Sixty-five cassava seed producers and technicians from the National Agency for Rural Development Support (ANADER) have begun a two-day intensive training programme aimed at strengthening food production as part of the government’s Emergency Food Production Programme (2PAU-CI).
The workshop, held on July 23 and 24, 2025, in Daloa, brought together participants from the centre-west, north, and northwest regions of the country.
The initiative, overseen by the National Centre for Agricultural Research (CNRA), seeks to enhance Côte d’Ivoire’s food and nutritional security by boosting yields of the nation’s three most consumed staples: rice, maize, and cassava.
Specialists in tuber and root crops from the CNRA led the sessions, focusing on advanced cassava cultivation techniques and seed production practices.
Topics included identifying and selecting high-performing cassava varieties, implementing effective pest and disease control strategies, and mastering the technical process for producing uniform, high-yield planting cuttings.
“The objective is to enable them to produce quality cuttings in two days, that is to say, homogeneous and with a high yield, which will then be made available to farmers,” explained Dr. Diby Konan, one of the lead trainers. “Quality seeds contribute significantly to improving yields.”
Participants were also trained on setting up cassava woodlots to ensure sustainable and scalable seed production, a key element of the government’s plan to meet rising domestic demand and bolster national food resilience.
This Daloa workshop marks the second in a series of five nationwide sessions organized by CNRA under the 2PAU-CI framework.
The first, held from July 8 to 12 in Yamoussoukro, trained 56 seed producers from central Côte d’Ivoire. The programme will continue in other regions, with the next session scheduled for Dabou.
The training is part of broader efforts by the Ivorian government to boost local agricultural productivity and reduce reliance on imported food, while equipping rural communities with the skills and resources needed to thrive.
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