reducing Poverty through Intra-regional Fish Trade in Sub-Saharan Africa” (also referred to as Fish Trade Programme).

The programme undertakes research, generates and share information on the structure, products and value of intra-regional fish trade and its contribution to food security in sub-Saharan Africa.

The other universities taking part in this prestigious project are Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources (Luanar) of Malawi, Cheikh Anta Diop University (Senegal), University of Ibadan (Nigeria), University of Ghana, University of the Western Cape (South Africa), Makerere University (Uganda) and Felix Houphouet-Boigny University (Cote d’Ivoire).

The Universities in Fish Trade Programmeis part of the implementation phase of “Fish Trade for a Better Future”, whose focus is to improve food and nutritional security and reducing poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa by supporting and strengthening the capacities of countries to better integrate intra-regional fish trade into their development and food security agendas.

Fish Trade for a Better Future is an EU-funded project that was established to facilitate the development of fish trade in Africa by focusing on conducting research to generate data that will inform crucial policy decisions.

The project is led by World Fish in partnership with the African Union Inter-Africa Bureau for Animal Resources (AU-IBAR) and NEPAD.

Fish Trade for a Better Future aims to, among other goals, increase the capacities for trade amongst private sector associations, in particular of women fish processors and traders and equip them to make better use of expanding trade opportunities through competitive small and medium scale enterprises.

It also aims to facilitate the adoption and implementation of appropriate policies, procedures and standards by all key players participating in intra-regional fish trade.

“The trade in fish and fish products among African countries in becoming increasingly important for the food security and economic development of countries,” Dr Sloans Chimatiro, Programme Manager for Fish Trade said.

“But there is also an increasing demand by fish processors and traders, together with governments, that Africa changes the way it trades its fish.”

The value of Africa’s fisheries trade was estimated at more than US$24 billion in 2011, representing 1.26 percent of the GDP of all African countries.

It is estimated that the fisheries sector directly employs 12.3 million people as full-time fishers, full-time or part-time processors.

 Globally, the fish commodity trade was valued at US$130 billion in 2013.
Students from Dar es Salaam and the other universities will be be commissioned to conduct fish trade corridor analysis but an important element of that will be ensuring that the research they do is relevant to the policy makers.

The students and their supervisors will be mentored by international experts in fisheries, including from World Fish, in order to provide the universities with global technological support and expertise.

They will also be meeting and advocating with policy makers, so that their research and policy recommendations has input from all stakeholders.

Onyango, P. O. of the University of Dar es Salaam says Africa’s GDP growth in the recent past has been impressive, although the continent plays an insignificant role in global trade. It is estimated that Africa's shares in global exports is barely 3 percent.

Furthermore, African countries trade more with the rest of the world than they do among themselves. In 2012, the formal intra-African trade was estimated to be around 11 percent of the continent's total, compared to 54 percent in Asia; 32 percent in advanced economies of America, and 66 percent in Europe (WorldFish Center, 2015).

He further says, Tanzania and Uganda are the main fish exporting countries to the region, while Kenya was an importer. Other export destination countries were DRC, Rwanda and Burundi.

Sun-dried dagaa and smoked tilapia are the leading regional export products. Kenya, Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi and Rwanda remain the highest importers of fish from Lake Victoria.

Little, if any, fish was exported regionally from Kenya. In addition, the main marketing functions performed by the operators included production, processing, grading of fish, packaging, transportation, in addition to buying and selling. Seasonality on the market is exhibited mainly by changes in prices and this is attributed to fluctuations in the supply from the source countries.

In Kenya the study revealed that regional fish trade involved four fish species, namely, tilapia, dagaa, Nile perch, and the happlochromines.

Only semi-processed processed Nile perch fish and its by-products were imported into the Kenyan market. Nile perch traders do not deal in whole fish but by-products such as skin and chips as well as belly flaps, skins and maws.

In Tanzania, Nile perch and dagaa have been the fish most traded (Onyango et al 2006b). The Nile perch is traded in different forms, including fish chest, fish frames, off-cuts, fish maws, fish skin and dried fish/kayabo.

In Uganda, the species traded included Nile perch, tilapia and dagaa. Nile perch was traded smoked, sun-dried and also as by-products. Tilapia was traded fresh, smoked and sun-dried. Mukene was traded in the sun-dried form.

Fish species and products on Uganda’s regional fish trade did not only come from Lake Victoria but also from other lakes, namely Kyoga, Albert, George and Edward.

The sources of fish supply to the regional market were examined. As indicated earlier, Tanzania and Uganda were exporting countries in the region while Kenya was an importer.

In Kenya, Lake Victoria was the main source of fish in the regional trade. However, some fish came from Lakes Kyoga and Albert. Similarly, Nile perch and dagaa came into Kenya from the Tanzanian District of Tarime. Kisumu was a major entry port for fish brought in on large vessels.

Regionally, fish traders consist of both men and women (Heck et al, 2004) with more women observed in Kenya and Uganda (Table 7). Different nationalities are involved in other the countries except in Tanzania, where the nationals handled the trade.

Traders are of middle age across the countries. Regionally, the majority of the traders have attained Primary level of education. Most of the traders are either wholesalers or retailers. Various means of transportation is used with Tanzanian traders using mostly boats while Uganda traders use mainly trucks.

However, Onyango mentioned some of the constraints in regional marketing of fish as:  Limited capital to meet the investment and operational requirements of the regional fish trade, such as fish purchase, preservation, sanitation and display facilities.

Poor shelter for trading fish, as most of the markets are open air types, which made the commodities vulnerable to weather conditions such as rain, extreme sunlight and heat; inadequate power as well as ice for preservation purposes; and high levy charges imposed by the various authorities in the regional fish traders.

Supply constraints
Fish scarcity is among the constraints in the regional fish market. Other supply constraints include: High competition for low supply from the different sources and several traders. Today traders follow the fish even from the landing sites.

Price fluctuations and the risks posed; and unpredictable rainy seasons that affected business as well as fish quality.

Technological constraints
Constraints related to fish handling could affect fish quality and cause tremendous losses to traders due to fish spoilage. The major constraints noted are inadequate handling facilities, the difficulty in getting ice blocks for preserving fish and processing facilities.

The constraints are: Spoilage of fish, inadequate handling facilities, lack preserving facilities, lack of display facilities, lack drying facilities, and lack of shelter from rains.

 Financial constraints
Accessing credit remains a great constraint to the regional fish traders, limiting their working capital required for the trade. Traders cannot access credit due to among others: Lack of collateral in loan acquisition.

This has therefore meant that traders could access credit facilities from fellow fishers or business people in their villages based on trust.
 Some traders who receive loans are unable to pay back as they have encountered losses in fish sales.

Traders fear that fish being a perishable good makes it risky to take a loan. This is because fish can rot if not bought and with no proper storage facilities they might not be able to repay. Traders lack bank accounts.

Transportation constraints
Boats used to transport fish are not reliable. Traders can get capsized in the lake and thereby lose a consignment.

There is no payment for any loss during transport as traders did not insure their goods while transporting them.

There was no transport system devoted to regional fish trade and traders often had to share carriers with passengers and other goods. Some roads not accessible during rainy season

Information constraints
Market information is crucial for traders if they are to make any profit. However, information is not always available when it is needed. Most traders do not have any market information.

The cost situations
 Transport is regarded as the highest cost item in regional fish trade. Transport cost varies, depending on the distance to market, quantity of fish and means of transport used. In order to mitigate high transport costs, traders often teamed up and sent one representative with consignments or hired common vehicles.

 Package costs included mainly labour for assembling bundles of processed fish and such packaging materials as polythene bags and ropes.
Storage is not considered to be of high cost to the traders as most of the fish is readily disposed of at the destination markets, from where the importers take responsibility for its storage.

Taxes and levies are high from the regional perspective. However, different countries had different levies on fish trade. In Uganda, it was the policy not to tax exports but traders had to pay fish export license fees as well as fish movement permit fees at the landing sites of origin.

Similarly in Kenya, most traders paid a fixed tax level irrespective of the volume of fish traded, which was considered minimal. In Rwanda food items imported are not taxed but DRC traders using Rwanda as transit have to pay for a transit fees.

Fish spoilage losses are incurred by some traders whenever it is not handled, preserved or transported appropriately. Weather, method of preservation and the means of transportation used are the main factors responsible for these losses.

African forestry scheme aims to build prosperity by restoring landscape

A seedling of the Melia Volkensii tree is planted in the village of Nyumbani in Kitui, Kenya, one of 14 African countries so far involved in the AFR100 initiative. Photograph: Ben Curtis/AP

World Bank joins forces with private sector in $1.6bn AFR100 initiative designed to restore 100m hectares of forest across Africa by 2030.

More than a dozen African countries have joined an “unprecedented” $1.6bn (£1bn) initiative to boost development and fight climate change by restoring 100m hectares (247m acres) of forest across the continent over the next 15 years.

The African Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative – known as AFR100 – was launched on Sunday at a Global Landscapes Forum meeting during the Paris climate change conference.

It will be underpinned by a $1bn investment from the World Bank in 14 African countries over the next 15 years and by $600m of private sector investment over the same period.

The initiative will also be supported by Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Co-operation and Development, the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad) and the World Resources Institute.
To date, Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Niger, Uganda, Burundi and Rwanda have between them committed more than 42m hectares of land for forest landscape restoration, an area larger than Zimbabwe or Germany.

Cameroon, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Congo-Brazzaville and Togo have also committed to forthcoming hectare targets as part of the AFR100.

Participants point out that forests and trees contribute to African landscapes by reducing desertification and improving soil fertility, water resources and food security, as well as by increasing biodiversity and the capacity for climate change resilience and mitigation.

They say the initiative will not only help to build on existing climate pledges made by African countries, but will also provide an engine for economic growth and development.

“Restoring our landscapes brings prosperity, security and opportunity,” said Dr Vincent Biruta, Rwanda’s minister of natural resources.

“With forest landscape restoration we’ve seen agricultural yields rise and farmers in our rural communities diversify their livelihoods and improve their well being.”

The commitments made through AFR100 will build on the Bonn challenge – launched four years ago – which aims to revitalize 150m hectares of land by 2020, and the New York Declaration on Forests, which pushes the target up to 350m hectares by 2030.

The new initiative is intended to capitalise on “a strong tradition” of successful forest landscape restoration in Africa: local communities in the Tigray region of Ethiopia have already restored more than 1m hectares, while in Niger, farmers have improved food security for 2.5 million people by increasing the number of on-farm trees across 5m hectares of agricultural land.

Dr Ibrahim Assane Mayaki, the CEO of Nepad and former prime minister of Niger, said that countries such as Malawi, Ethiopia and Mali were already reaping the benefits of restoration, but added: “We need to scale up restoration across the whole continent - more than 700m hectares of land in Africa have potential for restoration.”

Wanjira Mathai, chair of the Green Belt Movement and daughter of the Nobel peace prize laureate Wangari Maathai, said: “The scale of these new restoration commitments is unprecedented.

China's cloned cows: meat on the table or environmental disaster?

Niu Niu, a genetically modified cow, is seen with its calf at the experimentation base of Beijing University of Agriculture. Photograph: Li Wen/Alamy

A biotech consortium in China has announced that it intends to open a facility near Beijing with the aim of cloning up to a million cows a year to meet the country’s growing demand for beef. The factory won’t stop at cows. It also plans to clone racehorses, pets and even sniffer dogs. But the vast majority of animals it produces will be calves for meat production.

In Beijing I read this news with incredulity and dismay. In 2009, I directed the first documentary about China’s rising consumption of meat and the growing industrialisation of its food sector, including livestock production. In the film, What’s for Dinner?, I explored a nexus of problems related to intensive animal agriculture: environmental pollution, food security, public health (including the use of antibiotics and hormones in feed), climate change and animal welfare.

Since then, I’ve promoted public awareness on these issues, screening the film around China and employing popular social media platforms. We’re attracting more attention from a growing number of people concerned about the environmental and moral implications of eating animal products.

Unfortunately, meat production and consumption in China continue to rocket. The country is already the world’s top producer of meat; on average, each person consumes about 60kg a year (mainly pork, plus chicken and beef). In the US, each person eats almost twice as much meat as someone in China. But since China has four times as many people, overall it consumes about double the meat eaten in the US.

The world’s governments and thousands of civil society representatives are meeting in Paris to confront the challenge of climate change. The Chinese government wishes to be a global leader, greening its energy sources and reducing its greenhouse gas emissions.

Beijing is acutely aware of how unhappy we citizens are to breathe the smog in our cities or smell the foul odours of our polluted rivers. Yet, by expanding exponentially our commitment to intensive animal agriculture, China will increase emissions of methane, carbon dioxide and another potent greenhouse gas, nitrous oxide, which has nearly 300 times the warming power of carbon dioxide.

The project to clone cows is a response to increasing demand for beef and China’s urge to compete with agribusinesses overseas. (In 2014, China produced 11.5% of the world’s beef, nearly 7m tonnes , according to the US Department of Agriculture.) Traditionally, beef wasn’t a staple in local cuisine in most parts of China. In the south of the country, where I grew up, oxen and buffaloes were more valuable alive; they were how rural families sustained their livelihoods.

It was only in my teenage years, in the late 1980s, that I had my first taste of beef. Then, and even more so now, beef represents the affluence and abundance of the western diet. This diet, in the form of burgers and fried chicken in fast-food restaurants, and high-end steaks, has spread across China over the past two decades.

It is ironic that China should be embracing so wholeheartedly western food habits along with capitalism. For all their scientific novelty, these cloned cows (should they materialise) will probably still end up on industrial-scale factory farms. The facilities are already notorious for the dangers they pose to human health via zoonotic diseases.

Given that cloned animals share the same genes, they have even higher risks of succumbing when diseases strike. China’s pigs were recently subject to global scrutiny for harboring drug-resistant strains of bacteria. This came about because of producers’ overuse of the antibiotics that enable densely packed animals to fend off infections and grow bigger, faster. So extensive is the abuse of antibiotics in Chinese and global animal agriculture that some scientists believe the world may be entering a “post-antibiotic era” in which antibiotics used to treat common human illnesses will have lost their power to cure.

Of course, we might ultimately clone farmed animals that no longer need antibiotics. However, genetically engineered food has met with resistance from the Chinese public in recent years. It is possible to imagine that the beef from these cloned cows will receive even greater hostility (unless the factory manages to hide the source of its animals).

Even if these animals survive disease and public rejection, they will still need to eat, and will still produce waste and climate-warming methane. China, like every other country that has adopted the western-developed, factory-farming model, generates more animal waste than it can handle. Some of it makes its way into our waterways and lakes – half of which are already severely polluted by industrial effluent and chemical fertilizers. And industrial agriculture is now responsible for a larger share of China’s water pollution than industrial factories. If we massively increase our animal production, what will we do with the lagoons of manure? How will we protect our precious potable groundwater, or keep enough of it for us – especially when a beef cow, depending on its stage of growth, consumes up to 27 gallons of water a day.

(Cows raised for beef are the most resource- consuming and greenhouse gas-emitting of all farmed animals.) Parts of China are already water-insecure, and the government is spending billions of dollars to channel fresh water from the south to China’s more industrialized north.

Algae in the water of Lake Taihu has compromised drinking water for millions of people in China’s Jiangsu province. Photograph: Rex/Imaginechina

If we massively increase our animal production, what will we do with the lagoons of manure? How will we protect our precious potable groundwater, or keep enough of it for us – especially when a beef cow, depending on its stage of growth, consumes up to 27 gallons of water a day. (Cows raised for beef are the most resource- consuming and greenhouse gas-emitting of all farmed animals.) Parts of China are already water-insecure, and the government is spending billions of dollars to channel fresh water from the south to China’s more industrialized north.

One of the routes will bring water to Beijing and Tianjin, where the cloning factory will be built. Tianjin is already experiencing drought. Are we really planning to take river water from the south and give it to cows so that the newly rich can eat more beef? Tianjin is also where several deadly explosions at a chemical warehouse in August claimed the lives of more than a hundred people and spewed large quantities of toxic chemicals into surrounding neighbourhoods.

The Chinese government is acutely aware of food insecurity (it has a strategic pork reserve in case supplies are constrained). With the world’s largest population, a recently relaxed family planning policy, and an economy that threatens to exhaust our finite natural resources, it is not difficult to envision a future China where farmed animals compete for the little land and even less water remaining.

Our country used to have enough grain to feed itself. Now we have become the world’s largest importer of soybeans – nearly all of which go to feed animals. In 2013-14, imports of soybeans (mainly from the US and Brazil) totalled 70.4m tonnes , almost six times the level of domestic production. Corn imports are rising, too. Does China want to rely even more heavily than it already does on the economic and political stability of foreign countries in order to obtain commodity crops?

Enormous factories such as the one in Tianjin will lead to reduced space and greatly compromised animal welfare for cows. The health of the people who eat them will also be compromised. It will only be a matter of time before more animals are cloned, as long as it makes profit. If they are imperfect, they will be slaughtered or discarded on a scale virtually unprecedented in human history.

It is hard to imagine this commercialisation of science wouldn’t be subject to protests or regulatation by western governments. But China’s helter-skelter commitment to capitalism and its lack of genuine “cultural conservatism” reflects a marginalisation of values that society used to hold dear, such as Confucian harmony, Daoist concerns for nature, and the Buddhist honouring of all life.

China no longer needs to replicate the worst excesses of the west. We have a responsibility to our country, our natural resources, the global climate and our own consciences to stop this madness before it is too late.