TAAT e-catalog
for
Development partners
https://e-catalogs.taat-africa.org/org/technologies/sah-semi-autotrophic-hydroponics-for-yam-multiplication
Multiplying Seeds, Securing Harvests, Ensuring Food Security!
SAH is a low-cost licensed technology designed for mass multiplication of yam through leaf nodal cuttings, which are grown in a sterile planting medium such as peat moss, decomposed sawdust, rice husk, or cocopeat. These cuttings are placed in transparent plastic containers under controlled conditions, where they develop roots, shoots, and eventually tubers.
This technology is pre-validated.
The poor: Positive high
The high yield encourages farmers
Under 18: Positive medium
Youths are encouraged to embrace farming at a very tender age
Climate adaptability: Highly adaptable
It works in diverse agro-ecology
Farmer climate change readiness: Significant improvement
Its adapted to different climate change
Biodiversity: Positive impact on biodiversity
It aids germplasm distribution thus enhances genetic biodiversity
Environmental health: Greatly improves environmental health
It improve environmental health by absorbing carbon
Water use: A bit less water used
It does not require much water
Persistent planting-material shortages: Limited seed yam production can constrain the reach and effectiveness of programmes supporting yam production.
Affordability barriers: High seed costs can prevent smallholder farmers from obtaining enough planting materials to establish or expand their fields.
Limited multiplication capacity: Conventional propagation methods can restrict the volume of seed available to farmers and commercial seed producers.
Competition with food availability: Diverting harvested tubers to planting reduces the quantity available for consumption and market sales.
Challenges scaling seed supply: Seed production systems may struggle to expand rapidly enough to meet the needs of growing farmer populations.
Difficulties ensuring continuous access: Limited multiplication capacity can create gaps in seed availability across locations and planting seasons.
Support rapid multiplication: Development partners can support the adoption of SAH to expand the production of yam planting materials through leaf nodal cuttings.
Invest in appropriate infrastructure: Assistance with growing chambers or screen houses, shelving, sterile growing media, and other necessary equipment can help establish multiplication facilities.
Build technical capacity: Training and technical support can help seed producers establish growing areas, prepare planting materials, maintain suitable conditions, and manage multiplication cycles.
Improve access to planting materials: Supporting local seed multipliers and distribution channels can help increase the availability of yam planting materials to farmers.
Strengthen commercial viability: Support for business planning, cost estimation, and market development can help seed enterprises assess the financial feasibility of SAH multiplication.
Monitor production performance: Tracking multiplication rates, production costs, plantlet quality, and market demand can help determine how effectively the technology performs under different operating conditions.
SAH Yam Technology offers a sustainable solution for rapid, high-quality yam multiplication, supporting food security and addressing seed shortages.
Construction or acquisition of the fixed assets
Labor cost in West Africa per year
Laboratory setup including shelving
Consumables (Substrates, plastic box, nutrients and non-consumables and maintenance)
Open source / open access
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.
Read more about scaling readiness ›
Uncontrolled environment: validated
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 | ||
| Country | Testing ongoing | Tested | Adopted |
|---|---|---|---|
| Benin | –No ongoing testing | Tested | Adopted |
| Côte d'Ivoire | –No ongoing testing | Tested | Adopted |
| Ghana | –No ongoing testing | Tested | Adopted |
| Nigeria | –No ongoing testing | Tested | Adopted |
This technology can be used in the colored agro-ecological zones. Any zones shown in white are not suitable for this technology.
| 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.
Supports smallholder farmers and seed multipliers by providing affordable planting materials, boosting incomes.
Enhances food security by increasing the availability of quality yam seeds, reducing production costs, and improving farmer yields.
Creates opportunities in seed production and distribution, promoting agribusiness.
Encourages efficient resource use and reduces reliance on traditional, less sustainable seed propagation methods.
Last updated on Oct 20, 2026
This technology can be used in the colored agro-ecological zones.
SAH: Semi-Autotrophic Hydroponics for yam multiplication
https://e-catalogs.taat-africa.org/org/technologies/sah-semi-autotrophic-hydroponics-for-yam-multiplication
Last updated on 20 October 2026, printed on Nov 9, 2026
Enquiries e-catalogs@taat.africa
