Syngenta project planning

Two researchers from Sahel Station met with a
team from the Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture from 28 February
to 5 March, visiting the main station at Ndiaye, plus research sites at Ross
Bethio, Richard Toll and Gaya in northern Senegal. The project-planning
workshop for Senegal was then held on 29 and 30 March.

Workshop on knowledge management

A workshop on knowledge management was held,
15–18 February, in Cotonou, Benin, on the knowledge-sharing tools promoted and
supported by the CGIAR Information and communications technology (ICT) Knowledge
Management (KM) program. A seminar on ‘How knowledge management and sharing can
help research’ was organized as part of this workshop.

RISOCAS end-of-project workshop

The international conference on Crop Improvement, Ideotyping and Modelling for African Cropping Systems under Climate Change (CIMAC) was held, 7–9 February, in the University of Hohenheim, Stuttgart, Germany, to mark the end of the project on ‘Rice and sorghum crop adaptation strategies for climate change in Africa’ (RISOCAS). The project partners were the University of Hohenheim (project

Regional committee for seed production, Senegal

A meeting of the regional committee for seed
production took place at the offices of the Direction régionale du développement rural
(DRDR) in Saint-Louis on 2 February. The meeting discussed seed multiplication
of the three aromatic rice varieties released in Senegal in 2009 (Sahel 177,
Sahel 328, Sahel 239). Three certified seed producers are involved with the
program.

Fast-tracking farmers’ access to research innovation

In sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), the time-lag between the development and the official release of a variety can be as long as 14 years due to the lack of functional variety release systems in most countries. Stakeholders have long urged for a change in this inefficient system, which limits farmers’ access to new varieties.

Involving farmers in testing improved varieties, known as participatory

Accès accéléré des paysans aux innovations de la recherche

En Afrique subsaharienne (ASS), le temps qui s’écoule entre le développement et l’homologation officielle d’une variété peut prendre 14 années à cause de l’absence de systèmes fonctionnels d’homologation variétale dans la plupart des pays. Les acteurs ont longtemps plaidé en faveur d’un changement de ce système inefficace, qui limite l’accès des paysans aux nouvelles variétés.

L’implication des