For further information contact: Peter Okoth

Last update: 10 July 2008

2007 Annual Report

See the latest progress report of the TSBF Institute: Integrated Soil Fertility Management in the Tropics, which presents project research highlights during 2007, as well as detailed descriptions of its major activities.

Download the executive summary (444 kb)

Download the report.

International Symposium

Innovations as Key to the Green Revolution in Africa: Exploring the Scientific Facts in Arusha, Tanzania
(17-21 September 2007)

This Symposium was organized by the African Network for Soil Biology and Fertility (AfNet) of Tropical Soil Biology and Fertility (TSBF) Institute of CIAT in collaboration with the Soil Fertility Consortium for Southern Africa (SOFECSA).

Download the Abstracts (2396 kb).

Download the Abstracts by sections:

Cover (187 kb)
Contents (271 kb)
Preface (174 kb)
Acknowledgements (271 kb)
Theme 1: Constraints and opportunities towards the African Green Revolution (536 kb)
Theme 2: Potential and feasibility of use of external input and improved soil and crop management to achieve the African Green Revolution (974 kb)
Theme 3: Factors that limit access to and adoption of innovations by poor farmers (571 kb)
Theme 4: Innovation approaches and their scaling up/out in Africa (798 kb)

More information

Contact: Andre Bationo (TSBF-CIAT)

Consortium for Improving Agriculture-based Livelihoods in Central Africa (CIALCA)

CGIAR, NARS, NGOs, and Private Sector Partners Join Forces in the Great Lakes Region

The CIALCA initiative emphasizes strong partnerships and capacity building through Center-led projects. The following three projects are currently funded by the Directorate-General for Development Cooperation (DGDC-Belgium) and led by IITA, TSBF-CIAT, and IPGRI-INIBAP:

• Sustainable and Profitable Banana-based Systems for the African Great Lakes Region (led by IITA).
• Enhancing the resilience of agro-ecosystems in Central Africa: A strategy to revitalize agriculture through the integration of natural resource management coupled to resilient germplasm and marketing approaches (led by TSBF-CIAT).
• Building Impact Pathways for Improving Livelihoods in Musa-based Systems in Central Africa (led by IPGRI-INIBAP).

More information

Visit the CIALCA Web site.

TSBF-CIAT contact: Bernard Vanlauwe

TSBF-CIAT Poster Wins First Prize at GFAR Conference

A poster on promotion of soybean in Africa has won first prize in the poster competition held at Global Forum for Agricultural Research (GFAR) conference in Delhi, India, in December 2006. The competition is open to agricultural research and development projects that have tangibly made an impact in achieving one or more millennium development goals.

The poster presents a model to address past failures in the promotion of soybean in Africa which involves intervention at household level, community level, and industrial level soybean market development.

Contact: Jonas Chianu

New AfNet Publications

Advances in Integrated Soil Fertility Management in
Sub-Saharan Africa: Challenges and Opportunities

Selected articles (19) presented at the AfNet Symposium, held in Yaoundé, Cameroon, in May 2004, are now available on-line as a special issue of the journal Nutrient Cycling in Agroecosystems.

The complete proceedings of the Symposium will be published soon. See the book announcement.

Contact: André Bationo

TSBF Partners in Consortium

More Crop per Drop, More Cropping per Dropping

This Program is about Optimizing the Interactions between Organic Resources, Soil Macrofauna Biodiversity and Soil Structure for Enhanced Water and Nitrogen Use Efficiency in West and East African Cropping Systems. The overall objective of the research program is to increase our understanding of the effects of agricultural management of maize—or sorghum based cropping systems on soil quality and nitrogen—and water use efficiency, emphasizing the role of soil macrofauna biodiversity across soil types and climates in East and West Africa.

The NWO-WOTRO funded Integrated Programme is carried out by a research consortium consisting of scientists from international research institutes and universities and national research institutes and ngo's in Burkina Faso and Kenya.

Visit the Program's Web site.

TSBF contact: Bernard Vanlauwe

Integrated Soil Fertility Management in the Tropics

TSBF-CIAT's Achievements and Reflections, 2002-2005

This document presents the achievements and reflections for the period 2002-2005 of the CIAT Tropical Soil Biology and Fertility Institute (TSBF-CIAT). As such, this document complements and updates the TSBF-CIAT Strategy Document “Integrated Soil Fertility Management in the Tropics: From Knowledge to Implementation”.

Download the document (768 kb).

Latest Issue of the TSBF Newsletter Now On-line

The Comminutor
Volume 10 No. 1 June 2006

Over the years TSBF, through the African Network for Soil Biology and Fertility (AfNet) and the Below Ground Biodiversity Program have successfully contributed to the capacity building of African scientists by organizing various courses in participatory research and scaling up, gender analysis modeling, carbon sequestration and below ground biodiversity. This issue of The Comminutor is dedicated to highlighting past key research issues of TSBF.

Download this issue (642 kb).

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