{"id":17260,"date":"2026-06-20T12:56:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-20T12:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dev.iita.org\/news-item\/atasp-1-holds-first-ever-sorghum-innovation-platform-in-kano\/"},"modified":"2026-06-29T17:53:34","modified_gmt":"2026-06-29T17:53:34","slug":"atasp-1-holds-first-ever-sorghum-innovation-platform-in-kano","status":"publish","type":"news-item","link":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/news-item\/atasp-1-holds-first-ever-sorghum-innovation-platform-in-kano\/","title":{"rendered":"ATASP-1 holds first-ever \u201cSorghum Innovation Platform\u201d in Kano"},"content":{"rendered":"Stakeholders in the sorghum value chain in Nigeria recently gathered in the ancient northern city of Kano, to interact and find common ground in addressing the challenges which deny them opportunities for growth, as well as close up the supply and demand gap.\n
\"Pictures<\/a>\n

Members of the Sorghum Innovation Platform in Kano<\/p>\n\n<\/div>\nThe \u201cSorghum Innovation Platform\u201d, which was put together by The International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (CIRDI<\/a>) Nigeria under the auspices of the Agricultural Transformation Agenda Support Program (ATASP-1), brought together over 50 participants from sorghum seed companies, aggregators, the Honeywell Group, sorghum farmers, research institutes, development projects (ATASP-1, Fadama 3, USAID-MARKETS2, and SG2000) from eight states in Nigeria, namely, Kano, Kaduna, Bauchi, Gombe, Jigawa, Niger, Kebbi, and Sokoto.\n\nDuring the event, farmers and other stakeholders (including IYA Abuja) who had received seed from the\u00a0Honeywell Group<\/a>\u00a0gave feedback on how the seed had fared and the challenges encountered. Delighted by the feedback from the presentations, the Honeywell Group represented by Teddy Ngu, assured farmers that \u201cif you produce high quality seed, you will get more incentives.\u201d Ngu noted that the Honeywell Group would require about 80,000 tons of grain in the coming year, which would be a ready market for grains, especially the Samsong 17 (SK5912) and the CRS-01 varieties. If we can get good grains from farmers in Nigeria, the volume of our imports will be drastically reduced, Ngu said.\n\nA seed provider, Lawan Gwadabe, the Managing Director, Seed Project Ltd., who has been in the seed business for nine years in Kano and owns one of the over 120 registered seed companies in Nigeria, expressed optimism that \u201cnow that we have big uptakers like Honeywell, we will make big sales in sorghum seed.\u201d\n\nSpeaking about the benefits from the seed he got from the Honeywell Group, a sorghum farmer of over 20 years, Muhammad Abdulsalam based in Ningi in Bauchi State, described the seed of sorghum (CSR-01 and SK-5912) as \u201cvery good\u201d as the 1,500 hectares planted by farmer groups in Ningi are \u201cdoing well.\u201d\n\nHe observed that the new varieties yield more; \u201cyou get 3 tons (thirty 100-kg bags) per hectare as against the local variety which gives you between 1 and 1.5 tons (ten-fifteen 100-kg bags). Furthermore, the farmer testified that it takes just 100 to 110 days for the new varieties to mature, and now that they have a large-scale commercial buyer, they will be able to invest in inputs for higher yields.\n\nHe concluded, \u201cWith this type of system whereby the Honeywell Group is ready to buy these two varieties even before you plant, there is a ready market and farmers will turn to more commercial farming as they also need to make money from their farming activities.\u201d\n\n\u201cWith the new varieties, we will make more money, change our buildings, and drive cars instead of motorcycles\u201d, Abdulsalam said. Again, \u201cwe have not recorded any pest and disease outbreak\u201d, the elated farmer noted. In response, the ATASP-1 Sorghum Commodity Specialist who doubles as the ICRISAT Country representative,\u00a0Hakeem Ajeigbe<\/a>, encouraged the farmer and his group to invest the money in their children\u2019s education and health.","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stakeholders in the sorghum value chain in Nigeria recently gathered in the ancient northern city of Kano<\/p>","protected":false},"featured_media":17261,"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":[32],"news-type":[],"hub":[61],"crop":[],"impact-areas":[],"item-year":[194],"class_list":["post-17260","news-item","type-news-item","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","location-nigeria","hub-western-africa","item-year-194"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-item\/17260","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-item"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news-item"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-item\/17260\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22783,"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-item\/17260\/revisions\/22783"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17260"},{"taxonomy":"science-area","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/science-area?post=17260"},{"taxonomy":"program","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/program?post=17260"},{"taxonomy":"location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/location?post=17260"},{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=17260"},{"taxonomy":"hub","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hub?post=17260"},{"taxonomy":"crop","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/crop?post=17260"},{"taxonomy":"impact-areas","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/impact-areas?post=17260"},{"taxonomy":"item-year","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/item-year?post=17260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}