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MAY 2019

Newsletter Edition

CHINHOYI UNIVERSITYOF TECHNOLOGY OPEN DAY 2019

he Chinhoyi University of Technology T(CUT) Open Day is an annual event where the university together with its stakeholders, showcase their products and services while interacting with the community. This event is open to local enterprises and corporates of all sizes within the business community. The 2019 edition was held on the 17th of May at Chinhoyi University of Technology in Chinhoyi.

Exhibiting at the open day provides NBA the opportunity to interact with students and the community because that's where industry trends, ideas and innovative products are unveiled. It brings together a diverse audience to promote awareness and demystify misconceptions on biotechnology in the country.

Visitors, especially students, at the stand had the chance to interact with NBA staff present, becoming acquainted with NBA activities, services and products of biotechnology. Students received career guidance.

The greenhouse harbouring both GMO and conventionally bred crops (soybean, cotton, sweet potato and maize) attracted several visitors to the stand.This served as an opportunity to share information with public on GMOs and confined field trials including the regulatory requirements.

NBA created a lot of awareness and education at the CUT open day as many students were interested in knowing about potential careers and qualifications for a future in biotechnology. Tissue culture project remains the major attraction on our stand from students and even teachers.

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THE FALL ARMY WORM BATTLE

Despite the name, the FAW in NOT a worm and is in fact a caterpillar, a Larval stage of a moth. What makes them particularly hard to control is the fact that the moths are strong flyers; they breed at an astonishingly high rate and the larvae have a wide range of host plants to feed on, with over 80 plants recorded. They do however prefer grass plants. In addition, tends to develop resistance to pesticides. stages of its life cycle and monitoring the threshold levels for the pest will allow for a more effective control strategy. Detecting an infestation after it is too late to obtain good control is a serious and common problem.

Early in 2018, I was in a workshop in Zimbabwe with some community leaders from around the country, where one farmer stepped up to me and tried to describe to me a certain caterpillar that was devastating his maize crop and threatening his livelihood. Before he even finished his story, I knew he was talking about the fall armyworm. I had already witnessed its devastating effects in one client's farm. The pest moves in masses to consume large amounts of leaves resulting in a ragged appearance to the leaves. T h e F a l l a r m y w o r m ( FAW ) scientifically known as Spodoptera frugiperda originated from South and North America and has been rapidly spreading and devastating the maize crops across the Sahara Africa since 2015 and caused damage of over 28000 hectares of maize across the continent in that year. In March 2018, the chronicle reported that Zimbabwe lost almost 150 000 hectares out of around nine hundred thousand hectares grown around the whole country due to the fall army worm invasion. This is almost a 15% of the total national maize crop that was destroyed by this pest.

Unfortunately, Genetic engineering, the technology used to produce BT maize, remains highly contested in many countries, including Zimbabwe. Consequently use of BT maize is one option that has not yet become available in the Integrated Pest Management (IPM) toolkit for farmers in Zimbabwe. Regardless, it is imperative that farmers implement all available IPM strategies which employ a variety approaches including host plant resistance, biological control, cultural control, and safer pesticides, to protect the crop from economic injury while minimizing negative impacts on people, animals, and the environment.

Despite experiencing FAW invasion last farming season, South African farmers experienced a bumper-harvest where 85% of this BT maize is grown compared to the other varieties. BT products are very selective to the lepidoptera group of insects (to which the FAW belongs) and have been reported to have limited effects on most non-target insects. Farmers have used BT as an organic pesticide for decades since 1920 which has been sold under various trade names such as DiPel and Thuricide. They have also been found to be safe for use in the environment and with no human health hazards found to date.

Farmers are encouraged to start r ight from regular pest scouting before the outbreaks occur. As part of their pest management strategies, maize growers should pay close attention to late planted fields or fields with a history of these infestations. Scouting for the presence of the FAW in the field at all

Countries such as South Africa use a host of resistant varieties of maize known as BT-maize that has been produced through genetic engineering technology and has been genetically altered to express one or more proteins from the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (BT).

Rudo MazaruraCompiled by

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One of the innovations Zimbabwe can embark on is vertical farming. This are structure that may look like warehouses but due to automation and climate simulations using technology it is a farm where everything is controlled by machines.

As technology replaces more jobs lets appreciate that it is creating new ones and bear in mind that with

technology, we have two options, that is disrupt or get disrupted by it.

Indoor automated farm

For a country like Zimbabwe this approach may save land and water so to counter and land pressure and climate change.

Because we are able to stack plantings, we are building vertically. Every square meter of floor space of vertical farming produces approximately the same amount of vegetable crops as 50 square meters of conventionally worked farm land.

Spinach plants in vertical farming

LED light for photosynthesis in vertical farming

This means that vertical farming can allow crops to be grown at all times throughout the year in all provinces of Zimbabwe, as it is not weather dependent. It can also be grown throughout the entire day and night as it uses L.E.D. lights since photosynthesis can occur at all times. More so is that it reduces transportation costs as it will be cheaper for transportation since you can build vertical farms in cities, so you don't need to import the crops from other regions. Finally, the price decrease is another advantage of vertical farming which could improve the standard of living.

By Tafadzwa Kuseri(ICT OFFICER NBA)

Farms of the Future Uses No Soil, no pesticides, and 95% Less Water.

FEED THE WORLD THE SMART WAY WITH VERTICAL

FARMING.

Agriculture is an attractive gateway for poverty alleviation, food and nutrition security. As a country, there has been an

upsurge in the demand for potatoes and hence the production of the crop has been on an upward trajectory in recent years. However, access to healthy and affordable potato planting material has continued to be a challenge for our farmers. Considering this, the National Biotechnology Authority, a parastatal under the Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education, Science and Technology Development (MHTSTD), established a Zimbabwean registered company JinXisen Zimbabwe, through a partnership with a Chinese company JinXinsen.

The core business of JinXinsen Zimbabwe will be the production of elite and virus free potato seed including selected high yielding potato varieties imported from China. The use of advanced technologies from China and tissue culture techniques for producing high quality and virus free potato seed will contribute towards increased levels of potato production for improved farm level income, food and nutrition security in line with vision 2030.

NBA-JINXINSEN CHINA MOU signing ceremony

During his trip Dr. Savadye managed to tour the Centre's laboratories and have discussions on research collaborations with the Centre. To this end, the NBA is in the process of crafting research fellowship proposals for submission to the Centre. In the meantime, bioscience scientists are able to apply for ICGEB programmes listed on the link below:

International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB)

Dr Deckster T. Savadye represented the Government of Zimbabwe during the ICGEB Board of Governors Session held from 21-22 May 2019 in Trieste, Italy. Matters discussed at the meeting include management of the Centre, research activities, fellowships and courses offered. The Director General for the period 2019 -2024 and Council of Scientific advisors were also elected.

https://www.icgeb.org/activities/fellowship/

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