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Resources

Anamed publications

Natural Medicine in the Tropics by Hirt and M’Pia (Second edition)
This is an excellent introduction and guide to the production and use of traditional medicines. It gives full and detailed instructions on how to use 65 medicinal plants to treat a wide variety of health concerns. The information on pages 7–9 was adapted from this book. Highly recommended. It is available in English, German, French, Ukrainian and Spanish.

Healing Plants in the Tropics
This is an excellent and informative poster with colour photographs of 60 medicinal plants and describes the diseases and complaints for which they may be useful. It is available in English, French and German, or blank for teaching purposes.

Anamed Malaria Programme
The Artemisia annua var anamed Kit includes 1,200 seeds and full information about sowing, growing and harvesting this plant. It also has details of networking between participants in the Anamed Malaria Programme. It costs US $93 (210DM). Please specify country of use as each pack is prepared individually.

A detailed list of all Anamed’s publications can be seen on their website www.anamed.org. For all the above materials, please send payment in advance using either cheque or bank transfer. For payment from banks other than British or German, please add $6 to cover bank fees. Write to:

Anamed-versand, Schafweide 77, 71364 Winnenden, Germany Fax: +49 7195 65367 E-mail: anamed@t-online.de


The Healthy Eyes Activity Book

This is a health teaching book for primary school children which provides lots of exercises and activities for use in class. The 50 pages provide many ideas for lessons and source materials for photocopying to use with a class. The book provides information on good health for eyes, preventing blindness (especially through accidents) and understanding the causes of eye problems.

The book is available from:

International Centre for Eye Health, Institute of Opthalmology, 11–43 Bath St, London, EC1V 9EL, UK.
Fax: +44 20 720 3207 E-mail: eyeresource@ucl.ac.uk

Community Development CD-ROM Library

A new edition of this very useful CDROM library has just been published. This is Version 3.0 and contains the contents of over 1,150 books and newspapers relating to development. Some free copies are available for groups without access to foreign exchange. Please write to:
PO Box 200, Bridgnorth, Shropshire, WV16 4WQ, UK.

Trees for Living

This newsletter is produced twice a year to encourage regional networking in agroforestry in southern Africa. It includes articles on various useful tree species, farmer discoveries and improving soil fertility. For more details write to the following address:

Dr Andreas Böhringer, The SADC-ICRAF Zambezi Basin, Agroforestry Project, Makoka ARS, PO Box 134 Zomba, Malawi.

Fax: +265 534283 or 534298 E-mail: aboehringer@malawi.net
 
Helpful weeds 

Across east Africa, thousands of farmers are planting weeds in their maize fields. Though this sounds odd, the technique increases yields by giving the insect pests something else to eat instead of maize. ‘It’s better than pesticides, and a lot cheaper,’ said Ziadin Khan. ‘It has raised farm yields here near Mbita, Kenya by 60–70%.’

 

In east Africa, maize faces two major pests. The first is an insect called the stem borer. Most years, the larvae eat their way through a third of the region’s maize. But Khan discovered that the borer prefers a local weed, napier grass. By planting napier grass in their fields, farmers can lure the stem borers away from the maize and into a trap, as the grass produces a sticky substance that kills the larvae of stem borer. (However, in areas of high rainfall, napier can become invasive.)

 

The second major pest is striga, a parasitic plant that wrecks $10 billion worth of maize crops every year, threatening the livelihoods of 100 million Africans. Weeding striga is one of the most time-consuming activities for millions of African women farmers. Khan has found that another weed called desmodium seems to release a chemical that striga doesn’t like. If farmers plant desmodium between rows of maize, striga won’t grow.

 

Khan’s ideas are spreading rapidly. The International Centre for Insect Physiology and Ecology in Nairobi, where Khan works, has just finished trials on more than two thousand farms.

 

Adapted by Fred Pearce from a report on sustainable agriculture by Jules Pretty in New Scientist, February 2001.

This page was last updated on 26 July 2005