Bernard Vanlauwe

Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research | CGIAR · International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA)

Nutrient inputs play a critical role in raising crops and livestock for food security, human nutrition and other uses in the bioeconomy. Their production and management must change so as to nourish crops, reduce harmful environmental impacts caused by nutrient losses and contribute to the restoration of soil health more effectively. A new paradigm...

In sub-Saharan Africa, long-term maize cropping with low external inputs has been associated with the loss of soil fertility. While adding high-quality organic resources combined with mineral fertilizer has been proposed to counteract this fertility loss, the long-term effectiveness and interactions with site properties still require more understan...

Intensified human activities can augment soil organic carbon (SOC) losses from the world’s croplands, making SOC a highly dynamic parameter both in space and time. Sentinel-2 spectral imagery is well placed to capture the spatiotemporal variability of SOC, but its capability has only been demonstrated for agricultural regions mostly located in Euro...

Increasing global food insecurity amidst a growing population and diminishing production resources renders the currently dominant linear production model insufficient to combat such challenges. Hence, a circular bioeconomy (CBE) model that ensures more conservative use of resources has become essential. Specifically, a CBE model that focuses on rec...

Absence of site-specific nutrient recommendation and high spatial variability of soil fertility are major factors affecting maize response to applied nutrients in Nigeria. In this study, we assessed maize response to applied nutrients and nutrient use efficiency in different management zones, for designing site-specific nutrient management recommen...

Agricultural intensification and forest conservation are often seen as incompatible. Agricultural interventions can help boost food security for poor rural communities but in certain cases can exacerbate deforestation, known as the rebound effect. We tested whether coupling agricultural interventions with participatory forest zoning could improve f...

With many of the world’s poor engaged in agriculture, agricultural development programmes often aim to improve livelihoods through improved farming practices. Research on the impacts of agricultural technology interventions is dominated by comparisons of adopters and non-adopters. By contrast, in this literature study, we critically review how tech...

Plantain flour (PLF) and soy flour (SF) were used to substitute wheat flour (10% and 20% w/w) in composite bread. Physicochemical, phytochemical, and sensory properties were investigated. Partial substitution by PLF significantly increased (p < .05) starch, amylose, ascorbic acid, and potassium content in bread samples. In contrast, a significant i...

The coming 10–20 years will be most critical for making the transition to a global food system in which mineral nutrients in agriculture must be managed in a more holistic manner. Fertilizers play a particular role in that because they are among the key drivers for securing global food security and improving human nutrition through increased crop y...

Background Cowpea is a grain legume of major importance in sub-Saharan Africa where it is cultivated by smallholder farmers on poor soils and production is often constrained by the parasitic weed Striga gesnerioides . Method Experiments were conducted to assess the potential of rhizobium inoculation to mitigate Striga infection and increase cowpea...

Food security and livelihoods among smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa are often constrained by limited farm resource endowment. It can be difficult to improve resource endowment given barriers such as low land availability and the unaffordability of agricultural inputs, so here we ask whether farmers can gain a better return on their resour...

A number of studies across sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) have recently reported poor crop responses and low agronomic use efficiencies (AEs) of applied nitrogen (AEN), phosphorus (AEP) and potassium (AEK). However, the conditions under which non-responsiveness occurs, its underlying causes and its probability of occurrence on different soil types are no...

A number of studies across sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) have recently reported poor crop responses and low agronomic use efficiencies (AEs) of applied nitrogen (AEN), phosphorus (AEP) and potassium (AEK). However, the conditions under which non-responsiveness occurs, its underlying causes and its probability of occurrence on different soil types are no...

Globally, tropical forests are assumed to be an important source of atmospheric nitrous oxide (N 2 O) and sink for methane (CH 4). Yet, although the Congo Basin comprises the second largest tropical forest and is considered the most pristine large basin left on Earth, in situ N 2 O and CH 4 flux measurements are scarce. Here, we provide multi-year...

Smallholder farming in sub-Saharan Africa keeps many rural households trapped in a cycle of poor productivity and low incomes. Two options to reach a decent income include intensification of production and expansion of farm areas per household. In this study, we explore what is a “viable farm size,” i.e., the farm area that is required to attain a...

The effects of pressure (21.3, 41.3, 61.3, 81.3, and 101.3 kPa) and temperature (174–184 °C) applied during the post-frying centrifuge stage on the physico-chemical characteristics of atmospheric fried plantain chips were studied. Results showed that the surface temperature dropped very fast during the cooling process while the total oil content gr...

Poor and variable crop responses to fertilizer applications constitute a production risk and may pose a barrier to fertilizer adoption in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Attempts to measure response variability and quantify the prevalence of non-response empirically are complicated by the fact that data from on-farm fertilizer trials generally include di...

Leguminous plants are known to require phosphorus fertilizers and inoculation with nitrogen fixing rhizobia for optimum yield but other nutrients may also be lacking. In this study, the most limiting nutrients for legume growth were determined in soils where the crops had not responded to P and rhizobial inoculation in field trials, using the doubl...

Information on soil properties is crucial for soil preservation, the improvement of food security, and the provision of ecosystem services. In particular, for the African continent, spatially explicit information on soils and their ability to sustain these services is still scarce. To address data gaps, infrared spectroscopy has achieved great succ...

Soil quality is indicated by the interaction of physical, chemical and biological soil properties. The importance of physical properties, for example soil structure, lies in the fact that they enhance chemical and biological soil functions. Consequently, periodic assessment of structural quality is an important aspect of soil quality management. Qu...

Plantain is a key staple food in Central and West Africa, but there is limited understanding of its market in Africa. In addition, the cooking methods for enhancing the nutritional value, consumer preference, and willingness to pay for plantain and plantain-based products are not well under-stood. The knowledge gaps in the market and consumer dimen...

Low nutrient use efficiency in maize as a result of imbalanced nutrition has been reported to drastically reduce yield. We implemented a nutrient omission experiment to assess the effect of nutrient application on maize yield and nutritional balance. Maize ear leaves were analyzed for nutrients, to identify nutrient balance status using the Diagnos...

Meeting future global staple crop demand requires continual productivity improvement. Many performance indicators have been proposed to track and measure the increase in productivity while minimizing environmental degradation. However, their use has lagged behind theory, and has not been uniform across crops in different geographies. The consequenc...

The effect of cultivar, ripening stage, and pre-treatment method were investigated on the nutritional, physicochemical, and pasting properties of plantain flours from two plantains and two plantain hybrids. There were significant variations (p < 0.05) in chemical composition and physical properties influenced by the interaction of cultivars, ripeni...

The African Tropics are hotspots of modern-day land use change and are, at the same time, of great relevance for the cycling of carbon (C) and nutrients between plants, soils, and the atmosphere. However, the consequences of land conversion on biogeochemical cycles are still largely unknown as they are not studied in a landscape context that define...

CGIAR Excellence in Agronomy Initiative (EiA) has utilized Scaling Readiness to inform the design of its agronomy innovation portfolio. Specifically, it profiled and analyzed the core innovations of each of 10 use cases, which will co-develop demand-responsive innovations in Cambodia, Colombia, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, India, Mexico, Nigeria, Peru a...

The present study investigated the effect of ripening stages and chemical precursors on acrylamide formation in deep‐fried chips of five plantains and one cooking banana. The highest level of acrylamide was found in the cooking banana, followed by False Horn plantain and French plantain, respectively. French plantain hybrids exhibited a significant...

A vast majority of terrestrial plants are dependent on arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) for their nutrient acquisition. AMF act as an extension of the root system helping phosphate uptake. In agriculture, harnessing the symbiosis can potentially increase plant growth. Application of the AMF Rhizophagus irregularis has been demonstrated to increas...

For the past 15 years, IITA and the Alliance of Bioversity and CIAT have worked closely together with (inter)national universities, NARS and other public and private innovation and scaling partners under the Consortium for Improving Agriculture-based Livelihoods in Central Africa (CIALCA - https://www.cialca.org/). CIALCA aims to accelerate the imp...

Aim Recycling of cocoa pod husks has potential to contribute to mineral nutrition of cocoa. Yet little is known of the nutrient content and nutrient release patterns from the husks. The potassium (K) rich husks are usually left in heaps in cocoa plantations in Africa. We aimed to understand and quantify release patterns of K and other nutrients fro...

Conservation Agriculture (CA) and Integrated Soil Fertility Management (ISFM) have been promoted in Sub Saharan Africa as a means to improve soil quality. A four season research (March, 2017 to March, 2019) was conducted to evaluate CA-based treatment, no tillage with residue retention (NTR), ISFM-based treatment, conventional tillage with use of m...

Land degradation threatens food production especially in smallholder farming systems predominant in sub-Saharan Africa. Monitoring the effects of agricultural land uses is critical to guide sustainable intensification (SI). There are various indicators of sustainable land use (SLU), but conventional methods to quantify their metrics are complex and...

Ending hunger, and ensuring sustainable production and consumption patterns globally, as set out in the United Nations 2030 agenda of sustainable development goals (SDGs), can hardly be achieved under the current linear model of resource use, that has been proved nonrestorative and unstainable. An alternative and more sustainable model of resource...

The African Tropics are hotspots of modern-day land-use change and are, at the same time, of great relevance for the cycling of carbon (C) and nutrients between plants, soils and the atmosphere. However, the consequences of land conversion on biogeochemical cycles are still largely unknown as they are not studied in a landscape context that defines...

Legumes form part of an ecological-based solution to intensification in areas with limited access to external inputs. Despite a number of decades of intervention, uptake of legumes has been slow within smallholder farming systems in sub-Saharan Africa. We explore the drivers behind the adoption of legumes by developing an indicator of household leg...

Composts and biochar improve soil fertility and also suppress fungal soil-borne diseases through their ability to promote beneficial microbial communities. The study sought to determine the mechanisms through which biochar and vermicompost suppress root rot pathogens. Extracts of biochar and vermicompost were used for spore germination, mycelial gr...

Cowpea is a grain legume of major importance in sub-Saharan Africa where it is cultivated by smallholder farmers on poor soils and production is often constrained by the parasitic weed Striga gesnerioides . Experiments were conducted to assess the potential of rhizobium inoculation in mitigating Striga infestation and increasing cowpea productivity...

The use of options for sustainable intensification of smallholder farming in sub-Saharan Africa is often limited by knowledge and resource constraints. To address both constraints, we developed and tested an integrated co-learning approach to improve farm level productivity. The approach was tested by differentiating a group of co-learning farmers...

Achieving the United Nation's 2030 agenda which aims, among other goals, to ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns, requires a sustainable resource use model deployed at scale across global food systems. A circular bioeconomy (CBE) model of resource use has been proposed as an alternative to the current wasteful linear model charact...

Site‐specific soil fertility management requires a fundamental understanding of factors that modulate soil fertility variability in the local context. To verify this assumption, this study hypothesized that soil fertility variability across two regions in Central and Western Ethiopia is determined by inter‐related effects of agro‐ecological zones a...

Intercropping has strong potential to contribute to sustainable intensification, and incorporating under-utilised 'orphan' crops as intercrops could contribute to both intensification and diversification in smallholder cropping systems. However, questions remain around whether orphan crops can be as productive as more widespread crop species. Here,...

Information on soil properties is crucial for soil preservation, improving food security, and the provision of ecosystem services. Especially, for the African continent, spatially explicit information on soils and their ability to sustain these services is still scarce. To address data gaps, infrared spectroscopy has gained great success as a cost-...

Use of mineral fertilizers is essential to enhance crop productivity in smallholder farming systems of Sub-Saharan Africa, but various studies have reported 'non-responsiveness' where application of inorganic fertilizers does not lead to satisfactory yield gains. This phenomenon is not well defined nor are its extent and causes well understood. In...

Common bean production is constrained by root rot complexes resulting to as much as 70% losses in Kenya. This study sought to establish the effect of soil amendments biochar and vermicompost on root rot fungal pathogens of commonbean in Western Kenya. Application of biochar, vermicompost and fertilizer were done in farmer fields in four agro ecolog...

Increasing global food insecurity amidst a growing population and diminishing production resources, renders the currently prevailing linear production model insufficient to combat such challenges. Hence, a circular bioeconomy (CBE) model that ensures more conservative use of resources has become essential. Specifically, a CBE model that focuses on...

This study verified the inter‐related effect of ‘market distance’, defined as walking time, ‘farm typology’, defined as resource endowment, and ‘site’, defined as geographic location with contrasting agro‐ecologies, as well as farmers’ indigenous knowledge on soil fertility variability in smallholder farming systems in two distinct regions (Bushumb...

Root rot of common beans has continued to increase in importance and in some instances leads to 100% yield loss especially in intensified monocultures. Their broad host range and survival on crop residue as well as in the soil asunder different survival structures posses' a challenge in their management Soil amendments with have been known to influ...

The rapid assessment of maize yields in a smallholder farming system is important for understanding its spatial and temporal variability and for timely agronomic decision-support. We assessed the predictability of maize grain yield using unmanned aerial/air vehicle (UAV)-derived vegetation indices (VI) with (out) biophysical variables on smallholde...

Water scarcity negatively impacts global crop yields and climate change is expected to greatly increase the severity of future droughts. The use of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) can potentially mitigate the effects of water stress in plants. Cassava is a crop that feeds approximately 800 million people daily. Genetically different isolates of...

Following discussions at the 6th International Nitrogen Conference, Kampala (24th–27th November 2013), the delegates agreed the Kampala Statement-for-Action on Reactive Nitrogen in Africa and Globally. The Statement-for-Action highlights the global challenge of aiming for just enough nitrogen: enough to meet human needs for food, fuel and fibre, wh...

Climbing beans play a central role in food security of rural households in the densely populated highlands of East and Central Africa. Soil fertility degradation and the lack of nutrient inputs are major limitations to yield of beans and other crops. We conducted field trials in Northern Rwanda in Kinoni and Muko villages to evaluate the effect of...

Rapid assessment of maize yields in smallholder farming system is important to understand its spatial and temporal variability and for timely agronomic decision-support. Imageries acquired with unmanned air vehicles (UAV) offer opportunity to assess agronomic variables at field scale, however, it is not clear if this can be translated into reliable...

Establishing balanced nutrient requirements for maize (Zea mays L.) in the Northern Nigerian Savanna is paramount to develop site-specific fertilizer recommendations to increase maize yield, profits of farmers and avoid negative environmental impacts of fertilizer use. The model QUEFTS (QUantitative Evaluation of Fertility of Tropical Soils) was us...

This study was undertaken to investigate the use of mineral fertilizer by smallholder farmers in order to understand the set of factors influencing the decisions of smallholder farmers to use fertilizers in land-scarce conditions. Using descriptive analysis and the Cragg’s double-hurdle model, the study identified and analyzed factors that determin...

Low productivity and climate change require climate-smart agriculture (CSA) for sub-Saha-ran Africa (SSA), through (i) sustainably increasing crop productivity, (ii) enhancing the resilience of agricultural systems, and (iii) offsetting greenhouse gas emissions. We conducted a meta-analysis on experimental data to evaluate the contributions of comb...