For over three decades, CGIAR has been a strong partner in Africa’s development, providing new crop and farming technologies that target the crucial agricultural sector, benefiting poor farmers, creating wealth, and protecting the environment. For example:
New Rices for Africa (NERICAs) developed by The Africa Rice Center provide higher yields, are drought tolerant and thrive in salty soils. Across Africa, NERICAs are being planted on 100,000 hectares (including 60,000 hectares in Guinea and about 10,000 hectares in Uganda) and are helping countries cut crippling rice import bills
New, improved, drought-resistant maize (Zea mays L.) varieties adapted for harsh ecologies of southern Africa are planted on over 250,000 hectares, providing farmers with 30 percent higher yields.
Quality protein maize, containing twice the amount of beneficial nutrients such as lysine and tryptophan, is boosting household nutrition in Africa and elsewhere. QPM is currently planted in 25 countries, many of which are in Africa (www.cimmyt.org)
CIP’s Vitamin A for Africa (VITAA) Partnership is helping tackle one of the most pressing health and nutrition problems in Sub-Saharan Africa: Vitamin A deficiency (VAD). New, orange-fleshed sweet potato varieties with enhanced beta-carotene are proving valuable in the fight against VAD that affects some 3 million children in Sub-Saharan Africa who are under the age of five ( www.cipotato.org/vitaa).
Sorghum, a coarse cereal is a basic food crop for millions of poor people who live in the Sahel. S-35, a new sorghum variety developed by ICRISAT and partners is grown on nearly 30 percent of total rainfed area in Cameroon and Chad. Benefits include higher grain yields, and reduced production costs ( www.icrisat.org).
Livestock provide draft power, milk and meat. In much of Africa, livestock are a symbol of wealth and social status. ILRI scientists working in Ethiopia’s remote Ghibe Valley are tackling a trypanosomosis epidemic that has felled hundreds of zebu cattle. The benefits of this research included increases in farmers’ herd sizes (www.ilri.org).
Cassava mosaic disease cuts cassava production in Africa by 15 to 25 percent. In late 1980s, the disease affected Uganda, Kenya, Sudan and Tanzania. Thanks to efforts by IITA researchers and partners, new disease resistant cassava varieties have boosted production in Uganda to a record high of 5 million tons, up from a low of just 2 million tons at the worst phase of the epidemic (www.iita.org).
Every year, stem borers voraciously consume 400,000 tons of maize causing an estimated $72 million in losses for Kenya. That sum represents over 12 percent of the farmers’ annual harvest. Researchers from CIMMYT, working in close cooperation with Kenya Agricultural Research Institute are collaborating to identify conventional and novel sources of stem borer resistance and incorporating them into maize varieties that are well suited to Kenyan growing conditions and to farmer and consumer preferences (www.cimmyt.org, www.kari.org).
Locusts are the bane of farmers in Africa. IITA researchers and partners have developed an environmentally-friendly biopesticide “Green Muscle.” It uses a naturally occurring fungus strain indigenous to Africa (Metarhizium anisopliae) which is deadly to locusts and grasshoppers but does not damage other insects, plants, animals, or people. Typically 70 to 100 percent mortality rates were obtained after 8 to 28 days of application ( www.iita.org)
Researchers at World Agroforestry Centre are promoting agroforestry – the planting of trees on farms – as a means to improve fertility of nutrient-depleted soils. In Embu District of eastern Kenya, more than 3,000 farmers are planting tree legumes in fodder banks for use as an inexpensive protein supplement for their dairy cows
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