King of the crops, Simeon Ehui, IITA Director General, holding a cassava tuber, a key crop developed by the IITA. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS
By Busani Bafana
NAIROBI, Apr 9 2025 – Climate change is outpacing science and farmers are paying the price. Agricultural research innovations need to reach farmers before it is too late.
Partnership, collaborations, and the right dose of political will are the fuel to put innovations into the farmer’s hands, says Simeon Ehui, Director General of the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) and CGIAR Regional Director, Continental Africa. The IITA has delivered solutions to low crop yields, poor quality, and unhealthy diet to boost food security, nutrition, and livelihoods for smallholder farmers who keep the world fed.
“We have developed a number of technologies; unfortunately, many of these technologies are not always going to farmers, the final users,” said Ehui, adding that with political will, innovation can be rolled out faster and wider.
“Policy makers understand the importance of science but face competing needs and sometimes need to make decisions that will not always go in the interest of farmers. We need to continue lobbying them to convince them of the importance of science.”
Ehui told IPS that the IITA has tackled food insecurity, poverty, and environmental degradation through cutting-edge research on key crops like maize, banana, cowpea, soybean, cassava, and yam. With global hunger rising despite scientific advances, the question is, why are innovations not reaching farmers fast enough?
“While scientific breakthroughs are abundant, the real gap lies in delivery—getting these innovations into the hands of farmers at scale,” Ehui noted, citing that many countries still face weak extension systems, fragmented value chains, and limited private sector engagement.
IITA has bridged this gap through initiatives like the Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation (TAAT) program, in partnership with the African Development Bank. TAAT has helped move proven technologies across priority value chains from research to farmers via CGIAR centers, governments, private sector actors, and financial institutions.
“It’s not just about deploying technologies; it’s about building systems for scale—streamlining release processes, aligning with policy, and expanding access to inputs and markets, especially for women and youth,” said Ehui.
Ehui quipped he had three messages for policymakers. “You need science to develop your agricultural productivity. You need investments in rural infrastructure, and you also need partnerships. Without partnerships, nothing can be done.”
Seeds for food security. Seed varieties from the IITA Gene bank. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS
Revolutionary breakthroughs
The science research institute has put out more nutritious, climate-resistant crops, which have helped fight hunger and boost the livelihoods of smallholder farmers in Africa. It developed and released stress-resilient maize varieties that are both drought and Striga resistant and more nutritious. More than 170 maize varieties have been released between 2007 and 2024 in collaboration with IITA and national partners in Benin, Ghana, Mali, and Nigeria.
As a result of the research innovation, more than 480,000 metric tons of certified seed have been produced, which have been planted on an estimated 18 million hectares by 45 million households. Well over 500 million people have benefited from the improved maize crop.
Banana breeding programs have developed hybrids with enhanced resistance to the fungal diseases Fusarium wilt and Black Sigatoka, which can wipe out banana crops.
Ehui said IITA has also developed early-maturing, disease-resistant yam and cassava varieties, alongside digital tools like AKILIMO, which support farmers in optimizing agronomic practices and fertilizer use.
“We have also developed an economically sustainable seed system for root and tuber crops, powered by innovative rapid multiplication techniques,” he said, pointing out that the rapid stem multiplication approach has enabled the fast and efficient scaling of improved varieties to growers and the processing industry.
The science is progression; now it’s crucial farmers benefit, Ehui says.
“The IITA and CGIAR centers have to work with governments to ensure that technologies are taken up and we modernize the agriculture sector. This is the challenge we face because having research products in our labs does not help if they are never taken up by end users. The agricultural revolution is not in the lab but outside (in the real world). The lab is needed—the lab is not the end point.”
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?’http’:’https’;if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+’://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js’;fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, ‘script’, ‘twitter-wjs’);
