How can we ensure crop breeding programs best varieties, faster, and more efficiently? CGIAR’s Breeding Resources Initiative (BRI) is working to bring tools, technologies and services to programs in the CGIAR-NARES (national agricultural research and extension systems) networks.
CGIAR has a rich history of crop breeding results, but modern challenges abound. Too many farmers are still using out-of-date varieties. Climate change is risking crop productivity. And populations in Africa and Asia need more nutritious food now.
Source: International Potato Center (CIP)
Handheld device being deployed in the wheat physiology process. Source: Alfredo Sáenz, CIMMYT
There is an urgent need for public breeding programs to prioritize and focus their efforts. Excellence in Breeding (EiB) is working with CGIAR partners to identify market segments and align breeding pipelines to them — with the goal of increasing food security and improving livelihoods.
Breeders, economists, gender specialists, and food technologists are gathering together to advance new approaches to breeding crop varieties that people will want.
Approaches that delivered the Green Revolution are now surpassed by more advanced methodologies and technologies. And adoption of these has moved too slowly in public sector breeding. CGIAR Excellence in Breeding (EiB) is tackling this head-on by working across partners to accelerate the modernization of breeding programs.
As breeders develop varieties that meet farmers’ needs, we need to ensure the entire R&D process improves water sustainability. Here are three ways crop breeders can manage water to deliver the best seeds and create the best conditions for long-term crop production.
If you had to choose one word that symbolizes “women in science,” what would it be? CGIAR Excellence in Breeding asked this question to an array of women working across the crop breeding domain.
By Hugo Campos and Michael Quinn
Originally an EiB Op-Ed published on Farming First.
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 customers, namely breeders, farmers and donors. Here, experts walk through the process, and examine a CGIAR rice breeding case study from the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI).
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?
