IITA and NM-AIST to expand agricultural research beyond banana breeding

23 February 2026

 

IITA Banana Breeder, Professor Rony Swennen with the NM-AIST Vice Chancellor Professor Maulilio Kipanyula.
IITA Banana Breeder, Professor Rony Swennen with some IITA staff and the NM-AIST representatives.

IITA–CGIAR and Nelson Mandela African Institution of Science and Technology (NM-AIST) have reaffirmed their commitment to a strong partnership, marking an important step in advancing collaborative research, innovation, and capacity building in banana initiatives. This partnership, which has been extended by five years, emphasizes a shared vision to address critical regional challenges, particularly in agriculture and food security.

With a production area of nearly 670,000 hectares, according to the FAO, Tanzania is the second biggest banana producer in Eastern Africa. Banana and more specifically the highland cooking bananas, Matooke and Mchare, are staple foods especially in the Kagera, Mbeya, and Kilimanjaro regions. Given their importance but low yields, which are about 10% of their potential due to pests and diseases and inadequate cultural practices, IITA has invested in banana research in Tanzania since 2014.

IITA Banana Breeder, Professor Rony Swennen with the NM-AIST Vice Chancellor Professor Maulilio Kipanyula.
IITA Banana Breeder, Professor Rony Swennen with the NM-AIST Vice Chancellor Professor Maulilio Kipanyula.

Since the initial signing of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in 2014, NM-AIST has served as an important host for IITA’s highland cooking banana breeding program. The first-ever Banana Breeding program in Tanzania. This program aims to develop improved, high-yielding varieties of the East African highland cooking banana and Mchare.

The NM-AIST provides essential support, including office space, access to laboratories, and trial fields for banana research. IITA’s banana breeding program in Tanzania is based at the NM-AIST campus, which benefits from excellent physical facilities, including tissue, molecular, and pathology laboratories, and 12 hectares of fully irrigated fields.

Low yields due to pests and diseases are addressed through breeding, awareness, and eradication campaigns for banana bunchy top virus (BBTV)-infected plants, and improved agronomy. IITA’s breeding is based on its long tradition in banana and plantain breeding, which started in Nigeria in the late 1980s.

In Tanzania and in collaboration with the Tanzania Agriculture Research Institute (TARI), this culminated in the release of four high-yielding matooke hybrids, jointly developed by the National Agriculture Research Organization (NARO) in Uganda and IITA. In less than a decade, researchers successfully developed the first Mchare hybrid, T.2070-1. The new variety is high-yielding and resistant to Fusarium wilt. It is currently undergoing multi-location and on-farm trials and is expected to be released soon. New varieties can have a significant impact, as a recent study showed that in the Kagera region, farmers produce an additional 120,000 tons of bananas per year, generating 7 million USD per year.

At the NM-AIST campus, scientific staff of both institutions work jointly, and students conduct MSc and PhD research on banana-related matters. For example, at the NM-AIST campus, successful research was conducted to increase seed set in Mchare (cooking bananas) and to develop faster screening methods for resistance to nematodes, leading two IITA staff to graduate with an MSc degree and to publish with academic staff at NM-AIST. The extended five-year collaboration aims to broaden other banana disciplines and to work together across the country.

Contributed by Gloriana Ndibalema