Cassava research approach
The Cassava Program of the Alliance is a multidisciplinary team of research and development scientist drawing on expertise from six research areas. The integrated team works across multiple scales addressing emerging challenges and capitalizing on new opportunities across the cassava value chains.
The program has dedicated in-country staff and a network of partners to ensure the grounded and co-design of improved genetic products, production and marketing systems, and tools to meet the demands of today and the challenges of tomorrow. The program achieves impact at scale through a range of research and development partnerships with governments, development organizations, and industry.
Development challenges and opportunities in this research are:
- Enhancing productivity and competitiveness of smallholder cassava production through new markets.
- Enhancing nutrition and food security through biofortication and addressing disease. 100 million people in Sub Saharan Africa (SSA) suffered from Vitamin A deficiency. The Alliance in Colombia delivers biofortified germplasm to IITA and African cassava programs.
- Protecting livelihoods by addressing emerging pest and disease pre-emptive breeding, and management.
- Developing sustainable cassava production systems and landscapes resilient to climate change.