Biological control programs implemented by IITA and partners on cassava green mite have brought benefits worth more than $1.7 billion to Nigeria, Bénin, and Ghana in the last 18 years.

IITA and partners recently launched a project that will provide farmers in Nigeria and Kenya with a natural, safe, and cost-effective solution to prevent the contamination of maize and groundnut by a cancer-causing poison, aflatoxin.

Biological control of aflatoxins using aflasafe™ is providing hope for African farmers battling with crop contamination and opening doors for the private sector looking to invest on a winning formula in the agricultural sector.

Ken Neethling, CEO of Biocontrol Products (BCP), the South African company that produces Green Muscle®, talks about this biocontrol solution to locusts and the challenges that BCP faces in producing it.

Three decades of R4D at IITA have shown the effectiveness and sustainability of biological control combined with other approaches for managing insect pests. These biocontrol practices and technologies provide subsistence farmers in sub-Saharan Africa with solutions that are sometimes their only safety net.

Three decades of research and development at IITA have shown the continuing effectiveness and sustainability of biological control in combination with other approaches for managing insect pests.

Witchweed or Striga has cast a “spell” on millions of hectares of cereal crops in sub-Saharan Africa. Discover how IITA and partners concocted a “potion” to ward off its effects on cereals using a natural enemy—a fungus!

The president of one of the strongest crop networks in Nigeria, Pastor O.A. Adenola, talks about the need for stakeholders to join forces against aflatoxin spread and other issues.

Sunday Ekesi is a research entomologist from Nigeria working at the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (icipe). He is currently leading a continent-wide initiative on the African fruit flies that threaten the production and export of fruits and vegetables.

The “father of biocontrol”, Peter Neuenschwander, joined IITA’s biocontrol project against the cassava mealybug in 1983, and retired in 2003. In this interview, he bares his mind on the contribution of biocontrol and strategies on how Africa can check invasive pests.