23 March 2012
No. 1511
(L to R) Dr Farid Waliyar (2nd from left) with Mr Oua Saidou, Niger’s Minister of Agriculture, Dr David Bergvinson of BMGF, Dr CLL Gowda and other participants of the TL II meeting held in Niamey.
Leveraging legumes to benefit the poor
TL II holds regional and national planning workshops in Niamey and Uganda Grain legumes contribute to the livelihoods, health and nutrition of more than 700 million poor people in the dryland tropics of sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. TL II aims to help smallholder farmers overcome productivity constraints such as drought, pest and disease problems, and nonavailability and lack of access to quality seed of improved legume varieties.
Regional planning workshop for WCA The second phase of the Tropical Legumes II (TL II) project kicked off with the conduct of the regional launching and planning workshop for West and Central Africa (WCA) held on 12-14 March at the Grand Hotel in Niamey, Niger. The three-year TL II project funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is part of a ten-year plan which seeks to improve the livelihoods of 60 million smallholder
farmers and their families in 15 countries in subSaharan Africa and South Asia. The meeting was attended by over 60 participants from CNRA; the national agricultural research system (IAR, INRAN, IER, INERA, CSRI-SARI, ISRA, and NCRI); Non-Governmental Organizations (CRS, EUCORD, PLAN MALI, GSRDI; seed companies (ALHERI, FASOKABA, and JIKUR SEED); BAGRI of Niger; CGIAR centers (IITA and CIAT); GCP, AGRA, to page 2 ...4