CGIAR Excellence in Breeding Platform - Plan of Work and Budget 2020

At the end of 2019, all CGIAR centers had submitted improvement plans based on an EiB template and in close collaboration with EiB staff while – in a parallel process with breeding programs, funders and private sector representatives – a vision for breeding program modernization was developed and presented to CGIAR breeding leadership at the EiB Annual Meeting. This vision represents an evolution of EiB in the context of the Crops to End Hunger Initiative (CtEH) beyond the initial scope of providing tools, services and expert advice, and serves as a guide for Center leadership to drive changes with EiB support. In addition, EiB has taken the role of managing and disbursing funding, made available by Funders via CtEH to modernize breeding and enable CGIAR breeding programs to implement the vision provided by EiB

Enterprise Breeding System, a data management system for breeding data, operations, analytics, and decision support, that will accelerate and increase the cost effectiveness of breeding programs

We will deploy, in a full production environment, the latest version of the system to IRRI, which will transition to the Enterprise Breeding System from its previous system, on March 14 2022. This latest version has key core breeding operations enabled

Breeding API (BrAPI), a standardized RESTful Web Service API Specification for plant breeding data, that enables exchanging data across systems and applications

TThe Breeding Management System and Breedbase already use it to exchange data as well as integrate independently developed tools that also adhere to the BrAPI standard. EBS has added BrAPI enablement to its development blueprint

Annual Report 2017: CGIAR Excellence in Breeding Platform

The platform leader was hired in August of 2017. The platform leader, Michael Quinn, and CIMMYT DDG, Marianne Bänziger, visited a large number of CGIAR-supported breeding programs – Africa Rice (Nigeria), CIAT (Colombia), CIMMYT (Kenya, India, Mexico), CIP (Kenya, Peru), ICRAF (Kenya), ICRISAT (Kenya, India), IITA (Nigeria), ILRI (Kenya), BeCA (Kenya), IRRI (Philippines, India), WorldFish (Malaysia) – to better understand challenges, needs and opportunities, and to explain how EiB can provide value to CGIAR breeding institutions and how best to work with EiB. A membership agreement that describes the commitments expected of breeding programs participating in EiB and the benefits they can expect to receive in turn was developed and distributed to CGIAR institutions. Signed membership agreements were returned from most CGIAR breeding programs

CGIAR Platform on Genetic Gains

Tools and services to accelerate genetic gains of breeding programs targeting the developing world. The Proposal in its current form was developed with contributions by the following institutions. In the next months, it will be circulated much more widely to the public and private sector to attract wider intellectual contributions to a common agenda

Development of an organizational culture of continuous improvement process across CGIAR breeding programs to support operational excellence

To meet funders/end-users needs, CGIAR breeding programs are modernizing their breeding operations. This doesn't mean a change here/there, but a culture of continuous improvement. By adopting LEAN methodologies (LM) IRRI has been engaging the operational team supporting the modernization process. LM were established to support operational teams defining their processes adding value to clients' needs. Adopting LM allows breeding teams to better structure processes, reducing redundancies/errors, eliminating waste and bringing effective delivery needs emphasising teamwork within the process

CGIAR Excellence in Breeding Platform - Plan of Work and Budget 2021

The CGIAR Excellence in Breeding (EiB) Platform is accelerating the modernization of crop breeding programs that serve farmers in low- and middle-income countries. To combat hunger, poverty and climate change, farmers need diverse and continually improving crop varieties. Drawing on public and private sector innovations, EiB partners with breeding programs to deliver system-level coordination, shared services, expert guidance, resources, and access to cutting-edge technologies and practices

Excellence in Breeding: Full Proposal 2017-2022

Importance of genetic improvement: Over the past decades, genetic improvement has increased agricultural productivity, reduced the pressure on forests, changed the nutritional profile of crops, and made agricultural production more resilient to diseases, pests and droughts. Without genetic improvement, food prices would be substantially higher and more forest land would have been lost to agriculture (Evenson and Gollin, 2003; Stevenson et al., 2013). It is estimated that between 30-60% of the yield increases in farmers’ fields can be traced back to breeders changing the genetic make-up of crops, while the rest is due to improved agronomy aligned with better functioning markets and extension systems. Relevant to the developing world, stress tolerance breeding has also resulted in yield increases under conditions that are similar to farmers’ real conditions such as drought, low fertility, and waterlogging (Septiningsih et al., 2008; Weber et al., 2013), and averted losses or restored production after the emergence of new devastating diseases (Singh et al., 2011). Research into nutritional traits has resulted in the first bio-fortified crops being released and grown by farmers (Johnson et al., 2015). Examples in livestock include, in the developed world, the myostatin gene (Grobet et al., 1997) and increased milk yields in cattle and, in the developing world, the prolificacy Booroola genes in sheep (Nimbkar et al., 2005)