IITA Bulletin No. 2129

THE

BULLETIN

Issue No. 2129, 16 - 20 July 2012

International agric research chiefs visit IITA

The CGIAR reforms would help us meet the challenges in agricultural development, says Consortium Board Chair Carlos Pérez del Castillo (middle in dark jacket and right) during a visit to IITA with Consortium CEO Frank Rijsberman.

International agricultural research chiefs including the Consortium Board Chair, Carlos Pérez del Castillo, accompanied by the Consortium Chief Executive Officer, Dr Frank Rijsberman, and the Director General of Africa Rice Center, Dr Papa Seck, are visiting IITA-Ibadan this week, from 18 to 21 July. They were joined by IITA Board Chair, Dr Bruce Coulman.

Addressing staff on Thursday, Pérez

del Castillo said the Consortium desires to have all the CGIAR Research Programs (CRP) approved soonest, signaling hope that the IITA-led CRP on Humidtropics will soon get a green light.

The visit provided an opportunity for the CGIAR management to gauge the perception of staff on the ongoing reforms and to give an overview of the reform process and its implementation.

According to Pérez del Castillo, a lot of progress has been made with the approval and take-off of some of the CRPs. He called on staff to support the reforms, stressing that they were necessary to tackle the emerging challenges facing agricultural development. He said, “We need to understand our roles and complementarities; I need your trust to be able to make these decisions and implement changes.”

‘CGIAR’s strength is in CRP 1.2’

‘We are proud of you’

The implementation of the IITA-led Consortium Research Program on Humid tropics (CRP 1.2) will confer on the CGIAR a comparative advantage over other agricultural research organizations, says IITA DG, Nteranya Sanginga.

Addressing the Consortium board in IITA- Sanginga Ibadan, Sanginga said the CRP on Humidtropics provided a systems approach that would tackle the bottlenecks limiting food security and wealth creation.

In his presentation, the director general said that IITA is committed to lead the CRP. The CRP will harness agricultural innovations

The Board of Trustees of IITA is proud of the work that IITA staff are doing, says Board Chair Bruce Coulman.

The Board chair, who joined the CGIAR team in Ibadan, said the board was committed to supporting staff to achieve the Institute’s goals of reducing hunger and poverty.

Staff were elated by the Board Chair’s comments. Coulman also said, “We are proud of Sanginga.”

In the last 7 months, Sanginga has assembled a team of strong directors—Bernard Vanlauwe, David Chikoye, Victor Manyong, and Robert Asiedu—and the Deputy Director General Partnerships and Capacity Building, Ken Dashiell. This team is leading reforms in the Institute.

Coulman

across the world to tackle agricultural issues in the tropics.

The CRP offers IITA an expanded mandate outside of Africa to Asia and Latin America.

IITA, the largest research institute in Africa, has contributed about 70 percent of the CGIAR’s impact in the past.

‘We have to give value for money’

Rijsberman

The CEO of the Consortium, Dr Frank Rijsberman, said the reforms in the CGIAR provide a structure that is more efficient in tackling constraints to agricultural development.

According to him, the new structure demands value for money invested in agricultural research, stressing that development outcomes are a key part

of our work.

He urged scientists to focus on the science and to always think through their projects to ensure that the research being carried out is relevant and addresses development needs.

He said we need to look at capacity building, partnerships, gender, and integration of efforts. www.iita.org

IITA to support Jigawa state with improved cassava, cowpea, and maize seeds IITA will provide Jigawa state in Nigeria with improved cowpea and maize varieties as part of efforts to help improve agriculture in that state.

The Institute also plans to backstop the newly established state-owned cassava starch industry, linking it to markets and also offering farmers improved cassava planting materials to ensure a steady supply of cassava roots to the factory “In the next two weeks, the institute will be delivering improved cassava planting materials for multiplication,” said the Deputy Director General, Partnerships and Capacity Building (IITA), Dr Kenton Dashiell on Monday in Dutse, Jigawa State.

Cassava, cowpea, and maize are important crops in that northwestern state, contributing to the food security and wealth creation of millions of people.

The donation of the improved planting materials comes after the governor of the northwestern state, Dr Sule Lamido, gave an appeal to IITA to help his government turn around agriculture during a forum on “Rejuvenating IITA” held on 6 July in Ibadan.

Dr Dashiell said, “The Institute is glad to help Jigawa state to tackle the challenge of food insecurity, and create wealth and improve livelihoods.”

The improved seeds, comprising 500 kg each of cowpea and maize will be planted on demonstration plots across the 27 local governments of the state with the support of farmers and the Jigawa State Agricultural Development Program. Seeds harvested from the demonstrations will be given to farmers ahead of next planting season in 2013, amplifying the benefits of improved technologies to farmers.

The Institute will also assist the government by linking buyers to the Jigawa State cassava starch factory.

With an installed processing capacity of 4 tons of cassava roots per hour, the factory aims to add value to cassava, thereby creating wealth for cassava farmers.

Plans are also on the table to begin the production of

IITA team visits Dutse, Jigawa State

gari and high quality cassava flour that can be used by bakers and in the confectionary industry.

The introduction of improved cassava varieties offers the state the opportunity to tap the power of the root crop for rapid agricultural development.

Jigawa State Governor Lamido thanked IITA for offering to support the state in its agricultural transformation agenda.

“We need to develop a strong partnership to impact positively on the lives of our people,” Lamido said.

He pledged to give the Institute the necessary support to improve the livelihoods of the people of the state.

Dr Dashiell was accompanied to Jigawa state by Dr Robert Asiedu, IITA Director (West Africa), Dr Gbassey Tarawali, IITA Scientist on Value Chains, and Godwin Atser, Communication Officer (West Africa).

Farmers trained on banana production techniques and pest management in Burundi with financial support from the European Union (EU).

The training, held on 11-15 June, in Ruyigi, Burundi, had 39 participants from the zonal animators of PPCDR, farmers’ associations, the agriculture ministry MINAGRIE (Ministere de l’Agriculture et de l’Elevage), seed production centers, and Training participants show off their certificates of completion extension officers from IITA conducted a training of trainers’ Cankuzo, Kirundo, Rutana, Ruyigi, workshop on banana production and Muyinga provinces. techniques and integrated pest The training covered banana management (IPM) in Burundi as morphology, economic importance of part of its ongoing efforts to boost banana, banana production systems, production of the production of this banana management practices and key staple crop through technology IPM, rapid and healthy banana transfer and technical backstopping planting material production methods, to the Programme Post conflit de and banana field data collection.

Development Rural (PPCDR) project During the training, participants

developed proposals on sustainable approaches to control Banana Xanthomonas Wilt (BXW) and Banana Bunchy Top Disease (BBTD). They also viewed a series of farmer training videos from banana planting material production and integrated pest and disease management, to novel soil and crop management systems.

The training ended with a practical session and field visit to identify banana pests, diseases and nutrients deficiency symptoms in surrounding farmer’s fields. It was facilitated by Sylvestre Hakizimana of IITA with technical support from Emmanuel Njukwe, IITA project manager.

Njukwe said that the participants now had the technical know-how to manage banana mother gardens established in their respective provinces and that macropropagation units will be installed in each site to rapidly produce clean banana planting material for farmers to stop the spread of the two deadly diseases, BXW and BBTD.

The IITA Bulletin is produced by the Communication Office. For comments and/or contributions, please email: Jeffrey T. Oliver (o.jeffrey@cgiar.org), Godwin Atser (g.atser@cgiar.org), or Catherine Njuguna (c.njuguna@cgiar.org).