On 7 November, IITA signed an agreement with the Ministry of Agriculture and Food in Gabon to provide Technical Assistance to the Graine Phase 1 Support Project (PAPG1). The ceremony was presided over by Ndoutoumou Charles Theodore, Cabinet Director of the Minister of Agriculture and Food, representing the minister.
IITA Central Africa Hub Director Zoumana Bamba represented the Institute at the ceremony. He was accompanied by Deputy Director Komi Fiaboe and IITA Specialists Apollin Fotso Kuate and Rachel Zozo.
IITA’s technical assistance to the PAPG1 project is based on two main axes: seed system and capacity building. For the seed system, IITA is expected to provide 5 million healthy cassava cuttings and 667 thousand plantain tissue culture plants to the Gabon government. In turn, they will multiply these seeds further through Société de Transformation Agricole et de Développement Rural (SOTRADER), a national structure promoting annual crops for further multiplication and distribution to the farmers by December 2023.
Proven technologies such as semi-autotrophic hydroponic (SAH) propagation will be established at the national agriculture and forest research institute IRAF (Institut de Recherches Agronomiques et Forestières) and the national institute for agriculture and biotechnology INSAB (Institut National Supérieur d’Agronomie et de Biotechnologies).
Capacity-building activities will be organized for field technicians, and scientific collaboration with IRAF scientists will be established to select and evaluate new cassava varieties, among others.
IITA has always wanted to establish a partnership with the Gabonese government to strengthen the capacities of researchers. IITA will provide technical support and advice in areas such as improving the seed system, integrated soil fertility management, integrated pest and disease management, improving the technical route for multiple food and commercial crops, and postharvest management and product processing. Several missions have been conducted since 2018 with the Gabon authorities, particularly the TAAT mission conducted in July 2021, which initiated the agreement that was signed. The present agreement marks the concretization of these efforts and represents a significant cornerstone in the partnership between IITA and the Gabon Government.
In his speech, the Director of the Cabinet emphasized the high trust bestowed on this partnership by the Gabon Government to transform agriculture and decrease dependency on food importation.
Contributed by Dr Apollin Fotso
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