Africa's inevitable walk to genetically modified (GM) crops: opportunities and challenges for commercialization.

High relative poverty levels in Africa are attributed to the continent's under performing agriculture. Drought, low-yielding crop varieties, pests and diseases, poor soils, low fertilizer use, limited irrigation and lack of modern technologies are among the problems that plague African agriculture. Genetically modified (GM) crops may possess attributes that can help overcome some of these constraints, but have yet to be fully embraced in the mix of technology solutions for African agriculture. Cognizant of this, South Africa, Burkina Faso and Egypt are steadily growing GM crops on a commercial scale. Countries like Kenya, Nigeria, and Uganda are increasingly field-testing these crops with the view to commercialize them. These countries show strong government support for GM technology. Progress by these first adopter nations provides an insight as to how GM crops are increasingly being viewed as one of the ways in which the continent can invigorate the agriculture sector and achieve food security.

Carbon Dioxide Evolution from High-Moisture Shelled Corn Treated with Iprodione †.

Carbon dioxide evolution was used to determine the storage life of 22.7% moisture shelled corn. Four iprodione fungicide treatments plus an untreated control were tested. The fungicide was tested on corn having three levels of mechanical kernel damage: 7% (hand shelled), 25% (combine harvested), and 16% (a blend of the other two damage levels). All iprodione treatments significantly increased storage life. Corn samples with higher levels of kernel damage took shorter times to reach the 0.5% dry-matter loss (DML) level. For combine-shelled corn, the fungicide increased storage life 17% at 15 mg/kg of corn and 46% at 20 mg/kg of corn.