Strengthening Africa’s staple crops: RTB Cassava and Yam WCA Network charts new breeding strategies for regional markets

4 October 2024

On 23-25 September, CGIAR RTB Cassava and Yam WCA Network brought together breeders, researchers, and stakeholders from across West, East, and Central Africa to tackle one of the most pressing issues in the region's agricultural landscape-how to better align yam and cassava breeding programs with the diverse needs of regional markets. The meeting focused on consolidating country-specific market segments and target product profiles for these staple crops, which play a crucial role in human consumption across regions.

Their deliberations highlighted a solid need to review, develop, and adopt new breeding schemes that cater to regional market segmentation and the targeted products for regional consumption. The high-level meeting also focused on consolidating country-level market segments and target product profiles for yam and cassava for human consumption in West and Central Africa with continuous improvement of products to ensure competitiveness and relevance in the regional market.

The Cassava group identified key consumption, yield, and agronomic traits critical to different market segments-fresh white, processing white, industry white, and biofortified products. Traits such as root shape, lodging, root flesh color, plant type, and plant height were unanimously recognized for improvement. Disease resistance traits were considered essential to achieving the meeting's objectives.

The Yam group also identified important consumer and agronomic yield traits critical to different market segments, urban and rural preferences, harvest, post-harvest, and tuber quality traits for both instrumental and sensory traits. Their discussions were centered on diseases, nematodes, mealybugs, and termites affecting yam production and seed systems. All these challenges were highlighted and reviewed for improvement,

The collaborative efforts aimed to ensure traits align with consumer preferences and regional market demands, ensuring the continued competitiveness of cassava and yam products across the regions.

The RTB (Roots, Tubers, and Bananas) West and Central Africa (WCA) Network has increasingly turned to genotyping and molecular breeding as pivotal tools for improving yam and cassava varieties, two staple crops critical to the region's food security and economic stability. These advanced breeding techniques aim to accelerate the development of high-performing varieties that address agronomic challenges and market demands.

The RTB WCA Network emphasizes the importance of collaborative research and capacity building in deploying genotyping and molecular breeding technologies. Research institutions, breeders, and agribusinesses work together to share knowledge, resources, and tools, ensuring that breeding advancements benefit farmers across the region.

The NARS partners agreed to a 3000 - 20000 Seedlings Nursery Benchmark to standardize and harmonize the breeding scheme and breeding bible that will constitute a mode of operations (a breeding manual) for the Global community.

Contributed by Onasanya Emmanuel

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