Unfolding the organisers’ plan for the train the trainer workshop, the Team Leader, West African Virus Epidemiology (WAVE), Covenant University hub, Dr. Angela Eni, said that participants will work together to understand how relevant stakeholders - farmers, scientists, extension agents, quarantine officers etc. - can partner together to ensure that tuber yield losses associated with cassava virus diseases are reduced to the barest minimum or eliminated completely where possible.

Another major aim of the workshop, said the associate professor, is to discuss the need for and the best practices for the use of virus free planting materials for improved tuber yield. She added that the WAVE team will also share its major findings so far in each of its mandate States.

Running concurrently in six West African Countries - Nigeria, Benin, Togo, Ghana, Cote d’ Ivoire and Burkina Faso - the primary aim of the WAVE project is to work with cassava farmers and relevant stakeholders to develop a holistic strategy for improved cassava productivity.

Dr. Eni, a faculty in the Microbiology Unit, Department of Biological Sciences, College of Science and Technology, Covenant University, said that the WAVE intends to achieve the aforementioned objective through integrated management of existing cassava virus diseases and by ensuring the continued exclusion of the dreaded Cassava brown streak virus from West Africa.

The Covenant University hub of the project has the mandate to undertake the project activities in the South Western and North Central States of Nigeria.