Nonplant taxa are global public goods that play a huge role in maintaining sustainable farming systems for food and agriculture.

The IITA headquarters in Ibadan, Nigeria sits on about 1,000 hectares of protected agricultural and forest land. Read about the rich variety of life that can be found in this small pocket of Africa.

IITA emphasizes the imperatives of yam conservation for improvement and the benefit of millions of farmers relying on this staple.

Conserving local varieties ensures a robust gene pool of important traits for crop improvement and helps guarantee food security.

IITA and partners will host the 5th World Cowpea Research Conference in Dakar, Senegal from 27 September to 1 October 2010. The meeting will tackle research issues to enhance the profile of cowpea as a viable income-generating and food security crop.

The European Union-African, Caribbean and Pacific Science and Technology Program will support research to improve and promote yam in West and Central Africa. The program will benefit six WCA countries: Cameroon, Bénin, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria, and Togo.

The Nigeria National Variety Release Committee released several improved maize varieties developed by IITA with partners, the Institute for Agricultural Research of the Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria and Institute of Agricultural Research and Training of Obafemi Awolowo University in Ile Ife, Nigeria.

IITA is partnering with the Agricultural Research Institute, Tanzania, and the National Agricultural Research Organisation, Uganda, to identify and use molecular markers for faster and more accurate breeding of cassava varieties resistant to Cassava Brown Streak Disease (CBSD).

The debate continues: food or biodiversity conservation? Scientist Emeritus Peter Neuenschwander stresses that natural resources management offers the intellectual platform to integrate the different disciplines in a sustainable manner. He suggests ways in which the CGIAR and IITA can help meet the twin goals of conserving biodiversity while feeding the human population.

Baba Alphonse is a 60-year-old farmer from Ogoukpate Village, northern Benin. He all but abandoned cassava and maize farming were it not for IITA’s intervention.