Biovision operates in five African countries with a goal of spreading information on sustainable and ecological agriculture.
Biovision was founded in 1998 by Swiss entomologist Hans Rudolf Herren. In the 1980’s he had managed to avert a famine in Africa by eradicating the mealybug, a crop pest that threatened cassava plants. Herren discovered a non-chemical solution that involved introducing a wasp that was a natural enemy of the mealybug.
The Push-Pull method is one of the ecologically-based farming systems Biovision promotes in Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda and Tanzania. It consists of planting other plants next to a main staple crop like maize. One diverts agricultural pests away from the staple crop and another plant attracts it. This sustainable method proves particularly effective in the production of maize and sorghum, without resorting to chemical pesticides and fertilisers. More than 96,000 farmers are now using this method in East Africa.
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Poverty campaigner wins “alternative Nobel”
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Hans R Herren, founder of the Biovision Foundation for Ecological Development, was one of four people to be made a Laureate this year by the Swedish-based Right Livelihood Award Foundation. The 65-year-old was cited for “his expertise and pioneering work in promoting a safe, secure and sustainable global food supply”. Herren is credited with saving…
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On a visit to Zurich, Peter Baumgartner, who runs a BioVision-financed newspaper for smallholders, said it was now even more vital to help this neglected but important part of Kenyan society. Around 1,500 people died and 600,000 people were displaced during the violence which followed disputed elections in Kenya in December. A power-sharing deal between…
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Herren, the subject of a new biography, tells swissinfo.ch how he managed to naturally control the bug using a method that involved shooting the insect’s natural enemy, a type of wasp, from aeroplanes across huge swathes of Africa. The scientist was only 31 when he took a job in the middle of a crisis: the…
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An international study, published on Tuesday, shows that efforts to increase food production come at the expense on the world’s poor and damage the environment. “We can’t go on as we are,” said Hans Rudolf Herren, head of the Swiss non-governmental organisation BioVision, which promotes sustainable agriculture in developing countries. Along with Kenyan colleague Judi…
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