Tropical Legumes III annual meet focuses on firming up country work plans

On the dais (L-R) Dr Robin Buruchara, Regional Director for Africa, CIAT; Dr Bergvinson; Dr Ehlers; Dr Rajeev Varshney, Research Program Director Genetic Gains, ICRISAT and David Chikoye, Director R4D and Country Representative Zambia, IITA. Photo: ICRISAT

At the first annual meet of the Tropical Legumes III (TL III) the various partners presented revised country work plans along the three broad areas of: gender, breeding and seed systems, and monitoring, learning and evaluation.

Dr Jeff Ehlers, Senior Program Officer, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, stressed, “We need to understand the current status, identify gaps and move forward more collectively in order to achieve TL III objectives.”

“Focus on farmers, building capacities and honor the urgency should be the three main focus areas,” said Dr David Bergvinson, Director General, ICRISAT in his address to the participants. He also highlighted the need to leverage the potential of ICTs to connect farmers with markets and empower them with more informed and profitable farming practices.

Elaborate presentations were made by the country focal points, subject experts, objective leaders from ICRISAT and partner institutes: International Centre for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) and International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), and key representatives from national agricultural research systems partners from South Asia and Africa. The sessions during the two-day meeting were on: country work plans; monitoring, learning and evaluation; data management; integration of ICTs; TL III Global Measurement Framework; and seed production and adoption roadmaps.

TL III, being implemented across seven African countries and one country in Asia, is the third phase of a 10-year vision for enhancing productivity of legumes in the drought-prone areas of sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia through increasing availability and adoption of improved varieties and associated production packages.

The meeting was attended by around 50 participants from partner institutes and Dr Ehlers in his concluding remarks urged the participants to take this project as an opportunity to strengthen their skills and build their capacities so they are self-sufficient and sustainable to address the challenges and issues in legume crops in their region and build a better and food secure future.