Stemming from an 11-year DFID funded programme under its Renewable Natural Resources Research Strategy (RNRRS), Technology Development Assistance for Agriculture: Putting Research into Low Income Countries reviews part of this programme as a case study of a broader issue of technology development for Africa. Controversially, it critiques current international technology development assistance and focuses on the potential role of the private sector in agricultural technology development as well as providing insights for future cognate science policy and practice. The book focuses on the RIU "Best Bets" Africa sub-programme. This identified promising proposals to take existing agriculture research products and put these into use in ways that would benefit the poor in developing countries. The sum set aside for this was GBP5 million. The empirical sections of the book cover project selection, progress and programme management over a 2009-2012 period with special attention paid to lessons learned that may have implications for future cognate technology development assistance. This topical book gives direct evidence of meeting objectives and delivering real changes in technology development for Africa to postgraduate students, researchers, international bodies, NGOs, policy makers and government organisations working on natural resource management, technology development assistance, and low income country agriculture.

Stemming from an 11-year DFID funded programme under its Renewable Natural Resources Research Strategy (RNRRS), Technology Development Assistance for Agriculture: Putting Research into Low Income Countries reviews part of this programme as a case study of a broader issue of technology development for Africa. Controversially, it critiques current international technology development assistance and focuses on the potential role of the private sector in agricultural technology development as well as providing insights for future cognate science policy and practice. The book focuses on the RIU "Best Bets" Africa sub-programme. This identified promising proposals to take existing agriculture research products and put these into use in ways that would benefit the poor in developing countries. The sum set aside for this was GBP5 million. The empirical sections of the book cover project selection, progress and programme management over a 2009-2012 period with special attention paid to lessons learned that may have implications for future cognate technology development assistance. This topical book gives direct evidence of meeting objectives and delivering real changes in technology development for Africa to postgraduate students, researchers, international bodies, NGOs, policy makers and government organisations working on natural resource management, technology development assistance, and low income country agriculture.

We open Volume 7 with a series of four chapters on plant virus transmission by insects. In Chapter 1, Karen Gibb and John Randles present preliminary information about an association between the plant bug Cyrtopeitis nicotianae (Heteroptera: Miridae) and velvet tobacco mottle virus (VTMo V): the only reported instance of mirid transmission of a known virus. Mirids could be considered as likely vectors of plant viruses because they are phytophagous, possess a piercing-sucking-feeding apparatus, have winged adults, and are cosmopolitan pests of a wide range of crops. Surprisingly, however, there are only three plant viruses purportedly transmitted by heteropterous vectors, compared with the nearly 250 by homopterous ones. To what extent these figures reflect actual differences in the abilities of members of the two suborders to transmit plant pathogens remains to be determined. Compared with the Homop tera, the Heteroptera have been ignored by researchers as potential vectors of plant viruses. The authors are quick to point out that additional studies are needed before generalizations can be made about virus-mirid-plant interactions and that virus transmission by mirids is not easily characterized using the conventional transmission criteria and terminology established for such homopterous vectors as aphids and leafhoppers. Transmission of VTMoV by C. nicotianae appears to have characteristics in common with both nonpersistent noncirculative and circulative (persistent) transmission."