Posted on February, 6, 2019 at 09:49 am
By Wahinya Henry
As a child growing up in Western Kenya, Dr Damaris Odeny ate finger millet ‘uji’ and ‘ugali’ but only on special occasions.
“We could not eat it daily because it was scarce and, therefore, expensive,” recalls Odeny.
During the first two decades after Kenya’s independence, the government singled out maize as a major food staple and started providing incentives to farmers to plant it.
Following the incentives, farmers abandoned finger millet farming for the lucrative maize.
The scarcity disappointed Odeny, driving her to contribute towards restoring cultivation of finger millet a crop popularly known for its ugali, porridge and busaa, a local brew.
Odeny, a plant geneticist and daughter of a sugarcane grower, is now leading the effort to bring finger millet back.
Millet project
She is at the helm of the finger millet pre-breeding project, which seeks to reintroduce genetic diversity into the cultivated crop.
In 1993 Margaret Kubende, a farmer from Kakamega county, was diagnosed with diabetes, forcing her to adopt a new diet.
“I had to change my diet to keep my blood sugar levels down. Maize and wheat were not good for me, but I knew I could improve my health if I ate finger millet,” she says adding that from her knowledge, she decided to venture into millet farming.
It is an ideal food for diabetics since it has high amounts of slowly digestible starch and resistant starch that contribute to slow release of sugar into the bloodstream.
The high levels of calcium, iron and amino acids in finger millet make it exceptionally nutritious.
“We are committed to making it a staple in East Africa and not just a food for special occasion,” she adds.
Odeny and her team are screening wild millet and traditional landraces for resistance to Striga, blast disease and tolerance to drought.
The crop can be grown at altitudes of up to 2,000 metres above sea levels, can withstand drought and has high levels of essential amino acids and micronutrients.
She says the variety, to be released into the market in four years, will contribute to reduction of poverty levels.
The variety will be released at the end of an eight-year multimillion shillings study launched in Nyanza and Western regions of the country.
Researchers in the study say the variety will be drought and striga resistant and tolerant to blast disease.
“We do not have a good variety of finger millet that is resistant to Striga,” said Odeny a senior scientist at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics(Icrisat).
“We have identified wild relatives of finger millet that are resistant to Striga. We will use them to introduce this trait into farmer-prefered varieties.”
Yield losses
According to Henry Ojulong, a cereals breeder at Icrisat, blast is the most destructive disease of finger millet.
“Blast can occur at all stages of plant growth and affects the leaves, neck, and fingers.”
In Kenya, blast causes an estimated yield loss of about 30 per cent.
Striga, a sap-sucking weed, can lead to complete loss of crops and once it is in a farmer’s field, it is nearly impossible to eradicate.
A farmer can harvest three tonnes of millet per acre but only harvests an average of 1.5 tonnes due to pest attacks.
Odeny told People Daily that the Sh78 million project started in 2015. The first phase was undertaken at a budget of $430,000 (Sh43.1 million) with the second phase commencing in two years running through to September 2020 at a cost of $350,000 (Sh35.1 million).
Most Kenyans eat finger millet primarily as ugali. But Pascilisa Wanyonyi has been working to create other finger millet food products and is marketing a snack called “crackies”.
“I started planting finger millet in 2009. It is more nutritious than maize and good, not only for humans, but for livestock as well,” says Wanyonyi.
She wanted to go beyond the traditional uses of finger millet and create value-added processed products than can be sustainably produced. After some experimentation in the kitchen, she adopted “crackies”.
Crackies are deep-fried crispy noodles made primarily of finger millet but supplemented with soy and wheat flour.
In April last year, she served her crackies to President Uhuru Kenyatta who campaigned on a platform that no Kenyan should ever go hungry.
Wanyonyi packages and brands her product, which generates extra income for her family.
Farmers like Wanyonyi have developed value-added processed products and that has helped increase the demand for finger millet. However, supply is not keeping pace, as there remains a few barriers to overcome before more farmers plant finger millet.
The project is a collaborative effort by scientists drawn from Icrisat, Maseno University and Kenya Agricultural Livestock Research Organisation (Kalro)
Ideal crop
It is funded by the Crop Wild Relatives (CWR) initiative, a global, 10-year project, supported by the Government of Norway. Crop Trust manages the initiative
Odeny is working closely with Chrispus Oduori, a finger millet breeder and the director of the Kisii Centre of Food Crops Research Institute (FCRI) under Karlo.
Like Odeny, Oduori hails from Western Kenya and has spent a lifetime advocating for finger millet.
“We think it is an ideal crop, particularly because of its nutritional value and the unfolding negative impacts of climate change,” says Oduori.
“Our improved varieties like Maridadi are less vulnerable to blast and Striga, but they are not fully resistant yet,” she adds.
“Finger millet is one of 19 crops we are supporting via our pre-breeding projects,” says Benjamin Kilian, a scientist with the Crop Trust.
“Our aim is to introduce beneficial traits from their wild relatives into cultivated crops so they are more resilient to climate change.”
“With climate change we will see even greater outbreaks of pests and diseases due to weather extremes. We will see more Striga, for example, if climate change leads to drier conditions,” says Oduori.
Source: MediaMax Network