International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) Ibadan: A History of Innovation and Development

Nov 06, 2025 0

The International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) is an award-winning, research-for-development (R4D) organization, providing solutions to hunger, poverty, and the degradation of natural resources in Africa. IITA’s R4D programs have attracted the best and brightest minds from all over the world.

IITA is guided by an ambitious strategy-to lift 11.5 million people out of poverty and revitalize 7.5 million hectares of farmland-by 2020. To help address poverty and the high number of unemployed young men and women, IITA has initiated a Youth Agripreneurs program to create jobs by making agriculture and agribusiness appealing to the youth.

The Genesis of IITA

IITA was officially established under a Federal decree on 24 July 1967 in Ibadan, where the Nigerian government had donated a 1,000 hectare piece of land for the Institute, as an autonomous, non-profit corporation, to address the above challenges. The institute came into existence with the enactment of decree 32. of 1967. IITA was established in 1967 in Ibadan as a result of the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations' desire to establish a center for the improvement of the quality of tropical foods.

Ford and Rockefeller Foundations were mainly responsible for the planning and original funding of IITA. The institute was initially situated on a 1000-hectare land. Part of the institute's initial goals was to develop a better productive farming system, the selection and breeding of high-yielding crop varieties that are resistant to diseases and pests, and strengthening agricultural research in the humid and tropic regions.

Early Mandates and Evolution

The original mandate of the Institute was aimed at sustainable alternatives to shifting cultivation in the lowland humid tropics in Africa, and was based on the improvement of a basket of crops. Thus, unlike IRRI and CIMMYT which had been established with only commodity improvement mandates, IITA had a mixed mandate that included a responsibility for commodity improvement as well as for the development of production systems for the lowland humid tropics.

In 1974, the Centre was working on a wide variety of legumes: cowpea, soybean, lima bean, African yam bean and velvet bean. Research on root and tuber crops covered cassava, yam, sweet potato and cocoyam and that on cereals: maize and rice. In addition work had been initiated on banana and plantain, vegetables, forage legumes and grasses, and multipurpose trees.

With some crops such as rice, maize and cassava, IITA's crop improvement mandate overlapped with those of other CGIAR centres. IITA joined CGIAR in 1971. It later added tree products such as plantain and banana.

Strategic Shifts and Geographical Focus

During its 25 years, IITA saw its mandate modified, partly as a result of the recommendations of the external reviews, to achieve greater cohesiveness and focus. As the Institute approached its 20th anniversary in 1987, it developed its first Strategic Plan which was adopted by its Board in 1988.

The main modification of the commodity mandate was the reduction of the commodity portfolio first to eight crops (i.e. maize, rice, cowpea, soybean, cassava, sweet potato, yam and banana/plantain), and then to six (i.e. maize, cowpea, soybean, cassava, yam and banana/plantain).

The Strategic Plan called for a reduction in geographical coverage, to West and Central Africa, of its primary emphasis on improving farming systems of lowland humid and subhumid tropics. This limitation did not apply to its Africa-wide commodity improvement work except for maize. In addition to IITA's interests in the humid and subhumid tropics of SSA, the Institute is involved in crop improvement work related to cowpea, maize and cassava in the "moist" parts of the semi-arid zone (i.e. parts of the northern Guinea savanna and the Sudan savanna) for which the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) has a primary responsibility for production systems and natural resource management research.

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For the period 1994-1998 of the current Medium-Term Plan (MTP), the Strategic Plan was revised in 1993 to include a gradual expansion of IITA's geographical coverage into the humid and subhumid tropical areas of East and Southern Africa. Initial expansion is envisaged through an extension of the commodity improvement work on cassava and banana/plantain, to be followed later by production systems work as resources become available.

Also, IITA no longer considers the inland valley agroecosystem to be a separate target agroecosystem and has oriented its research programme activities towards the Humid Forest Zone with a focus on West and Central Africa, the Moist Savanna Zone with a focus on West Africa, and the Mid-altitude Savanna with a focus on East and Southern Africa.

IITA's Role in Sub-Saharan Africa

The role of IITA in sub-Saharan Africa is defined in general terms by the Institute's mission statement given earlier. The corresponding research agenda is made to reflect a balance between activities aiming at immediate and medium-term productivity gains, including postharvest research and at ensuring long-term sustainability of the resource base used for such production. In directing these research and related activities, account is also to be taken of the need for food self-reliance and equity in order for IITA to contribute to poverty alleviation and economic development within the mandate area.

The research-related activities mentioned in IITA's mission statement are those in training and information; these activities are essential for progress in research and contribute to the strengthening of the NARS's research capability. These are also activities for which IITA is receiving much recognition in the region.

From the earlier conception of this relationship, as a process of transfer of technology, generated in a chain ranging from advanced research institutions and IARCs doing basic and applied research, over NARS performing adaptive research to extension and ultimately to the farmer, IITA is advocating a move to a new concept of collaboration in research.

This new concept of IITA's role involves "the continuum that proceeds from the onset of the research process to its resolution" in which "national and international researchers and farmers are partners in a joint venture" where "collaboration achieves a collegial balance with effectively matched contributions at every stage" (IITA Annual Report 1993). Key features of this new approach to the definition of IITA's role in the region's agriculture are participatory modes of appraisal, priority setting, research implementation and technology testing.

The Panel further believes that while IITA can influence only part of the general development challenge, its contribution to the development of relevant improved technologies continues to be critically important.

Challenges and Opportunities

The complexity of many of the problems in the humid and subhumid areas of SSA is likely to be beyond the expected capacity of the NARS to solve by themselves. In any case most of the NARS are becoming increasingly vulnerable to economic forces. According to the International Service for National Agricultural Research (ISNAR), although the number of researchers in NARS has expanded dramatically in recent years, with 36% still having B. Sc. degrees, the number of farmers per research worker has tripled during the last 30 years.

Further, research expenditures as a percentage of agricultural GDP has decreased from a peak of 0.84% in 1981 to 0.55% in 1991. The consequence has been a reduction in operating expenses per researcher, resulting in their underemployment. Thus their effectiveness in technological development is in many countries being eroded. Consequently, it is increasingly unlikely that NARS will be in a position adequately to meet the agricultural research requirements even in adaptive and applied research, let alone at the strategic end of the research spectrum.

Given the budgetary crises in many NARS, it is likely that the limited research resources will have to continue focusing on productivity gains. However, in the long run, given the probability that governmental resources will continue to be limited, the only realistic way of incorporating sustainability issues will have to be through bringing about convergence between the short-term production needs of farmers and the long-term sustainability of the farming system through exploiting the biological relationships within the systems.

To be fully effective and to maximize its multiplier effect, it must continue to collaborate with NARS and increasingly with NGOs and the emerging private sector, as well as with other IARCs and advanced institutions. This is particularly important given IITA's primary focus on the small family farm which is so dominant in SSA, and helps the issues of sustainable production and equity to be addressed simultaneously.

Institutions within national programmes can make particularly important contributions to production systems and management research, although given the current state of many of the NARS the Panel urges increased collaboration

Current Engagements

IITA is an award-winning, research-for-development (R4D) organization, providing solutions to hunger, poverty, and the degradation of natural resources in Africa. IITA’s R4D programs have attracted the best and brightest minds from all over the world.

IITA is guided by an ambitious strategy-to lift 11.5 million people out of poverty and revitalize 7.5 million hectares of farmland-by 2020. To help address poverty and the high number of unemployed young men and women in, IITA has initiated a Youth Agripreneurs program to create jobs by making agriculture and agribusiness appealing to the youth.

IITA has been designated as the convening centre within the CGIAR for the development and oversight of an ecoregional programme for the warm humid and subhumid tropics in SSA. Ecoregional initiatives are designed to bring about a new quality of IARC-NARS interaction which crucially involves the design and use of well-structured innovative modes of consultation and collaboration.

In October 1993, IITA was designated as a convening centre for the CGIAR ecoregional programme for humid and subhumid SSA. Also, IITA was recently designated as the convening centre to facilitate the development of a Systemwide initiative in integrated pest management (IPM) through inter-centre collaboration.

Any cursory look at the biophysical and socioeconomic data for sub-Saharan Africa immediately gives rise to two fundamental conclusions. The first is the degree of heterogeneity that exists in the region in terms of resource endowment (climate, soils, population, etc.), institutional and infrastructural development, political stability and maturity, and commitment to development (including agricultural and rural development). The second is that, in terms of some human development indicators and almost any economic development indicator, SSA as a whole is continuing to deteriorate.

Together with people in South Asia, people in SSA remain the poorest in the world. Unfortunately, in contrast to some progress in South Asia, the proportion living in poverty in SSA continues to increase. In fact, according to the World Bank, the number living in poverty increased almost 1.5% per annum between 1985-92.

Although in recent years there have been modest increases in gross domestic product (GDP), partly as a result of structural adjustment polices being implemented by many countries, including currency devaluation, the result in per caput terms has been negative (because of continuing high population growth rates in excess of 3%). The continuing inability of the non-agricultural sector to provide gainful employment for the rapidly rising population of SSA means the proportion of the population living in rural areas is still very high and on a par with that in South Asia (i.e. 72% compared with 75%).

However, there the similarity ends. The success of the Green Revolution in many parts of Asia contrasts with the much poorer performance of agriculture in SSA. All indicators of improved productivity (e.g. crop yields, use of fertilizer, percentage of land irrigated) compare unfavourably. As a result, food production per caput in SSA continues to show a declining trend while food self-sufficiency ratios are low.

Efforts in expanding food and other biological production are increasingly resulting in intensification of land use. With reference to this there is obviously potential for greater use of irrigation. However, it is also apparent that most farmers will have to continue relying on rainfed agriculture, including the hydromorphic inland valleys.

Although the output per unit of land in rainfed agriculture sometimes increases in the short term, indicators of environmental and resource base degradation have also manifested themselves through deforestation and consequent loss of organic matter, nutrient depletion, greater weed infestation and increased soil erosion as a result of increasingly shorter fallows. Thus, issues relating to both food security and sustainability are becoming increasingly important.

Using the projected fertility levels, the World Bank estimates that by the year 2020 the food gap (i.e. the difference between food requirement and food production) would amount to an annual deficit of 243 million tonnes if food production increases at 2% per year. If food production increases at 4% per year, an annual surplus of 49 million tonnes would be produced. However, based on past performance, increases at the latter rate are unlikely.

Although expansion of the non-agricultural sector and the associated agroindustrial and agrobusiness activities, is critically important in the economic development process, in the meantime, the onus will continue to be on the agricultural sector as one of the main contributors to economic growth, as national economies diversify and regional markets grow. Relevant improved technologies and policies provide the ingredients necessary for the agricultural sector to contribute effectively to national development. However, many other factors such as infrastructure, delivery (including extension) and marketing institutions together with political commitment and support, determine how well those ingredients are used and exploited.

In the tropical and subtropical areas of the world, food production was barely keeping pace with population growth, and in tropical SSA, annual per caput food production was actually declining. Hunger and malnutrition were recurrent problems, in particular during the African dry season against the background of a population which was mainly rural, poor, and growing rapidly in size.

IITA's founding mandate embraced agroecological and regional concerns as well as crop improvement concerns. While the mandate has been modified several times during the past 25 years, it has retained its basic characteristics which are: the promotion of the development of sustainable production systems through improved resource management, by devoting special attention to problems of environmental degradation and by developing more productive, stress-resistant varieties of the region's key crops.

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