IITA News and Updates

Cameroon reaps benefits of investments in agricultural research for development

2012-03-02T05:33:00.001-08:00

Funding for cassava research for development in Cameroon is having a positive impact with farmers recording increases in yield, fewer pests and disease pressure, improved livelihoods and more money in their pockets.
From 10 tons per hectare, farmers with improved varieties are now harvesting between 25 and 30 tons per hectare of cassava, according to Cameroon’s state project on roots and tuber crops that is popularly known as Programme National de Development des Racines et Tubereules (PNDRT).
“The progress we have today in cassava is a result of the investments we have had from organizations such as the International Fund for Agricultural Development,” says Dr. Rachid Hanna, Country Representative for the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture during the visit by the IFAD President, Dr. Kanayo F. Nwanze to IITA station in Cameroon today.
In an interview with journalist on the sidelines, the IFAD President called on the government of Cameroon and the private sector to leverage on the gains made and scale up the technologies to farmers.
According to him, ‘Cameroon has the potential to feed itself, if only the country could tap its land and agroecological resources.’
While commending IITA and PNDRT for the results made in cassava improvement and agriculture in general, Nwanze described cassava as a crop for now and the future.
Historically, attempts to increase cassava productivity have been challenged by pests and diseases such as the African root and tuber scale, cassava green mite, cassava mosaic virus disease, cassava anthracnose disease, cassava bacterial blight and root rots.
Hanna said IFAD funding has helped researchers to develop and disseminate cassava varieties with multiple resistance and/or tolerance to pest and disease constraints and to disseminate natural enemies under the IITA-biological control program to tackle some of the pests.
The deployment of these improved varieties by researchers from IITA in partnership with the Institute of Agricultural Research for Development (IRAD), universities, PNDRT, and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development has raised the country’s cassava production to 3 million tons.
Besides yield increases, the improved cassava varieties provide the farmers with a menu of utilization with some purely for processing into products such as high quality starch and gari; and multipurpose varieties that can be used for high quality flour, baton de manioc, as well as boil and eat. Many of these varieties also address the specific needs of farmers such as good taste, leafiness, ease of peeling, and root peel color.
To tackle postharvest losses in cassava which were partly sparked by the increase in productivity, IITA and PNDRT in 2010 developed and deployed cassava chippers to farmers in 25 pilot villages in the main cassava producing zones of Cameroon. Fabricators in the country were also trained to manufacture the chippers locally. These machines facilitated the processing of cassava, and eased drudgery that is associated with cassava manual chipping.
Hanna explained that the machines helped in reducing the burden faced by farmers especially women who are saddled with the primary responsibility of processing the root crop. In follow-up surveys, users highlighted the ease of use of the chippers and good chips’ quality. Men also expressed considerable interest in the use of the chippers.
Today, several non-governmental organizations, community based organizations and farmer associations are emulating and replicating this technology.
In the future, Hanna said IITA and its partners intend to introduce yellow cassava varieties rich in beta-carotene to farmers to tackle malnourishment caused by deficiency in vitamin A.
According to him, plans are underway to make this happen in the shortest possible time.
He also urged the government of Cameroon to encourage the utilization of cassava in food products such as bread as being done in Nigeria and Tanzania. END

For more information, please contact:

Rachid Hanna, r.hanna@cgiar.org,

Germany gives €1.2M for vegetable pest management initiative to boost food security and nutrition in Tanzania, Kenya, Madagascar and Thailand

2012-02-17T08:48:00.000-08:00

Efforts to improve the productivity of vegetables to feed and enhance the nutrition of people in Africa and Asia have received a major boost with the release of a €1.2 million (about US$1.6 million) research grant from the German government. The grant will be used for an international initiative that will develop environment-friendly and sustainable solutions to pests and diseases of economically important vegetable crops, increase their production, and improve the livelihoods of smallholder growers.

The financial package was provided through the German Society for International Cooperation (GIZ) and the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).

The project will cover selected vegetable-growing coastal and urban communities in Tanzania, Kenya, Madagascar, and Thailand.

The research will develop and promote ecologically sensitive but economically viable systems to manage key pests and diseases of tomato and pepper – two of the most important vegetable crops in these countries – thereby increasing production. The project will also introduce interventions that will significantly lessen reliance on chemical pesticides in vegetable farms, consequently reducing hazards to farmers’ health and the environment.

The initiative will be led by the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) and implemented in partnership with the World Vegetable Centre (AVRDC).

Researchers from the University of Bonn in Germany, Kenyatta University in Kenya, and Kasetsart University in Thailand, as well as the national agricultural research services, NGOs, private sector, and vegetable farmers’ groups in the four countries, will also take part.

Dr Danny Coyne, IITA Soil Health Specialist based in Tanzania, will coordinate the project. He says that the urban and peri-urban production of perishable fresh vegetables is being increasingly intensified to meet rising demand, especially from urban areas. This leads to increased incidences of pests and diseases. Growers, in turn, apply more pesticides to counter the threats and maintain production.

“We will look for ways to help urban and peri-urban vegetable farmers raise their production and profits without increasing the use of chemical pesticides,” he said.

Tanzania agriculture minister urges for coordinated action to address food security

2012-02-08T02:22:00.001-08:00

The Tanzania Minister for Agriculture, Food Security and Cooperatives, Hon. Prof Jumanne Maghembe, has challenged a group of international and local agricultural experts, policymakers, and donors converging in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, this week to come up with practical steps and coordinated actions to improve agricultural productivity in the country to reduce rural hunger, enhance food security, create food surplus and alleviate poverty.

Hon Prof Maghembe informed the workshop participants that the main challenges facing agriculture in Tanzania are low productivity, low production, high post-harvest losses, poor physical infrastructure and unstructured and poor markets. This, he added, was further compounded by a persistent low overall investment in the sector and low availability of credit to the farmers.

“These are the issues we have to deal with in a strategic and sustainable manner to overcome the vicious cycle of poverty for the majority of people in Africa in general and Eastern and Southern Africa in particular,” he said.

The minister was speaking while officially opening a four day meeting from 6 – 9 February in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, to identify priority areas for a five-year research initiative to be implemented in the country whose goal is to develop and promote improved integrated farming systems that will sustainably increase production and profitability while preserving the natural resource base.

Dr Julie Howard, Chief Scientist, Bureau for Food Security, US Agency for International Development (USAID, said the research program was part of efforts by US government’s Feed the Future (FtF) initiative to bridge research and development.

Dr Howard said FtF was prompted by the global food crisis of 2007-2008 and its goal was to address the root causes of hunger and poverty globally, .

“The food crisis was a wake-up call to all of us: to feed the future, we need to do our agriculture differently,” she said.

She added the research program would bring together researchers and development partners to drive the uptake and adoption of new technologies by farmers.

The research project will focus on management practices that better integrate cereal, legumes, vegetables, livestock, and trees in mixed-farming systems, and allow for more efficient use of resources, enhanced food production, and higher farm incomes.

The research is one of three regional programs in Africa funded by USAID under the US government's Feed the Future initiative targeting the Sudano-Sahelian Zone of West Africa, Eastern and Southern Africa and the Ethiopian Highlands. The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI)is leading the program on Ethiopian highlands while IITA heads the other two.

Other research partners include Africa Rice Center (AfricaRice), International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF), the World Vegetable Center (AVRDC), US universities, and national research and development institutions in Tanzania.

Information on the project and workshop is online at http://agintensificationafrica.wordpress.com

Handle with care

2011-12-19T06:29:00.000-08:00

IITA scientist cautions against promoting tissue-culture plantlets as a stand-alone technology at the fourth ISHS-ProMusa symposium in Brazil

Farmers using banana plantlets produced through tissue culture, or TC plantlets as they are often called, can stand to increase their household annual income by as much as 50%, a study conducted in Kenya found. Such results support the claim that TC plantlets can help farmers make the transition from subsistence to small-scale commercial farming, but it’s more than just a matter of switching planting material.

TC plantlets are relatively fragile and require appropriate management practices if they are to realize their full potential, as Thomas Dubois of the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) explained in a talk on lessons learned from East Africa presented during the fourth ISHS-ProMusa symposium in Brazil.

In East Africa, bananas are traditionally propagated by suckers. In Kenya, only 7% of the banana production area has been established using TC plantlets. In Uganda and Burundi, the area cultivated with TC plantlets is even lower. One reason is the higher cost of TC plantlets. Suckers may be cheaper for establishing a new field, they have a major drawback. They usually come with baggage, the pests and diseases they have picked up along the way, whereas the process of tissue culturing eliminates pathogens, except viruses which, as cell parasites, need to undergo specific therapies. In East Africa, however, the quality of TC plantlets tends to be variable, largely because commercial producers are for the most part unregulated. The IITA scientist underscored the urgent need for certification schemes to improve the quality and health status of TC plantlets.

Producing good quality plantlets is one thing. The manner in which TC plantlets are delivered to farmers is also important. In East Africa, developmental NGOs tend to be the main supplier of banana TC plantlets. While their intentions are good, notes Dubois, they can contribute to giving TC plantlets a bad reputation if farmers are not shown how to handle them, especially during the critical period immediately following transplantation in the field. If the plantlets get off to a wrong start and the harvest is below what they have been told to expect, farmers may tell their friends not to invest in TC plantlets. At least, that’s what Dubois and his colleagues believe happened when, as part of a study on the drivers of adoption, they found that having in one’s social network a high proportion of farmers who have used TC plantlets is negatively correlated with adoption of the technology. Some of these early adopters probably had negative experiences with banana TC plantlets and shared them with their friends.

“The transfer of TC material to subsistence farmers needs to be undertaken as part of an encompassing training program or input package” stresses Dubois, who also adds that offering TC plantlets at subsidized prices may also be counter-productive. “The technology will benefit farmers most when sustainable distribution systems are in place, through nurseries, for example.” The IITA researcher gives as a model Kenya, where nurseries for weaning and hardening plantlets are run independently from TC producers and are generally owned by farmer groups who are also customers of these nurseries.

To assess the impact of training, prospective nursery operators and farmers in Burundi, Kenya and Uganda were trained in technical and agronomic aspects (such as the construction and maintenance of humidity chambers and screenhouses for nursery operators, and water management after field transplantation for farmers), as well as in marketing, business, group formation and financing. The scientists then collected agronomic and economic data on 1,350 banana plants in 87 farmer fields in Burundi and Uganda. Farmers were randomly divided into three groups: non-TC farmers, untrained TC farmers, and trained TC farmers. During the first crop cycle, there was no difference in yield between farmers who had planted suckers and those who had used TC material but had not received training. However, because fewer plants were lost and larger bunches were harvested, yields in plots managed by TC farmers who had received training was twice as high. And because the trained farmers were better at marketing their bananas and obtaining higher prices, they earned up to three times as much as the untrained TC farmers.

In the end, however, the decision to invest in TC plants may be determined by the distance to market. Dubois and his colleagues saw a similar trend of diminishing returns the further away farmers are from their market, as has been observed for fertilizer use. In Uganda at least, it looks as if the economics are not favourable to a large-scale adoption of TC plantlets any time soon. Indeed, only 20% of the banana production occurs in the central region where it is most profitable to use TC plantlets because of the proximity to Kampala, the country’s capital and main market.

http://www.promusa.org/tiki-view_blog_post.php?postId=123

Tanzania's PM lays foundation stone on IITA’s state-of-the art science building

2011-12-13T04:17:00.000-08:00

IITA hopes to boost its research efforts to secure the food and income for millions of smallholder farmers in eastern and central Africa, a region that experiences severe food shortages from time to time, with the construction of a state-of the art-science research block in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

The building whose foundation stone was laid by the country’s Prime Minister, Hon Mizengo Kayanza Peter Pinda recently, is expected to be completed in October next year (2012) and will serve the institute’s research for development activities in 17 countries in the region.

Speaking during the foundation-stone-laying ceremony, Hon Pinda thanked the IITA Board of Trustees for honoring the country by choosing it as the Regional Hub for eastern and central Africa and for investing its resources in the much needed building that will strengthen agricultural research in the country.

He noted the building would generate much needed scientific research to provide solutions to problems of food security and poverty alleviation therefore improving the lives of millions of small-holder farmers in the country and the region.

He said that agriculture was the backbone of Tanzania's economy and played an important role in its overall economic development and the livelihood of its people. He said statistics showed that in 2009, the agriculture sector contributed 24.6 percent towards the Country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and during the 2009/2010 farming season, the sector managed to produce 12.32 million tonnes of food against an estimated demand of about 11.15 million tonnes, leading to food self-sufficiency of about 110.6 Percent.

However, he said the overall productivity was still very low and that the country had not achieved its goals on food security and poverty alleviation by ensuring adequate and surplus food production, for local consumption and for export.

Furthermore, he noted there were still more challenges ahead in the pursuit for food self sufficiency and poverty alleviation posed by the increasing population coupled with global warming which, called for more investment of resources - money, human resource and infrastructure development and greater collaboration in agricultural research among local, regional and international institutions.
Agricultural research, Hon Pinda said, has a very important role to play to generate knowledge on how to sustainably increase productivity. These include providing improved high yielding varieties resistant to the major pests and diseases, good agronomical practices to get the maximum yield and sustainable and cost effective ways to control pests and diseases and on processing and proper post harvest handling of the farmers’ produce.

While welcoming the honorable Prime Minister to lay the building’s foundation stone, the outgoing Board chair Prof Bryan Harvey, in a speech read on his behalf by Prof Bruce Coulman -the new incoming board chair-, thanked the Government of Tanzania for its commitment to agriculture and agricultural research in the country.

He said that IITA had been operating in Tanzania for many years, primarily through special projects, but was elevated to be the institute's regional hub for East and Central Africa in 2005 to support the expansion of the its (th institute’s) activities in the region.

He said the expansion created the need for more space and resources and hence the decision, once more by the Board of Trustees, to acquire the present property of 2.3 acres and to invest in new research facilities, one of which was the modern and energy-efficient science block which was the first of its kind in Tanzania.

The IITA science building is an ultra-modern, environmentally friendly building with state-of-the-art, energy-efficient construction, appliances, and renewable energy sources, such as solar water heating, solar power, and natural lighting. It will reduce its energy use by 65-70% with efficient air handling control. It is dedicated to the fight against hunger and poverty and will contribute towards boosting agricultural productivity in the region.

Farmers embrace new technologies to get healthy banana planting material

2011-11-28T02:20:00.000-08:00

Small and delicate
Kagimbi Tharcisse lifts up the transparent polythene sheet and delicately pulls back some soil to proudly show us the tiny banana plantlets growing underneath. Small and delicate, they will be gently taken care of for two months. Each will then be replanted in polythene bags, to grow bigger and stronger and in three months, it will be ready for the farmers’ fields.

The banana plantlets were obtained through a rather more complicated process compared to the traditional way of growing banana using suckers – these are the daughters growing at the base of the mother plant that farmers uproot from their own farms or buy from a neighbor. It is a slow method of obtaining planting material and it easily spreads pests and diseases from one farm to another if the suckers are not properly selected and treated.

However this new technology, known as macro-propagation, aims at overcoming these two challenges – it allows the rapid production of pest-free planting material. In this new procedure, Tharcisse explains, one starts by selecting a vigorous healthy-looking sucker – the type that only has very thin pointed leaves and using a large knife peels of the dirt and roots. Next, it is immersed in hot boiling water for 30 seconds to kill any pests. The outer leave sheaths are then carefully peeled off to expose the meristem - the growing part at the center of the plant.
The meristem is cut into pieces which are placed in special sterilized chambers lined with transparent polythene sheets for extra warmth, humidity and light for 15 days during which they will sprout many little plantlets. These plantlets are carefully detached once they grow 2 to 3 leaves and planted in pots with sterilized soils to acclimatize. They are ready for field planting after 2 to 3 months. And though using this method, a sucker can produce up to twenty plantlets instead of just one.
Tharcisse is a member of a farmers association in Muyinga, eastern Burundi known as the ‘Tukarukire Gitok’ meaning let us rehabilitate banana in the local language.

The group received training on macro-propagation from the Consortium for improving agriculture-based Livelihoods in Central Africa (CIALCA) project as part of efforts to ensure farmers have adequate healthy planting material of their desired varieties, be they local or improved varieties to curb the spread of banana pests and diseases. The group then used its own funds to start the macro-propagation to meet their demand for clean planting material.

The CIALCA project brings together various partners and donors to improve farm level productivity through, among others, promoting Integrated Pest and Disease Management. It is led by Bioversity International, International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) and Tropical Soil Biology and Fertility Institute of the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (TSBF-CIAT).

Eagerly awaited..
Bakame Pankris, another member of the group is eagerly awaiting the new planting material. “Our bananas were getting diseases and we were getting very poor yields. Then we discovered these new FHIA varieties which are high yielding and are not attacked by diseases. With FHIA, we are getting even up to 100 kgs per bunch while most of our local varieties rarely exceed 25 kgs” he says. “I now want to increase the banana in my farm as we are doing very good business with traders from Tanzania who come to buy in the farms.”

Pankris explains that by using the plantlets most of his banana will grow uniformly and be ready for harvest almost at the same time. He will then call the traders for collection. However, when using the traditional method, the bananas grow at different rates.

FHIA are a range of hybrid banana varieties from the Honduran Agricultural Research Foundation that CIALCA and its partners are promoting in the region as field trials have shown they are high yielding, have varieties that are suitable for the different banana uses – cooking, dessert, juicing, and making beer and are well accepted by farmers.

Deadly banana diseases
In Burundi, banana is one of the important sources of food and income for farmers. However, the crop is under attack from a plethora of diseases and pests. Of special concern are the bacterial Banana Xanthomonas Wilt (BXW) and the viral Banana Bunchy Top Disease (BBTD) which have the potential to wipe out this important food and income crop as all banana varieties are susceptible.

BBTD, described once as the banana version of AIDS by Lava Kumar, a plant virologist with the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) leads to stunted plants which do not produce fruits and eventually die. It has been spreading havoc on the crop through West and Central Africa including Burundi and neighboring DR Congo and Rwanda.

BXW, whose symptoms include the wilting of leaves, premature ripening of bunches and rotting of fruit, and eventual death of the plant, is destroying banana in East African countries including Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania and Dr Congo. In Burundi both diseases are present with recent confirmation of BXW in parts of the country and frantic efforts are underway to control their spread.

The diseases are mostly spread through the exchange of infected planting material and use of infected farm tools. Control measures include uprooting and burning any infected plant to stop their spread, timely removal of male bud and disinfecting farm tools.

Disease free planting material
According to Emmanuel Njukwe of CIALCA, due to the threat to banana posed by the two diseases, there is an increased demand for healthy planting material and good management practices. Use of tissue culture planting material is the most effective and safest way to get clean planting material. However, it is a complicated and costly technology.
“The plantlets are expensive, with a single plant costing up to 1 USD though most farmers receive them through development organizations. They are fragile and need a lot of care, like babies,” he says. “Untrained farmers often have bad experiences with the delicate tissue culture plantlets in the past and do not want anything to do with them.”

Njukwe however says they should not avoid the use of clean tissue culture plantlets and the project is therefore finding ways of integrating it with macro-propagation.

“We are promoting macro-propagation as an alternative and to complement tissue culture. We are working with NGOs and farmers groups as our go-between with the farmers. We give them healthy tissue culture plantlets of the varieties they want, local or improved. They then take care of them in mother gardens and after 6 to 8 months, they start to field multiply using decapitation techniques or macro-propagation to obtain more plants for distribution to farmers,” he says.

“To ensure they are indeed disease free, we first send samples to the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) at Ibadan, Nigeria or Kawanda agricultural research station in Uganda for disease testing and virus indexing and discard any that is infected,” he explains. One such development partners is the Post-conflict Program for Rural Development (PPCDR) funded by the European Union which has hired 12 technicians who will work with CIALCA, the farmers associations and NGOs to promote the use of tissue culture banana and rapid propagation techniques.

According to Piet van Asten, an IITA agronomist working on the project, Burundi is one of the countries that is food insecure as a result of a high population density, increasingly smaller farm sizes, and low yields. All efforts must therefore be made to increase production and protect farmers' harvest from pests and diseases.

And farmers like Tharcisse and Bakame are ready to embrace new and better ways of farming to increase their production and improve their livelihoods.

War for food, war for space. Is this the future of Central Africa?

2011-10-27T05:04:00.000-07:00

Unless there is widespread adoption of sustainable agricultural intensification in Central Africa region, the future looks grim, according to Nteranya Sanginga, director general designate of the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA).

Speaking to journalists at a press conference on the opening day of the CIALCA conference, Challenges and opportunities for agricultural intensification of the humid highland systems of sub-Saharan Africa, in Kigali, Rwanda, today, Sanginga made the scale of the challenge in the region clear.

“In Rwanda and Burundi…we have almost 400 inhabitants per square kilometre. That’s huge. The question will be, can the land support the population we have?”
Without sustainable intensification of food production, there will be a high price, he continued.

“We will be going back to the situation of war – and not because of ethnicity – war for food, war for space. “

Delegates at the CIALCA conference are hearing about and sharing some examples of sustainable agricultural intensification in the Great Lakes Region of Africa.

Examples include the widespread adoption of high-yielding climbing beans in Rwanda to boost food production, dietary protein, and improve soil fertility, and efforts to intercrop high-value coffee plants, with staple crops like banana.

Hopefully, it is these kinds of innovations that can help steer the region towards a brighter future.

http://cialcaconference.org/2011/10/24/war-for-food/

Press Release: Feeding a Booming Population on Less Land

2011-10-27T04:57:00.000-07:00

Experts highlight Rwanda’s progress in food security, but warn of significant challenges for Africa’s most conflict-ridden region in the face of climate change

KIGALI, RWANDA (25 October 2011) – Unless there is widespread use of farm approaches and innovations that can grow more food with less land, countries in Central Africa’s densely populated Great Lakes region could face increased conflict and greater instability in coming decades, warned agricultural experts meeting in Kigali this week to examine the challenges and opportunities for sustainably improving farm production in Central Africa.

Although good rainfall and temperatures make Central Africa one of the continent’s most high-potential farming areas, small farm sizes, persistent civil conflicts, poor infrastructure and political instability have left the region plagued with chronic food insecurity and the highest rates of malnutrition and extreme poverty in sub-Saharan Africa.

The Great Lakes region includes Burundi, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Uganda, northwestern Kenya and Tanzania. Most of the agricultural land has extremely high population densities – up to 400 people per square kilometer in Rwanda and Burundi – and severely degraded soils.

The eastern Democratic Republic of Congo has been in a state of almost continual instability and periodic violence since 1996. The International Rescue Committee has estimated that 5.4 million excess deaths resulted between the start of the second Congolese war in 1998 and 2007. A decade of conflicts in Burundi and the 1994 genocide in Rwanda are responsible for widespread displacement and regional instability.

“Previous conflicts have been indirectly driven by the ability of the land to support the food needs of Central Africa’s high population densities,” said Nteranya Sanginga, a Congolese scientist and director general designate of the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) speaking in Kigali.

“In the future, a big question will be whether the land and the soils that underpin farm yields can support booming populations under new constraints like rapid climate change and other environmental factors,” continued Sanginga. “Without sustainable intensification of food production, there will be a high price. We will be going back to the situation of war – and not because of ethnicity – war for food, war for space.”

Indeed, the effects of climate change in the region are a major concern for the already resource-strained, landlocked countries of Rwanda, Burundi and Democratic Republic of Congo. Recent research by the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) has shown that the ability of farmers to grow coffee – one of Rwanda’s largest cash crops – is severely affected by rising temperatures, making it more susceptible to pests and diseases.

The Consortium for Improving Agriculture-based Livelihoods in Central Africa (CIALCA) and the CGIAR Research Program on the Humid Tropics today opened the first international conference to examine the challenges and opportunities for intensifying farm production in sub-Saharan Africa’s humid tropical regions.

During the morning’s keynote speech, Hans Herren, president of the Millennium Institute and World Food Prize Laureate, argued that many current approaches to farm production are harmful to the environment and not accessible enough for farmers to adopt on a broader scale.

Participants at the CIALCA conference shared examples of sustainable farm approaches that can increase yields and alleviate land pressure in the region.

These include the widespread adoption of higher-yielding climbing beans in Rwanda that improve soils and the availability of dietary protein and intercrop high-value coffee plants with banana in Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi.

“Hopefully, it is these kinds of innovations that can help to steer the region towards a brighter future,” said Jos Kalders, representing Belgium’s Directorate General for Development Cooperation (DGDC), which funds the work of the Consortium.

And while significant progress has been made in the region, scientists also drew attention to the severe yield gap of sub-Saharan Africa’s agricultural productivity. Staple crops such as maize, millet, beans, sweet potato and cassava are being produced at 60 percent to 90 percent below their potential.

“The region and the global community cannot afford to wait for pressures to mount again before acting,” said Kalders. “Addressing social and environmental pressure through sustainable farm intensification should be given a priority focus to reduce the immense pressure the region is under now.”

###

The Consortium for Improving Agriculture-based Livelihoods in Central Africa (CIALCA) is a Consortium of the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), Bioversity International and the International Centre for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) and their national research and development partners, supported by the Belgian Directorate General for Development Cooperation (DGDC), and aiming at improving livelihoods through enhancing income, health, and the natural resource base of smallholder farmers in Central Africa.

http://cialcaconference.org/2011/10/25/press-release/

Bridge the gap between innovation and policy – change the paradigm

2011-10-27T04:45:00.000-07:00

When it comes to food production and tackling hunger, we can’t continue with business-as-usual. We’ve been hearing that for years.

So, why is it still an issue?

According to Hans Herren, President of the Millennium Institute, it’s because scientific research and policymaking have become disconnected.

The 1995 World Food Prize winner’s passionate keynote address to around 300 agricultural scientists in Kigali, Rwanda, paved the way for a lively four-day conference onChallenges and opportunities for agricultural intensification of the humid highland systems of sub-saharan Africa, organized by CIALCA.

“While people are going hungry, the earth is being destroyed when, actually, we’ve known that we should have changed the course of agriculture long ago,” he said.

“Science has come up with a lot of good innovations (but) the policies have not followed. Business-as-usual is not an option – change the paradigm.”

Herren called for a better understanding of the complexity of agricultural systems, both above and below the ground.

Contemporary agriculture produces 4,600 kilo-calories per person, per day, he said. “No wonder we have half a billion obese people out there…We don’t need any more; we need it in different places, of a different quality, grown by different people.”

He also called for more investment in research and education.

“We want something different; we need something diff. [It’s time to] finish with the quick fixes.”

“It can be done, and it has to be done now,” he concluded.

http://cialcaconference.org/2011/10/24/hans-herren/

CIALCA partnership highlights contribution of research to bringing stability in Africa’s Great Lakes Region

2011-10-27T04:37:00.000-07:00

The Consortium for Improving Agriculture-based Livelihoods in Central Africa (CIALCA) and the CGIAR Research Programme on the Humid Tropics today opened the first international conference to examine the challenges and opportunities for intensifying farm production in sub-Saharan Africa’s humid tropical regions.

Although good rainfall and temperatures allow cropping most of the year, small farm sizes, persistent civil conflicts, poor infrastructure, and political instability have made it difficult for Central Africa’s small farmers to eke out a living. The region has some of the highest rates of food insecurity, malnutrition, and poverty in sub-Saharan Africa.

“When CIALCA first started, we thought this was the best opportunity to highlight that science can contribute to peace,” said Nteranya Sanginga, a Congolese scientist and Director General designate of IITA, which will lead a major global CGIAR research program for the humid tropics that builds off of CIALCA’s work.

“Achieving food security in CIALCA region is a big challenge,” said Sanginga. “If we don’t find solutions to food security under the current constraints, we will face major challenges and increased conflict over food, land, and other natural resources in the next few decades.”

During the opening plenary, CIALCA partners and representatives of the Rwandan government highlighted the success of several projects that are delivering results for farmers and national food security. In 2007, 20 out of 30 districts in Rwanda were reported as being food insecure. Today, as a result of increased public investment in agriculture and country’s National Crop Intensification Program, all of Rwanda’s districts are now food secure. In addition, the country is exporting surplus crops to neighboring countries and is the only country in the region not dealing with food crisis.

Rwanda’s Permanent Secretary for Agriculture, Ernest Ruzindaza, noted the importance of linking research knowledge to the needs of farmers on the ground and taking a more systemic approach to ensure food security and eradicate poverty.

“CAADP is here to support African countries in their push to support agriculture, but agriculture alone cannot solve the problem of poverty. Other rural development programs are need and agriculture is a key player,” he said.

http://cialcaconference.org/2011/10/24/cialca-partnership-highlights-contribution-of-research-to-bringing-stability-in-africa%e2%80%99s-great-lakes-region/

Can agricultural research help eradicate famine?

2011-08-09T02:15:00.000-07:00

Every day, we see images of refugees fleeing a drought-ridden Somalia, crowding into camps along the country’s borders, desperate for food and shelter to stay alive. Tens of thousands of people have already died in the region, livestock, essential to the wellbeing of the local populations, suffer the same fate. Yet, as more than half a million children teeter on the brink of starvation, we ask ourselves “what could we have done to prevent this?” And, even more importantly, “how can we prevent this from happening again?”

No matter how severe, droughts do not have to lead to famine. Droughts are natural events, famines are not. Famines happen when countries and regions are not equipped to deal with extremes in weather. This current famine results from an extended drought and political instability, but it also reflects the long term vulnerability to food insecurity that is endemic in the Horn of Africa. As Oxfam recently pointed out, food aid alone does not help people to withstand the next shock: “Much greater long-term investment is needed in food production and basic development to help people cope with poor rains and ensure that this is the last famine in the region.” We at the CGIAR, the world’s largest partnership of international agriculture research, could not agree more.

Recent research by our climate change, agriculture, and food security research program has identified future “hotspots” of climate vulnerability-- areas where climate change impacts on food security are expected to become increasingly severe by 2050. Not surprisingly, some of the same countries being affected by the current drought where identified in the report as “hotspots” for climate-induced food insecurity.

Meeting the challenges of ensuring food security for the world, especially those is more remote and marginal locations and the poor in both rural and urban locations, as well as averting future famines, require us to act with an urgency. We must develop new ways of thinking more holistically about natural resource and farmland management, as well as revitalized water management practices, and the development of drought-tolerant crop varieties and hardier livestock breeds. Investment in such research is highly cost-effective: for every US$1 dollar invested in international agricultural research, US$ 9 dollars worth of additional food is being produced in developing countries.

What more can we do to ensure our research helps avoid future famines?

Good research is not enough
Even the best agricultural research can only realize its potential if it is used on the ground. For this to happen, it must be delivered under a benign policy environment, into agricultural systems with sufficient infrastructure and access to viable and predictable markets, and with the extension support needed to secure farmer adoption. Because of this, we need to work closer with funders, local and regional governments, national research institutions, universities, non-governmental organizations, aid agencies, farmers, civil society organizations and private sector companies. Only by mobilizing such collective strength, can we find and deliver the effective solutions at the scale needed to avert future famines and food crises.

The way ahead: working in partnership for better research outcomes
The good news is that agricultural research finds itself in a new era of opportunity. Rapid scientific progress has been made in genetics, ecology and information technology, offering a multitude of new ways to improve agricultural productivity and environmental sustainability. The CGIAR is using the latest scientific approaches and technologies in a series of new global research programs aimed at improving food security and the sustainable management of the water, soil, and biodiversity that underpin agriculture in the world’s poorest countries.

What is more, the reformed structure of the CGIAR opens the door for stronger collaboration and partnership with other research and development actors. The 11 new research programs approved in the last year, bring together the broadest possible range of organisations, combining the efforts of multiple CGIAR centres with those of many and diverse partners from across the research and development spectrum. Working in partnership on such a large scale, makes this new CGIAR effort unprecedented in terms of its size, scope and expected impact on development.

The work of the aid agencies is vital to provide the emergency aid that is desperately needed right now, but even aid agencies this time appeal for more to be done. We at CGIAR are doing our best to ensure that such famines never happen again. I was once told that the CGIAR is the best kept secret in agricultural research. We must make sure that our work remains a secret no longer, because agricultural research really is the key to better global food security and a sustainable, famine-free future.

Lloyd Le Page
Chief Executive Officer, CGIAR

https://sites.google.com/a/cgxchange.org/consortium/home/what-s-new/canagriculturalresearchhelperadicatefamine

IITA, partners launch project to control cancer-causing aflatoxin

2011-06-10T04:20:00.000-07:00

The Kenyan government warmly welcomed a project seeking to identify and avail to farmers a natural, safe, and cost-effective solution to prevent aflatoxin contamination in maize and peanut in the country and pledged its support to ensure it was a success.

Noting the importance of maize in the country where it is the number one staple, Dr Wilson Songa, Agricultural Secretary in Kenya’s Ministry of Agriculture said the country needed the initiative yesterday.

Kenya, aflatoxin hot spot
“Kenya has become a hotspot of aflatoxin contamination. In 2004, 150 people died after eating contaminated maize. Last year we had 2.3 million bags of maize contaminated. Currently we have 160,000 bags of infested maize that are not only taking up storage but are also a problem to dispose off. It is a nightmare. That is why I say this launch should have been yesterday!” he said while launching the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (B&MGF) funded project, on June 3, 2011, in Nairobi.

He said this was one area that the Kenyan government could not afford to go slow on. “We are happy with the innovative scientific solution which has done well in Nigeria. The ball is now in our court and we shall move fast so our farmers start benefiting from the technology.”

IITA’s Deputy Director General, Research for Development, Paula Bramel said IITA was pleased to be part of this exciting project which would see its biocontrol solution for aflatoxin reach the farmers.

“This project will take our biocontrol product, commercialize it, and make it available to farmers. We have worked on it for many years, tested it in many fields in Nigeria and we are pleased with its effectiveness,” she aid. “And we are optimistic it will help farmers.”

She thanked the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for their support and Peter Cotty from United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) for sharing on the experience in the US and his collaboration and commitment to the project.
Dr Prem Warrior, a senior Program Officer from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation said aflatoxin impacted negatively on human health and was a great barrier to trade and economic growth.

“Today we have an opportunity to do something about it (aflatoxins). This project is a short term development strategy to test the technology and learn on product development issues. We have confidence in the technology but how we will commercialize it and who are our customers?” he said.

Acting Executive Director of African Agriculture Technology Foundation (AATF), Jacob Mignouna, noted that maize was an important staple food for 300 million people depending on the crop so its contamination was of great concern.

Director of Kenya Agricultural Research Organization (KARI) Ephraim was happy to note the speed at which the discussions on aflatoxin were moving from the boardroom down to where the problem was.

Deadly aflatoxin and its eliminator
Aflatoxin is a chemical produced by a fungus scientifically known as Aspergillus flavus, which suppresses the immune system, retards growth in children, and causes liver disease and death in both humans and domestic animals when exposed to levels above the recommended limits.

Explaining the technology, Dr Ranajit Bandyopadhay, IITA plant pathologist, said not all strains of the Aspergillus flavus fungi produce the toxins. The biocontrol solution works by introducing non-toxic fungi or 'the good guys,' that are able to outcompete and drastically reduce the population of their toxic relatives, or 'the bad guys' in affected field.

He said the technology held great promise as it was easy to use – farmers simply throw it in their fields three weeks before the flowering of the plants and this successfully protects the maize and peanut while in the field and in storage.

The biocontrol was first developed by the United States Department of Agriculture – Agriculture Research Service (USDA-ARS) and is widely used in America to control Aflatoxin. Partnering with USDA, IITA has successfully adapted this technology for use in Nigeria where it has been widely tested with very promising results - it consistently reduced aflatoxin contamination in maize and groundnut by 80–90% and even some cases as high as 99%. It is now ready for registrations under the name 'Aflasfe' and the project will support its commercialization.

In Kenya, efforts to seek a biocontrol solution have been on-going for 4 years and great progress has also been made. Potential strains of non-toxic fungi have been identified and the project will narrow down to the most effective strain that will be registered and packaged into a product.

The project partners are IITA, USDA-DAR, KARI and AATF.

The day cassava ruled

2011-02-08T04:55:00.001-08:00

“Are all these made from cassava?” this was the most popular question of the day by people from all walks of life invited to the Mozambique Cassava Day held in Nampula, Mozambique in November 2010.

There was a wide array of foods made from cassava and its derivatives, cassava cakes, cupcakes, cookies, biscuits, bread, pies, samosas, chin chins, cocktail tit bits, doughnuts, egg rolls, meat balls, pancakes, croquettes, sausage rolls, and puddings to be sampled. All the other food items were made from 100% high quality cassava flour except for the bread which had wheat flour added.

Speaking on behalf of the governor of Nampula, the Provincial Director of Commerce and Industry, Ilidio Marfres, said the crop had immense potential to develop the province. He was happy to note that the province’s strategic plan included exploring the use of cassava as a source of raw material for industries.

He challenged them to explore the wide range of uses and opportunities offered by cassava that go beyond making their staple food, ‘karakata’ – a paste made from its flour and ‘mathapa’ – cassava leaves cooked in coconut - to fight poverty and develop the region.

Richard Okechwuku, Deputy Project Manager of UPoCA project, noted the great strides made in the province in one year following a series of trainings conducted on cassava processing by the project.

“We were here last year, at a time like this, to train on the various products that can be made from cassava. Today, we are impressed to see so many products as a result of it.
”
The day was organized to create awareness on the versatile hardy tuberous crop by IITA’s UPoCA project, Mozambique’s Center for Promotion of Agriculture (CEPAGRI), the Mozambican Agricultural Research Institute (IIAM) and the Provincial Office of Agriculture in Nampula (DPA).

It brought together farmers, private sector, non-governmental organizations, and government organizations and aimed at creating awareness on cassava utilization and lobbying for much-needed government support

Idea to save women time in the kitchen leads to a successful business

2011-02-08T03:52:00.000-08:00

Relax, let me make your life easy. Do not spend so much time in the kitchen after a long day at work. This was the noble idea behind Wissa Ltd says its founder Judith Celeste Macuacua-Pinto and how she started making and selling ready-to-cook blended cassava leaves mixed with garlic and raw paw paw.

Today Wissa Ltd has grown into a small cottage industry with a diverse range of ready -to-eat and cook food products. It is also one of the enterprises benefiting from the UPoCA project in Mozambique.

The 56 year old widow says she closed her kindergarten in Maputo and moved to Nampula three years ago when her husband died. She first started processing castor oil but the company buying it was offering a very low price and so she changed to processing cassava leaves for making ‘mathapa’. This local delicacy made of cassava leaves cooked in coconut is very popular in Nampula but is tedious to prepare as the leaves have to be crushed to remove cyanide and soften them for cooking.

In 2008, she attended a meeting at the University of Eduardo Mondlane in Maputo, the first university in the country, on cassava processing. After the training, she requested for processing machines and after some negotiations she received a grater and 20 drying trays in October 2009 and started processing the crop.

In 2009, she attended a series of trainings by UPoCA on processing cassava into marketable items such as high quality cassava flour, rale and starch as well as making a diverse range of products from the flour.

She was also trained on maintaining hygiene and safety standards, and packaging, labeling and marketing and says she has tried to implement everything she learnt. She worked with a designer in Maputo to make neat labels and has also sent samples to the government lab to get feedback on the nutrition and their safety.

She says she is now processing more than a tonne of high quality cassava flour in a month but the market is still low as the community prefers dark flour made from moldy cassava to make their local dish ‘karakata’.

“For them, the darker the flour, the more delicious the ‘karakata’ is. They need some time to get used to the idea of white flour,” she said.

She also worked with UPoCA’s Agro-Enterprise Specialist, Melba Davis-Mussagy to develop a business plan. She says this has been a very useful exercise that led her to realize she was selling her cassava flour at a loss.

“From the business plan, I discovered I was selling a kg of cassava flour at 15 MZN but that barely meet the costs of the packaging material, the content and the labor costs. There was no profit. So I have now adjusted my price and sell at 25 MZN,” she said.

According to Davis-Mussagy, very few of the small-scale enterprises that UPoCA is supporting have business plans to guide their costing and future growth.

“I found out they did not know how to cost a kg of any of their products. They just set a price and they could not explain why and as a result, they were selling at a loss,” she said. “They have now understood the importance of detailing everything from their own labor, material, and transport costs. They also know which products give them the most profit.”

Extension worker retires to lead way in cassava processing

2011-02-08T03:39:00.000-08:00

Two years ago, a great belief in the power of the cassava and impatient with the slow uptake of processing technologies motivated Ernesto Lopes to leave his job as an agricultural extension officer, after 25 years, to set up OLIMA Ltd to practically show that the crop can be a source of food and money. OLIMA means to farm in one of the local languages spoken in Nampula.

“We started promoting cassava processing from the 90’s in Nampula province which is Mozambique’s number one producer and consumer of the crop. However, up to now, the technologies have not picked up. So I decided to take it up upon myself to show by example,” he explained. “Many times people need to see things practically to believe.

The 47 year old father of nine set up a processing centre in an abandoned garage of the Caminhos de Ferro de Mozambique (Mozambique Railway) borrowing old machines that were lying idle at Mozambican Agricultural Research Institute (IIAM) at Nampula - a chipper, 2 graters, and a press to extract water from the grated cassava.
”
In March 2010 he started processing very slowly, experimenting with piles of cassava purchased from nearby farmers and processing into high quality cassava flour and starch. After a training by the Unleashing the Power of the Cassava in Africa (UPoCA) project of the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) funded by USAID, he added rale.

As his products improved, his orders increased. He says he is now buying truckloads of cassava from the nearby farmers who are only too happy as it saves them a trip to the market and he purchases at a much better price.

UPoCA also worked with him to develop a business plan in which he projects to increase his production to five tonnes of high quality cassava and one for starch, dried chips, and rale.

Currently, he has seven permanent employees and in a month sells approximately 500kgs of the flour, 100 kgs of starch, and 50 kgs of rale to local consumers who come to buy at the processing centre or at OLIMA offices in Nampula town.

“The government should also lead the way in exploiting the wide range of opportunities the cassava offers. For example promote the use of cassava in the bakery industry, ” he said.

How can IITA improve on project management?

2010-11-28T03:57:00.000-08:00

How can projects deliver their objectives, on time and within the allocated budget? How can we ensure donors get good value for their money? How can project managers proactively identify and arrest problems during project implementation and not spend time reacting to them? These were among the issues tackled during a session on improving project management at IITA on the last day of the planning week.

The scientists and support staff brainstormed on the various tools and processes the institute can put in place to improve the various aspect of project management, including monitoring and evaluation, time management, budget, partnership, quality of projects, among others.

According to Eric Koper, an IITA consultant on project management, the aim of the session was to focus on the solutions and not problems, the future and not the past and most importantly, what to do and not who to blame. He also gave the results of an online assessment on project management.

He said under the on-going CG reforms, the donors wanted impact, accountability, and compliance.

Paula Bramel, IITA’s Deputy Director General R4D, appreciated the suggestions offered and said the management would consider them seriously.

“We are happy with the practical, feasible, and creative ideas to improving project management that have come out of this session. The management is committed to taking them on board. We cannot implement all of them at one go, so we will start an online voting to prioritize them,” she assured them.

IITA’s R4D work changes cassava landscape in Nigeria

2010-11-26T08:13:00.000-08:00

IITA’s research led to the rapid growth of the cassava industry as a result of promoting its processing and new value-added products which in turn led to an increase in demand for and adoption of improved varieties according to an evaluation recently carried out in Nigeria in 14 states.

Tahiru Abdoulaye, Outcome/Impact Socio-Economist, speaking on the impact monitoring said clear outputs had been established. These included an array of processing machines such as graters and millers developed to over come processing challenges; value-added products such as odourless fufu, High Quality Cassava Flour (HQCF) which were promoted and adopted, building the capacity of National Agricultural Research Systems (NARS) partners and farmers and increasing business knowledge, skills, and processing hygiene.

He said another area that had shown impact was in the adoption of improved varieties. “By 2009, there was a 70% adoption as compared to 20 years when it was only 20%. And all stakeholders have also recognized the role of IITA in the cassava sector in the country,” he said.

Challenges of evaluating impact of IITA’s R4D work

2010-11-26T06:45:00.000-08:00

There are many challenges IITA’s socio-economists face when monitoring and evaluating the impact of IITA’s research for development (R4D) work according to Arlene Arega, IITA socio-economist, during the IITA planning week at a session on impact evaluation.

He said the time taken to realise all the benefits of an intervention takes a long time with some taking up to 16 years and many donor organizations do not have the patience to wait that long.

He suggested possible strategies the institute can use to meet donor demands and at the same time have quality assessment on the outcome and impact of its innovations on yields and income as extrapolating the future economic outcomes or setting funds aside for future evaluation.

Secondly, he said, program level evaluation gives a truer picture of the outcomes as opposed to project level. “Projects are at different stages on the R4D continuum and their impact cannot be assessed independently. It is very difficult to isolate the effects of one project when the reality is that many projects contribute to an outcome.”

He added that project evaluation was prone to ‘cherry picking’ highlighting only the successes and ignoring failures but when looking at a program assessment, one looked at both successful and failed projects.

He also said the evaluation methodologies become more complex as the products increased ranging from genetic improvement, which is the easiest to evaluate, to capacity building, post harvest and value addition to genebank. The accompanying indicators also get more complex from yield - the easiest- to income, health, food security, and environment.

He identified information and data gap as another challenge where the interventions and results along the impact pathway are not always well documented. This starts with investments, both human and financial to the outputs – the landraces, planting material, germplasm. For example when it comes to new improved varieties, usually many will have escaped long before the official release therefore keeping track of their movement and adoption impact is difficult.

Saving our forests with fertilizer use

2010-11-26T00:07:00.000-08:00

Jim Gockowski presenting the results of a study linking

fertilizer use and deforestation in West Africa

Research carried out among Farmer Field Schools in Ghana has shown that fertilizer use would have averted the clearing of 7 million ha of Guinea forest land in West Africa for crops such as cassava, cocoa and yams in the last 20 years.

This, in turn, would have prevented some 1.4 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide being emitted into the atmosphere valued between US$2.8 billion and US$42 billion. This could have also saved thousands of species in the region from becoming extinct. This was reported by Jim Gockowski, an IITA Agricultural Economist and one of the researchers involved in study, during one of the sessions on Natural Resources Management at R4D Week 2010.

He added that eventhough there was a steady increase in crop production with the use of fertilizers -- with yields more than doubling when farmers used the recommended amount -- only 4% of the sampled farmers were at that optimal level of fertilizer use.

“Despite the huge loss of forest land, the growth in crop production was insignificant, with cassava increasing only by 0.2%, oil palm by 0.22%, and cocoa by 0.64%,” he said. “We have harmed the environment but we are still way behind our MDG goals because we failed to intensify our agriculture.”

The Guinea forest of West Africa is one of the IUCN's global hotspots covering 1.4% of the earth’s surface and containing 60% of all animal and plant species. It has been heavily deforested by farmer smallholders of cassava, cocoa, and oil palm.

Good progress but countries still lag in agriculture funding goal

2010-11-25T06:31:00.000-08:00

Increased investments in agricultural research could help lessen the
drudgery of work especially among women in many African countries

The total expenditure on agriculture -- the most important sector in reducing poverty -- was still under 10% of the GDP of many countries in West Africa. This despite the committment made by the countries under the Maputo Declaration of 2003.

As of 2007, out of the 11 countries in the region with available data, only four countries had met this target: Burkina Faso (15.8%), Mali (11%), Niger (15.4%) and Sénégal (14%).

However, IITA scientists were told, there had been a steady increase in funds set aside for agriculture since then, especially after the 2008 food crisis.

This was highlighted by Mbaye Yade, sub-Coordinator for the Regional Strategic Analysis and Knowledge Support System (ReSAKSS), while presenting the results of the first evaluation of the Comprehensive Africa Development Program (CCADP), a strategic framework to guide the development of the agricultural sector.

He also noted that there were positive changes in indicators such as a reduction in poverty incidence, poverty gap ratio, and undernourished ratio, as well as increases in per capita GDP.

ReSAKSS is a project implemented by the CGIAR centres in close collaboration with the Regional Economic Communities (RECs). It is supporting CAADP to put in place an M&E system and the Africa countries to define their agricultural programs and M& E.

Tapping opportunities and strategizing against agricultural threats

2010-11-25T06:28:00.000-08:00

Scientists on day 2 of R4D Week 2010 brainstormed on strategies to mitigate threats to global agricultural productivity.

The Opportunities & Threats meeting, which was moderated by Victor Manyong, IITA Director, specifically sought measures that would cushion farmers from the pains caused by pests and diseases, climate change, and food price changes, among others.

Apart from climate change and pests and diseases, experts also examined the impact of global trade policies and their likely impacts on resource-poor farmers.

The group discussed the application of early warning systems and brainstormed on tools that would help in predicting threats to food production.

They said that with the growing demand for food, spiraling population, and unpredictable weather, it was time to set up machinery that would ensure the steady production of food.
The group hopes to play the role of a think-tank to policymakers, donor agencies, and farmers in the days ahead.

They also brainstormed on resource mobilization especially in line with the ongoing CGIAR reforms.

The group observed that there were many opportunities for IITA to tap by aligning most of its activities with the reforms.

Manyong commended members for their contribution and also solicited their support especially in the area of resource mobilization.

He also emphasized the opportunities in the area of developing tools for impact assessment of projects.

IITA's impact on poverty, hunger, and food security highly rated

2010-11-25T06:10:00.000-08:00

Research and development activities of IITA are making a big difference in the fight against hunger and poverty and it was rated as having the highest impact achievement among the 15 international agriculture centres of the Consultative group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR).

Victor Manyong, IITA’s R4D Director for eastern and central Africa, said in 2009 the institute scored the highest among all the CGIAR centres on impact assessment and had the best impact paper that effectively demonstrates a centre’s impact on the poor or food insecure people and to the environment and rated for quality and rigor.

Commending the scientists for the good work during a mini symposium looking at improving monitoring and evaluation at IITA on the third day of the R4D Planning week, Manyong stressed that the institute should continue to strengthen its impact evaluation guided by three principles: accountability, learning, and rigor.

“Monitoring and evaluation should be incorporated in the research activities at the start of all projects and not at the end and should be seen as more than a donor requirement,” he said.

CBSD control strategy in the region

2010-11-24T03:58:00.000-08:00

West Africa, Peter Kulakov, IITA head of cassava breeding: “The institute and its partners are working on measures to prepare in the event the disease spreads to the region. Extensive breeding is underway that includes hybridization of local varieties with those from eastern Africa that have been known to have resistance.”

Southern Africa, Pheneas Ntwaruhunga, SARRNET coordinator: “In South African countries, the disease was reported a long time ago in both Mozambique and Malawi. In my visits around Malawi I have seen the disease is increasing and I am particularly concerned as it is now attacking the main variety that the farmers are growing. However, breeding for resistant varieties is underway incorporating germplasm from varieties showing resistance from neighbouring countries to transfer resistance or tolerance to the local varieties.”

“In Mozambique, the NARS had released four varieties which were tolerant to the disease and the pressure was now greatly reduced. In Angola and Zambia so far there have been no confirmed cases of CBSD.”

R4D Planning week: Halting spread of cassava rot disease in Africa

2010-11-24T03:18:00.001-08:00

The Cassava Brown Streak Disease (CBSD) is one of the greatest threats to production of cassava which is an important source of food and income for millions of resource poor farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa.

IITA scientists working on various aspects of controlling the disease from breeding for varieties with resistance both conventionally and marker-assisted, to tracking the spread and disease vector, met to develop a strategy to intensify, in a coordinated way, their efforts to save the crop on the second day of the IIA planning week.

Dr James Legg, an IITA virologist told the group it was now irrefutably proven that the whitefly was the vector transmitting the cassava brown streak virus. However, he said, various studies were still underway to understand exactly how the transmission takes place.

Giving an update of conventional breeding efforts to develop varieties with resistant to the viral disease, Edward Kanju, IITA cassava breeder said there were over 30 promising genotypes for lowland areas in Tanzania at various stages. Some were under on-farm trials while otehrs showing great tolerance - they show leaf symptoms but no necrosis on the roots – were poised for official release very soon.

He said a breeding program started in 2004 in Uganda has developed three tolerant clones that have shown leaf symptoms but with no damages to the roots. They were the best options for the mid-altitude areas and there was a huge demand for them in the region.

Morag Ferguson, IITA molecular Biotechnologists, said a project started five years ago with the national program in Tanzania had identified suitable markers associated with the CBSD. She said though they had not been validated, which would take another three years, they could still be used to assit breeders especially as the situation was becoming more severe.

Since the CBSD was mostly spread by infected cutting materials, halting the movement of infected planting material should halt the disease spread. However, Lava Kumar, IITA virologist said this was not easy for CBSD as the symptoms on the leaves are not so clear.

He said this calls for extra caution when selecting planting material for multiplication to avoid spreading the disease further. Furthermore he said good diagnostic tools were available which needed to be used carefully and the testing carried out several times.

He added for countries where the disease was not present, there was a great need to create awareness on the disease, symptoms and control measures to arrest the situation in time.

Sustainable seed systems for roots and tuber crops

2010-11-24T02:28:00.000-08:00

Sustainable seeds systems in the vegetatively propagated crops (VPCs) such as banana and plantain and root crops including cassava and yam are not well developed as farmers mostly tend to reuse their planting material and the private sector had not been keen to get involved.

This was one of the key issues scientists under the roots and tubers program discussed on day2 of R4D Week in a session led by Robert Asieudu, IITA R4D Director in charge of the program.

Pheneas Ntwaruhunga, coordinator of the Southern Africa Root Crops Research Network (SARRNET) that is hosted and implemented by IITA, started off the discussions by briefing on the outcome of a workshop on seed systems organized under the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

He said the work defined the starting point of a sustainable seed system as the development of high-yielding, disease-resistant varieties where breeding agencies such as IITA play a critical role. It must be followed by an efficient multiplication and distribution systems to ensure that the beneficiaries get the seeds.

He said other issues included certification of the seeds, affordability, and a good coordination mechanism for all aspects of the seed systems.

Antonio Lopez-Montes, IITA yam breeder, called for caution when establishing seed systems, saying they must be farmer-driven and not imposed. "When there is a market demand for farmers' produce, they will realize the value of investing in increasing production by acquiring among others high-yielding varieties."

He also said the farmers can be trained on how to use part of their field to grow seeds and that they should be made aware that seed production is a profitable business.

IITA's challenges for Banana and Plantain program

2010-11-23T23:50:00.000-08:00

Banana and plantains, important food and income crops for millions of farmers in sub-Saharan Africa, are threatened by a growing list of diseases and pests sweeping across the region that IITA scientist are searching for their immediate and long term sustainable control solutions.
On the second day of IITA’s 2010 planning week, scientists working on the two crops in various aspects updated each other on their current activates and brainstormed towards a focused strategy to coordinate their efforts in a session led by Jim Lorenzen, Banana Breeder and Program lead.

On Banana Bunchy Top Virus (BBTV), one of the top priority disease, Lava Kumar, IITA virologist told the group the institute had good baseline data on the disease including how and where it was spreading. And although there were no known sources of resistance to the disease, he said, in Cameroon trials had began to identify varieties that are tolerant to the disease, still giving acceptable yields even when infected.

He said they had started a campaign in Cameroon where the disease was now present as farmers moved planting material from Gabon where it is entrenched.

Fen Beed, a plant pathologist, said a lot had been done on BXW, good diagnostics for the virus using DNA capture were in place, and there was an ongoing regional survey in seven countries in partnership with national research and regulatory officials: Rwanda, DRC, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, and Zambia.

He said, however, that there was still a lot to do as it was still spreading through the region. For instance in Uganda there has been a resurgence of the disease despite the government having launched one of the most effective control programs.

"It's not clear whether it's because the people have stopped putting in place the appropriate measures or the disease is more complex than we thought," he said.

Irie Bi Vroh stressed the difficulty of breeding plantain which are sterile and unbreedable. He said in West Africa the research focused on boosting their fertility and enlarging the germplasm base with material from colleagues around the world.

Leena Tripathi, IITA Biotechnologist, updated the group on the progress in transforming the two crops to develop varieties resistant to the major diseases. She said there were transgenic lines resistant to BXW under confined field trials in Uganda and there were also plans for testing in other countries such as Kenya.

Danny Coyne, IITA nematologist, emphasized the complexity of controlling nematodes, a major threat to banana and plantain as there were different species involved. The institute is still focusing on an integrated control including ensuring clean planting material by boiling suckers in hot water and breeding for resistant varieties as a long- term solution. "Boiling in water is simple, practical, and fast. We need simple campaigns to create awareness among the farmers."

2010 R4D Week: The benefits of the ‘charging services’ model for IITA

2010-11-22T08:12:00.000-08:00

The ‘charging for services’ model being used by IITA presents an opportunity to help improve the quality of services and free more funds for research, Lakshmi Menon, IITA DDG (Support) has said.

The model, which is principally a cost recovery framework, is part of the strategy adopted by IITA management to cushion the impact of the reforms in the CGIAR system.

Other measures adopted by IITA included the use of tools to closely monitor expenditures and increased efficiency in service delivery.

Menon said the approach had freed up resources for research, making more funds available for R4D.

Some of the impacts of the institutional reforms include the drop in power consumption in IITA-Ibadan using energy-saving devices and the enhanced Internet connectivity in East/West Africa due to laying of fiber optics.

Menon said, “Prices have dropped from an average $6000 per megabyte to $1000 per megabyte.”

Overall, the internal reforms are gradually putting the support units in a better position with some units now becoming financially sound.

Menon called for scientists’ understanding on the new internal charges placed on services, stressing that savings made are for the overall benefit of the institute with some funds being transferred to R4D and also for maintaining other research stations.

2010 R4D Week: Our financial situation is healthy, says Chief Financial Officer

2010-11-22T07:59:00.000-08:00

The institution is in a healthy and stable financial condition even in the face of the looming CGIAR reforms and the funding uncertainties accompanying it, IITA’s Chief Financial Officer, Shalewa Sholola, assured scientists in his presentation on the first day of the Planning week. He said in the 2009 financial year, IITA’s books were well balanced.

He told them that in 2011, which was going to be a transition year as many of the CRPs are not yet approved, the institute’s management was committed to ensuring that there would be minimal undue shocks and disruptions to their research activities and operations even the Institute braced itself to meet the excellent opportunities and challenges posed by the changes.

“However, this calls for us to operate more efficiently, to be more prudent by prioritizing our activities, and exploring ways to accomplish activities at minimal costs. We need to eliminate wastage by implementing best action plans and stringently use the precious unrestricted funds,” he said.

He called upon scientists to use well the available tools and systems on project management and budget monitoring, and regularly suggest ways to improve them. He assured them that the management was going to invest in new and existing tools and systems for better financial management and build the capacity of staff to use them.

He said the management team would also work to attract more restricted funds which will contribute to overhead costs and cost recovery and reduce any funding gaps.

He explained that under the new reforms, the funding would be based on performance contracts and agreements as well as multi-donor and multi-year funding, and unrestricted funding would cease. He said there were three windows of funding opportunities and four sources of funding for IITA.

“There will be funds allocated by the council, by the fund donors to the CRPs, and fund donors as institutional support which will be transitional for 2-3 years or so and lastly, the bilateral fund provided outside the funds framework to finance projects or activities under the CRP.

2010 R4D Week: The good and the not-so-good in the on-going reforms for IITA’s R4D

2010-11-22T07:49:00.000-08:00

The ongoing reforms at the CGIAR, though presenting huge challenges, are also offering immense opportunities for our research-for-development (R4D) activities that we should use 2011 to prepare and gear up for, Paula Bramel, IITA’s Deputy Director General R4D told the scientists on the first day of IITA’s R4D Week.

She said that under the reforms, the partnerships will become complex and more formalized. “We will be operating in broad partnerships and multicenter global teams. There will be a lot of competition for funding and conflict resolution will be key to make them work,” she said.

She said the way the projects will be run, and monitored and evaluated will also change.

“In the past the focus was mainly on the science but now the success criteria will be on outcomes, outputs, and impacts. We will therefore need to invest in new tools and processes to manage our projects and new performance indicators to determine our impact,” she said. “We also need to formalize our monitoring and evaluation, both external and internal.”

The institute will also have to manage the different roles it will play under the CRPs, from being a lead role in one CRP and a primary partner in others to playing small roles in areas that are of priority.

On the other hand, there are lots of opportunities up for grabs. She said IITA will now have to operate globally. “We will finally get our research and technologies to other continents. This will lead to greater impact and visibility for our work,” she said. “

“There will be new research areas that we have previously not been involved in and new and diverse partnerships especially with the private sector,” she said. “And though initially there are funding uncertainties, in the long run, there will be more funds for the centers and new research areas.”

She said 2011 would be a transition year as many of the CRPs would still not be funded and the institute will invest in prioritizing areas to focus on, in strengthening its reporting, learning from the past, resource mobilization and new areas such as intellectual property and gender mainstreaming issues to prepare to adapt to the changes.

2010 R4D Week: Hartmann calls for better use of resources

2010-11-22T07:23:00.001-08:00

IITA Director General Hartman on Monday called on staff to work smarter, and be more prudent in the use of financial and material resources at their disposal. This is against the background of the global economic crises and the CGIAR reforms which are seeking to dramatically change the funding of centers.

Addressing staff at the 2010 Research-for-Development Week (R4D Week) in Ibadan, Hartmann emphasized the need for discipline in managing inventories and in requisitioning new items.

According to him, one big area to extract savings is by having greater discipline in purchases.

“Please think one, two or three times before you order something,” he said.

He invited scientists to make a commitment to preserve the unrestricted funds in the next six months. The proposal elicited a positive response from the attendees, signifying endorsement from the staff.

Commenting on the CGIAR reforms, Hartmann said it presented excellent opportunities to IITA. He explained that “the future looks positive,” but added, “we must work to come out stronger and leaner by better managing our resources.”

He commended the CGIAR for the creation of the Fund and the consortium’s commitment to fund the genebank, saying that it was a decision in the right direction.

Earlier, Hartmann hinted on the new IITA strategy which would take effect starting January 2011. The 10-year strategy is a product of over three years of work by the Board of Trustees that highlights how the institute will operate in the next 10 years.

Though the goals of the strategies are fixed, Hartmann said the implementation of the strategy would be flexible.

The DG also used the occasion to introduce Dr. Trine Hvoslef-Eide, from the Norwegian University of Life Sciences, who joined the IITA board recently.

He also acknowledged the presence of Jennie Quinn from Irish Aid, Irish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

IITA marks 2010 Open Day with tree planting to save biodiversity

2010-11-11T07:42:00.000-08:00

Members of staff of IITA marked the 2010 Open Day with the planting of indigenous trees in Ibadan to help mitigate the effects of climate change and losses in biodiversity.

The planting of trees comes at a time when Nigeria’s deforestation rate has reached an alarming rate of 3.5% per year, translating to a loss of 350,000–400,000 hectares of forest per year. In 1976, Nigeria had 23 million ha of forest; today only 9.6 million ha remain—less than 10% of Nigeria’s total land area!!

Dr. John Peacock, who is manager of the IITA - Leventis Foundation Project, says the planting of trees is part of a new initiative to restore rainforests in Nigeria. IITA is also contributing to the important UN-REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) initiative in Nigeria.

Through the IITA-Leventis Project, the team, particularly Olukunle Olasupo and Deni Bown, have raised over 15,000 seedlings of 33 different species since February 2010 in preparation for planting next year, with at least as many again hoped for during the coming dry season when most tree species produce seeds.

“We would like every family, represented by staff members in IITA, to plant an indigenous tree next year as part of IITA’s activities to increase the forest area,” Peacock added.

Earlier this year, IITA and partners made efforts to raise awareness of the need to preserve biodiversity—a term that describes the variety of living organisms—especially in forests that are increasingly becoming lost or threatened. For example, statistics indicate that Nigeria’s Milicia excelsa (iroko) has become endangered, with about $100 m worth of iroko timber illegally poached from remaining forests last year. “The unfortunate thing is that these very valuable trees are not being replaced,” Peacock noted.

Over the years IITA has championed efforts not only to increase crop productivity but also the conservation of biodiversity and natural resources including water and forest. Today, the 1000 ha at IITA Ibadan campus is taken up by research, administration, and residential buildings, lakes and experimental plots, and a further 350 ha. comprises valuable secondary forest. This forest can be compared to an oasis in the desert and is dominated by a canopy that includes fine specimens of Milicia excelsa (iroko), Ceiba pentandra (silk cotton tree), Celtis zenkeri (ita-gidi), Terminalia (afara), and Antiaris toxicaria var. africana (akiro).
In 1979, an arboretum was established comprising 152 different tree species, 81 of which are indigenous. Peacock says the IITA-Leventis Project plans to increase the forest area and the IITA arboretum with the planting of more indigenous trees.

Another area of importance to the project is education, particularly of school children, says Deni Bown, project coordinator and medicinal plant expert with the IITA-Leventis Project. “In this regard we are educating the young on the importance of afforestation and conservation,” she said.
Peacock and his team are hopeful that through reforestation and education the rate of deforestation in Nigeria will be significantly reduced.

IITA holds 2010 Open Day amid pomp and fanfare

2010-11-08T08:11:00.000-08:00

It was a memorable day on 6 November 2010 (Saturday) at the IITA Open Day celebration as members of staff and their family members gathered together for a day of festivities. The attendees were gorgeously dressed; some in their traditional attires, others in formal wears. Flashes of light pervaded the Conference Center as cameras clicked to capture the memorable events and people. The events took off with tree planting which involved selected members of staff at the East bank of the IITA Lake, after which members of staff gradually arrived and made their way to the Conference Center. There were various exhibitions made by the different units such as the IITA Bioscience Center, Genetic Resources Center, Virology Unit, Banana and Plantain Unit, and the Leventis Project. A documentary on IITA programs featured IITA’s impact. Children played and freely ran around while their parents chatted, laughed and took pictures. During this period also, staff members showed their family members around their offices.At the Sports Center, children had their own space at the basketball court where they danced and played. One of the highlights of the event was the raffle draw where lucky staff members were randomly selected and given prizes donated by the management and units of IITA. Some of the prizes won included; umbrellas, wall clocks, 2kg Blackforest cake, tickets to the IITA Pizza Night, lunch at the International House, steam iron, glass stand, DVD player, dinner set, and a refrigerator. The dance competition between the children, staff and dependents elicited more prize-giving and added to the excitement of the day. The best dressed individuals and couple also carted away prizes. The program was rounded off by Deputy Director-General (Support), Dr. Lakshmi Menon who gave the closing remarks and vote of thanks. The star prize of a 26 inches LCD was won by Mr. Paul Sunday Eshi who was on duty but was represented by a colleague, while the presentation was made by Mr. Omosalewa Solola of the Finance unit. Members of staff who were in attendance commended the efforts of the management and planning committee and attested to the fact that this year’s IITA Open Day was well planned and executed.

Unleashing the power of Cassava to fight hunger and poverty in Malawi

2010-10-26T05:18:00.000-07:00

Unleashing the power of the Cassava in Africa, a project funded by USAID and implemented by the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) in seven countries in East, central and Western Africa, Malawi included is changing the image of the crop and creating a new breed of rural entrepreneurs who are improving their lives and those of surrounding farmers by providing employment and a market for their cassava.

El-Niño sets man on a new cassava path
Meet Augustine Phiri, a farmer from Lilongwe, Malawi, who thanks to an El-Nino warning, changed his attention from maize and tobacco to cassava opening a world of opportunities that would not have been possible with the former crops. In his MbwadiMbwadi gardens in Lilongwe, where he also has a cassava processing plant donated by the Kellogg foundation, the crop takes up the giant share of the land.

Mr Phiri is one of the 22 processors benefiting from the Unleashing the Power of the Cassava in Africa (UPoCA) project of the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) that is working to promote cassava as a food security and income-earner among vulnerable communities in Africa. It is working to build the capacity of farmers and processors such as Phiri to grow and process the versatile drought resistant crop.

Under UPoCA, Mr Phiri has been trained on production of high quality cassava flour and other products and recipes using the flour such as donuts, cakes, cookies, chin chins, tit bits and gari, a fermented and cooked cassava flour that is very popular in West Africa; on packaging and marketing, and quality and safety management issues.

After attending the quality and safety management training held in August 2010, he has since installed taps for washing hands all over the centre, all his permanent staff wear uniform and have medical certificates to show they are fit to handle human food.

Mr Phiri has been processing and selling high quality fermented cassava flour, Kondowole, for making nsima, and unfermented high quality flour that is among others used for baking as a substitute for wheat either on its own or mixed with the wheat flour. He sells to local shops and supermarkets and neighbours who come to buy at his home. After the trainings, he has added a new product, gari, and he already has an order of 250 kgs per month from a Nigerian restaurant in Lilongwe.

Mr Phiri says he discovered cassava in 1997 when his wife learnt about the looming el-Niño that would result in extreme climactic conditions at a workshop. They were encouraged to grow cassava which would perform relatively well compared to most crops.

“I did not know much about growing cassava. However, I visited the government’s Chitedze research station where I got more information and was given 30 bundles of planting stems,’ he said.

In 2003, the enterprising farmer was selected as a model farmer under Initiative for Development and Equity in Africa (IDEA) of the Rockefeller foundation promoting cassava commercialization. He took part in a 14-day tour to Tanzania to learn from IITA’s cassava processing sites around Dar es Salaam.

UPoCA in addition to the trainings has donated a grater and a presser, and is also supporting him to tackle some of the bottle necks he is experiencing in his cassava processing.

Processing is hampered during rainy season when drying, an important part of the process, is nearly impossible. He also has to travel long distances to mill his dried cassava chips into flour. UPoCA is looking into appropriate drying technologies such as solar or steam dryers. It will also donate a hammer mill to save him the long trips.

Phiri would like the Malawi people to change their mind set towards cassava: “To the Malawian, food is maize. They only reach out for cassava in times of famine when maize is not available. It is a fire extinguisher but is it not better and less costly to prevent the fire in the first place?’ he asked.

First starch factory in Malawi is revived
Another beneficiary of UPoCA is Mr Elimasi Masimbe, 54, owner of the first ever starch fac¬tory in Malawi that was using cassava as a raw material. However, he had closed shop after only three months in operation as he failed to secure markets from the targeted packaging companies. A series of eye-opening trainings and refurbishment of the factory and equipment by the project has put him back in business.

Today, the factory is a hive of activity processing starch and using the leftovers to make high quality flour, fer¬mented and unfermented and even cooking briquettes.
Alex Nthonyiwa, a project officer with UPoCA says Mr Masimbe, owner of Masimbe investments, was trained on production of high quality cassava flour and other products from cassava, packaging, and marketing and on quality and safety management.

“We also helped him to improve the quality of the starch by renovating the factory and the equipment. We changed the sieves and grater blades which were made of mild steel to aluminium coated ones which do not rust,” he said.

The father of five says the training opened his eyes on other products he can process from cassava and gave him the push to revive his factory. "I did not know we could make cassava flour because in my commu¬nity we only boil it and take it for breakfast or as a snack. Now, I make the fermented flour from the leftovers from starch processing and from all the wastes, make briquettes for cooking,” he said

He is selling high quality unfermented and fermented flours to his neighbours and supplies Kapani Enterprises Ltd, a meat processing factory in Lilongwe, 200 kgs of starch in a month. However, his fac¬tory has a much higher capacity and he is actively looking for more markets.

James Chingangi, deputy production manager at Kapani Enterprises Ltd, says the company usually imported its starch from South Africa but a shortage had forced them to explore local options and they had discovered the cassava starch making factory in Lilongwe.

“First we requested for samples which at first were a bit sandy. But when we pointed this out to them, they refined their processing and now it is good. Every time we run out of starch, we run to them and they never fail us,’ he said.

He says the starch from the factory, which is used for making cold meat and sausages, was reasonably priced and readily available unlike the one coming in from South Africa and they were looking at slowly weaning off the imported one.

Mr Masimbe who started growing cassava on his own initiative in 2000 says he caught the attention of Malawi Enterprise Development Institute (MEDI) that had received funds from Kellogg Foundation to promote cassava commercialization. They were trained on how grow cassava and get good yields and were also given high-yielding varie¬ties, Sauti (a bitter variety) and Manyokola (a sweet variety). He was also given the starch factory to run and purchase cassava from surrounding farmers.

“I was given the factory with different processing machines and a borehole to ensure constant water supply. I started making starch in 2008 targeting the Packaging Industry of Malawi (PIM). However, when I took a sample of the starch, they said it had too much iron. And after 3 months, we stopped processing and closed the factory.”

Mr Nthonyiwa says this was the first starch factory in Malawi and has a lot of potential. “PIM currently imports its starch. If we can get to the bottom of the iron issue then they would not import anymore,” he said

The USAID funded project started in 2008 in response to the food crisis in Africa aims to promote cassava as a food security and income earner making it an engine for economic growth, especially in the rural areas says Dr. Braima James, UPoCA project manager.

“It focuses on the cassava because of its ability to create low and steady prices for basic food products. The project aims to empower farmers and their organizations to provide an adequate supply of cassava products at economically affordable prices,” he said. “It also aims at diversifying cassava uses by stimulating the production of value added cassava based food and industrial products

He says the strategy includes developing and availing to farmers improved cassava varieties and equipping them and agro-processors with the knowledge and skills to reduce postharvest losses. A range of user friendly improved post harvest technologies developed by IITA and national partners have been disseminated for the production of starch, dried chips, high quality cassava flour and other products, thereby adding value to the crop. The processed products have a longer shelf-life.

In Malawi, says Ted Nyekanyeka, the country project officer, the project hopes to distribute planting material to 1,500 farmers. So far the project has distributed 329,750 planting stems to over a thousand farmers dur¬ing the last growing season including orphan care homes, AIDS support and women groups. This growing season, the project expects to support even more from its 40 ha of seed farm expected to provide planting material for 500 ha of land.

The project is working in Ghana, Tanzania, Malawi, Nigeria Mozambique, Democratic of Congo and Sierra Leone.

Simple science-based solutions can reduce hunger and poverty

2010-10-20T02:15:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday, October 16 was the United Nation’s World Food Day. A day set aside for us all to reflect on the fate of the 950 million women and children worldwide that, according to UN statistics, go to sleep hungry.

The vast majority of the hungry, obviously are the world’s poor. Rarely would anyone with money in their pockets lack food. Unfortunately, majority of the world’s poor and hungry live in Africa.

Why has Africa not able to meet its food needs despite years of investing in the agricultural sector? There are as many reasons as there are answers and solutions. However, there are a few areas I would like to highlight that would make a big difference if they received adequate attention.

Post harvest loss - the big hole that food meant for the hungry falls into - is top of my list. Farm produce rotting in the fields is a very common scenario in Africa. Due to poor infrastructure, small-holder farmers are unable to get them to the market or in times of abundance, they flood the market, prices drop drastically and discouraged farmers let them rot. The good harvest becomes a curse.

Early in the year, we saw farmers in Kenya pouring their milk when the production outweighed the capacity of the industry to absorb it. This must have been a very painful exercise for them – it was literary pouring much-needed money down the drain.

Similarly in Tanzania, we are just coming out of the oranges season. If you travel in the orange-growing areas, the fruits are rotting in the farms and in the markets. On the other hand in the supermarkets, a box of orange juice, most probably imported, fetches a tidy sum.

Why didn’t the Kenyan farmers make cheese and yoghurt? Why aren’t their Tanzanian counterparts making juices and jams? Is it lack of capital, knowledge, processing equipment, confidence by the farmers or even a pioneer to set an example for the farmers? It is a combination of all these and others.

The International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) is working with small-holder farmers to promote simple technologies of processing crops into valuable and marketable products to avoid such post-harvest losses and improve their income.

The institute has had immense success in commercializing cassava by promoting the production of high quality cassava flour and starch. The flour has a wide range of uses at home and in the bakery industries to make cakes, bread, biscuits and other products either on its own or mixed with wheat flour. The starch has diverse uses in the brewery, pharmaceutical, textile, paper, plywood and food industries.

The old crop of Africa is hardy and performs relatively well in drought conditions and with little inputs such as fertilizer.

By using the cassava alternatives, many African countries would save millions of US Dollars by reducing importation of wheat and starch and, at the same time create income for many in the value chain: farmers, transporters, machine fabricators and small scale processor. It would also create employment in the rural areas reducing rural to urban migration.

IITA is using the same approach for soybean, banana and cowpea and the same can be extended to many other crops grown by African farmers.

The farmers can also avoid the glut in the market by changing the timing of their harvest to coincide with low season when the demand and prices are high.

A study by IITA in Uganda - the second largest producer and consumer of bananas in the world - showed that with better timing, farmers can harvest their banana ‘off season’ when prices are better avoiding the huge price fluctuations and post-harvest losses experienced during high production season.

According to the research, though the bunches harvested off-season were relatively lighter by 25% compared to those harvested in peak season, their price was up to 50% higher. Thus they were more profitable.

To fight hunger and its evil twin sister, poverty, efforts to increase Africa’s small-holder farmers production sustainably and in ways that also put money in their pockets must be redoubled. The technologies that enable them to do this must be made available to them with all the necessary support to implement them.

Under this year's theme, United Against Hunger, I salute the men and women working tirelessly to end hunger. Let the struggle continue because it is possible!

Group riding high, thanks to an old friend, cassava

2010-10-18T01:29:00.000-07:00

“With the money I made from the sale of my cassava roots and stem (as planting material) and the dividends I received from the group, I have now finished constructing a video den, purchased a TV and a DVD player, and installed a solar system to power them. I will be charging the villagers a small fee to watch news and movies,” Peter Mtoi, 61 year old shows us his latest acquisition with pride.

By his side, his wife, Mary Mtoi, 51, adds that they have also purchased a commercial charcoal oven to bake bread and cakes made of mixed cassava and wheat flour to sell to the village and nearby shopping centre.

The Mtois living in Tongwe village in Bagamoyo District, Pwani region are members of a local cassava farmers group, Wambato (Wakulima wa mhogo Bagamoyo Tongwe) which has been processing cassava into flour thereby getting more income as compared to the sale of fresh roots.

Ten years ago, things were very different and they had almost given up growing cassava following its devastation by the cassava brown streak (CBSD) which causes a dry rot in the tubers rendering them useless – they are not edible nor can they be milled into flour. All their local varieties were susceptible to the rot disease and they were desperate.

The Roots and Tuber programme of the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, and Cooperatives introduced and tested together with the farmers six varieties growing elsewhere that had shown good levels of resistance to the disease.

‘Out of the six varieties they brought us for testing, we found Kiroba to the best. It was high yielding, resistant to the disease and sweet,’ Mtoi said.

They were also trained on good agronomical practices to get maximum yield such as when and how to plant, spacing and selection of good planting material. Soon the group was back to the cassava growing business.

Cassava cassava everywhere

However, following the rapid adoption of Kiroba and better farming practices, there was now more cassava than the markets could absorb, prices plummeted and the farmers were in despair again.

The Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA) came to their rescue and constructed a processing centre equipped with simple machines to process cassava into flour which has a longer shelf life and fetches more money than the highly perishable fresh cassava roots which start to rot three days after harvesting. To show its commitment, the group purchased the bricks and provide labour for the construction.

From 2009, the group has been receiving support from the Unleashing the Power of the Cassava in Africa (UPOCA) of the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) in tackling emerging challenges to take their production to a higher level.

In 2009 the project trained Tabu Maghembe, the government extension officer working with the group and selected representatives on production of high quality cassava flour and new products and recipes using the flour; quality and safety management, and labelling, packaging and marketing.

The group warmly welcomed and implemented all the new ideas received on their own costs. It has since constructed a toilet at the centre, raised the racks for drying the cassava to avoid contamination by dust or domestic animals, and started using plastic bags to spread the cassava chips to dry.

‘As you can see we have notices for everyone to wash their hands before touching anything as per the hygiene quality and standards training, ‘Maghembe said. “We are working towards getting our flour certified by the Tanzania Bureau of Standards.”

A credit scheme

The group has a bank account and pays dividends to its members twice a year from some of the profits made. It also buys their cassava for processing and pays them a daily wage for their labour during processing. The neighbouring community is also benefiting from a ready and better priced market for their cassava.

It also acts as a saving and credit society for both members and surrounding farmers who borrow money for emergencies against the cassava in the field. Once they harvest it, they sell it to the group to repay the loan with a small interest.

One challenge for the group is transporting their dried cassava chips over long distances for milling. The mills are also not exclusive for cassava products and the flour is sometimes contaminated with maize and other grains flour. John Msemo, UPOCA country Mananger says the project will purchase a milling machine for the group and they construct the building to house it.

For the group, this is just but the begining:‘We are ready to continue to grow from strength to strength. We started from the farm and now we are processing and selling to supermarkets in big towns. We are now eyeing markets outside the country,’ said Maghembe.

Return of the cassava: New ways of making popular foods using old crop take village by storm

2010-10-06T04:30:00.000-07:00

Cassava, an old neglected crop that is often remembered when all other crops fail, has gained new recognition and prominence among the residence of Tongwe village in Tanga region, Tanzania, who have discovered new ways of utilizing the crop that is adding new and more nutritious twists to their local menu.

The farmers are also earning a higher income from processing the crop into high quality cassava flour (HQCF), a versatile flour developed by the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) that can be used for baking and making confectionaries as a substitute for wheat.

They are mixing cassava and wheat flours to make popular foods such as cakes, chapati (round flat fried bread), and mandazi (small squarish donuts) that were previously made with wheat flour only. This has made them more affordable for the villagers.

Christine George, 29, makes chapati which she sells to school children and the local community. She says mixing cassava and wheat flour has increased her profit margin. The married mother of one who is also a cassava famer mixes the two in the ratio of one to three – one cup of wheat flour to three cups of the high quality cassava flour. She also adds eggs and margarine to make them tastier and more nutritious.

Mary Lipande, 59, also sells snacks to school children made from a mixture of cassava and wheat flour. She says with the money she is making she is able to help her husband meet the needs of the family including school fees for their two children in secondary school, clothing, adequate shelter and health care.

“Today, I do not wait for my husband to do everything. He only contributes,’ she says laughing.

They are both members of Wambato farmers group (Wakulima wa Mhogo Bagamoyo Tongwe ‘Cassava Farmers of Bagamoyo Tongwe’) that is involved in growing and processing cassava. The group has been a beneficiary of initiatives by the national roots and tuber research programme of the Ministry of Agriculture, Food Security and Cooperatives, Sokoine University of Agriculture and IITA’s Unleashing the Power of the Cassava in Africa (UPOCA), all in Tanzania.

According to Tabu Maghembe, the extension officer from the Ministry of Agriculture who trained Christine, Mary and their fellow group members on production of various products and recipes using the high quality cassava flour, people in the village now prefer the chapati and mandazi made from the composite flour which are tastier and more nutritious.

In 2009, under UPOCA, Maghembe was trained on the production of the high quality cassava flour and on products and recipes for the flour. A follow up training focussed on quality control and safety issues and on packaging and marketing. She faithfully passed on all the new knowledge to the group.

‘We were also trained how to make the cassava products more nutritious by adding soybean flour to provide protein. However, in Tongwa village, since we do not have the soybean, we substitute with eggs, milk and dried fish,” she said.

The group has a well equipped cassava processing centre constructed by Sokoine University of Agriculture in 2007 in response to the groups cry for lack of markets for their cassava. This in turn was a result of the rapid adoption of new high yielding cassava varieties introduced by the roots and tubers programme of the ministry of Agriculture as all the local varieties were under attack by the deadly cassava brown streak disease (CBSD).

According to John Msemo, the country manager for the UPOCA project in Tanzania, they were impressed by the group’s hard work and initiative and decided to continue to build their capacity from where the ministry and the university had left.

He says he is also happy with the way the group members have put into practice everything they have learnt. For instance, the group was now drying the grated cassava on raised racks and spread on polythene bags where as before they were drying them on the ground spread on palm mats risking contamination from dust and domestic animals.

The result today is a group whose members are enjoying a greatly improved standard of living from the good income made from the sale of high quality cassava flour to supermarkets and shops in Morogoro and Dar es Salaam as well as around the village.

Maghembe says before the trainings, the group was processing 500kgs of fresh cassava roots per month. But now as a result of improvement in the flour quality, better packaging, and marketing skills learnt, they are processing five to six tonnes per month and selling at 800 Tshs/kg (0.5USD).

UPoCA project funded by USAID is in response to the 2008 food crisis in Africa and promotes cassava as an engine for rural economic growth and improving livelihoods with spill over benefits to urban populations. It is being implemented in seven countries in Africa: Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Ghana, Nigeria, Malawi, Mozambique, Sierra Leone and Tanzania.

Voices from 5th World Cowpea Research Conference

2010-10-05T04:18:00.000-07:00

The Fifth World Cowpea Research Conference ended last week in Saly, Senegal,
with more than 140 scientists discussing the state of the art in cowpea research.
Below are excerpts of interviews with scientists at the conference, which IITA
organized with the Institut Senegalais de Recherches Agricoles (ISRA), Dry Grain
Pulses Collaborative Research Support Program, and Purdue University.
For more information about the conference, please go to: http://cowpea2010.iita.org/

2010-10-05T04:13:00.000-07:00

Today, we have a lot of scientific tools that give us results that we would never have dreamed of … Pure science is fine but it becomes more important when applied in the field.—Lakshmi Menon, IITA

2010-10-05T04:03:00.000-07:00

This conference is important because we are talking about food security in Africa. We are taking stock, addressing challenges facing cowpea, and charting a way forward because we are in research not just for the sake of it but how it can benefit the farmers.—Jacob Mignouna, AATF

2010-10-05T03:52:00.000-07:00

The molecular tools being developed in advanced labs should be put into the hands of African scientists and breeders…I would hope that people go home with a lot of optimism on the future of the work that is being discussed.— Edwin Southern, Kirkhouse Trust

2010-10-05T03:47:00.001-07:00

A diet has to be diverse. Our bodies don’t make protein, so we need to eat protein and plants (legumes) are the primary sources of protein. In developed countries, meat is preferred but the poor cannot afford it. So a large percentage of the world depends on pulses for their protein. The rich also need pulses because they promote health.
Cowpea is a neglected crop. I don’t know the reason for that. It is an unknown crop and donors do not appreciate the value of cowpea in the diets of millions of people in Africa, Asia, and South America.
We hope that the proceedings from this conference will help change donor perception about cowpea. More importantly, this conference provides the opportunity for people to interact and talk to each other and to prioritize which technology is important for the benefit of our farmers. – Irv Widders, CRSP

2010-10-05T03:37:00.000-07:00

There is progress in cowpea research towards improving productivity, resistance to pest and diseases, and post harvest handling… So, cowpea has a big role to play in agricultural development not only in West and Central Africa but also in other parts of the world. Cowpea is a profitable crop, it is good for food security, and has the positive benefit of improving soil quality. —J. Lowenberg-DeBoer, Purdue University

2010-10-05T01:50:00.000-07:00

On Bt cowpea: The result of the confined trial of Bt cowpea in northern Nigeria indicated that the gene which was used in transforming IT86D-1010 is very efficient against the insect pest. We discovered that the transgenic material did not sustain any damage on their pods as opposed to serious damage on untransformed material. This means increase in productivity with accompanying increase in the incomes of local farmers in the future when the variety will be adopted. Depending on the level of infestation, this could mean an increase of between 25 and 40% grain yield.
The issue of transgenics should not be viewed in isolation.
Transgenic crops have been consumed in other parts of the world and the people consuming these crops are human beings like us. The gene in question has been used in maize and other crops and has been consumed with no adverse reactions on humans or the environment, so we should not be an exception.—Mohammed Ishiyaku, Institute of Agricultural Research, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Nigeria

Scientists create a banana Wiki

2010-10-04T02:22:00.000-07:00

Soon all information on banana in Africa including the banana growing areas, yield, socio-economic status of the farmers and spread of pests and diseases will be available at the click of a mouse thanks to a recently launched website (http://banana.mappr.info) that anybody working on the crop can contribute to.
The website, developed by Philippe Rieffel a student of Science in applied Geography at the University of Muenster, Germany under supervision of scientists at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), hopes to make a wide range of reliable spatial information on banana readily available to researchers, policy makers and development workers.
According to Hein Bouwmeester, a GIS specialist with IITA, currently the website is focusing on banana-growing areas in Africa but if successful, will expand to include the whole world.
He said the website was developed entirely with open source software and uses ‘crowdsourcing’ to build onto an existing geo-database.
“The idea behind ‘crowdsourcing’ is that currently no accurate geospatial data on bananas in Africa exist, so the platform will ‘outsource’ these data from the ‘crowd’ of local experts in Africa,” he said. "The core of the website is the editor that enables a user to view and edit banana growing areas and define their characteristics."
To guarantee accuracy and reliability, the site's creators will regularly check and correct the database. The current database and all approved previous versions can be downloaded by anyone, either as a GIS shapefile, a text file or a customized premade map.
According to Bouwmeester, the website is important as it will allow information to be shared across projects and organizations for research and development work.
The platform comes in handy as scientists are grappling with the spread of two deadly diseases that are ravaging the crop and threatening the livelihoods of millions farmers. These are the Banana Xanthomonas Wilt (BXW) and the viral Banana Bunchy Top Disease (BBTD).
One such scientist, Dr Fen Beed, an IITA plant pathologist lauded the initiative and encouraged researchers and development workers to share information on the platform to make it an information power house on banana.
’The more people with experience of local, national and regional banana production and its constraints contribute to the website, the more robust the data housed in this website will be,’ he said.
The data can be used as a baseline reference to monitor the impact of any interventions or changes in practice such as disease control strategies.

From poor man's meat to rich man's health supplement?

2010-09-30T23:41:00.000-07:00

Research on the antioxidant and health properties of cowpea by scientists are beginning to show promise.

Cowpea and other legumes are a major source of protein, particularly for the poor, hence they are often called the poor man's meat. However, new research indicates that cowpea has the potential to combat diet-related health risks more commonly associated with wealthy populations such as heart disease, diabetes and other “lifestyle” health risks.

A new project led by Texas A&M University and funded by USAID-CRISP with research partners in Zambia, Kenya and South Africa is looking into the potential for cowpea to help prevent cancers and other cardiovascular diseases not only in Africa, but globally. This is the first project of its kind involving cowpeas of which Africa is a key producer.

"The problem is that we do not consume and promote foods that are rich in antioxidants, especially in Africa where diets are typically basic and monotonous, particularly among the poor," said Dr. Joseph Awika, the lead investigator of the project. "Additionally rich people once they get a bit of money graduate to the foods that are typically high in sugars and fat and very low in health-promoting components like antioxidants".

Antioxidants are substances that protect body cells against the effects of free radicals which are molecules produced when the body breaks down food or by environmental exposure to tobacco smoke and radiation. Free radicals can damage cells and contribute to heart disease and cancer.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), an estimated 16.7 million total global deaths - result from the various forms of cardiovascular disease (CVD), many of which are preventable by acting on unhealthy diet, physical inactivity, and smoking. WHO says more than 50% of the deaths and disability from heart disease and strokes kill more than 12 million people each year with 80 percent of them in developing countries.

Dr. Awika said the next step for the project would be to use human cell models in a laboratory to get quick, reliable data on biochemical properties of cowpea components. Then the next step would involve animal models fed cowpea-based products to measure specific outcomes which would lead to larger human intervention studies.

"Based on the limited evidence we have cowpea can be an important health food in the future," said Dr. Awika. "We are at the screening phase where we have used simple rapid tests to screen over 70 samples to select specific lines to focus on for a more detailed study."

- Busani Bafana

Purdue Scientists Use Viral Cell Phone Videos to Share Cowpea Storage Techniques With Farmers

2010-09-30T05:46:00.000-07:00

Researchers have turned to mobile phone videos to help farmers share information on how to use improved cowpea storage technology to protect their cowpeas in the field.

The Purdue University in collaboration with researchers in Cameroon developed the Purdue Improved Cowpea Storage (PICS) to help farmers in West Africa protect their cowpea in storage.

With farmers in Niger faced by challenges of effectively sealing the PICS bags, Purdue and its partners in World Vision and INRAN developed a small 3-7 minute video that showed the sealing of the bag which was difficult to explain effectively via other formats. With many West African farmers having cell phones, the videos have been a hit. Farmers can share the videos using Bluetooth. Click here to view the video.

"This a low cost technology and we find that it spreads very fast and so in one test in Niger, we gave the cell phone video to several extension workers that we were working with as well as a couple of radio station and few pilot farmers and in a month's time it spread to hundreds of people who saw the cell phone video and were able to benefit from the information," said Prof. Jess Lowenberg-DeBoer, Associate Dean and Director of International Programs in Agriculture at Purdue University. "Farmers have liked the videos because they help them understand better how to use the bags instead of only the oral messages on the radio."

Animation has opened new opportunities for helping farmers share information on controlling cowpea insects. Cell phone videos have also been developed in Fufuldé, French, Wolof and English. One of the big advantages of cell phone videos, says Lowenberg-DeBoer, is that they are inexpensive to produce and can be made for specific locations. The videos are made in low resolution so they can be easily viewed on small cell phone screens.

Farmers love to see familiar surroundings and hear their native language. This lets them know that the message is made specifically for them," Lowenberg-DeBoer said.

- Busani Bafana

Got a bug problem with your beans? Just bag it.

2010-09-30T02:04:00.000-07:00

More than 25 percent of unprotected cowpea is lost as a result of pest attacks during postharvest. However, these losses are being substantially stemmed, thanks to the Purdue Improved Cowpea Storage (PICS).

PICS aims to put half of all farm stored cowpea harvest in West and Central Africa in non-chemical, hermetic storage. Here's how: PICS works by sealing cowpeas in an airtight container. The airtight container within a couple of days kills all the adult insects and most of the larvae. The technology also keeps the remaining larvae dormant and unable to cause further damage. PICS was developed through collaboration between Purdue University's Faculty, students and researchers in North Cameroon in response to farmers, who had problems storing cowpeas and needed an effective storage method.

A PICS bag is composed of three layers: two inner layers of high density polyethylene and an outer layer of ordinary woven polypropylene. The inner bags protect the grain from insects. The bag was tested in the laboratory and in over 20 000 village tests in West and Central Africa. It has drawings illustrating sealing procedures to help illiterate farmers.

Jess Lowenberg-DeBoer, a Professor of Agricultural Economics and Director of the International Programs in Agriculture at Purdue University, said hermetic storage works effectively only when containers are completely filled. PICS bags have a 100kg capacity but if a farmer has 50 kg of cowpea to store, the bag can be tied lower down and this works just as well. Can it be reopened continuously?
"Yes it can, but the problem is that it introduces oxygen again," Lowen-DeBoer said. "We have found that once farmers re-open the bags, particularly if they are using cowpea for household use, it means the insects that are not killed will wake up and start trying to eat the cowpea. So it is better once sealed, to leave it sealed until the cowpea is taken out for sale."

Smaller containers, like plastic bags can be used to store cowpea for household use.

The PICS bags are available in 10 countries in West and Central Africa and are currently being manufactured in Senegal, Mali, Ghana and Nigeria. On average, the bags cost between $1.70 and $3 depending on local manufacturing costs.

"The bag makes a difference. For example, if a bag of cowpea is worth the equivalent of $50 at harvest and $150 six months later and you spend $3 on the bag, there is still a tremendous possibility for gaining."

Purdue University is working with IITA in Nigeria to promote the adoption of the cowpea storage technology.

- Busani Bafana

Media focuses on cowpea as a contribution to food security

2010-09-30T01:07:00.000-07:00

Black-eyed peas are a 'crop of the future' that 'has the potential to feed millions' according to the Associated Press in a report earlier this week. News of the World Cowpea Conference has reached far and wide.

In particular, stories by Associated Press and Agence France Press were picked up widely by media outlets around the world. The AP story alone was featured on over 150 news web sites and publications this week, most notably by Business Week, CBS News, Forbes, Los Angeles Times, and The Independent (UK). The conference was also covered quite extensively by the local press in Senegal.

Overall, the media coverage has been very positive in highlighting the important contribution cowpea can make in improving Africa’s food security.

Click the links below to view media coverage.

AFP
AP

Sud Quotidien

Photos from Saly

2010-09-29T00:58:00.000-07:00

Photos from Saly

2010-09-28T16:42:00.000-07:00

Cowpea biodiversity – 15,000 samples and counting…

2010-09-28T16:12:00.000-07:00

Dominique Dumet, Head of IITA's Genetic Resources Center, gives journalist Busani Bafana the low down on the world's largest collection of cowpea.

What's the status of the world cowpea collection?

IITA has a mandate to preserve the germplasm under the auspices of the Food and Agriculture Organization. for the good of humanity. We maintain over 15 000 samples of cowpea collected since the early 70s from all over Africa, India, Asia and Americas. We maintain the collection at low temperatures to expand their lifespan and we distribute worldwide to whoever wants to use them for research in agriculture and food security.

Where are the hot spots for biodiversity losses?

It is difficult to say because there are few reports on genetic erosion on the African continent. We do not know everything about the diversity of cowpea in Africa.

Where are the gaps in the collection?

There are eco-geographical gaps in our collections. In Namibia, for example, we do not have anything. In Angola, we have very little. We would like to acquire a wild relative to cowpea which to our knowledge is not maintained in any genebank. We do not have samples from Burundi, Guinea-Bissau, Eritrea, Equatorial-Guinea and Rwanda. We do have samples from Botswana, Congo, DR Congo, Gambia, Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Swaziland and Uganda but these are small samples.

Does Africa hold the largest diversity of cowpea?

IITA maintains the largest collection of cowpea and its wild relatives worldwide but all national collections, even if smaller, are important as they are likely to maintain unique germplasm.

Which cowpea lines are at risk?

There has not been a study of cowpea’s genetic erosion study, so we actually do not know where the biggest risks are. We need to integrate various erosion risk such as adoption of a new varieties or climate change into our ecogeographical gap analysis. We need to do collection missions to save samples. We will be doing a collection mission starting in October 2010 in Nigeria and we are going to cover 15 000 km. Remy Pasquet, a well known Vigna taxonomist, will lead the collecting mission.

Are there any new tools available for understanding and providing access to the world cowpea collection?

We recently developed an online inventory system and a user-friendly, Google-type search engine that allows breeders and researchers to search through the samples for characteristics and passport data.

How does the passport data work?

When you collect a sample from the field, you give it specific particulars just like a passport. For example, the passport must include the exact location where the sample was collected, the name of the collector, the year of the collection and the local name. This information is useful to breeders but also to genebank curators. The benefit is that it helps breeders and curators know about the environment where the sample 'was born'. Unfortunately, in the past, collections were not given such information which was not good. Now everyone is aware of the importance of passport data.

Participants of 5th World Cowpea Research Conference

2010-09-28T08:25:00.000-07:00

Away with Akara?

2010-09-27T12:13:00.000-07:00

Akara, the crispy, deep fried fritters made from black-eyed peas, are loved by many. But eating the protein-rich bean in other forms, particularly boiled, could increase the nutrient intake for millions of urban consumers buying street foods, least according to one scientist.

Busie Maziya-Dixon, a crop utilisation specialist at IITA:

"People should eat more boiled cowpea advantage of micronutrients especially iron and zinc that are lost when you remove the mineral-packed skin from the bean.”

Research by Maziya-Dixon has shown that boiled cowpea retains 80 percent of its iron and zinc. When its processed it into akara and moin moin most of these minerals are lost, she says.

'You can't eat potential'

2010-09-27T09:59:00.000-07:00

Senegal, which recently unveiled an ambitious programme to boost agricultural production, has challenged the research community to harness resources to expand the potential of nutritious crops like cowpea in feeding Africa.

During the opening the 5th World Cowpea Research Conference in Saly, Hon. Khadim Gueye, Minister of Agriculture, Senegal said that researchers should harness physical and human resources to solve production and marketing constraints facing Africa’s farmers. Senegal has rolled out an ambitious programme known as GOANA to increase food production and access to farm research outputs through limited seed and fertilizer subsidies to targeted farmers.

Minister Guyed said the GOANA initiative would put Senegal on track for exporting agricultural produce, noting that this would only be realised with condusive environment including the provision of improved inputs. He expressed hope that the gathering of the cowpea experts in Senegal would result in solutions to fighting pests and diseases affecting cowpea.

ISRA director general, Dr. Macoumba Diof called for increased collaboration between research institutions and universities to enhance the development of cowpea in line with government priorities on crop diversification and competitiveness.

In remarks to the conference, Deputy Director-General IITA, Dr. Lakshmi Menon, said growing global population meant a steep growth in food demands, increasing the potential the role of cowpea to meeting food, nutritional, monetary and food needs.

"Sadly, you can’t eat potential. Potential doesn't feed people. It is up to us all here to do our part to help Africa realize its potential,” said Dr. Menon.

Calling for the use of technological tools to improve agriculture, Dr. Menon said strategic research partnerships were essential to take advantage of the improving regional trade conditions in Africa.

End/Busani Bafana/

Improving cowpea storage

2010-09-27T09:35:00.000-07:00

"As much as it is important to produce cowpea we must be able to store them and we have developed a simple and cheap way, anyone can be trained to do it in 10 minutes." - Larry Murdock, Purdue University

Is there an association between cowpea color and taste?

2010-09-27T08:14:00.000-07:00

"No", says BB Singh, a world renowned cowpea scientist. "The color has nothing to do with taste, but color is highly associated with the presence of antioxidants. We’re doing more research on this connection."

The total package for beating hunger and poverty

2010-09-27T07:32:00.000-07:00

"Cowpea is the wonder crop," Professor Irv Widders, Director of Pulses-CRSP at the Michigan State University, told participants to the 5th World Cowpea Research Conference in Saly, Senegal. "Many people associate pulses with poor people. The message they should be pushin that cowpeas and other pulses are the food of an educated person as one understands the nutritional value of cowpea they will make a conscious effort to consume them."

Cowpeas are treasured for their high protein content (grains contain about 25 percent protein), leaves and stalks that serve as especially nutritious fodder for cows (hence the name cowpea) and other farm animals, and the fact that their roots provide nitrogen to depleted soils. For many in Africa, the crop is a critical source of food during the “lean period”–-the end of the wet season when food can become extremely scarce in semi-arid regions of sub-Saharan Africa.

The many qualities of the cowpea are being discovered anew for a number of reasons. One is the potential of the cowpea’s high protein content to help satisfy dietary requirements in food-challenged developing countries, particularly in Africa, where over 200 million people remain undernourished.

Prof. Widders warned that the global food crisis was still on and the world remained vulnerable to price fluctuations citing the food riots in Mozambique. Therefore it was important that policy makers should be convinced of the nutritional, health and sustainability value of cowpea to trigger investment in research and improvement in production and market value chains.

"We are dealing with a quality food product and a solution to nutritional needs as well as global health. We would be misguided just to look at one aspect," Prof Widders said lamenting the immense challenges in the way of cowpea helping achieve food security.

Key challenges included dealing with pests and disease, poor storage and high post harvest losses, bad agriculture practises, poor supply and poor farmer-access market linkages. In addition, a decline in the consumption of pulses was also cited as a key challenge confronting scientists as projections suggest that 50 percent more food will be needed by 2050 to feed a world population of 9 billion.

End/Busani Bafana/

A Cowpea Story - Children's Book

2010-09-27T05:38:00.000-07:00

In recognition of Senegal’s effort to improve childhood nutrition through the promotion of niébé, IITA’s Deputy Director General Lakshmi Menon presented the first edition of A Cowpea Story to Hon Mr Khadim Guèye, Minister of Agriculture, Senegal.

A Cowpea Story, an illustrative children’s book by Vicky Inniss-Palmer, tells the hopeful story of a cowpea named Catalina and her struggle to overcome illness and disease with the help of scientists. The book was officially launched at the opening of the 5th World Cowpea Conference. IITA hopes to distribute the book to schoolchildren across Africa as part of an effort to raise awareness and educate children on the importance of cowpea.

Niebe flour, a self raising business

2010-09-26T10:06:00.000-07:00

Rokhaya LÓ is a mother and a family breadwinner in, thanks to a job milling niebe, the common name for cowpea in Senegal.

"I clean, dehusk, sort out, and weigh the niebe before it is milled into flour," LÓ explains during a visit to Kumba Enterprises, a small milliing business founded by Mme Aissatou Diagne Deme in Dakar.

The cowpea flour sold Kumba Enterprises has made it household name around Dakar. It’s an important ingredient for traditional meals and a rich source of protein for children, the elderly and expecting mothers.

LÓ has been working at Kumba Enterprises since 2003 and has supported her child and family members with her earnings.

"I enjoy the job. The money is good," she says. LÓ is not just an employee but a neighbour. She is one of 52 women from the neighbourhood from where Kumba Enterprises has grown as a family business since 1994.

Niebe flour is rich in protein, a trait which has kept Kumba Enterprises' tills ringing. The company mills about 800 kilogrammes of niebe flour a month, most of it sold locally to consumers and markets.

"The flour is affordable and sought after locally. I am investing sampling the export market in Europe where I have an agent for millet flour that I also produce and export," says Mme Deme who supplies cowpea flour to local bakers.

Mme Deme has plans to mechanizeg her entire business, but admits that some manual processes deliver better efficiency. The flour business has risen in value since she started the business at her home with an initial investment of $12 000 [6 million CFA]. Today, she values her business at $100,000 [50 million CFA].

Cowpea is increasingly a source of income for many women like Mme Deme in West and Central Africa, thanks to new food technologies being developed by reseaerchers. An association of women in Dakar is running a home-based take-out food business, serving entrees and desserts made from cowpea.

During the four day World Cowpea Conference in Saly, researchers will discuss a new study analysing the economic fortunes of hundreds of street vendors in Ghana and Niger who sell a popular, deep-fried fritter made from cowpea known as akara. Research has found that most of the women earned four to 16 times more from value added cow pea products than the prevailing minimum wage in their countries underlining that cowpea can be a cash cow for the enterprising.

By Busani Bafana

Building brains with better bread

2010-09-25T11:40:00.000-07:00

Bread made with flour from the nutritious cowpea (black-Eyed Peas), is coming to the rescue of school children, increasingly at risk of protein deficiency, under a feeding project being piloted in Dakar, Senegal.

Cowpea, commonly known as niebe in Senegal, is one of the ingredients in the fortified bread being produced by Senegal’s Institute of Food Technology (ITA) to help improve nutrition in school children. The programme will be piloted in three schools in Senegal’s Guela Tapec District during the upcoming school term.

The fortified bread is made with 85 percent wheat, 15 percent cowpea flour and peanut butter. ITA is one of the research organisations around the world promoting the much neglected cow pea in the fight against malnutrition. Cowpea is packed with protein, vitamins and minerals ideal for childhood development.

"We realised that many school children leave homes without eating and cannot have milk because it is expensive so we have fortified the bread to deal with the lack of protein," ITA Director General, Dr. Ababacar Ndoye.

Introducing fortified bread is helping provide nutrition at an affordable cost not just for school children alone as the price of wheat flour is one the rise. The ITA pilot bakery is producing 160 loaves for promotion ahead of piloting the programmes in schools.

"We will expand the feeding programme to all the schools in Dakar," Dr. Ndoye said.

Fortified bread is one of the innovations of value-addition of the nutritious cow pea which after many years of neglect is enjoying new interest from scientists. Research on enhancing the profile of cowpea as a viable income generating and food security crop is the focus of a four day meeting, 5th World Cowpea Research Conference in Saly, Senegal from 27 September to 1 October 2010.

Cowpea 2010: Scientists to meet in Dakar to boost cowpeas for food security

2010-08-23T12:05:00.000-07:00

Hundreds of experts from around the world will gather in Dakar, Senegal from 27 September to 1 October 2010 for the Fifth World Cowpea Research Conference to discuss threats to the survival and farm production of black eyed peas—one of Africa's oldest and most resilient and nutritious crops.

From its humble origins in the drier regions of West Africa, where farmers have grown the black-eyed pea (also known as cowpea) for 5000 years, it was carried to the United States in the bellies of slave ships, and then introduced to the world through international trade. Today, black-eyed peas are a global commodity, grown in nearly every region of the world. Sub-Saharan Africa accounts for about 70 percent of total world production.

“Black-eyed peas have been largely neglected despite their multiple benefits and the fact that developing new, high-yield varieties could boost farm incomes by as much as 50 percent while improving household nutrition.” --Hartmann, director general of the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA)

In years to come, scientists believe that black-eyed peas could lead the way in Africa’s effort to fight malnutrition among its growing population and confront the effects of climate change. The shifting weather patterns threatening to desiccate farmer’s fields across the continent put a spotlight on crops like the black-eyed pea that are rich in vitamins and protein and do well in hot, dry conditions. Black-eyed peas have the added benefit of releasing nitrogen that revives depleted soils.

“Black-eyed peas have been largely neglected despite their multiple benefits and the fact that developing new, high-yield varieties could boost farm incomes by as much as 50 percent while improving household nutrition,” said Hartmann, director general of the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), which is co-hosting the World Cowpea Research Conference with the Government of Senegal, the Dry Grain Pulses Collaborative Research Support Program, and Purdue University. "Today we see scientists racing against time to rescue and conserve cowpea varieties that can help farmers deal with pests and diseases and adapt to changing environments.”

Scientists will meet in Dakar to discuss key constraints to cowpea production, share progress being made in advanced cowpea genomics, and consider the best ways to unlock cowpea’s potential as a hedge against climate change, hunger, and poverty.

NIGERIAN FARMERS TO REAP NEW BENEFITS IN 2010

2010-03-19T03:33:00.000-07:00

Farmers in Oyo, Osun, Ondo, Ekiti, Kogi,
Nasarawa and Benue will receive
the improved cassava varieties.

Farmers in seven Nigerian states will benefit from the distribution of free improved cassava varieties, thanks to the IITA implemented project "Unleashing the Power of Cassava in Africa".

Richardson Okechukwu, the IITA-UPoCA Deputy Project Manager, said: “In Nigeria, we aim to empower 75,000 farms with improved varieties by the end of 2010. We also expect cassava yield in these areas to increase by at least 30%.”

But the distribution of improved cassava varieties is only one of a number of activities planned for 2010 by the project.

Researchers are also pushing improved processing and utilization technologies to create more markets for the crop.

Awareness building is also a top priority and at two Training of Trainers courses, farmers, processors, Women in Agriculture of Agricultural Development Programs, NGOs, and other private business firms were given special lessons on how to maximise their work.

Participants were taught how to process 21 food products and exposed to mechanized processing using motorized cassava graters and double screw presses both developed by IITA. The course also stressed the importance of packaging, marketing and labelling.

2010 is quickly shaping up to be the year for Nigerian cassava growers and processors. With the help of IITA they should see an increase in incomes and food security.

IITA’s UPoCA project, funded by US AID,
is also being implemented in Sierra Leone, Ghana,
Tanzania, Malawi, Democratic Republic of Congo,
and Mozambique.

CONTROLLING THE WHITEFLY

2010-03-16T03:06:00.000-07:00

Researchers at IITA are intensifying efforts to find a sustainable and natural solution to control populations of the whitefly - Bemisia tabaci.

These tiny insects transmit the viruses that cause Cassava Mosaic Disease and Cassava Brown Streak Disease. Together these diseases are wreaking havoc with Africa’s cassava production, causing an estimated US$ 1 billion worth of damage annually.

In addition to transmitting viruses, whitefly also cause physical damage to the cassava plants. Studies conducted in Uganda showed that yield losses from whitefly damage alone can be as much as 50%.

IITA is investing in a two year project that will identify the most effective natural enemies of the whitefly so they can be deployed to reduce their populations. It will also explore cassava varieties, including wild relatives, with resistance to the pest. The project will be carried out in collaboration with the International Centre for Tropical Agriculture and the University of Tel Aviv in Israel and will target Nigeria, Cameroon, and Tanzania.

The whitefly has several parasitoid (parasitic wasps) enemies that develop within young whitefly larvae, eventually killing them. Although local parasitoids already take out up to half of all whitefly young, the new project aims to make this control even stronger by introducing exotic varieties.

Dr James Legg, an IITA entomologist who has been working on cassava diseases for over 10 years, said: “We have been studying the biological characteristics and genetics of this ‘super-abundant’ Bemisia whitefly and assessing its local natural enemies. With the new project, we will intensify our efforts to search for and test the effectiveness of these natural enemies as part of an integrated disease management strategy.”

In the past IITA has successfully implemented classical biocontrol programmes. With this new project it is hoped that by combining biocontrols in novel ways with host plant resistance greater strides can be made in tackling one of Africa’s most destructive pests.

Adult whitefly.

IITA HELPS THAILAND WITH A NASTY INFESTATION

2010-03-05T02:21:00.000-08:00

The Government of Thailand, through its Department of Agriculture has requested the assistance of IITA to help in the biological control of the cassava mealybug, which has recently invaded the country and possibly Laos and Cambodia.

The cassava mealybug, Phenacoccus manihoti, is originally from South America. It sucks the sap out of plants causing abnormal growth, a sooty mould, wilting and discolouration. A severe attack can have devastating effects on cassava plantations.

The mealybug has already spread over 160,000 hectares across the East and North-eastern provinces of Thailand, where cassava is an important export crop. The bug was not immediately recognized because another closely related mealybug species common on cassava confused the situation.

To halt the spread of the mealybug a colony of wasps, the natural enemy of the pest, has been imported into Thailand from the IITA laboratories in Benin by Georg Goergen, an IITA Entomologist.

Anagyrus lopezi is a parasitoid wasp that also comes from South America. It lays its eggs on the cassava mealybug so that when its larvae are fully grown they can eat the bug. Using a biological control like this wasp negates the need for harmful chemicals.

The same mealybug caused widespread devastation and famine when it destroyed cassava in Africa in the late 1970s. IITA came to the rescue then too, when they led a group of institutions in a campaign to find, import, rear and distribute the wasps from South America. By 1981, the wasps were located in Paraguay and later in Brazil; then shipped to IITA where they were mass-reared and distributed. The campaign was one of the greatest recent successes in biological control.

The African success story means that experts are able to deal with infestations faster and at reduced costs because of the techniques learnt then. It is hoped that IITA’s involvement in the mealybug control project in Asia will produce similar positive results.

AFRICA UNITES FOR THE BANANA

2010-02-25T01:25:00.000-08:00

Bananas infected with BXW.

A new battle in the war against deadly banana diseases begins next month, with seven African countries uniting to launch a Spatial Surveillance Programme.

IITA is to take the lead and focus on limiting the spread of Banana Bunchy Top Disease (BBTD) and Banana Xanthomonas Wilt (BXW). Under the programme, researchers will use Geographic Positioning Systems (GPS) and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to develop a visual record of the diseases distribution in an effort to curb their spread.

IITA began the two-year study into banana diseases last October, to examine, among other things, why BBTD has spread so rapidly in the past two decades.

The first meeting of policymakers and researchers from Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia took place in January, when the staff were trained in disease surveillance and control methods. A second workshop in June will hone these surveillance skills.

The work is expected to provide a momentary reprieve for banana producers before creating sustainable long term solutions to tackle disease.

No banana varieties are resistant to BBTD or BXW and there is a danger that all familiar banana types will be wiped out if urgent action is not taken.

TEAMING UP TO TACKLE WEEDS

2010-02-22T00:31:00.000-08:00

IITA and private multinationals in weed control, Syngenta and Dizengoff, are working together to tackle weeds in Africa. Thanks to US AID’s MARKETS project, which is seeking to expand and sustain the on-farm productivity and profitability of cassava, in selected Nigerian states.

Analysis by the FAO on the negative effects of weeds in agriculture indicated that weeds do more damage to crops than pathogens such as fungi or insect pests. By training farmers on efficient weed control practices in cassava cultivation it is hoped that higher yields will be achieved giving those in rural communities more income and food security.

The public/private sector collaboration seeks to link these resource-poor farmers with the weed control giants, thus guaranteeing the quality of herbicides supplied to farms. The two companies have agreed to ensure a steady supply of products at a discounted rate and provide training on the safe use of weed controls which will be facilitated by IITA.

Dr. Gbassey Tarawali, Project Manager for the IITA-MARKETS Cassava Value Chain Project, said: “This initiative will not only control weeds but will also create jobs in the rural communities and boost yields.”

Nigeria is the largest cassava producer
in the world, producing 46 million tonnes
of the crop on average each year.

Syngenta and Dizengoff welcomed the initiative and pledged their support to the scheme.

Mr. Goodluck Ogu, Syngenta’s National Sales Manager, said: “We are going to work with you and give you the necessary support.” He added: “Our involvement will guarantee quality supply of herbicides and check profiteering by middlemen.”

Dizengoff described the initiative as a revolution in agriculture. Patrick Ohaji, Manager of Crop Protection and Public Health at Dizengoff, said: “It is a dream come true and we will give you all the necessary support.”

FARMING BOOST FROM NEW MAIZE VARIETIES

2010-02-15T00:19:00.000-08:00

The release of improved maize varieties by the Nigerian National Variety Release Committee has given a much needed boost to farmers in West and Central Africa.

The varieties were developed by IITA in partnership with the Institute for Agricultural Research (IAR) of the Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria and the Institute of Agricultural Research and Training (IAR&T) of Obafemi Awolowo University in Ile Ife, Nigeria.

Researchers at these institutes have created types of maize that can withstand drought, low soil fertility, pests, diseases and parasitic weeds, through tapping the naturally available traits during conventional plant breeding.

The release of these improved varieties has sparked renewed optimism for maize farming in the region. It is hoped that they will improve maize production by increasing yields thus raising farmer’s incomes and improving food security overall.

Maize and other grains for sale
at a Farmer's market in Nigeria.

Abebe Menkir, an IITA maize breeder, said: “These varieties have the potential to provide farmers with opportunities to overcome the challenges to maize production in West and Central Africa.”

FERTILIZER DOUBLES BANANA YIELDS

2010-02-09T07:37:00.000-08:00

Applying the correct amounts of fertilizer to East African highland bananas can double the fruit production a study has found.

Carried out in nearly 200 fields in Uganda, the study by IITA and funded by US AID has found that fertilizer can increase annual banana yields by 50% from 10 to 20 tonnes per hectare.

However, the study also found that less than 5% of farmers actually apply fertilizer to their bananas.

The farmers said high costs, erratic supply, inconvenient packaging, limited access to credit facilities, partial knowledge on fertilizer use and the perceived negative effect of fertilizers on soil quality and on the taste of the bananas stopped them from using it.

To combat the belief that fertilizer ruins the taste of bananas, a related farmer sensory evaluation was conducted by IITA and Uganda's National Agricultural Research Organization (NARO). It showed that fertilizer use actually improved the quality of the fruit in the production of matooke.

Matooke is a meal of steamed green bananas and is one of the national dishes of Uganda.

To guide farmers, IITA and its partners have developed several site-specific recommendations for the application of fertilizer. The institute is also encouraging private, public, and non-government sectors to address fertilizer packaging to suit the specific needs of farmers.

Uganda is the second largest
producer and consumer of bananas in the world.

Over 70 million people in the East African
highlands depend on bananas as their
primary source of food and income.

EU FUNDING FOR AFRICAN YAM RESEARCH

2010-02-01T06:28:00.000-08:00

Yams are plant tubers eaten as vegetables.
They are an important commodity in Africa.

A research project to improve and promote yams in West and Central Africa has received a €750,000 grant from the European Union’s African, Caribbean and Pacific Science and Technology Programme (EU-ACP).

“Strengthening Capacity for Yam Research for Development in Central and Western Africa” (SCYREC) aims to improve the capacity of yam research in an area which includes Cameroon, Benin, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria and Togo. The support comes amidst renewed global interest in yams as a vital income and food security crop in Africa.

SCYREC will help find sustainable solutions, through science and technology, to the challenges facing the crop and exploit its tremendous potential with regards to poverty alleviation. IITA will manage and implement the project in collaboration with a team of partners in 13 research institutions in the six countries. The EU-ACP-funded project hopes to provide a platform for increased documentation and dissemination of information about yam research and development and tackle other challenges relating to yam production, marketing and cultivation.

David Annang, IITA-SCYReC Project Coordinator said: “This is something good for the region where yam plays an important role in nutrition and economic well-being of the people.” He added: “We are hopeful that the project will tackle the many challenges facing increased yam production.”

ALL EYES ON BLACK-EYED PEAS

2010-01-25T04:50:00.000-08:00

Cowpeas are eaten by 4 million
people around the world.

The humble cowpea will be the centre of attention at the 5th World Cowpea Research Conference in September 2010. Taking place in Senegal, the meeting will showcase cowpea expertise from around the world and is aiming to raise the profile of the under appreciated bean.

The cowpea is one of the most ancient crops known to man and has been grown in Africa in particular for thousands of years. Nutritionally amazing, the cowpea or as it is more commonly known the black-eyed pea is eaten all over the world but is perhaps most well known for its part in “soul food”, the cuisine of African Americans in the southern United States.

Cowpeas are also highly regarded by farmers, aside from their importance in human diets; because they can also be used for animal feed and as a green manure.

Bacteria, fungi, viruses,
nematodes, parastic plants
and insects all attack cowpeas.

In recent years there has been considerable progress in worldwide cowpea breeding and research. New varieties have been developed with resistance to pests and diseases, produce higher yields with lesser inputs and that are better for grain and fodder.

At the conference scientists will discuss research related issues, such as improved varieties. They will present the state of the art breakthroughs in cowpea research and build upon these technological advances to move the science forward. The ultimate aim is to identify opportunities for cowpea growers to gain higher incomes, greater food security, and lead healthier lives.

The conference is being organised by IITA, the Dry Grain Pulses Collaborative Research Support Programme (Pulse-CRSP), Purdue University, and the Institut Senegalais de Recherches Agricoles (ISRA). It is taking place in Dakar, Senegal from the 27 September to 1 October.

IITA TRAINS AGAINST DEADLY BANANA DISEASES

2010-01-22T00:22:00.000-08:00

70 million people across sub-Saharan Africa
rely on bananas.

IITA is set to conduct a training course for a number of institutions across Africa so they will be able to control different banana diseases with more efficiency.

Staff from Burundi, DR Congo, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia will then be able to recognise disease symptoms in the field and confirm their presence with biotechnological tools in the laboratory.

Participants will also be trained on spatial disease surveillance methods using GPS. This will help in the development of Geographical Information Systems (GIS) maps showing the presence and spread of the diseases.

The event will focus on two main diseases Banana Bunchy Top Disease (BBTD) and Banana Xanthomonas Wilt. In terms of BXW, the course will attempt to forge links between ongoing and planned surveillance activities in order to create a regional disease surveillance network. There is also an in-depth survey scheduled for BBTD.

Banana Bunchy Top Disease is a virus that kills banana trees by causing narrow bunched leaves and stunted, fruitless plants. It is very difficult to spot in newly infected plants so is often missed leading to an unabated spread in some areas.

Banana X Wilt is a bacterial disease spread quickly between plants. It causes leaves to yellow and wilt, creates uneven, premature fruit and the plant eventually rots and dies. Symptoms of BXW are often confused with Panama Disease.

Stunted BBTD infected banans.

The training is a collaboration between IITA, the Rwanda Agriculture Development Authority (RADA) and the Rwandan Agricultural Research Institute (Institut des Sciences Agronomiques du Rwanda - ISAR). It is funded by the United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and will take place from 25 to 29 January 2010 in Kigali, Rwanda.

NEW FUNDS TO COMBAT CASSAVA DISEASE

2010-01-13T09:00:00.000-08:00

A cassava is a hardy and very useful crop that does well in droughts and poor soils. It requires little input from farmers and is valuable because every part of the plant can be utilised, from its leaves to its roots. However, Cassava Brown Streak Disease (CBSD) is disrupting cassava production on a massive scale.

CBSD is caused by the Cassava Brown Streak virus which induces a dry rot in the cassava tubers preventing people from eating them. As an important staple food to over 200 million people CBSD is one of the greatest threats to food security in sub-Saharan Africa.

Reacting to this crisis, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation have given US$ 2.4 million to a number of agricultural institutes across Africa, including IITA, to further the creation of cassava varieties resistant to the disease.

A cassava infected with CBSD

The four year project aims to identify the DNA markers associated with the resistance genes in different varieties and integrate marker-assisted selection into cassava breeding programs.

Marker-assisted breeding will enable scientists to determine whether or not the desired genes with CBSD resistance have been successfully transferred from the parents to the offspring at the seedling stage by using DNA testing. This will dramatically reduce the time taken to develop improved varieties which currently takes between eight and 12 years.

According to Dr. Morag Ferguson, IITA Plant Molecular Geneticist and the team project leader, breeding for disease-resistant cassava is the most cost-effective and sustainable way to control the devastating effects of the virus.

She says: "The use of molecular markers can reduce this time by allowing selection earlier on in the breeding cycle and by increasing the accuracy of selection. It is like using a magnet in a game of find the needle in the haystack!"

The grant forms part of The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Agricultural Development Initiative, which is working with a wide range of partners in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia to provide millions of small farmers with tools and opportunities to boost their yields, increase their incomes and build better lives for themselves and their families.

INNOVATIONS IMPROVE LIVES

2010-01-04T13:00:00.000-08:00

Northern Nigeria as part of West Africa's savanna region has vast expanses of rich arable land. However, a number of problems keep farmers in poverty. Pests, parasites and disease as well as poor soil fertility and crop management have had dire consequences on food security in the area. Furthermore, more frequent bouts of droughts and floods due to climate change have also had a great effect on the livelihoods that are based in agriculture.

Now help is coming to the resource-poor farmers of the North. They are benefiting from innovations in agricultural research, brought about by IITA and its partners working on the Sudan Savanna Task Force of the Kano-Katsina-Maradi (SS TF KKM) Pilot Learning Site (PLS) part of the Sub-Saharan Challenge Programme.

The scheme has introduced improved seeds and better farming practices to the small-scale farmers that has raised their incomes, increased overall productivity, led to better nutrition and created a sense of optimism.

Mohammed Mustapha, a cowpea farmer in Kunamawa village in Katsina State, has seen his crop yield double in the last year. He says: “My family is happy that I am now a successful farmer. I can now provide them with enough food and send my children to school.”

At a recent Farmers’ Field Day in Jikamshi, Katsina State, Hajia Fatima Shema, Wife of the Executive Governor of Katsina State; and Dr. Lawal Musawa, the Honorable Chairman of Musawa Local Government Area confirmed that the research done by this project was reducing poverty and improving the livelihoods of millions of people. They also encouraged more farmers to take advantage of the technologies offered by IITA and pledged their support to the ongoing scheme.