A New Paradigm in the Delivery of Modernizing Agricultural Technologies across Africa

Orange fleshed sweet potato technology toolkit catalog. TAAT Clearinghouse technical report series 005

Cassava technology toolkit catalogue: TAAT clearinghouse technical report series 006

This catalogue describes a suite of farming solutions for drylands in the Sahel and Horn of Africa useful to climate change adaptation and mitigation. It is based upon the interventions of the Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation Program ( TAAT ). This program is led by the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture ( IITA ) that has pioneered new approaches for the deployment of proven technologies to African farmers. TAAT arose as a common effort of IITA and the African Development Bank (AfDB), and is an important component of the latter’s Feed Africa Strategy. TAAT is currently advancing over 76 technologies through 88 interventions in 28 countries including nine countries in the Sahelian agro-ecological zone: Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, South Sudan, Sudan and Ethiopia. Innovations brokered by TAAT and featured in this catalogue also extend to countries located in the Horn of Africa (Djibouti, Eritrea, Somalia and Somaliland) as an extension of the Sahel. This zone is hugely impacted by climate change in terms of intensified drought and extreme weather, and this catalogue combines TAAT technologies that are useful within climate action efforts, including those being organized by The African Development Bank. TAAT organized around 15 “Compacts” that represent priorities in terms of achieving Africa’s potential in achieving food security and advancing its role in global agricultural trade. Nine of these Compacts relate to specific priority value chains of rice, wheat, maize, sorghum and millet, cassava, sweet potato, bean, fish and small livestock. Weaknesses in the production of commodities are viewed as responsible for Africa’s food insecurity, need for excessive importation of food, and unrealized expansion of Africa’s food exports. This catalogue assists in the designing toolkits for rural development projects in African drylands and is intended for extension supervisors, project managers and investors. The Programme for Integrated Development and Adaptation to Climate Change in the Niger Basin (PIDACC) operates through the Niger River Authority to directly address climate change adaptation and livelihood improvement in Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cote D’Ivoire, Guinea, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, and Chad. This catalogue was produced in part to contribute to its training efforts. Sahelian farmers that adopt and exchange improved crop varieties, proactively manage pest outbreaks, better utilize water resources, and maintain soil fertility are in a much stronger position to secure food and income for their families and participate in meaningful climate actions. Sustainable intensification of dryland agriculture generates mitigative effects by increased biomass productivity and standing carbon stocks leading to carbon sequestration in soil organic matter, actions that further avoid greenhouse gas emissions from fertilizers the Horn of Africa is an AfDB regional project to deploy proven climate-smart agriculture technologies in Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, and Sudan. This catalogue is intended to assist it to improve agro-sylvo-pastoral productivity and profits and enhance the adaptive capacity of the populations to better prepare for and manage climate risks. An important outcome of better managed and more productive lands is to reduce human conflicts in some of its countries. TAAT partners with the Horn of Africa to provide technical backstopping.

Deployment of High Iron Beans technology in Zimbabwe: An outcome case study report. TAAT MEL working document no. 001

The Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation ( TAAT ) is a program initiated by the African Development Bank (AfDB) as part of its Feed Africa Initiative. The main objective of the program is to improve the business of agriculture across Africa by raising agricultural productivity and improving farmer livelihoods by mitigating risks and promoting diversification and processing across nine agricultural commodity value chains within eight identified Priority Intervention Areas (PIA). The program is implemented by IITA in close partnership with other CGIAR Centers, specialized technical centers (e.g. African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF), International Fertilizer Development Center (IFDC) etc), Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA), national agricultural research and extension systems (NARES) and private sector partners. TAAT is not a research program but is rather an initiative focused on scaling high-performance food production technologies to millions of farmers in a commercially sustainable way through a network of strategic partners. Technical coordination of the program is provided by the TAAT Clearinghouse, a semi-autonomous unit in the program's management structure serving as an honest broker in the identification and assessment of proven technologies and products that are ready for widespread dissemination, as well as linking these technical opportunities to wider national investment development agendas. The TAAT program increases agricultural productivity through the deployment at scale of and high-performance agricultural technologies along selected value chains. TAAT operates as a network of interacting with nine devoted to specific commodity value chains, and six others serving as Enablers that provide needed specialist services. The nine (9) value chain Compacts are rice, maize, cassava, wheat, sorghum & millet, orange-flesh sweet potato, high-iron beans, small ruminants & poultry, and aquaculture. The six (6) enabler Compacts are soil fertility management, water management, capacity building, seed policy, fall army worm control, and youth in agribusiness Compacts each of which provides enabling services to the nine commodity value chains. The TAAT Maize Compact is led by the African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF) in collaboration with the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA). The TAAT Maize Compact aims to disseminate water-efficient maize hybrids as a climate-smart option across the continent to improve the productivity of maize farmers. Included in the technology package deployed by the Maize compact is licensing of hybrids to seed producers that provide an avenue for mass dissemination. Through outreach campaigns and knowledge-sharing efforts, the Compact deploys across agro-ecological zones to reach the Compact's intended 2,000,000 million beneficiaries. The establishment of technology demonstrations in the fields stimulates interest by showing the positive impact of the technologies to the farmers and then used to leverage resources from African Countries for long-term implementation and sustainable national programs. Implementation through national agricultural investment programs is the only way to ensure the sustainability of technology delivery. It shall be noted that the TAAT Maize Compact technologies are supported by a very strong ecosystem of Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) seen through the participation of commercial seed companies working in partnership with farmer groups, commodity associations, and National Agricultural Research Systems (NARS). Primary beneficiaries of the maize technology dissemination efforts are smallholder farmers. The technologies deployed and promoted include: Elite Water Efficient Maize for Africa varieties (WEMA) Appropriate fertilizer blends Optimal maize planting density Efficient pest and weed management Post-harvest management Supportive marketing Mechanization Promoting good agricultural practices on the field. In Kenya, maize is the main staple food, yet it continues to face several challenges undermining its production to meet full self-sufficiency including drought, diseases, and pests such as the Fall Armyworm (FAW), Striga parasitic weed, and the Maize Lethal Necrosis Disease (MLND). In collaboration with its partners, the TAAT Maize Compact deployed several climate-smart maize technologies, optimal planting density, weed management, fertilizer blends, and pest and disease management technologies to facilitate the delivery mechanism of such technologies to farmers and scale them out across the country. The ground-truthing mission team observed that the intervention of the TAAT Maize Compact has benefited from a strategic ecosystem of partnerships that have contributed to increased yields for farmers that has, in turn, resulted in strong linkages and trust with local millers. Millers offer to farmers ready markets to sell out their produce When compared to maize landraces, farmers are also expecting to sell a bag of 90Kg of grains for 3,000KES giving them a marginal benefit (profit) of 1,000KES. This expected high price is due to the current maize shortages. To back up testimonials and information given by farmers during the TAAT Maize MEL mission in Western Kenya, the team opted to review journals from previous studies on the farmer adoption and on-farm performance of DroughtTEGOTM (We1101).

The Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation ( TAAT) is a program initiated by the African Development Bank (AfDB) as part of its Feed Africa Initiative. The main objective of the program is to improve the business of agriculture across Africa by raising agricultural productivity, mitigating risks, and promoting diversification and processing in 18 agricultural value chains within eight Priority Intervention Areas (PIA). The program is implemented by International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA) in close partnership with other CGIAR Centers and specialized technical centers (e.g. AATF, IFDC), FARA, national agricultural research, and extension systems, and private sector partners. This document presents the results of MEL case study of two technology interventions supported by the Small Livestock Compact of the African Development Bank's (AfDB) Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation (TAAT) program. The first is the sheep fattening program in partnership with the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA). The project was implemented in collaboration with ICARDA led Community-Based Breeding Program (CCBP) in Bonga and Doyogena, Southern Nations Nationalities and Peoples Region (SNNPR) and in Menz, Amhara region of Ethiopia. The second intervention was aimed at incorporating forage production into soil and water conservation structures, and to erosion control for improved fodder production, enhanced feed availability and improving livelihood. This project was implemented in Ethiopia's highlands through a partnership with Inter-Aide.

Resistance breeding in root and tuber crops at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), Ibadan, Nigeria

Tropical Whitefly IPM Project

PII: S0738-0593(01)00035-9

Improved production technologies of sweet potato were jointly developed by International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) Ibadan and National Root Crops Research Institute (NRCRI) Umudike to eliminate constraints associated with farmers’ use of local production technologies. Several years after introduction of the technologies to farmers, sweet potato production in Abia State has remained low and unimpressive despite the relevance of the crop in household food security. This paper therefore seeks to evaluate farmers’ adoption of sweet potato production technologies in the state. A three-staged random sampling technique was employed to select 150 respondents from the three agricultural zones in the state. Data were collected from respondents with use of structured questionnaires and analyzed with descriptive statistics as well as multiple regression analysis. Result of analysis revealed an R2 value of 0.280 indicating that 28% of variation in the adoption of the improved production technologies was accounted for by the variables considered in this study. Adoption of sweet potato production technologies was relatively at a medium level. Also, the result indicated that accruable farm income, farm size cultivated as well as sweet potato output was positively related to farmers’ adoption of the technologies. Thus it was recommended that the mass media should be used to promote and popularize sweet potato and its improved production practices. Soft loans should be provided to farmers for more investment in sweet potato production since expectation of increased income would stimulate adoption of technologies.

Previous work suggests that some sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas, L.) cultivars can produce high storage root yields on soils without fertilizer N addition. This study was conducted to compare storage root yields, total biomass, N uptake and fibrous root weights of sweet potato cultivars grown on low N level soils with and without N addition. In 1987 and 1988, improved sweet potato cultivars developed at International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), Ibadan, Nigeria were grown with and without 50 kg N ha−1 in Oxic Paleustalfs with low N and C concentrations. Yields of 21 to 38 Mg ha−1 were produced for four of the five improved cultivars grown in soil without N addition. Total biomass, foliage, fibrous root and storage root weights and N concentration in leaves were not influenced by fertilizer N addition. Up to 158 and 89 kg N ha−1 uptake in total biomass occurred with the +N and −N treatments, respectively. Indigenous soil N levels and fibrous root weights for − N vs. +N treatments could not account for the total N uptake and biomass produced on soils without N addition.

A multi-environmental trial was conducted in Rwanda, located in the highlands of Central Africa. The trial consisted of 26 cultivars of sweet potatoes repeated over 11 environments. Genotype X environment (G X E) interactions were highly significant for vine yield, fresh root yield, number of roots, and dry matter yield. Average root weight was not significant for G X E interactions. The G X E variance component was generally more important than the variance component for cultivars. From pathway analysis it was concluded that the G X E effects of dry matter yield were little determined by the G X E effects of the yield components except for number of roots. Specific and relatively independent adaptation mechanisms were postulated for each of the yield components. Genotypic correlations between yield components were neutral indicating that stress and competition between the yield components were low in the sweet potato. The parallel pathway diagram was found to be more adequate to explain the causal relationships between yield and its components, than the allometric (sequential) model. The main yield contributor was number of roots, followed in decreasing order by, average root weight, vine yield, and % dry matter. Three progeny trials were established in Rubona (Institut des Sciences Agronomiques du Rwanda), consisting of 18 half-sib progenies of local origin, 26 from IITA germplasm (International Institute for Tropical Agriculture, Nigeria), and 25 from special seed gardens. The latter trial was planted in a swampy area. The narrow-sense heritability for yield and yield components was generally low. The heritabilities for flesh color, skin color and anthocyanin pigment were generally high. The genetic associations for root yield, number of roots, and vine yield were strong and generally positive. In the swamp trial there was a negative genetic correlation between vine yield and number of roots probably due to the hydromorphic growing conditions. Because of relatively high co-heritability estimates, correlated genetic advance for yield was generally high when selecting for number of roots and vine yield.

In Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), both crop production and the hidden hunger index (HHI, a combination of zinc, iron, and vitamin A deficiency), continue to be worse than the rest of the world. Currently, 31 out of 36 countries of SSA show the highest HHI. At the same time, several studies show climate change as a major constraint to agriculture productivity and a significant threat to SSA food security without significant action regarding adaptation. The food security of SSA is dependent on a few major crops, with many of them providing largely only an energy source in the diet. To address this, crop diversification and climate-resilient crops that have adaptation to climate change can be used and one route toward this is promoting the cultivation of African orphan (neglected or underutilized) crops. These crops, particularly legumes, have the potential to improve food and nutrition security in SSA due to their cultural linkage with the regional food habits of the communities, nutritionally rich food, untapped genetic diversity, and adaptation to harsh climate conditions and poor marginal soils. Despite the wide distribution of orphan legumes across the landscape of SSA, these important crop species are characterized by low yield and decreasing utilization due in part to a lack of improved varieties and a lack of adequate research attention. Genomic-assisted breeding (GAB) can contribute to developing improved varieties that yield more, have improved resilience, and high nutritional value. The availability of large and diverse collections of germplasm is an essential resource for crop improvement. In the Genetic Resources Center of the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, the collections of orphan legumes, particularly the Bambara groundnut, African yambean, and Kersting's groundnut, have been characterized and evaluated for their key traits, and new collections are being undertaken to fill gaps and to widen the genetic diversity available to underpin breeding that can be further utilized with GAB tools to develop faster and cost-effective climate-resilient cultivars with a high nutrition value for SSA farmers. However, a greater investment of resources is required for applying modern breeding to orphan legume crops if their full potential is to be realized.

This issue of The Plant Journal features the release of a metabolite database for root, tuber, and banana (RTB) crops (Price et al., 2020). Generated from the screening of diverse global collections curated by CGIAR Centers, the database contains concentration ranges for hundreds of metabolites and will be a valuable resource for breeding programs. More than 300 million people living below the poverty line depend on RTB crops – cassava, potatoes, sweet potatoes, yams, bananas, plantains, and tropical and Andean roots and tubers – for food and income, particularly in Africa, Asia, and the Americas (source: CGIAR). Commercialized mainly as cash crops, they help support family incomes, and are mostly grown and traded by women. The United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals identify the investment in smallholder women farmers as an important way to increase food security and nutrition for the poorest, as well as food production for local and global markets. According to the UN, giving women farmers better access to resources could reduce the number of hungry people in the world by up to 150 million. Despite their vital importance for global food security, when compared with major crops such as wheat, maize, and rice, RTB crops lag tremendously in terms of resources for breeding programs (Tadele, 2019). The CGIAR Research Program on RTBs is leading efforts to apply genomics-assisted breeding to these valuable crops (Friedmann et al., 2018), including novel approaches to germplasm characterization such as metabolomics. Metabolomics platforms produce large-scale biochemical phenotypes that can be representative of quality traits (Price et al., 2017). Association of phenotype to metabolite profiles can provide measurable markers, akin to genetic quantitative trait loci, which can be used by breeding programs both independent of underlying genetic mechanisms and combined with genomic analyses to enhance linkage of genotype to phenotype (Luo, 2015). Taking this concept a step further, Price et al. (2020) argue that as metabolite markers are inherently affected by environmental factors, they can provide more precise measurements of trait variation than genetic markers. The authors view the metabolome as analogous to the epigenome, acting as a dynamic yet conserved network comprised of genetic and environmental influence. Quantifying the phenotypic contributions of biochemical signatures may sometimes be more efficient than using genetic markers, especially in highly heterozygous crops like RTBs. The work is a collaboration between several CGIAR Centers [the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), Alliance Biodiversity-International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), and the International Potato Center (CIP)] and Royal Holloway, University of London (RHUL; Egham, UK). Elliott J. Price, Margit Drapal, and Laura Perez-Fons share the main authorship of the study. Early-career scientists at RHUL, they carried out the metabolomics experiments and are committed to continue working to support global food security. According to Paul Fraser, senior author of the manuscript and a professor at RHUL, the incorporation of metabolomics into the CGIAR Research Program on RTBs originated from a grant proposal that was not funded, but established the partnership. Thanks to the determination of the RTB group leaders, the plan moved forward anyway and was later funded predominantly by CGIAR. The vast metabolite database can now be used to establish quantitative chemical signatures, in other words, metabolite markers for desirable traits. A similar approach has been applied successfully for other plants, such as tomato (Schauer et al. 2006; Shahaf et al. 2016). However, the metabolomics data accumulated in tomato and other Solanaceae crop plants have not yet been compiled. Thus, the metabolite tools and resources in RTB crops are now, in some cases, surpassing those available in Solanaceae model crops. As their next step, the authors want to use these data to select parental materials from breeding and pre-breeding programs for further characterization. The data will also help the exploration of diversity panels and breeding populations for quantitative trait markers underlying quality traits (see Figure). In the future, the authors hope that this approach will be adopted for other crops and used to assess the impact of climate change on crop quality and safety.

African yam bean, AYB (Sphenostylisstenocarpa), is an underutilized legume of tropical Africa. AYB can boost food and nutritional security in sub-Saharan Africa through its nutrient-rich seeds and tubers. However, inadequate information on germplasm with desirable agro-morphological traits, including insufficient data at the genomic level, has prevented the full exploitation of its food and breeding potentials. Notably, assessing the genetic diversity and population structure in a species is a prerequisite for improvement and eventual successful exploitation. The present study evaluated the population structure and genetic diversity of 169 accessions from the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) collection using 26 phenotypic characters and 1789 single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers. The phenotypic traits and SNP markers revealed their usefulness in uniquely distinguishing each AYB accession. The hierarchical cluster of phenotypes grouped accessions into three sub-populations; SNPs analysis also clustered the accessions into three sub-populations. The genetic differentiation (FST) among the three sub-populations was sufficiently high (0.14–0.39) and significant at P = 0.001. The combined analysis revealed three sub-populations; accessions in sub-population 1 were high yielding, members in sub-population 2 showed high polymorphic loci and heterozygosity. This study provides essential information for the breeding and genetic improvement of AYB.