IITA Bulletin 2342

The IITA

CGIAR

No. 2342 29 August –2 September 2016

Abuja Agripreneurs’ app thrills organizers of Agrihack 2016; gets $5,000

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community-based fish farmers’ web application developed by the Abuja IITA Youth Agripreneurs (IYA) was judged the best during the semifinals of the Fish Farming Agrihack West Africa 2016 competition. The contest was organized by The Technical Centre for Rural and Agricultural Cooperation (CTA), the Netherlands, in partnership with Wennovation Hub (Ibadan), Partnership Initiative in the Niger Delta, PIND (Warri), Etrilab (Benin Republic), and Woelab (Togo).

Called Fished Up, the app was built to solve three major constraints faced by African aquaculturists by providing fish farmers with real time access to markets and technical support and also solve the problem of advocacy.

The technology works by linking fish farmers to an online fish farmers’ community that enables interaction and discussion on various predefined topics ranging from market price, feed, government policies, pond management, diseases, and best practices that affect fish farming. It also provides an online marketing platform that exposes fish farmers to a wider range of markets and an inclusive online platform comprising aqua organizations and government agricultural agencies to ascertain impact of government policies, advocacy, and technical support.

The IYA Abuja team was represented

by Ayobami Fajemisin, Oluwasegun Afolabi, and Omotayo Okoh.

IYA Abuja was shortlisted out of 3,000 applications and subsequently took part in the competition, which comprised several stages and lasted from 2 to 6 August.

The competition aimed at using information technology innovation to solve challenges in the fish farming value

Representatives of IYA defending the Fished Up app at the Hackathon.

chain of Nigeria, Benin Republic, and Togo. It was held at PIND, Warri, Delta State and drew about 50 youth groups which keenly contested to win the coveted €1850, five-month incubation, and other prizes, using their respective innovative IT solutions for fish farming.

The organizers presented the IYA Abuja team with souvenirs in a formal ceremony.

Thereafter, the team went for the next stage (immersion) at Ugboko, Warri’s biggest fish farm cluster.

Continued on page 2

IYA-Taiyo Industry Africa joint project lauded at TICAD VI

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uring the recently concluded 6th Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD VI), the joint collaboration between the IITA Youth Agripreneurs (IYA) and Taiyo Industry Africa (TIA) received commendation from various Government officials from Japan and African countries, international organizations, NGOs, and private sector companies who visited their exhibition booth. The visitors also showed keen interest for the project to be replicated in their different countries.

TIA, a Japanese private company, is currently engaging IYA in a Compound-

Youth Agripreneur Elizabeth (far right) with representatives from TIA at the exhibition booth.

www.iita.org

Type Production project focused on piloting Japanese technologies for fish farming and exotic vegetable production in Africa. Under this partnership, TIA has recommended three IITA staff members and one IYA member to the African Business Education (ABE) initiative, for a youth Master’s Degree and Internship Program for Africans to study in Japan.

The youth group, represented by Elizabeth Muema, co-chair, Nursery manager and Assistant marketing manager of the Kenya-based Kibwezi Hortipreneurs Youth Group (KHYG) showcased the milestones achieved from the collaboration during the event which took place on 27-28 August, in Nairobi, Kenya.

Over the past 14 months since KHYG’s establishment, the group has made remarkable progress: renovating its greenhouse facilities, entering largescale vegetable production and marketing, establishing fish ponds and fish feed production, and most recently producing crisps from sweet potato intended for local distribution and sale.

Yukio Yamamoto, IITA-Taiyo Project manager, pledged the continuous support of TIA to IYA and expressed enthusiasm that the goals set by the project will be ultimately reached.

“The success of TICAD VI has shown that there is a huge prospect for the continuous business relationship between IYA and TIA. TIA will continue

to advertize IITA activities as opportunity and occasion present... TIA’s aim of reaching a win-win relationship with IITA-TIA farmers in agricultural development will be achieved,” he said.

TICAD VI is a summit meeting on African development co-organized by the Government of Japan, the United Nations Office of the Special Advisor on Africa (UN-OSAA), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), African Union Commission (AUC), and the World Bank. This is the first time the summit (bringing together 35 heads of state and government, among which were 23 African presidents) was held outside Japan with unprecedented benefits for Africa.

…and new initiative on nutrition, IFNA, launched

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t a side event co-hosted by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), a new framework tagged “Initiative for Food and Nutrition Security in Africa (IFNA)” was launched. This is expected to accelerate international efforts to alleviate hunger and malnutrition in the African continent.

So far, 12 African countries—Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Nigeria, Senegal, Sudan, South Sudan, and Zimbabwe; organizations such as African Development Bank, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Food and Agriculture Organization, Helen Keller International, International Fund for Agricultural Development, International Food Policy Research Institute, IITA, NEPAD, UNDP, United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund, World Bank, World Food Programme, and World Health

Busie Maziya-Dixon presents about IITA and our work in Africa.

Organization as well as private companies, have all expressed their commitment to partner in the IFNA project.

According to Masahito Enomoto, IFNA manager, IFNA will facilitate peoplecentered and practical activities through empowerment of women, as well as action-oriented policy enhancement, to achieve inclusive nutritional improvement with an impact. The interests of IITA as a

key partner in this project was presented

by Busie Maziya-Dixon, IITA nutritional specialist, and Haruki Ishikawa, IITA plant physiologist.

“We (IITA) are ready to collaborate with IFNA and all projects, initiatives, and organizations, so long as they are contributing to Africa’s food security and also helping to alleviate hunger and poverty for the continent,” Haruki said.

Abuja Agripreneurs’ app thrills organizers of Agrihack 2016; gets $5,000 Cont’d from page 1

The team then proceeded to a 48-hour Hackathon which took place at the PIND-Economic Development Centre (EDC). The organizers subsequently offered a $5,000 cash incentive to IYA Abuja for their participation in the research survey component of the competition, “among nearly 3,000 ventures we surveyed around the world.

Congratulations!” an email from the organizers stated.

Speaking to the IITA communication team after the competition, Afolabi, one IITA Bulletin 2342

of the IYA representatives, expressed determination to continue work on the Fished Up app. He considers the app a solution to Nigeria’s fish farming challenges, especially limited market access, among others. “I never realized that ICT fits in the business module of agriculture. This was one of the things that I learned. during the competition, which was also a boot camp, immersion (an interface between the provider and the end user of our app), and hackathon (ICT programming component)”, he said.

On his part, Fajemisin described the competition as an eye opener. “I learned of so many ideas that could be useful in agriculture especially through ICT. The competition made me realize the relevance of ICT in agriculture. I could actually pick up a career using ICT in agriculture; ICT is part of the value chain which can be a profitable business opportunity. We never had such a big platform to pitch our ideas to, so the competition was a learning process for us. We learned how to defend our ideas.

It was enriching”, he said. page 2

Kinshasa Agripreneurs visit Kalambo counterparts to share experiences

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he IITA Youth Agripreneurs (IYA) in the DR Congo are synergizing ideas and experiences for greater impact in the country. Setting the stage for scaling up its activities in Kinshasa, the IYA visited their colleagues in Kalambo.

For one week, Hugues Bonkumu, Eric Muhindo, Sandrine Bussa, and Nazareth Ambua who represented the IYA Kinshasa group, learned about all the different activities and value chain operations of the Kalambo Agripreneurs.

The visit, 21–28 June, exposed the Kinshasa Agripreneurs to the production, processing, packaging, and marketing aspects of the Kalambo Agripreneurs’ routine.

“We have acquired the necessary skills to venture into different agricultural value chains. We can now start up production and processing of agricultural products using appropriate materials and marketing strategies so as to sustain a strong customer base,” reported the Kinshasa delegates.

IYA Kinshasa delegates processing fresh cassava roots to chips.

Abuja Agripreneurs learn about the prospects of urban farming

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er Hillbur, associate professor at Malmo University, Sweden, accompanied by Sadiq Gulma, environmental engineer at the Abujabased NGO Green Habitat, visited IITA Abuja station on 24 August to discuss with the Agripreneurs the prospect of urban and organic farming as a means of practicing agriculture sustainably.

The visitors listened keenly to the presentation of the youth group

about their activities and suggested urban farming as an alternative with the benefit of solving the problem of acquiring a large expanse of land for farming.

“I am delighted at what the youth are achieving in agriculture; however, I envisage that there may be constraints to getting land when some of you decide to go into private agricultural practice,” Hillbur said.

He proposed three main areas― Green roof technology (vegetation on roofs), Urban biodiversity, and Urban agriculture citing Malmo in Sweden, his home city, as a case study of a success story in urban farming.

“Farming on rooftops (Green Roof Agriculture) has a healthy effect on the micro and macro climate with an added potential of producing organic crops from these types of farms. Gulma is presently working on how to provide considerable reduction in the need for air conditioning systems from the use of green roof technologies. I encourage you youth to look into the prospects of urban farming as a venture that would safeguard the future while putting food on the table of urban dwellers.”

Hillbur also discussed about the prospects of collaborating with the IITA Youth Agripreneurs on an urban farming project particularly on urban vegetable farming and business models. A communication channel was also initiated by Hillbur to begin talks on collaborative possibilities, between Malmo University and the Agripreneurs.

L-R: A representative of IYA-Abuja, Per Hillbur, Gbassey Tarawali (Head of station), and Sadiq Gulma at the IITA-Abuja Station.

Announcements

IITA 50th Anniversary Kick-off Event: Lecture by IFAD President Kanayo Nwanze, IITA, Ibadan, Nigeria, 19 October.

First Regional Cocoa Symposium, IITA, Ibadan, Nigeria, 8–10 November. More details available here.

P4D (Partnerships for Delivery) Week, IITA, Ibadan, Nigeria, 21–25 November.

Commissioning of the AgriServe Building by AfDB President Akinwumi Adesina, IITA, Ibadan, Nigeria, 25 November.

7th International Nitrogen Initiative Conference, Melbourne, Australia, 4–8 December. More details available here.

IITA Bulletin 2342

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ATASP-1 holds first-ever “Sorghum Innovation Platform” in Kano

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takeholders in the sorghum value chain in Nigeria recently gathered in the ancient northern city of Kano, to interact and find common ground in addressing the challenges which deny them opportunities for growth, as well as close up the supply and demand gap.

The “Sorghum Innovation Platform”, which was put together by The International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) Nigeria under the auspices of the Agricultural Transformation Agenda Support Program (ATASP-1), brought together over 50 participants from sorghum seed companies, aggregators, the Honeywell Group, sorghum farmers, research institutes, development projects (ATASP-1, Fadama 3, USAID-MARKETS2, and SG2000) from eight states in Nigeria, namely, Kano, Kaduna, Bauchi, Gombe, Jigawa, Niger, Kebbi, and Sokoto.

During the event, farmers and other stakeholders (including IYA Abuja) who had received seed from the Honeywell Group gave feedback on how the seed had fared and the challenges encountered. Delighted by the feedback from the presentations, the Honeywell

Group represented by Teddy Ngu, assured farmers that “if you produce high quality seed, you will get more incentives.” Ngu noted that the Honeywell Group would require about 80,000 tons of grain in the coming year, which would be a ready market for grains, especially the Samsong 17 (SK5912) and the CRS01 varieties. If we can get good grains from farmers in Nigeria, the volume of our imports will be drastically reduced, Ngu said.

A seed provider, Lawan Gwadabe, the Managing Director, Seed Project Ltd., who has been in the seed business for nine years in Kano and owns one of the over 120 registered seed companies in Nigeria, expressed optimism that “now that we have big uptakers like Honeywell, we will make big sales in sorghum seed.”

Speaking about the benefits from the seed he got from the Honeywell Group, a sorghum farmer of over 20 years, Muhammad Abdulsalam based in Ningi in Bauchi State, described the seed of sorghum (CSR-01 and SK-5912) as “very good” as the 1,500 hectares planted by farmer groups in Ningi are “doing well.”

He observed that the new varieties yield more; “you get 3 tons (thirty 100-kg bags) per hectare as against the local variety which gives you between 1 and 1.5 tons (ten-fifteen 100-kg bags). Furthermore, the farmer testified that it takes just 100 to 110 days for the new varieties to mature, and now that they have a large-scale commercial buyer, they will be able to invest in inputs for higher yields.

He concluded, “With this type of system whereby the Honeywell Group is ready to buy these two varieties even before you plant, there is a ready market and farmers will turn to more commercial farming as they also need to make money from their farming activities.”

“With the new varieties, we will make more money, change our buildings, and drive cars instead of motorcycles”, Abdulsalam said. Again, “we have not recorded any pest and disease outbreak”, the elated farmer noted.

In response, the ATASP-1 Sorghum Commodity Specialist who doubles as the ICRISAT Country representative, Hakeem Ajeigbe, encouraged the farmer and his group to invest the money in their children’s education and health.

Members of the Sorghum Innovation Platform in Kano.

From the desk of the DDG-Research Ylva Hillbur, IITA Deputy Director General Research for Development, has enjoined scientists to comply with the directive of the CGIAR system by ensuring that all publications are properly tagged in CGSpace as this is now a criterion for allocating funds to research institutes.

In an email to scientists this week, Hillbur said “The CGIAR system (including donors) is moving towards performancebased fund allocation and ‘number of IITA Bulletin 2342

publications’ is one performance criteria by which CGIAR Research Programs (CRP) are evaluated. It is thus important that publications are clearly linked to CRPs in CGSpace―the open repository for the CGIAR. To ensure that this happens is actually quite simple; when scientists forward their publications to the Knowledge Center (Bosede Ayinla) for uploading into CGSpace, they should include the CRP the publication is linked to; this ensures it gets properly tagged.” DDG Research for Development Ylva Hillbur. page 4