A crop scientist who grew up in Nigeria is working with hundreds of researchers and thousands of farmers to improve crop productivity and food security in Africa.
There are an estimated 33 million smallholder farms in sub-Saharan Africa, which is 80% of all farms in the region, and in some countries, they contribute up to 90% of food production.
Dr Carol Nkechi Ibe, a crop scientist and founder of JR Biotek Foundation explains that she has been spearheading a training program for hundreds of crop scientists in over 19 African countries, to build capacity in plant molecular biology, biotechnology, genomics and bioinformatics.
“Despite their deep significance in the lives and livelihoods of millions of people, particularly smallholder farmers and farming communities, many African crops have been understudied and undervalued, resulting in a significant decline in crop productivity,” she says, adding that the foundation also developed the “Agri-Innovation and Impact Project” to map and address the disappearance of historically undervalued African crops during a climate crisis.
“We designed this project to bring together 100 African scientists, over 3,000 smallholder farmers and various institutions in multiple African countries to co-create practical solutions aimed at mitigating the negative impacts of climate change on local food crop production systems at the smallholder farming level,” she says.
Ibe explains that the team chose crop agricultural sciences due to the urgent need to use modern scientific approaches to improve crop productivity and food security.
“During my PhD, I chose to conduct my research on rice, and more specifically, how rice roots form interactions with a beneficial/symbiotic fungus (which helps with soil nutrient uptake) and a detrimental fungus (which causes a devastating rice disease),” she says.
Ibe also participated in a 2024 Society for the Protection of Underground Networks expedition to Ghana, involving a workshop with 12 early career West African scientists to learn a new sequencing technology for soil fungi.
Growing Up In Nigeria
Ibe was born in the United States but grew up in Nigeria and say this shaped her life’s purpose and career vision.
“I wanted to be a teacher because I loved teaching mathematics and biology, but as I grew older, I became very interested in becoming a medical doctor or working in a microbiology diagnostic lab,” she says, adding that after completing an undergraduate degree in microbiology in Nigeria, she studied a molecular biology Master’s degree at Georgetown University, USA.
“That was when I realized that my undergraduate degree did not prepare me for the next steps in my science career: my peers were hundreds of steps ahead and I struggled so much to catch up with basic knowledge in modern biosciences,” she says, “I couldn’t move past this: all I could think of was what I could do to help and close the huge gaps to allow Africa’s next generation of scientists to apply modern scientific skills to solve pressing challenges.”
After some years working in research and pursuing further education at Oxford, she set up JR Biotek Foundation, a charitable organization dedicated to advancing bioscience education, research and innovation for Africa’s sustainable development.
Ibe would also go on to earn a Master’s degree at Oxford University in the UK and a doctorate in plant science at Cambridge University in the UK and says that from her experience, early-to-mid-career scientists in the Global South are very motivated and interested in using modern scientific approaches to solve local and global challenges affecting lives and systems.
“It is easier to understand a lived experience than one heard or learned from the media or other means,” she says, “When you have lived through a difficult situation or problem such as hunger and generational poverty, it shapes part of who you may become in life, and this is powerful.”
Ibe explains many of researchers are already doing the work but lack adequate resources (funding, infrastructure, access to technology, equipment and know-how) to accelerate their positive research outcomes.
“We are extremely passionate and serious about supporting African scientists to champion breakthrough innovations to solve some of the most pressing food security and related challenges that are affecting millions of people on the continent,” she says.
Fungus in Senegal
Another African researcher with a passion for fungi is Astride Carole Djeuani, a lecturer and researcher at the University of Yaounde in Cameroon
Dejueni participated in a 2024 Society for the Protection of Underground Networks trip to Ghana, involving a workshop with 12 early career West African scientists to learn a new sequencing technology for fungi.
A researcher from Cameroon is looking at how fungus could be used as fertilizer to improve plant production for farmers.
Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) supply water, phosphate and nitrogen to the host plant and in receive up to 20% of plant-fixed carbon in return — a useful symbiosis.
Astride Carole Djeuani, a lecturer and researcher at the University of Yaounde in Cameroon says it is important to research the AMF around plant roots, because they can be used as fertilizer to improve plant yields.
“Today the damages caused by the application of chemicals in agriculture are very obvious, so hopefully, the strains that I would have isolated and multiplied after screening tests in the laboratory, will serve as a fertilizer factory that I will make available to farmers,” she says, adding that the idea is to add these AMFs with biochar and compost to fertilize the plants.
“The luck we have is that Cameroon has five agro-ecological zones, and therefore we think that this is a very broad study opportunity in terms of understanding and determining subsoil mycorrhizal strains,” she says, “My biggest challenge is to be able to explore and understand the underground of my country for various ecosystems and as well determine its diversity of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi.”
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