Bulletin story Archives - Page 19 of 138

BIP Youth Outgrowers’ team displaying harvested vegetables in the open field.

IITA BIP and partners host virtual Vegetable Field Day for farmers

Vegetables are one of the most consumed foods worldwide because of their high nutritional value. Although the vegetable business is profitable, vegetable farmers usually face challenges accessing quality seed, knowledge of good agronomic practices, and markets. In resolving these challenges, the IITA Business Incubation Platform (BIP), in conjunction with Rijk Zwaan and Seedforth Agro, hosted…

Researchers reveal a more sustainable approach to address postharvest fish losses

Small-scale inland capture fisheries contribute significantly toward enhancing the food, nutrition, and economic security of millions of people in low-income countries. Over time, several factors have restrained women’s participation in fishery value chains, limiting capture fisheries from achieving their full development potential. These factors have also reduced the impact that small-scale fisheries can have on…

CGIAR centers applying CRISPR/Cas to improve roots, tubers, and bananas

One CGIAR centers are now using CRISPR/Cas, a form of genome editing, to help speed up the development of improved high-yielding roots, tubers, and bananas (RTB)—these are essential staple food crops in tropical and subtropical countries grown for food security. Genome editing either silences or knocks out a gene of interest in the plant genome…

Partnerships boost scaling of legume technologies

Partnerships were identified as one of the major drivers of success of the N2Africa project, which reached over 655,662 beneficiary smallholder farmers, produced and distributed over 504,454 extension reading materials, and produced over 80 tons of soybean and common beans seeds in Tanzania. The success of this large-scale, science-based research-in-development project that focused on putting…

“Breeding Better Bananas” project excels in developing new ‘Matooke’ hybrids

In October 2019, the “Breeding Better Bananas” project transitioned into Phase II—“Accelerated Breeding Better Bananas”—to further streamline the conventional breeding of banana in East Africa. This project brings together an international spectrum of partners to transform the national banana breeding programs in Uganda and Tanzania. This improved banana breeding pipeline has produced more than 231…

Project launched to enhance adoption of Conservation Agriculture in Southern Africa

A new project that aims to investigate the drivers and barriers to adoption of Conservation Agriculture (CA) in Southern Africa and to develop strategies for achieving adoption and impact at scale was recently launched virtually by CA stakeholders in the region. CA, a farming system that promotes minimum soil disturbance, permanent soil cover, and diversification…

Teamwork delivers results in addressing cassava virus diseases!

“If you want to go quickly, go alone, if you want to go far, go together.” The meaning of this African proverb is well manifested by the Virus Vector Ecology Group (VVEG) team at IITA’s Eastern Africa Hub as James Legg, IITA Plant Health Scientist and team lead, shared on its progress and successes towards…

Scaling readiness: An approach to enhance R4D impact

Research to improve society can go to waste if these interventions are not made available to the beneficiaries. Murat Sartas, Marc Schut, Claudio Prioietti, Graham Thiele, and Cees Leeuwi—in a published journal paper titled Scaling readiness: Science and practice of an approach to enhance impact of research for development—charged researchers who aim to implement R4D…

Genome editing is the future of plant breeding

“Genome editing is the future of plant breeding in terms of being more efficient and getting more genetic gains,” said Kingstone Mashingaidze, one of the speakers at the recently held CGIAR webinar on genome editing. CGIAR centers using genome editing recently started a webinar series that will investigate the practice, benefits, social acceptance, and regulation…

IITA and partners rename improved cassava varieties for the international market

The Federal Government of Nigeria recently approved new names for 10 improved cassava varieties as part of efforts to brand the root crop for easy identification, cultivation, and marketing of cassava stems. The renamed varieties comprise six released varieties and four yet-to be-released varieties. The released varieties and their new names are IBA961632 (Farmer’s Pride),…