Tag: virus

Africa looking to strategic partnerships to rein in food and nutrition insecurity

Posted on by janet.crompton
A child feeds on orange fleshed sweet potato in Central Uganda – Image credit ‘Winnie Nanteza/NARO-Uganda’

World hunger continued to rise for the third consecutive year according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)’s latest report. The data identifies climate variability as one of the major contributing factors to this worrying statistic. The intricate relationship between climate change and food security culminates in a major challenge that has rattled individuals, organisations and governments alike for decades. In the coming decades, Africa—which faces the biggest food security challenge in present times—will need more strategic partnerships to unlock its food security potential.Nearly one in every nine people—a significant proportion of whom live in Sub-Saharan Africa—go to bed hungry every night. So significant is this challenge that the United nations lists ending hunger, achieving food and nutrition security and promoting sustainable agriculture by 2030 second of its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

It is a daunting challenge made worse by an exploding global population set to hit 9 billion by 2050. Nonetheless, governments and other stakeholders worldwide are drawing inspiration from the fact that, despite the increases of the past three years, hunger overall has reduced by almost half in the past two decades. This has been made possible through deliberate efforts to increase agricultural production with minimal environmental impact.

Contemporary Agricultural Science Technology and Innovations (STIs) are pivotal to increasing agricultural production, food security, and promoting economic growth in Africa. However, realizing these aspirations greatly depends on leveraging the synergistic capabilities of the diverse actors within the sector towards building stronger partnerships and increased accountability for greater impact.

The nature of Agricultural Research for Development (AR4D) paradigms around the world is rapidly evolving, with new technologies constantly emerging and making the agricultural sector more knowledge intensive and innovations driven. In addition, the role of the private sector in agricultural R&D is increasingly more prominent, with Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) being touted as an ideal model for accelerating technology transfer, commercialization, and delivery of research outputs to end-users for optimal research impact. Innovative partnerships between the public and private sectors are especially important for attracting investments and financing innovative solutions for agriculture in developing nations.

To drive this innovative and responsive research agenda, scientists globally are increasingly coming together in collaborative partnerships to share resources towards ensuring that the world will be able to feed nine billion people by 2050.

Among these is the Community Network for African Vector-Borne Plant Viruses (CONNECTED)—a Vector-borne Disease Network awarded to the University of Bristol—which held its Africa Launch Conference  in May 2018. The network—which is closely involved with the Cabot Institute—aims inter alia to build a sustainable network of multi-disciplinary international scientists, to deliver solutions to devastating crop diseases.
 

Participants at the CONNECTED Network Africa Launch, May 2018

Three months on, and the Network is already making good on its promise. Following the first CONNECTED pump prime funding call soon after the Network’s Africa launch, research funding grants have been awarded to Network members working in African and European research institutions in classic triangular collaborations to achieve the ideals of the Network.

In August 2018, global science leaders congregated in Durban, South Africa for the inaugural Bio Africa convention. The conference provided opportunities to build capacity and drum up support for increased investment in, and support for Africa’s growing biotech industry. It is hoped that networks built there will enrich the implementation of past and existing Africa-led initiatives for growth and sustainable development, especially in the bio-economy sector.

While food is an easy topic to get people involved with, rising concerns about some aspects of agricultural technology bring unique dynamics to this area. A July 25 ruling by the European Court of Justice imposed exacting regulatory restrictions on the use of gene editing in crop improvement. This adds to existing regulatory stalemates—mostly in Europe and Africa—blocking the use of products of modern agricultural technologies such as genetic engineering and gene editing to deliver important crop varieties to the world’s most vulnerable people.

In Uganda for instance, genetically modified biofortified and bacterial wilt resistant bananas, and blight resistant potatoes remain locked up in confined field trials due to the absence of an enabling regulatory environment for commercialisation. Research is on-going—using genetic engineering—on virus resistant cassava, insect resistant and drought tolerant maize, and nitrogen use efficient rice among other key food security crops.

The ebb and flow of global politics and science remains a determinant factor in whether or not agricultural STIs can contribute to ending hunger by 2030 per the SDGs. Cognizant of the constraints new breeding technologies are facing to deliver impact, initiatives like Uganda Biosciences Information Center (UBIC) have been established to support the stewardship process to ensure that key agricultural technologies reach the people that need them most.

This is achieved through creating and raising awareness of modern agricultural biosciences and biosafety, to facilitate balanced, fact-based and objective discourse on modern biosciences in Uganda and beyond. Elsewhere, the Open Forum on Agricultural Biotechnology (OFAB), International Service for Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA) and Cornell Alliance for Science to mention but a few, are championing the same cause at regional and global levels.

In many ways gentle calls to action, such initiatives complement the millions of voices highlighting the global food challenge and imploring all humanity to spring to action to ensure that everyone has a seat at the (dining) table.

Policy coherence and coordination among different actors to end hunger remains key to delivering much needed solutions to global food and nutrition security. To end hunger, targeted steps must be taken to help people access the tools they need to create agricultural prosperity and progress. But we can’t just hope and pray, we have to take action—and Africa seems to be beginning to do just that!

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This blog was written by Joshua Raymond Muhumuza, CONNECTED Network member and Outreach Officer at the Uganda Biosciences Information Center (UBIC).

CONNECTED – a new network to tackle vector-borne crop disease in Africa

Posted on by janet.crompton

 

Last week I was immersed in the world of African crop diseases, specifically the vector-borne kind, as part of the launch of CONNECTED. For those, like me, who aren’t an expert in the field – vector-borne diseases are those which are carried around by an organism (like a fly or insect) from one plant to the next.

This major new network brings together UK scientists with colleagues from across Africa to co-produce innovative new solutions to vector-borne crop diseases. And it turns out, there are a lot of them.

Africa has over 100 years of history with plant viral diseases. In 1894 cassava mosaic disease hit, followed by maize streak virus in 1901, and cassava brown streak in 1936.  Each had caused devastation, and in many cases, death.

Standing in the room and listening to presentations led by our African colleagues, there was a clear desire to work together – across disciplines and continents – to make a significant and lasting impact on crop disease reduction in Africa.

In this blog, I share just a handful of the things I learnt, alongside my thoughts for CONNECTED’s role in innovating for the future.

What are the challenges?

Almost every major crop in Africa is affected by disease

Yams, cassava, boy bean, cocoa, maize, coffee, bananas and many more of Africa’s key crops are affected by vector-borne disease.

That creates an ENORMOUS burden for the continent. Estimates shared by Prof Emmanuel Okogbenin suggest that yield losses due to plant disease cost $30 billion annually. In addition, it seriously affects food security and malnutrition in a continent where around 160 million of its population are already deemed food insecure.

As a result, demand is outstripping production for many crops (like maize), and Africa is heavily reliant on imported goods. These are undoubtedly more expensive than locally grown produce, and remain inaccessible or affordable to many.

Crucially, people have died as a result of every major outbreak.

When disease hits, it can cause severe losses

Sweet potato virus disease (SPVD) can lead to a 70-100% yield loss in infected plants.  The level of loss greatly exacerbates the issues described above.

So which crops are the most important ones to protect?

Well, it depends how you ask the question. 500 million people depend on cassava as a staple crop, and 158 million tons are produced in Africa by smallholders.

By contrast, 54 million tonnes of yam is produced annually, but 95% of this is produced in what is known as the ‘yam belt’, meaning it is considered critical in those regions. It also draws a value of c. $13.5M.

But it was clear from discussions today that we need to move beyond this idea of protecting a single crop. It turns out to be a lot more complicated than that.

In many cases, it’s not a simple case of a single vector and a single virus causing a single disease

Disease spread is highly complex. A single vector can carry many types of virus, and many viruses can be transmitted by multiple vectors. Additionally, some viruses affect a number of crops. This means it’s extremely difficult to know which vector/ virus to focus on tackling, or which crop to focus on treating, if you want to make a difference.

Perhaps surprisingly, some diseases only appear to ‘present’ when multiple viruses affect the same plant. In fact, around 69% of diseases in yams appear to be caused by 2 or more viral infections occurring at the same time.

To top it off, the vectors can often live on a number of different host plant species. This means that even if you create a crop that is resistant to a particular virus, it may still be present and spread between other plants.

And there are lots of vectors, spreading lots of diseases

Today I heard about so many vectors and viruses it’s impossible to name them all. However, here are just a few key examples that were covered by experts in the room:

  • Vectors: white fly, Aphids, leafhoppers, plant hoppers, mealybugs (my favourite, based purely on the name), thrips, and beetles.
  • Viruses: cassava brown streak virus, cassava mosaic virus, banana bunchy top virus, maize chlorotic mottle virus, yam mosaic virus, badnaviruses (yam, banana and coco), and legume potyviruses

Much disease is also spread by infected seed

In the case of sugarcane mosaic virus (SCMV), a large proportion of transmission is down to aphids, but an even greater proportion stems from the sharing of infected seeds. In a Q&A session on this topic, one audience member asked, ‘what’s the main barrier stopping people from using uncertified seeds?’ The answer? Cost. At present, many people buy seeds from friends, by the roadside, at local markets, or store their own supplies from year to year. These practices carry risk and whilst ‘certified’ (virus free) seeds are available, these are expensive. It was an important reminder that often, the scientific solutions are available, but there are social, political and economic factors to consider in ensuring uptake of these advances.

Over 80% of agricultural production in Sub-Saharan Africa is done by small holders

Whilst this has many benefits (people effectively have ‘control’ of their food production systems), managing disease across such a vast number of smallholder farms represents a major challenge. First and foremost – it’s difficult to engage with such a large number of individual farms to coordinate disease management strategies. Critically, it’s also difficult for smallholders to coordinate responses amongst themselves. In this context, ‘CONNECTED’ seems an entirely appropriate name for an initiative tackling this problem.

Summing up

In summary, day 2 of the CONNECTED conference helped us to share experiences, identify key challenges and research gaps, and decide where, as a network, we should best deploy our resources.

There was also a real sense that CONNECTED could bring far more than collaborative & impact-led research (though this in its own right would be exciting!). There were calls for joint databases, support with equipment purchases, training and capacity building, on-the-ground diagnostic support, e-resources, new technology development, incentivising public-private partnerships, and much, much more.

Through this network, there is great potential to forge important international collaborations and pool resources for maximum impact.

All in all, it has been incredible to see what expertise exists in both the UK and in Africa, hear about the collective ambitions of these fantastic collaborators, and begin to chart a path for CONNECTED.

I for one, am left feeling hopeful, inspired, and of course, ‘connected’.

The CONNECTED project

Our mission

Determined to fight malnutrition, poverty and food insecurity in Sub-Saharan Africa, the CONNECTED project is building a network of researchers to tackle vector-borne* plant diseases that devastate lives.

The challenges we face …

  • Established plant diseases carried by vectors* significantly limit the ability of Sub-Saharan Africa to produce sufficient staple and cash crops.
  • Limited production causes poverty, malnutrition and food insecurity, which in turn prevent economic and social development.
  • A range of new factors are set to compound the situation and raise the threat still further:
    • The emergence of new virus diseases
    • Climate change
    • A growing population
    • Resource limitations.

The solutions we are developing …

  • The CONNECTED** project is bringing together a network of world-class researchers to find and develop practical solutions to control plant disease.
  • We are pump-priming a range of innovative and potentially-transformative research activities, whose impact will be thoroughly evaluated. These research activities focus on five key areas:
    • Control strategies
    • Vector biology
    • New diseases
    • Vector / virus interactions
    • Diagnostics / surveillance / forecasting.
  • We are also providing training and capacity-building opportunities in the region during the three-year project lifespan.

And in the longer-term …

The aim is that the projects with the greatest regional impact can subsequently be grown into larger scale activities to achieve still greater bearing on the battle to control plant disease in Sub-Saharan Africa.

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This blog is written by Hayley Shaw who is the Manager of the Cabot Institute, and is a Network Advisor to the CONNECTED Network.

Notes
*A vector is a biting insect or tick that transmits a disease or parasite from one plant to another.

Clean cassava to solve brown streak problem?

Posted on by janet.crompton

Since arriving in Uganda, I’ve been learning a lot about the affects of Cassava brown streak disease (CBSD), which is devastating cassava production and threatening food security. The disease is spread by the whitefly insect, which picks up the virus from an infected plant and carries it to neighbouring healthy plants.

Cassava plants are grown by planting stem cuttings in the ground, which go on to become new plants. If farmers use cuttings from infected plants, the new plants will also become infected. This is a big problem, as infected cuttings can be transported to new areas, spreading CBSD across large distances.

What can be done?

Tolerance

Huge efforts are being put into a number of different solutions. These include breeding new cassava varieties, which are tolerant to CBSD. This is a very long and challenging process, as cassava plants also need to be resistant to Cassava mosaic disease (CMD) and have yield/taste properties which farmers and consumers prefer.

The National Crops Resources Research Institute (NaCRRI) has recently developed a new variety: NAROCASS1, which is tolerant to CBSD and resistant to CMD. This is now being used in areas where CBSD is particularly common and severe. Unfortunately, even tolerant cassava varieties can contain CBSD viruses and so it’s vital that farmers have access to clean cuttings.

Cassava variety NAROCASS1 with CBSD tolerance and CMD resistance.

Clean seed system (CSS)

The cassava CSS project in Uganda is run by NaCRRI and involves picking the very youngest tip of the cassava plant to produce embryonic tissue, which develops into a new plant. These plants are then checked to see whether the CBSD virus is present before being taken to nurseries where they are carefully multiplied and eventually used for clean planting material for farmers. As you can imagine, this process takes a long time and is much more expensive than taking cuttings from a mature cassava plant. However it means that farmers can benefit from quality assurance that the cuttings they buy are virus free and stand the best chance of remaining healthy.

A clean cassava plantlet produced through tissue culture.

The cassava CSS project has been running as a pilot for three years. It will be very interesting to hear how this project goes, as it’s likely to be a major solution to the CBSD problem.

Reviewing progress

Last week I had helped take minutes for the annual CSS review at NaCRRI, which involved lots of manic typing and concentration! As part of the review I got to visit a field where an entrepreneur is growing clean cassava plants. The plants certainly looked healthy, with no CBSD and CMD symptoms at all. With so much to think about, we still found time to have a cocktail party to let of some steam!

Clean cassava seed entrepreneur David Mpanga explains how he uses record keeping to track of outgoings and income.
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This blog has been written by University of Bristol Cabot Institute member Katie Tomlinson from the School of Biological Sciences.  Katie’s area of research is to generate and exploit an improved understanding of cassava brown streak disease (CBSD) to ensure sustainable cassava production in Africa.  This blog has been reposted with kind permission from Katie’s blog Cassava Virus.

 

Katie Tomlinson

More from this blog series:  

Cassava virus: Journey from the lab to the field – Learning the ropes

Posted on by janet.crompton

Weeks 2 – 3

It’s been a bit of blur the last two weeks, getting to grips with all the activities that go on at the National Crops Resources Research Institute (NaCRRI). I’ve spent time with Dr. Emmanuel Ogwok (Emmy), learning about the earlier days of Cassava brown streak disease (CBSD) research and how things have developed. Emmy took me on a tour to see the greenhouses where they are growing genetically modified cassava, which shows resistance to CBSD.

Dr. Emmanuel Ogwok demonstrates how to sample infected cassava from the field

Diagnosing the problem

Emmy also introduced to me how they diagnose CBSD infections. We headed out to the field and sampled cassava plants showing CBSD symptoms, processed the samples in the lab and bingo, identified the presence of the virus in all the samples by reverse transcription PCR. This is similar to the processes we follow in the UK. It was great to actually sample the infected cassava from the field myself; in the UK we normally use material which was collected years ago.

It was interesting to learn about challenges, such as getting hold of reagents which can take up to three months! The lab is responsible for testing new cassava varieties for their ability to resist CBSD infection and plays a vital role in improving cassava production.

Processing the infected cassava samples from the field

Communicating the problem

I’ve been working on communication materials to let members of the public know about NaCRRI work at the Source of the Nile agricultural trade show in July. The show will be an opportunity to present and discuss the improved cassava varieties developed by NaCRRI with policy makers, growers and members of the public.

Kampala fun

Outside of work, I’ve been having fun in Kampala; going to arts festivals, watching the football in Ugandan pubs and swimming in the Hotel Africana pool. Next week, I’m planning to visit field sites in northern Uganda, to meet some of the farmers affected by CBSD.

Dancer at La Ba Arts Festival (credit HB Visual)
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This blog has been written by University of Bristol Cabot Institute member Katie Tomlinson from the School of Biological Sciences.  Katie’s area of research is to generate and exploit an improved understanding of cassava brown streak disease (CBSD) to ensure sustainable cassava production in Africa.  This blog has been reposted with kind permission from Katie’s blog Cassava Virus.

 

Katie Tomlinson

More from this blog series:  

Cassava virus: Journey from the lab to the field – Settling in to Ugandan life

Posted on by janet.crompton

Katherine Tomlinson from the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Bristol Cabot Institute, is spending three months in Uganda looking at the cassava brown streak virus. This virus dramatically reduces available food for local people and Katherine will be finding out how research on this plant is translating between the lab and the field.  Follow this blog series for regular updates.

I arrived late on Thursday night and spent the weekend getting acquainted with the hustle and bustle of Kampala life. I visited the impressive Gadafi mosque, cathedral, and food markets, which are full of just about every fruit and vegetable you could imagine.

On Friday, I met with my internship supervisor, Dr. Titus Alicai who is the leader of the Root Crops Research Programme at the National Crops Resources Research Institute (NaCRRI); he filled me on some of the exciting activities I’ll be taking part in, including visits to cassava field sites.

I was picked up and taken to NaCRRI in Namulonge on Sunday, stopping off at markets along the way to pick up my food supplies. I am lucky to have Everline looking after me; she’s helping me to settle into Ugandan life. NaCRRI is absolutely beautiful, it’s full of crops including cassava, sweet potato, mango, pineapple, banana, and there are even vervet monkeys running around.

National Crops Resources Research Institute, Uganda… where I’ll be spending the next three months!

At the start of the week , I was given a tour of the institute including the labs where they analyse cassava tubers for nutritional and chemical content; a vital part of the process in developing crops which not only offer maximum disease resistance, and yield but also taste good.

I then visited the molecular biology labs, where they analyse crop samples for the presence of Cassava brown streak disease viruses. This was very familiar with similar equipment to our lab at the University of Bristol. The lab manager discussed the challenges of obtaining all the expensive reagents required and how this affects their work. Other challenges include intermittent power supply, which means they need a stack of battery packs to back up the -80 freezers and PCR machines. I am looking forward to spending some time here, to learn more about the similarities and differences between molecular work in the UK and Uganda.

On Wednesday, I went to the field with some University internship students, who were scoring cassava plants for Cassava brown streak disease and Cassava mosaic disease symptoms. After their training these students will be able to advise farmers about the diseases in their local areas. It was also my chance to see symptoms in the field, where infected leaves showed a distinctive yellowing pattern.

Inspecting cassava plants for disease symptoms with University internship students

I spoke to one student who has a small farm and has experienced Cassava brown streak disease first hand. He mentioned that the disease is very common in his area, and here even tolerant cassava varieties become infected and their tubers ruined.

Characteristic Cassava brown streak disease symptoms on cassava leaves

Today I am meeting with the communications team, to find out about the projects I will be involved with, including an outreach programme with farmers surrounding the NaCRRI site to encourage them to use crop breeds developed by the institute, which offer higher disease resistance.

That’s it for now I’ll be writing another update next week so watch this space! In the meantime if you have any questions please get in touch via Twitter: @KatieTomlinson4.

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This blog has been written by University of Bristol Cabot Institute member Katie Tomlinson from the School of Biological Sciences.  Katie’s area of research is to generate and exploit an improved understanding of cassava brown streak disease (CBSD) to ensure sustainable cassava production in Africa.  This blog has been reposted with kind permission from Katie’s blog Cassava Virus.
Katie Tomlinson

More from this blog series:  

Getting ready to go… cassava virus hunting!

Posted on by janet.crompton

Katherine Tomlinson from the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Bristol Cabot Institute, is spending three months in Uganda looking at the cassava brown streak virus. This virus dramatically reduces available food for local people and Katherine will be finding out how research on this plant is translating between the lab and the field.  Follow this blog series for regular updates.

It’s just three days until I set off on my trip to Uganda, where I’ll complete an internship with the National Crops Resources Research Institute in Namulonge. I’ll be working for three months with their Communications team to learn how research is translated between the lab and the field.  I am currently a BBSRC South West DTP PhD student at the University of Bristol, researching how cassava brown streak disease viruses spoil cassava tubers and dramatically reduce available food for local people.

Image above shows Katherine inspecting cassava plants for cassava brown streak disease symptoms in the School of Biological Sciences GroDome.

Cassava plants produce carbohydrate rich root tubers and are a staple food crop for approximately 200 million people in sub-Saharan Africa. After rice and maize, cassava is the third most important source of carbohydrates in the tropics. Unfortunately, cassava is prone to viral infections, including cassava brown streak disease (CBSD), which can render entire tubers inedible. CBSD outbreaks are currently impacting on the food security of millions of cassava farmers in east Africa; it appears to be spreading westward, threatening food security in many countries.
Spoiled cassava tubers due to cassava brown streak disease (photo credit: Dr. E. Kanju, IITA).
Working the lab, I regularly infect plants with CBSD viruses to study how they replicate, move and prevent plant defence responses. However, in the field there is a much more complex interplay of different viral strains, cassava varieties, white fly population dynamics and environmental conditions which all contribute towards the disease. It’s vitally important that information about all of these contributory factors is shared between scientists and farmers to help control the disease and inform future research.I’m looking forward to assisting with field trials where different cassava varieties are being tested for resistance and meeting the farmers who face the challenges of controlling the disease. I hope to learn how information is shared and distributed and get some research ideas for when I return. I’ll be blogging my experiences on my personal blog and for the Cabot Institute blog.

NaCRRI is in Namulonge, in the Wakiso district of Uganda (photo credit: Slomox, Wikimedia).

Preparation, preparation, preparation…

At the moment, there are a lot of ‘to do’s; making sure I’ve had all the necessary vaccinations, packed factor 50 sun cream, mosquito net, DET and a massive first aid kit! It seems a little over the top at the moment but should stand me in good stead for the adventure ahead…
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This blog has been written by University of Bristol Cabot Institute member Katie Tomlinson from the School of Biological Sciences.  Katie’s area of research is to generate and exploit an improved understanding of cassava brown streak disease (CBSD) to ensure sustainable cassava production in Africa.  This blog has been reposted with kind permission from Katie’s blog Cassava Virus.

 

Katie Tomlinson

More from this blog series:  

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