Kanti Rawal, former plant geneticist, traveled 38,000 km around Nigeria and Niger in the 1970s to collect wild and domesticated accessions of cowpea. The authors tell how they did the same almost 40 years later.

Conserving clean genetic resources for agricultural sustainability and the preservation of diversity is imperative if we want to ensure global food security.

IITA’s Genetic Resource Center has the biggest collection of cowpea accessions from 89 countries, mostly in Africa, and has distributed germplasm to research institutions in many parts of the world. What has been the impact of this work and at what cost? This study attempts to provide answers to this and other questions.

As the world celebrates the International Year of Biodiversity, R4D Review interviews local conservationists to get their take on how to stem the loss of biodiversity.

Butterfly expert Robert Warren explains why it is important to conduct a survey of butterflies in the IITA forest, one of the last remaining patches of protected areas in Nigeria.

Nigeria’s forests are all but gone. David Ladipo, CEO of CENRAD, calls for immediate action.

Biodiversity and NRM
Biodiversity conservation is key
Insect biodiversity for NRM
Why manage noncrop biodiversity
A research park for Africa
Unlocking the diversity of yam
Cassava: improver of soils
Participatory yam conservation strategies
Smart NRM approaches
DNA barcodes for pathogens
A new food security crop?

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IITA scientists explain about the exciting new work in diagnostics using a combination of conventional biology, biotechnology, and bioinformatics.

The Deputy Undersecretary for Science at the Smithsonian Institution, Scott Miller, discusses the importance of biodiversity conservation and what the Consortium for the Barcode of Life (CBOL) is doing in this area.

IITA is part of a system-wide network that protects agrobiodiversity for genetic improvement and food security using traditional and new molecular tools.