Kenya: Bill & Melinda Gates offers US$28 million grant to support a cassava research project aimed at boosting the crop’s productivity

By Zablon Oyugi The Bill & Melinda Gates Agricultural Innovations (Gates Ag One) has offered US$28 million (€25.8 million) grant to Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU) to spearhead a cassava research project. The grant will support the Cassava Source-Sink (CASS) project over the next 5 years to improve the productivity of one of the most important food crops in sub-Saharan Africa. The project unites researchers from 11 institutions around the world to optimize cassava physiology to significantly increase the yield of high-quality cassava storage roots under low-input farming conditions in smallholder farmer fields. The relationship between photosynthesis in the leaves and the storage of carbohydrates in the roots and other organs is known as “source-sink”. Cassava provides a staple form of carbohydrates, calcium and vitamins for 800 million people worldwide. However, cassava yields have remained stagnant in sub-Saharan Africa since the 1960s. “As a hardy root ...