76 GERMINATION.CA JANUARY 2019 WORLD STATUS Agriculture (CIAT), the McKnight Foundation and the U.S. Agency for International Development. “This is an important milestone, the product of many years of effort here at Penn State in collabora- tion with our international partners, especially in Mozambique,” said lead researcher Jonathan Lynch, distin- guished professor of plant nutrition. “With long-term support from our sponsors, we were able to translate scientific discoveries to the practical impact of new bean lines with better stress tolerance.” Because planting season in Mozambique is January and February, the December distribution of seed AFGHANISTAN A NEW DROUGHT response will help 1.4 million of the most vulner- able drought-affected people in Afghanistan during the winter season and into April of 2019, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) announced on the sidelines of the Geneva Conference on Afghanistan. Around 10.6 million people, or close to half of the country's rural population, are severely food inse- cure. This level of hunger has many causes, including years of civil unrest, but it has been made worse by a damaging drought triggered by low snowfall last winter followed by rainfall of up to 70 per cent less than normal in some places. Many families have resorted to desperate coping measures including skipping meals, selling off their livestock or moving to makeshift displacement camps. FAO is working with partner organizations to provide vulnerable farmers in 22 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces — particularly households headed by women or people with disabilities — with urgently-needed wheat seeds and fertilizers in time for the winter planting season when much-needed rains are forecast to finally arrive. FAO’s drought response is also intended to help people stay at their places of origin and reduce drought- induced displacements. Dominique Burgeon, director of FAO’s Emergency and Rehabilitation Division and Resilience Strategic Program leader, has just returned from a mission to Herat, in Afghanistan’s drought-affected west- ern province. “Households will not be able to recover from this drought if farm- ers do not have seeds to plant when the rains come, or if they have been forced to sell all their animals,” said Rajendra Aryal, FAO’s representative in Afghanistan. Source: fao.org MOZAMBIQUE IN THE CULMINATION of more than a decade of research on root traits conducted by Pennsylvania State University plant scientists, about three tons of seed for common bean plants specifically bred to thrive in the barren soils of Mozambique was distributed there on Dec. 11, 2018. Farmers, nongovernmental organizations and seed companies in eight villages across the central region of the country in southeast Africa received seed for bean plants that possess an enhanced abil- ity to acquire the essential nutrient phosphorus. The distribution is a joint event led by the Mozambican Institute of Agrarian Research (IIAM), with support from Penn State, the International Center for Tropical Afghans need seeds after a severe drought while Mozambique gets new bean varieties and Zimbabwe revolutionizes the way it grows maize. Farmers in Angonia, Mozambique, happy with the performance of new varieties of common bean developed by an international partnership of plant scientists that included researchers in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences, pose among plants in a bean field. PHOTO: Jimmy Burridge