1st Scientific Regional Conference
The conference whose theme was “Harnessing Bio-resources Innovations for Socio-economic Transformation of Eastern Africa” assembled scientists, private sector players, policy makers, NGOs and other development practitioners to share successes and challenges of biosciences research and innovation activities in the region.
Horticulture is one of the sub sectors in Agriculture that has shown great promise as a foreign exchange earner in the region particularly for Ethiopia and Kenya.
Over 200 million people in sub-Saharan Africa depend on the bean crop as a primary staple food. Millions of smallholder farmers in this region also rely on the production and sale of beans as the source of household income.
Bio-Innovate was established to primarily catalyze the translation of biological ideas into products and services that can be taken to the market for economic use and address social challenges and consequently improves livelihoods of the people in the eastern Africa region.
It gives me great pleasure to share with you the Bio-Innovate Program annual newsletter. In this issue we are sharing the exciting progress made by the Program in 2013 as well as future prospects of the Program beyond the current implementation phase.