At the end of N2Africa phase I, we looked at the ‘early impact’ of the project. Next to a number of surveys among farmers, agro-dealers, partners, we also carried out several case studies. One of these case studies involved an effort to explore to what extent the legume varieties disseminated by N2Africa through demonstration trials had spread beyond the farmers directly involved in the project.

N2Africa is scaling-out grain legume technologies, practices and models to benefit smallholder farmers in multiple, diverse and heterogeneous contexts of sub-Saharan Africa. This scaling-out process benefits from our understanding of the factors that affect adoption of grain legumes and how those factors vary across different contexts. Our understanding of how factors change in different contexts allows us to select the best bets for a particular context.

Last year, N2Africa was selected as one of the six in-depth case studies within the PROIntensAfrica Initiative (www.intensafrica.org). PROIntensAfrica aims to build a long-term research and innovation partnership between Africa and the European Union, focusing on the improvement of food and nutrition security through sustainable intensification. Since N2Africa’s selection as case study, a literature study, stakeholder interviews and household level survey were held in the two countries involved in this study: Kenya and Ghana.

The Western Region Agriculture Technology Evaluation (WeRATE) is the main N2Africa outreach partner in Kenya and presented an award-winning exhibit at the recently concluded Agriculture Society of Kenya (ASK) Kakamega Show (June 16^th-18^th, 2016).

The country team in Kenya has produced three recent publications that may interest N2Africa partners in other countries. These publications include an article within an open access scientific journal, a book chapter on our Innovation Platform and a widely-distributed 48-page extension booklet covering our outreach operations.

Soyabean booklet in Afan Oromo (among the widely spoken languages in Ethiopia), produced in collaboration with project partners (OARI, 2SCALE, and Guts Agro).

• IITA Bulletin no. 2336;
• IITA Bulletin no.

The 2016 Brian Chambers award is open to researchers in crop nutrition: £2,000 in prizes!

The International Fertiliser Society is again running the Brian Chambers award. Researchers working in both academic and extension organisations are encouraged to take part. The 2016 award is now open for submissions, and will remain open until September 15^th, 2016.