LET'S TALK

For the longest time, many maize diseases amongst them MLND have been with us and while we thought that this was a farmers problem, it is catching up and is at the very heart of our Research and Seed Production work. While so much efforts and resources have been put up to study and breed for resistance, most of the findings and that would be of importance to all is still well kept in our libraries or online still unread and implemented.

In the very beginning, this was confined to some parts of the maize growing areas in our country the likes of Bomet, Narok and Naivasha. Looking closely today and not forgetting the seed crop incidence at Perkerra in the recent past, the disease is right here with us. Some few years back, I recall a write up I did as a wake up call to the different stakeholders on information dissemination on the same. It was a sad state moving around then and farmers would innocently diagnose the symptoms as Nitrogen deficiency.

The disease has hence evolved and very healthy looking crops with dark green leaves and healthy stems still end up yielding nothing due to the very same disease. Unknowingly, the farmers will still keep their beautiful crops only to end up with zero pollen hence no yield.

It’s a painful state to be in as a country and I guess it is time that our seed regulators stepped up and applied thorough scrutiny to seed crops and explore use of markers to identify the presence of the same in imported seeds and also crops in the field as a part of their inspection regime in order to contain this giant that is slowly threatening our possibility to have our ugali meal peacefully in future. Visual detection will no longer be enough.

While to some of our field teams quantity has always been prioritized over quality and giving honest feedback has not been part of what we duly report, the entire circle has brought us to this point.

While maize farming has faced quite a number of challenges amongst them FAW, MLND is also proving to be? a hard fighter and turning this sector into a messier ground. While productivity is greatly affected, seed scarcity will be hitting real hard ad at this juncture, we all have to go back to the drawing board. We all have a role to play and quality should never ever be compromised over quantities. Let us not be perfect report writers just reporting on the good and never stating the presence of the very diseases that are slowly eating up our Agricultural sector.

It is not a one man’s job, but we all need to work together to get all done and the processes aligned.