National breeding institutes deliver initial program costing at in-person training course
- From
-
Published on
07.10.21
- Impact Area
-
Funders
Australia, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Germany, United Kingdom, United States of America

A new costing tool is helping national breeding programs get the financial data needed to improve their efficiency, effectiveness and transparency. And now, in its first in-person event since the beginning of the pandemic, CGIAR Excellence in Breeding (EiB) has prepped six African National Agricultural Research and Extension Systems (NARES) to fully cost their programs.
This new knowledge will enable breeders to better allocate resources and optimize their programs. For most, this is the first full program costing they have ever undertaken.
In Harare, Zimbabwe, the five-day training (Sept 27 to Oct 1, 2021) brought together 15 breeders and management staff working across at least eight crops, including maize, rice, beans, and cowpeas. To compare them across potential scenarios, participants learned the fundamentals of cost, including unit costs, product profile costing, and modelling costs.
The course culminated with participants running actual numbers, simulating the costs of their current breeding pipelines. All programs estimated their respective costs and identified high-cost activities across breeding components.
To carry out the costing, EiB trained participants to use the University of Queensland (UQ)’s “Breeding Costing Tool.” EiB and the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) are piloting the software, collaborating with various NARES. The UQ tool is designed to be affordable and user-friendly. The resulting financial data provides programs with an accurate cost structure, potentially increasing efficiency and transparency.
Related news
-
CGIAR secures a grant to develop AgPile, a federated platform for global agricultural data integration
CGIAR Initiative on Breeding Resources30.01.25-
Big data
January 2025, Montpellier – CGIAR received a grant from the Gates Foundation to develop AgPile,…
Read more -
-
SPIA Side Event at 21st CGIAR System Council Meeting: Key Takeaways
Independent Advisory and Evaluation Service08.01.25-
Big data
-
Climate adaptation & mitigation
During a half-day side event held in Berlin, SPIA marked the conclusion of their 2019-2024…
Read more -
-
Webinar: Exploring the Role of Artificial Intelligence in Landscape Restoration and Soil Health in Ethiopia
The Alliance of Bioversity International and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT)19.12.24-
Big data
Artificial Intelligence (AI) refers to developing computer systems capable of performing tasks tha…
Read more -