…as Marama domestication project gets more funding

Windhoek- University of Namibia scientists who are working on a groundbreaking European Union-funded project to domesticate a highly nutritious wild bean plant did the university proud when their exhibition was judged the best among dozens of others at an international scientific conference in South Africa, recently.

The scientists - Dr Percy Chimwamurombe, Mr. Emmanuel Nepolo, Ms Mutsa Takundwa and Mr. Damascene Uzakiriho - are trying to domesticate the Marama wild bean to save it from extinction, improve the nutrition of people and reduce poverty.

Their initiative has generated international interest among top plant scientists and donors that include the United Kingdom-based Kirkhouse Trust and the MacGregor Foundation of the United States of America. The project is particularly important for Namibia, a semi-arid country with limited commercial crop production options.

The UNAM scientists, who are now affectionately known as ‘The Marama Team’, were recently among approximately 100 other scientists who attended the Conference on Tropical Crops Biotechnology in Mpumalanga, Hazyview in South Africa.

Participants to the workshop were mostly scientists working on tropical crops agriculture improvement through biotechnology. They included MSc students, post-doctoral fellows, professors, university lecturers, research directors of big biotechnology companies like Monstanto of the USA, Sygenta also of the USA, and the John Innes Research Institute of the United Kingdom.

Chimwamurombe, who is the principal investigator in the Marama project, said the aim of the conference was to showcase different research in tropical agriculture (sugar cane, pearl millet, bananas, sweet potatoes and plantation forests) aimed at maximizing output in keeping with growing population demands, dwindling land for agriculture and changing environmental conditions.

During the conference, Chimwamurombe presented a paper entitled Marama bean domestication in Southern Africa: Climate change triggering the need for crop diversification.

His students presented posters related to the project and were judged the best of more than 25 groups in that category from all over the world. The second best group was from the Marx Plank Institute from Germany for their work on regulation of starch genes. Stellenbosch University of South Africa, which hosted the conference, was rated the third for work on sucrose biosynthetic pathways in sugarcane.

Chimwamurombe described his team’s performance at the high-level conference as “both humbling and motivating”.

Meanwhile, the United Nations Development Programme-run Country Partnership Programme (PPP) for Integrated Sustainable Land Management has boosted the Marama domestication project by giving it N$250 000 for one year. The money was made available under a project called: Cultivation of Marama beans; a new cash crop for sustainable land management (COMP-CSLM). The project will be run in collaboration with three communities in Namibia’s Omaheke and Otjozondjupa regions and will involve students, community members, experts in agronomy and bio-technology tools experts. The key outputs will include technology transfers to communities, awareness of Marama cultivation and conservation, and development of marketing strategies for Marama produce.