Since the late 19th century, root nodulating rhizobia (RNB), commonly known as rhizobia, have been known to be responsible for fixing atmospheric nitrogen on legumes. This knowledge soon led to the practice of inoculation, with early adoption achieved by transferring soil from field to field, or soil to seed before planting. However, this was quickly replaced by the use of pure cultures on agar slants, and later on as broths. Inoculant industries were first established in the 1920s and the global practice of inoculation today is valued at more than UD$ 10 billion annually.

The ISAR Microbiology Laboratory leads N2Africa rhizobiology activities in Rwanda and liaises with related actions in DR Congo and Rwanda. The team at ISAR is responsible for both Agronomy (Objective 2) and Rhizobiology (Objective 3) activities in Rwanda. The Microbiology Laboratory has cultured 80 isolates from bean and soyabean. Twenty-nine of these isolates were characterized and classified by Congo Red morphotype, BTB reaction and Gram Srain.

Laboratory and greenhouse facilities in African countries are undergoing upgrade and complete makeover – thanks to the substantial investment in state-of-the-art facilities being made by N2Africa to enhance the capacity of NARS to carry out research in rhizobiology and general soil microbiology.  More details in the full new item.

This issue of the Podcaster is devoted to N2Africa’s work in rhizobiology and rhizobial inoculants. While a general lack of technical and scientific capacity in soil microbiology and rhizobiology remains a general concern across the project, you can read about the ongoing initiatives to upgrade facilities and train staff, on actions to procure high quality inoculants and make them available to smallholder farmers, and to work on regulations to ensure that inoculants can be moved readily between countries. Some updates on ongoing research are also presented.

Here we share the revised Agricultural Development Strategy recently sent to N2Africa.

The Soya team from TechnoServe sent us their latest newsletter in Portugese.

Report from Brenda Tsungai Manenji who conducted her MSc research in Zimbabwe in 2 regions: Murehwa, an area with high agro-ecological potential, and Mudzi, an area with low agro-ecological potential.

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In this MSc research by Greta van den Brand, legume technology niches were identified through detailed system characterization, with the use of a farm typology to deal with the large diversity in smallholder farms. The results of farm characterizations, covering diverse farm types in Mchinji and Salima district in central Malawi, were used to gain insights in the possibilities of legumes to improve nutrition, livelihoods and soil fertility.

The N2Africa acknowledges the importance of women in agricultural production, household food security and income. The project recognizes that in aiming to ensure long-term sustainable impact it is of crucial importance to address explicitly the needs of women farmers, processors and marketers and to develop specific strategies for meaningful inclusion of women in project activities to ensure women benefit from the project.