Enhancing African orphan crops with genomics

Ramni Jamnadass; Rita H. Mumm; Iago Hale; Prasad Hendre; Alice Muchugi; Ian K. Dawson; Wayne Powell; Lars Graudal; Howard Yana-Shapiro; Anthony J. Simons; Allen Van Deynze

doi:10.1038/s41588-020-0601-x

Enhancing African orphan crops with genomics

Ramni Jamnadass, Rita H. Mumm, Iago Hale, Prasad Hendre, Alice Muchugi, Ian K. Dawson, Wayne Powell, Lars Graudal, Howard Yana-Shapiro, Anthony J. Simons, Allen Van Deynze

Crop Sciences

Research output: Contribution to journal › Comment/debate › peer-review

Original language	English (US)
Pages (from-to)	356-360
Number of pages	5
Journal	Nature Genetics
Volume	52
Issue number	4
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1038/s41588-020-0601-x
State	Published - Apr 1 2020

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Genetics

Online availability

10.1038/s41588-020-0601-x

Library availability

Discover UIUC Full Text

Cite this

@article{3799209ced0d463baeb8f3dd526aa7ac,

title = "Enhancing African orphan crops with genomics",

author = "Ramni Jamnadass and Mumm, {Rita H.} and Iago Hale and Prasad Hendre and Alice Muchugi and Dawson, {Ian K.} and Wayne Powell and Lars Graudal and Howard Yana-Shapiro and Simons, {Anthony J.} and {Van Deynze}, Allen",

note = "Funding Information: The AOCC initiative is supported by the African Union{\textquoteright}s Development Agency (AUDA, formerly the New Partnership for African Development). Other founding partners include World Agroforestry (ICRAF); Mars, Inc.; the University of California, Davis; and the World Wildlife Fund. Other core partners comprise a wide array of research-oriented and development-focused institutions engaged in science, technology provision, capacity building and advocacy: Agriculture Research Council (ARC-LNR, South Africa); Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA); Benson Hill; BGI; Bioscience Eastern and Central Africa–International Livestock Research Institute (BecA-ILRI); Corteva Agriscience; CyVerse; Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO); Ghent University; Google; Integrated Breeding Platform (IBP); Illumina; James Hutton Institute (JHI); KeyGene; LGC Genomics; Oxford Nanopore Technologies; Syngenta; Thermo Fisher Scientific; United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF); Wageningen University & Research (WUR); and World Food Programme (WFP). Many partners make substantial in-kind contributions to the initiative. World Agroforestry (ICRAF) authors gratefully acknowledge the support of the CGIAR{\textquoteright}s funding partners for their work, including through the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry and the CGIAR Genebank Platform (https://www.cgiar.org/funders/). SRUC authors are grateful for Global Challenge Research Funding on orphan crops (project BB/P022537/1: Formulating Value Chains for Orphan Crops in Africa, 2017–2019, Foundation Award for Global Agriculture and Food Systems). We thank participants in orphan-crop surveys, particularly AfPBA alumni, and Cathy Watson (ICRAF) for helping to source images of orphan crops (Fig. 1). Funding Information: The priority constraints identified by African crop breeders indicate important roles for the AOCC initiative and AfPBA alumni in fund mobilization and networking. Multinational teams of AfPBA alumni have successfully secured funding from the European Union to support the GENES Project and Mobility for Breeders in Africa initiative (MoBreed); both of these train graduate students in plant breeding, building on the work of the Academy (www.genes-intra-africa. org/; https://mobreed.com/). In another case, with funding from the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Soybean Innovation Lab, AfPBA alumni developed and delivered a training course, modeled after the Academy itself, for 44 assistant Ethiopian plant breeders. Since the graduation of the first Academy class in 2014, collaborations among AfPBA alumni have raised approximately US$40 million in external grants and other initiatives to support orphan-crop development, including through capacity building, across the continent. Furthermore, the AfPBA has demonstrated the need for, and tremendous influence of, continuing education and professional development to help crop-improvement scientists stay abreast of new technologies and tools to maximize efficiency in developing improved crop cultivars. Creating a platform for continuing professional development is a prime objective for AfPBA alumni, who have conceived and helped establish the African Plant Breeders Association (APBA). This new",

year = "2020",

month = apr,

day = "1",

doi = "10.1038/s41588-020-0601-x",

language = "English (US)",

volume = "52",

pages = "356--360",

journal = "Nature Genetics",

issn = "1061-4036",

publisher = "Nature Publishing Group",

number = "4",

}

TY - JOUR

T1 - Enhancing African orphan crops with genomics

AU - Jamnadass, Ramni

AU - Mumm, Rita H.

AU - Hale, Iago

AU - Hendre, Prasad

AU - Muchugi, Alice

AU - Dawson, Ian K.

AU - Powell, Wayne

AU - Graudal, Lars

AU - Yana-Shapiro, Howard

AU - Simons, Anthony J.

AU - Van Deynze, Allen

N1 - Funding Information: The AOCC initiative is supported by the African Union’s Development Agency (AUDA, formerly the New Partnership for African Development). Other founding partners include World Agroforestry (ICRAF); Mars, Inc.; the University of California, Davis; and the World Wildlife Fund. Other core partners comprise a wide array of research-oriented and development-focused institutions engaged in science, technology provision, capacity building and advocacy: Agriculture Research Council (ARC-LNR, South Africa); Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA); Benson Hill; BGI; Bioscience Eastern and Central Africa–International Livestock Research Institute (BecA-ILRI); Corteva Agriscience; CyVerse; Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO); Ghent University; Google; Integrated Breeding Platform (IBP); Illumina; James Hutton Institute (JHI); KeyGene; LGC Genomics; Oxford Nanopore Technologies; Syngenta; Thermo Fisher Scientific; United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF); Wageningen University & Research (WUR); and World Food Programme (WFP). Many partners make substantial in-kind contributions to the initiative. World Agroforestry (ICRAF) authors gratefully acknowledge the support of the CGIAR’s funding partners for their work, including through the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry and the CGIAR Genebank Platform (https://www.cgiar.org/funders/). SRUC authors are grateful for Global Challenge Research Funding on orphan crops (project BB/P022537/1: Formulating Value Chains for Orphan Crops in Africa, 2017–2019, Foundation Award for Global Agriculture and Food Systems). We thank participants in orphan-crop surveys, particularly AfPBA alumni, and Cathy Watson (ICRAF) for helping to source images of orphan crops (Fig. 1). Funding Information: The priority constraints identified by African crop breeders indicate important roles for the AOCC initiative and AfPBA alumni in fund mobilization and networking. Multinational teams of AfPBA alumni have successfully secured funding from the European Union to support the GENES Project and Mobility for Breeders in Africa initiative (MoBreed); both of these train graduate students in plant breeding, building on the work of the Academy (www.genes-intra-africa. org/; https://mobreed.com/). In another case, with funding from the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Soybean Innovation Lab, AfPBA alumni developed and delivered a training course, modeled after the Academy itself, for 44 assistant Ethiopian plant breeders. Since the graduation of the first Academy class in 2014, collaborations among AfPBA alumni have raised approximately US$40 million in external grants and other initiatives to support orphan-crop development, including through capacity building, across the continent. Furthermore, the AfPBA has demonstrated the need for, and tremendous influence of, continuing education and professional development to help crop-improvement scientists stay abreast of new technologies and tools to maximize efficiency in developing improved crop cultivars. Creating a platform for continuing professional development is a prime objective for AfPBA alumni, who have conceived and helped establish the African Plant Breeders Association (APBA). This new

PY - 2020/4/1

Y1 - 2020/4/1

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85083041815&partnerID=8YFLogxK

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85083041815&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1038/s41588-020-0601-x

DO - 10.1038/s41588-020-0601-x

M3 - Comment/debate

C2 - 32203464

AN - SCOPUS:85083041815

SN - 1061-4036

VL - 52

SP - 356

EP - 360

JO - Nature Genetics

JF - Nature Genetics

IS - 4

ER -

Enhancing African orphan crops with genomics

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Online availability

Library availability

Related links

Cite this