Duncan Sones
OFRA new book: Fertilizer use Optimization in SSA
17 March 2017 OFRA: A new 228 page book Fertilizer Use Optimization in Sub-Saharan Africa has been published by CABI to share the findings of the Optimizing Fertilizer Recommendations in Africa (OFRA) project. The publication is free to download from the ISFM materials library developed by the Africa Soil Health Consortium. The new publication has been welcomed by […]
Read MoreTanzania: Fertilizer hope for soybean farmers
15 March 2017: Daniel Lungo is a small-scale farmer who grows soybean in Utiga, a village in Njombe Region, in the Southern Highlands of Tanzania, where the weather is cold and the soil is sandy. Mr Lungo, a father of five, has been growing soya beans on his half-acre farm for the past three years. For him, 2016 was […]
Read MoreFunders visit SILT demo plots and seed growers
2 March 2017: The SILT partners in Tanzania are hosting Wendy Manchur and Jemimah Njuki from the projects funder IDRC. After spending a day reviewing the project in Dar Es Salaam the team is now visiting a number of different partners and visiting farmers to see the impact of SILT to date. This trip is designed to give IDRC a […]
Read More8 Vegetable training materials ready to download
Our colleagues at the Good Seed Initiative have produced what they call a module training set on the production of African indigenous vegetables and seed. African indigenous vegetables contribute significantly to the food security and nutrition of the majority of people in East Africa. They are a major source of livelihood especially for women who sell […]
Read MoreThe right wave length: 70,000 radio interactions in Tanzania
28 February 2017: Japhet Emmanuel reviews the progress of Farm Radio International and its partners in disseminating messages to farmers in Tanzania: The common bean and soybean radio campaigns are now in full swing. So far, nearly 90 radio programs have been broadcast, each with a weekly repeat. We have clocked up over 67,750 interactions […]
Read MoreSILT demo plots help close the yield gap
David Kijazi of AFAP writes: 26 February 2017: Last growing season our focus was common bean – this season our emphasis has moved to soybean. 16 scale-up demonstration plots have been planted with soybean this season. Each plot is one acre. The inputs being demonstrated are seed varieties Uyole 1 and 2 with DAP fertilizer and the […]
Read MoreMaximising partnerships to scale-up legume technologies in Tanzania
23 February 2017: James Watiti reflects on the progress to date of the CABI members of the SILT project team The great thing about the SILT project is that we have a partnership that means we can do much more than we could achieve individually. At the heart of the project is a series of scale-up campaigns to […]
Read MoreUpdate from the SILT MSc students in Tanzania
20 February 2017: Masso, Cargele, from IITA, updates us on the MSc research work happening in Tanzania: It good to report that all of the SILT (Scaling-up Improved Legume Technologies) students are making strong progress with their research. I have reported before that four female candidates were among the top five best applicants This was […]
Read MoreOFRA shares its lessons …
16 February 2017 OFRA: The CABI team has been working closely with AGRA over the past few months to ensure that the lessons from OFRA are captured and shared. Working with facilitator Dr Sileshi Gudeta Weldesemayat, the principle investigators from 12 of the participating countries have been developing journal papers utilizing the data collected with the support […]
Read MoreWhat agro-dealers think – a survey from Northern Ghana
12 February 2017:GALA partner Green Ef has recently carried out surveys into the range of products being stocked by agro-dealers in Northern Ghana. They also recorded the comments made by the agro-dealers. These comments give us a useful insight into the opportunities and challenges perceived by the agro-dealers. We asked Green Ef to share the comments they collected in the […]
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