Each year, Africa loses half of its harvest to pests (insects, pathogens, nematodes, weeds). To offset these losses and improve food security, pest management needs to be revamped urgently. Based on a synthesis of all 58 pest management projects conducted by IITA in its 55-year history, we advocate here for the implementation of the five following key climate-smart interventions, which have been shown to increase yields and decreasing CO2 outputs compared to the current practices that are largely ...

Crop yields in sub-Saharan Africa need to increase to keep pace with food demands from the burgeoning population. Smallholder farmers play an important role in national food self-sufficiency, yet many live in poverty. Investing in inputs to increase yields is therefore often not viable for them. To investigate how to unlock this paradox, whole-farm experiments can reveal which incentives could increase farm production while also increasing household income. In this study we investigated the impact ...

A field experiment was conducted in 2018 rainy season at the International Institute of Agriculture Research Farms at Abuja and Zaria to know the adaptability of cowpea genotype to maize canopy in northern and southern Guinea savannah of Nigeria. The experiment consisted of 12 treatment combinations; of three cowpea varieties (SAMPEA 11, SAMPEA 14, and UAM09-126-19-2) in two cropping systems (sole and intercropped with EVDT99) and at two relay dates (5 and 8 WAS). The treatments were laid out in ...

This paper provides an inventory of novel approaches to and mechanisms for quality assurance of the seeds of vegetatively produced crops (VPCs). It explores to what extent seven African countries (Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia) are decentralising and integrating VPC seed systems, in terms of regulations governing the sector, methods of seed production, and methods of seed inspection and certification. It consolidates existing data and presents new data on decentralised ...

Meromacroides meromacriformis (Bezzi, 1915) is an enigmatic hoverfly, first collected in South Africa in the 1850s, but not again until 2020. A further collection in 2022 was also made in the country. While widespread in Africa, the species is rarely encountered and information about its biology is scarce. The recent collections in South Africa were associated with colonies of Schedorhinotermes lamanianus (Isoptera: Rhinotermitidae) found in rot-holes within the trunk of a standing living trees ...

The cocoa rehabilitation and establishment in cocoa-based farming systems in the humid forest zones of West Africa is part of the larger TAFS-WCA initiative that seeks to enhance access to quality, nutrient-dense seed, and climate-smart good agricultural practices (GAP) and reduced post-harvest losses and to see how these have a positive impact on food and nutrition and health security. Within the cocoa sector in West Africa, this initiative seeks to improve yields of cocoa and food crops and ...

We advance a gender equality and social inclusion (GESI) framework for incorporating climate information services (CIS), which is now becoming central due to the ongoing climate change and climate variability. We understand gender as a social construct of who women and men are supposed to be. Gender inequalities seem to be enduring such that, despite innovations in agricultural and climate information technologies, unequal gender power dynamics will still emerge. As far back as the 1960s, the ...

Purpose Poor uptake of agricultural innovations on weed management practices is a major factor responsible for low productivity. This paper examines how communication media can help improve farmers’ adoption behaviour. Methodology A sample of 725 Nigerian cassava farmers, exposed to agricultural innovation on weed management practices from varying sources, were asked, through a structured questionnaire, to indicate their knowledge, attitudes, and practices of cassava weed management. The responses ...

Ninety backyard gardens in the south-eastern Ethiopian highlands with enset (Ensete ventricosum (Welw.) Cheesman), banana and various annual crops were assessed for the presence of enset root mealybugs (Paraputo ensete (Williams & Matile-Ferrero)). This study presents the first observation of enset root mealybugs on banana. This pest has until now been exclusively recorded on enset in Ethiopia. In the Dilla Zuria district of the Gedeo zone, southern Ethiopia, infested banana mats of the ‘Pisang ...

A novel butenolide insecticide—flupyradifurone (Sivanto SL 200)—was evaluated for efficacy against cassava-colonizing Bemisia tabaci whitefly under laboratory, screenhouse and field conditions. LC50 values from leaf disc spray assays were comparable for both flupyradifurone (12.7 g a.i/100 L) and imidacloprid (12.6 g a.i/100 L). Both insecticides caused high levels of adult whitefly mortality in leaf disc and leaf dip assays when compared to untreated controls. In screenhouse-based trials, longer ...