Four agencies conduct agricultural R&D in Liberia. The Central Agricultural Research Institute is the only government agricultural R&D agency and is by far the country’s largest, accounting for 71 percent of researcher capacity in 2011.

The Central Agricultural Research Institute (CARI) was created in 1980 to conduct both adaptive and applied research in agriculture.

In the 1980‘s the Institute had seven commodity-based programs (rice, cassava, cattle, swine, cocoa, coffee, and vegetables). CARI is a semiautonomous agency under the Ministry of Agriculture and is located in Suakoko, about 180 km north‐west of Monrovia. Other institutions conducting agric research include the University of Liberia’s Faculty of the College of Agriculture and Forestry and Cuttington University College of Agriculture and Sustainable Development. After a devastating civil war with massive damaging effects on the infrastructure of CARI, limited operations resumed in 2006 focusing on the provision of planting materials for rice (from WARDA), cassava, yams and a limited range of cultivars of maize, beans, and soybeans.

CARI’s vision is to make agriculture business while its mission is to undertake applied and adaptive research for enhanced productivity of food, feed, fiber, and other agricultural products in Liberia for the attainment of food security, poverty alleviation, income generation and job creation.

CORAF has been collaborating with CARI for a long time including recent funding from WAAPP in 2013 for research on its priority crops, rice, and cassava.