In 2013 the United Nations declared that 2016 will be the International Year of Pulses. The hope of the 2016 International Year of Pulses (IYP 2016) is to position pulses as a primary source of protein and other essential nutrients.
• Rose Mutuku is in Kenya and the founder and CEO of Smart Logistics, a supplier of beans, to the manufacturing industry for brewing, milling, and animal feed, as well as to humanitarian food agencies. She can talk about the realities of bean production in her part of the world, as well as what it would mean to small farmers economically if bean production was scaled up across the continent of Africa. +
• Jean Claude Rubyogo is the bean expert who can provide t
• he scientific perspective and also talk about the development of bean species across Africa. He is with the Pan African Bean Research Alliance, which is associated with CIAT. He can explain how the climbing bean in Rwanda works, how PABRA has assisted the development of the commodity White Gold Bean in Ethiopia and developed heat resistant beans in various location
