The United States Agency for International Development (USAID), through Feed the Future, the U.S. Government’s global hunger and food security initiative, recently committed $8M in funding to the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center and its partners to expand collaborative research projects to deliver improved cassava to farmers. Cassava provides food security to hundreds of millions of people in sub-Saharan Africa. 

USAID funds will support VIRCA Plus, a multi-institutional project to both improve resistance to viruses that cause cassava brown streak disease (CBSD), as well as to increase levels of iron and zinc in the storage roots, the edible part of the plant.  VIRCA Plus collaborates with research scientists, regulatory experts and communication specialists with the National Agricultural Research Systems (NARS) in Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria and Rwanda.  

Specifically, USAID funding will support critical aspects of the VIRCA Plus project including: 

• Continued development of nutritionally enhanced cassava, 
• Regulatory assessment of CBSD resistant cassava, 
• Work with a new partner, Mennonite Economic Development Associates (MEDA) to establish systems to distribute planting materials to farmers once fully approved by regulatory authorities and 
• Potential expansion of the project to other African partner countries. 

In addition to the $8M committed by USAID, the project has the potential to receive up to $3M in additional funding from USAID Missions in countries where VIRCA Plus activities are ongoing.

“Improving cassava has been a long-term passion for us,” said Nigel Taylor, PhD, Dorothy J. King Distinguished Investigator and associate member, Danforth Center. “This funding ensures that we see the research through to crops in the ground for farmers who need better harvests now more than ever.”

In sub-Saharan Africa, cassava is the second most important staple food crop after maize, as well as an important cash crop for smallholder farmers. However, plant viral diseases can destroy up to 100 percent of a cassava crop yield, threatening livelihoods and leading to hunger. CBSD destroys cassava’s edible roots even when the rest of the plant looks healthy. 

In addition to being susceptible to disease, cassava does not contain sufficient levels of key nutrients such as iron and zinc to meet minimum daily requirements, especially for women and children. Iron deficiency anemia compromises the immune system, stunts growth and impairs cognitive development in children, while deficiency in zinc causes increased risk of death from diarrhea, stunting and reduced cognitive development.  In Nigeria alone, 75 percent of preschool children and 67 percent of pregnant women are anemic, and in sub-Saharan Africa an estimated 24 percent of the population are at risk of zinc deficiency due to inadequate dietary intake.

“Improving the quality and increasing the quantity of cassava will benefit consumers, farmers and all the players in the cassava value chain,” said Douglas Miano, PhD, associate professor at the Department of Plant Science and Crop Protection, University of Nairobi and Principal Investigator of the VIRCA Plus project in Kenya. “These will be among the first products to be developed by regional scientists using modern biotechnology to directly benefit our communities. We look forward to seeing more use of modern science in solving our local problems.”

USAID has supported work related to VIRCA Plus since 2006 together with major funding contributions from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Bayer Crop Science. 

For more information please visit, cassavaplus.org.