IITA–CGIAR continues to strengthen research linkages with African countries, ensuring that national institutions have the capacity to drive their own agricultural transformation agendas. This commitment to country ownership underpins IITA’s expanding partnership with The Gambia, formalized through a Memorandum of Understanding with the Ministry of Agriculture. Supported by the African Development Bank’s Phase II of the Program to Strengthen Food and Nutrition Security in the Sahel (P2-P2RS) project, through the Technologies pour la Transformation Agricole en Afrique (TAAT) Program, the collaboration focuses on strengthening national research capacity so that Gambian scientists can design, test, and scale homegrown solutions.
The three trainees told the participants that a biofortified maize variety, PVA Syn13, bred by IITA that was released in 2020 in the Gambia is making waves across the country. The government has prioritized this variety for maize production in the country due to its vitamin A content. The variety is being used in school and hospital feeding programmes, and recommended for children under five years, pregnant and lactating mothers. Modou Sabally, one of the trainees, stated that “in the past the government was spending a lot of money to import Vitamin A (for the hospitals) in the country for children under five and pregnant mothers; now with PVA Syn13 much of the efforts is focused on production and dissemination of this variety across the country to provide natural vitamin A.” He noted that “now we have learnt the skills of maize breeding, we hope to release more provitamin A maize varieties in our country”.
As part of this effort, a team of Gambian researchers spent two to three weeks across three leading research centers—IITA Ibadan, led by Dr Silvestro Meseka; WorldVeg Cotonou, led by Dr Mathieu Ayenan; and AfricaRice Bouaké, led by Dr Sali Ndindeng—gaining hands-on technical and practical skills across maize, cowpea, tomato, cabbage, and rice value chains, which are priority crops under the P2-P2RS project. This multi-center approach reflects IITA’s broader partnership strategy: building strong, country-anchored research systems capable of generating, adapting, and owning innovations that respond directly to national priorities.
At IITA-CGIAR, the team strengthened their understanding of maize breeding, learning how to design trials, handle breeding nurseries, select promising lines, and use hand-pollination for the production of quality seed. They also gained the knowledge of using ‘R’ for data management and analysis. These practical breeding skills are essential for developing varieties that perform well across Gambian environments.
Modou Sabally, Sarjo Jarju, and Isatou Sillah noted that they have known IITA for decades, and benefited from its seeds, but this is the first time they have been able to build a deeper, hands-on research partnership that equips them with the knowledge to breed and improve their own crops at home.
At WorldVeg, Alhagie Mboge, Ismaila Bah, and Sonko Ebou further deepened their focus on vegetable breeding, including controlled pollination, trait selection, purity maintenance, and seed production, as well as tomato grafting and adopting good agronomic and post-harvest practices. Field visits and interactions with farmers and seed companies helped them see how breeding translates into real-world production.
At AfricaRice, Hawa Manneh, Omar Kandeh, and Lamin Bayo explored the rice breeding pipelines, selection methods, and seed systems employed to deliver improved varieties adapted to West African conditions.
This effort aims to support The Gambia’s quest for a stronger pool of researchers ready to apply what they have learned in real-world production environments.
In early 2026, IITA, WorldVeg, and AfricaRice will travel to The Gambia during the planting season to continue field-level coaching and co-develop training materials and guides for wide distribution.
“The training has been very effective, exposing me to new things, including flower emasculation, good agronomic practices, and, more importantly, vegetable seed production techniques. This training is very timely. We are planning to start vegetable seed production from next year. The delivery of the modules has been highly interactive, and the trainers have been very resourceful. I am grateful to the trainers for their dedication.
Through the successful delivery of this MoU, we anticipate deeper collaboration together—helping The Gambia build resilient food system infrastructure anchored in strong research capacity, bringing tangible benefits to their farmers and communities.
Contributed by Sabra Lewis, Toyin Adetunji Medinat and Silvestro Meseka
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