In a country of about 200 million people, the government has over the years constituted various initiatives to address the issue of unemployment, food security, and youth involvement in agriculture. However, the impact of these initiatives has been minimal due to the inconsistency in government policies, changes in government, inadequate implementation mechanism amongst others. This study, therefore, evaluated the impact of the N-power Agro Program on youth employment and income generation through ...

Cassava (Manihot esculenta) is one of the most important sources of dietary calories in the tropics, playing a central role in food and economic security for smallholder farmers. Cassava production is highly constrained by several pests and diseases, mostly cassava mosaic disease (CMD) and cassava brown streak disease (CBSD). These diseases cause significant yield losses, affecting food security and the livelihoods of smallholder farmers. Developing resistant varieties is a good way of increasing ...

Frequent occurrence of drought, heat, low soil fertility and Striga infestation are the main stress factors reducing maize yield in the Sahel. Adoption of stable multiple stress tolerant maize cultivars in the region is crucial for achieving food security. However, selection of a stable high yielding cultivar is complicated by genotype × environment interaction (GEI) due to differential responses to growing conditions. Eleven extra-early maturing multiple-stress tolerant maize hybrids and two ...

The technologies for African Agricultural Transformation (TAAT) Program was initiated by the African Development Bank (AfDB) as a flagship program of its Feed Africa Initiative. The development objective of TAAT is to rapidly expand access of smallholder farmers, majority women, to high-yielding agricultural technologies to improve their food production, assure food security and raise rural incomes, and deliver regional public goods by scaling up agricultural technologies across similar agro-ecological ...

Genotype × environment interaction (GEI) poses a critical challenge to plant breeders by complicating the identification of stable variety (ies) for performance across diverse environments. GGE biplot and AMMI analyses have been identified as the most effective and appropriate statistical techniques for identifying stable and high-performing genotypes across diverse environments. The objective of this study was to identify widely adapted and high-yielding soybean genotypes from Multi-Locational ...

In sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), many crops are contaminated by Aspergillus section Flavi fungi with highly toxic, carcinogenic aflatoxins. This contamination has severe negative impacts on health, trade, income, and development sectors, hindering progress toward various objectives of most Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including SDG 2 – Zero Hunger and SDG 3 – Good Health and Wellbeing. Farmers, industries, and governments need sound aflatoxin management strategies to effectively limit aflatoxin ...

This study estimates the extent to which rural consumers in sub-Saharan Africa value quality signals about their food. We tested this by implementing an incentive-compatible Becker-Degroot Marschak auction among consumers in Niger and Northern Nigeria to estimate their willingness to pay (WTP) for cowpea (blackeyed pea) that was stored and sold in an improved grain storage bag that signaled unobservable quality in the form of insecticide-free grain. The improved bag had two inner layers of ...