Workshop on ISFM held in Ibadan

Participants at the workshop on ISFM

More than 30 researchers converged on the Conference Center of IITA Ibadan campus for a 3-day conference tagged: “Supporting soil health  consortia in West Africa: facilitating wider uptake of better adapted Integrated Soil Fertility Management (ISFM) practices with visible  positive impacts on rural livelihoods.”

The goal of the workshop is to improve agricultural productivity of smallholder farmers by promoting the uptake of appropriate ISFM technologies.

The event was declared open by Dr Ylva Hillbur, IITA DDG (Research), who  introduced participants to IITA’s ongoing research, mission, and  milestones achieved over the years as well as happenings across all  hubs.

Dr Marie Rarieya, AGRA Program Officer, Education and Training Soil Health Program (SHP) underscored the importance of soil health in the agricultural value chain, and attributed the low agric productivity in Africa to declining soil fertility.

 She noted that AGRA has taken a huge step in addressing this gap but pointed out that there has to be a consensus on goals and more concerted efforts by all stakeholders involved.

 “Research must be up scaled to meet up with the agricultural transformation in Africa and this can only be achieved through a   synergetic effort of all partners” she said.

The meeting was facilitated by Stefan Hauser (Root and Tuber Systems Agronomist) and Zoumana Bamba, IITA Head of Capacity Development.

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.

Researchers from Ghana and Nigeria get training

Participants with Dr Dashiell (middle) in a group photo

Fourteen senior laboratory technicians from Ghana and Nigeria have been trained on Good Laboratory Practices and Laboratory Information Management Systems (GLP-LIMS) for soil and plant analytical laboratories.
   The training which took place at IITA-Ibadan from September 1 to 13, 2013 was organized by the Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) in collaboration  with IITA. In attendance were laboratory technicians (5 from Ghana and 9 from Nigeria) who are either supervising or managing analytical laboratories in their respective countries.
   Addressing participants at the end of the training, Dr Kenton Dashiell, IITA Deputy Director General, Partnerships and Capacity Development called on participants to utilize the skills learnt to tackle the constraints to agricultural productivity.
   Linking agriculture to social stability in Africa, Dr Dashiell said, “Africa is passing through an exciting time as governments in the region are waking up to support agriculture... And when we get the agricultural sector right, we won’t be running after our youths.”
   The GLP training is a train-the-trainers program. Some of the course participants will be used in  organizing in-country training in Soil and Plant analysis upon their return to their countries. Areas of emphasis in the training included the preparation and  use of control samples, sample exchange program, use of standard operating procedures, networking for trouble shooting of analytical problems, laboratory safety, and the interpretation of analytical results for fertilizer recommendations to farmers. Participants were also trained on the use of computer software for Laboratory Information Management (LIM), and running the laboratory as a business. Each participant was given a set of certified reference samples to assist them in monitoring the quality of their laboratory analysis.
   “We believe that the improved credibility of the laboratory results will encourage small-scale farmers and others (e.g.,food scientists and environmentalists) to patronize the laboratories thus enabling the farmers to better benefit from fertilizer use,” says Mr Joseph Uponi, Manager, IITA Analytical Services Laboratory.
   The training is the second in the series. In March 2013, IITA conducted a similar training for technicians in soil and plant analysis, thanks to the Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa for providing funds.