Thirty-four plant breeders from 18 countries graduated from the UC Davis African Plant Breeding Academy in May 2018.

The advanced plant breeding course was delivered by the Seed Biotechnology Center of the University of California Davis, in collaboration with the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) and the African Orphan Crops Consortium (AOCC).

The course, hosted by one of the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry’s (FTA) partner institutions — the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) — in Kenya, equips practicing African plant breeders with advanced theory and technologies in plant breeding, quantitative genetics, statistics and experimental design to support critical decisions. This was the third cohort of the course, with participants drawn from Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

The program was delivered by a team of tutors and complemented by guest speakers, including Leena Tripathi of the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) who covered banana improvement through transformation and gene editing, Damaris Achieng Odeny of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-arid Tropics (ICRISAT) on finger millet genomics, Dusty Vyas of LGC Genomics on genotyping sequencing and DNA analysis, and Alex Lipka of the University of Illinois on genomic selection. Participants also visited the International Livestock Research Institute’s Trepathi lab and glasshouse.

The plant breeders presented various proposals, explaining how they would put their newly acquired skills into practice. Mayada Beshir of the Agricultural Research Corporation in Sudan and Ermias Abate Desta of the Amhara Agricultural Research Institute of Ethiopia were each awarded US$5,000 from Mars Incorporated and Illumina for their winning proposals.

“Sorghum is the most important crop for us in Sudan and is widely produced by smallholders. We are experiencing the effects of climate change, as everywhere, and are observing new traits or stresses that have not been seen before. Sorghum productivity is declining yet the government is working hard to avail land, water and inputs,” said Bashir.

“As a breeder going through this training, my role is to help the farmer. The farmer will consume part of the harvest and sell the rest for income. I will produce a better variety of sorghum that is resistant to the stresses we are seeing right now and add nutrient value with better yield.”

Read more: Orphan crops for improving diets

“Tef is a staple crop and is grown only in Ethiopia,” said Desta. “It is an orphan crop because it hasn’t captured the attention of the international scientific community. My work is to identify varieties of tef that are tolerant to soil acidity, a common problem in highly productive areas of the country. I will use my prize money to produce soil acidity-tolerant genotypes of tef. Smallholders cannot afford the lime that needs to be applied to acidic soils for amelioration. Acid-tolerant varieties of tef will help as a management strategy and improve their yields.”

“The UC Davis African Plant Breeding Academy is part of the African Orphan Crops Consortium,” explained Allen van Deynze, a primary instructor at the academy. “The goal of the consortium is to make nutritious crops productive for Africa. The plant breeding academy is delivering food security in the continent. The people here today are the ones who are going to make the difference. Those who have passed through the academy are the ones who have taken on the challenge to make sure that everyone has nutritious food on their table.”

“When you go back, remember all that you have learned will be wasted if you fight, compete or do not collaborate,” said Tony Simons, director general of ICRAF. “It is a great honor to partner with all the institutions that support this program, because out of all the initiatives that ICRAF has implemented in the last 40 years, this has been one of the most impactful.”

Recounting the start of the consortium that led to the UC Davis African Plant Breeding Academy, Howard Shapiro, chief scientist at Mars Incorporated, acknowledged the organizations and individuals who contributed to the consortium. Of the 101 crops that were selected for sequencing, 47 are trees and the remainder are annual crops.

“No one had ever considered to do this amount of research on crops,” noted Shapiro. “Major foundations and organizations chose one crop — cassava, maize — and that is all they work on. Our idea was that we could fix the nutritional productivity of 101 food crops that are not only the backbone of rural Africa, but are also important in urban centers. An idea of paradise is that we can end chronic hunger and malnutrition by improving the nutritional quality and productivity of the 101 food crops. All those who have passed through the academy are the ones who will deliver this paradise.”

“We have sequenced 10 species for the AOCC,” noted Xin Liu of BGI. “We are trying to release data as soon as possible. You can combine this data for better application and breeding processes for all the crops. We made a commitment three years ago to sequence 101 crops. We have our own sequencers that can be used to generate more data and we would like to contribute all the science and technology we can to this consortium.”

The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) is a primary partner of the academy and has sponsored 31 plant breeders of the second and third cohorts. It also funded master and doctoral courses for over 400 of the 500 plant breeders in Africa. So far, 18 countries have released over 600 varieties of crops.

Read more: Tree seed selection, genome sequencing, improvement of priority species and more

“We realized that the breeding field keeps changing. This course has helped us keep up and modernize our breeding efforts,” said Rufaro Madakadze, program officer of AGRA’s Africa Seed System. “We fund training to develop technologies that people will use.”

Speaking on behalf of the class, Maureen Atemkeng of Nigeria expressed gratitude to the academy, particularly for the opportunity to interact with international experts. She added that the course helped in building principles of efficiency, responsibility and sustainability for the next generation.

“Hunger and malnutrition can be eliminated in our lifetime,” said Rita Mumm, director and primary instructor of the academy. “The vision of the African Plant Breeding Academy is to train 150 plant breeders. Graduates, you will continue to work together, contribute your talent to teams, and join the African Association of Plant Breeders. I exhort you to mentor the next generation of plant breeders. Share your knowledge and experience.”

In closing, Ramni Jamnadass, coleader of ICRAF’s Tree Productivity and Diversity research unit that hosts the AOCC, encouraged the graduates to contribute to breeding programs that will banish food and nutrition insecurity in Africa.

The course is delivered in three two-week sessions spread over 18 months at the ICRAF campus in Nairobi. Since its inception in 2013, 89 plant breeders have successfully completed the course and covered more than 99 species, of which 57 are African orphan crops.

By Susan Onganyo, originally published at ICRAF’s Agroforestry World. 

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This research forms part of the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry, which is supported by CGIAR Fund Donors.