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Oct 192015
 

IBP-logoBy 2050, the global demand for food will nearly double, numbers of farmers are predicted to decrease and the amount of suitable farmland is not expected to expand. To meet these challenges, farmers will rely on plant breeders becoming more efficient at producing crop varieties that are higher yielding and more resilient.

The Integrated Breeding Platform (IBP), established by the CGIAR Generation Challenge Programme (GCP), provides plant breeders with state-of-the-art, modern breeding tools and management techniques to increase agricultural productivity and breeding efficiency. Its work democratises and facilitates the adoption of these tools and techniques across world regions and economies, from emerging national programmes to well-established companies. In particular, it is helping to bridge the technological and scientific gap prevailing in developing countries by providing purpose-built informatics, capacity-building opportunities and crop-specific expertise to support the adoption of best practice by breeders, including the use of molecular technologies. This will help reduce the time and resources required to develop improved varieties for farmers.

IBP is certainly a winner for maize breeder Thanda Dhliwayo of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT): “IBP is the only publicly available integrated breeding data-management system. I see a lot of potential in increasing efficiency and genetic gain of public breeding programmes,” he says.

For Graham McLaren, who was GCP’s Bioinformatics and Crop Information Sub-Programme Leader, an informatics system is vital for advancing the adoption of modern breeding strategies and the use of molecular technologies.

“One of the biggest constraints to the successful deployment of molecular technologies in public plant breeding, especially in the developing world, is a lack of access to informatics tools to track samples, manage breeding logistics and data, and analyse and support breeding decisions,” says Graham, who is now IBP Deployment Manager for Eastern and Southern Africa.

This is why IBP was set up, explains Graham: “We want to put informatics tools in the hands of breeders – be they in the public or private sector, including small- and medium-scale enterprises – because we know they can make a huge difference.”

Breeders access IBP's services through its Web Portal.

Breeders access IBP’s services through its Web Portal.

Handling big data

Knowledge is power, making data are almost a crucial a raw material for plant breeding as seeds. To make good choices about which plants to use, breeders need information from thousands of plant lines about a wide range plant of characteristics, usually collected during field trials or greenhouse experiments, in a process known as phenotyping. Effective information management is therefore critical in the success of a breeding programme. IBP tackles these crucial information management issues, and many of its current users are finding it invaluable for handling their phenotypic data. IBP also aims to facilitate the use of molecular-breeding techniques, which require genetic as well as phenotypic information (see box), and support users in integrating these into their breeding process.

Marker-assisted selection – highlighting genes that control desired traits This technique involves using molecular markers (also known as DNA markers) to flag the presence of specific genes associated with desired traits and trace their descent from one generation to the next. These markers are themselves fragments of DNA that highlight particular genes or genetic regions by binding near them. To use an analogy, think of a story as the plant’s genome: its words are its genes, and a molecular marker works as a text highlighter. Molecular markers are not precise enough to highlight specific words (genes), but they can highlight sentences (genomic regions) that contain them. Plant breeders can generally use molecular markers early in the breeding process to determine whether plants they are developing will have the desired trait.

The advent and implementation of molecular breeding has increased breeders’ efficiency and capacity to generate new varieties – although the inclusion of genetic data has also added to the amount of information that breeders need to handle.

Photo: HarvestPlus

An abundant harvest of nutrient-enriched cassava in Nigeria.

“Prior to molecular breeding, we would record our observations of how plants performed in the field [phenotypic data] in a paper field book; we would either file the book away or re-enter the data into an Excel spreadsheet,” says Adeyemi (Yemi) Olojede, Assistant Director and Coordinator in charge of the Cassava Research Programme at the National Root Crops Research Institute (NRCRI) in Nigeria and Crop Database Manager for NRCRI’s GCP-funded projects.

“We still need to phenotype, but molecular-breeding techniques allow us to select for plant characteristics early in the breeding process by analysing the plant’s genotype to see if it has genes associated with desirable traits,” says Yemi. Groundwork is needed in order to make this possible: “This means we need to analyse the data of each plant’s genetic make-up as well as the phenotypic data so we can verify whether certain genes are responsible for the traits we observe.”

By using molecular markers to make certain which plants have useful genes right from the start  – simply by testing a tiny bit of seed or seedling tissue – breeders and agronomists like Yemi can carefully select which ‘parent’ plants to use. These are then crossed in just the same way as in conventional breeding, but using only the most promising parents makes each generation is a much bigger step forward. Another advantage for breeders is that they do not necessarily have to grow all of the progeny from each set of crosses – usually thousands – all the way to maturity to see which plants have inherited the traits they are interested in.

The IBP Breeding Management System makes it much easier for breeders to manage their data and make good use of both phenotypic and genotypic information. The Crossing Manager function facilitates the planning and tracking of crosses.

The IBP Breeding Management System makes it much easier for breeders to manage their data and make good use of both phenotypic and genotypic information. The Crossing Manager function facilitates the planning and tracking of crosses.

All of this makes breeding more efficient, reducing the time and cost associated with field trials and cutting the cumulative time it takes to breed new varieties by half or more. The end result is that farmers get the new crop varieties they need more quickly.

Keeping track of masses of information has always been a headache for breeders. However, the increased burden of data management that molecular breeding brings – together with the need to be able to carry out specialised genotypic analysis (study of the genetic make-up of an organism) – has proved to be a limitation for many public national breeding programmes such as NRCRI. These have consequently struggled to adopt molecular-breeding techniques as readily as the private sector.

Wanting to overcome this limitation as part of its mission to advance plant science and improve crops for greater food security in the developing world, in 2009 GCP gave Graham McLaren the momentous task of overseeing the development of the Integrated Breeding Platform.

Clearing the bottleneck

The IBP Web Portal provides information and access to services and crop-specific community spaces. These help breeders design and carry out integrated breeding projects, using conventional breeding methods combined with and enhanced by marker-assisted selection methods. The Portal also provides access to downloadable informatics tools, particularly the Breeding Management System (BMS).

While there are multiple analytical and data-management systems on the market for plant breeders, what sets the BMS apart is its availability to breeders in developing countries and its integrated approach. Within a single software suite, breeders are able to manage all their activities, from choosing which plants to cross to setting up field trials.

Graham explains that IBP has brought together all the basic tools that a breeder needs to carry out day-to-day logistics, data management and analysis, and decision support. “We’ve worked with different breeders to develop a whole suite of tools – the BMS – that can be configured to support their various needs,” explains Graham. “Having all the tools in one place allows breeders to move from one tool to the next during their breeding activities, without complex data manipulation. We’ve also set up the system for others to develop and share their tools, so that it can continue to grow with new innovative ideas.”

The IBP Breeding Management System has a complete range of interconnected tools. The Germplasm Lists Manager supports breeders in managing their sets of breeding materials.

The IBP Breeding Management System has a complete range of interconnected tools. The Germplasm Lists Manager supports breeders in managing their sets of breeding materials.

Another feature of the Platform is that it provides breeders with access to genotyping services to allow them to do marker-assisted breeding. This is particularly useful for breeders in developing countries, who often don’t have the capacity to do this work. “It’s about giving all breeders the opportunity to enhance the way they do their job, without breaking the budget,” says Graham.

A unique and holistic component of IBP is the Platform’s community-focused tools. “IBP is as much about sharing knowledge as it is about managing data,” says Graham. “We’ve integrated social media to allow anybody with an interest in breeding, say, cowpeas, to join the cowpea community. They needn’t necessarily be a collaborator; they just have to have an interest in breeding cowpeas. They could read about what’s going on, contact people in the community and say ‘I’ve seen results for your trial. Could you send me some seed because I think it will do well in my region?’ or ‘Could you please further explain the breeding method you used?’ That’s what we hope to inspire with those communities.”

Graham concedes that this aspiration for the Platform has not yet been fully realised. However, he is hopeful that by providing training, coupled with the support from several key institutes and breeders, these communities will help to increase adoption of IBP and its tools.

“We are well aware that this Platform will be a big step for a lot of breeders out there, and they will need to invest time and patience into learning how to adapt it to their circumstances,” says Graham. “However, this short-term investment will save them time and money in the long term by making their process a lot more efficient.”

For Guoyou Ye, a senior scientist with the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), participating in IBP meant that he has gained a lot more understanding about the needs of breeders in developing countries for user-friendly tools.

“I started to spend time doing something for the resource-poor breeders. This has resulted in many invitations by breeding programmes in different countries to conduct training, and has given me a chance to establish a network for future work. I also had the chance to work with internationally well-known scientists and informatics specialists,” he says.

Photo: N Palmer/CIAT

Freshly threshed rice in India.

Providing help where it is needed

Yemi Olojede is another person who has been championing IBP, and his focus has been in Nigeria and other African countries. He spent time at GCP’s headquarters in Mexico in 2012 to sharpen his data-management skills and provide user insights on the cassava database. “I enjoy working with the IBP team,” says Yemi. “They pay attention to what we [agronomists and breeders] want and are determined to resolve the issues we raise.”

Yemi has also helped the IBP team run workshops for plant breeders throughout Africa.

He recounts that attendees were always fascinated by IBP and the BMS, but cautious about the effort required to learn how to use it. They were pleased, though, when they received step-by-step ‘how to’ manuals to help them train other breeders in their institutes, with additional support to be provided by IBP or Yemi’s team in Nigeria.

“We told them if they had any challenges, they could call us and we would help them,” says Yemi. “I feel this extra support is a good thing for the future of this project, as it will build confidence in the people we teach. They can then go back to their research institutes and train their colleagues, who are more likely to listen and learn from them than from someone else.”

IBP is continuing to run these training courses, through newly established regional hubs in Africa and Asia.

Breeders and researchers rate the Integrated Breeding Platform (IBP) “IBP is an important tool in current and future enhancement of national breeding programmes.” –– Hesham Agrama, Soybean Breeder, International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, Zambia “The tools being developed with IBP will form the basis of crop information management at the Semiarid Prairie Agricultural Research Centre [SPARC] and other Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada research centres.” –– Shawn Yates, Quantitative Genetics Technician, SPARC, Canada  “We have successfully integrated IBP with our lentil programme and also included IBP in the training that we conduct regularly for the benefit of our partners in national agricultural research systems.” –– Shiv Agrawal, lentil breeder, International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas, Syria “Our institute has embraced use of the Breeding Management System and IBP, and we are already seeing results in improved data management within the Seed Co group research function.” –– Lennin Musundire, senior maize breeder, Seed Co Ltd, Zimbabwe

Mark Sawkins, IBP Deployment Manager for West and Central Africa, is helping to coordinate the formation and integration of the regional hubs within key agricultural institutes, including the Africa Rice Center in Benin, Biosciences Eastern and Central Africa (BecA) in Kenya, Centre d’étude régional pour l’amélioration de l’adaptation à la sécheresse (CERAAS) in Senegal, the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS) in China, the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) in India, the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) in Nigeria, and the National Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (BIOTEC) in Thailand. Several further hubs are planned in additional countries, including in Latin America.

He says the hubs provide localised support in the use of IBP tools: “Their role is to champion IBP in their region,” says Mark. “They can take advantage of their established relationships and skills to help new users adopt the Platform. This includes providing education and training, technical support for IBP tools, and encouraging users to build their networks through the crop communities.”

IBP Regional Hubs worldwide.

IBP Regional Hubs worldwide.

Breeding rice and maize more efficiently using IBP

For Mounirou El-Hassimi Sow, a rice breeder from the Africa Rice Center, IBP is more than just a tool that helps him manage his data: “I’m seeing the whole world of rice breeders as a small village where I can talk to everyone,” he says.

“Through IBP, I have access to this great network of people, who I would never have met, who I can refer to when I have some challenges.”

Social networking tools are a novel feature incorporated into IBP to further develop the capacity of breeders like Mounirou. IBP hosts a number of crop-based and technical Communities of Practice that were established by GCP. These have nurtured relationships between breeders across different countries and organisations, encouraging knowledge sharing and support for young scientists.

Another way GCP has promoted and developed capacity to use IBP and molecular-breeding techniques is through training. Starting in April 2012, the Integrated Breeding Multiyear Course (IB–MYC) trained 150 plant breeders and technicians from Africa and Asia. The participants attended three two-week intensive face-to-face training workshops spread over three years, with assignments and ongoing support between sessions.

Photo: V Boire/IBP

Roland Bocco (Africa Rice center, Benin), Dinesh K. Agarwal (ICAR, India) and Susheel K. Sarkar (ICAR, India) work together on a statistics assignment during their final workshop of the Integrated Breeding Multiyear Course (IB–MYC).

Mounirou participated in the course and says it provided him with the opportunity to learn more about molecular breeding and practice using the associated management and data analysis tools. “I had learnt about the tools in university and seen them on the Internet, but I did not know how to use them,” says Mounirou. “During the first year, we learnt about the theory and how the tools work. During the second and third years, we were comfortable enough with the tools to use our own data and troubleshoot this with the tutors. This was great and provided me with confirmation that these tools were applicable and useful for my work.”

Mounirou says he is now sharing what he learnt during the course with his co-workers and other plant breeders in Africa. “Since the Africa Rice Center became a regional hub for IBP, I’ve volunteered to help train rice breeders. It’s great to be able to share what I learnt and help them realise how this tool will help make their work so much easier.”

Photo: CIMMYT

A maize farmer and community-based seed producer in Kenya.

Another IB–MYC trainee, Murenga Geoffrey Mwimali, a maize breeder from the Kenya Agriculture and Livestock Research Organisation (KALRO), is also helping his networks to benefit from IBP. “When I returned from the training, I took the initiative to demonstrate the Platform to the management of my organisation, to show them that it is what we need to implement at the institute level. They were overwhelmingly positive, and we are working on running a training course for other researchers in the organisation to learn how to use the Platform.”

Jean-Marcel Ribaut, GCP and IBP Director, says these championing efforts are exactly what GCP and IBP were hoping IB–MYC would initiate. “By providing this initial intensive training to these selected participants, we felt this groundswell of capacity would slowly grow once they built their confidence,” says Jean-Marcel. “That young researchers like these feel they are competent and obligated to share what they learnt is a true credit to the product and the participants.”

From the GCP nest to world-scale deployment

IBP has been the single largest GCP investment. From 2009 to 2014, GCP allocated USD 22 million to the initiative, with financial support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the European Commission, the UK Department for International Development, CGIAR and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation. This represented 15 percent of GCP’s entire budget.

Following GCP’s close in December 2014, IBP will continue to develop and improve over the next five years, with funding primarily originating from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. While the priority has been on informatics and service development in Phase I, the main focus of Phase II will be to concentrate on deployment and adoption. In the long term, the Platform is seeking further ongoing funding, and also looking into implementing some form of user-contribution for specialised or consulting services.

“We wanted to develop a tool to provide developing countries with access to modern breeding technologies, breeding materials and related information in a centralised and practical manner, which would help them adopt molecular-breeding approaches and improve their plant-breeding efficiency,” says Jean-Marcel. “I believe we have achieved this and at the same time built a tool that will prove very useful for commercial companies too. If we want the tool to continue to be affordable and sustainable for developing countries, then we have to look at ways of finding new sources of funding and of making revenue to offset the costs.”

Stewart Andrews, IBP Business Manager, is helping to make this happen.

“What we are looking at is a tiered membership system in the private sector, where enterprises would pay more the larger they are,” explains Stewart. “This would also be dependent on where in the world they are, with enterprises in Europe and North America contributing proportionately more financially than those in developing countries. This will help us to continue investing in our solutions while keeping them accessible to national programmes and universities in developing countries at little to no fee.”

For Jean-Marcel, creating a commercial stream for IBP services is a win for all parties. “If we are able to generate revenue we can not only provide sustainable support and offset the cost for poorer institutes, we can also continue to develop and improve the BMS software suite so that it becomes the tool of choice all over the world. In terms of social responsibility, the corporate world can play an essential role in this not only as donors but even more effectively as clients and users – adopting the BMS makes good business sense.”

Stewart says a sustainable income is vital for providing training and assistance. “We currently have about 7,000 researchers in the developing world who get this software for free, and each week we get 20–25 requests for help, assistance and training. This support costs money but is indispensable, particularly for those in the developing world who are trying to implement molecular breeding for the first time. You have to remember that this software is all part of a revolution in terms of plant breeding, so we need to provide as much assistance as we can if these breeders are going to buy into molecular breeding and all of its benefits.”

The IBP team is convinced that rolling out IBP will have a significant impact on plant breeding in developing countries.

Indeed, so far there have been more than 1,300 unique downloads of the BMS, with at least 250 early adopters worldwide using the software suite across their day-to-day breeding activities. The Platform’s strategy now builds on three regional teams (West and Central Africa, Eastern and Southern Africa, and South and South East Asia), each including experienced breeders and data managers. With the help of local representatives at seven well-established Regional Hubs to date (with more Hubs in development), this strategy has thus far yielded commitments from six African countries at the national level; from 24 Institutes spanning 58 breeding programmes at different stages of the adoption process; from 14 Universities where faculty members are using and/or teaching the BMS, partially or entirely; and from 134 “champions” engaged in the deployment plans and in supporting their peers.

“Because IBP has a very wide application, it will speed up crop improvement in many parts of the world and in many different environments. What this means is that new crop varieties will be developed in a more rapid and therefore more efficient manner,” concludes Graham.

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Oct 182015
 

C-Egesi_w“You can use any technology in the world, you can develop any product, but you need the products that farmers are willing to grow in their field.”

So says Chiedozie Egesi, a plant breeder and geneticist who has been one of the inspirational leaders and Principal Investigators for the CGIAR Generation Challenge Programme’s (GCP) Cassava Research Initiative in Africa.

It was his commitment to helping farmers that led Chiedozie to forsake his dream of becoming a surgeon, and instead to train as a plant breeder and help smallholder farmers in Nigeria. Having grown up in a small town in south-eastern Nigeria where poverty was a daily reality, he was particularly concerned about food security and nutrition for the people. He dreamt of developing cassava varieties that could beat the pests and diseases that often devastate such crops.

Photo: IITA

Peeling cassava roots.

“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,” Chiedozie says.

Nigeria is the most populous African country, with a population of more than 174 million. The main staple food is cassava, making Nigeria the world’s largest producer and consumer of the crop. But cassava is also important in other African countries. It is grown by nearly every farming family in sub-Saharan Africa. Africa produced nearly 140 million metric tonnes of cassava in 2012 – but most of the production is low-yielding subsistence farming for food by small-scale farmers for food for their own households alone.

After almost eight years working on GCP-supported cassava projects, Chiedozie is proud of what they have managed to accomplish: “That we’ve been able to give African farmers the varieties that they will love to grow is my biggest achievement”.

Meet Chiedozie and hear all about his research and the importance of cassava in the video series below (or watch on YouTube):

Transformation for Chiedozie – and for cassava

Chiedozie’s journey with GCP began after he had gained his PhD in yam breeding from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria. He undertook further studies and training at Cornell University and the University of Washington, both in the USA. He then returned home to Nigeria to lead the cassava breeding team at the National Root Crops Research Institute (NRCRI) and, following a promotion in 2010, was made Assistant Director of NRCRI’s Biotechnology Department. In 2004, a chance find on the Internet of a molecular breeding training programme in South Africa first led to Chiedozie’s involvement in GCP.

In 2010, work by Chiedozie and the NRCRI team, in collaboration with a transnational network of partners, resulted in the official release to Nigerian farmers of 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 entire cassava crops – and also highly nutritious. In addition to a stream of further disease-resistant varieties, in 2012 they followed this accomplishment with the release of a high-starch variety bred using molecular techniques.

Photo: IITA

Nigerian women at work processing cassava.

In 2011, the cassava team together with the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (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 – a figure Chiedozie and his team are now ambitiously striving to increase to 50 percent. In 2014, they released three more pro-vitamin A varieties with higher concentrations of beta-carotene.

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 for the people of Africa.

Research that delivers benefits to poor farmers is what drives Chiedozie. In addition to the direct rewards of new varieties there are other highlights from his involvement with GCP, indicating a long term change in breeding science: “People are now using improved or modern techniques in breeding; people think about database management in cassava breeding across Africa; and African breeders are getting PhDs in molecular breeding.”

Photo: N Palmer/CIAT

Cassava leaves.

Building African capacity

Chiedozie believes a crucial element of GCP’s success in breeding better cassava varieties for smallholder African farmers lies in the capacity building and infrastructure support provided by GCP.

After his initial GCP training at the University of Pretoria, South Africa, Chiedozie engaged in other capacity-building opportunities, including a one-year visiting scientist fellowship at the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) in Colombia. The significance of these early GCP opportunities was, Chiedozie says, momentous: “Prior to my GCP work, I was more or less a plant breeder, and a conventional one at that. Whilst I’d been exposed to molecular tools during my early work on yam and other crops, I was not applying them in my work back then.”

Chiedozie quoteChiedozie emphasises that such training opportunities are vital for the future food security of Africa. “We raised up a new crop of cassava breeders in Africa – people who were bold enough to take up a molecular breeding project and pursue it with support from the international centres. And today we are seeing the results of that. Cassava breeding programmes are standing today because of our quality of seeds sown in the past.”

The networking opportunities offered by the Cassava Community of Practice – founded by GCP and now hosted by the Integrated Breeding Platform (IBP) – have meant that Chiedozie and his colleagues could expand their collaboration at the local, national and regional levels: “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 and also made our work more visible,” he says, citing effective links formed with Côte d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Ghana, Liberia, Malawi, Mozambique, Sierra Leone and South Sudan.

Photo: M Mitchell/IFPRI


Selling fufu, a staple food made with cassava flour, at a market in Nigeria.

A paradigm shift

These opportunities have led to what Chiedozie calls a ‘paradigm shift’ in how national research agencies are viewed by donors and research investors: “GCP helped us to build an image for ourselves in Nigeria and in Africa, and this created a confidence in other global actors, who, on seeing our ability to deliver results, are choosing to invest in us.

“Our work with GCP helped us to gain that capacity that we needed to be able to negotiate or even make a request for funding. And people are able to trust that you can deliver if you have delivered in the past for an organisation like GCP. So it gave us credibility; it gives us a platform to be able to speak to donors directly, and donors can now approach us, which never used to happen in pre GCP days.”

This newly found confidence and profile sees the NRCRI cassava team currently engaging with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the CGIAR Research Program on Roots, Tubers and Bananas (RTB) on research that will expand on and follow through on what GCP started.

Hear from Chiedozie on the beneficial outcomes of GCP – in terms not only of variety releases but also of attracting further projects, prestige, and enthusiastic young breeders – in the video below (or on YouTube):

For Chiedozie, his dream of helping his country’s struggling farmers and people is coming true. He has no regrets about dropping his dream of becoming a surgeon for one of helping his country as a plant breeder: “Coming from Umuahia, 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.

“Despite the social injustice around me, I always thought there was opportunity to improve people’s lives. This is what the GCP-supported research has helped me to do, even faster than I would have believed possible.”

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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.”

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Photo: IITA


Healthy improved cassava varieties growing in the field.

 

Oct 052015
 

Cassava brings life to African people

Photo: N Palmer/CIATBeyond the glittering coastline of what was once known as the Gold Coast, Ghana’s shrublands and rich forested hills are split by forking rivers that reach inland through the country’s lush tropics, into drier western Africa. In the past 40 years, seven major droughts have battered the people of Africa – with the most significant and devastating occurring in the Sahel region and the Horn of Africa in the early 1970s and 1980s.

Photo: Y Wachira/Bioversity International

This little girl in Kenya already seems to know that cassava roots are precious.

But despite the massive social disruption and human suffering that these droughts cause, life goes on. In south-eastern Ghana and in Togo, the three-million-plus people who speak the Ewe language have a word for this. It is agbeli: ‘There is life’. It is no coincidence that this word is also their name for a tropical and subtropical crop that survives through the worst times to feed Africa’s families: cassava.

Cassava is a lifeline for African people, and is a particularly important staple food for poorer farmers. More cassava is produced in Africa than any other crop, and it is grown by nearly every farming family in sub-Saharan Africa, supplying about a third of the region’s daily energy intake. In the centuries since Portuguese traders introduced this Amazonian plant to Africa, cassava has flourished, yielding up to 40 tonnes per hectare.

Hear more on just why cassava is so important to food security from Emmanuel Okogbenin, of Nigeria’s National Root Crops Research Institute, in the video below (or watch on Youtube):

 

African countries produced nearly 140 million tonnes of cassava in 2012 – but most of the production is subsistence farming by small-scale farmers. Even the undisputed global cassava giant, Nigeria, currently produces only just enough to feed its population – and although the country is increasingly moving towards production of cassava for export as an industrial raw material, the poorest farmers often do not produce enough to sell, or have access to these markets.

Because cassava does so well on poor soils, on marginal land and with little rainfall, it can outlast its more sophisticated crop competitors: wheat, rice and maize. In fact, under harsh conditions such as drought, the amount of energy a given area of cassava plants can produce in the form of starchy carbohydrates outstrips all other crops. Chiedozie Egesi, a plant breeder and geneticist at Nigeria’s National Root Crops Research Institute (NRCRI), describes cassava as “the crop you can bet on when every other thing is failing”.

Benefits of cassava to African farmers and families Most cassava grown is consumed as food – for instance, as starchy, fine powder called tapioca or the fermented, flaky garri. The tubers can also be eaten boiled or fried in chunks, and are used in many other local dishes.  If cassava is grown in favourable conditions, its firm, white flesh can be rich in calcium and vitamin C and contain other vitamins such as B1, B2 and niacin. Some improved varieties are fortified with increased vitamin A levels, giving them a golden hue.   As well as being eaten directly, cassava can also be processed into ingredients for animal feed, alcohol production, confectionery, sweeteners, glues, plywood, textiles, paper and drugs.  Cassava tubers are easy to save for a rainy day – unlike other crops, they can be left in the ground for up to two years, so harvesting can be delayed until extra food is needed, or to await more optimal processing or marketing conditions.

Despite cassava’s superhero cape, however, there’s no denying that its production is not at its highest when faced with diseases, pests, low-nutrient soils and drought. How plants deal with problems like low nutrients or dry conditions is called ‘stress tolerance’ by scientists. Improving this tolerance – plus resistance to diseases and pests – is the long-term goal for staple crops around the world so that they have higher yields in the face of capricious weather and evolving threats.

In the 1980s, catastrophe struck cassava production in East and Central Africa. A serious outbreak of cassava mosaic disease (CMD) – which first slowly shrivels and yellows cassava leaves, then its roots – lasted for almost 15 years and nearly halved cassava yields in that time. Food shortages led to localised famines in 1993 and 1997.

Other diseases affecting cassava include cassava brown streak disease (CBSD), cassava bacterial blight, cassava anthracnose disease and root rot. CBSD is impossible to detect above ground. Its damage is revealed only after harvest, when it can be seen that the creeping brown lesions have spoilt the white flesh of the tubers, rendering them inedible. Many cassava diseases are transmitted through infected cuttings, affecting the next generation in the next season. Pests that also prey on cassava include the cassava green mite and the variegated grasshopper.

Between the effects of drought, diseases, pests and low soil nutrients, cassava yields vary widely – losses can total between 50 and 100 percent in the worst times.

Photo: IITA

Symptoms of cassava mosaic disease (CMD) and cassava brown streak disease (CBSD), both of which can cripple cassava yields.

GCP takes the first steps to kick start cassava research

The next step forward for cassava appeared to be research towards breeding stronger and more resilient cassava varieties. However, cassava research had long been neglected – scientists say it’s a tricky crop that has garnered far less policy, scientific and monetary interest than the comparatively glamorous crops of maize, rice and wheat.

Watch as Emmanuel tells us more about the complexities and challenges of cassava breeding in the video below (or on YouTube):

 

Cassava is a plant which ‘drags its feet’: creating new plants has to be done from cuttings, which are costly to cut and handle and don’t store well; the plant takes up to two years to grow to maturity; and it is onerous to harvest. Elizabeth Parkes, of Ghana’s Crops Research Institute (CRI) (currently on secondment at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, IITA), says the long wait can be difficult.

This is where the work of scientists funded by the CGIAR Generation Challenge Programme (GCP) came in. Plant breeder and molecular geneticist Emmanuel Okogbenin of NRCRI led the cassava research push launched in 2010. He explains that before GCP, “most national programmes didn’t really have established crop breeding programmes, and didn’t have the manpower” to do the scale of research GCP supported.

Usually, researchers looking to breed crops that are more resistant to drought, diseases and pests would use conventional breeding methods that could take considerable time to deliver any results, especially given cassava’s slow path to maturity. Researchers would be trying to select disease- and pest-resistant plants by looking at how they’re growing in the field, without any way to see the different genetic strengths each plant has.

Photo: M Mitchell/IFPRI

An IITA researcher exams cassava roots in the field.

This is where new ‘molecular breeding’ tools are particularly useful, given that – genetically – cassava presents more of a challenge to breeders than its cereal counterparts. Like many other vegetatively propagated crops, cassava is highly heterozygous, meaning that the counterpart genes on paired chromosomes tend to be different versions, or alleles, rather than the same. This makes it difficult to identify good parent plants for breeding and, after these are crossed, to accurately select progeny with desired traits. Useful – or detrimental – genes can be present in a cassava plant’s genetic code but not reflected in the plant itself, making breeding more unpredictable – and adding extra obstacles to the hunt for the exact genes that code for better varieties of cassava.

Although late to the world of molecular breeding, cassava had not missed its chance. Guided by GCP’s ambitious remit to increase food security through modern crop breeding, GCP-supported scientists have applied and developed molecular breeding methods that shorten the breeding process by identifying which plants have good genes, even before starting on that long cassava growth cycle. Increasing the capacity of local plant breeders to apply these methods has great potential for delivering better varieties to farmers much faster than has traditionally been the case.

Charting cassava’s genetic material was the first step in the researchers’ molecular quest. Part of the challenge for African and South American researchers was to create a genetic map of the cassava genome. Emmanuel describes the strong foundation that these early researchers built for those coming after: “It was significant when the first draft of the cassava genome sequence was released. It enabled rapid progress in cassava research activities and outcomes, both for GCP and cassava researchers worldwide.”

Photo: N Palmer/CIAT

Cassava on sale in Kampala, Uganda.

Once cassava’s genome had been mapped, the pace picked up. In just one year, GCP-supported scientists phenotyped and genotyped more than 1000 genetically different cassava plants – that is, measured and collected a large amount of information about both their physical and their genetic traits – searching for ‘superstar’ plants with resistance to more than one crop threat. During this process, scientists compare plant’s physical characteristics with their genetic makeup, looking for correlations that reveal regions of the DNA that seem to contain genes that confer traits they are looking for, such as resistance to a particular disease. Within these, scientists then identify sequences of DNA, or ‘molecular markers’, associated with these valuable genes or genetic regions.

Plant breeders can use this knowledge to apply an approach known as marker-assisted selection, choosing their breeding crosses based directly on which plants contain useful genes, using markers like tags. This makes producing better plant varieties dramatically faster and more efficient. “It narrowed the search at an early stage,” explains Emmanuel, “so we could select only material that displayed markers for the genetic traits we’re looking for. There is no longer any need to ship in tonnes of plant material to Africa.”

Like breadcrumbs leading to a clue, breeders use markers to lead to identifying actual genes (rather than just a site on the genome) that give certain plants desirable characteristics. However, this is a particularly difficult process in cassava. Genes are often obscured, partly due to cassava’s highly heterozygous nature. In trials in Africa, where CMD is widespread, resistant types were hard to spot when challenged with the disease, and reliably resistant parents were hard to pin down.

This meant that two decades of screening cassava varieties from South America – where CMD does not yet exist yet – had identified no CMD-resistance genes. But screening of cassava from Nigeria eventually yielded markers for a CMD-resistance gene – a great success for the international collaborative team led by Martin Fregene, who was based in Colombia at the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT).

This finding was a win for African plant breeders, as it meant they could use molecular breeding to combine the genes producing high-quality and high-yielding cassava from South America with the CMD-resistance gene found in cassava growing in Nigeria.

Chiedozie Egesi, who led the work on biotic trait markers, explains the importance of combining varieties from South America with varieties from Africa: “Because cassava is not native to Africa, those varieties are not as genetically diverse, so we needed to bring genetic diversity from the centre of origin: South America. Coupling resistance genes from African varieties with genes for very high yields from South America was critical.”

Cassava research leaps forward with new varieties to benefit farmers

GCP’s first investment phase into cassava research stimulated a sturdy injection of people, passion, knowledge and funds into the second phase of research. From the genome maps created during the first phase, some of the world’s best geneticists would now apply genomic tools and molecular breeding approaches to increase and accelerate the genetic gains during breeding, combining farmers’ favourite characteristics with strong resistances and tolerances to abiotic and biotic constraints.

In the sprawling, tropical city of Accra on Ghana’s coast, the second phase of the research was officially launched at the end of the wet season in mid-2010. NRCRI’s Emmanuel Okogbenin coordinated product delivery from the projects, but the roles of Principal Investigator for the different projects were shared between another four individuals.

These were breeder and geneticist Chiedozie Egesi (NRCRI, Nigeria), molecular geneticist Morag Ferguson (IITA), genomic scientist Pablo Rabinowicz (University of Maryland, USA) and physiologist and geneticist Alfredo Alves (Brazilian Corporation of Agricultural Research, EMBRAPA). The team shared the vision of enabling farmers to increase cassava production for cash, well beyond subsistence levels.

Photo: A Hoel/World Bank

Garri, or gari, a kind of granular cassava flour used to prepare a range of foods.

If the Accra launch set the stage for the next five years of cassava collaboration, a breakthrough in Nigeria at the end of 2010 set the pace, with the release of Africa’s first cassava variety developed using molecular-breeding techniques. “It was both disease-resistant and highly nutritious – a world-first,” recalls Emmanuel proudly.

Known as UMUCASS33 (or CR41-10), it took its high yield and nutritional value from its South American background, and incorporated Nigerian resistance to devastating CMD attacks thanks to marker-assisted selection. It was also resistant to several other pests and diseases. UMUCASS33 was swiftly followed by a stream of similar disease-busting varieties, released and supplied to farmers.

Never before had cassava research been granted such a boost of recognition, scientific might and organisational will. And never before had there been so much farmer consultation or so many on-farm trials.

“Cassava was an orphan crop and with the help of GCP it is becoming more prominent,” says Chiedozie. “GCP highlighted and enhanced cassava’s role as a major and reliable staple that is important to millions of poor Africans.”

Another important challenge for scientists was to develop a higher-yielding cassava for water-limited environments. The aim was to keep mapping genes for resistance to other diseases and pests and then combine them with favourable genetics that increase yield in drought conditions – no easy feat. Drought’s wicked effect on cassava is to limit the bulk of the tuber, or sometimes to stop the tuber forming altogether. Emmanuel led the work on marker-assisted recurrent selection for drought.

Hear from Chiedozie on the beneficial outcomes of GCP – in terms not only of variety releases but also of attracting further projects, prestige, and enthusiastic young breeders – in the video below (or on YouTube):

Many traits and many varieties

As closely as the cassava teams in Africa were working together, Chiedozie recalls that each country’s environment demanded different cassava characteristics: “We had to select for what worked best in each country, then continue with the research from there. What works fine for East Africa may not be so successful in Nigeria or Ghana”. A core reference set representing most of the diversity of cassava in Africa was improved with the addition of over 564 varieties. Improving the reference set, says project leader Morag Ferguson, “enables the capture of many diverse features of cassava” within a relatively small collection, providing a pathway for more efficient trait and gene discovery.

While mapping of cassava’s genetic makeup carried on, with a focus on drought tolerance, researchers continued to develop a suite of new varieties. They mapped out further genes that provided CMD resistance. In Tanzania, four new varieties were released that combined resistance to both CMD and CBSD – two for the coastal belt and two for the semi-arid areas of central Tanzania. These new varieties had the potential to double the yield of existing commercial varieties. In Ghana too, disease-resistant varieties were being developed.

Photo: IITA

Built-in disease resistance can make a huge difference to the health of cassava crops. This photo shows a cassava variety resistant to African cassava mosaic virus (ACMV), which causes cassava mosaic disease (CMD), growing on the left, alongside a susceptible variety on the right.

Meanwhile in Nigeria, another variety was released in 2012 with very high starch content – an essential factor in good cassava. This is a critical element to breeding any crop, explains Chiedozie: “A variety may be scientifically perfect, based on a researcher’s perspective, but farmers will not grow it if it fails the test in terms of taste, texture, colour or starchiness.”

Geoffrey Mkamilo, cassava research leader at Tanzania’s Agricultural Research Institute, Naliendele, says that farmer awareness and adoption go hand in hand. Once they had the awareness, he says, “the farmers were knocking on our doors for improved varieties. They and NGOs were knocking and calling.”

After groundwork in Ghana and Nigeria to find potential sources of resistance, cassava varieties that are resistant to bacterial blight and green mites were also developed in Tanzania and then tested. By the time GCP closed in December 2014, these varieties were on their way to commercial breeders for farmers to take up.

Scientists seeking to resolve the bigger challenge of drought resistance have achieved significant answers as well. Researchers have been able to map genetic regions that largely account for how well the crops deal with drought.

Developing new varieties takes people, and time The numbers of new cassava varieties so far released through GCP-supported research do not tell the full story.   They certainly do not illustrate the patience and skill required from many different people to get to that end-stage of having a new cassava variety. In the first step, after the plants that seem to have resistance to CMD are identified, those plants are cloned and grown.   The DNA of these plantlets is then exposed to markers specific to valuable resistance genes, or regions of the genome known as quantitative trait loci (QTLs), in order to confirm the presence of the gene or QTL in question. Confirmed plants can be used as parents in breeding crosses after growing out and flowering – although sometimes plants don’t flower, another hurdle for the cassava breeder.  This parental selection using genetic information is a powerful way to make cassava breeding more efficient. Breeders also use markers to identify which of the progeny from each cross have inherited the genes they are interested in. Over several generations of crosses, scientists can combine genes and QTLs for useful traits from different plant lines, to eventually develop a new variety for cultivation.  In cassava, this complex process can take seven years – although it takes even longer using only conventional breeding techniques. While fruition is slow, the research aided by GCP has sown the seeds for many more new varieties and bumper harvests for farmers into the future.

Hunt for ‘super powered’ cassava

The hunt was on for drought-tolerance genes in African cassava plants. The end goal was to find as many different drought-related genes as possible, then to put them all together with the applicable disease and pest resistance genes, to make a ‘super powered’ set of cassava lines. Molecular breeders call this process ‘pyramiding’, and in Ghana, Elizabeth Parkes led these projects.

With the help of Cornell University scientists, the researchers compared plants according to their starch content, how they endured a dry season, how they used sunlight and how they dealt with pests and diseases.

Fourteen gene regions or quantitative trait loci (QTLs) were identified for 10 favourable traits from the genetic material in Ghana, while nine were found for the plants in Nigeria – with two shared between the plants from both Ghana and Nigeria. After that success, the identified genes were used in breeding programmes to develop a new generation of cassava with improved productivity.

Pyramiding is important in effective disease resistance; Chiedozie explains in the video below (or on YouTube):

Photo: HarvestPlus

New cassava varieties rich in pro-vitamin A have a telltale golden hue.

The research has also delivered results in terms of Vitamin A levels in cassava. 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 even higher concentrations of beta-carotene.

Photo: IITA

A field worker at IITA proudly displays a high-yielding, pro-vitamin A-rich cassava variety (right), compared with a traditional variety (left).

The new varieties developed with GCP support are worth their weight in gold, says Chiedozie: “Through these varieties, 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.”

Turning from Nigeria to Tanzania, Geoffrey has some remarkable numbers. He says that the national average cassava yield is 10.5 tonnes per hectare. He adds that a new cassava variety, PWANI, developed with GCP support and released in 2012, has the potential to increase yields to 51 tonnes per hectare. And they don’t stop there: the Tanzanian researchers want to produce three million cuttings and directly reach over 2,000 farmers with these new varieties, then scale up further.

Photo: N Palmer/CIAT

A farmer tends her cassava field in northern Tanzania.

Cassava grows up: looking ahead to supporting African families

Emmanuel reflects on how the first release of a new disease-resistant high-yielding cassava variety took fundamental science towards tangible realities for the world’s farmers: “It was a great example of a practical application of marker technology for selecting important new traits, and it bodes well for the future as markers get fully integrated into cassava breeding.”

Emmanuel further believes that GCP’s Cassava Research Initiative has given research communities “a framework for international support from other investors to do research and development in modern breeding using genomic resources.” Evaluations have demonstrated that molecular-assisted breeding can slash between three and five years from the timeline of developing better crops.

Photo: M Perret/UN Photo

Women tend to bear most of the burden of cassava cultivation and preparation. Here a Congolese woman pounds cassava leaves – eaten in many regions in addition to cassava roots – prior to cooking a meal for her family.

But, like cassava’s long growth cycle underground, Emmanuel knows there is still a long road to maturity for cassava as a crop for Africa and in research. “Breeding is just playing with genetics, but when you’re done with that, there is still a lot to do in economics and agronomics,” he says. Revolutionising cassava is about releasing improved varieties carefully buttressed by financial incentives and marketing opportunities.

Rural women in particular stand to benefit from improved varieties – they carry most of the responsibility for producing, processing and marketing cassava. So far, Elizabeth explains: “Most women reported an increase in their household income as a result of the improved cassava, but that is still dependent on extra time spent on cassava-related tasks” – a burden which she aims to diminish.

Elizabeth emphasises that future improvement research has to take a bottom-up approach, first talking to female farmers to ensure that improved crops retain characteristics they already value in addition to the new traits. “Rural families are held together by women, so if you are able to change their lot, you can make a real mark,” she says. Morag echoes this hope: “We are just starting to implement this now in Uganda; it’s a more farmer-centric approach to breeding”. The cassava teams emphasise the importance of supporting women in science too; the Tanzanians teams are aiming for a target of 40 percent women in their training courses.

Meet Elizabeth in the podcast below (or on PodOmatic), and be inspired by her passion when it comed to women in agriculture and in science:

 

This direct impact goes much further than individuals, says Chiedozie. “GCP’s daring has enabled many national programmes to be self-empowered, where new avenues are unfolding for enhanced collaboration at the local, national and regional level. We’re seeing a paradigm shift.” And Chiedozie’s objectives reach in a circle back to his compatriots: “Through GCP, I’ve been able to achieve my aims of using the tools of science and technology to make the lives of poor Africans better by providing them with improved crops.”

GCP has been crucial for developing the capacity of countries to keep doing this level of research, says Chiedozie: “The developing-country programmes were never taken seriously,” he says. “But when the GCP opportunity to change this came up we seized it, and now the developing-country programmes have the boldness, capacity and visibility to do this for themselves.”

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.”

“If you want to work for the people, you have to walk with the people – that’s an African concept. Then when you work with the people, you really understand what they want. When you speak, they know they can trust you.” GCP trusted and trod where others had not before, Chiedozie says.

Elizabeth agrees: “In the past, the assumption was always that ‘Africa can’t do this.’ Now, people see that when given a chance to get around circumstances – as GCP has done for us through the provision of resources, motivation, encouragement and training – Africa can achieve so much!”

More links

Photo: A Hoel/World Bank

Walking into the future: farmer Felicienne Soton in her cassava field in Benin.