For further information
AWARD project website
Agropolis Fondation website
Bowen University website
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation website
IITA website
Research units
Integrated Approach to Food QualityAward and African scientists: "sowing the seeds of success"
24/06/2011 - Press release
Under the aegis of Agropolis Fondation, CIRAD will be receiving Dr Bolanle Otegbayo, Professor at Bowen University at Iwo (Nigeria). The renowned African scientist was one of the beneficiaries of the AWARD (African Women in Agricultural Research Development) project, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, under the CGIAR (Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research) Gender and Diversity Programme.
The aim of AWARD, founded in 2008, is to foster the career of African women researchers by encouraging them to work for agriculture in Africa and fight hunger and poverty.
180 English-speaking (and soon French-speaking) African women scientists have benefited from the programme, in the form of a grant. "38 women in 2011 found placements in research organizations all over the world, and for the first time in France, at CIRAD, this year
", Karen Homer, Head of AWARD Communications at CGIAR, explains.
It was in this context that Olivier Gibert, researcher with the QUALISUD (Integrated Food Quality System) Joint Research Unit welcomed Bolanle Otegbayo for several months in its "Stabilization and Processing Techniques" laboratories. He is full of praise for her: "She is one of the most renowned scientists in Africa, for her research on the functional properties of starches, and particularly on yam and its by-products
", he says. "Bolanle arrived in our laboratories with 16 varieties of yams from Nigeria whose food quality and possible industrial applications we are now studying
".
In effect, Ms Otegbayo collects cultivated yam varieties whose acceptability to consumers is variable. She is thus helping to expand and diversify the crop's use. While in terms of tonnage, Nigeria currently produces around 68% of the total world yam crop (500 million tonnes), its consumption and food uses are limited and not very varied, which means that demand is highly volatile and the profits for farmers are unpredictable.
In addition to the mutual gains for researchers from exchanges of know-how, the AWARD project serves to strengthen the network working to characterize the diversity of tropical starch resources.
A collaboration agreement between IITA (International Institute of Tropical Agriculture), Bowen University and CIRAD was recently formally signed.
- Category: Science