IITA and Nelson Mandela African Institution of Science and Technology cement their partnership on agriculture research

From left: Prof Burton Mwamila and Dr Ylva Hilbur, signing an agreement on banana research at the university campus in Arusha, Tanzania.

The International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) and the pan-African NelsonMandela African Institution of Science and Technology (NM-AIST)  have further strengthened their collaboration on agriculture research and capacity building in Tanzania by signing an agreement on banana research.

This agreement,  which spells out how the two institutions will work together to tackle the challenges facing banana production in the country,  was recently signed by the IITA Deputy Director General for Research, Dr Ylva Hilbur, and the NM-AIST Vice Chancellor, Prof Burton Mwamila, at a ceremony at the university campus in Arusha, Tanzania.

  Dr Ylva Hilbur, signing the research agreement  

According to the agreement, NM-AIST will avail land to IITA land to conduct banana breeding to develop improved varieties that are resistant to pests and diseases and especially Panama disease (Fusarium) which is devastating banana in the region, and office space for use by the institute’s staff.   

It will also give the institute access to its laboratories and screen houses to conduct banana research.

IITA on its part will provide funds to remodel and refurbish the molecular and tissue culture laboratories including purchasing additional equipment. The institute will also construct a seed extractor and a banana ripening chamber at the university. All these facilities will be open to both the staff and students of the university. 

Prof Mwamila perusing agreement before signing it.

The institute further pledged to conduct training for the staff and students at the university in areas of banana breeding, tissue culture, pest and diseases, and molecular biology among others.

Speaking at the agreement signing event, Prof Mwamila said that the university aspired to become a world-class institution dedicated to the pursuit and promotion of excellence in Science Engineering and Technology (SET) and their applications for economic growth and sustainable development in the region by training and developing world class African scientists and engineers.

He therefore noted that the collaboration with an international agriculture research center such as IITA would be very beneficial towards this end. He further said IITA would support the institute to translate research results into tangible products and policy briefs to enable wealth creation and sustainable development.

On her part, Dr Hilbur who is based at the institute’s headquarters in Ibadan, Nigeria, noted that there were numerous opportunities for IITA to collaborate with NM-AIST in research and in training agriculture researchers.

Group photo: IITA and NM-AIST teams at the event

‘Building capacity of researchers in Africa is a very important component of our work at  IITA. This agreement strengthens our already good collaboration with the university and we are looking forward  to even more collaboration in the future to support the development of the agriculture sector in the country and the region,’ she said. 

IITA's Drs Ylva and Baijukya touring the TC lab

Currently the two institutes are collaborating on research on banana through a project funded by the Flemish Interuniversity Council, on nitrogen fixation in beans, and on controlling aflatoxin, a deadly chemical produced by fungi found in crops such as maize and groundnut. 

The new agreement supplements a Memorandum of Understanding signed between the two institutions last year in which they agreed to conduct joint research projects, share scientific information and materials including genetic material for breeding, organize exchange programs, and jointly supervise postgraduate students.

Prof  Swennen showing the banana field trials.

Hilbur was accompanied by amog others IITA Director for Eastern Africa Dr Victor Manyong based at its Eastern Africa office in Dar es Salaam, Head of IITA Arusha Office, Prof Bekunda Mateete and Prof Rony Swennen who heads IITA’s banana breeding program based at Arusha. The signing was also witnessed by key staff of the university.

Africa’s biggest maker of ethanol from cassava cites IITA

L-R: Godwin Atser, Kenton Dashiell,Rajasekar Rajavelu, Director (Agro),
AADL and an AADL official during the commissioning.

Allied Atlantic Distilleries Limited (AADL), Africa’s biggest maker of ethanol from cassava, says improved varieties and best-bet agronomic practices in the production of cassava, which it obtained from IITA and passed on to farmers have doubled the yield of the root crop, making it possible for farmers to supply more of this raw material to the industry than earlier expected.

Commissioned on 30 January in Lasada, Igbese community in Ogun State, the ethanol factory will produce 9 million liters per annum of extra neutral alcohol, requiring approximately 250 tons of cassava per day.

Already over 8,000 farmers located within 70-km radius of Igbesa covering Ogun and Oyo states, southwest Nigeria, have been engaged and the factory is providing more than 40,000 indirect jobs to people in the area, Mr Ola Rosiji, Chairman of AADL said.

“With the support of IITA, our farmers have doubled their yields from an average 12 t/ha to 22 t/ha; our farmers now earn double what they would have earned,” he added.

Commending the board and management of the company, Dr Kenton Dashiell, IITA Deputy Director General, Partnerships & Capacity Development, representing Director General Nteranya Sanginga, said the inauguration of the factory was indeed a good opportunity for Africa, and especially cassava growers, who now have more markets for their produce.

He said that the factory would create jobs, attract foreign investment, and create wealth for the people, adding that IITA is willing to partner with the private sector to lift 11 million people out of poverty and also reclaim and put into sustainable use 7.5 million hectares of degraded land.

Collaboration between IITA and AADL, a subsidiary of the Lexcel Group began in the early 2000s when the project was conceived and IITA provided inputs to the feasibility study of the investment. Also under the Cassava Transformation Agenda, which is being coordinated by Dr Richardson Okechukwu, IITA is again linking farmers to the factory. In addition, the Institute is also providing training and improved planting materials and technical advisory support to the firm.

HarvestPlus Country Manager Paul Ilona said the factory would change the outlook of cassava from the global perspective of “a poor man’s crop” to an industrial crop.

The Governor of Ogun State, Senator Ibikunle Amosun commended IITA for the good work it has been doing to improve the lives of people in Africa.

Governor of South Kivu, DRC, thanks IITA for its development efforts in the country

The Governor of South Kivu during the dinner he hosted in honour of IITA DG at his residence

His Excellency, Governor Marcelin Chishambo Ruhoya of South Kivu in DR Congo, has praised IITA’s efforts to support development in his region and country and assured the Institute of his government’s support of its activities. He said he was especially happy with the decision to set up a new science building in the province which is scheduled to be launched in June 2014.

IITA is a friend, he said, and the repairing of the road to the Station was a clear demonstration of his government’s desire to collaborate with the Institute.

The Governor was speaking at a dinner he hosted at his residence on 10 January 2014 for the IITA DG who was in the country on an official visit. It was attended by the Provincial Ministers of Agriculture, Health, and Budget, other aides to the Governor, and others.

On his part, the IITA DG thanked the Governor for granting him an audience earlier in the day and for his continued assistance and generous support to the IITA Station.  He recalled how the two of them had nurtured the idea of establishing a science laboratory in Kalambo (to be known as “Science for Peace” building) in 2004 while the DG was the Director of International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) and the Governor was a State Advisor. 

The DG further commended the Governor for facilitating the execution of the project and for supporting the expansion of the station and construction of a Science Building. The DG also seized the opportunity to inform the aides of the governor of the plans to commission the IITA Kalambo Science Building on 5 June 2014. 

He said that the launch would attract Heads of States and top government functionaries and representatives of donor agencies and international organizations in the region and that the IITA Ambassador for Africa, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo would attend. 

He added that the Station will have cassava processing facilities so that farmers will have the opportunity to learn how to derive more benefits from cassava production.

“Apart from ugali, a popular cassava food in the region, there are more than 27 food products from cassava, well known for their nutritional value and marketability”, he said.  

DG Sanginga was accompanied to the dinner by Chris Okafor the Officer in Charge of IITA Kalambo and Musendeeq Oyedeji, one of the IITA engineers working at the site.

Beneficiaries commend IITA-AGRA training course

Dr Rarieya (fifth from left), beneficiaries and staff of NISLT

Beneficiaries of the AGRA-IITA training course on good laboratory practices and laboratory information management
systems have commended the two institutions for building their capacities, saying that the training they received was helping to make them more efficient.

During a visit by AGRA-IITA team to the Nigerian Institute of Science Laboratory Technology (NISLT), Samonda, Ibadan; one of the beneficiaries, Nkem Michael-Uwaje, who is also a staff of NISLT explained how she has been able to put into effective use the knowledge she gathered from the training and how this has positively affected the quality of her work and those of her colleagues especially with the tips on how to generate internal control samples with the
aid of certified reference material.

“Before the AGRA-funded training, protocols/laboratory operations in the unit were poor, but this situation has improved,” she said while taking the team comprising Marie Rarieya, AGRA Program Officer, and Joseph Uponi, Manager, IITA Analytical Services Lab, on a tour of her laboratory.

“Also during the training, I met and networked with other professionals from different countries in Africa. Since then, our network has grown. I am now able to keep a close tab on my colleagues and compare my work with what they are doing in other African countries. This way, I have been able to monitor how well my work is going. It was really an exciting time for me,” she added.

Nkem is just one among the several persons trained this year, thanks to funds from AGRA. Also in attendance during the visit
were two other beneficiaries of the training from the Institute of Agricultural Research and Training (IART) Ibadan, namely Ms Tayo-Aruna  Abidemi and Mr Popoola Joseph.

Receiving the team, Dr Ighodalo F. Ijagbone, Director General, NISLT, said the Institute’s  collaboration with IITA and AGRA in training and research had been very productive, especially as laboratory practice was concerned.

As a regulator of lab practice, Dr Ijagbone said, “We will support whatever role you want us to play. One of our core functions is capacity building and we have our members across universities, institutes, and polytechnics.”

Dr Rarieya said the aim of the visit was to strengthen partnerships across the institutions.

“AGRA strongly values partnerships and networking…And for us to create impact, we need to build capacity, from farmers to laboratory technicians. In AGRA we are constantly thinking of how we can work with partners to increase productivity,” she explained.

She pledged to strengthen the partnership already established with the institute especially as NISLT will be hosting the in-country course in soil and plant analysis in January 20–24, 2014. Similar in-country training will also take place in collaboration with Kwame Nkrumah University from January 6–11, 2014 for laboratory technicians in Ghana.

The AGRA-IITA team also made a brief stop-over at the Agronomy Department of the University of Ibadan where they met with Mr Omosuli Sunday, a beneficiary of the on-site training in soil and plant analysis which took place in March 2013 at IITA, Ibadan.

IITA and NARO to strengthen partnership on agricultural research for the benefit of the region

Dr Emily Twinamasiko, NARO DG

IITA and the Ugandan National Agricultural Research Organization (NARO) have agreed to strengthen their collaboration to boost agriculture in the country and beyond following a meeting between the Directors Generals of the two institutes, IITA’s Dr Nteranya Sanginga and NARO’s Dr. Emily Twinamasiko at NARO’s headquarters in Entebbe.

Dr Sanginga noted that NARO was widely recognized for having one of the strongest banana and cassava research programs in Africa. IITA has not only been supporting these programs but has also benefitted tremendously from them to achieve its mission of fighting hunger and poverty in sub-Saharan Africa.

Sanginga said IITA was very keen to work more strategically with NARO, tapping into its rich knowledge base and experienced staff, not only through joint research projects, but also on the CGIAR Research Programs (CRPs) such as the one on Roots, Tubers and Banana (RTB – CRP3.4) and the IITA-led Humidtropics program (CRP1.2).

He identified capacity building as one areas that NARO can play a significant role in the region for the benefit of countries such as South Sudan.

“We need to work better together, carry out joint planning and share credits for successful outputs. We need to share resources, frustrations and successes,” he said.

He observed the two institutions were working very well in a joint program to develop genetically transformed bananas for resistance against Banana Xanthomonas Wilt (BXW). He informed his NARO counterpart that he had earlier met with the NARO banana program leader Dr. Wilberforce Tushemereirwe who had briefed him on the progress made in the search for a sustainable solution to the bacterial disease that had greatly affected the production of this important food staple in the region since 2003.

He further invited both Drs. Twinamasiko and Tushemereirwe to visit IITA-Ibadan later this year to further shape the collaboration. The two accepted the invitation and welcomed the proposal to strengthen collaborations with NARO. Twinamasiko said that indeed the two institutions can benefit immensely from working better together and that there were many opportunities to do so.

IITA established office in Uganda in 1992 and has mostly been working on banana and cassava although some of its maize, yam, cowpea, and soybean germplasm have also reached the country. In recent years, the two have collaborated on coffee-based farming systems and climate change.

Beyond joint biotech work on banana and cassava, NARO and IITA have taken pride in having developed highland banana hybrids and resistant cassava varieties that have found their way to farmers’ fields. The institutes’ phytopathologists exported the Ugandan expertise to the larger region such as DR Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania, and Kenya.

Tushemereirwe, NARO banana program leader gives
Sanginga, IITA DG,  a tour of joint NARO/IITA field trials
at Kawanda, Uganda,  where work on banana
transformation  is going on.

During his five-day visit to Uganda, in addition to participating at the Global Cassava Partnership for 21st Century conference, Sanginga also met with ambassadors and senior officers in the donor community including a visit to the USAID Mission, Belgian Embassy, Dutch Embassy, European Union Head of Delegation, and aBi-Trust to strengthen collaboration with IITA.

He also visited the Association for Strengthening Agricultural Research in Eastern and Central (ASARECA), another key partner for IITA and held meeting with both national staffs and IITA scientists with R4D activities in Uganda. He toured NARO and IITA’s research facilities and fields to see the various on-going research activities.

Sanginga was accompanied by Victor Manyong, IITA Director for Eastern Africa, Piet Van Asten, the Uganda Country Representative and some of the regional scientists - Jim Lorenzen, the banana breeder, Danny Coyne, a Nematologist  and Fen Beed, a Plant Pathologist, in many of the visits.