The Cassava Diagnostics Project (CDP) annual meeting was held from 10-12th October 2016. Team members from the seven CDP countries and members of partner projects attended the event in Lusaka, Zambia.

The annual meeting proved to be an excellent opportunity for team members and partners to present updates on their work to date. Project team

members from Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia attended the meeting, along with partners travelling from Australia, the UK and the USA.

AgShare.Today works with CDP students to publish their work

The week before the annual meeting, the AgShare.Today team delivered a week-long scientific writing course to CDP Master’s and PhD students, with a focus on journal article writing.

A pre-requisite of attending the course was that participants had written at least one almost-complete journal article. This  meant that the AgShare.Today team delivering the course were able to offer one-to-one support to participants to help them improve their articles. The team has since provided further support remotely to the course participants.

AgShare.Today runs a project management tools workshop

Following the CDP annual meeting, the AgShare.Today team ran a workshop to demonstrate CDP’s new project management tool to country team leaders. Together, they used the tool to define activities and allocate them to the right members of the team. In turn, the nominated team members provided a status update for each of the activities.

The exercise provided good insight into what CDP has achieved so far and the team will continue to use the tool to update their progress on a regular basis.

The post Sharing knowledge at the Cassava Diagnostics Project Annual Meeting 2016 first appeared on AgShare.Today.

On 5^th October 2016, the Cassava Diagnostics Project (CDP) unveiled a new laboratory and greenhouse facility at the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology. Scientists and researchers will use the new facilities to carry out vital diagnostic research viruses badly affecting cassava crops across Sub-Saharan Africa. The two most prolific of these are Cassava Mosaic Virus and Cassava Brown Steak Virus.

Speaking to a member of the Agshare.Today team at the CDP Annual Meeting, Kenya Team Leader for CDP Professor Elijah Ateka expressed the importance of the new facilities: “We are very privileged to have this facility because we now have a dedicated lab for plant virus diagnostics and we hope we will be able to support other researchers, students and farmers through indexing and production of disease-free planting materials.”

The laboratory was opened on 5^th October 2016 by Dr Moses Rugut, Director General of the National Commission for Science, Technology and Innovation (NACOSTI), Kenya.

The post New diagnostics laboratory unveiled at Jomo Kenyatta University in Kenya first appeared on AgShare.Today.

Dr Ndunguru explains the importance of training local farmers in diagnosing diseases affecting cassava. The scientists benefit from the farmers’ improved knowledge as they can then gather information on disease-resistant crops and the location of specific strains of the viruses, which increases the prospect for quick and accurate diagnosis.

By improving the knowledge base on cassava diseases in the region, scientists have been able to provide disease-resistant planting material. With this material, farmers have been able to increase their yield from less than five tons per hectare to forty to forty five tons per hectare. Dr Ndunguru uses this as just one example of how scientists can improve the standard of living for countless people and urges other scientists to question how they can link upstream science to smallholder farmers.

To find out more about the Cassava Diagnostic Project, click here.

The post Bridging the Divide – Joseph Ndunguru talks to AgShare.Today about the importance of linking upstream science to smallholder farmers. first appeared on AgShare.Today.