{"id":56340,"date":"2022-02-24T02:18:58","date_gmt":"2022-02-24T01:18:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nationalwire.com.ng\/?p=56340"},"modified":"2022-02-24T02:18:58","modified_gmt":"2022-02-24T01:18:58","slug":"iita-basics-ii-team-hold-crucial-meeting-with-tanzanian-minister-on-agricultural-transformation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nationalwire.com.ng\/sub\/iita-basics-ii-team-hold-crucial-meeting-with-tanzanian-minister-on-agricultural-transformation\/","title":{"rendered":"IITA, BASICS-II team Hold Crucial Meeting With Tanzanian Minister On Agricultural Transformation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tanzanian Minister of Agriculture, Honourable Hussein Mohamed Bashe wants the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) to support the East African region towards cassava, soybean and banana transformation for economic prosperity.<\/p>\n

In a meeting with researchers from IITA\u2014including those working under the Building and Economically Sustainable Integrated Cassava Seed System, phase 2, (BASICS-II), Honorable \u00a0Bashe acknowledged that agriculture was crucial to the economic prosperity of the country but observed that the potential is yet to be unleashed.<\/p>\n

\u201cTake cassava for instance, during Ramadan, my meal is incomplete if there is no cassava. The crop is still a food security crop\u2026 My question is: how can we turn this crop to a cash crop?,\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n

Data from the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) show that the average yield per ha of cassava is still below 10 tons per hectare, making it difficult for countries such as Tanzania to compete globally in exports.<\/p>\n

The Chinese authorities have offered to buy Tanzanian cassava chips, but farmers are yet to take advantage of such offers as yield remain low.<\/p>\n

Like cassava, soybean is another crop that is yet to be tapped owing to a lack of improved and industry preferred varieties.<\/p>\n

Honorable Bashe said, \u201cI just signed a contract for the importation of soybean because industries can\u2019t get soybean seeds with desired traits,\u201d adding that banana in the Western part of the country was also threatened by a new disease known as Banana Bunchy Top Virus (BBTV) according to the scientists<\/p>\n

IITA Hub Director for Eastern Africa, Dr Leena Tripathi pledged IITA\u2019s commitment to work with Tanzania to tackle the challenges confronting agriculture.<\/p>\n

\u201cTanzania is strategic for us, and we are ready to work with you,\u201d Dr Tripathi assured the minister, adding that a lot of technologies were available in IITA to advance the transformation of banana\/plantain, soybean, and cassava.<\/p>\n

On cassava, Prof Lateef Sanni, Project Manager of BASICS-II harped on the need for Tanzania to learn from Nigeria especially the Presidential Initiative on Cassava (1999-2007) that drove cassava by linking productivity to markets.<\/p>

\r\n
Advertisement<\/div>\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\r\n \r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n

\u201cUnderstanding the market demand for cassava and cassava products and responding to market demands will help in creating a sustainable cassava transformation,\u201d Prof Sanni said.<\/p>\n

Apart from the local market, Prof Sanni identified the starch and High-Quality Cassava Flour as areas that Tanzania could tap for economic growth.<\/p>\n

Dr Godwin Atser, BASICS-II Advocacy, Promotion & Outreach Lead at IITA, said there was the need for Tanzania to invest in cassava seed system to boost the yield per ha of cassava and make growers in the country globally competitive.<\/p>\n

He said the BASICS model had become a tool helping countries to transform their seed system and urged the country to adopt it for food security and economic development.<\/p>\n

On the request for support on soybean, Dr Frederick Baijukya said there were breeding efforts by IITA to offer farmers soybean varieties that are in demand by processors and consumers.<\/p>\n

The high point of the meeting was the agreement in principle between both parties do a market analysis for cassava and soybean. The market analysis will among other things determine the demand and the preferred varieties by processors and end-users. Furthermore, IITA and Tanzania will work on ways to halt the spread of banana disease in the country. The issue of youth employment through agricultural businesses is very important and so this also will be followed-up with IITA for scaling the existing model of youth agripreneurship.<\/p>\n

Dr. Regina Kapinga, IITA Head of Advocacy & Resource Mobilization, commended the minister for the time given the team and promised that the Institute in collaboration with other partners would continue to collaborate with the government to address the priorities set in the national agricultural agenda.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tanzanian Minister of Agriculture, Honourable Hussein Mohamed Bashe wants the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) to support the East African region towards cassava, soybean and banana transformation for economic prosperity. In a meeting with researchers from IITA\u2014including those working under the Building and Economically Sustainable Integrated Cassava Seed System, phase 2, (BASICS-II), Honorable \u00a0Bashe …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":35849,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,17],"tags":[683,2033,9388],"coauthors":[2387],"class_list":["post-56340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-business","category-news","tag-agriculture","tag-iita","tag-tanzanian-president"],"yoast_head":"\nIITA, BASICS-II team Hold Crucial Meeting With Tanzanian Minister On Agricultural Transformation - National Wire<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Tanzanian Minister of Agriculture, Honourable Hussein Mohamed Bashe wants the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/nationalwire.com.ng\/sub\/iita-basics-ii-team-hold-crucial-meeting-with-tanzanian-minister-on-agricultural-transformation\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"IITA, BASICS-II team Hold Crucial Meeting With Tanzanian Minister On Agricultural Transformation - National Wire\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Tanzanian Minister of Agriculture, Honourable Hussein Mohamed Bashe wants the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/nationalwire.com.ng\/sub\/iita-basics-ii-team-hold-crucial-meeting-with-tanzanian-minister-on-agricultural-transformation\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"National Wire\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2022-02-24T01:18:58+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/nationalwire.com.ng\/sub\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/IITA-1.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1481\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"853\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Tayo Olanipekun\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nationalwire.com.ng\/sub\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/nationalwire.com.ng\/sub\/\",\"name\":\"National Wire\",\"description\":\"About Nigerians, Nigerian Business and Other Stories\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/nationalwire.com.ng\/sub\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nationalwire.com.ng\/sub\/iita-basics-ii-team-hold-crucial-meeting-with-tanzanian-minister-on-agricultural-transformation\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/nationalwire.com.ng\/sub\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/IITA-1.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/nationalwire.com.ng\/sub\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/IITA-1.png\",\"width\":1481,\"height\":853,\"caption\":\"IITA\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nationalwire.com.ng\/sub\/iita-basics-ii-team-hold-crucial-meeting-with-tanzanian-minister-on-agricultural-transformation\/#webpage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/nationalwire.com.ng\/sub\/iita-basics-ii-team-hold-crucial-meeting-with-tanzanian-minister-on-agricultural-transformation\/\",\"name\":\"IITA, BASICS-II team Hold Crucial Meeting With Tanzanian Minister On Agricultural Transformation - National Wire\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nationalwire.com.ng\/sub\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nationalwire.com.ng\/sub\/iita-basics-ii-team-hold-crucial-meeting-with-tanzanian-minister-on-agricultural-transformation\/#primaryimage\"},\"datePublished\":\"2022-02-24T01:18:58+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-02-24T01:18:58+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nationalwire.com.ng\/sub\/#\/schema\/person\/582979d5818ce23344612600787b0dc1\"},\"description\":\"Tanzanian Minister of Agriculture, Honourable Hussein Mohamed Bashe wants the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nationalwire.com.ng\/sub\/iita-basics-ii-team-hold-crucial-meeting-with-tanzanian-minister-on-agricultural-transformation\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/nationalwire.com.ng\/sub\/iita-basics-ii-team-hold-crucial-meeting-with-tanzanian-minister-on-agricultural-transformation\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nationalwire.com.ng\/sub\/iita-basics-ii-team-hold-crucial-meeting-with-tanzanian-minister-on-agricultural-transformation\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/nationalwire.com.ng\/sub\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"IITA, BASICS-II team Hold Crucial Meeting With Tanzanian Minister On Agricultural Transformation\"}]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nationalwire.com.ng\/sub\/#\/schema\/person\/582979d5818ce23344612600787b0dc1\",\"name\":\"Tayo Olanipekun\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/nationalwire.com.ng\/sub\/author\/tayo\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"IITA, BASICS-II team Hold Crucial Meeting With Tanzanian Minister On Agricultural Transformation - National Wire","description":"Tanzanian Minister of Agriculture, Honourable Hussein Mohamed Bashe wants the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/nationalwire.com.ng\/sub\/iita-basics-ii-team-hold-crucial-meeting-with-tanzanian-minister-on-agricultural-transformation\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"IITA, BASICS-II team Hold Crucial Meeting With Tanzanian Minister On Agricultural Transformation - National Wire","og_description":"Tanzanian Minister of Agriculture, Honourable Hussein Mohamed Bashe wants the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture","og_url":"https:\/\/nationalwire.com.ng\/sub\/iita-basics-ii-team-hold-crucial-meeting-with-tanzanian-minister-on-agricultural-transformation\/","og_site_name":"National Wire","article_published_time":"2022-02-24T01:18:58+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1481,"height":853,"url":"https:\/\/nationalwire.com.ng\/sub\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/IITA-1.png","type":"image\/png"}],"twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Tayo Olanipekun","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/nationalwire.com.ng\/sub\/#website","url":"https:\/\/nationalwire.com.ng\/sub\/","name":"National Wire","description":"About Nigerians, Nigerian Business and Other Stories","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/nationalwire.com.ng\/sub\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/nationalwire.com.ng\/sub\/iita-basics-ii-team-hold-crucial-meeting-with-tanzanian-minister-on-agricultural-transformation\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/nationalwire.com.ng\/sub\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/IITA-1.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/nationalwire.com.ng\/sub\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/IITA-1.png","width":1481,"height":853,"caption":"IITA"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/nationalwire.com.ng\/sub\/iita-basics-ii-team-hold-crucial-meeting-with-tanzanian-minister-on-agricultural-transformation\/#webpage","url":"https:\/\/nationalwire.com.ng\/sub\/iita-basics-ii-team-hold-crucial-meeting-with-tanzanian-minister-on-agricultural-transformation\/","name":"IITA, BASICS-II team Hold Crucial Meeting With Tanzanian Minister On Agricultural Transformation - National Wire","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/nationalwire.com.ng\/sub\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/nationalwire.com.ng\/sub\/iita-basics-ii-team-hold-crucial-meeting-with-tanzanian-minister-on-agricultural-transformation\/#primaryimage"},"datePublished":"2022-02-24T01:18:58+00:00","dateModified":"2022-02-24T01:18:58+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/nationalwire.com.ng\/sub\/#\/schema\/person\/582979d5818ce23344612600787b0dc1"},"description":"Tanzanian Minister of Agriculture, Honourable Hussein Mohamed Bashe wants the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/nationalwire.com.ng\/sub\/iita-basics-ii-team-hold-crucial-meeting-with-tanzanian-minister-on-agricultural-transformation\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/nationalwire.com.ng\/sub\/iita-basics-ii-team-hold-crucial-meeting-with-tanzanian-minister-on-agricultural-transformation\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/nationalwire.com.ng\/sub\/iita-basics-ii-team-hold-crucial-meeting-with-tanzanian-minister-on-agricultural-transformation\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/nationalwire.com.ng\/sub\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"IITA, BASICS-II team Hold Crucial Meeting With Tanzanian Minister On Agricultural Transformation"}]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/nationalwire.com.ng\/sub\/#\/schema\/person\/582979d5818ce23344612600787b0dc1","name":"Tayo Olanipekun","url":"https:\/\/nationalwire.com.ng\/sub\/author\/tayo\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nationalwire.com.ng\/sub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nationalwire.com.ng\/sub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nationalwire.com.ng\/sub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nationalwire.com.ng\/sub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nationalwire.com.ng\/sub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56340"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nationalwire.com.ng\/sub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56340\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56341,"href":"https:\/\/nationalwire.com.ng\/sub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56340\/revisions\/56341"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nationalwire.com.ng\/sub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nationalwire.com.ng\/sub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nationalwire.com.ng\/sub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nationalwire.com.ng\/sub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56340"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nationalwire.com.ng\/sub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=56340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}