Agriculture
SCIENTISTS and partners of the African Cassava Agronomy Initiative (ACAI) of the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), have begun three-day meeting in Tanzania to discuss and unveil progress made in cassava agronomy in Nigeria and Tanzania.
Godwin Atser, IITA Digital Extension and Advisory Services Specialist, disclosed this in Ibadan on Monday in a statement, adding that the event was taking place in Zanziba, Tanzania.
He said the 4th annual meeting was also to look at how the progress and efforts made in cassava agronomy were addressing the low yield per hectare on farmers’ fields in Nigeria and Tanzania.
According to him, across Africa yield per hectare of cassava is about nine tonnes per hectare in contrast with Asia with more than 20 tonnes per hectare.
“This undermines African cassava farmers’ competitiveness in the export market,’’ he said.
Contributing, Dr Pieter Pypers, the Project Coordinator said that the meeting would also serve as an opportunity for the entire ACAI team to get together to discuss challenges and plans.
“This year’s meeting will have less of plenary presentations but more of poster sessions, a world cafe, breakout sessions and information booths where scientists, experts and partners share ideas,“ he said.
Pypers also said that that the meeting was first and foremost, about scaling and dissemination, and how they started gaining momentum with going on with Akilimo.
Akilimo is the mobile agronomy advisory tool, developed to serve as the face of ACAI’s decision support system.
It is also a combination of data, prediction models, software infrastructure and interfaces, using pragmatic and user-cantered approaches to provide the information in ways attractive and useful to partners, extension workers and cassava farmers.
Apart from the ACAI team members, partners leading the dissemination of the ACAI Decision Support Tools, through extension work in Nigeria and Tanzania, are expected at the meeting.
These partners include Mennonite Economic Development Associate (MEDA), Farm Concern International (FCI), Minjingu, Psaltry International, 2 Scale and NOTORE.
Others are the technical partners working to strengthen Akilimo(VIAMO 321 service, ESOKO digital solutions and Arifu chatbot).
NAN
– Dec. 9, 2019 @ 15:19 GMT |
Tags: IITA partners address progress made in cassava agronomy in Nigeria Tanzania
