Building an Africa without hunger

Thirty-two scientists from 21 countries graduated from the African Plant Breeding Academy, led by UC Davis on 13 December 2019. These scientists form the fourth cohort of the advanced plant breeding course that was launched in 2013. They join a group of over 80 other plant breeders who graduated from the same course, to tackle the challenges of food and nutrition security in Africa.

The Academy trains practising plant breeders in the most advanced theory and technologies to improve crop varieties and end chronic malnutrition and hunger on the continent.

The course, delivered in three two-week sessions at World Agroforestry (ICRAF) headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya, covered topics such as the latest concepts in plant breeding, quantitative genetics, statistics and experimental design. It also included accurate and precise trait evaluations, development of appropriate strategies to integrate genomics into breeding programs, and experience in identifying and utilizing genomic data and DNA-based markers in breeding programmes.