Stefan Hauser (Ph.D.)

Systems Agronomist
International Institute for Tropical Agriculture.
Core Trial Manager (Nigeria) – IITA

Stefan Hauser (Ph.D.) got a PhD from the University of Göttingen Germany in 1987 and moved to IITA Nigeria in 1988 to work on water and nutrient dynamics in tropical soils for a German fertilizer company. In 1993 he moved to the Humid Forest research center in Cameroon and was instrumental in creating the research farm in the Mbalmayo Forest reserve. There he worked on plantain and was involved in cocoa research through the sustainable tree crops program and directly with the national system (IRAD) in screening cocoa hybrids and developing more efficient phytosanitary approaches to control black pod in old plantations. A second focus was on the establishment of cocoa in already degraded land and the requirements under which cocoa would establish with least plant losses and lowest labor requirements.
From Cameroon he moved on to DR Congo to formally establish IITA with the Congolese government and to conduct a large-scale capacity development program with the national system (INERA). In the course of the training he supported activities on maintenance of cocoa elite clones and propagation techniques at Yangambi. In late 2011 he returned to IITA HQ in Nigeria as Root & tuber systems agronomist and is now CocoaSoils core trial manager at IITA.