Climate-Smart and Market-Preferred Yam Varieties

More yield, better quality, stronger resilience!

These varieties yield 20–30 tons per hectare and mature in 7–8 months, enabling quicker turnover and higher profitability. Their resistance to pests and diseases reduces the need for costly pesticides. They are compatible with modern seed yam multiplication technologies such as minisett, vine cutting, and SAH, which enable large-scale seed supply businesses. Their uniform tubers are well-suited for food processors, with strong consumer appeal for poundability, taste, and storability.

This technology is pre-validated.

9•7

Scaling readiness: idea maturity 9/9; level of use 7/9

IP

Open source / open access

Problem

Inconsistent yield and quality: Farmers face unpredictable yields from local varieties, limiting profitability and commercial scale operations.
High input costs: Traditional yams are highly susceptible to pests and diseases, increasing expenditures on pesticides and other management inputs.
Seed availability issues: Scarcity of quality seed yams restricts farm expansion and slows adoption of improved practices.
Post-harvest losses: Poor storability and irregular tuber shapes reduce marketability, leading to revenue loss for traders and processors.
Weak value chain integration: Lack of uniformity in yam quality hinders agro-processing and export potential, limiting private sector growth.

Solution

Higher yields for better ROI: Improved yam varieties produce 20–30 t/ha, generating more marketable produce per hectare and increasing profitability.
Reduced input costs: Pest and disease-resistant varieties reduce the need for pesticides, lowering operational expenses.
Seed multiplication opportunities: Compatibility with minisett, vine cutting, and SAH allows seed businesses to scale production efficiently and profitably.
Post-harvest and market advantage: Uniform, high-quality tubers with good poundability and storability enhance market acceptance, supporting traders and processors.
Value chain integration: Standardized and high-quality produce enables agro-processors and exporters to develop products consistently, expanding domestic and international market opportunities.

Key points to design your business plan

For Seed Multipliers

Producing improved yam varieties with traits such as drought tolerance, pest resistance, and early maturity significantly enhances yam yields despite environmental challenges. This contributes to food security, poverty reduction, and empowers smallholder farmers, including women and youth. It also supports climate adaptation efforts and promotes sustainable rural livelihoods.

To effectively multiply seed yams,

know your source locations which include research institutes or certified seed producers primarily in Nigeria, Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, and Benin.

Early Generation Seeds of these yam varieties are available from the following sources:

Nigeria:
- Da Allgreen Seed – Engr. Yakubu Ata | 📞 +234 802 843 3820 | ✉️ yakubuatar@yahoo.co
- Nwabudo Seed – Christopher Nwanevu, Umuahia, Abia State | 📞 +234 803 393 8006 | ✉️ nwabudoagro@gmail.com
Ghana:
- Savannah Agricultural Research Institute (SARI), Nyankpala via Tamale – Dr. Kwabena Darkwa | 📞 +233 242 076 57 | ✉️ kwabenadarkwa@gmail.com
Benin:
- University of Abomey-Calavi, Dassa Campus – Prof. Alexander Dansi | 📞 +229 01 54 95 696 | ✉️ adansi2001@gmail.com
Côte d’Ivoire:
- CNRA (Centre National de Recherche Agronomique), Bouaké – Dr. Dibi Konan | 📞 +225 08 91 74 74 | ✉️ dibikonan@yahoo.fr

Efficient transportation and suitable storage to maintain seed quality are essential.
Seed multipliers should stock foundation or registered seed depending on their role within the seed system.
Private companies and cooperatives must engage in formal agreements with breeding centers, adhering to licensing rules and national seed regulations, to produce quality basic and certified seed yams.

Your customers may include wholesale seed distributors, government programs, NGOs, and development projects. Building strong partnerships with these stakeholders and extension services is key to successful multiplication and market penetration.

For Resellers

Selling improved yam varieties delivers a valuable product while strengthening engagement with farmers and rural communities, enhancing food security, reducing poverty, and empowering women and youth.

To navigate this market, understand seed sources from certified producers in the main yam-producing countries such as Nigeria and Ghana, identify reliable transport and storage solutions, and maintain seed quality.

Your customer base includes local seed retailers, farmer cooperatives, development projects, and small producers. Establishing trust and good relationships with buyers is essential for sustainable sales and impact.

For Users

Using improved yam varieties offers a cost-effective and sustainable solution to increase yam yields with greater resilience to drought, pests, diseases, and climate stress. These varieties mature faster (7–8 months), providing earlier and multiple harvests, which enhances food security and incomes.

Key partners for users are seed sellers and extension agents who provide quality planting material and technical advice. Users should estimate potential profits and benefits from adopting these varieties based on yield improvements and input savings.

Positive impacts: 9

Target groups	Positive impacts
Youth with low literacy in rural area	Early maturity and higher yields offer faster income generation, motivating youth adoption. Affordable seed multiplication (minisett, SAH, vine cuttings) lowers entry barriers for youth with limited capital. Climate resilience reduces failure risk, encouraging sustained youth engagement.
Women smalholder famer with limited land access	Pest and disease resistance lowers need for chemical inputs, reducing cost and labor burdens for women. Better storability and uniform tuber quality support food security and small-scale marketing activities. Compatibility of improved varieties with minisett and vine cuttings improves affordable seed access.
Older farmers with low income in climate vulnerable area	Climate-smart breeding stabilizes yields for older farmers facing harsher conditions. Early maturity enables faster turnover on limited land, improving food and income security. Reduced pest/disease losses cut input costs and labor demands.

More...

Unintended impacts: 9
Mitigations: 9

Barriers: 9
Mitigations: 9

Climate adaptability: Highly adaptable

These improved varieties are bred for resilience to drought, low soil fertility, and temperature stresses, helping sustain yields despite changing climates.

Farmer climate change readiness: Significant improvement

Farmer awareness of climate change effects is growing, supporting adoption of these varieties and practices.

Soil quality: Improves soil health and fertility

These varieties combined with improved management practices (ridging, fertilizer application, mulching) improve nutrient use efficiency, increase soil organic matter, and enhance fertility, reducing degradation common in continuous yam cropping.

Water use: Much less water used

Early maturing and drought-tolerant traits help reduce water demand by shortening field duration and improving water use efficiency.

Biodiversity: Not verified

Scaling Readiness describes how complete a technology’s development is and its ability to be scaled. It produces a score that measures a technology’s readiness along two axes: the level of maturity of the idea itself, and the level to which the technology has been used so far.

Each axis goes from 0 to 9 where 9 is the “ready-to-scale” status. For each technology profile in the e-catalogs we have documented the scaling readiness status from evidence given by the technology providers. The e-catalogs only showcase technologies for which the scaling readiness score is at least 8 for maturity of the idea and 7 for the level of use.

The graph below represents visually the scaling readiness status for this technology, you can see the label of each level by hovering your mouse cursor on the number.

Scaling readiness score of this technology

Maturity of the idea 9 out of 9

Uncontrolled environment: validated

Level of use 7 out of 9

Common use by projects NOT connected to technology provider

Maturity of the idea										Level of use
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9

Positive impact 9

Target groups	Positive impacts
Youth with low literacy in rural area	Early maturity and higher yields offer faster income generation, motivating youth adoption. Affordable seed multiplication (minisett, SAH, vine cuttings) lowers entry barriers for youth with limited capital. Climate resilience reduces failure risk, encouraging sustained youth engagement.
Women smalholder famer with limited land access	Pest and disease resistance lowers need for chemical inputs, reducing cost and labor burdens for women. Better storability and uniform tuber quality support food security and small-scale marketing activities. Compatibility of improved varieties with minisett and vine cuttings improves affordable seed access.
Older farmers with low income in climate vulnerable area	Climate-smart breeding stabilizes yields for older farmers facing harsher conditions. Early maturity enables faster turnover on limited land, improving food and income security. Reduced pest/disease losses cut input costs and labor demands.

Unintended impact 9

Target groups	Unintended impacts	Mitigation measures
Youth with low literacy in rural area	Difficulty understanding new agronomic practices due to low literacy could reduce correct adoption. If youth lack strong market connections, faster harvest cycles may not translate into income. Potential overreliance on external seed sources if local seed systems aren’t strengthened.	Develop and disseminate farmer-friendly, pictorial, and demonstration-based training materials to overcome literacy challenges. Strengthen youth market linkages through cooperatives, digital platforms, and contract farming to ensure faster harvests translate to income. Promote local seed multiplication groups to avoid overreliance on external seed sources.
Women smalholder famer with limited land access	Without gender-inclusive programs, men may appropriate benefits such as income from sales. Increased production might increase women’s workload without labor-saving supports. Limited decision-making power over land and income could restrict adoption benefits.	Design gender-sensitive programs that empower women’s control over income from yam sales. Introduce labor-saving technologies and practices alongside adoption to reduce workload burdens. Conduct sensitization campaigns to challenge restrictive gender norms limiting women’s participation in training and decision making.
Older farmers with low income in climate vulnerable area	Resistance to change from traditional landraces may delay adoption. Labor-intensive seed multiplication or staking could be difficult physically. Dependence on purchased seed if unable to recycle traditional planting material.	Use peer farmer champions and participatory demonstration plots to build trust and reduce hesitation to change from traditional varieties. Introduce mechanization options or labor-sharing groups to ease physical labor demands of staking and seed multiplication. Promote seed-saving techniques compatible with improved varieties to limit dependence on purchased seed.

Barriers 9

Target groups	Barriers to adoption	Mitigation measures
Youth with low literacy in rural area	Limited access to training and extension tailored for low-literacy youth. Poor rural infrastructure and market access restricting sale of increased yields. Credit constraints hindering purchase of improved seed and inputs.	Facilitate access to youth-targeted credit or input subsidy schemes for purchasing seed and inputs. Establish mobile or community-based extension services adapted for rural youth. Improve rural infrastructure and transport access through local government partnerships.
Women smalholder famer with limited land access	Restricted control over land and capital limits women’s ability to invest in improved varieties. Social norms may limit training participation or extension access for women. Seed multiplication and market access may not reach women due to mobility or social constraints.	Support women’s land rights and access to microcredit through policy advocacy and community programs. Deliver training and extension through women-only groups and female extension agents. Facilitate women’s group-based seed multiplication and collective marketing initiatives to improve scale and access.
Older farmers with low income in climate vulnerable area	Low income limits purchase of improved seed or inputs. Limited exposure to innovations due to low mobility or literacy. Climate shocks can still affect production without complementary supports.	Provide subsidized seeds, inputs, or matching grants targeted at low-income older farmers. Tailor extension methods using local languages, radio, and simple demonstrations to overcome literacy and mobility challenges. Link improved yam adoption to broader social protection and climate adaptation programs to enhance resilience.

Countries with a green colour: Tested & adopted
Countries with a bright green colour: Adopted
Countries with a yellow colour: Tested
Countries with a blue colour: Testing ongoing

Countries where the technology is being tested or has been tested and adopted
Country	Testing ongoing	Tested	Adopted
Benin	–No ongoing testing	Tested	–Not adopted
Côte d’Ivoire	–No ongoing testing	Tested	Adopted
Democratic Republic of the Congo	Testing ongoing	–Not tested	–Not adopted
Ethiopia	Testing ongoing	–Not tested	–Not adopted
Ghana	–No ongoing testing	Tested	Adopted
Madagascar	Testing ongoing	–Not tested	–Not adopted
Nigeria	–No ongoing testing	Tested	Adopted
Sierra Leone	–No ongoing testing	Tested	–Not adopted
Uganda	Testing ongoing	–Not tested	–Not adopted

This technology can be used in the colored agro-ecological zones. Any zones shown in white are not suitable for this technology.

Agro-ecological zones where this technology can be used
AEZ	Subtropic - warm	Subtropic - cool	Tropic - warm	Tropic - cool
Arid	–	–	–	–
Semiarid	–	–	–	–
Subhumid	–	–		–
Humid	–	–		–

Source: HarvestChoice/IFPRI 2009

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals that are applicable to this technology.

Goal 1: no poverty

Improved yam varieties increase yields and income for smallholder farmers, addressing rural poverty and economic vulnerability by providing higher food and market productivity.

Goal 2: zero hunger

These varieties enhance food security by producing more yam food faster (early maturity) with better resistance to pests, diseases, and climate stresses, contributing to sustainable and diversified diets.

Goal 13: climate action

Climate-smart breeding traits help farmers adapt to climate change, improve resilience to drought and low soil fertility, and reduce deforestation pressure through sustainable intensification.

Goal 15: life on land

Sustainable yam production with improved varieties and integrated soil fertility management reduces land degradation and promotes biodiversity conservation in yam farming landscapes.

1- Source Clean Planting Material

Always obtain seed yams from certified seed producers, research institutes, or accredited multipliers.
Avoid purchasing seed yams from open markets to reduce the risk of disease contamination.

2- Adopt Proper Seed Multiplication Technologies

Use minisett technology (cutting 25–50 g setts from ware tubers) to quickly multiply seed yams.
Where available, apply aeroponics or semi-autotrophic hydroponics (SAH) to produce disease-free planting materials.
Vine cuttings are also an effective method for rapid multiplication.

3- Plant at Recommended Spacing

Use a spacing of 1 m × 0.25–0.3 m when planting minisetts (approximately 40,000 plants per hectare).
This spacing promotes good canopy cover, reduces weed pressure, and supports higher yields.

4- Provide Good Field Management

Stake plants using either single stakes or trellis systems to support healthy vine growth.
Regularly weed fields to minimize competition for nutrients and water.
Apply organic or inorganic fertilizers following soil fertility recommendations (e.g., NPK at 400–600 kg/ha).

5- Harvest at the Right Time

Harvest improved yam varieties as soon as they mature, typically after 7–8 months.
Timely harvesting prevents losses due to rot or theft.

6- Storage and Marketing Tips

Cure yams after harvest to reduce storage rot.
Store yams in well-ventilated barns or improved storage facilities.
Aim to sell yams during peak demand periods to maximize prices.

Downloads

IITA Released Yam Varieties.pdf (PDF, 1.47 MB)
Yam Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for hybridization.pdf (PDF, 522.54 KB)
Yam Standard Operating Procedure for trial management.pdf (PDF, 437.42 KB)
Purchase receipt.jpg (JPG, 76.19 KB)

Last updated on 3 November 2025

International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA)
Pelemo Olugboyega

Commodities

Yam

Sustainable Development Goals Details ›

+ 1 more

Subcategory

Disease resistance Yield improvement Quality improvement Drought tolerance

Value chain step

Pre-production

Solution

Yield Improvement quality improvement

Best used with

Semi-Autotrophic Hydroponics for yam multiplication

Tested/adopted in Details ›

Countries with a green colour: Tested & adopted
Countries with a bright green colour: Adopted
Countries with a yellow colour: Tested
Countries with a blue colour: Testing ongoing

Where it can be used Details ›

This technology can be used in the colored agro-ecological zones.

Target groups

Farmers Seed companies Researcher center Advisory and Extension Services

Climate-Smart and Market-Preferred Yam Varieties

IP

Problem

Solution