Duty Station: Nigeria
Alpha Yaya Kamara is a Systems Agronomist and Principal Scientist at IITA. He heads the Kano station and leads the CGIAR Research Program on Land, Water, and Ecosystems for IITA.
Dr Kamara has extensive experience spanning over 20 years in agronomy, soil fertility management, crop science, natural resource management, stress physiology and farmer participatory evaluation of technologies, which enable him to initiate, design, and efficiently implement integrated agricultural R4D programs in the West African savannas. He collaborates with colleagues in national agricultural research centers, extension agencies, NGOs, and policymakers in West, Central, East, and Southern Africa in developing and disseminating complementary crop management practices to better exploit the potential of stress-tolerant crop cultivars.
He coordinates and manages several R4D-oriented projects to improve rural livelihoods in West and Central Africa. He also has extensive experience in monitoring and evaluating projects jointly implemented with national institutions in sub-Saharan Africa.
Dr. Kamara has contributed to many proposals at IITA with a combined value of over US$23 million. He has published over 50 journal articles, 20 articles in books of abstracts, and 19 papers in conference proceedings on natural resource management, soil fertility, weed and crop management, and crop physiology.
Prior to joining IITA, he worked as a Scientific Assistant (1998─1999) at the Institute of Crop Science, University of Kassel Germany, where he advised graduate students and formulated grant proposals; Research Assistant (1987─1988) and Research Officer (1993─1995) at the Institute of Agricultural Research, Njala, Sierra Leone; and Agronomist in the Women’s Program, National Association of Farmers of Sierra Leone (1986─1987). He was a recipient of UNESCO’s Man and the Biosphere Young Scientists Award in 1995.
Dr Kamara received his B.Sc. in General Agriculture from the University of Sierra Leone in 1986, M.Sc. in Agronomy from the Christian Albrecht’s University of Kiel, Germany in 1993, and Doctorate in Agronomy and Natural Resource Management from the University of Kassel, Germany in 1998.
Program