Ames, Iowa
February 22, 2008
Iowa State University’s Center for Sustainable Rural
Livelihoods has been awarded a $450,000 grant from the U.S.
Agency for International Development to enhance nutritional
value and marketability of common beans in Uganda and Rwanda.
“Testing whether yield improving technologies result in beans
with better nutritive value or processing characteristics is an
important under-researched issue in this region,” said Robert
Mazur, director of the Center for Sustainable Rural Livelihoods
and lead investigator of the project, which begins this year and
ends in 2010. “Activities will contribute to sustainable
livelihoods of small scale farmers and their families, providing
food security and income to the most vulnerable group, the women
and children.”
Results of the research are expected to significantly improve
yields and quality of beans varieties, enhance nutritional value
and marketability of beans and increase marketing and
consumption of beans and value-added bean products. Funding for
the project comes from the U.S. Agency for International
Development’s Dry Grain Pulses Collaborative Research Support
Program.
Since 2004, ongoing collaboration of the Center for Sustainable
Rural Livelihoods, Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda, and a
nongovernmental organization in Uganda have worked to improve
food security and market readiness among 800 farm households in
Uganda. “Our research approach is seen as a potential model for
other parts of sub-Saharan African where beans, or pulses, are
an integral part of traditional cropping systems,” said Mazur.
Mazur said the research will help meet the international
community’s Millennium Development Goals of reducing hunger and
poverty, since improved bean production, processing and
consumption in Uganda and Rwanda can help address deteriorating
food security there and elsewhere in sub-Saharan Africa.
Other researchers in the project include Iowa State faculty in
food science and human nutrition, agronomy and economics, and
scientists at Makerere University in Uganda, the National Crops
Resources Research Institute in Uganda, Volunteer Efforts for
Development Concerns in Uganda and Kigali Institute of Science
and Technology in Rwanda. |
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