I study the impact of improved cowpea varieties on women farmers in the Southern Part of Borno State, Nigeria. These technologies were introduced by the Promoting Sustainable Agriculture in Borno State, (PROSAB) project which was operative from 2004 to 2009. The specific objectives of this study were to identify the changes in income of women farmers as a result of using improved cowpea varieties, to analyse the impact of the improved technology on the food security status of women farmers and to identify constraints associated with the use of improved cowpea varieties.

N2Africa tests and promotes technologies to enhance legume productivity including improved legume seeds, inoculant, phosphorus fertilizer and improved practices. Adoption by smallholders is hindered by a range of institutional, socioeconomic and biophysical barriers. In line with current thinking on market-based development, Public-Private Partnership (PPP) interventions are used by N2Africa to overcome barriers to adoption. A knowledge gap exists concerning the design and effectiveness of PPPs.

• ASHC blogs: Movies & SMS inform soy farmers in N Ghana and Campaign-based approaches in development;
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My first paper ‘Grain legume cultivation and children’s dietary diversity in smallholder farming households in rural Ghana and Kenya’ was just published in Springer’s journal Food Security! Currently, I am finalising my second paper sharing results of our dietary gap assessment in northern Ghana.

One of my PhD research activities included trials that assessed the effect of mineral fertilizers (N, P, K and their combination) and manure (0, 2 and 5 t ha-1) application on climbing bean yields. This study was carried out in two sites of the Northern Province of Rwanda, which is the major climbing bean growing area in the country. As part of this work, I evaluated the response of mineral fertilizer to manure application, the role of fertilizer and manure on shoot N and P uptake.

Soyabean is an important crop in the agriculture-led economy of Zimbabwe and production is supported by inoculation with rhizobia. Rhizobia are soil bacteria that have the ability to form symbioses with legumes and fix nitrogen within novel structures called nodules. This obviates the need for nitrogen fertilizer, which is expensive and difficult to manage. While rhizobia are found in many soils, any given population must be screened in order to select individual isolates with superior nitrogen fixation abilities and other desirable traits.

Amaral Machaculeha Chibeba, from Mozambique, was awarded a PhD fellowship by the Wageningen University in 2012 under the N2Africa Project. The four-year studies were conducted under the supervision of Dr. Maria de Fátima Guimarães from Londrina State University (Brazil), Dr. Mariangela Hungria from Embrapa (Brazil) and Dr. Stephen Kyei-Boahen from IITA (Mozambique) between June 2012 and September 2016. During the last 12 months the awardee worked on revising two articles of his already defended PhD Thesis.

Introduction