Insect Resistant Maize Improvement

Project news

• How new food crops are being forced down Kenya's throat
    John Mbaria, Special Correspondent, 9th July 2007
    Source: The East African
  An ongoing campaign to persuade Kenyan farmers to grow genetically modified maize, cotton and other crops has the blessings of key public bodies, national research organizations and politicians and is bankrolled by giant biotechnology multinationals from the United States and elsewhere, investigations by The EastAfrican have revealed.

Response from: Stephen Ngure Mugo, Ph.D. Senior Scientist / Maize Breeder, CIMMYT Global Maize Program
Coordinator IRMA Project. [PDF 68KB]

• Kenya approves a national policy on biotechnology
     Ochieng' Ogodo, 24 October 2006
     Source: SciDev.Net
  [NAIROBI] The Kenyan government has approved its policy on how biotechnology is handled in research, development, and in its application. The National Biotechnology Development Policy 2006 approved by the cabinet last month (28 September) marks the go-ahead for the use ofbiotechnology in the country.


• Will Agbiotech Applications Reach Marginalized Farmers? Evidence from    Developing Countries
  Many in the international research community are promoting agricultural biotechnology (agbiotech) as a partial solution to reducing poverty, stimulating agricultural development, and promoting economy-wide growth in many developing countries.


• Where field work means female work
  Featured on Syngenta.com (Based on an article by Jürg Bürgi for the Syngenta Foundation). Life as a young widow is fairly difficult anywhere. Being a farmer in a developing country remains hard as well. But as well as family networks, personal initiative can also help.


• Kenya Begins First Open Field Trials of GM Maize
  Feature story on the SciDev.Net website [NAIROBI] Kenya last week became the first African country other than South Africa to plant genetically modified (GM) maize in open fields.


• CIMMYT. Insect Resistant Maize in Africa Moves Forward


• CIMMYT. Revised IRMA II Project Plan Stresses Regulatory


• Issues and New Management Structure December 12, 2005 - Bug Havens Keep Maize Pest-Proof
  Featured on CIMMYT's Electronic Newsletter
  African maize farmers who will grow transgenic maize varieties resistant to one of the crop’s most damaging pests, the maize stem borer, learn that to keep borers at bay, some must survive.


• October 06, 2005 - East African Farming Genetically Transformed [PDF]
  Featured in SpaceDaily
  Kenya has become the first African country other than South Africa to plant genetically modified maize in open fields.


• July 13, 2005 - Kenyan agriculture is on the brink of a GM revolution.
  Featured on BBC World service.com


• June 15, 2005 - Genes and a Hoe
  Featured on The New York Time website
  Every year Kenya's corn farmers lose about 15 percent of their crop to the stem borer, an insect that drills into the corn stalk. Farmers who can afford it douse their corn repeatedly with pesticides, which poison the environment. The stem borer and its relatives steal the livelihood of...


• May 31, 2005 - Kenyan scientists in biotech maize field trial


• August 13, 2004 - Debunking the myths of GM crops for Africa:
  New research findings on the value of Bt maize to farmers in Kenya


• June 29, 2004 - Small-scale farmers get technology boost in Africa Feature story on the SciDev.Net website (IRMA project mentioned).


• June 29, 2004 - Government will embrace modern agricultural technologies Feature story on State House, Kenya website.


• June 29, 2004 - President Kibaki's speech on the occasion of the commissioning of the KARI Biosafety Greenhouse Complex at Kari, Kabete on 23rd June, 2004 Featured on the State House, Kenya website.


• June 25, 2004 - Kibaki speech on GM foods rouses debate (needs subscription)
  Feature story in Nation, Kenya.
  While opening a greenhouse for genetically-modified (GM) maize at the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (Kari) on Wednesday, President Kibaki said that his government is committed to the development of GM, or any other technology, that will increase agricultural output
  
• June 24, 2004 - Kibaki opens greenhouse for GM foods
  Feature story in Nation, Kenya.
  The Government strongly supports the use of genetically modified (GM) crops and other modern scientific technologies to boost agriculture, President Kibaki affirmed yesterday.
• 
  2003 - Maize Project Has Valuable Spin-offs [PDF] Thanks to the Insect Resistant Maize for Africa (IRMA) project, the National Museum of Kenya has acquired an arthropod reference collection for the nation's maize cropping systems(arthropods include insects, spiders, and crustaceans).
  
  
  The project has also fostered the systematic collection of farmer's local maize varieties(landraces) and related information for Kenya's National Gene Bank.