Bernard Vanlauwe is the director for Central Africa and Natural Resource Management at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), based in Nairobi, Kenya. Piet van Asten is a systems agronomist at IITA-Uganda working on sustainable intensification of perennial-based cropping systems (coffee, banana, cocoa) in Africa's humid zones, based in Kampala, Uganda. Guy Blomme is a Bioversity International scientist working on germplasm and integrated disease management for more resilient and productive banana-based cropping systems in east and central Africa, based in Kampala, Uganda.