The Chair of the CGIAR Council, Renaud Seligmann, paid his first learning visit to IITA–CGIAR on 25 September. Accompanied by Sylvia Oyinlola, CGIAR Council Secretary, and other World Bank executives, they gained firsthand insight into the institute’s research, innovation, scaling, and capacity-development efforts that are transforming agriculture and food systems across Africa.
The CGIAR Council serves as the strategic governance body of CGIAR, bringing together funders and stakeholders to provide oversight, accountability, and direction for the global CGIAR research-for-development system. Welcoming the delegation, IITA’s Senior Management Team, including Director General and CGIAR Regional Director for Continental Africa, Dr Simeon Ehui, emphasized the institute’s commitment to ensuring that scientific discoveries reach farmers and consumers at scale while contributing to food security, nutrition, environmental sustainability, and economic growth.
The delegation received, through IITA’s Deputy Director General, Partnerships for Delivery and Scaling, Dr Tahirou Abdoulaye, an overview of IITA’s six mandate crops—cassava, maize, yam, soybean, banana and plantain, and cowpea—and the institute’s contributions to developing improved varieties that are high yielding, climate-resilient, disease resistant, and nutritionally enhanced. Examples included maize varieties with improved tolerance to environmental stresses; soybean varieties with higher protein content and resistance to rust; plantain varieties resistant to Black Sigatoka disease, drought- and heat-tolerant cowpea varieties; and cassava varieties with improved starch content.
Beyond crop improvement, IITA is strengthening agricultural systems through technological innovations such as Seed Tracker, a digital platform developed to improve seed traceability and enhance seed value chain integration; OGFIMS, a digital platform that supports digital extension, market linkages, and online interactions between farmers, service providers, off-takers, and other value chain actors; Aflasafe, the biological solution combating aflatoxin contamination in maize, sorghum, and groundnut; NoduMax, a legume inoculant that enhances nitrogen fixation; digital soil maps that support precision agriculture; and e-catalogues developed under the Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation (TAAT) program to improve access to proven agricultural technologies.
Throughout the visit, Seligmann’s questions revolved around scaling, impact, and institutional collaboration with other CGIAR centers. He learned how IITA works with sister CGIAR centers, including CIMMYT, ILRI, CIAT, icipe, etc., to bridge the gap between scientific innovation and real-world adoption while strengthening partnerships with governments, development agencies, and the private sector across Africa.
The delegation toured several laboratories and research facilities, beginning with the Germplasm Health, Virology and Diagnostics Laboratory (GHVDL), where the team’s lead, Dr Lava Kumar, showcased diagnostic innovations, cocoa traceability systems, artificial intelligence-powered disease detection tools, and student-led research on pests and diseases affecting crops such as cocoa and banana. Discussions focused on the growing role of digital technologies and the increasing use of mobile phones by farmers as a pathway for deploying AI-enabled advisory and diagnostic services.
At the Genetic Resources Center (GRC), Seligmann explored conservation approaches ranging from field genebanks and in vitro storage to cryopreservation technologies designed to secure valuable genetic resources for future generations. Professor Michael Abberton, Head of GRC and Director of the West Africa Hub, also highlighted emerging applications of artificial intelligence to improve genebank workflows and user-request management.
The team visited Banana Macropropagation and Cassava and Yam Semi-Autotrophic Hydroponics (SAH) Screenhouses, where IITA staff rapidly multiply banana and plantain suckers through macropropagation, and yam and cassava seeds through SAH technologies. These innovations geometrically increase multiplication rates, enabling farmers and entrepreneurs to access large quantities of clean planting materials while creating viable agribusiness opportunities.
At the Regional Hub for Fertilizer and Soil Health, Dr Bernard Vanlauwe, IITA Deputy Director General Research for Development (DDG-R4D) and team presented efforts to strengthen soil-health monitoring and decision-making across Africa. The facility combines laboratory testing, digital soil mapping, modeling, and artificial intelligence to generate site-specific fertilizer recommendations. These data-driven recommendations are being integrated into digital advisory tools such as AKILIMO to support farmers and national agricultural programs.
The visit concluded with stops at SmartPlot Naija and the Youth-in-Agribusiness Vegetable Screenhouses. The former, a demonstration platform promoting conservation agriculture and sustainable food production, is led by Dean Muungani, IITA Product Manager for Grain crops. At the latter, the delegation learned about IITA’s growing investments in youth engagement through the Mastercard Foundation-supported Youth Agribusiness initiatives, which equip young people with technical, entrepreneurial, and business skills to build successful careers in agriculture.
For Seligmann, the visit provided an opportunity to see how IITA’s integrated approach—combining research, scaling, partnerships, digital innovation, capacity development, and youth engagement—is contributing to agricultural transformation across Africa while strengthening CGIAR’s collective impact on food systems worldwide. With deep appreciation for IITA’s efforts in advancing research and food systems across the continent, he noted that understanding IITA’s work firsthand equips the CGIAR Council to better support and advocate for the institute’s mission
Contributed by
Folake Oduntan