Science beyond the confines of the laboratory.

In many parts of Africa severe hunger can be predicted, this is simmplely because it's seasonal. The locals call it a dry spell and usually elders tell their child to work hard in gardens in prediction of the dry spell coming a head. The plant that is tolerant to that kind drought in the region is cassava. This is main reason why we need to protect it and to do this, we visit farm fields, collect samples of whiteflies and look at leaf symptoms of cassava brown streak disease and mosaic disease. Below is one of the cassava fields in Northern Uganda, imagine if the fields were not infected the farmer would have enough to eat and sale but unfortunately this is not always the case. To give you an inkling, all farms in the region are small scale covering areas less than 1 hectare to about 10 hectares and are managed by the world's most poor people on the planet, 50% women who live below 2$ per day. To them farming is not an opportunity but rather the only alternative for survival, therefore, labour is given by the members of the family and the produce is mainly for consumption. The surplus is sold off to pay school fees and buy other household items like soap, sugar and paraffin. In order for us to achieve zero hunger by 2025, small scale farmers need to be empowered through providing disease free planting materials, training them to practise modern farming techniques and also help them fight pests. My team is using science to help small scale farmers fight the most devastating pest (Bemisia tabaci) of agriculture that is threatening the existence of a food security crop (cassava). The photo below was taken in northern Uganda in December 2016. Please give us feedback or get in touch with us.