Hope Mafaranga

Fifty-eight journalists from 30 African and Arab countries graduated from the SjCOOP Program of the World Federation of Science Journalists, Wednesday 10 th October 2012, in Jordan. Following their last encounter with the experienced science journalist who has been their mentor for the last two years, the ‘mentees’ – one of them now editor-in-chief of his newspaper, another now working for the main TV station in her country, and several having published articles in the most prestigious scientific journals – received their certificate from the World Federation of Science Journalists. “It has really been two years of great learning and sharing”, said Hope Mafaranga from Uganda. The class of 2012 is the second group of African and Arab science journalists to successfully complete the SjCOOP training program. In a first phase, from 2006 to 2009, SjCOOP graduated 32 science journalists from Africa and the Arab World. SjCOOP mentees typically begin by revising the ten lessons of the WFSJ

Africa’s first long-term study finds legume trees planted alongside maize, combined with less fertilizer, is best solution for Africa’s most important food crop Inserting rows of “fertilizer trees” into maize fields, known as agroforestry, can help farmers across sub-Saharan Africa cope with the impacts of drought and degraded soils, according to a 12-year-long study by researchers at the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF). The study, Can Integration of Legume Trees Increase Yield Stability in Rainfed Maize Cropping Systems in Southern Africa?, by Gudeta Sileshi, Legesse Kassa Debusho and Festus Akinnifesi, was published in this month’s issue of Agronomy Journal of the Soil Science Society of America. Three coordinated experiments, begun in 1991 in Malawi and Zambia, found that farms that mix nitrogen-fixing trees and maize have consistent and relatively high yields year after year. In Malawi, the highest average maize yield was found in fields that combined both fertilizer tree