Soybean is one of the strategic crops with the highest potential for agro-industrialization. The Makerere University Centre for Soybean Improvement and Development (MAKCSID) which evolved out of the sustained breeding and seed system research program at the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences (CAES) of Makerere University, was approved and institutionalized in CAES to champion and support the development of the soybean value chain beyond breeding and provision of seed.
About MAKCSID
Background
Our History
1930 - 1996
Soybean research in Uganda started in the 1930s and was sustained up to 1996. The research got a major blow when newly released varieties Nam 1, Nam 2 and Namsoy 3 soybean were wiped out by the severe soybean rust epidemic.
2002 - 2016
The urgent need for more disease resistant varieties suitable to the biophysical and socio-economic context led to the Soybean Breeding and Seed Systems program initiated in 2002,
2016 - To date
The program culminated in the establishment of the Makerere University Center for Soybean Improvement and Development Centre (MAKCSID) in 2016. With the support of the Vegetable Oil Development Project (VODP) of the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries (MAAIF), the Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) and the Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture (RUFORUM), a collaborative soybean breeding and seed systems research program between Makerere University and the National Agricultural Research Organization (NARO) has revitalized the production of soybean in Uganda through production of improved high yielding and disease resistant varieties.
Outreach by the Numbers
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Farmers trained over the last 15 years
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Farmer groups trained
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Research awards received