| Introduction |
I’m very much looking forward to meeting many of you at the Joint Pan-African Grain Legume and World Cowpea Conference that opens in Livingstone, Zambia, on 28 February. N2Africa will be strongly represented at the conference with posters and oral presentations. The meeting promises to be a great scientific event as well as a wonderful opportunity to meet other legume fanatics and to discuss their work. We are sad to share the news of the untimely death of a member of the N2Africa community, Mr BYAMUSHANA Cassien, and express our sincere condolences to his family and close colleagues in Rwanda. ...
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| Obituary |
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We are very sad to inform you of the sad demise of Mr BYAMUSHANA Cassien who was the senior researcher in the Soybean program and rhizobiology of Rwanda Agriculture Board (RAB), the main partner of N2Africa in Rwanda. Cassien passed away on 9 February 2016 at Butare hospital (CHUB).
Photo: Cassien In the last field tour to see on farm trials in Jan 16
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| Field visit in Ethiopia by the Project Director, BMGF and ILRI’s Director General Representative in Ethiopia |
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Bale Zone is one of the target sites for implementation in Ethiopia where faba bean and chickpea legume crops are targeted under the South-East Public-Private Partnership cluster. A team of project leadership including Charlene McKoin, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Siboniso Moyo, ...
Photo: Mrs Charlene McKoin (BMGF), Dr Siboniso Moyo (ILRI Ethiopia Director) and Prof Dr Ken Giller (WUR, N2Africa Project Director), from left to right, on general discussion.
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| Exploring variability and options for improving the feeding value of legume crop residues for ruminants in small-holder crop-livestock systems of Ethiopia |
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In Ethiopia where the mixed crop-livestock system is a predominant feature in agriculture, promotion of improved production technology is expected to boost grain legume production with a concomitant increase in the amount of legume residues for livestock feeding. ...
Photo: Foss 6500 NIR spectrometer used to predict straw laboratory quality traits at CQU laboratory
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| Impact of P fertilizer and inoculant application on feed quality of grain legume residues for livestock in mixed crop-livestock production system in Ethiopia |
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In Ethiopia where the mixed crop-livestock system is a predominant feature in agriculture, promotion of improved production technology is expected to boost grain legume production with a concomitant increase in the amount of legume residues for livestock feeding. ...
Photo: Legume straw sample processing and analysis for quality parameters @ ILRI Lab
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| Finding niches for legumes in smallholder farming systems |
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N2Africa followers do not need convincing about the benefits of legumes to smallholders. Yet, legumes mean different things to different people. Agro-foresters may think of tree legumes, livestock specialists may interpret legumes to mean forages, while to crop agronomists legumes tend to be grain legumes. Legumes are indeed a diverse class of plants – they are diverse in form: from the mighty Acacia to the diminutive white clover. ...
Picture: Example output from Legume CHOICE tool
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| Third Annual Partners Review and Planning Workshop at ILRI-Ethiopia, Addis Ababa |
| N2Africa-Ethiopia held its third Annual National Partners Review and Planning Workshop from 27-29 January 2016 at ILRI campus, Addis Ababa. The main objectives of the workshop were to review achievements, lessons learnt, challenges encountered during the 2015 season and to plan project activities for 2016 season. More than 90 participants representing 30 different partner institutions attended the meeting [Government Offices- BoA & NARS, NGOs, CGIAR, Private companies, FCU (farmers’ cooperative unions), BMGF, WUR etc.]. |
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| N2Africa project Nigeria: Reflections on 2015 Season |
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The 2015 season commenced with a bee hive of activities after the Annual Review and Planning Meeting in Abuja, Nigeria. The driving force for these activities was the new engagements with private actors (NGOs) in the value chain to further expand the intensity of N2Africa activities, ...
Photo: Mrs. Esther Chinedu (FLO) demonstrating handling and application of inoculants
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| CropLife Nigeria assesses contract sprayers in Borno State |
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Contract sprayers applying pesticides for a fee for farmers in Borno state in Nigeria do not follow responsible use practices, as became clear from conclusions of an assessment carried out by CropLife Nigeria on behalf of N2Africa. ...
Photo: Siji Ofoesuwa (in striped shirt) with some of the contract sprayers
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| N2Africa Borno State: Youth Agripreneur activities |
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The overall goal of the Borno Youth Agripreneur activities is to re-orientate rural youths towards more productive engagement in agriculture. ... |
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| IITA Special issue on Youth Agripreneurs |
Last December a special issue of the IITA newsletter, dedicated to N2Africa Youth Agripreneurs was released.
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| NoduMax in 2015 |
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The first set of NoduMax legume inoculant developed by IITA and N2Africa at the Business Incubation Platform (BIP, IITA-headquarters, Ibadan, Nigeria) has been released for distribution to soyabean farmers during the rainy season 2015. ...
Photo: A view of a farmer field inoculated with NoduMax
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| N2Africa in the news |
- N2Africa is mentioned in an interview on low-cost nitrogen fixing technology with Emmanuel Chikwari from the Chemistry and Soil Research Institute in Zimbabwe, published by SciDev.net.
- The Soybean Innovation Lab newsletter highlights collaboration with N2Africa.
- One Acre Fund refers to its collaboration N2Africa in a blog post.
- WageningenUR highlights al kinds of research done and recently "Pulses as source for enriching diets" was presented was mentioned.
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| Publications |
Ludy Keino et al. published from N2Africa work in Kenya in PLOS one journal: "Nutrients Limiting Soybean (Glycine max l) Growth in Acrisols and Ferralsols of Western Kenya".
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| Reports and other output uploaded on the N2Africa website |
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| Related newsletters |
Farm Radio International released an e-newsletter called Making Waves. In its first issue it refers to N2Africa in its article "CIFSRF’s UP: Farm Radio International wins two projects": ...
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| Announcements |
Two interesting conferences we would like to announce:
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