INSTITUT NATIONAL DES RECHERCHES AGRICOLES DU BENIN – INRAB

INRAB	phone: ..229 - 300264
01 BP 884 Cotonou, Benin	FAX.: ..229 - 300736 / 303770

                             email: inrabdg4@bow.intnet.bj

Foundation
The Institut National des Recherches Agricoles du Benin is a public organism with scientific and technical tasks on the basis of civil staff and financial autonomy. INRAB has replace the Direction de la Recherche Agronomique (DRA) in 1992.

Mandate
INRAB’s essential mission is to develop sustainable technologies for the rural environment and in this terms to contribute to scientific progress. The actions take place under the umbrella of sectorial and regional programmes. These programmes envisage primarily to solve the problems on farmers level and to suggest management techniques which allow a sustainable use of natural resources.

Programmes
The regional programmes are based on a participatory approach with regard to goal definition, research scheme and evaluation. This allows the highest impact of technology transfer measures. The scientific objective of each programme varies depending on the regional major problems.
The sectorial programmes rely on different concepts depending on the topic. I.e. an interdisciplinary approach is used in the case of cotton. Disciplinary efforts are supported in the fields of plant selection and plant protection of major staple crops.

Research fields
Staple crops: Sorghum, maize, rice, cowpea, groundnut, yams
Industrial crops: Oil palm, coconut, cotton
Adaptation of timber production to local conditions
Animal production, nutrition and veterinary medicine
Development topics: Socio-economic studies, nutrition and agricultural techniques

Staff resources
National researchers   73
Research assistants   28
Technical research assistants  53
Labourers    102
Administrators    2
Clerks     4
Secretaries    14
Support personnel   186

International co-operation
An intense co-operation network exists on the international as well as regional level. Major actions are based on CORAF (Conférence des Responsables de Recherche Agronomique Africains) and the CGIAR institutions in West Africa like the West African Development Association (WARDA), the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) and the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT).

Perspectives
The strong capacity and experience of INRAB with regard to rural development problems makes it an invaluable partner for all kind of initiatives related to this problems in the region. It will also in future act in order to develop and disseminate  new adapted and sustainable techniques for the rural population.