Introduction

The Eastern part of DR Congo, in the Sud Kivu province, is one of the target areas of N2Africa. In DR Congo, N2Africa’s objectives 3 (rhizobiology studies) and 5 (capacity building) are led by Université Catholique de Bukavu (U.C.B.) through the faculty of agriculture, one of the project partners.

As Phase 1 of the N2Africa project comes to a close in October this year we have reviewed and agreed on work plans for the remaining period (and of course the finances). The planning of this year’s activities has been guided by what needs to be done to achieve our objectives for delivery and dissemination (D&D). On the other hand we will conduct an ‘early impact assessment’ to evaluate the success and draw lessons on how D&D of legume and BNF technologies can be improved in future.

In Part 1, published in the last Podcaster, we read how N2Africa established successful partnership with ADVANCE. This time, we report about this year’s training of ADVANCE’s Operational Communities in Tibali (Savelugu district) and Kpatribor (Karaga district), including in total 48 participants, of which 17% women.

 Background

A follow-up workshop was conducted at Makerere University on 4^th February 2013 to identify partners and to agree on start up activities for the N2Africa Project in Uganda.

In many regions where N2Africa works, farmers need to plant soyabean at the beginning of the growing season in order to have a mature crop by the time the rains cease. The humid tropics covering most of Sierra Leone and Liberia however are blessed with a rainy season of at least 7 months and a total annual rainfall often well over 2000 mm. Results from a planting date trial conducted in Sierra Leone in 2012 however indicated that the long growing season does not mean that farmers have a long window to plant soyabean.

The goal of MFAGRO is to bring new technology to its members and the farmers of Vihiga County, Western Kenya. We recognize the N2Africa Program and its partners CIAT, MEA Ltd. and Promasidor for assisting our group toward that end over the past year (2012) and we look forward to working with you during 2013. Much of MFAGRO’s effectiveness and growth we owe to our collaboration. Over the past year, we conducted five farmer field days with N2Africa that were attended by 573 farmers (51% women).

Outreach activities continue to test new soyabean varieties, input combinations and cropping arrangements that promote BNF. During the 2012 long rains in west Kenya (March to July), two new soyabean varieties from SeedCo were compared to SB 19 (the current industry standard). SB 19 was also evaluated with and without addition of zinc in an effort to further improve the Sympal fertilizer blend as well as in combination with two new cereal crops, dwarf white sorghum (SC Sila) and IR maize (WS303).