News
The December 2018 ICAC Recorder Continues Its Focus on Yields in Africa
For Immediate Release
Date Posted: 14 January 2019
Executive Summary
The December 2018 ICAC Recorder
highlights include:
- Part II of the theme,
‘Cotton High Yields —This Time for Africa’
- An editorial from the
ICAC’s Dr. Keshav Kranthi about the issues that must be considered before
introducing hybrid varieties
- A socioeconomic analysis
of higher cotton productivity
- The relevance of light and
simplified cultivation techniques
- Conservation agriculture
for sustainable cotton production
- The relevance of biotech
cotton in Africa
The December
2018 ICAC Recorder Continues Its
Focus on Yields in Africa
The December 2018 ICAC Recorder
continued the theme established in the prior issue, which was released in
September: ‘Cotton High Yields, This Time for Africa’. At 34 pages long, it
includes four major feature articles, as well as an introductory editorial
penned by the International Cotton Advisory Committee’s (ICAC) Head of the Technical
Information Section, Dr. Keshav Kranthi.
The issue begins with Dr. Kranthi’s editorial,
which previews the four features and promises that in the future, ICAC will ‘continue its
technical efforts to explore tangible solutions to the intractable challenges
in Africa and looks forward to collaborating with interested agencies for
breaking the yield barriers and for the betterment of cotton farming systems
and the entire cotton sector in Africa’.
The first feature article, entitled ‘Higher
Cotton Productivity in Africa – A Socio Economic Analysis’,
was written by two professionals with India’s Central Institute for Cotton
Research (ICAR) in Coimbatore: M. Sabesh and A.H. Prakash. The authors point
out that a small
increase in cotton prices can more than compensate for lower yields, and that governments
need to decide whether to focus on increasing cotton prices or yields.
The second feature is entitled, ‘Light and
Simplified Cultivation (LSC) Techniques and their Relevance for Africa’. Authored
by Hezhong Dong
of the Cotton Research Centre at the Shandong Academy of Agricultural Science, it
is an overview of LSC techniques designed to reduce the labour-intensiveness of
cotton cultivation.
Article three — ‘Conservation
Agriculture for Sustainable Cotton Production in Africa’ —
was written by Blaise Desouza at ICAR
in Nagpur. He specifically addresses the need for growers to follow best
management practices in Africa, particularly as they apply to soil health.
The final article was authored by Dr. Kranthi and takes a
high-level view of the use of biotech cotton for both insect resistance and herbicide
tolerance. It includes a country-by-country breakdown of which
cotton-cultivating nations in Africa have approved one or both types of
genetically modified cotton.
To view the December 2018 edition of The ICAC
Recorder, please click one of the links below:
The International Cotton Advisory Committee (ICAC) was
created to assist members in fostering a healthy world cotton economy. The role
of the ICAC is to raise awareness, to provide information, and to serve as a
catalyst for cooperative action on issues of international significance.