As public sector breeding has modernized, it has become a more data intensive enterprise. Numerous applications and databases have been created for a wide variety of tasks from collecting field observations to analyzing genetics. However, this data still has to be manually passed and translated from one system to another. As a result, breeders have less time to unleash the power of data to develop better varieties.
The Breeding API (BrAPI) project is solving this issue by developing an open data standard and automated sharing protocols to connect the landscape of software tools available to breeders. The project mobilizes a global community of software developers, with a Cornell University-based coordinator funded by EiB.
“BrAPI provides a common language that all breeding applications can speak when transferring information,” said Peter Selby, BrAPI project coordinator. “This means that we can share data between many types of applications to solve many different use cases.”
For example, when the University of Queensland assessed breeding programs at the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR), they found that inventory management was a key area for improvement. Through BrAPI, they were able to easily connect one of their own inventory management tools to the existing EIAR breeding data management system.