{"id":13190,"date":"2026-06-20T12:26:33","date_gmt":"2026-06-20T12:26:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dev.iita.org\/news-item\/banana-production-in-uganda-and-tanzania-gets-a-boost\/"},"modified":"2026-06-29T21:40:42","modified_gmt":"2026-06-29T21:40:42","slug":"banana-production-in-uganda-and-tanzania-gets-a-boost","status":"publish","type":"news-item","link":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/news-item\/banana-production-in-uganda-and-tanzania-gets-a-boost\/","title":{"rendered":"Banana production in Uganda and Tanzania gets a boost"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><figure id=\"attachment_10240\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-10240\" style=\"width: 288px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/iita.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/A-farmer-in-a-banana-plantation.jpg\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-10240\" src=\"https:\/\/iita.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/A-farmer-in-a-banana-plantation.jpg\" alt=\"A farmer in a banana plantation\" width=\"288\" height=\"180\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-10240\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">A farmer in a banana plantation<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Millions of smallholder banana farmers in Tanzania  and Ug anda are set to benefit from a new $13.8 million project to develop  and distribute higher-yielding, disease-resistant hybrid banana varieties. The effort is being funded by a grant from the Bill &amp; Melinda Gates Foundation to the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA). Rony Swennen, a professor at KU Leuven  and head of banana breeding at IITA, is leading the project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Bananas are both a food staple  and an economic backbone in East  and Central Africa, where over half of all cultivated l and is planted with bananas. Ug anda  and Tanzania produce over 50% of all bananas grown in Africa. The region\u2019s yearly banana crop is valued at $4.3 billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">However, banana production in Ug anda  and Tanzania achieves just 9% of its potential yield due to pests  and diseases, posing a serious threat to the future sustainability of banana production in the region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The new five-year project aims to dramatically upscale  and speed up existing banana breeding efforts in the two countries. The researchers expect their hybrid banana varieties to have a 30% higher yield  and a 50% higher resistance to at least three of the target pests  and diseases compared to the current varieties grown by the farmers under the same on-farm conditions. The varieties will also meet over 90% of the quality traits for consumers found in the current cultivars, say the researchers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cOne of the most effective ways to increase production of any crop is to plant high-yielding varieties,\u201d says Professor Rony Swennen. \u201cThis new project will exp and the on-going breeding efforts in Ug anda  and Tanzania by developing research capacity  and bringing expertise from other countries. Hence farmers will get faster access to high-yielding, high-resistance hybrids that are at the same time satisfactory to the consumer.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The project builds on a very successful collaboration between IITA  and Ug anda\u2019s National Agricultural Research Organization (NARO), which culminated in the development of the first 26 high-yielding,  and disease-resistant hybrid varieties, called NARITA varieties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The project will also support the on-farm testing of these hybrids in Ug anda  and Tanzania, will improve the technical capacity of the breeding programmes in the region, will strengthen partnerships with farmers,  and will develop local human capacity by supporting 8 PhD projects  and 5 MSc research projects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The IITA, Bioversity International  and the CGIAR Research Program on Roots, Tubers  and Bananas are also providing substantial co-financing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Pour plus d'informations, veuillez contacter :<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Catherine Njuguna, <a>c.njuguna@cgiar.org<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>\u00c0 propos de l'IITA<\/strong>, <a href=\"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/\">www.iita.org<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">L'IITA est l'un des principaux partenaires de recherche au monde pour trouver des solutions \u00e0 la faim, \u00e0 la malnutrition et \u00e0 la pauvret\u00e9. Son approche prim\u00e9e de recherche pour le d\u00e9veloppement (R4D) r\u00e9pond aux besoins de d\u00e9veloppement des pays tropicaux. L'IITA travaille avec des partenaires pour am\u00e9liorer la qualit\u00e9 et la productivit\u00e9 des cultures, r\u00e9duire les risques pour les producteurs et les consommateurs, et g\u00e9n\u00e9rer de la richesse \u00e0 partir de l'agriculture. L'IITA est une organisation \u00e0 but non lucratif fond\u00e9e en 1967 et dirig\u00e9e par un conseil d'administration. L'IITA travaille sur les cultures suivantes : le ni\u00e9b\u00e9, le soja, la banane\/banane plantain, l'igname, le manioc et le ma\u00efs. L'IITA est membre du CGIAR, un partenariat mondial de recherche agricole pour un avenir alimentaire s\u00fbr.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Millions of smallholder banana farmers in Tanzania and Uganda are set to benefit from a new $13.8 million project to develop and distribute higher-yielding, disease-resistant hybrid banana varieties. The effort is being funded by a grant from the Bill &amp; Melinda Gates Foundation to the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA). Rony Swennen, a professor at KU Leuven and head of banana breeding at IITA, is leading the project&#8230;<\/p>","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}}},"tags":[],"science-area":[],"program":[],"location":[],"news-type":[],"hub":[],"crop":[65],"impact-areas":[],"item-year":[192],"class_list":["post-13190","news-item","type-news-item","status-publish","hentry","crop-banana","item-year-192"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Banana production in Uganda and Tanzania gets a boost - IITA<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/news-item\/banana-production-in-uganda-and-tanzania-gets-a-boost\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"fr_FR\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Banana production in Uganda and Tanzania gets a boost - IITA\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Millions of smallholder banana farmers in Tanzania and Uganda are set to benefit from a new $13.8 million project to develop and distribute higher-yielding, disease-resistant hybrid banana varieties. 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