Drought, pests and disease on the rise hit harvests in Zimbabwe

by Enid Katungi | Sep 29, 2017

For the past two decades, the Pan-Africa Bean Research alliance (PABRA), has stepped-up efforts in Zimbabwe to help farmers boost their bean production as a pathway to reducing poverty. This is done with the support of the Swiss Agency for Cooperation and Development...

New, improved bean varieties enhance food security and diet diversity in Malawi

by Enid Katungi | Sep 29, 2017

Our recent study, conducted to evaluate the performance of PABRA over the last two decades, shows remarkable achievements in terms of productivity and the number of people using improved bean varieties. Varietal output, proportion of households using the improved bean...

Lessons from field day in Tanzania

by Jean Claude Rubyogo | Sep 29, 2017

More than 300 farmers, companies, extension agents and media attended a field day at the Agriculture Seed Agency (ASA) seed farm at Ngaramtoni in Arusha, Tanzania, to raise awareness among smallholder farmer about the value of planting improved bean varieties....

Boosting African agribusiness with a new generation of cooperatives

by Natalia Gutiérrez | Jun 23, 2017

For the International Day of Cooperatives to be celebrated on 1 July, the Linking Farmers to Markets team of CIAT and the Enhancing Development through Cooperatives (EDC) initiative of the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA) just published a...

Beans without borders, by Clare Mukankusi

by Claudia Calderón | May 11, 2017

#CIATforward Visions of a sustainable food future Clare Mukankusi, plant breeder “The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) is a free trade area for 20 countries, which has allowed us to significantly speed up the release of new beans” Beans without...