In Rwanda, N2Africa has 5 partners, among which 1 research institution (ISAR), and 4 non-government organizations (NGOs), namely DRD, COCOF, EPR, and CARITAS, involved mostly in technology dissemination.

The N2Africa project is partnering with a new project called “Increasing smallholder farm productivity, income, and health through widespread adoption of Integrated Soil Fertility Management (ISFM) in the Great Lake Regions and Southern Africa.” The leader of this project in Zimbabwe and Malawi is Nelson Mango (the person on the right with a big hat).

BNF dissemination activities in west Kenya are entering their second year and are built around some great new legume varieties, recently commercialized rhizobium inoculant and some key accompanying technologies. During its first year, the project mobilized the efforts of 14 grassroots farmer associations and local NGOs to install 87 grain legume technology demonstrations and conduct 3410 on-farm BNF technology tests. During the second year, the number of collaborators will increase to 23 grassroots groups and 4000 new farmers examining soybean (SB 19 and 24) and climbing bean (cv. Tamu).

Isaac is an agronomist with more than 10 years of experience in rural development, food security and agricultural projects. Isaac has worked for the Department of Agriculture Technical Research and Extension in the Ministry of Agriculture in Zimbabwe. He has also worked for the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), USAID – FEWS NET, and the Zimbabwe Red Cross Society.

In anticipation of the imminent arrival of the rainy season in northern Ghana any time from the month of May, the annual N2Africa planning meeting was held to develop implementation work plan for the forth-coming season. The meeting was held in Tamale, the capital of the Northern Region, on 28-29 March 2011. A major issue of discussion during the meeting was how to effectively link farmers to market.

The N2Africa 2011 planning meeting was held in Kano, Nigeria, on 23-24 March 2011. The meeting was attended by about 50 participants, made up of staff from N2Africa and partners from international organisations, governmental and non-governmental organisations, research institutes, universities and the private sector. Participants reviewed the activities of the previous year, drawing lessons from challenges, successes and failures and developed an implementation work plan for the 2011 season. 

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

Boletim Informativo SOJA-nr.2, Boletim Soja Suplemento nr.2

We are currently collating results from the first year’s research and demonstration trials across the eight countries. Here is a preview of results from Ghana and Nigeria where strong responses to inoculation with soyabean were found in farmers’ fields. In Ghana where the rainy season ended very late many of the soyabean crops yielded more than 3 t/ha, whereas in Nigeria the top yields were around 2 t/ha. Strong responses to inoculation were observed in many cases.

A writeshop was held in March as part of the collaboration between SIMLESA (Sustainable Intensification of Maize-Legume Cropping Systems For Food Security In Eastern And Southern Africa), the ACIAR funded project and N2Africa. An international team of nitrogen fixation experts met to write a state-of-the-art manual on Rottnest Island, off Fremantle, West Australia.