Isaac is an agronomist with more than 10 years of experience in rural development, food security and agricultural projects. Isaac has worked for the Department of Agriculture Technical Research and Extension in the Ministry of Agriculture in Zimbabwe. He has also worked for the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), USAID – FEWS NET, and the Zimbabwe Red Cross Society.

In anticipation of the imminent arrival of the rainy season in northern Ghana any time from the month of May, the annual N2Africa planning meeting was held to develop implementation work plan for the forth-coming season. The meeting was held in Tamale, the capital of the Northern Region, on 28-29 March 2011. A major issue of discussion during the meeting was how to effectively link farmers to market.

The N2Africa 2011 planning meeting was held in Kano, Nigeria, on 23-24 March 2011. The meeting was attended by about 50 participants, made up of staff from N2Africa and partners from international organisations, governmental and non-governmental organisations, research institutes, universities and the private sector. Participants reviewed the activities of the previous year, drawing lessons from challenges, successes and failures and developed an implementation work plan for the 2011 season. 

The Soya team from TechnoServe sent us their newsletter in Portugese.

Boletim Informativo SOJA-nr.2, Boletim Soja Suplemento nr.2

We are currently collating results from the first year’s research and demonstration trials across the eight countries. Here is a preview of results from Ghana and Nigeria where strong responses to inoculation with soyabean were found in farmers’ fields. In Ghana where the rainy season ended very late many of the soyabean crops yielded more than 3 t/ha, whereas in Nigeria the top yields were around 2 t/ha. Strong responses to inoculation were observed in many cases.

A writeshop was held in March as part of the collaboration between SIMLESA (Sustainable Intensification of Maize-Legume Cropping Systems For Food Security In Eastern And Southern Africa), the ACIAR funded project and N2Africa. An international team of nitrogen fixation experts met to write a state-of-the-art manual on Rottnest Island, off Fremantle, West Australia.

The N2Africa baseline survey targeting 1200 households in Kenya, Rwanda and DR Congo has been completed and analysed. A comprehensive report on the results will soon be published on the N2Africa website. Here are already some results.

One of the important objectives of N2Africa is to work with partners in all of our eight countries to ensure that we understand the status of value chains of our four major crops soybean, cowpea, groundnut and common bean. This knowledge will be used to help plan, for example where market linkages need to be improved or where agro dealers need to be encouraged to stock specific inputs and receive training on their storage and use. The person leading this study is Joseph Rusike, on the photo. Joseph will be visiting all eight countries.