Meeting with The CEO of ISRA and his staff about MoU signed and future activities
On January 14th, our Agriculture Manager, Mr Ibrahima Ciss, met with the CEO of ISRA to review the achievements that have been made so far since the beginning of our partnership. They also discussed about the improvements that can be made in the cashew sector, in particular on how we can help the cashew workers to improve their production techniques and to prevent recurrent insect infestations. ISRA then promised to put at our disposal a dynamic research team so we can be able to help cashew workers to improve the quality of their production.
The CEO of ISRA initially praised this partnership agreement with Shelter For Life, assuring that he will make every effort to ensure that the trust Shelter has in ISRA is well deserved. He gave us an update on the important achievements that ISRA has made in varietal improvement with the adaptability tests of a number of varieties of Beninese and Brazilian origin that ultimately met the expectations of producers.
The topics that are the subject of this convention are in line with ISRA’s expertise. ISRA has a National Forest Research Center, a seed production pole and a center dedicated to arboricultural research. ISRA has agronomists who will work on cashew tree based agricultural production systems that will enable cashew producers to diversify their crops. ISRA also has Plant Pathologist Researchers who will work on the protection of cashew trees against the most dreaded insect pests and diseases of cashew trees.
ISRA will put at our disposal a dynamic team that will work to improve the production and quality of the nuts.
The DG welcomes the idea of setting up a research team for the three (3) countries, which will facilitate the integration of the countries and the exchanges also between the countries. On this subject, he said that Senegal and Guinea have just signed a convention for the development of emerging sectors, particularly cashew nuts. According to him, this MoU will strengthen relations between ISRA and INPA (Guinea Bissau).
However, he called for a quadripartite agreement between the different research institutes and Shelter For Life, which will facilitate a team synergy and better organization of work.
The introduction of new efficient varieties is not new because Senegal does not have a typically Senegalese variety; the improved varieties come from Benin and Brazil. As Ghana and Ivory Coast have a lot of experience and long history of research on cashew, a prospecting mission would be very interesting researchers and farmers.
The DG thanked Shelter For Life for its interest in ISRA, and said that the work plan will be shared at the harmonization and activity planning workshop that we plan to organize in February in Ziguinchor.