Experts meet in Abuja to tackle Striga

Maize farm devastated by Striga

Researchers and partners working under the Integrated Striga Management in Africa (ISMA) project will converge on Hotel De Bently, Abuja, 21-23 May 2014 to review milestones reached and discuss strategies for moving forward in the battle against parasitic weed Striga. This weed attacks cereals and legumes and losses are in the neighborhood of $8bn, endangering the livelihoods of millions of farmers in sub-Saharan Africa.
The work planning meeting will evaluate the successes, challenges and opportunities of the ISMA project, identify gaps and plan how to implement the decisions so as to successfully scale out the Striga management technologies to rural farmers in the next coming year.  Over 70 participants are expected at this gathering and will include scientists from the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), CIMMYT, icipe, and other research institutes, project leaders from across Africa and beyond, partners in the public and private sectors, as well as farmers of cereal and legume crops.
ISMA Project Manager, Dr Mel Oluoch said the meeting would promote stronger linkages between project partners.

For media enquiries, contact: Ada Umeokoro, a.umeokor@cgiar.org; Kathy Lopez, k.lopez@cgiar.org; or Godwin Atser, g.atser@cgiar.org

 

Of “super” farmers and integrated farming systems

“Super” farmer Andrea Mayi shows visitors his farm where he had applied some of the technologies from Africa RISING.

In far-flung Seloto Village, Babati district, Manyara Region, Northern Tanzania, a trail-blazing farmer participating in the Africa RISING project shows researchers how farming system integration works.

Farmer Andrea Mayi, 58, is successfully integrating crop, livestock, and tree farming in his 4.2-hectare farm consisting of 1.2 hectare each of crops and livestock farming systems, and a tree farm.

Andrea, who is also a village leader, is one of the early farmer-adopters of innovations introduced through the Africa RISING project. In a visit by the USAID and Africa RISING teams to research project sites in Babati and Kongwa districts, Tanzania, last March, Africa RISING researchers showcased ongoing research in the different work packages with selected farmers in several project intervention villages.

Farmer Andrea practices a mixed intensive farming system that shows how to optimally merge crop growing and livestock production with tree farming. Every inch of his farm is used to the optimum, with an area planted to crops that include maize and legumes, and trees; a space for raising pigs, goats, cattle, and chicken; and a tree farm that grows fuel and fodder wood species. From the animal manure he makes biogas that supplies energy for home cooking. Crop residues are fed to the livestock or composted to be added to the soil. Andrea’s farm is one of 12 farmer trial sites in the two regions in Tanzania visited by the team.

The USAID team included Jerry Glover, Senior Sustainable Agricultural Systems Advisor, Office of Agriculture, Research & Policy, Bureau for Food Security; Laura Schreeg, Science and Technology Policy Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science/USAID; and Elizabeth Maeda, Research and Production Advisor at USAID, Tanzania.

The Africa RISING team was led by Irmgard Hoeschle-Zeledon, Coordinator of the West Africa and East and Southern Africa (ESA) components of the project, and Mateete Bekunda, Chief Scientist of ESA. IITA DDG for Research, Ylva Hillbur, also joined the visit to the Babati and Kongwa project sites.

Farmers with scientists and researchers from IITA, other CGIAR centers, and partner organizations leading and working on the various work packages were on hand to talk about their experiences and trial results.

The visit provided the team an opportunity to interact with other farmers’ groups in the project sites in Seloto and Long Villages in Babati, and Chitego, Kibaigwa, and Laikala in Kongwa, and to see what was happening in farmer-installed and managed trials, and how the project is impacting farmers in the project sites.

In one village visited, the women welcomed the team with a song in the local language praising the project and describing the benefits of participating in project activities. Farms visited showcased work being undertaken on Maize Lethal Necrosis Disease, postharvest handling and mycotoxin management, crop management efficiency, traditional postharvest storage system, climbing beans, fodders and feeds, maize-legume intercropping, vegetable and maize, pigeon pea, and livestock and water management.

The Africa RISING project in Tanzania builds upon results of implementing the 2012-13 research plan. Africa RISING promotes an integrated approach that is based on technological innovations addressing context-specific improvements. The earlier work packages conducted discipline-specific baseline studies to understand major constraints to improved livelihoods and identify opportunities for targeting research options.

Several innovations of inputs at the level of crops, livestock, and farm technologies were tested or initiated, mainly as potential components of integration during subsequent studies. According to Mateete Bekunda, lessons from these earlier studies showed the need to integrate tested innovations and led to the redesigning of work packages. 

The new work packages now address crop management efficiency, livestock and watershed/landscape management, prevention of mycotoxin contamination along food and feed value chains for maize, improved postharvest handling, and human dietary diversification through integration of vegetables into cereal-based systems. New work packages are being included to address the maize lethal necrosis disease outbreak, integrated management of the most common livestock (poultry) in the farming systems, connecting farmers to external markets, and introducing innovations related to institutional arrangements (R4D platforms).

After the visit, Jerry Glover said: “I am very happy to be involved in Africa RISING as the voice of USAID, and excited about the multidisciplinary systems approach of doing research evolving from this project—we need a new model for agricultural science and development, and Africa RISING can be that model.”

However, he also said that if the project wants to come up with a coherent program, “we need to address the issue of data management; we cannot leave the individual scientists to curate, aggregate, and manage their own data. We will develop a way to curate data so the information is accessible, managed, stored, and archived for future use.”

One year of IITA Youth Agripreneurs

IITA Agripreneurs in their cassava field

The IITA Youth Agripreneurs are a group of young graduates involved in agribusiness, with the aim of being a unit that would serve as a model to other young people planning to venture into agribusiness and becoming the trainer of trainers. Within one year of their existence, they have established many hectares of maize, cassava, and soybean and also plantain/banana fields. They have also multiplied plantain suckers in the macropropagation chamber. They have managed to bridge the gender inequality gap in the team, with their present number standing at 11 men and 10 women.

The activities of the group cut across the value-chains of different crops including cassava, maize, plantain/banana, and soybean. For cassava, the Youth Agripreneurs  are into stem multiplication and root production. For maize and soybean, their focus is on seed multiplication (both certified and foundation seeds), whereas for the plantain/banana, they are into sucker multiplication and fruit production.

The uniqueness of the team lies in the heterogeneity of the disciplines inherent therein, ranging across the Arts, Sciences and Social Sciences. After a meeting with the IFAD President, Dr Kanayo Nwanze, intended to spur youth involvement towards sustainable agriculture, the members of the National Youth Service Corps who were then serving in IITA, Ibadan, under the guidance of the Director-General, Dr. Nteranya Sanginga, responded with enthusiasm to the call on 28 August 2012.

The project began with a series of activities, such as attending seminars and training within and outside the
Institute, including a workshop organized by UNIDO in Songhai. Visits to seed companies, most of them in the northern part of Nigeria, were also made. The project has had visitors from various organizations, USAID, UNIDO, FARA, NIPSS, etc., to mention a few.

The Agripreneurs look forward to collaborating with sponsors and investors, as one of their future plans is to expand their production. They wish to become self-independent and self-employed, having acquired the necessary knowledge and skills, and ultimately become employers of labour.

Nigeria releases two extra-early maturing white maize hybrids

Farmer in extra-early maturing white maize field 

Nigeria has released two extra-early maturing maize hybrids with combined resistance/tolerance to Striga, drought, and low soil-nitrogen.
The extra-early hybrids, originally known as IITA Hybrid EEWH-21 and IITA Hybrid EEWH-26, are now designated Ife Maizehyb-5 and Ife Maizehyb-6. They were developed by the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) and tested extensively in Nigeria in partnership with the Institute of Agricultural Research and Training (IAR&T) through the funding support of the Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa (DTMA) Project.
Other collaborating institutions involved in the testing include the Institute of Agricultural Research (IAR), the University of Ilorin (UNIILORIN), the University of Maiduguri (UNIMAID), and the National Centre for Genetic Resources and Biotechnology (NACGRAB). The DTMA Project is executed by CIMMYT and IITA in 13 countries in sub-Saharan Africa.
Both extra-early hybrids have desirable grain cooking characteristics and outstanding yield and stability across environments in Nigeria ravaged by drought, Striga, and low soil-nitrogen. The potential yield of Ife Maizehyb-5 in Nigeria is 6.0 t/ha and Ife Maizehyb-6 yields 5.5 t/ha. Local varieties yield about 1.5 t/ha.
Hybrid development and promotion is a promising strategy to appreciably increase maize production and productivity and to revolutionize agriculture in West and Central Africa (WCA). 
 “Seed companies and farmers in WCA have been asking for stress tolerant extra-early hybrids to reduce the instability of maize yields, especially in the savannas, as well as during the second season in the forest agroecological zone,” according to Dr Baffour Badu-Apraku, IITA Maize Breeder, who is also a member of the team that developed the hybrids.
Other researchers in the team are Drs S.A. Olakojo, G. Olaoye, M. Oyekunle, M.A.B. Fakorede, B.A. Ogunbodede, and S.E. Aladele.
This is the first report on the release of extra-early hybrids with combined resistance to Striga and with genes that confer tolerance to low soil-nitrogen and to drought stress at the most drought-sensitive stages (flowering and grain-filling periods).

 “The release of the two extra-early hybrids should contribute to a significant reduction in the instability of maize yields in Nigeria as well as in other countries of WCA,” Badu-Apraku added. The adoption and commercialization of these extra-early hybrids released in Nigeria and of others presently in the pipeline for release in Ghana, Mali, and Bénin should contribute significantly to food security and lead to improved incomes and livelihoods for farmers in WCA.