Generation Challenge Programme
GCP website
Integrated Breeding
IBP website
GCP Blog
GCP blog
  Connect with us GCP on Facebook GCP on Twitter GCP on LinkedIn Subscribe to GCP Newsletter Subscribe to GCP RSS feeds
Nov 062015
 

 

 Photo: C Schubert/CCAFSWhere to begin a decade-long story like that of the CGIAR Generation Challenge Programme (GCP)? This time-bound programme concluded in 2014 after successfully catalysing the use of advanced plant breeding techniques in the developing world.

Like all good tales, the GCP story had a strong theme: building partnerships in modern crop breeding for food security. It had a strong cast of characters: a palpable community of staff, consultants and partners from all over the world. And it had a formidable structure – two distinct phases split equally over the decade to first discover new plant genetic information and tools, and then to apply what the researchers learnt to breed more tolerant and resilient crops.

In October 2014, at the final General Research Meeting in Thailand, GCP Director Jean-Marcel Ribaut paid tribute to GCP’s cast and crew: “To all the people involved in GCP over the last 12 years, you are the real asset of the Programme,” he told them.

“In essence, our work has been all about partnerships and networking, bringing together players in crop research who may otherwise never have worked together,” says Jean-Marcel. “GCP’s impact is not easy to evaluate but it’s extremely important for effective research into the future. We demonstrated proofs of concept that can be scaled up for powerful results.”

A significant aspect of GCP’s legacy is the abundance of collaborations it forged and fostered between international researchers. A typical GCP project brought together public and private partners from both developing and developed nations and from CGIAR Centres. In all, more than 200 partners collaborated on GCP projects.

Photo: GCP

Just some of the extended GCP family assembled for the Programme’s final General Research Meeting in 2014.

The idea that the ‘community would pave the way towards success’ was always a key foundation of GCP, according to Dave Hoisington, who was involved with GCP from its conception and was latterly Chair of GCP’s Consortium Committee. “We designed GCP to provide opportunities for researchers to work together,” says Dave. He is a senior research scientist and program director at the University of Georgia, and was formerly Director of Research at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) and Director of the Genetic Resources Program and of the Applied Biotechnology Center at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).

“GCP was the mechanism that would help us to complete our mission – to tap into the rich genetic diversity of crops and package it so that breeding programme researchers could integrate it into their operations,” says Dave.

Photo: ICRISAT

A little girl tucks into sorghum porridge in Mali.

The dawn of a new generation

Food security in the developing world continues to be one of the greatest global challenges of our time. One in nine people worldwide – or more than 820 million people – go hungry every day.

Although this figure is currently diminishing, a changing global climate is making food production more challenging for farmers. Farmers need higher yielding crops that can grow with less water, tolerate higher temperatures and poorer soils, and resist pests and diseases.

The turn of the millennium saw rapid technological developments emerging in international molecular plant science. New tools and approaches were developed that enabled plant scientists, particularly in the developing world, to make use of genetic diversity in plants that was previously largely inaccessible to them. These tools had the potential to increase plant breeders’ capacity to rapidly develop crop varieties able to tolerate extreme environments and yield more in farmers’ fields.

Photo: J van de Gevel/Bioversity International

Wheat varieties in a field trial.

Dave was one scientist who early on recognised the significance and potential of this new dawn in plant science. In 2002, while working at CIMMYT, he teamed up with the Center’s then Director General, Masa Iwanaga, and its then Executive Officer for Research, Peter Ninnes – another long-term member of the GCP family who at the other end of the Programme’s lifespan became its Transition Manager. Together with a Task Force of other collaborators from CIMMYT, the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) and IPGRI (now Bioversity International), they drafted and presented a joint proposal to form a CGIAR Challenge Programme – and so GCP was conceived.

The five CGIAR Challenge Programmes were the early precursors of the current CGIAR Research Programs. They introduced a new model for collaboration among CGIAR Research Centers and with external institutes, particularly national breeding programmes in developing countries.

A programme where the spirit is palpable

Photo: N Palmer/CIAT

Failed harvest: this Ghanaian farmer’s maize ears are undersized and poorly developed due to drought.

From the beginning, GCP had collaboration and capacity building at its heart. As encapsulated in its tagline, “partnerships in modern crop breeding for food security,” GCP’s aim was to bring breeders together and give them the tools to more effectively breed crops for the benefit of the resource-poor farmers and their families, particularly in marginal environments.

GCP’s primary focus on was on drought tolerance and breeding for drought-prone farming systems, since this is the biggest threat to food security worldwide – and droughts are already becoming more frequent and severe with climate change. However, the Programme made major advances in breeding for resilience to other major stresses in a number of different crops, including acid soils and important pests and diseases. It also sought improved yields and nutritional quality.

The model for the Programme was that it would work by contracting partner institutes to conduct research, initially through competitive projects and later through commissioning. These partnerships would ensure that GCP’s overall objectives were met. For Dave, GCP set the groundwork for modern plant breeding.

“GCP demonstrated that you can tap into genetic resources and that they can be valuable and can have significant impacts on breeding programmes,” he says.

“I think GCP started to guide the process. Without GCP, the adoption, testing and use of molecular technologies would probably have been delayed.”

Photo: Meena Kadri/Flickr (Creative Commons)

Harvesting wheat in India.

Masa Iwanaga, who is now President of the Japan International Research Center for Agricultural Sciences (JIRCAS), says that the key to the proposal and ultimate success of GCP was the focus on building connections between partners worldwide. “By providing the opportunity for researchers from developed countries to partner with researchers in developing countries, it helped enhance the capacity of national programmes in developing countries to use advanced technology for crop improvement.”

While not all partnerships were fruitful, Jean-Marcel has observed that those participants who invested in partnerships and built trust, understanding and communication produced some of the most successful results. “We created this amazing chain of people, stretching from the labs to the fields,” said Jean-Marcel, discussing the Programme in a 2012 interview.

“Perhaps the best way I can describe it is as a ‘GCP spirit’ created by the researchers we worked with.

“The Programme’s environment is friendly, open to sharing and is marked by a strong sense of community and belonging. The GCP spirit is visible and palpable: you can recognise people working with us have a spirit that is typical of the Programme.”

Exploring gene banks to uncover genetic wealth

GCP started operations in 2004 and was designed in two five-year phases, 2004–2008 and 2009–2013. 2014 was a transition year for orderly closure.

Phase I focussed on upstream research to generate knowledge and tools for modern plant breeding. It mainly consisted of exploration and discovery projects, funded on a competitive basis, pursuing the most promising molecular research and high-potential partnerships.

“GCP’s first task was to go in and identify the genetic wealth held within the CGIAR gene banks,” says Dave Hoisington.

Photo: IITA

Gene bank samples give a small snapshot of cowpea diversity.

CGIAR’s gene banks were originally conceived purely for conservation, but breeders increasingly recognised the tremendous value of studying and utilising these collections. Over the years they were able to use gene banks as a valuable source of new breeding material, but were hampered by having to choose seeds almost blindly, with limited knowledge of what useful traits they might contain.

“We realised we could use molecular tools to help scan the genomes and discover genes in crops of interest and related species,” says Dave. “The genes we were most interested in were ones that helped increase yield in harsh environments, particularly under drought.”

By studying the genomes of wild varieties of wheat, for example, researchers found genes that increase wheat’s tolerance of water stress.

Photo: International Potato Center (CIP)

Sweetpotato diversity.

GCP-supported projects analysed naturally occurring genetic diversity to produce cloned genes, informative markers and reference sets for 21 important food crops. ‘Reference sets’, or ‘reference collections’ reduce search time for researchers: they are representative selections of a few hundred plant samples (‘accessions’) that encapsulate each crop’s genetic diversity, narrowed down from the many thousands of gene bank accessions available. The resources developed through GCP have already proved enormously valuable, and will continue to benefit researchers for years to come.

For example, researchers developed 52 new molecular (DNA) markers for sweetpotato to enable marker-assisted selection for resistance to sweet potato virus disease (SPVD). For lentils, a reference set of about 150 accessions was produced, a distillation down to 15 percent of the global collection studied. And for barley, 90 percent of all the different characteristics of barley were captured within 300 representative plant lines.

Photo: ICARDA

Harvesting barley in Ethiopia.

The leader of GCP’s barley research, Michael Baum, who directs the Biodiversity and Integrated Gene Management Program at the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), says the reference set is a particular boon for a researcher new to barley.

“By looking at 300 lines, they see the diversity of 3,000 lines without any duplication,” says Michael. “This is much better and quicker for a plant breeder.”

Similarly, the lentil reference set serves as a common resource for ICARDA’s team of lentil breeders, facilitating efficient collaboration, according to Aladdin Hamweih of ICARDA, who was charged with developing the lentil collection for GCP.

“These materials can be accessed to achieve farming goals – to produce tough plants suitable for local environments. In doing this, we give farmers a greater likelihood of success, which ultimately leads to improving food security for the wider population,” Aladdin says.

An important aspect of the efforts within Phase I was GCP’s emphasis on developing genomic resources such as reference sets for historically under-resourced crops that had received relatively little investment in genetic research. These made up most of GCP’s target crops, and included: bananas and plantains; cassava; coconuts; common beans; cowpeas; chickpeas; groundnuts; lentils; finger, foxtail and pearl millets; pigeonpeas; potatoes; sorghum; sweetpotatoes and yams.

Although not all of these historically under-resourced crops continued to receive research funding into Phase II, the outcomes from Phase I provided valuable genetic resources and a solid basis for the ongoing use of modern, molecular-breeding techniques. Indeed, thanks to their GCP boost, some of these previously neglected species have become model crops for genetic and genomic research – even overtaking superstar crops such as wheat, whose highly complex genome hampers scientists’ progress.

Photo: N Palmer/CIAT

Banana harvest for sale in Rwanda.

A need to focus and deliver products

“Phase I provided plenty of opportunity for researchers to tap into genetic diversity,” says Jean-Marcel. “We opened the door for a lot of different topics which helped us to identify projects worth pursuing further, as well as identifying productive partnerships. But at the same time, we were losing focus by spreading ourselves too thinly across so many crops.”

This notion was confirmed by the authors of an external review conducted in 2008, commissioned by CGIAR. This recommended consolidating GCP’s research in order to optimise efficiency and increase outputs during GCP’s second phase, while also enhancing potential for longer term impact.

Transparency and a willingness to respond and adapt were always core GCP values. The Programme embraced external review throughout its lifetime, and was able to make dynamic changes in direction as the best ways to achieve impact emerged. Markus Palenberg, Managing Director of the Institute for Development Strategy in Germany, was a member of the 2008 evaluation panel.

“One major recommendation from the evaluation was to focus on crops and tools which would provide the greatest impact in terms of food security,” recounts Markus, who later joined GCP’s Executive Board. “This resulted in the Programme refocusing its research on only nine core crops.” These were cassava, beans, chickpeas, cowpeas, groundnuts, maize, rice, sorghum and wheat.

Photo: Mann/ILRI

Hard work: harvesting groundnut in Malawi.

GCP’s decision-making process on how to focus its Phase II efforts was partly guided by research the Programme had commissioned, documented in its Pathways to impact brief No 1: Where in the world do we start? This took global data on the number of stunted – i.e., severely malnourished – children, as a truer indicator of poverty than a monetary definition, and overlaid it on maps showing where drought was most likely to occur and have a serious impact on crop productivity. This combination of poverty and vulnerable harvests was used to determine the farming systems where GCP might have most impact.

The Programme also attempted to maintain a balance between types of crops, including each of the following categories: cereals (maize, rice, sorghum, wheat), legumes (beans, chickpeas, cowpeas, groundnuts), and roots and tubers (cassava).

The crops were organised into six crop- specific Research Initiatives (RIs) – legumes were consolidated into one – plus a seventh, Comparative Genomics, which focused on exploiting genetic similarities among rice, maize and sorghum to find and deploy sources of tolerance to acid soils.

Photo: IRRI

Child eating rice.

The research under the RIs built on GCP’s achievements in Phase I, moving from exploration to application. The change in focus was underpinned by the planned shift from competitive to commissioned projects, allowing the Programme to continue to support its strongest partnerships and research strands.

“The RIs focused on promoting the use of modern integrated breeding approaches, using both conventional and molecular breeding methods, to improve each crop through a series of specific projects undertaken in more than 30 countries,” says Jean-Marcel. “More importantly, the RIs were focused on creating new genetic material and varieties of plants that would ultimately benefit farmers.”

Such products released on the ground included new varieties of:

  • cassava resistant to several diseases, tolerant to drought, nutritionally enhanced to provide high levels of vitamin A, and with higher starch content for high-quality cassava flour and starch processing
  • chickpea tolerant to drought and able to thrive in semi-arid conditions, already providing improved food and income security for smallholder African farmers  – yields have doubled in Ethiopia – and set to help them supply growing demand for the legume in India
  • maize with higher yields, tolerant to high levels of aluminium in acid soils, resistant to disease, adapted to local conditions in Africa – and with improved phosphorus efficiency in the pipeline
  • rice with tolerance to drought and low levels of phosphorus in acid soils, disease resistance, high grain quality, and tolerance to soil salinity – with improved aluminium tolerance on the way too
Photo: CSISA

Harvesting rice in India.

Over the coming years, many more varieties developed through GCP projects are expected to be available to farmers, as CGIAR Research Centres and national programmes continue their work.

These will include varieties of:

  • common bean resistant to disease and tolerant to drought and heat, with higher yields in drier conditions – due for release in several African countries from 2015 onwards
  • cowpea resistant to diseases and insect pests, with higher yields, and able to tolerate worsening drought – set for release in several countries from 2015, to secure and improve harvests in sub-Saharan Africa
  • groundnut tolerant to drought and resistant to pests, diseases, and the fungi that cause aflatoxin contamination, securing harvests and raising incomes in some of the poorest regions of Africa
  • maize tolerant to drought and adapted to local conditions and tastes in Asia
  • sorghum that is even more robust and adapted to increasing drought in the arid areas of sub-Saharan Africa – plus sorghum varieties able to tolerate high aluminium levels in acid soils, set for imminent release
  • wheat with heat and drought tolerance – as well as improved yield and grain quality – for India and China, the two largest wheat producers in the world
Photo: N Palmer/CIAT

Groundnut harvest, Ghana.

Giving a voice to all the cast and crew

The 2008 external review also recommended slight changes in governance. It suggested GCP receive more guidance from two proposed panels: a Consortium Committee and an independent Executive Board.

Dave Hoisington, who chaired the Committee from 2010, succeeding the inaugural Chair Yves Savidan, explains: “GCP was not a research programme run by a single institute, but a consortium of 18 institutes. By having a committee of the key players in research as well as an independent board comprising people who had no conflict of interest with the Programme, we were able to make sure both the ‘players’ and ‘referees’ were given a voice.”

Jean-Marcel says providing this voice to everyone involved was an important facet of effective management. “Given that GCP was built on its people and partnerships, it was important that we restructured our governance to provide everyone with a representative to voice their thoughts on the Programme. We have always tried to be very transparent.”

The seven-member Executive Board was instated in June 2008 to provide oversight of the scientific strategy of the Programme. Board members had a wide variety of skills and backgrounds, with expertise ranging across molecular biology, development assistance, socioeconomics, academia, finance, governance and change management.

Andrew Bennett, who followed inaugural Chair Calvin Qualset into the role in 2009, has more than 45 years of experience in international development and disaster management and has worked in development programmes in Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Pacific and the Caribbean.

“The Executive Board’s first role was to provide advice and to help the Consortium Committee and management refocus the Programme,” says Andrew.

Photo: IRRI

Rice seed diversity.

‘Advice’ and ‘helping’ are not usually words associated with how a Board works but, like so much of GCP’s ‘family’, this was not a typical board. Because GCP was hosted by CIMMYT, the Board did not have to deal with any policy issues; that was the responsibility of the Consortium Committee. As Andrew explains, “Our role was to advise on and help with decision-making and implementation, which was great as we were able to focus on the Programme’s science and people.”

Andrew has been impressed by what GCP has been able to achieve in its relatively short lifespan in comparison with other research programmes. “I think this programme has demonstrated that a relatively modest amount of money used intelligently can move with the times and help identify areas of potential benefit.”

Developing capacity and leadership in Africa

As GCP’s focus shifted from exploration and discovery to application and impact between Phases I and II, project leadership shifted too. More and more projects were being led by developing-country partners.

Harold Roy-Macauley, GCP Board member and Executive Director of the West and Central African Council for Agricultural Research and Development (WECARD), advised GCP about how to develop capacity, community and leadership among African partners so that products would reach farmers.

“The objective was to make sure that we were influencing development within local research communities,” says Harold. “GCP has played a very important role in creating synergies between the different institutions in Africa. Bringing the right people together, who are working on similar problems, and providing them with the opportunity to lead, has brought about change in the way researchers are doing research.”

In the early years of the Programme, only about 25 percent of the research budget was allocated to research institutes in developing countries; this figure was more than 50 percent in 2012 and 2013.

Jean-Marcel echoes Harold’s comments: “To make a difference in rural development – to truly contribute to improved food security through crop improvement and incomes for poor farmers – we knew that building capacity had to be a cornerstone of our strategy,” he says. Throughout its 10 years, GCP invested 15 percent of its resources in developing capacity.

“Providing this capacity has enabled people, research teams and institutes to grow, thrive and stand on their own, and this is deeply gratifying. It is very rewarding to see people from developing countries growing and becoming leaders,” says Jean-Marcel.

“For me, seeing developing-country partners come to the fore and take the reins of project leadership was one of the major outcomes of the Programme. Providing them with the opportunity, along with the appropriate capacity, allowed them to build their self-confidence. Now, many have become leaders of other transnational projects.”

Emmanuel Okogbenin and Chiedozie Egesi, two plant breeders at Nigeria’s National Root Crops Research Institute (NRCRI), are notable examples. They are leading an innovative new project using marker-assisted breeding techniques they learnt during GCP projects to develop higher-yielding, stress-tolerant cassava varieties. For this project, they are partnering with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Cornell University in the USA, the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) and Uganda’s National Crops Resources Research Institute (NaCRRI).

Chiedozie says this would not have been possible without GCP helping African researchers to build their profiles. “GCP helped us to build an image for ourselves in Nigeria and in Africa,” he says, “and this created a confidence in other global actors, who, on seeing our ability to deliver results, are choosing to invest in us.”

Photo: IITA

Nigerian cassava farmer.

A ‘sweet and sour’ sunset

Photo: Daryl Marquardt/Flickr (Creative Commons)

Maize at sunset.

Jean-Marcel defined GCP’s final General Research Meeting in Thailand in 2014 as a ‘sweet-and-sour experience’.

Summing up the meeting, Jean-Marcel said, “It was sour in terms of GCP’s sunset, and sweet in terms of seeing you all here, sharing your stories and continuing your conversations with your partners and communities.”

From the outset, GCP was set up as a time-bound programme, which gave partners specific time limits and goals, and the motivation to deliver products. However, much of the research begun during GCP projects will take longer than 10 years to come to full fruition, so it was important for GCP to ensure that the research effort could be sustained and would continue to deliver farmer-focused outcomes.

During the final two years of the Programme, the Executive Board, Consortium Committee and Management Team played a large role in ensuring this sustainability through a thoroughly planned handover.

“We knew we weren’t going to be around forever, so we had a plan from early on to hand over the managerial reins to other institutes, including CGIAR Research Programs,” says Jean-Marcel.

One of the largest challenges was to ensure the continuity and future success of the Integrated Breeding Platform (IBP). IBP is a web-based, one-stop shop for information, tools and related services to support crop breeders in designing and carrying out integrated breeding projects, including both conventional and marker-assisted breeding methods.

While there are already a number of other analytical and data management breeding systems on the market, IBP combines all the tools that a breeder needs to carry out their day-to-day logistics, plan crosses and trials, manage and analyse data, and analyse and refine breeding decisions. IBP is also unique in that it is geared towards supporting breeders in developing countries – although it is already proving valuable to a wide range of breeding teams across the world. The Platform is set up to grow and improve as innovative ideas emerge, as users can develop and share their own tools.

Beyond the communities and relationships fostered by GCP community, Jean-Marcel sees IBP as the most important legacy of the Programme. “I think that the impact of IBP will be huge – so much larger than GCP. It will really have impact on how people do their business, and adopt best practice.”

While the sun is setting on GCP, it is rising for IBP, which is in an exciting phases as it grows and seeks long-term financial stability. The Platform is now independent, with its headquarters hosted at CIMMYT, and has established a number of regional hubs to provide localised support and training around the world, with more to follow.

It is envisaged that IBP will be invaluable to researchers in both developing and developed countries for many years to come, helping them to get farmers the crop varieties they need more efficiently. IBP is also helping to sustain some of the networks that GCP built and nurtured, as it is hosting the crop-specific Communities of Practice established by GCP.

2014 may be the end of GCP’s story but its legacy will live on. It will endure, of course, in the Programme’s scientific achievements – for many crops, genetic research and the effective use of genetic diversity in molecular breeding are just beginning, and GCP has helped to kick-start a long and productive scientific journey – and in the valuable tools brought together in IBP. And most of all, GCP’s character, communities and spirit will live on in all those who formed part of the GCP family.

For Chiedozie Egesi, the partnerships fostered by GCP have changed the way he does research: “We now have a network of cassava breeders that you can count on and relate with in different countries. This has really widened our horizons.

Fellow cassava breeder Elizabeth Parkes of Ghana agrees that GCP’s impact will be a lasting one: “All the agricultural research institutes and individual scientists who came into contact with GCP have been fundamentally transformed.”

More links

Photo: E Hermanowicz/Bioversity International

Cowpea seeds dried in their pods.

Oct 092015
 

 

Photo: IITA

Elizabeth Parkes

Elizabeth Parkes grew up in Ghana as the youngest child and only girl in a middle-class family of nine children. Through visiting poor communities with her family, she began from an early age to build her understanding of the lives of resource-poor families in this part of West Africa and their need for reliable and nutritious food.

She also knows first-hand the important role women play on a farm and in a family. “Rural families are held together by women, so if you are able to change their lot, you can make a real mark,” says Elizabeth.

It was this sense of social conscience that drew her to a career in agricultural research: “My father, a Regional Education Officer, was not very amused; he thought agricultural research was a man’s job!” she recalls.

But Elizabeth was on a mission. “I see African communities where poverty and hunger are seemingly huge problems with no way out,” she says. “If I put in enough effort, I can bring some solutions. My primary target group is the less privileged, and women in particular have been my friends throughout. This sometimes means subtly getting the men to consider some changes in roles.”

This sense of destiny led to Elizabeth gaining a Bachelor’s degree in Agriculture, a Diploma in Education and a Master’s in Crop Science.

Meet Elizabeth in the complete podcast below (or see a playlist on PodOmatic)  – and be inspired by her warmth and passion!

 

Photo: IITA

A worker in a Ghanaian cooperative producing garri, or gari, a kind of granular cassava flour used to prepare a range of foods.

Turning point: cassava to help the vulnerable

During a stint of national service between academic degrees, she was based in the tiny poor village of Aworowa in the Brong Ahafo Region. There was no electricity in her room, and the street lights came on once a week.

Photo: Tini Maier/Flickr (Creative Commons)

In a poor Ghanaian community everyone has to pitch in to the heavy daily round of chores.

“We all fetched water from the stream to drink and cook,” Elizabeth recalls. The plight of the villagers inspired Elizabeth to approach a scientist engaged in root and tuber projects at the Crops Research Institute (CRI) of Ghana’s Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). She offered to carry out some research on cassava, hoping this might help the local people.

“I saw the struggle for households,” says Elizabeth. “I lived with them for one year, which transformed my interest and focus onto the vulnerable and less privileged.”

As a result, Elizabeth established CRI cassava trials in the region, and these trials continue today with Elizabeth still in touch with the villagers.

When her year of national service finished, Elizabeth was appointed as Assistant Research Officer at CRI – their first woman to be assigned to a research project. Already, she was beginning to fulfil her destiny.

Photo: IITA

Healthy cassava plants.

Challenges and opportunities

Photo: IITA

Unlike most crops, cassava is propagated, not by seed, but using cut sections of stem like these – just one of the many challenges this previously neglected crop offers breeders.

But cassava is not the easiest crop for a young researcher to cut their teeth on. It has long been regarded as an ‘orphan’ crop – one that researchers and funders have forgotten in their drive to work with the higher profile crops of wheat, rice and maize.

Cassava is a challenging crop for breeders to work with. “In addition to factors such as pests and disease, cassava is a long-season and very labour-intensive crop. It can take a whole year before you can expect to reap any rewards, and if you don’t have a strong team who can step in at different points throughout the breeding process, you can often find unexpected results at the end of it, and then you have to start all over again,” Elizabeth says.

But while many other young researchers gave up on with cassava, Elizabeth stuck with it, knowing the importance of this crop to farmers, especially women. And this is where Elizabeth’s involvement with the CGIAR Generation Challenge Programme (GCP) really started to make a difference to her future.

During GCP’s first research phase, Elizabeth’s path crossed with GCP scientist Martin Fregene, who encouraged Elizabeth to lead the Ghana partners involved in GCP’s cassava projects. She soon climbed the GCP research ranks, receiving multiple study grants, managing projects, and mixing and mingling with elite scientists. Along the way, Elizabeth also learnt new molecular breeding techniques. More recently, she was appointed Ghana’s lead researcher for GCP’s Phase II Cassava Research Initiative.

A place at the table, and sharing joy

Photo: IITA


Elizabeth Parkes examines a healthy crop of monster roots from an improved cassava variety.

Elizabeth believes the support GCP gave her to develop her skills and capacity is what has made a difference to her own and others’ destinies as research scientists: “GCP has made us visible and attractive to others; we are now setting the pace and doing science in a more refined and effective manner. I see GCP as the pace setters.

Elizabeth Parkes quote 2

“GCP gave you the keys to solving your own problems and put structures in place so that knowledge learnt abroad could be transferred and applied at home.

“When I first joined GCP,” Elizabeth recalls, “I saw myself as somebody from a national research programme being given a place at the table; my inputs were recognised and what I said carried weight in decision-making.”

Elizabeth has attended three GCP Annual (later General) Research Meetings and won awards for her posters. “This greatly boosted my confidence,” she says. She is an active member of the Cassava Community of Practice – founded by GCP and now hosted by the Integrated Breeding Platform (IBP) – which facilitates and supports the integration of marker-assisted selection into cassava breeding. All this has accelerated Elizabeth’s quest to produce and disseminate farmer-preferred cassava varieties that are resistant to pests and diseases.

Elizabeth Parkes quote 3“With the Community of Practice you can call on other scientists; you share talk, you share ideas, you share joy. We share everything together,” Elizabeth enthuses. ‘Joy’ is a word that is often on Elizabeth’s lips when she describes the help that GCP has given her and others.

“We are all forever grateful to GCP and its funders. GCP has had a huge impact on research in Ghana, especially for cassava, rice, maize and yam. All the agricultural research institutes and individual scientists who came into contact with GCP have been fundamentally transformed.”

Photo: A Hoel/World Bank

A farmer in Benin transforms cassava into garri, or gari, used as the basis of many different dishes.

Elizabeth Parkes quoteIn less than a decade, Elizabeth has become a valued researcher at CRI (currently on secondment at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, IITA) as well as Ghana’s leading GCP-supported scientist working on cassava. But in fulfilling her own destiny, she’s also passionate about helping others to achieve their potential.

“Building human capacity is my greatest joy,” she says. Farmers, breeders and a Ghanaian private-sector company are just a few of the fortunate beneficiaries of her expertise over recent years.

“Wherever I go, whatever opportunity I have, I refer back to GCP and its capacity-building work. You see, it’s good to release new plant varieties, but it’s also good to release people who will do the job.”

Nurturing women

Photo: O Girard/CIFOR

Angelique Ipanga tends her cassava plants in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Cassava is often seen as a “women’s crop,” and the work of cultivating and preparing it falls largely on women’s shoulders.

Elizabeth talks about one of her favourite people, a farmer called Bea: “She’s very serious. She wants to learn more and she keeps expanding her farm.”

Bea hadn’t planted cassava before, so she pestered Elizabeth to find out more about how to do it properly. With Elizabeth’s guidance, Bea’s cassava-growing skills flourished, and she became so successful that she was recognised as the best farmer in her community.

“These are things that make me glad… that at least I have impacted somebody who hadn’t planted cassava before, and it’s amazing,” says Elizabeth. “There are people out there who need us, and when we give them our best, they will give the world their best as well.”

Elizabeth is also passionate about helping other women researchers: “I’ve pushed to make people recognise that women can do advanced agricultural science, and do it well. To see a talented woman researcher firmly established in her career and with her kids around her is thrilling.”

And so Elizabeth is now herself firmly established in world-class agricultural research, and further interesting stories are sure to follow.

“Before GCP we really struggled, but now everybody wants to have training in Ghana. Everybody wants to have something to do with us, and I will always say thank you to GCP for that, for making us attractive as researchers,” Elizabeth says.

“I’ve stuck with cassava because that’s my destiny! I may add other root and tuber crops, but cassava is my pivot.”

More links

Oct 072015
 

Young Nigerian scientists often leave Africa and look for jobs with international research agencies overseas. But with the CGIAR Generation Challenge Programme (GCP)-funded Cassava Research Initiative (RI), two young nationals have been leading the international collaboration and injecting confidence into Africa’s research capacity.

Leadership is a quality admired and consistently sought after, particularly when overcoming a challenge. Some leaders direct from afar; others rise through the ranks and work with their peers on the ground – winning respect from the people they lead as they get their hands dirty.

Photo: G Norton

Dream team: Emmanuel Okogbenin (left) and Chiedozie Egesi (right), both of Nigeria’s National Root Crops Research Institute.

“If you want to work for the people, you have to walk with the people – that’s an African concept,” says Emmanuel Okogbenin, a plant breeder and geneticist at Nigeria’s National Root Crops Research Institute (NRCRI). “Then when you work with the people, you really understand what they want. When you speak, they know they can trust you.”

This powerful sentiment is one reason why GCP sought the collaboration of NRCRI in overcoming the challenge of sustaining Africa’s, and indeed the world’s, cassava production.

Having started as a small farm in 1923, NRCRI has taken giant strides to become one of Nigeria’s best research institutes, contributing immensely to the country’s economic development and making it the leading producer of cassava in the world. NRCRI Executive Director Julius Chukwuma Okonkwo says, “This would not have been attainable if not for the trust and support that GCP had in us when they made two of our young cassava researchers the leaders of an international collaboration.”

The two researchers to whom Julius refers are Emmanuel and his colleague Chiedozie Egesi, also a plant breeder and geneticist at NRCRI. Their combined 36 years’ of cassava research experience is matched by their passion to get the best out of Nigeria’s main staple crop.

And they are happy to get some dirt under their fingernails. “It’s just as important to work with the farmers in the field and understand what they want, as it is to do the research in the lab,” says Emmanuel. “At the end of the day we need to please the farmers, as they are the ones who will be using the new varieties that we are developing to sustain their livelihoods.”

Photo: IITA

Nigerian farmers display their cassava harvest.

Developing and leading Africa’s cassava research

Between 2010 and 2014, both Emmanuel and Chiedozie led three different projects within GCP’s Cassava RI, working with other colleagues in national breeding programmes in Ghana, Tanzania and Uganda, as well as the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), the Brazilian Corporation of Agricultural Research (EMBRAPA) and Cornell University in the USA. The aim of the initiative was to use molecular-breeding techniques to accelerate the development of high-starch cassava varieties with resistance to diseases and tolerance to drought – and so ensure both food supplies and income for farmers.

Meet Chiedozie and Emmanuel in the video playlist below, learn more about cassava in Africa, and hear all about their research (or watch on Youtube):

Emmanuel explains that before GCP, “most African national programmes didn’t really have established crop-breeding programmes, and didn’t have the resources” to do the scale of research GCP assisted with. Nor did they have the capacity to use molecular-breeding techniques, which can potentially halve the time it takes to develop new varieties.

With help from GCP and CIAT, NRCRI was able to equip a new molecular-breeding laboratory, and staff were trained to incorporate molecular-breeding techniques into their breeding programme. “GCP was there not only to provide technology, but also to guide us in how to operate that technology,” explains Chiedozie.

Julius points out that both Chiedozie and Emmanuel were also influential in disseminating this knowledge and, in turn, building and sustaining NRCRI’s human capacity. “They both mentored many young scientists who have chosen a career in cassava and molecular breeding because of this.”

Photo: IITA

Transporting a bountiful cassava harvest from farm to market in Nigeria.

With training and infrastructure in place, NRCRI led an international collaboration that in 2010 released Africa’s first cassava variety developed using molecular-breeding techniques. Known as UMUCASS33 (or CR 41-10), it was resistant to cassava mosaic disease (CMD) – a devastating plant disease that can wipe out farmers’ entire cassava crops – and also highly nutritious. This was swiftly followed by a second similar variety, CR 36-5, and supplied to farmers.

Between this landmark release and GCP’s close in 2014, the cassava team had already released nearly 20 higher yielding, more nutritious varieties resistant to diseases and pests, and had begun working on developing drought-tolerant varieties.

These new and improved varieties – all generated as a direct or indirect result of his engagement in GCP projects – are, Chiedozie says, worth their weight in gold: “Through these materials, people’s livelihoods can be improved. The food people grow should be nutritious, resistant and high-yielding enough to allow them to sell some of it and make money for other things in life, such as building a house, getting a motorbike or sending their kids to school.” This social aspect is particularly pertinent in Nigeria, where these cassava varieties will have the greatest impact.

Five years, 20 new varieties for African farmers Between 2010 and 2014, NRCRI and its collaborators developed and released multiple new cassava varieties with a combination of traits. This work has continued after the closure of GCP, with more releases in the pipeline. Disease and pest resistance During 2010-2014 the team released several varieties of cassava resistant to cassava mosaic disease (CMD) for different environments in Nigeria, Ghana, Uganda and Tanzania as well as several varieties resistant to cassava brown streak disease (CBSD) – a similarly devastating disease originating in Tanzania but quickly spreading into Uganda and further west. They have also developed new varieties with combined resistance to CMD and CBSD. These have the potential to double the yield of existing commercial varieties. The team has also worked with Tanzanian breeders to develop cassava varieties that are resistant to bacterial blight and green mites. These new Tanzanian varieties are on their way to commercial breeders and will be available to farmers by 2015–16. High starch content In 2012 the team released a variety with very high starch content – an essential element of good cassava.  Improved nutrition In 2011, the NRCRI team, together with IITA and HarvestPlus (another CGIAR Challenge Programme focussed on the nutritional enrichment of crops), released three cassava varieties rich in pro-vitamin A, which hold the potential to provide children under five and women of reproductive age with up to 25 percent of their daily vitamin A requirement. Since then, the team has aimed to increase this figure to 50 percent. In 2014, they released three more pro-vitamin A varieties with higher concentrations of beta-carotene.

Feeding a giant

Photo: IITA

Nigerian farmer with his bountiful cassava harvest.

Nigeria is often referred to as the ‘Giant of Africa’. It is the most populous African country, with over 174 million inhabitants. The population’s main staple food is cassava, making Nigeria the world’s largest producer and consumer of the crop. At the same time, the country imports almost USD 4 billion of wheat every year – a figure that is expected to quadruple by 2030 if wheat consumption continues to grow at the same rate it is today.

The government is wary of this ‘overreliance’ on imported grain and is working towards making the country less reliant on wheat by imposing a wheat tariff. It also hopes to boost cassava production and commercialisation by promoting 20 percent substitution of cassava flour for wheat in breadmaking.

“The government feels that to quickly change the fortunes of farmers, cassava is the way to go,” explains Emmanuel, who liaises with the Nigerian Government to promote to farmers the benefit of cassava varieties with high starch concentrations. It is the flour from these varieties that is being used to partially replace wheat flour to make bread. GCP support has been crucial here too, in providing vital scientific information to the government. Emmanuel explains: “The tariff from wheat is expected to be ploughed back to support agricultural development – especially in the cassava sector – as the government seeks to increase cassava production to support flour mills.”

Cassava offers a huge opportunity to transform the agricultural economy, stimulate rural development and further improve Nigeria’s gross domestic product. In 2014, Nigeria’s economy surpassed that of South Africa’s to become the largest on the continent. By 2050, Nigeria is expected to rise further and become one of the world’s top 20 economies.

Unfortunately, however, like many growing economies worldwide, Nigeria is still working to address severe inequality, including in the distribution of wealth and in feeding the country’s expanding population.

Photo: IITA

A woman with her children at work in a cassava processing centre in Nigeria.

It’s a problem Chiedozie understands well: “Nigeria is an oil-producing country, but you still see grinding poverty in some cases,” he says. “Coming from a small town in the southeast of the country, I grew up in an environment where you see people who are struggling, weak from disease, poor, and with no opportunities to send their children to school,” he reveals. The poverty challenge, he explains, hits smallholder farmers particularly hard: “Urban development caught up with them in the end: some of them don’t even have access to the land that they inherited, so they’re forced to farm along the street.”

For Chiedozie, the seemingly bleak picture only served to ignite a fierce determination and motivation to act: “Despite the social injustice around me, I always thought there was opportunity to improve people’s lives.” And thus galvanised by the plight of Nigerian farmers, Chiedozie promptly shelved his plans for a career in medical surgery and pursued biological sciences and a PhD in crop genetics, a course he interspersed with training stints in the USA at Cornell University and the University of Washington, before returning to his homeland to accept a job as head of the cassava breeding team, and – following a promotion in 2010 – to become Assistant Director of the Biotechnology Department at NRCRI.

Empowering African researchers

Photo: IITA

Carrying cassava at a processing centre in Nigeria.

Emmanuel, who followed a similar educational route to Chiedozie, says both he and his colleague are exceptions to the norm in Africa, where African researchers tend to look for opportunities at international or private institutes rather than in national breeding programmes.

“It is difficult being a researcher in Africa,” says Emmanuel. “We don’t get paid as much as breeders in more developed countries, and funding is very hard to obtain.”

Emmanuel says his proudest moment was when GCP was looking for Africans to take up leadership roles. “They felt we could change things around and set a precedent to bring people back to the continent,” he says. “They appreciated our values and the need to install African leaders on the ground in Africa rather than in Europe, Asia or the Americas.”

Jean-Marcel Ribaut, GCP’s Director, says that seeking this local leadership was a novel approach for a transnational programme like GCP at the time, and proved to be an imperative feature for all GCP Research Initiatives. “The reasoning behind the approach is two-fold: Firstly, it’s important that our national partners share in feeling ownership of the projects and outcomes; secondly, they are gaining experience in the role so they can continue to do so after the close of the Programme in 2014,” he says. “We feel that most of our leading institutes, NRCRI included, are in a better position now than when they joined the project, and that this, along with their experience, has already gained them more exposure and funding opportunities.”

This is indeed true of the NRCRI cassava team, which is engaging with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Cornell University, IITA and Uganda’s National Crop Resources Research Institute in an initiative that Chiedozie promises will be at the front of cutting-edge technology. “We are still working out specifics, but it will see us continuing to use marker-assisted breeding techniques to develop higher yielding, stress-tolerant cassava varieties.”

Chiedozie adds this would not have been possible without GCP, which helped them to develop their capacity in Nigeria and in Africa, and this has “created a confidence in other global actors, who, on seeing our ability to deliver results, are choosing to invest in us.”

Photo: IITA

Before GCP came along, cassava was something of an orphan crop in agricultural research. Among the challenges to efficient breeding of cassava are that it is slow to grow and is propagated, not by seed, but using cut sections of stem like those shown. But with investment and capacity building from GCP, particularly in molecular breeding tools, African cassava scientists have gained a new confidence and prestige.

Continuing the momentum

One organisation that has been impressed by the work done at NRCRI is the CGIAR Research Program on Roots, Tubers and Bananas (RTB). RTB Director Graham Thiele has been following the work done at NRCRI since 2010 with great interest. “We have been really impressed to see a national programme like NRCRI playing a leading role in these successful GCP projects, and grow as a result of this,” he says.

One area of research that has particularly impressed Graham is Chiedozie and Emmanuel’s pre-emptive breeding for cassava brown streak disease (CBSD) resistance. “CBSD isn’t currently an issue in Nigeria but it has the potential to wipe out all crops, as it has in Uganda and Tanzania, if it continues to spread west from these countries,” he explains.

“What Chiedozie and Emmanuel are doing is using molecular markers, developed in collaboration with IITA, to search for genes in their varieties that confer resistance to brown streak virus. They can then use these when breeding for CBSD resistance without exposing cassava to the virus. It’s very exciting and forward thinking, as normally people breed for resistance only when the disasters happen.”

As GCP approached its sunset in December 2014, Chiedozie and Emmanuel were reaching out to RTB to seek funding to continue this and other projects they are currently working on. “They’ve already created some great varieties but have plenty more in the pipeline, so we want to help them finish this work and, most importantly, keep the momentum going,” says Graham.

Chiedozie looks forward to the next steps with optimism, confirming that the new collaboration will continue in the quest to “give African farmers varieties of cassava that they will love to grow.”

More links

Photo: IITA


Healthy improved cassava varieties growing in the field.