In 2015, Tanzania established three District-level Climate-Smart Agriculture (DCSAA) alliances in Lushoto, Kilosa, and Kilolo districts. The aim of these alliances, which brought together diverse district Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) stakeholders from local government officials, NGOs, researchers, universities, farmer organizations,…
The IITA Women’s Group has awarded 14 Rwandan students in its annual scholarship initiative, which reached Rwanda for the first time since its inception. The awarding ceremony was held on 21 February 2020 in Kamonyi district, southern Rwanda. The award scheme…
IITA-Rwanda and partners recently launched a digital application to help more than 5,000 farmers across the country to diagnose, control, and prevent Banana Xanthomonas Wilt (BXW) in banana plantations. The app, called BXW Application (or BXW-App, pronounced “Box-Up”), provides…
The International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) in collaboration with Catholic Relief Services (CSR) with support from the Sustainable Food Lab (SFL) is conducting a baseline assessment on the level of coffee and vanilla diversification among smallholder farmers in…
Problem/challenge Coffee is a tree crop, which requires good management throughout its growth cycles. Farmers are trained continuously in good agricultural practices to improve coffee productivity. The training offered to farmers introduces a “basket of practices” and climate smart…
Banana breeders have joined in the efforts to address vitamin A deficiency in developing countries through developing improved banana varieties with enhanced vitamin A, a process known as biofortification. Biofortification improves the nutritional quality of key staples by deliberately…
The International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) and Uganda’s National Agricultural Research Organization (NARO) started a breeding program for the East Africa Highland Bananas (EAHB) in the mid 1990s that has delivered exciting results including the first-ever hybrids, dubbed…
It is estimated that over 30 million people in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) depend on East Africa highland cooking bananas (EAHB) and plantain as their principal source of dietary carbohydrates. These include Matooke and in the East and Central Africa…