All news and blogs
Here's how to embed continuous improvement in your work
How to | Adam Hunt | 23/11/2020
By Gustavo Teixeira, Theresa Heitman and Adam Hunt Crop breeding programs are setting an example for how to examine and improve their work – while embedding this process into organizational culture. It's all to better meet the needs of their...
Webinar reveals approaches for breeders to save time and money, cut waste – and deliver for clients
| Adam Hunt | 22/10/2020
How can breeders and other research programs continually improve their processes and products? And how can they ensure they keep a customer focus at the centre of their work?A recent webinar organized by the CGIAR Excellence in Breeding Platform (EiB) and Accelerating Genetic Gains in Maize and Wheat for...
New AGG project aims to accelerate genetic gains in maize and wheat
EiB news | | 19/10/2020
By Joshua MasindeCGIAR Excellence in Breeding (EiB) is contributing its science-backed support to the maize and wheat breeding program improvement plans on the new Accelerating Genetic Gains in Maize and Wheat for Improved Livelihoods (...
CGIAR breeding programs need more than just tech upgrades. They need change management
Opinion | Adam Hunt | 15/9/2020
By Hugo Campos, CGIAR Excellence in Breeding (EiB) / International Potato Center (CIP)The status quo anchors our minds to the past. Good change management can shake this up. Here are four ways plant...
Excellence in Breeding team working to catalyze change
EiB news | Adam Hunt | 31/8/2020
Please see our team bio page.Combining culture change with technical innovations may be the most challenging part of modernization breeing programs. Working with partners across CGIAR and externally to catalyze this change, the CGIAR Excellence in Breeding (EiB)...
New project aims to modernize rice breeding in Africa
EiB news | Sam Storr | 7/7/2020
Rice is a food for the future in Africa, with consumer demand for rice growing faster than any other staple crop. With most farms yielding less than two tons per hectare, Africa's taste for rice could lead to greater reliance on food imports, with US $7 billion already...
Plant breeders could let women farmers guide them
| Sam Storr | 3/6/2020
Plant breeders produce new varieties for their customers: farmers. To predict what kinds of new varieties are likely to offer significant benefits to farmers, breeders may turn to their customers to evaluate which characteristics might make a new variety more acceptable. A comprehensive review of many such evaluations suggests that if breeders were to pay more attention to what women need, it could increase the usefulness of...
Assessing the current state of breeding operations in West Africa
EiB news | Sam Storr | 6/4/2020
In February, the CGIAR Excellence in Breeding (EiB) Platform assessed breeding operations and phenotyping capacity at five CGIAR and national crop research stations in West Africa.Given that the population of West Africa is expected to double in the next...
Dawn of a pan-African method for designing varieties with impact
EiB news | Sam Storr | 20/2/2020
Market and crop development specialists in Africa are making important steps towards embedding customer- and product-driven breeding practices in the region in 2020.One the chief obstacles to agricultural development in Africa is the low rate at which...