{"id":16068,"date":"2026-06-20T12:48:35","date_gmt":"2026-06-20T12:48:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dev.iita.org\/news-item\/journey-to-a-better-mchare\/"},"modified":"2026-06-29T20:05:51","modified_gmt":"2026-06-29T20:05:51","slug":"journey-to-a-better-mchare","status":"publish","type":"news-item","link":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/news-item\/journey-to-a-better-mchare\/","title":{"rendered":"Journey to a better \u201cMchare\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\u201cMchare\u201d is an important cooking banana in Tanzania and parts of Eastern Africa. Its production, and hence the food and income of millions of smallholder farmers, are currently threatened by several pests and diseases attacking the crop including black sigatoka, fusarium wilt, weevils, and nematodes.\n<div class=\"articleimg\">\n<div id=\"attachment_3992\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"width: 323px\">\n\n<a href=\"http:\/\/bulletin.iita.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/Banana-Breeder-Allan-Brown-in-a-discussion-with-members-of-the-research-team.jpg\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-3992\" src=\"https:\/\/iita.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Banana-Breeder-Allan-Brown-in-a-discussion-with-members-of-the-research-team-300x154-1.jpg\" alt=\"Picture of Banana Breeder Allan Brown in a discussion with members of the research team.\" width=\"323\" height=\"166\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3992\" \/><\/a>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-3992\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Banana Breeder Allan Brown in a discussion with members of the research team.<\/p>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">IITA<\/a>\u00a0has established the first ever breeding program for the crop in Arusha, Tanzania, and together with national and international partners, IITA researchers are working diligently to develop high-yielding disease resistant hybrid \u201cMchare\u201d. This is an arduous task due to the sterile and sexless nature of banana.\n\nAccording to IITA Banana Breeder\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/iita-staff\/brown-allen\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Allan Brown<\/a>, \u201cThere really is no other breeding program in the world that is focusing on these \u201cMchare\u201d bananas so if we are not doing this, it\u2019s not going to get done.\u201d This work is part of the Breeding Better Banana project which seeks to develop and deliver improved hybrid banana in Tanzania and Uganda.\n\nIn addition to this program, the IITA banana breeding team and its partners in Uganda and Nigeria are breeding \u201cMatooke\u201d and plantain, respectively. These are the most important cooking banana and plantain for food security in Africa.\n\nWatch the video showcasing the journey as the team shows the difficult process in breeding for better \u201cMchare\u201d:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=BzhNKTLN73c\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=BzhNKTLN73c<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cMchare\u201d is an important cooking banana in Tanzania and parts of Eastern Africa. Its production, and hence the food and income of millions of smallholder farmers, are currently threatened by several pests and diseases attacking the crop including black sigatoka, fusarium wilt, weevils, and nematodes.<\/p>","protected":false},"featured_media":16069,"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":[27],"news-type":[],"hub":[62],"crop":[],"impact-areas":[],"item-year":[196],"class_list":["post-16068","news-item","type-news-item","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","location-tanzania","hub-eastern-africa","item-year-196"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Journey to a better \u201cMchare\u201d - 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\/journey-to-a-better-mchare\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"fr_FR\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Journey to a better \u201cMchare\u201d - IITA\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"\u201cMchare\u201d is an important cooking banana in Tanzania and parts of Eastern Africa. 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