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The CGIAR Excellence in Breeding Platform (EiB) seeks to modernize breeding programs targeting the developing world for greater impact on food and nutrition security, climate change adaptation and development. Drawing on innovations in the public and private sector, the platform provides access to cutting-edge tools, services and best practices, application-oriented training and practical advice.

 

A key output for EiB in 2018 was the Platform’s contribution and response to the Crops to End Hunger Initiative (CtEH). EiB began to introduce continuous improvements in product pipeline management, including an annual stage-gate decision process supported by an online product profile tool to focus variety turnover on market knowledge (EiB, 2018).

 

Also in 2018, capacity development workshops to support breeding scheme optimization were held in Africa and Asia, with a breeding scheme assessment tool applied to the National Agricultural Research Organization (NARO) and the Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization (KALRO) breeding programs.

 

Business volume for low-density genotyping services grew from USD 200,000 in 2017 to USD 800,000 in 2018, covering 14 CGIAR mandate crops, and these are being applied to key traits and quality control by smaller crop breeding programs in Africa and Asia.

 

For bioinformatics, biometrics and data management, advances were made in system interoperability, data analytics and capacity development in 2018 (EiB, 2018).

 

Photo by K. Dhanji/ILRI