Hot and barren, Kenya’s dry lands have long been unfit for agriculture, at best merely a grazing area for wild animals and livestock.

Today, the landscape is more picturesque and productive, lined with golden stalks of wheat yielding precious grain for Kenya’s farms and families. The wheat is a new variety, one that is high yielding and resistant to drought. As a result, small farming families are realizing harvests on farmlands once considered too poor to cultivate, to the country’s social and economic benefit.

The progress is life-saving at a time when wheat crops in Kenya and other African countries are plagued by a virulent new strain of fungus called “wheat rust” that threatens the region’s farmlands.

“The progress is crucial. This wheat is literally Kenya’s bread of life,” says Martin Dyre, whose family owns one of Kenya’s largest wheat plantations. “The diet of this country is changing more and more towards wheat-based products, so the demand for wheat is growing.”

Scientists and crop researchers at Kenya’s Agricultural Research Institute (KARI) developed the new wheat seeds over the past decade. Through a process called “mutation plant breeding,” they applied radiation-based techniques to modify crop characteristics and traits. Kenya worked closely with the IAEA, through its technical cooperation arm and a regional programme called AFRA (African Co-operative Agreement for Research, Development and Training related to Nuclear Science and Technology). In August 2008, through its Joint Division with the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, the IAEA will host an International Conference on Plant Breeding that takes stock of the latest developments in Kenya and other countries.

KARI is the country’s premier institution for agricultural research and technology transfer. Its plant breeders successfully released their first mutant wheat variety in 2001. Called Njoro-BW1, it was bred to be tolerant to drought and use limited rainfall efficiently. Key side benefits include a moderate resistance to wheat rust; high yields, with grains valued for flour production of good baking quality.

Njoro-BW1 today is cultivated on more than 10,000 hectares in Narok, Nalvasha, Katumani and Mogotio. Its popularity among Kenyan wheat farmers is increasing steadily, so much so that KARI’s seed unit can barely keep up with farmer’s demand.

Professor Miriam Kinyua, now an Associate Professor at Moi University and KARI’s former Chief Plant Breeder and Center Director, is largely credited for developing Kenya’s mutant wheat varieties.

“Njoro-BW1 came out as a hit variety,” she recalls. “The farmers liked it from the start. In dry areas, they can expect to harvest up to 20 bags an acre. It is now our most popular wheat variety for the drylands.”

Peter Njau, KARI’s chief plant breeder, says Njoro-BW1’s value goes beyond drylands.

“Although we developed the Njoro-BW1 variety for dry lowlands, it is being widely adapted in other areas,” he says. Farmers have reported successfully growing the wheat in the highlands and even in the acidic soils of the northern rift, where it is outperforming other wheat varieties developed for those conditions.

Kenya’s plant breeders soon will release a second mutant wheat variety, code-named DH4, which shares most of the same good qualities of Njoro-BW1.

“DH4 is high-yielding, and has a high grain quality. It is also hard and red, qualities that farmers ask for because of its high market value,” Professor Kinyua explains. Hard red grains distinguish as some of the world’s best wheat, high in protein and valued for making flour used for baking high-quality breads.

A photo essay (and more information) about this story can be found here.

[Press Office @ International Atomic Energy Agency]