IITA News

Gone too soon: IITA staff obituaries

“It is hard to forget someone who gave us so much to remember.” Those words captured the mood at IITA, as staff in different locations mourned the recent demise of three members of the IITA family in June 2020. On 3 June, former leader of the Moist Savana Program in the Resource and Crop Management…

ACAI pretests Farmers’ Field Guide in Nigeria and Tanzania

The African Cassava Agronomy Initiative (ACAI) project has placed a high priority on creating materials that will help both partners and end-users to easily understand, use, and apply recommendations from the AKILIMO agronomy advisory tools. One of the materials developed is the AKILIMO farmer’s guide, an image and text illustration outline of the good agronomic…

IITA Business Incubation Platform appoints first Advisory Board

The IITA Business Incubation Platform (BIP) has announced the appointment of its inaugural Advisory Board, which held its first board meeting last June. CEO of Enviro Gro Farms, Mrs Nkiru Opareke, will serve as Chair of the Board, which will provide leadership and overall guidance to increase organizational growth and impact. The appointed board members…

Kenton Dashiell, IITA DDG Partnership for Delivery and Dr Adeola Odedina, Hon Commissioner of Agriculture, Ogun State signing the MoU

IITA collaborates with Ogun State government on agriculture

As part of measures to foster partnerships in agriculture transformation with governments in Nigeria, IITA signed an MoU with the government of Ogun State. With agriculture being a major source of income generation in southwest Nigeria and the country as a whole, IITA is exploring partnerships that will out-scale the available agricultural innovations to meet…

IITA and Bayer launch modern breeding project

Yield improvement of important African food crops will get a boost with the launch of a new project to be implemented by the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) in collaboration with Bayer. Known as Modern Breeding Project (MBP), the project will focus on ensuring that IITA mandate crops—cassava, maize, cowpea, banana, yam, and soybean—achieve…

IITA produces basic seeds for major crops, including cassava.

IITA plays vital role in Cameroon seed system during COVID-19 crisis

During the COVID-19 pandemic IITA-Cameroon is providing high-quality seeds of improved crop varieties to smallholder farmers through the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MINADER). The seed legislation in Cameroon classifies seed into basic seeds, certified seeds, and standard (commercial) seeds. IITA, in collaboration with Cameroon’s Agricultural Research Institute for Development (IRAD), has the responsibility…

IITA Agricultural Economist, Dr Shiferaw Feleke.

IITA economist: COVID-19 strengthens the need for a policy of food self-sufficiency for Africa

The effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on food security has revived the long-standing debate on the pathway to achieving food security in sub-Saharan Africa. There have been two divergent thoughts on how to accomplish this, with one side calling for Africa to become food self-sufficient and the other supporting international trade over self-sufficiency. Both approaches…

Adamawa State participants with training facilitators behind.

Integrated Agriculture Activity trains youth as spray service providers in Adamawa and Borno States…

The USAID-funded Feed-the-Future Nigeria Integrated Agriculture Activity (IAA) recently concluded the training of 30 youths as spray service providers (SSPs) in Adamawa and Borno States, in North-Eastern Nigeria. The first sessions of the training, which began in February, and held in Borno had 15 participants. The Adamawa Agriculture Development Investment Limited Farming Skills Acquisition Centre…

ENABLE Youth Cameroon births first start-up

On 15 June, AgriBiz Home made history as the first start-up of the ENABLE Youth Cameroon program. At a ceremony chaired by the city of Penja Divisional Officer M. Abate, the start-up unveiled “Juicy”, its branded banana-based fruit juice, to the public. Cargèle Masso, IITA-Cameroon Country Representative and Coordinator of ENABLE Youth Cameroon, also attended…

IITA hosts One-Health kick-off webinar under CGIAR’s Two Degree Initiative

As part of CGIAR’s Two Degree Initiative (2DI) for Food and Agriculture, CGIAR-IITACGIAR-IITA hosted a kick-off webinar on the “One-Health platform for climate-driven pests and diseases in West Africa” on 30 June. The One-Health platform is Regional Grand Challenge 1 (RGC1), one of eight grand challenges under the 2DI, which comes from a need to…