When we launched the N2Africa newsletter in 2010 we ran a competition to give the newsletter a name. At the N2Africa planning meeting in February that was held in Harare, we were delighted to present a beautiful book entitled "Legumes of the World" to Professor Barbara Maasdorp, a forage legume specialist from the University of Zimbabwe who came up with the name N2Africa Podcaster. For those of you without a strong botanical background - the definition of a legume is a "plant with a pod" so we found the name highly appropriate. Barbara wrote after receiving her prize "Thank you so much for that wonderful book on legumes. I had no idea there were so many species. It's been giving me great pleasure browsing through it, and is also so good to be able to compare specimens from the bush with the photos of the same or a related species."
In this issue of the Podcaster we highlight two issues:
- First we inform you about the N2Africa communication work stream which has been developed by Alastair Simmons who many of you met at the Harare workshop.
- Second we report on an wide-ranging set of activities of partners in the East, West and southern Africa.
We hope you enjoy reading of the developments and that this will encourage you to send in your own news items for inclusion in future issues.