http://r4dreview.org Wed, 15 Oct 2008 17:31:59 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Although the initial posts of R4D Review are done by IITA we really want to change our role to being facilitators of research for development ideas, initiatives, collaborations, projects, highlights and critical reviews. Your participation is essential to make this a R4D knowledge resource. In addition to posting comments on ... http://r4dreview.org/2008/10/please-participate/ Representatives from the banana research and industry from all over Africa had an excellent meeting in Kenya in October 2008. The ambition to develop a 10-year strategic roadmap that would harmonize and guide efforts to promote the marketing and trade of the crop in the continent has been kick-started with ... http://r4dreview.org/2008/10/banana-2008/ In terms of production, bananas are the world’s 4th most important food crop, mostly grown and consumed in the tropical and subtropical zones. The crop is grown in more than 120 countries, with an annual world production of around 104 million tons; around a third each is produced in the ... http://r4dreview.org/2008/09/banana-facts/ [caption id="attachment_208" align="alignleft" width="114" caption="Thomas Dubois, IITA"][/caption] Thomas Dubois joined IITA in 2003 to manage the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ)-funded regional biocontrol project for banana, based in Uganda. This project has now made significant progress: banana infected with certain strains of endophytic fungi grow more vigorously ... http://r4dreview.org/2008/09/thomas-dubois-young-scientist-on-the-rise/ Leena Tripathi was born and grew up in India. She gained a PhD in Plant Molecular Biology from the National Botanical Institute, Lucknow, after completing an MSc in Molecular Biology and Biotechnology at G.B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar, India. She joined IITA in 2000 and worked first in ... http://r4dreview.org/2008/09/leena-tripathi-looking-after-the-welfare-of-smallholder-banana-growers/ Plants, like people, need healthcare. But in Africa, where agriculture is dominated by smallholders, farmers do not have access to reliable plant health advice and management services. Many farmers rely on extension workers and researchers from national and international organizations for such needs. And such help is not always readily or ... http://r4dreview.org/2008/09/increasing-capacity-for-plant-healthcare/ Bananas are an important crop for global trade and nutrition where they are intensively cultivated, but few efforts exist to breed superior bananas. One of the reasons for this is that humans have intensively “selected” against seeded bananas and it is difficult or impossible to pollinate many banana varieties and ... http://r4dreview.org/2008/09/growing-bananas-from-%e2%80%9cseeds%e2%80%9d/ [caption id="attachment_194" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="A market in Nigeria. photo by IITA"][/caption] The world’s food supply has for the last few decades worked well but now new dynamics, as reflected by the recent food crisis, call for change. The current system, based on large-scale production in the developed world, is efficient and ... http://r4dreview.org/2008/09/ticket-out-of-poverty/ In Uganda, the local word for food is matooke, which is what the Ugandans call the green banana, their staple food. Nowhere is banana eaten in such a scale as in this East African nation of 31 million. Ugandans reportedly eat, on average, more than a quarter of a kilogram of ... http://r4dreview.org/2008/09/science-meets-industry/ Forty years ago, only a handful of farmers in Benue State, middle belt of Nigeria were growing soybean. The crop was generally thought more suitable for large-scale commercial growing and industrial processing. But not anymore. This golden bean is grown in the farms of resource-poor smallholders in the Guinea savannas ... http://r4dreview.org/2008/09/30-years-r4d-in-soybean-what%e2%80%99s-next/