IITA Bulletin 2346

The IITA

CGIAR

No. 2346

26–30 September 2016

AfDB President applauds IITA’s efforts in assisting Africa to feed itself

T

he President of the African Development Bank (AfDB), Akinwumi Adesina, has commended IITA for piloting a sustainable program that is already combining the energies of youth in ventures that could make the continent food sufficient. The President also expressed hope that the creation of young farmers will help stop the continent’s dependence on imported food.

The President made the statement on 27 September when he visited the IITA Station in Abuja with principal officers of the Bank. He was in Abuja to hear the success stories of the IITA Youth Agripreneurs (IYA) in Nigeria and to also inspect the construction of the youth training center funded by the Bank at the station.

Commending DG Nteranya Sanginga for initiating an Africa-wide youth-inagribusiness program, Adesina said that only visionary leaders like DG Sanginga could make young men and women billionaires from agribusiness.

“Sanginga is doing something remarkable at IITA. He is pragmatic, practical, and result driven, trying always to link results to research and development. The success of the IITA Youth Agripreneurs today is a result of his vision. Listening to IYA has convinced me that Africa has truly embraced agriculture as a business and you (IYA)

DG Nteranya Sanginga welcomes AfDB President Akinwumi Adesina at the IITA Abuja Station.

are the icons of agribusiness today and will be the millionaires and billionaires from agriculture tomorrow,” Adesina stated.

delighted to implement the project with IITA and the Federal Ministry of Agriculture in Nigeria. The focus is to directly support 37,000 businesses and each one having 35 people under them can create about 180,000 jobs…this will greatly reduce unemployment prevalent in Nigeria today. The Bank will also provide finance for youth beneficiaries to run their businesses, set up a business incubation support and access to finance for young people, and enable financial institutions so that young people can access the funds that they need to grow their businesses,” he said.

President Adesina also pledged the support of the Bank towards funding independent businesses for the Agripreneurs and also ensuring that they succeed in Nigeria. He disclosed that the bank had already approved a US$300 million fund for the implementation of the ENABLE Youth project through which IITA, working with the Federal Ministry of Agriculture, will create 37,000 direct jobs in Nigeria. The Bank is also in the process of empowering financial institutions with Going forward, Adesina will be con­cluding the funds to support young Agripreneurs. discussions on the implementation of the ENABLE project in Nigeria so “To support Nigerian youth, the Bank that the initiative can start as soon has launched ENABLE Youth and is as possible.

Agripreneurs from the various Nigeria locations and guests from AfDB and partners based in Abuja listen to AfDB President Akinwumi Adesina’s talk.

www.iita.org

Visiting AfDB delegate commends Kalambo Youth Agripreneurs

A

s part of its preliminary activities towards the development of the Empowering Novel Agribusiness-Led Employment (ENABLE Youth) program for the Democratic Republic of Congo, Bakach Dikand Kadiata, IITA alumnus and African Development Bank (AfDB) Senior Agriculture and Natural Resources Management Officer, visited the IITA Kalambo Station to assess the activities of IITA Kalambo Youth Agripreneurs (IKYA).

Kadiata was accompanied to IITA Kalambo by Nzola Mahungu, IITA Country Representative, DR Congo on 29-31 August, and was received by Christopher Okafor, the Officer-in-Charge of the Station and Noel Mulinganya, IKYA Coordinator.

The assessment visit included presentations by IKYA, a processing facility tour, and field visits. The tour facilitated a better understanding of IKYA’s potentials, performance, and current challenges. IKYA’s presentation covered its ongoing entrepreneurial activities along four business lines; namely, commercial production of seeds and planting material of cassava, soybean, beans, and maize;

Prof Kadiata (5th from left) in a group picture with IITA scientists and IKYA members.

processing of cassava, soybean, and maize; fish farming; and provision of agribusiness services.

and encouraged them to keep up the good work and continue to serve as role models for the youth in the region.

Presenting the achievements of IKYA, Mulinganya highlighted accomplishments in processing maize flour and high quality cassava flour, establishing and running a bubbling marketing outlet in Bukavu, youth networking, and partnerships with private sector entities and development organizations, among others.

He also urged the Agripreneurs to finalize their respective business plans to maximize their chances of benefiting from credits that would be offered through the ENABLE Youth program.

Excited and impressed by what he saw and heard, Kadiata commended IKYA

At the end of the presentations and tour, Kadiata and Mahungu concluded that “IKYA presents a good platform for effective take-off of the ENABLE Youth program in DR Congo.”

IITA DDG strengthens ties with staff, partners in Rwanda

K

enton Dashiell, IITA Deputy Director General, Partnership for Delivery, has urged partners and staff in Rwanda to work collectively towards improving agricultural production and agribusiness investments in partnership with the youth. He spoke during an official visit to Rwanda on 12-18 September to engage stakeholders and partners.

project that will be implemented by the Government, saying that “all hands must be on deck” for the project goals to be achieved in Rwanda.

Nyirimana of the AfDB; Malick Haidara, Program Officer at the United States Agency for International Development; Charles Bucagu, Dean, Faculty of Agriculture; as well as representatives of IITA, the International Center for Tropical Agriculture, the International Potato Center, the World Agroforestry Center, and programs working in Rwanda.

“We have to implement the best strategies to promote investments and tackle the challenges ahead to establish a dedicated program for the promotion of sustainable income generation and livelihood opportunities for the youth in Dashiell shared experiences from Rwanda,” Dashiell said.

Mukeshimana praised IITA for its activities some countries (Nigeria, Tanzania, and noting that they have helped to improve DR Congo) implementing the Youth During his week-long visit, Dashiell met with agricultural practices and production in Agripreneurs initiative with the support of Gerardine Mukeshimana, Hon. Minister of the country. She also expressed interest IITA as well as the implementation plan Agriculture; Tony Nsanganira, Hon. Minister in continuous collaboration with the of the soon-to-begin Empowering Novel of State in charge of Agriculture; Daphrose Institute.

Agribusiness-Led Employment for Youth Gahakwa, Acting Director General of in African Agriculture (ENABLE Youth) Rwanda Agriculture Board (RAB); Joseph Since 2006, IITA has led substantial investments in Rwanda, mainly through the Consortium for Improving Agriculture-based Livelihoods in Central Africa (CIALCA) project that invested in the intensification and diversification of cassava, banana, and maize-based systems, including aspects of value addition and nutrition. Through this program, over 5 PhD and various MSc projects were completed and partnerships established with development partners and policy makers with functional R4D platforms comprising CGIAR centers, NGOs (international and local), policymakers, DDG Ken Dashiell with the Rwandan Minister of Agriculture, Dr Gerardine Mukeshimana and State Minister of farmers, and the private sector.

Agriculture Tony Nsanganira.

IITA Bulletin 2346

page 2

Boosting smallholder farmers’ access to sustainable agricultural technologies as USAID announces $50 million Africa RISING Phase 2

T

he US Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Bureau for Food Security in Washington, DC has announced funding for a second 5-year phase of the Africa Research in Sustainable Intensification for the Next Generation (Africa RISING) program beginning October 2016. Funded through the agency’s Feed the Future initiative, the second phase of Africa RISING will focus on ensuring farming communities within target Feed the Future zones of influence in Ethiopia, Ghana, Malawi, Mali, Tanzania, and Zambia get access to the best-bet/best-fit improved farming practices identified by the project’s research team during the first phase of the project.

“Farmers need access to improved agricultural technologies that have gone through an iterative research process to establish suitability and quality if they are to sustainably optimize the productivity of their farms in a way that lets them benefit from existing and future markets and add value to their crops and herds.

This is the goal we aim to achieve through programs like Africa RISING that will now, in this new phase, have significant focus on ensuring farmers get their hands on improved technologies that have gone through this process,” said Jerry Glover, the USAID Bureau for Food Security’s Senior Sustainable Agriculture Advisor.

The goal of the Africa RISING program is to create opportunities for smallholder farm households to move out of hunger and poverty through sustainably

intensified farming systems that improve food, nutrition, and income security, particularly for women and children, and conserve or enhance the natural resource base. The program which brings together over 100 research and development organizations teaming up to achieve this goal is led by IITA (in West Africa and East and Southern Africa) and the International Livestock Research Institute (in the Ethiopian Highlands).

The International Food Policy Research Institute leads evaluation and impact assessment.

“This new phase of Africa RISING mixes continuity with evolutionary change.

The project’s core focus will continue to be on the sustainable intensification of production from households and systems, but in addition to this, the project will capitalize on the opportunities for development actors to scale out the program’s technologies. This is the kind of partnership dividend we are looking towards generating going forward,” explains Irmgard Hoeschle-Zeledon, Manager, West Africa and East/Southern Africa Projects.

Siboniso Moyo, ILRI Director General’s representative in Ethiopia and Chair of the Africa RISING program steering committee adds: “During the first phase of the program, we focused on research with selected farming communities and successfully identified and validated various demand-driven agricultural technologies with the greatest potential of being scaled to reach more farmers.

Matilda Msangila, a farmer in Mahutanga Village, Kilombero District, Tanzania, harvests salt tolerant rice variety from her paddy field (Photo credit: Gloriana Ndibalema/IITA).

Our targets in the second phase are to continue validating these technologies and ensure that at least 500,000 smallholder farm households get access and are able to benefit from these technologies.”

Phase 2 of Africa RISING has an ambitious, but achievable vision of success across the six countries. Collectively, the three projects will engage with almost 25,000 participating research households.

Guided by the farmers’ and national priorities, the program will work directly with development partners to scale Africa RISING innovations to a further 500,000 households. The evidence base generated through this widespread scaling will help catalyze further partnerships that will eventually put promising technologies and integrated interventions in the hands of millions of rural people.

Announcements

Nigeria Zero Hunger Strategic Review 2030 2nd Group Meeting, Abuja, 4 October 2016

GAP (GFAR-facilitated “Gender in Agriculture Partnership”) webinar, 4 October, on three ongoing initiatives to mainstream sex-disaggregated data and gender indicators in national agricultural censuses and surveys, and in agricultural development projects. The discussion will focus on (a) conceptual and methodological issues, (b) capacity building in statistical and agricultural research institutions, and (c) how to ensure that policy makers and planners receive and act on these data to improve gender equality in agriculture. Participation is free. Check out the full announcement post (including details how to participate in this webinar here.

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.

Marketplace Event, Humidtropics, IITA, Ibadan, Nigeria, 15–17 November.

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

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

IITA Bulletin 2346

page 3

IITA showcases R4D work at 2016 Malawi agriculture fair

I

ITA was one of over a hundred organizations that showcased their work and products at the recent 2016 Malawi Agriculture Fair held 8 to 10 September in Blantyre with the theme Climate Smart Agriculture.

The fair was opened and keynoted

by Malawi’s Minister of Agriculture, Irrigation, and Water Development, George Chaponda, who expressed his appreciation at the work being done by the Institute in the country when he came to view the IITA exhibition pavilion.

“I am impressed with the work you are doing, and I would like to encourage research centers like IITA to continue complementing efforts of the government,” said Chaponda. He was briefed on IITA’s work in Malawi

by Alexander Nganga, IITA Research Technician.

As IITA was allocated stand no. 1, the Institute’s research-for-development (R4D) exhibit was given prominence, with more than 700 people estimated to have visited the stand during the 3-day show.

During the fair, IITA highlighted its various projects and programs in Malawi. They included the N2Africa (Putting Nitrogen Fixation to Work for Smallholder Farmers Growing Legume Crops in Africa) Project being funded by the Gates Foundation, the Malawi Improved Seed Systems and Technologies (MISST) Soybean and Aflasafe projects being funded by USAID’s Feed the Future Initiative, the new Cassava Commercialisation project which is being funded by the German International Cooperation (GIZ), and its cassava breeding research.

In line with the theme of the fair, IITA also displayed climate-change resilient crops and technologies that the Institute is promoting through its many projects such as improved soybean and cassava, inoculants, and Aflasafe.

In addition, IITA also showcased various value-added products from soybean and cassava such as soybean milk, cakes, soybean meat balls, fermented cassava flour, and high quality cassava flour (HQCF). Also on display was a locally made groundnut sheller, which

IITA’s Alexander Nganga (left) briefing the Minister of Agriculture, Dr George Chaponda, about aflasafe.

attracted a lot of interest from Minister Chaponda and others who visited the pavilion. The N2Africa Project is promoting the sheller for use by farmers, especially women.

Visitors to the IITA pavilion were also given various materials about the technologies and crop varieties that IITA is promoting in Malawi.

CASS project brings world renowned physiologists to IITA

T

he Cassava Source-Sink (CASS) project team held a Mini Symposium at IITA, Ibadan, on 27 September, to apply modern plant physiology and molecular biology, so as to better understand different metabolic behavior in improving the root yield of cassava.

Themed “Application of advanced technologies for crop yield improvement”, the Mini Symposium aimed at promoting knowledge exchange and interaction between basic and applied researchers to accelerate the pace of crop improvement in Africa. It featured world leading plant physiologists, database and highthroughput phenotyping specialist from Germany, Switzerland, and the United States who gave lectures in their different fields of expertise to broaden the range of scientists involved in the project across IITA. More than 120 researchers attended the symposium.

Speaking at the opening ceremony, Robert Asiedu, Director, Research for Development, IITA-West Africa, gave

IITA Bulletin 2346

abeokuta babcock

bells biological

college

dept

computer

biology

economics

igbo institute polythecnic

science

soil

bioscience biotechnology

crop department

cpeb

environmental

federal forestry funaab

pest

agronomy

agriculture

giwa

ibadan

horticultural

makurdi management

nigeria

ora otta oyo

protection state

teaching

university

farm

owo

research

rufus

technology

a brief synopsis of cassava in relation to the CASS project. “Cassava, for a long time has prevented poverty and hunger in West Africa. It is a real potent weapon, but there are challenges to it now, and unless the crop is improved dramatically, the battle will not be won, hence the CASS project,” Asiedu said.

Lukas Mueller, from Boyce Thompson Institute, USA, expressed his excitement about the symposium and facilitated a discussion on the importance of breeding databases for modern breeding applications. “I am really excited about this symposium; it is an excellent opportunity to reach a wider audience. It has enabled me to transfer knowledge on cassavabase and the role of databases in advanced plant breeding.”

CASS brings together breeders, plant scientists and computer experts to combine progress in each field with the common goal of improving plant productivity and securing future food supply for a growing world population. So far, cassava has not significantly benefited from major advances in modern plant biochemistry and physiology. A better understanding of cassava physiology and biochemistry, however, will be essential to achieve sustainable increases in cassava yield and will be critical for ensuring sufficient food supply in sub-Saharan Africa.

page 4

YIIFSWA to plant 80,000 vine cuttings for seed yam production at IITA and more…

T

he YIIFSWA project will be winding up in a couple of months; the project has intensified high quality seed yam production efforts. In October the project will start planting 80,000 yam rooted vine cuttings on 2 ha of land at IITA-Ibadan. During an interview on current activities, Norbert Maroya YIIFSWA Project Leader, gave reasons for intensifying seed yam production using vine cuttings.

He said, “We recently got approval from the Gates Foundation for our concept note to develop a full proposal for a new phase of our project. A full proposal was submitted on 1 August 2016. As a result, key project team members were invited to a convening at Seattle, USA, to meet with The Foundation to review and agree on the components of YIIFSWA-II. The Foundation has indicated their interest in funding YIIFSWA-II and is highly interested in the promotion of the aeroponics system (AS) for basic seed production of improved varieties by private seed companies. In addition, for the sustainability of high quality seed production, The Foundation also specified that national agricultural research institutes (NARIs) in Nigeria and Ghana should be equipped with Temporary Immersion Bioreactor Systems (TIBS) and their capacity strengthened for pre-basic seed yam production.

In the beginning of the initial year of the second phase we plan to have at least 500 demonstrations using seed tubers generated from AS vine cuttings. Currently we are cutting one-node vines of improved varieties in AS for rooting of potted plants in

Aeroponics system at IITA.

IITA Bulletin 2346

Norbert Maroya

Setis flask with a forest of yam plantlets of an improved variety.

nurseries before transplanting to the field after 3 to 4 weeks. We plan to produce 80,000 seed yam tubers to generate enough planting materials to set up the demonstrations of seed to ware yam production next year. These demonstrations are to be carried out on-farm by private seed companies as part of their marketing strategy to showcase the potential yield of high quality seed tubers of improved varieties. It is very important that seed producers and ware yam farmers appreciate the performance of high quality planting materials.

Only then will farmers be willing to purchase high quality seed tubers and seed producers to invest in establishing AS for basic seed yam production.

AS for commercial seed operation, and is actively tracking cost and activities for each. The purpose of these two scale-up activities is to validate actual achievable multiplication rates and costs at these two critical stages of pre-basic and basic seed yam production, and will be used to demonstrate for private sector seed companies the opportunity available for them.

Also by end of the preliminary year, IITA would have signed MOUs with 3–10 well-resourced, established private seed companies committing to invest in AS technology and screen houses, and allocated land with a combined capacity of at least 30 ha basic seed yams annually.

The first conditional “stop/go” the foundation has given YIIFSWA-II is that by the end of the first implementation year, IITA would have converted existing research facilities (TIBS & AS) into model operations at full scale for pre-basic seed using TIBS technology, and basic seed using

Next month, YIIFSWA plans to train the technical officers of private seed companies at the National Root Crops Research Institute (NRCRI), Umudike, where YIIFSWA-I has established a functional AS. Right now NRCRI has transplanted over 30,000 potted plants in the field generated from AS.

Small yam tubers growing in the aeroponics system.

Potted aeroponics system vine cuttings growing in a screen house.

page 5