CGIAR Breeding for Tomorrow

#ThrowbackMonday: Earlier this year, our partnership and engagement team, Enable, visited Cameroon to support national bean breeding efforts and help strengthen breeding operations at IRAD 🇨🇲 IRAD-Institut de Recherche Agricole pour le Développement plays a key role in contributing to the development of improved bean varieties that meet the needs of Cameroonian farmers, processors and consumers 🫘 With the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT, the visit focused on: 🌱 Assessing IRAD's bean breeding program and developing a tailored improvement plan to strengthen its capacity and performance 🤝 Convening a Bean Product Design Team (PDT) workshop with stakeholders from across the bean value chain, to define market segments and develop Target Product Profiles for future bean varieties in the country 📊 Delivering advanced training on modern breeding practices, including stage-gate advancement processes, data review and interpretation and more. The visit also explored IRAD breeding activities beyond beans, including cassava & maize, to identify areas of collaboration with other CGIAR Centers. A big thank you to Hortense Mafouasson, Head of Crop Production at IRAD, for hosting and coordinating the visit, and to IRAD bean breeding team!

Mark your calendar: CGIAR Science & Partnership Week 🗓️ 12-17 April 2027 📍 New Delhi, India 🔬 🌱 Bringing together leaders from science, policy, business, and civil society, the event will showcase how CGIAR science and partnerships are driving innovation and accelerating solutions for more resilient food, land, and water systems. More information, including the venue, program, and registration details, will be shared soon. Stay tuned! #CGIARScienceWeek

To develop new crop varieties successfully is to understand farmers deeply 👨🌾 🌾 But how do you uncover preferences that aren't always easy to put into words? One answer is card sorting. During a recent training in Tanzania, interviewers were introduced to this behavioral science method to better capture the realities, needs and preferences of local rice farmers. Led by the International Rice Research Institute and Tanzania Agricultural Research Institute (TARI) as part of our Market Intelligence work, participants learned how to use interactive card-sorting exercises to help farmers prioritize the crop traits they value most ♠️ Unlike traditional surveys, card sorting reduces common response biases and reveals the nuanced trade-offs farmers make when choosing varieties. These richer insights help breeders design rice varieties that better reflect farmers' priorities and are ultimately more likely to be adopted. Discover how this is helping shape the future of rice breeding in Tanzania ➡️ https://lnkd.in/efeNv_2u

What drives farmers to adopt -- or ignore -- new crop varieties? Working across Uganda, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Kenya & India, researchers from our Market Intelligence team and International Research Institute for Climate and Society, Columbia Climate School explored how production, consumer traits -- such as yield performance and cooking quality -- seed access and gender dynamics, shape smallholder farmers’ planting decisions. Using qualitative data from seed trial packs (STPs), as well as consumer-focused activities ranging from cooking demonstrations to food tastings, the team uncovered why some new varieties take root, while others do not. The result is a series of key insights: ✅ Consumption traits shape household preferences, but production traits are the primary drivers of adoption, as men often make planting decisions 🌾 STPs proved more effective than consumer-focused activities because they allow farmers to evaluate both agronomic performance and food quality ⛔ Limited access to seed is the biggest obstacle to sustained adoption, even when farmers prefer the new varieties 🌿 Farmers often grow new varieties alongside traditional ones, maintaining on-farm agrobiodiversity Dive into the study to discover the complex interplay of factors shaping the adoption of new crop varieties ➡️ https://lnkd.in/eTsZRcqM

In the Peruvian Andes, iron deficiency anemia is one of the most widespread health challenges. Around 30% of women & over 40% of children under 5 suffer from anemia due to iron deficiency, making this a severe public health. 🇵🇪 🥔 But the recent development of two iron-rich potato varieties by International Potato Center (CIP), with higher yields and strong field performance, offers a glimmer of hope for more than 32,000 farming families and the nutriton of the millions people they feed. Take a closer look at how these biofortified potatoes were developed, and the promise they hold for the future of Peru’s rural communities ⤵️

The Enterprise Breeding System (EBS) brings you another webinar titled "Managing Genotypic Data and Marker Information in EBS Using MarkerDB". The webinar will provide an overview of how genotypic data and molecular marker information are managed within EBS. It will also cover key genotypic data concepts in EBS, demonstrate the loading and curation of marker information, and review available genotyping workflows in EBS that support data-driven decisions in breeding programs. Register now to participate and make sure to select the session that fits your time zone: https://lnkd.in/e6CjKcQc 🔹 Batch 1: July 21, 2026 🕒 9:00am CST (UTC-6) 🎙️ Speaker: Kate Dreher and Mijail Javier 🔹 Batch 2: July 22, 2026 🕒 10:30am EAT (UTC+3) 🎙️ Speaker: Obi Michael

What happens when CGIAR breeding and national agricultural research institutes' teams work hand in hand? Better science, stronger partnerships, and more improved crop varieties reaching farmers faster! 🤝 🌾 At CGIAR Breeding for Tomorrow, we believe that developing the crops of tomorrow is a shared journey. From identifying farmers' needs to testing, releasing and scaling new varieties, CGIAR and national breeding programs work as one team to ensure innovations reach their end-users. Kudos to International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) and National Root Crops Research Institute (NRCRI) Umudike Nigeria for showing a great example where close collaboration is helping deliver improved cassava, yam and taro varieties with higher yields, greater resilience, and better processing qualities for farmers and consumers alike. Because breakthrough varieties are never developed alone: they are built through partnership 👏 ⤵️

Crop breeding is a highly specialized scientific discipline, driven by the quantitative principles of genetics. But genetic improvements alone are not enough to ensure the adoption of a new crop variety 🍚 Our latest study explores the social and institutional factors that influence which rice varieties are developed, advanced, and ultimately reach farmers' fields. Through in-depth interviews with senior researchers and decision-makers across a range of institutions in #India, the study by Mel Connor, Swati Nayak & Arindam Samaddar, shows that breeding is also a social process, where decisions are often shaped by different institutional objectives. We identified 3 disctinct cultures: 🌾 Public sector: Policy-driven, with a strong focus on increasing yields to support national food security 📈 Private sector: Market-driven, prioritizing return on investment, commercial viability, and scalability 🌍 CGIAR: Research and development-driven, emphasizing inclusivity and global development impact These differing priorities influence which innovations move forward and which do not. This is where market intelligence becomes essential: by providing evidence on farmers' needs, market demand, and user preferences, it helps make breeding decisions more transparent, balanced, and responsive. Read more ➡️ https://lnkd.in/dc2sBxMK International Rice Research Institute

Meet Dr. Mukankusi Clare, a Breeder from who develops climate-resilient bean varieties changing the lives of smallholder farmers in Africa, Latin America & the Caribbean 🌍   As Global Breeding Lead at the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT, Clare leads a breeding program that responds directly to farmers’ needs, helping communities adapt to drought, heat and disease.   But that’s not all. Thanks to its market-led approach, the program has strengthened breeding capacity by mentoring researchers and improving breeding operations across multiple pipelines. Under Clare’s leadership, the team has:   🫘 Developed superior quality, highly nutritious bean varieties 🫘 Helped farmers build resilience to climate uncertainty 🫘 Strengthened breeding systems and scientific capacity 🫘 Enhanced food security and grew economic opportunity   Building on 20 years of experience in plant pathology and plant breeding, Clare oversees breeding activities from trait discovery to variety development. Her team rigorously evaluates beans for yield, disease resistance, nutritional value and adaptability, identifying those that meet market demand.   And when they’re done, new hope takes root for farmers and researchers alike. For Clare, breeding is about more than just crops – it’s about creating opportunities. Every successful variety brings greater resilience, income and nutrition to farming families. And that impact is especially significant for women, who play a central role in bean production across the region.   “Our new varieties are designed to thrive – meeting climate challenges, evolving diets, and global demands – while our teams deliver nutritious solutions for a changing world.”   Join us in the comment to thank Clare for turning scientific discovery into #foodsecurity!

Last week, Breeding for Tomorrow's Leadership Team came together in #Nairobi to align on medium and long-term priorities, strengthen our strategy, and help support and shape the future of CGIAR's breeding work 🔍 Breeding for Tomorrow coordinates the crop breeding efforts across #CGIAR Centers, helping ensure that breeding programs are aligned on targets, generate standardized data, collaborate effectively, and ultimately deliver improved crop varieties for farmers around the world. During the week, we reflected on some big questions: 🌱 Where are we today, and what have we learned? 🌱 What are our greatest strengths -- and where can we do better? 🌱 What should our priorities be in 2027 and beyond? 🌱 What do we want Breeding for Tomorrow to look like by 2030, and what steps will get us there? For the team, the meeting was a great opportunity to step back from day-to-day work, challenge our thinking, and align around a shared vision for the years ahead. These are the people behind Breeding for Tomorrow: working together with breeding teams across the globe to help build the next generation of climate-resilient, nutritious, and productive crop varieties smallholder farmers need!