The YIIFSWA-II Abuja team, led by Dr. Beatrice Aighewi, visited Da-Allgreen Seeds Ltd in Kaduna for a week to train staff on the production of seeding using vine cuttings. During the 5th Annual meeting, several seed companies reported significant losses of vine cuttings after planting, thus limiting their ability to make swift progress with seedling production for transplanting on the …

Several seed companies reported losses of substantial amounts of vine cutting in the nursery and field stages of production during the last annual meeting. Moreover, during the project’s first exchange visit, The Project Management Team (PMT) noticed several deviances in the operationalization of the HRPTS and production methodologies that could have impacted the healthy growth of plants in the system. …

The Yam Improvement for Income and Food Security in West Africa (YIIFSWA-II) project, phase two, held a virtual Annual Review and Planning Meeting (ARPM) with partners and stakeholders to review the previous year’s activities and plan for the last implementation year of the project from the 23rd to the 26th of February 2021. At the program’s onset, it was announced …

Early this year, the Yam Improvement for Income and Food Security in West Africa (YIIFSWA-II) project, phase two, signed a sub-agreement with IITA GoSeed to ensure the sustainable supply of Early Generation Seed (EGS)/ planting materials of improved yam varieties even after the life of the project. The YIIFSWA-II project grant was awarded to IITA in late 2016 to establish …

One of the ways to increase yam production in West Africa is using improved varieties. In 2020, IITA GoSeed Ltd., a subsidiary of the Business Incubation Platform (BIP) of the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), conducted field trials to determine the potential yield of two improved varieties, namely Kpamyo and Asiedu, in comparison to one popular local variety, Danacha. …

The Yam Improvement for Income and Food Security in West Africa, Phase II (YIIFSWA-II) project participated in the joint public presentation on value addition and crop variety display by the Building an Economically Sustainable Integrated Cassava Seed Systems, Phase 2 (BASICS-II), and Sano Foods. The event was designed to make a case for utilizing biofortified crops, i.e., orange flesh sweet …

Forty-five years ago, the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) articulated in a program catalog (circa 1977) on display at the IITA library the institute’s vision and missions for agricultural development in Africa. One of its objectives was developing improved varieties and distributing them through established formal seed systems for adoption. Although IITA has developed several improved yam varieties, several …

Yam feeds, nourishes, and provides a living for millions of people in sub-Saharan Africa and beyond. In the largest am-producing country in the world, Nigeria, yam is more than just a crop. It is the king of crops, and the production value of yam is higher than the value of cassava and popular cereal crops (maize and rice) combined. Moreover, …

In a bid to address the challenges that commercial seed producers face with cultivating planting materials generated from the HRPTs on the field, IITA is conducting several production researches to develop best practices that commercial seed producers can adopt to boost seed production in Ghana and Nigeria. In 2019 at the ARPM, seed companies raised concerns about seed yam production …

IITA renovated and equipped the diagnostic laboratory of the National Agricultural Seed Council (NASC) at their headquarter in Sheda, Abuja, with equipment worth $100,000 for seed quality control and Seed Tracker e-certification system. A PCR for DNA amplification and other laboratory equipment will allow technicians of the seed regulatory agency to conduct diagnostics and seed quality testing in line with …