One of the strategies of N2Africa is to open new opportunities for poor farmers and vulnerable groups by working with other players in the legume value chain and get them aggregated and linked to markets. In Tanzania there are already field based farmer organizations emerging.

The N2Africa Master Plans¹ are documents intended to foster a common approach across the five Core Countries. So far seven master plans have been developed. These are Agronomy, Dissemination, Monitoring & Evaluation and Data Management, Rhizobiology, Communication, Gender and Innovation platforms. The plans are designed to achieve the N2Africa Vision of Success and the objectives set out in the Research Framework of the approved project proposal. This means all Master Plans need to ensure timely delivery of the outputs and outcomes.

In the 2014 growing season, two digital data collection methods were explored in Ada’a and Damot Gale districts of Ethiopia. The first approach is using Google Nexus tablets by extension workers and research technicians to collect both agronomic and socio-economic data. The second approach is using SMS method in which farmers send information on agronomic practices using SMS (Crowdsourcing). The SMS method is being carried out in Ada’a district, where 50 farmers are participating in the pilot test.

In August 2012, a group of Nigerian Youth Corp (NYSC) members, trained at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) Headquarters, Ibadan (Nigeria) established the IITA Agripreneurs (IYA) as an independent agribusiness enterprise involved in the production, processing and marketing that cuts across value chains of several crops as well as the production and marketing of vegetables and fish.

Rwandans are among world’s top consumers of beans as it is a preferred legume across livelihood zones and wealth groups. This staple is considered as meat for the poor or a near complete food, mainly due to its nutritious nature: common beans contain proteins, resistant starch, dietary fiber, vitamins and minerals.

Hyejin Lee completed her MSc thesis entitled "Assessment of changes in households food availability, access, utilization and stability using farm stratification associated with the introduction of legume technology in Salima district, Malawi" at the University of Hohenheim, Stuttgart as part of an Erasmus exchange programme between Wageningen University and the University of Hohenheim early December.

Jeff Ehlers as key note speaker

On November 13^th Jeff Ehlers was key note speaker in the CSIS conference, "From the Ground Up: Translational Research Pathways to Improve Lives of Smallholder Farmers." Washington D.C where he talked about the N2Africa project and its research loops in his presentation "Challenges and Examples - Research for Farmers" from the Gates Foundation Perspective".

The website is made more accessible recently. You will find the content is better organised and the search function has improved. To get the most out of your search you can use AND and OR searches. To assist you Marcel Lubbers wrote some guidelines for this function.

NoduMax is a new legume inoculant for soyabean recently developed at the IITA Business Incubation Platform and the N2Africa Project. The inoculant contains >1 x 10⁹ Bradyrhizobium japonicum strain USDA 110 per g and is packaged in an alumino-laminate bag along with gum arabic adhesive and user instructions. A series of 28 product runs resulted in 79% acceptance of this adopted threshold.