About AgBio4SSA
Short summary
AgBio4SSA explores agricultural biologicals as alternatives to hazardous agrochemicals through living labs in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Funded by FORMAS SDG and NRF, within “Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Collaborative Funding Call”.
AgBio4SSA will implement living labs, which emphasise user communities and processes. The proposed living labs will test biologicals and stakeholder engagement as well as policy dialogues to address hunger and contribute to more sustainable smallholder farming in rural SSA. The living labs will be implemented for one year with an active, open and conscious co-involvement and collaboration of various stakeholders of biologicals. Feedback on the innovation process is an integral part of living labs. Thus, AgBio4SSA will create a shared space in which new products, approaches, processes, and ways of working can be initiated, developed, and tested with smallholder farmers, policymakers, extension service officers, and researchers. Through living labs, this project will provide capacity building for researchers, policymakers and smallholder farmers to strengthen the network and advance agrobiologicals in SSA.
In the living labs, tomato and the insect pest Phthorimaea absoluta (Tuta absoluta), the tomato leaf miner, will be used as a showcase. This patho-system is particularly suitable since it addresses four key issues: 1) it is a current and economically devastating pest in SSA, 2) it requires insecticides to combat which are generally more dangerous to human health and the environment than other plant protection agents; thus the gain is higher if replaced or reduced by the introduction of biologicals, 3) it highlights the needs to communicate and demonstrate the action of two different types of biologicals, namely plant resistance inducers and biopesticides, and 4) pesticide resistance has occurred in
P. absoluta in its native regions and is likely to be manifested in SSA with continued use of insecticides.
For AgBio4SSA to become successful and socially sustainable, there is a need to understand the local context and pay attention to social relations, including gender. Therefore, supporting equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) in relation to the introduction of biologicals is a project ambition.
