News year: 2014
The IITA-led, multidisciplinary research program, Africa Research in Sustainable Intensification for the Next Generation (Africa RISING), now on its third year, has made significant progress in getting researchers coming from different backgrounds and institutions to work together in a truly integrated way to develop science-based solutions to the challenges faced by smallholder farmers. This has resulted in impressive increases in the productivity of smallholder farmers involved in the research project across its five districts in East and Southern Africa…
IITA, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), and the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MOFA) have organized awareness, information, and training workshops for stakeholders as part of efforts to minimize aflatoxin contamination. A suite of management practices was used including aflasafeTM, a novel biocontrol technology for reducing aflatoxin contamination in crops. The workshops were held in three cities in Northern Ghana: Tamale (1 August), Bolgatanga (4 August), and Wa (6 August)…
Sáfián Szabolcs, a leading authority on West African butterflies from the Institute of Silviculture and Forest Protection, University of West Hungary, and an IITA collaborator, has discovered a new species of butterfly in Cross River, southeast Nigeria…
The work of IITA and partners on developing transgenic banana that is resistant to Xanthomonas wilt was featured in the journal Nature Biotechnology. The paper presents the latest results of field trials conducted in East Africa on using transgenes obtained from sweet pepper to control the deadly Xanthomonas wilt. The results also show the first field-based evidence for transgenic control of a bacterial disease in banana.
In Malawi, IITA is promoting soybean as the next “miracle crop”, emphasizing its value for the wellbeing of smallscale farmers by integrating the crop in sustainable agricultural development and commercialization. At the 11th Malawi National Agricultural Fair, held 28─30 August in Blantyre, the IITA-Malawi exhibition showcased agricultural innovations, technologies, crops, and value-added products that the institute is promoting in the region. Among the most notable were the improved varieties of soybean and cassava, as well as recipes and the information materials on improved crop management and value addition…
The IITA Youth Agripreneurs (IYA) have convened a 3-week intensive agricultural training for selected young people from Borno State. Areas of focus cover on-field sessions on fish farming and production, processing and marketing of maize, cowpea, soybean, millet, groundnut, and sorghum. The training is another in a series of youth empowerment campaigns in Nigeria that the IYA have organized since their inception in 2012. It also endorses the replication of the IITA youth in agribusiness model in Borno…
Addis Ababa – IITA and partners including the International Fertilizer Industry Association (IFA), the African Fertilizer and Agribusiness Partnership (AFAP), and five other agricultural development partner organizations are launching a new campaign that will promote the importance of fertilizer access for African farmers as a means of bridging the current agricultural productivity gap on the continent…
Racha Omar, representative of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and the Republic of Congo, visited IITA-Kinshasa and different community sites in DRC supported by the Institute on 20 August to witness IITA’s work in the fight against the devastating cassava mosaic disease (CMD) and the inclusion of the value chain approach to agricultural development…
Dr Nteranya Sanginga, IITA’s Director General, was in Burundi for a 3-day visit, 18-20 August, to strengthen collaboration with the Burundi Government and also to meet partners in the Institut des Science Agronomiques du Burundi (ISABU), Ministre de l’Agriculture et de l’Elevage (MINAGRIE), and Agrobiotec Tissue Culture Laboratory. He also visited the Hon. Rufyikiri Gervais, Burundi’s Second Vice President, and the Hon. Odette Kayitesi, Minister for Agriculture…
