Rwandan farmers lack improved cassava varieties that are resistant to the main cassava diseases in Rwanda, namely Cassava Brown Streak Disease (CBSD) and Cassava Mosaic Disease (CMD), locally known as Kabore and Ububembe, respectively. Cassava is one of the…
Eastern Africa
Early this year 25 participants from the local government, civil society, private sector, research, and the NGO community came together in Kampala, Uganda, to validate the results of a baseline survey conducted on coffee and vanilla diversified systems in…
Rollout of development interventions using a one-size-fits-all model can achieve economies of scale but can neglect the variability in farm and farmer characteristics. A data-driven approach to incorporate farmer diversity in scaling strategies may help to achieve greater development…
Similar to many other countries in Africa and elsewhere across the globe, agriculture in Tanzania is one of the sectors that has been greatly, and will continue to be affected, by climate change. With over two thirds of Tanzania’s…
The International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) in Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) along with ETH Zurich, a Swiss university, co-manage the Rural‒Urban Nexus, establishing a nutrient loop to improve the city-region food system resilience (RUNRES)…
How to build a vibrant, sustainable sub-national Climate-Smart Agriculture alliance: Lessons from District CSA alliances in Tanzania
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…