73 results
An economically sustainable integrated cassava seed system! The cassava seed sector has long been dominated by informal practices—non-certified stem reuse, low yields, and high disease prevalence. The BASICS model addresses this by creating a viable commercial seed system for cassava, opening up investment and revenue streams in seed production, distribution, diagnostics, and digital tools. The model has been tested and refined in Nigeria with strong market demand and regulatory support, providing a scalable framework for agribusiness expansion in cassava-producing countries.
Sell Smart, Grow Fast The Marketing Strategies technology is a toolkit designed to help cassava seed producers improve market access, visibility, and demand for certified seeds. It provides tools for understanding customer segments, developing effective pricing models, and leveraging both digital and traditional marketing channels. By enhancing seed producers' ability to engage with farmers, build trust, and promote high-quality seeds, the toolkit supports sustainable business growth and addresses key challenges in seed marketing, such as low market awareness, distribution inefficiencies, and poor customer engagement.
From Knowledge to Yield — Empowering Cassava Seed Systems. The Building Capacity technology aims to strengthen cassava seed systems by addressing capacity gaps among seed producers. It provides a comprehensive toolkit with training resources, business development tools, and partnership frameworks to enhance technical skills, market access, and regulatory collaboration. The technology promotes sustainable seed production, boosts productivity, and ensures seed quality. Key activities include capacity assessments, tailored training curricula, and stakeholder collaboration. By improving seed systems, it supports economic growth, food security, and climate resilience, benefiting seed producers and farmers alike.
Building stronger cassava seed businesses for African seed entrepreneurs and farmers. CSAM aims to address these challenges by creating structured associations of cassava seed entrepreneurs, allowing them to collaborate and collectively benefit from economies of scale. Through these associations, entrepreneurs can access certification, financial resources, training, and policy advocacy. This model reduces inefficiencies, enhances seed quality, and strengthens market linkages, promoting a more robust and sustainable seed sector. CSAM has been successfully implemented in Nigeria and Tanzania and is being scaled up in Rwanda and Kenya. With over 2,700 seed entrepreneurs benefiting from this model, CSAM represents a major shift toward a more professional and sustainable cassava seed sector. It offers a platform for both entrepreneurs and investors to engage in an industry poised for growth and improvement.
Transforming Cassava Farming Through Entrepreneurial Innovation! Cassava is a key staple crop in Sub-Saharan Africa, critical for both food security and income generation. Yet, the traditional cassava seed system has been fragmented and unsustainable, primarily relying on informal farmer-to-farmer sharing and ad hoc free distributions from governments and NGOs. This system has contributed to the widespread use of low-quality, disease-prone seeds, significantly limiting productivity and the adoption of improved varieties. The Cassava Seed Entrepreneur (CSE) Business Model presents a scalable, market-driven solution to modernize the cassava seed system. It empowers rural men, women, and youth by transforming them into certified seed entrepreneurs, enabling them to produce and distribute high-quality, certified cassava planting materials. The model integrates training, digital tools, and strategic partnerships to ensure a consistent supply of clean seeds. As a result, it not only boosts cassava yields but also creates new business opportunities and enhances rural livelihoods, providing an attractive investment opportunity for the private sector.
Structure, Trace, Scale & Connect with Solutions eProd is a digital supply chain management platform designed for agriculture. It helps organizations register farmers, monitor production, ensure traceability, and manage payments efficiently. The system is modular, works offline, and integrates easily with other digital tools.
Breeder & Foundation Cassava Seeds—Always Within Reach This technology enables seed companies and certified producers to multiply and supply breeder and foundation cassava seeds directly from research centers. It follows national seed certification standards, uses both in-house and outgrower schemes, and ensures that farmers and seed entrepreneurs get access to clean, high-quality planting material. Registration with seed authorities and proper field inspection are required for participation.
Improved cassava varieties crucial for enhancing food security, increasing farmer incomes, and reducing poverty in Africa. The technology is a market-driven cassava breeding system that develops improved varieties based on market needs, such as for fresh consumption, processing, or biofortification. It involves stakeholder input, standard breeding methods, and regulatory collaboration for variety release. Adoption is promoted through trials, launch events, and media campaigns, aligning breeding with market demand to boost cassava productivity and value chain performance.
Optimizing Pesticide Application for Sustainable Agriculture The CABI Crop Sprayer app offers agribusinesses and agro-input dealers a tool to ensure precise pesticide dosing, enhancing product efficacy and customer satisfaction. By minimizing waste and optimizing application, it supports sustainable business practices.
A set of tools on best practices for practitioners and investors in the seeds sector. The Seed2B Toolkit is a comprehensive resource designed to bridge the gap between advanced breeding and the successful commercialization of improved seed varieties. It provides step-by-step guidance, tools, and best practices across the product lifecycle—from problem identification to solution delivery—ensuring smallholder farmers access high-quality seeds tailored to their needs. The toolkit emphasizes collaboration between public and private stakeholders to establish standards for seed development and dissemination.
Mitigating Africa’s worst pest threat to food security by revolutionizing crop protection with a biological and sustainable weed control alternative. The Toothpick Project introduces an innovative biocontrol technology utilizing a specific strain of host-specific fungus, Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. strigae, to combat Striga (witchweed), Africa's most severe pest threatening food security. Approximately 50 million hectares of croplands (around 40 million farms) in sub-Saharan Africa are infested with Striga, causing over $9 billion in crop losses annually. Striga plants produce over 50,000 seeds per season, easily spreading through wind, human and animal traffic, and farming tools, adding to the soil seed bank. This selective biological herbicide “Kichawi Kill”, applied by farmers as a seed coating, aims to restore crop yields by targeting Striga without harming maize. This game-changing agri-tech provides a safe, effective, and affordable alternative to traditional chemical herbicides.
GeoAgro-MiSR is a tech tool that uses satellite data to help farmers manage water and fertilizer use for crops like wheat, barley, maize, and potato. It addresses the problem of inefficient resource use, aiming to improve crop yields, reduce input costs, and minimize environmental pollution from overuse of nitrates. The tool offers a free app for farmers to analyze field data and make smart farming decisions. This leads to more sustainable and profitable farming practices.
Rice-Fish System Boosts Profits, Enhances Lowland Land Use for Food Security and Prosperity The rice-fish farming system emerged as a solution to address various agricultural challenges. It was developed to counter widespread food and nutrition insecurity, the vulnerability of smallholder rice farmers to market shocks due to a lack of diversification, and environmental pollution resulting from excessive agrochemical use. This innovative approach not only enhances food and nutrition security but also boosts smallholder farmers' income through the combined sale of rice and fish. Additionally, the system promotes environmental safety by eliminating the need for agrochemicals, contributing to sustainable and resilient agricultural practices.
Low-cost and fast irrigation technologies for smallholder farmers. MoneyMaker offers a range of irrigation pumps tailored for small plots in sub-Saharan Africa. MoneyMaker's irrigation solutions prioritize sustainable water management, employing smart technology for efficient resource use. Designed to enhance crop yield and profitability, these solutions offer real-time insights into soil moisture and precise water application, contributing to environmental conservation and farm productivity.
Low-cost irrigation technologies for increasing incomes for smallholder farmers. MoneyMaker's irrigation solutions prioritize sustainable water management, employing smart technology for efficient resource use. Designed to enhance crop yield and profitability, these solutions offer real-time insights into soil moisture and precise water application, contributing to environmental conservation and farm productivity.
Control the moisture content of grains and reduce post-harvest losses. The lack of precise moisture content measurement increases the risk of mold growth, insect infestation, and aflatoxin contamination during storage, resulting in significant losses for farmers and aggregators, up to 30% of the produced grains. In sub-Saharan Africa, farmers face challenges due to the unavailability and high cost of moisture meters. Consequently, they rely on traditional, subjective methods like biting and tossing kernels, which can lead to inaccurate measurements. Poultry farmers using high-moisture grains experience reduced egg productivity and increased bird mortality. The introduction of affordable and accessible grain moisture meter technology is crucial to address these issues and improve overall grain quality management.
Efficient Threshing for Productive Farms Mechanized Threshing Operations is a technology that efficiently separates seeds or grain from harvested plants. It addresses the labor-intensive process of manual threshing, particularly performed by women. Mechanized threshers use small petrol engines to process seeds and grain rapidly, offering a significant improvement in efficiency.
Weed Management for Optimal Yield The "Mechanical and Chemical Weed Management" technology is a game-changer for bean farmers, especially in regions like Sub-Saharan Africa. Weeds can cause major losses in bean crops, and this technology offers a more efficient and cost-effective solution compared to manual weeding. By using herbicides and mechanical weeders, farmers can save time, increase their yield, and ultimately improve their income. This innovation is a powerful tool in ensuring food security and economic stability for bean farmers in various African countries.
Empowering Beans, Sustaining Growth! The technology is a low-cost and sustainable solution for staking climbing beans, offering lower-cost, environmentally friendly alternatives, reducing the required number of stakes and addressing yield limitations associated with traditional staking methods.
Pest control for optimum yields The "Seed Dressing with Fungicide and Insecticide" technology is crucial in mitigating yield losses in common beans caused by fungal diseases like anthracnose and insect pests such as stem maggots in Africa. These issues significantly impact crop productivity and jeopardize the profitability of improved varieties and fertilizer inputs for farmers. The use of chemical control agents in seed dressing offers an affordable and eco-friendly approach to prevent losses and boost production. This method, utilizing minimal pesticides, facilitates better seedling emergence and enhances the crop's resistance throughout the growing season, thereby aiding in maintaining and improving common bean yields in the face of prevalent diseases and pests.
Boost yields, and income with advanced maize. TEGO is an innovative agricultural solution designed to address the challenges of drought resilience and food security in maize cultivation. By integrating advanced breeding techniques, genetic traits for drought tolerance, and climate-smart agricultural practices, TEGO technology offers a comprehensive approach to improving agricultural productivity and sustainability. Key features include the development of maize hybrids with enhanced drought tolerance and high yield potential, promotion of sustainable farming practices to conserve natural resources and mitigate environmental degradation, and provision of training and extension services to empower farmers with the knowledge and tools needed to adapt to changing climatic conditions. TEGO technology represents a promising solution for enhancing resilience to drought and climate variability, thereby contributing to food security and livelihoods in agricultural communities worldwide.
Weed-free Fields, Bountiful Yields! The "Six Steps Cassava Weed Management" technology is a vital innovation in cassava cultivation in Sub-Saharan Africa. It offers a comprehensive approach to tackling the persistent problem of weed encroachment in cassava fields. By addressing key control measures such as site selection, weed identification, herbicide application, tillage operations, plant spacing, and post-emergence weeding, this technology significantly boosts cassava yields. It's a game-changer for cassava farmers, enabling them to achieve higher yields and improve food security in the region.
Your Digital Guide to Better Harvests The "RiceAdvice" digital support tool addresses the challenge of limited access to tailored agronomic information for rice farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa. It provides field-specific guidelines for paddy production, offering recommendations on fertilizer use and weed management. This leads to higher rice grain yields and better returns on investments. The technology improves extension services, overcoming practical and financial barriers to sustainable farming practices.
Effortless Weed Control for Bountiful Harvests The technology of motorized weeders for rice production (cut and bury) addresses a significant challenge faced by smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa. Traditional manual weed clearing is labor-intensive and costly, leading to substantial yield losses and economic impacts. The introduction of small-sized motorized weeding units has revolutionized weed control in rice paddies, reducing labor demands and costs, while increasing rice production and quality. This innovation offers a practical and cost-effective solution for smallholder farmers, contributing to improved food security and economic well-being in rural communities.
Reduce pesticide and herbicide losses with IITA's herbicide calculator Widespread abuse of pesticides (including herbicides) is common due to poorly calibrated spray tanks. Farmers overdose or underdose when applying pesticides. The IITA Herbicide Calculator helps farmers and spray service providers to correctly estimate the amount of herbicide to add to backpack sprayers, and promotes herbicide efficacy.
Load more…