Bio

Stephan is Deputy Director General for Research at Bioversity International. He is in his 4th year at Bioversity International, where he initially managed the Commodities for Livelihoods Programme, developing commodity-based innovation system approaches; promoting the emergence of a culture of innovation at the local level; encouraging the sharing of knowledge, information and technologies across stakeholders; and integrating the generation of income with sustainable natural resource management practices. He also worked for 16 years with the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) on a variety of programmes in West and Central Africa linked to enhancing productivity of smallholder farming systems, systems diversity and sustainability, and public-private partnership and innovation platforms. Stephen holds a PhD in agricultural sciences from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich.

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Graham Thiele, PhD, Director, CGIAR Research Program on Roots, Tubers, and Bananas (RTB). Graham is a social scientist and expert in targeting, priority setting, and impact and adoption studies of new agricultural technologies. He spent 17 years with the International Potato Center (CIP), most recently as the Leader for Social and Health Sciences. Graham has worked in Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru, Tanzania, Kenya, Benin, Rwanda, Indonesia, and the Philippines. He helped develop, implement, and assess several, novel participatory methodologies designed to link farmers with markets, inform research agendas, and promote innovation in policies, products, and technology uptake. Graham holds a PhD in Social Anthropology and an MSc in Agricultural Economics

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Bio

Robert Asiedu is a plant breeder, whose main research interest is on tropical root and tuber crops, especially yam and cassava. From the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) he joined the Root and Tuber Improvement Program of IITA in 1989. His initial research was on cassava and its wild relatives but he spent most of his time on yam research. He has held various leadership or management roles in IITA since 1991. He is Director, Research for Development (R4D), West Africa, and Program Director, Agrobiodiversity and Root and Tuber Systems Programs. In this interview, he talks about research on root and tuber systems, and on agrobiodiversity initiatives.

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Nicolas Roux, PhD, Senior Scientist, Genetic Resources and Genomics, Bioversity International. For the past 25 years, Nicolas has been involved in projects related to the conservation, safe exchange, characterization, evaluation, improvement, and distribution of vegetatively propagated crops, with an emphasis on banana and plantain. With experience in both the field and laboratory, he has applied expertise in transferring modern techniques to support conventional breeding programs. He has conducted training in this area and missions to Asia, Africa, and Latin America. In 2003, Nicolas joined Bioversity International as Global Musa Genomics Consortium (GMGC) Coordinator and soon after became the Project Coordinator for Genomics and Genetic Resources. The work of the GMGC was one of the major drivers behind the recently concluded sequencing of the Musa genome. Nicolas holds a PhD in Plant Biology from Palacky University in the Czech Republic.

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Augusto Becerra Lopez-Lavalle, PhD, Senior Scientist, CIAT. Augusto is a cassava molecular geneticist. He joined CIAT in 2009 after working in cotton molecular genetics at CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation), Division of Plant Industry, Canberra, Australia. He has a strong knowledge of statistical analysis, biometrics, quantitative genetics, molecular marker development, genetic mapping, marker validation, structural genomics and gene discovery. He holds a master’s degree in Science, majoring in Cytogenetics from Cayetano Heredia University, in Lima, Peru. During his MSc. Candidature Augusto joined the International Potato Center (CIP) where he undertook his MSc research work focusing on sweetpotato. He holds a PhD in Plant Molecular Genetics from the University of Sydney, Australia.

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Rachid Hanna is a research scientist and entomologist at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture. He was based for 11 years at IITA Benin station, Africa’s premier centre for biological control. Dr. Hanna recently relocated to IITA’s Humid Forest Ecoregional Centre in Yaoundé, Cameroon, to provide leadership for rebuilding the research program at that centre, while he continues to lead several projects based at IITA-Benin.

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Science Leader, Global Program on Integrated Crop and Systems Research at the International Potato Center (CIP), leads Theme 4 (High quality planting material) for the CGIAR Research Program on Roots, Tubers, and Bananas . Oscar is an agronomist with specialization and experience in agricultural extension, knowledge, information and innovation systems, participatory research, and impact assessment related to the management of integrated pests, diseases, and seed systems. He did his post doc with CIP between 1998 and 2000, and has worked since 2001 as an international staff member at CIP, first with the Social Sciences Department, and from 2004 to 2010 as leader of the Integrated Crop Management Division. Oscar has led and participated in projects in Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, Uganda, Ethiopia, Bangladesh, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Honduras, and China. He has developed participatory methods to assess crop management technologies with farmers, to evaluate impact of pest control technologies, and to improve potato innovation systems.

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Root & Tuber agronomist and Leader for Theme 5 (Developing tools for more productive, ecologically robust crops), CGIAR Research Program on Roots, Tubers, and Bananas (CRP-RTB). Stefan is a systems agronomist with a strong soil science and natural resource management background and an expert in plantain and maize agronomy. He worked in Nigeria for 5 years for a fertilizer company and has been with IITA in Nigeria, Cameroon, and DR Congo. Stefan helped establish IITA in DR Congo and run the research farm of IITA Cameroon for 12 years. His current portfolio focuses on cassava and yam agronomy with special attention to nutrient supply, fallow and soil management, and the role of soil organisms in soil fertility maintenance. Stefan does not believe in crop-based systems but in systems supporting crops.

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Ph.D., Researcher in Food Science & Food Engineering, CIRAD (French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development, Montpellier, France), currently out-posted to Fruits & Cassava Programs at CIAT, Cali, Colombia. Dominique is the Leader of Theme 6 (Promoting postharvest technologies, value chains, and market opportunities) of the CGIAR Research Program on Roots, Tubers, and Bananas (RTB). For over 25 years he has specialized in adding value to cassava, sweet potato, yam, cocoyam, taro, plantain, and minor RTB crops in Latin America, Africa, and Asia. He has studied how consumer preferences affect varietal adoption by farmers and how consumer or end user expectations inform the research process; for example, defining quality requirements for processed RTB products regarding shelf life, texture, nutritional/antinutritional values, and more. Dominique’s research also focuses on equipment for eco-friendly industrial processes using life cycle analysis methodology (especially water and energy use) to bring new products to market with minimum environmental costs. Dominique holds a PhD in Bio-industry, “Enzymatic Engineering, Bioconversion & Microbiology”, from the University of Technology of Compiègne, France.

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Leads the communication, knowledge management, and capacity strengthening component of Theme 7 (Enhancing Impact through Partnerships) of the CGIAR Research Program on Roots, Tubers, and Bananas. She is specialized in the evaluation of banana diversity and host-pathogen relationships. Inge is co-chair of the MusaNet thematic group on evaluation and is also coordinating the ProMusa network of the Bioversity Commodities program. This role has given her expertise in global networking, information and knowledge sharing, and the organization of international conferences and workshops. Inge graduated as Bio-Engineer from the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium in 1997 and obtained a PhD in nematology from the same university in 2002. She has been working for Bioversity since 1997, first as Associate Scientist in Vietnam and the Philippines, and since 2006 based in the Bioversity office in Montpellier, France.

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Clair is the leader of the cassava program at CIAT in Cali, Colombia. Between 1978 and 1991 he worked as a cassava breeder in CIAT. He then left to manage a family farm in Pennsylvania, USA. Between 2009 and 2010 he worked at the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in Rome for the Global Initiative for Plant Breeding (GIPB). Since 1996 he is also the editor of the Plant Breeding News, an electronic newsletter sponsored by Cornell University and FAO. Clair holds a PhD in Plant Breeding from Cornell University, New York.

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Peter is a cassava breeder/geneticist at IITA in Ibadan, Nigeria with responsibility for West and Central Africa. He also facilitates overall cassava activities within IITA. Peter joined IITA in 2009 after working from 1986 to 1994 at The Land Institute in Salina, Kansas, USA and between 1994 and 2008 at Kansas State University. He holds a PhD in Genetics and Plant Breeding from the University of California, Davis.

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Philippe is in charge of internal research management at CIP in Lima, Peru, in collaboration with the Deputy Director General for Research and Program Leaders. He joined CIP in January 2010, after 30 years working as a scientist and research manager. His main areas of scientific expertise are physiology, breeding, and management of genetic resources. Philippe worked as a professor in France and Senegal, and in 2000 he joined CIMMYT in Mexico to work as a physiologist in the Wheat and in the Maize Programs. He also worked for the CGIAR Generation Challenge Program, where he led research projects and was responsible for product management. Philippe holds a PhD in Crop Physiology and an MSc degree in Agricultural Sciences, both from the University of Montpellier, France.

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Dietmar is the leader of the Commodities Systems and Genetic Resources program at Bioversity in Montpellier, France. From 1994 to 1996 he worked as advisor within the framework of the World Bank funded Community Forestry Development Program in Nepal. Between 1996 and 2000 he coordinated a CIFOR-BMZ funded research project on socio-economic aspects of non-timber forest product use in the Bolivian Amazon. Between 2001 and 2012 he worked at the Tropical Agricultural Research and Education Centre (CATIE) in Turrialba, Costa Rica, where he established and led the Centre for the Competitiveness of Ecoenterprises (CeCoEco) and the Competitiveness and Value Chains program. He joined Bioversity in September 2012 to lead R4D initiatives on commodity crops, such as banana, cacao and coconut. Dietmar holds a PhD in forest economics from the University of Freiburg, Germany.