Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Great Lakes Cassava Initiative (East and Central Africa)

Since 2003, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has supported Catholic Relief Services emergency relief and recovery efforts worldwide with more than $12 million. The foundation most recently contributed $500,000 for CRS' response to flooding in Orissa State in India and $400,000 to support CRS' response to the eruption of the Mt. Merapi volcano in Indonesia.

In 2007, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation funded the Great Lakes Cassava Initiative, an innovative, multi-country project designed to transform agricultural production for 1.15 million farming families in Africa's Great Lakes region by targeting two diseases that have wreaked havoc on the production of cassava. More about the project is below. The foundation also supports CRS to provide savings-focused microfinance services to 300,000 poor people living in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda.

The Great Lakes Cassava Initiative: Fighting a Food Crisis

In East and Central Africa, one of the most important sources of food has been under siege. Cassava, a shrub whose root can be prepared and eaten in a variety of ways, accounts for more than half of all calories consumed in sub-Saharan Africa. Yet, two crop-destroying diseases (cassava mosaic and brown streak) have led to the destruction of up to 70 percent of crops in recent years. CRS is working with African farmers to target the diseases before they spread and to cultivate healthier cassava crops for long-term stability and prosperity.

The Great Lakes Cassava Initiative is an innovative agricultural development program designed to revolutionize the production of the staple cassava in Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda. These countries are among the world's most impoverished nations. Protection of crops can be life-changing for families in dire poverty.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation funded the initiative with a $23.9 million grant to help CRS meet its goal of reaching 1.15 million farming families in the East and Central Africa countries.

Project Overview

Fried, boiled, stewed or even made into dumplings, cassava is a versatile, highly nutritious source of food that can single-handedly prevent food crises for communities during periods of drought. It is a tuberous shrub also known as yucca or manioc. The drought-tolerant crop fares well across various agricultural zones and requires little care: It can be replanted through cuttings from existing bushes, and produce high yields that are harvested on multiple occasions, enabling families to stretch out their food availability. Not only is cassava sold for its obvious food use, but its also used as a starch content for enterprises like paper-making.

Cassava mosaic disease has existed for many years but, in the last two decades, has become stronger and more widespread. In recent years, the disease has reportedly destroyed 70 to 100 percent of crops over a large swath of land. Cassava brown streak disease developed more recently and has the potential to be just as virulent.

Project Activities

Through mid-2012, the Great Lakes Cassava Initiative will strengthen the capacity and skills of 60 local partners to prepare for, respond to, and prevent the pandemics of the cassava mosaic and emerging cassava brown streak disease that have so devastated the food reserves and income of families in the region. In partnership with the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture, national agricultural research systems and local implementing partners, CRS activities include:

• Educating community groups on diagnosing and monitoring the diseases, and predicting their spread
• Multiplication and dissemination of disease-free cuttings of improved cassava varieties to the farmers in the six Great Lakes countries
• Training farmers in the use, cultivation and potential of new, disease-resistant varieties of cassava
• Engaging 3,000 farmer groups in dialogue and trainings for integrated crop management options

Project Success

We've seen that this project works. In less than two years, families once dealing with chronic food shortages have stabilized their crop production. They speak candidly about the change in their lives:

• "We don't have many problems because there is food," says Mildred Agola, a Kenyan farmer who is today growing five improved varieties and one local variety of cassava. Her family, once having to stretch their food out, has enough to eat and even more to sell.
• "Our vision is to have a hunger-free community with cassava. That has already happened in our households," says Alfred Etyiang, chairperson of the Agrofarmers Youth Group in Okatikok village, Kenya.

Read a story about the impact of the Great Lakes Cassava Initiative in Obama's Grandma Helps Kenyan Orphans.

In April 2009, the Great Lakes Cassava Initiative was one of four recipients of the Intel Corporation's Inspire*Empower Challenge award, which includes a $100,000 grant. Read more about the Intel grant and the ruggedized laptops.

The Great Lakes Cassava Initiative was also mentioned in a New York Times article entitled Virus Ravages Cassava Plants in Africa.

For more information about the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, please visit their website.

Catholic Relief Services is the official international humanitarian agency of the Catholic community in the United States. We alleviate suffering and provide assistance to people in need in nearly 100 countries, without regard to race, religion or nationality.