Cassava cultivation, though labor intensive and often subsistence oriented, provides smallholders and landless farmers as well as processors and traders across the tropics with a vital entry point for creating employment and income. Outperforming other crops in poor soils and under unpredictable rainfall, cassava is also crucial for enhancing the resilience of crop production systems in the face of climate change. However, cassava will become more susceptible to pests and diseases, as climate change likely increases their range of mobility. Moreover, production costs and postharvest losses remain high; technology uptake is limited; and producers’ market links are weak, even though cassava serves as a feedstock for numerous industrial uses, including food, feed, and starch.
The newly formed Alliance of Bioversity International and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) recognizes the vital contribution that cassava makes to poverty reduction, and this is reflected in the objectives and outcomes of the Cassava Sub-Lever’s recently developed strategy. In addition, we have prepared a multidisciplinary workplan across our six strategic Research and Service Areas (RSAs). Listed below, the RSAs help integrate work on cassava with the Alliance’s strategy and lever structure, and also provide us with an overarching framework for prioritizing investments and delivering impacts in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC )and Southeast Asia (SEA), while supporting the work of the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) in sub-Saharan Africa:
- RSA-1: Enhancement of Genetic Resources – Improved varieties (breeding and prebreeding)
- RSA-2: Agronomy and Soil Management – Optimized fertility solutions
- RSA-3: Crop Protection – Enhanced plant health and insect control (including monitoring techniques)
- RSA-4: Seed Systems and Harvesting – Increased access to clean seed material
- RSA-5: Post-harvest and Enhanced Nutrition – Better nutrition and income
- RSA-6: Value Chain, Markets and Policy – Unlocking new market growth (in conjunction with all RSAs)
In addition, the RSA structure better enables the Cassava Sub-Lever to meet the demands of our main stakeholders: the CGIAR Research Program on Roots, Tubers and Bananas (CRP-RTB), USAID, B&MGF, HarvestPlus, ACIAR and OneCGIAR Genetic Innovation as well as various public sector organizations (eg EMBRAPA, INIA and Agrosavia) and private companies (such as Ingredion and TTDI). Their primary needs are for better cassava varieties, access to clean planting materials, monitoring and surveillance of pests and diseases, improved farming and postharvest practices, and the development of sustainable cassava value chains to unlock new cassava market growth.
The following table demonstrates clearly and succinctly how the Cassava Sub-Lever’s objectives, outcomes and RSAs are related, and maps these to individual Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with the aim of helping donors see how our work on cassava meets their expectations.
| Objectives | Longer term objectives – building the future and foundational outcomes – core business | RSAs mapped | SDGs mapped |
|---|---|---|---|
| Enhance local resilience and address climate change challenges faced by smallholders growing cassava (longer term). | Diversify cassava for specific landscape uses. | RSA1, RSA2, RSA5 and RS6 | 1. End poverty in all its forms everywhere. 2. Achieve zero hunger. 5. Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls. 9. Build resilient infrastructure, promote sustainable industrialization and foster innovation. 10. Reduce inequality within and among countries. 12. Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns. 13. Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts. 15. Improve life on land. |
| Restore degraded agricultural lands and improve soil health. | RSA1, RSA2, RSA5 and RS6 | 1. End poverty in all its forms everywhere. 15. Improve life on land. |
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| Boost productivity and create opportunities for smallholders to grow cassava as part of their farming system (longer term). | Maintain yield potential in changing farming systems, with minimal yield gaps. | RSA1, RSA2, RSA5 and RS6 | 1. End poverty in all its forms everywhere. 2. Achieve zero hunger. |
| Promote more sustainable resource use. | RSA1, RSA2, RSA4, RSA5 and RS6 | 2. Achieve zero hunger. 5. Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls. 10. Reduce inequality within and among countries. 12. Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns. 13. Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts. 15. Improve life on land. |
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| A.Enhance local resilience and address climate change challenges faced by smallholders growing cassava. B. Boost productivity and create opportunities for smallholders to grow cassava as part of their farming system (foundational). | Deliver smarter, more affordable solutions across the breeding and value chain. | RSA1, RSA2, RSA3, RSA4 and RSA5 | 1. End poverty in all its forms everywhere 2. Achieve zero hunger 5. Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls. 9. Build resilient infrastructure, promote sustainable industrialization and foster innovation. 10. Reduce inequality within and among countries. 12. Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns. 13. Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts. 15. Improve life on land |
| Achieve more effective pest and disease management. | RSA1, RSA2, RSA3, RSA4 and RSA6 | 1. End poverty in all its forms everywhere. 2. Zero Hunger |
Target research and interventions to beneficiaries and technology adoption pathways. | RSA1, RSA2, RSA3, RSA4, RSA5 and RSA6 | Strategic targeting of interventions to increase research impacts for target beneficiaries and make research delivery more efficient |
Guided by this strategic framework, the Cassava Sub-Lever relies on multiple strengths to fulfill its mission of improving the livelihoods of smallholder farmers through genetic solutions to global problems that are fit for purpose within agricultural-economic-social-ecological systems. In operational terms, the RSAs create logical groupings of work around key themes and areas of expertise. In the sections that follow, we report on some of the noteworthy results that the Cassava Sub-Lever achieved in 2020 through its six RSAs.