Today’s high school students have a myriad of things clamoring for their attention, many of which are far more interesting to them than their average classroom period. In light of this I wanted to create a science unit that was novel and meaningful to keep them engaged in learning topics from food chains to carbon cycling. I also had a broader goal of creating a learning environment that would lay the foundation for students to develop and practice the skills and knowledge necessary to become responsible global citizens.

Learning plays a central role in N2Africa. The success of our dissemination approaches depends on the ability to determine what works, where how and for whom and to adapt activities accordingly. Key to this process of learning, is a system of data collection, management and delivery that ensures that data is captured from the field and converted into an accessible form as quickly and accurately as possible. N2Africa has worked hard to establish such a system and we are happy to report on recent proress and future plans for improvement.

Climbing bean can be an important crop for sustainable intensification of cropping systems in the densely populated highlands of eastern Africa. With a potential yield that is approximately two times higher than for bush bean, climbing beans provide an excellent opportunity to enhance bean yields in areas where land is constrained.

Through N2Africa, farmers in Zimbabwe have perfected the agronomy of grain legumes, and they are now perfecting their grain legumes processing skills. Over the years, the N2Africa team in Zimbabwe has worked with farming communities to perfect the art of processing soyabean into different nutritious products. We have seen this bearing fruit as farmers now grow soyabean, irrespective of the availability of a ready external market.

Cowpea fritters

In Malawi, N2Africa is working to resolve some of the issues through engaging farmers in trainings and capacity building, field demonstrations and sensitization on new technologies such as the use of rhizobial inoculant. N2Africa is collaborating with Kasungu District Agriculture Development Office (DADO) and Churches Action in Relief and Development (CARD) to conduct training on inoculation, appropriate soil fertility management, integrated pests management and post-harvest practices.

N2Africa, in collaboration with its partner in the soyabean value chain iDE (International Development Enterprises), is testing the adaptability of five promiscuous soyabean varieties (earlier, medium and later maturing) for the first time in the Zambezi Valley, a non-traditional soyabean area. The Zambezi Valley is characterized by soils with heavy texture, therefore not the most recommended for soyabean.

Linkages among soyabean value chain actors in Tanzania are weak and coordination between participants and enterprises seem to be a totally alien concept. For over one year now, N2Africa and CRS led - Soya ni Pesa project (SnP) have been working to foster partnerships in soyabean value chain development. As meaningful partnership starts to develop, a strong team from N2Africa and SnP, once again, took the initiative to meet various stakeholders. This time to monitor activities and identify on ground challenges and opportunities to expand collaboration.

BNF outreach in west Kenya now includes working through local primary schools to install simple legume technology demonstrations and hold low cost farmer field days around them. This move was spontaneous, meaning not planned by the Country Coordinator, but originates among 13 WeRATE R4D Platform members working through 22 schools in response to reduced funding for outreach activities within the Phase 2 Tier 1 arrangement.

In January-March there was the possiblity to follow the Wageningen MOOC (Massive Online Open Course) on "Growing our future food: crops" via edX. This succesfull six weeks course, that brings you knowlegde to understand and quantify the basic agricultural proceses, will also be offered as Summer Course. Part of the course material is filmed at N2Africa locations. The start date for this course will be June 15^th and access will be available until September 25^th.