For the past decades, Africa has been grappling with the sustainable diffusion of improved cassava varieties due to a weak and uncoordinated dissemination strategy. Consequently, improved varieties have often failed to reach the hands of farmers, forcing the yields of cassava in Africa to remain low.
For the past decades, Africa has been grappling with the sustainable diffusion of improved cassava varieties due to a weak and uncoordinated dissemination strategy.
The Project Director, Hemant Nitturkar, explained that the project was able to link breeders and researchers who developed improved cassava varieties and technologies; with farmers and processors who benefitted from high quality planting materials. Until the coming of BASICS, there was no formal seed sector for cassava stems. Farmers would usually share cassava stems with their fellow farmers. In some cases, government would buy improved stems and share them to farmers free of charge. However, most of the stems shared by the government are usually not certified and in small quantity due to the bulky nature of cassava.
He stated that apart from ensuring that seeds of different varieties are always available to farmers, the seed entrepreneurs formed a vital link between researchers and farmers because “as they are selling these seeds, they also learn from the farmers what new features they require in the varieties. The seed entrepreneurs push up this information to the seed companies who take it back to the breeders.
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