CALI, Colombia - As massive quantities of food and other humanitarian aid reach Honduras
and Nicaragua in the aftermath of hurricane Mitch, agricultural experts in these countries
are applying high-tech tools to prepare for the rehabilitation of crop production through
a multimillion-dollar program of "seed relief."A powerful technological aid
in this task is GIS, or geographical information systems. These consist of advanced
computer tools for transforming complex data and satellite images into forms that people
can easily use for practical ends. With a GIS users can draw different sets of information
from electronic databases and then combine or overlay the data on maps, which can be
viewed on the computer screen or printed out.
One such tool is an electronic "Mitch atlas," which is being developed by the
Colombia-based International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT). It combines
information about topography, rivers, soils, crops, roads, and other features of the
nation's rural landscape with maps derived from satellite images taken before and just
after Mitch struck.
The maps give a clear, panoramic picture of the hurricane's disastrous consequences for
agriculture. "Some of them were derived from images provided by Radarsat, a Canadian
satellite that takes radar images of the earth's surface, penetrating darkness and cloud
cover," explains GIS specialist Gregoire Leclerc.
To capture these images, the Canadian Space Agency reprogrammed Radarsat on the Friday
after the hurricane hit. A Canadian company then transformed them into maps, using
ground-reference information from CIAT.
Based on these maps, planners of relief efforts can pinpoint areas on a national basis
where flooding and landslides have destroyed crops, says Leclerc. "They can also
identify the rural communities that have been most isolated by the hurricane's
destruction," he adds.
Leclerc and his colleagues will continually update the atlas as they obtain new
information, and they will make it available to local and international organizations on
CD-ROM and through the World Wide Web.
"Our work on GIS forms part of research aimed at reducing poverty and improving
the management of natural resources in Central America," says Jacqueline Ashby, a
research director at CIAT. "But clearly GIS is also of immeasurable value in an
emergency like this one. We're making every effort to ensure that our national and
international partners have the GIS tools and the information they need to orient efforts
for helping rural communities rebuild their lives."
"We need this kind of support more than ever," wrote Eduardo Marín, Director
of Planning in Nicaragua's Ministry of Agriculture, in reply to an offer to install and
provide training in the use of new GIS equipment.
"In the hands of local and international institutions, GIS will guide efforts to
bolster farmers' seed supplies and restore access to markets for their produce,"
notes Miguel Ayarza, the agronomist who coordinates CIAT's work on hillside agriculture in
Central America.
"Getting basic food production back on its feet is vital for avoiding major food
shortages in 1999 and beyond," Ayarza says. Toward this end CIAT and three other
centers sponsored by the Consultative Group on International Agriculture (CGIAR) are
mounting a multimillion-dollar program of seed relief.
Working with national institutes, NGOs, and farmer groups, the program will rapidly
multiply appropriate seeds of staple crops, such as beans and maize. By March of next
year, the first seed supplies will be reaching small farmers in areas of Honduras and
Nicaragua where agriculture suffered the greatest damage. CGIAR scientists estimate that
farmers in these countries may have lost more than half of their maize and bean crops.
CIAT coordinated a similar initiative, called "Seeds of Hope," in Rwanda
during 1995-96, after ethnic genocide, civil war, and the flight of refugees shattered the
country's crop production.
The other international centers taking part in Seeds of Hope for
Honduras and Nicaragua are the International Maize and Wheat
Improvement Center (CIMMYT), International Potato Center (CIP),
and International Plant Genetic Resources Institute (Bioversity).
All four centers are nonprofit, nongovernment research organizations
dedicated to alleviating hunger and poverty and to protecting
natural resources in the tropics. They are among 16 international
centers sponsored by the CGIAR, an association of nations
and international agencies that fund research for development.
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