To improve their yields and incomes, African cassava farmers need regular and reliable access to high quality planting materials of the newest and best varieties. Access to such cassava stems, however, is often a problem. Agrodealers don’t sell them, and free distributions by NGOs and government programmes are sporadic and unreliable. Consequently, many cassava farmers are obliged to save stems of older varieties grown in their own fields or buy uncertified stems in informal markets of questionable quality and unknown identity.

The International Institute of Tropical Agriculture and its partners are working to address this problem by developing a new and more sustainable cassava seed system that makes high quality stems of high yielding varieties available for sale to African farmers. This work started in Nigeria five years ago as a program called Building an Economically Sustainable, Integrated Cassava Seed System (BASICS). Some 150 cassava seed enterprises were created in Benue, Abia, Akwa Ibom, and Imo States to multiply and sell cassava stems, following a business model that is both profitable and beneficial to its farmer clients. A sister project in Tanzania nurtured a similar network of cassava seed entrepreneurs. Government agencies certify the stems to ensure quality.

In June, this programme benefited from a new investment of $14.3 million by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to consolidate and expand this work in both Nigeria and Tanzania under the project name of BASICS-II.

The goal of the project is to provide farmers with access to affordable, quality-assured seeds of the cassava varieties in demand by local food and processor markets through the establishment of a commercially viable seed value chain operating across breeder, foundation, and commercial seed levels. BASICS-II will create a more efficient dissemination and trigger the adoption of new varieties to improve productivity; raise incomes of cassava growers and seed entrepreneurs; enhance gender equity and contribute to inclusive agricultural transformation in Nigeria and Tanzania.

“The approval of BASICS-II provides a window of opportunity for cassava farmers to create new lines of income while at the same time catalyzing the diffusion of new varieties,” Dr Nteranya Sanginga, Director General, International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), said today ahead of the launch of the project on Thursday, 25 June 2020.

According to Alfred Dixon, IITA Director for Development & Delivery, and Technical Adviser to BASICS-II, “the coming of BASICS-II would not only create seed enterprises, it would also spark the diffusion and adoption of improved disease-free cassava varieties that would offer farmers higher yield.”

“To me, this is the most exciting part of the project,” he added.

Over the years, IITA and its national partners have developed over 40 cassava varieties but the diffusion and adoption of these varieties have been low due to the absence of a functional seed system to incentivize their multiplication, distribution, and sales.

The 5-year project will be led by IITA, working in partnership with Mennonite Economic Development Associates (MEDA), National Agricultural Seeds Council (NASC), National Root Crops Research Institute (NRCRI), Catholic Relief Services (CRS), IITA GoSeed, Umudike Seed, Sahel Consulting Agriculture and Nutrition Ltd., Tanzania Agricultural Research Institute (TARI), and Tanzania Official Seed Certification (TOSCI).

Lawrence Kent, Senior Program Officer, Gates Foundation, said “this new phase of the BASICS project will strengthen and expand its innovative approach to the supply of cassava planting materials, helping farmers in Nigeria, Tanzania, and eventually additional countries to access and purchase disease-free stems of the most productive, most demanded, and promising cassava varieties.”

Known as a poverty fighter, cassava is grown mostly by resource-poor farmers, but its productivity has been constrained by lack of access to improved varieties with national average yield reported at less than 10 tons per hectare in Nigeria. Even when the best of agronomic practices is employed, yields remain poor if the seeds are not right.

Through the activities of BASICS-II, it is envisaged that this narrative will be changed, says Lateef Sanni, Project Manager, BASICS-II.

SOURCE: PREMIUM TIMES