IITA News no. 2490 Archives

Another PhD for the Breeding Better Banana project as Michael Batte successfully defends his thesis

Michael Batte successfully defended his PhD thesis titled Increasing efficiency of the breeding pipeline for East African highland bananas on 4 June at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) Alnarp campus. His studies were sponsored by the Breeding Better Banana project that is led by IITA as part of its capacity building program. This…

ACDI/VOCA Country Representative for Nigeria visits IITA

The Nigeria Country Representative of ACDI/VOCA, Olaf Kula, visited IITA-Ibadan on 24 May. The visit aimed at establishing a partnership between ACDI/VOCA and IITA. Kula, who is also a Senior Agribusiness Adviser to this Agricultural Development NGO, visited the Institute to get a better understanding of IITA activities and explore the possibility of partnering with…

ACAI capacity building for partners: Nigeria and Tanzania NARS training on data management

The African Cassava Agronomy Initiative (ACAI) has started a series of data management training for staff members from the national agricultural research system (NARS), in the project target countries. The NARS staff from Nigeria and Tanzania are being trained on data collection using the ODK suite tool, data analysis in R, and geospatial information system…

Travel advisory: Tanzania bans single-use plastic bags

The Government of Tanzania has announced a strict ban on plastic bags in the country. The ban, which came into effect on 1 June, prohibits the manufacture, importation, and use of all single-use plastic bags including shopping and garbage bags. Offenders could face heavy penalties including fines and possible jail term. In an Institute-wide email,…

CBSD-DRC project trains extension agents in communication and sensitization about cassava brown streak disease

The IITA project to combat Cassava brown streak disease in DR Congo (CBSD-DRC) organized a training workshop for the National Extension Service [in French: Service National de Vulgarisation (SNV)] on Cassava Brown Streak Disease (CBSD), 28-29 May. The training focused on communication and sensitization about CBSD and the collaboration between SNV and IITA. SNV is…