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JRBF Cam Workshop 2
JR Biotech Foundation/Carol Ibe
Nigeria-raised crop scientists are collaborating with hundreds of researchers and thousands of farmers to improve crop productivity and food security in Africa.
There are an estimated 33 million small farms in sub-Saharan Africa, accounting for 80% of all farms in the region and up to 90% of food production in some countries.
Dr. Carol Nkechi-Ibe, a crop scientist and founder of the JR Biotek Foundation, has worked in more than 19 African countries to build capacity in plant molecular biology, biotechnology, genomics, and bioinformatics. He explains that he has spearheaded a training program for a hundred crop scientists.
“Despite their profound importance to the lives and livelihoods of millions of people, especially smallholder farmers and farming communities, many of Africa's crops are understudied, undervalued and, as a result, , crop productivity has decreased significantly,” she said, adding that the foundation had also developed. The Agricultural Innovation and Impact Project aims to map and address the loss of Africa's historically undervalued crops amid the climate crisis.
“We are bringing together 100 African scientists, over 3,000 smallholder farmers, and institutions across multiple African countries to reduce the negative impacts of climate change on local food crop production systems at the smallholder level. We designed this project to co-create practical solutions that aim to:
Ibe explains that the team chose crop agricultural science because of the urgent need to use the latest scientific approaches to improve crop productivity and food security.
“During my PhD, I decided to conduct research on rice. More specifically, how rice roots support beneficial/commensal fungi (which help uptake soil nutrients) and harmful fungi ( “We decided to study whether they interact with each other to cause devastating rice diseases,” she says.
Mr. Ibe also participated in the 2024 Underground Network Protection Association expedition to Ghana. The expedition included a workshop with 12 early career scientists from West Africa to learn new sequencing techniques for soil fungi.
Carol’s mother lives on a small farm in Nigeria.
JR Biotech Foundation/Carol Ibe
growing up in nigeria
Ibe was born in the United States but grew up in Nigeria, which she says shaped her life purpose and career vision.
“I wanted to be a teacher because I loved teaching math and biology, but as I got older I became very interested in becoming a doctor or working in a microbiology diagnostic laboratory. ” she says, adding that after receiving her college degree, “ After studying microbiology in Nigeria, he earned a master’s degree in molecular biology from Georgetown University in the United States.
“That’s when I realized that my bachelor’s degree wasn’t preparing me for the next step in my scientific career. My colleagues were hundreds of steps ahead of me, and I had no knowledge of the basics of modern biological science. I had a really hard time catching up,” she says. I couldn’t get over this. All I was thinking about was what we could do to bridge the huge gap and help Africa’s next generation of scientists apply modern scientific skills to solve pressing challenges. did. ”
After several years of research and further education at Oxford, she founded the JR Biotek Foundation, a charity dedicated to promoting bioscience education, research and innovation for sustainable development in Africa.
Ibe also plans to earn a master’s degree from the University of Oxford in the UK and a PhD in plant science from the University of Cambridge in the UK, and from her experience, early to mid-career scientists in the Global South are highly He says he is ambitious. and is interested in using modern scientific approaches to solve regional and global challenges affecting life and systems.
“It’s easier to understand lived experience than what you hear or learn from the media or other means,” she says. “When a person experiences difficult situations and problems, such as hunger or intergenerational poverty, it forms part of that person’s humanity. In life it is powerful.”
Ibe said many researchers are already conducting research, but lack sufficient resources (funding, infrastructure, access to technology, equipment, know-how) to accelerate positive research results. explain.
“We support African scientists to drive breakthrough innovation and solve the most pressing food security and related challenges affecting millions of people on the continent. “I’m very passionate and serious about this,” she says.
Rice farmers remove weeds from a rice field on the outskirts of Kano city in northern Nigeria on July 4, 2017. / … (+) AFP PHOTO / AMINU ABUBAKAR (Photo credit: AMINU ABUBAKAR/AFP via Getty Images)
AFP (via Getty Images)
Fungi of Senegal
Another African researcher passionate about fungi is Astride Carol Jouani, a lecturer and researcher at the University of Yaounde in Cameroon.
Dejueni participated in the 2024 Underground Network Protection Association trip to Ghana. The trip included a workshop with 12 early career West African scientists to learn new fungal sequencing techniques.
Researchers in Cameroon are studying how fungi can be used as fertilizer to help farmers improve plant production.
Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) supply water, phosphate, and nitrogen to their host plants and in return receive up to 20% of the carbon fixed in the plant. This is a beneficial symbiosis.
Astrid Carol Jouani, a lecturer and researcher at the University of Yaounde in Cameroon, says it is important to study AMF around plant roots because it can be used as fertilizer to improve plant yields. .
“Today, the damage caused by the use of chemicals in agriculture is very evident. So, hopefully, the strains isolated and propagated after laboratory screening tests will act as fertilizer factories to provide to farmers. ” she says, adding that the idea is to add biochar or compost to these AMF to fertilize the plants.
“We are fortunate that Cameroon has five agro-ecological zones, so this is a very extensive study in terms of understanding and determining subsoil mycorrhizal strains. “I see it as an opportunity,” she says. “My biggest challenge is to explore underground in my country to understand different ecosystems and uncover the diversity of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi.”
