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The Cover Crops Information and Seed Exchange Center for Africa (CIEPCA) assisted researchers and development specialists to develop, target, and test appropriate cover cropping systems in Africa from 1998 through 2001. Beginning in 2002, CIEPCA was reconfigured as a web-based cover crops information center which continues to provide access to on-line newsletters, Africa-based extension material and the French language cover crops electronic discussion group (EVECS-L).

CIEPCA was established by the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) with initial financial support from the Canadian International Development Research Center (IDRC) and subsequest support from the Rockefeller Foundation. The CIEPCA secretariat was based at the IITA station near Cotonou in the Benin Republic between 1998 and 2002. CIEPCA staff were instrumental in the dissemination and improvement of LEXSYS, a legume characteristic database which has been reformatted and and is currently distributed by the Agroforestry and Forest Ecology Research Group in the School of Agriculture and Forest Sciences at the University of Wales, Bangor. CIEPCA is a founding member of the Tropical Soil Cover and Organic Resources Exchange Consortium (TropSCORE.) Through TropSCORE, CIEPCA is currently helping to develop the Worldwide Portal to Information on Soil Health in conjunction with the Agriculture Network Information Center (AgNIC).