Improving Crop Improvement and Seed Delivery Systems for Small Holders in Sub-Saharan Africa.

In sub-Saharan Africa, food production has just kept up with the rapid population growth experienced in the region over the past four decades. However, in contrast with other parts of the world, food production increases have been accomplished by bringing more land under cultivation, with very limited productivity gains (Ethiopia and Rwanda are notable exceptions). Given the high rates of population growth predicted in the next few decades, it will be difficult and undesirable to continue along this path to satisfy the increasing food requirements of the region. Thus, it is imperative for African countries to boost productivity of key staple crops. Based on experience in Asia and other developing countries, boosting small farm productivity is likely to help alleviate extreme poverty in rural areas and help kick start an inclusive agricultural transformation process. Improving crop improvement systems, and the delivery of the improved varieties, preferably combined with greater use of inputs and production knowledge, can play a key role in boosting small farm productivity. There is a substantial opportunity to more than double the genetic gains of breeding programs serving small holders through the adoption of modern tools and new methods. Seed systems serving smallholder farmers need to be implemented to promote rapid varietal turnover so that the genetic gains generated by the breeding programs can be realized by farmers. This presentation will describe the work of several key initiatives supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation designed to increase the rate of genetic gain made and delivered within the crop breeding programs of several CGIAR institutes and key national programs in sub-Saharan Africa. These include development and deployment of information management systems Breeding Management System, electronic data capture, systematic program evaluations using the Breeding Program Assessment Tool BPAT Assessment Tool, public private partnerships, and centralized high-throughput genotyping facilities.