Dr. Michael Batte is a Ugandan, currently working as a Postdoctoral Breeder in the banana breeding unit at IITA, Sendusu station, Uganda. He obtained his B.Sc. in Botany and Biochemistry and M.Sc. in Crop Science from Makerere University (Uganda) in 2000 and 2008, respectively. He obtained his PhD in Agricultural Sciences specializing in Plant Breeding, from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) – Sweden.

Michael has more than 22 years’ experience in working with bananas, with both the national programs and international research centers.

Before taking up his current position at IITA, he was a Postdoctoral fellow at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. He worked in the banana breeding unit, at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture as a Research Associate, from 2007 to 2021. His main responsibility was to support the banana breeder in carrying out research to improve highland cooking bananas for East Africa, with a focus on improved yields, quality and host plant resistance. Before joining IITA, he worked as Research Assistant, in the National Banana Research Program of Uganda (NARO) from 2001 to 2007.  His duties were to design banana crossing schemes, selection of parental lines, hybrid development, hybrid evaluation, hybrid selection and promotion to farmers.

He was part of the team that developed the NARITA hybrids- which are the jointly produced banana hybrids between IITA and NARO breeding programs, some of which have already been released to farmers in the East African region, while others are still under evaluation.

He has published in high impact journals and participated in assessment of different national banana improvement programs in the East African Region.