Partnerships were identified as one of the major drivers of success of the N2Africa project, which reached over 655,662 beneficiary smallholder farmers, produced and distributed over 504,454 extension reading materials, and produced over 80 tons of soybean and common beans seeds in Tanzania.
The success of this large-scale, science-based research-in-development project that focused on putting nitrogen fixation to work for smallholder farmers growing legume crops, was highlighted during a seminar by Freddy Baijukya, Farming Systems Agronomist at IITA and the N2Africa Country Coordinator, held in September, at the IITA Eastern Africa hub.
According to Baijukya, N2Africa could not have reached so many farmers without support from partners. He noted that the project used different approaches to overcome challenges in disseminating improved legume technologies to farmers. Challenges included poor access to improved high-yielding varieties and other inputs, and lack of markets. Another challenge was aflatoxin contamination in groundnut.
Partnerships enabled inputs such as seeds, pesticides, and fertilizers to be more accessible to farmers.
The project also used the media to reach farmers. For example, through over 167 radio programs, a campaign on beans and soybean reached more than 508,000 people who listened to at least one radio program on improved legume technologies.
On lessons learned while implementing the activities, Baijukya further noted that targeting technologies to farm types and farmers’ typologies and careful selection of partners were extremely important.
“To have the right partnership, we need to be strategic in selecting partners and targetig those who are like-minded and can provide different tactics of packaging the technologies,” said Baijukya.
The aim of the N2Africa project was to increase the benefit from biological nitrogen fixation and productivity of grain legumes among African smallholder farmers, contributing to enhanced soil fertility, improved household nutrition, and increased cash income.
The N2Africa project was implemented in 11 African countries. It was led by Université et recherche de Wageningen (WUR) and IITA in collaboration with national agriculture research systems, seed companies, pesticide/fertilizer companies, output markets, and local and international NGOs. The project ran from 2009 to 2019.
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