CABI Scientists Share Expertise on Digital Tools to Fight Crop Pests at RUFORUM Triennial Scientific Conference
16 August 2024, Namibia: CABI has shared its expertise on a range of digital tools to fight Invasive Alien Species (IAS) which threaten food security and the livelihoods of smallholder farmers at the RUFORUM Triennial Scientific Conference held in Namibia.
This year’s Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture (RUFORUM) event was organized under the theme “Operationalizing Higher Agricultural Education and Research Ecosystems for Innovation, Industrialization and Economic Development in Africa: A Call for Action.”
The 2nd RUFORUM Triennial Scientific Conference was further billed as a response to the urgent needs for African governments, development partners, private sector and citizenry to act, to invest in higher education to underpin the continent’s urgent needs in an inclusive and sustainable way.
CABI’s digital tool capabilities
Dr Jospeh Mulema, Senior Scientist, Research, Henry Mibei, Manager, Digital Development, Africa, and Kevin Muraguri, Agri-Digital Tools Communications Coordinator, all attended the conference to showcase CABI’s digital tool capabilities.
Dr Mulema gave a presentation entitled ‘Strategic Efforts, Tools and Approaches to Secure Sub-Saharan Africa from the Threat of Invasive Alien Species’ which stresses how IAS threaten economies due to the loss of agricultural productivity, biodiversity, and trade, and their influx often goes unnoticed.
He said CABI, is a leading authority in invasive species management, and has developed a the Horizon Scanning Tool that uses information from the CABI Compendium to select pests reported elsewhere but not yet in the country or region at risk.
Augmentative and classical biological control
Dr Mulema said, “Some actions include targeted surveillance to establish pest status, pest risk analysis to guide import requirements, contingency planning to enable eradication or containment strategies if the pest arrives, and cost-effective and low-risk management options such as augmentative and classical biological control.”
He added that CABI has supported horizon-scanning initiatives at the country level in Burundi, Ghana, Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, and Zambia while at the regional level in Central and West Africa.
Actions such as detection surveillance and pest-initiated Pest Risk Analysis using CABI’s Pest Risk Analysis Tool have also been conducted in Kenya and Uganda.
Classical biological control, Dr Mulema said, is underway in Kenya and Uganda to manage the papaya mealybug (Paracoccus marginatus) with an encyrtid wasp, Acerophagus papaya.
Challenges to good data management
In his presentation entitled ‘Accelerating Responsible and Effective Data Governance and Management for Transforming Africa’s Agriculture,’ Mr Mibei spoke about how the CABI-led, Gates Foundation-funded, Enabling Data Access (EDA) projects have been working to address challenges to good data management, access, sharing and use of data.
He said, “The CABI FAIR Process Framework (FPF) is a novel approach for engaging project managers, data scientists, policymakers, researchers, and others involved in the project cycle from the outset of any grant or investment, supporting timely decision-making through improved data access and use.
“This approach promotes strategic partnerships and co-creation processes that help unlock the potential of data and contribute to transformative and sustainable impacts.”
Breaking down barriers to quality education
Finally, Mr Muraguri gave a presentation entitled ‘Breaking Down Barriers to Quality Education to Ensure Students Gain Practical and Relevant Skills Applicable to Real-World Agricultural Challenges.’
Here Mr Muraguri spoke about how the CABI Academy breaks down financial barriers to quality education, ensuring that students gain practical and relevant knowledge applicable to real-world agricultural challenges.
Mr Muraguri said, “The CABI Academy is an important resource for a range of users, including those working in agricultural roles and looking for a way to progress their careers in a targeted and informed way.
“For students pursuing agriculture-related courses, it offers a wide range of high-quality online courses that cover essential topics such as crop pest diagnosis and management, soil and water management, and sustainable agriculture using bio-products.”
Skills and insights needed to thrive
He said the platform fosters networking and collaboration opportunities, connecting students with peers and professionals in the agricultural sector, ultimately equipping them with the skills and insights needed to thrive in their future careers.
“Efforts are made to disseminate these courses to maximum stakeholders through integration into the course curriculum. To date, there have been 29,820 registered users and 3,890 obtaining certificates on successful completion of the courses. There is further scope for its adoption and adaptation by leveraging the value of these courses by working in partnership with universities of Africa,” he said.
RUFORUM, established by ten Vice Chancellors in 2004, is a consortium of 170 universities in Africa. It is registered as an International NGO (FORR78950) in Uganda and coordinated by a Secretariat hosted at Makerere University in Kampala.
The organisation evolved from its predecessor, the Forum on Agricultural Resource Husbandry (FORUM) programme of the Rockefeller Foundation.
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