KITUI, Kenya (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Gadam, a
fast-maturing, drought-tolerant sorghum variety introduced in Kenya as a
solution for farmers trying to adapt to changing climate conditions,
turns out to have an unexpected drawback – wild birds are eating it just
before it can be harvested.“Such are stumbling blocks to climate adaptation measures being put in place,” said Evans Kituyi, the senior climate change adaptation programme specialist of the International Development Research Centre. “Some of these challenges are usually not foreseen when developing such projects. But we must learn to solve them as we move forward,” he added.
The sorghum variety, selected and introduced in Kenya by the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute, appears to be a new favourite of the red-billed quelea bird, a type of weaver that moves in flocks of hundreds of thousands, said David Karanja, a research scientist at KARI and the principal investigator for the Gadam Sorghum Production and Marketing Project.
