We have the pleasure to share with you an interview of Jenya Shandina, Input Team Manager at One Acre Fund. Jenya presents the One Acre Fund organization and shares their experience using the Agdia-Emea ELISA tests for Maize Lethal Necrosis Disease diagnostic. This disease is currently impacting severely smallholder farmers and consequently food and nutrition security.

Could you please introduce One Acre Fund activities and objectives?
“One Acre Fund is an NGO that works in Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi, and Tanzania. We provide quality agricultural inputs, such as improved seed and fertilizer, on credit to smallholder farmers. We support farmers through extensive training on improved agricultural techniques. We currently work with 200,000 smallholder farmers in East Africa. Our objective is to improve food security and help smallholder farmers in Africa increase their incomes”.

What was the initial impact of Maize Lethal Necrosis Disease (MLND) outbreak in the countries you are present?
“Maize is a key crop in all countries that we operate in, so MLND had a significant impact. Many farmers lost a large portion of their harvest due to MLND”.

How does One Acre Fund help to manage the disease?
“One Acre Fund encourages crop diversification away from maize in high risk areas. We encourage farmers to plant millet, sorghum, and beans to ensure food security even if MLND affects their area.
We also do testing on maize plants through our MLND laboratory using Agdia-Emea ELISA kits, so that we are able to identify the disease in farmer fields. We then encourage the farmers to follow the government recommended procedures to uproot the plants and destroy them, in order to prevent further spread of the disease.

Working with Agdia-Emea has been a very positive experience for One Acre Fund. The Agdia representatives are very quick to respond, helpful in their advice on how to use the reagents, and supportive with logistics of getting the reagents to us in East Africa. Using the Agdia kits is very easy and requires minimal training”.

From Jenya Shandina, Input Team Manager at One Acre Fund.

For more information on One Acre Fund: http://www.oneacrefund.org/