| Abstract |
Like its predecessors, the 12th Regional Wheat Workshop for Eastern, Central and Southern Africa, held at Merica Hotel in Nakuru, Kenya , 22–26 November 2004 provided a forum where wheat scientists from the region could come together to exchange their results, views, and ideas on the way forward in securing this important food crop. Ethiopia has an annual production of 1,600,000 metric tons, of both bread and durum wheats, produced mainly on small scale farms. A large gap exists between wheat production and demand in Ethiopia, and the country relies heavily on imports of nearly 800,000 metric tons each year. Kenya’s domestic bread wheat requirement, which currently stands at 720,000 tons p.a., is projected to reach 1 million tons by 2010. Like Ethiopia, Kenya produces less wheat than she needs, importing some 400,000 tons each year. Clearly therefore, increased wheat production in the region—through approaches such as breeding, agronomy, crop protection and improved economic policies, is not just desirable, but essential for the food security of millions of people. This proceedings presents valuable new information from research conducted in Kenya (11 articles), Ethiopia (9), The Sudan (2), and Tanzania (1), and is organized into four sections, namely Agronomy, Breeding, Protection, And Economics. The Agronomy section contains 6 papers, ranging in subject mater from water and fertilizer use efficiency in wheat varieties, to a comparison of field pea and barley as break crops in wheat farming. Breeding is the largest section, with 14 articles, including results from a three-year survey of the wheat stem rust situation in Kenya. The Protection section, with 3 articles, reports on the chemical management of weeds, and the Russian wheat aphid Diuraphis noxia—a new and damaging pest in the region. Results from a survey of the natural enemies of D. noxia are also presented, as the starting point for designing a biological control strategy for the aphid. In his economics article, Professor Abbas Elsir M. Elamin deals with the financial and economic profitability of wheat production in The Sudan, and its international competitiveness. The comprehensive analysis discusses government reform policies in the 1990s, and their role in wheat production, consumption and input use from that time to the present. We believe that this volume represents an important contribution to the regional and global knowledge bases on wheat production and economics, and that a better understanding of the subject matter will contribute to the ultimate goal of improved livelihoods for the people of Africa. |
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