A plant pathologist's involvement in the struggle to get better seeds

Dr George Bigirwa at one of the research stations.

What you need to know:

Dr George Bigirwa is a plant pathologist. He has been involved in various research that has improved food production in Africa as he explains to Lominda Afedraru

Q: Can you tell me briefly about who you in relation to your work as scientists?

A: My name is Dr George Bigirwa, a plant pathologist by training and currently I am the Associate Director of the Programmes  for Africa Seed Systems which is being implemented by the Alliance Green Revolution for Africa.

Q: When did you join this profession and where did you start practicing as a plant pathologist?

A: I started practicing agricultural science in 1986 at the National Agricultural Research Laboratories (NaRL) in Kawanda. I did that for two years under the Maize programme but when the US Agency for International Development (USAID) began to support the programme, they wanted it to be under the National Crop Resources Research Institute in Namulonge.

I shifted to Namulonge working under the maize research team comprising of agronomists and entomologists. The target was to come up with quality maize varieties because the variety we bred in Kawanda comprised of composite A with partial resistance to maize pests and diseases as well as late maturity period lasting about 61 days.

Q: When you shifted to Namulonge which maize varieties did your team breed preferred by farmers?

A: In 1990 my team developed Longe1 open pollinated variety. However there was need for hybrid varieties which are high yielding to give farmers better returns.

Our efforts resulted in the release of two hybrid varieties Longe2H and Long3H. Later the scope of our research widened to include breeding of improved rice varieties and the programme was changed to Cereals Research Programme.

With this new mandate, we were able to breed and release Longe6H, Longe7H and Longe8H maize varieties including Neric 6H and Nerica1 rice varieties

Q:How did your team manage to make sure these varieties reach out to the farmer?

A: As we continued with the breeding programme the seed industry had been liberalised and we were able to work with the then emerging seed companies like FICA, Naseco and Farm harvest that later collapsed. These would multiply the seed and supply the varieties to farmers.

By the time I left Namulonge in 2008, there were eight seed companies. Some of them began importing seed into the country because what was produced in Namulonge was not enough to meet the demand by farmers.

But the imported maize seed did not meet preference of the farmers because that time there was break out of diseases like maize streak virus, maize leaf blight and grey leaf spot which needed varieties with resistance to the same.

Q: By the time you left Namulonge which other highbred varieties were available to the farmers?

A: I became the head of the Cereal Research Programme in 1999 and by the time I left, my team had developed varieties meant to resist the mentioned viruses which included Longe9H, Longe10H and longe11H plus Nerica1 and Nerica10

Q:  Did you leave Namulonge to start working with AGRA and while away, what transpired?

A: I left to work with AGRA in 2008 and joined it as a programme officer in-charge of supporting and mentoring seed entrepreneurs in Eastern and Southern Africa.

But while away, the Cereal Research Programme had grown with scientists releasing a number of maize varieties including the recent Wema maize varieties which are resistant to stem borers as well as drought tolerant and rice varieties that are capable of growing in wet land.

The scientists have even gone ahead to breed varieties using biotechnology, not only in cereal crops but roots crops as well as to address issues of pests and diseases which farmers are faced with.

However, I still feel proud that we set up the foundation of quality seed breeding and what I am doing in AGRA is even better because in the PASS programme we are trying to ensure that farmers in Africa access quality seed for improved production.

Q:The seed programme which you are leading in Agra, how is it helping the grass root farmers?

A: I am handling a number of countries under this programme and they include Uganda, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, Malawi, Mozambique, Ghana, Nigeria, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Zambia.

I identify seed companies; give them grants to increase on their seed production as well as technical support. This is in an effort to ensure that farmers’ obtain quality seed for their produce

I have since rose to the position of senior programme officer and now to Associate Director with additional responsibilities of conducting activities like training of students to work with research institutes supporting seed breeding programme and agro inputs dealer development.

Q: How do you handle the student bursary programme in this project?

A: We administer the PASS programme in four different areas one is identifying universities to train students in Master Degree and PHD. For students in East and Central Africa we have identified the University of Kuazul Natal and University of Ghana for those in West Africa to train them in PHD program with set target of training 80 breeders.

At master level,  180 students are to be trained and we have identified Makerere University, Aramaya University in Ethiopia, Sokoine University in Tanzania, Buda College in Malawi, university of Zambia, Mondolena University in Mozambique, Ibadan University in Nigeria, Nkwame Nkuruma University in Ghana and University of Burkina Faso.

Q: What other activities do you conduct apart from supporting student grants?

A: We support research activities and in Naro, we are supporting research initiatives in maize, rice, sweet potato and bean breeding all in NaCRRI and in NaRL we do support banana breeding programme while at the National Semi Arid Resources Research Institute (NaSARRI) in Serere, we are supporting cow pea, ground nut and sorghum breeding programmes.

By funding the research institutes we are trying to make sure that quality crop varieties are bred for the farmers to realize good output.

Q:  What is the African green revolution all about?

A:  Now to tell you about the green revolution, it all started with the red revolution  where change of governments were done through blood shed but the green revolution is looking at change in the agriculture sector where farmers are expected to conduct their farming activity using good practices in order to realize better output.

The first green revolution took place in China led by Norman Borlaug where farmers were asked to use fertilizer on their farms to increase productivity.

The next green revolution took place in Asia with wheat varieties transferred from Latin America to farmer fields in Asia as well as use of fertilizer and irrigation in Rice varieties developed in Asia

There were early attempts to introduce these varieties in Africa which did not take place because these are not crops which could grow easily on African soil with quiet different weather patterns.

This therefore called for a unique African green revolution, the reason why AGRA was formed in 2006 to bring about green revolution in Africa in a very unique way focusing on crops farmers grow in Africa such as Maize, Sorghum, millet, rice, beans, groundnuts, pigeon pea, cow pea, cassava, banana and sweet potato among others.

The African green revolution is all about the African farmers producing enough food and selling the surplus in order to earn income and as such part of the PASS programme is to look for markets for farmers who have produced surplus for sell.

Q: What are the other projects implemented by AGRA?

A: The other element is sensitizing farmers to consider good soil usage since soils in Africa have been cultivated over and over. We are trying to encourage use of fertilizer, organic manure and crops rotation especially with legume crops.

Using the integrated soil fertility managements approach, we are using extension service workers to teach farmers through demonstration plots on how to apply fertilizer on their soils.

We are also engaged in policy matters regarding agriculture that is why we are now trying to engage the government of Uganda to wave VAT imposed on agricultural inputs and in Tanzania last year farmers produced a lot of food which the government barred them to sell to other countries but we had to come in to negotiate.

Our team is also working with farmer organisations and we do train them to sell their produce as group and be organized in cooperative unions in order to reap big.

Working with Agra, I feel I have made a commendable contribution in the agricultural sector in different African countries.

For instance, there are countries that did not have seed companies like Rwanda, Mozambique, and Ethiopia but we managed to set up seed companies and now farmers are getting quality seed.

We have managed to create a public private partnership linkages the reason why Naro can now work with seed companies in Uganda and another achievement is that I managed to set up a seed training institute at the University of Nairobi where seed dealers bring their personnel to train in short courses concerning production of quality seed and agro seed business management.

This is a great achievement because previously people used to go all the way to the University of Iowa in USA which was a little costly.