Title: New US$9 million Striga project is supported by a $US6.75 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to IITA
Scientists in Nigeria and Kenya have started a major campaign against parasitic weeds that cost small scalefarmers in Sub-Saharan Africa $1.2billion in harvests every year, aggravating food deficits. An initiative coordinated by the Nigeria-based International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), will introduce new methods for fighting Striga, or witchweed, and Alectra. Kenya is among the countries expected to benefit fromthe $9 million Striga project. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has given IITA $6.75 million as part of a campaign to help 200,000 maize farmers and 50,000 cow pea farmers raise yields by 50 per cent and 100 per cent, respectively. The four-year project aims to improve and expand access to methods of Striga control including using a ‘push-pull’ technology that involves intercropping with legumes that inhibit the germination of Striga, using herbicide-coated seeds and deploying bio-control of Striga. Scientists expect that the integrated witchweed control interventions will generate an estimated $8.6 million worth of additional grain (maize and legumes) increasing incomes, improving nutrition and reducing poverty. ‘The project aims to raise farmers’ awareness of the technologies, and supporting community-based organisations with technical assistance,’ said Prasanna Boddupalli, director of the Global Maize Programme based in Nairobi. About 80 per cent of the population in sub- Saharan Africa depends on agriculture for food, income, and employment.