The IITA Business Incubation Platform (BIP) has consistently been making giant strides since inception by commercilaizing, and scaling IITA’s innovations for farmers to have acesss to. IITA BIP is the medium set up by IITA to commercialize and scale up innovations coming from IITA and other CGIAR institutes in Africa and it’s 100% owned by IITA. These innovations are taken beyond their validation in laboratories and trial fields by incubating the innovations. IITA BIP scales them to the level where they can be evaluated for their feasibility as a sustainable product, service, or a new variety for specific market segment.

The IITA Business Incubation platform announced the appointment of her advisory board members led by Mrs. Nkiru Opareke, CEO/COO of Enviro Gro Farms to provide leadership and overall guidance. The other members of the board includes Dr. Kenton Dashiell (Deputy Director-General for Partnerships for Delivery at IITA) Mrs. Hilde Koper-Limbourg (DDG Corporate Services at IITA), Dr. Victoria Salin (Professor, Department of Agricultural Economics at Texas A&M University), Frederick Schreurs (CEO IITA BIP), Ms. Yemisi Iranloye (MD/CEO, Psaltry International Ltd), Mr. Akinbayo Atere (Founder, Arterius Capital & Advisory Limited) and Mrs. Ayoyinka Olajide-Awosedo (Board Secretary).

Technologies scaled by IITA BIP include Aflasafe, Nodumax, IITA GoSeed, Agriserve consultancy, and Agriserve Youth Outgrowers.

IITA GoSeed

Through IITA GoSeed new varieties have been made available in the marketplace through partnership with seed companies. The team has successfully onboarded over 30 entrepreneurs as the foundation and commercial seed producers to help build the cassava seed system in Nigeria. During the COVID-19 pandemic, IITA GoSeed supplied more than 15000 bundles of cassava stems to Olabel Farms, Riparian Farms, Traxivvest Farms and Mile 12 Plus farms.  IITA GoSeed launched the first e-commerce platform (www.iitagoseed.com) in West Africa for sales of early-generation seeds. A soybean variety will be registered by IITA GoSeed via an investor. This is to ensure that there is enough seeds available to sell to seed companies which will increase yield from 1 to 3.5 ton/ha and thereby increase farmers income.

IITA GoSeed cassava currently leverage SAH technology to rapidly multiply improved varieties of cassava seeds. 60 prospective Female Cassava Seed Producers attended the meeting held to empower women on seed production and six have been onboarded as seed producers. GoSeed is therefore helping to start sustainable seed businesses, create jobs for outgrowers, and help increase farmers yield and income.

Nodumax

NoduMax is an innocuant that helps to increase the yield of soybean by atleast 30-40%. United Phosphorus Limited (UPL) & Springfield will soon become its distributor and manufacturer in west Africa to ensure that demand is met and to reach more farmers. UPL will pay for product registration in eastern Africa to ensure that more farmers across Africa benefit from this innovation.

Through consistent data collection and evaluation, it has been proven that, Nodumax has the ability to increase soybean yield averagely by 35-40%. This initiative, combined with good agricultural practices (GAP), introduction of improved varieties led to yield increase from average 1 ton/ha to 2.5 tons/ha and up to 3.5 tons/ha is achievable. This increased the income of farmers in Nigeria per hectare to N225000 (1500 kg * 150 N/kg) and up to N375000 (2500 Kg * 150 N/kg).

Aflasafe

Alasafe is a bio-pesticide against aflatoxins in maize and other crops. This has increased access to safe maize in the marketplace and reduced the health risks to its consumers. Alasafe helps in lowering aflatoxin contamination in crops (up to 100%). Development and testing of more products are underway in 12 countries. Aflasafe is now manufactured in four countries and commercially available in eight countries. Aflasafe products have been used by smallholder farmers in more than 315,000 ha to produce aflatoxin standard-compliant maize and groundnut. This is improving the health of farmers and consumers, income, and trade opportunities of farmers, aggregators, distributors, and traders in several Sub-saharan African nations.  Hravest Filed, a private investor has taken over the production and commercilaization. The factory at Ibadan will be relocated to Lagos, Nigeria and  a new training and research and commercialization facility for Aflasafe will be set up at IITA Ibadan.

Agriserve Consultancy

This is a Joint Venture between CropNuts from Kenya and Agriserve, a unit of IITA BIP that offer services such as soil suitability tests, land classification, soil surveys, and fertilizer recommendations to farmers. Also, business plan development services in co-operation with the IITA BIP youth outgrowers are offered. The team has offered different consultancy services to several clients such as public and private organizations across Africa.

IITA BIP Youth Outgrowers

This is a unit of IITA BIP that runs a scheme where seeds or grains are grown with the use of outgrowers (Farmers/Agripreneurs) across different locations for a guaranteed off-taker. This innovation has created jobs with decent pay and work conditions of $5000-$12000 per year for Nigerians, and has helped with market linkages and providing quality raw materials to processing companies. Also, IITA BIP youth outgrowers developed Outgrower schemes/business plans for investor. The team with support from IITA GoSeed and IITA Weed Science achieved 6.3 tons/ha for maize, 2.5-3.5 tons/ha for soybean, 23 tons/ha for yam with the support of Ryo Matsumoto (IITA Yam Agronomist).

Private Partnerships

IITA BIP understands that partnership and collaboration are the best approaches to maximize for growth. We therefore partnered with private organizations for commercialization and scale. These firms includes: Rijk Zwaan Seeds, East West Seed, CONTEC Global, Alluvial Limited, Phosphorus Limited (UPL), Springfield, KOPPERT, Kenya Agricultural & Livestock Research Organization (KALRO), BAMTAARE (Aflasafe manufacturing & distribution in Senegal and Gambia), A to Z Ltd (Aflasafe manufacturing and & distribution in Tanzania), NGN Netherlands (Impact cluster set up for circular economy Protein production of waste via insects in Nigeria), Bayer, Monsanto, SeedCo Pty, Cortiva/Pioneer Seed and donors such as USAID & Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

IITA BIP is available for partnership and collaboration and you can contact us for a conversation.