Principles of Plant Genetics and Breeding. George Acquaah
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the management and staff for the visibility WACCI had gained a few years after inception. An independent review panel led by Dr. Rita Mumm, Professor Emerita and Founding Director of the Illinois Plant Breeding Centre, University of Illinois, Urbana‐Champaign, in 2015 assessed that following proposed recommendations, WACCI was well positioned to join the ranks of the top‐tier institutes educating plant breeding professionals globally. The panel added that “Given WACCI's evolution, strategic plans for further expansion, and record of success to date, we view WACCI as an institution poised to have a tremendous impact on food security for Africa in the decade ahead and beyond by providing Africans with vital education in Africa to meet regional and global needs.”
Graduates of the WACCI program are contributing immensely to the growth and development of agriculture in their respective countries. A survey conducted in 2019 to access the impact of the PhD training program revealed that the majority of the graduates were working with National Agricultural Research Institutions, whiles others had taken academic positions in public and private universities. Over 40 plant breeding projects have been initiated by these graduates who have attracted a number of research grants from national and international organizations such as Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, MasterCard Foundation, AGRA, Govan Mbeki Research, ProjetMaïs UEMOA, PIGEPE/IFAD, and USAID/UC‐DAVIS.
The outputs from the research of the WACCI graduates include over 150 publications in high impact factor journals and the development and release of improved about 60 crop varieties including CRI‐AGRA Sp09 (sweet potato), Solo‐Gold (Sweet potato), Mbofara (Sweet potato), Asempa (Sweet potato), NAGODE (Maize), AGRILA (Maize), CRI‐Apraku (Maize), Aburolegon (Maize), AkuafoAburo (Maize), IKMR18001 (Pearl millet), and IKMR18009 (Pearl millet) just to name a few. Notable characteristics of some of these varieties include desirable morphological features, tolerance to low‐nitrogen soils, tolerance to pest and diseases, high beta carotene content, early maturing, and higher yielding compared to existing varieties. The adoption rate of newly developed varieties by farmers' ranges from 8% to 40%. This adoption rates are expected to increase over time as the released varieties are new introductions to farmers.
Some of these graduates are involved in the formulation of policies, serving in various capacities, developing of relevant curricula, as well as training and supervising undergraduate, masters and PhD students for the human and institutional resource development in their respective countries. By far, WACCI's most meaningful contribution to the future of African agriculture are the excellent plant breeders equipped with modern and conventional tools that have been churned out. These graduates who are currently 66 in number will increase to 81 by the end of the year 2019 and will number over 120 in the next three years. These are the cadres who would make an African Green Revolution possible in our lifetime. We believe that there will not be another Norman Borlaug in the world, but the collective work of the WACCI trained plant breeders will avert hunger and malnutrition in the turbulent, changing, and rapidly growing populations in the West Africa sub‐region. One can imagine how he would have been lost to the diaspora if he had left to study abroad. Training Africans in Africa for Africa in the area of plant breeding unquestionably is a concept that has proven to make good sense and impact. It has stood the test of time. It was not surprising that the Founder of Director of WACCI, Dr. Eric Yirenkyi Danquah, a Professor of Plant Genetics at the University of Ghana, received the World Agriculture Prize in 2018 from the Global Confederation of Higher Education Associations in Agriculture and Life Sciences (GCHERA) at Nanjing Agricultural University, China.
Acknowledgments
WACCI acknowledges all partners too numerous to mention here for the successes to date. AGRA, Cornell University, the World Bank, the USAID, the DAAD, the IITA, ICRISAT, CORAF, Africa Rice, University of Illinois, Purdue University, Associate Faculty, and the several Visiting Scientists to WACCI are gratefully acknowledged. Dr. Joseph DeVries and Dr. Peter Matlon, formerly of the Rockefeller's Africa Program (and served as Founding Executives of AGRA), at whose behest the scoping study to establish WACCI was conducted are gratefully acknowledged for the audacity. (Figure B1.5)
Figure B1.5 Picture of WACCI Cohort 1 Graduation Ceremony: Fresh Graduates in a pose with their Professors. From left, Prof. Eric Y. Danquah (Founder and Director, WACCI; received the Global Confederation of Higher Education Associations in Agriculture and Life Sciences [GCHERA] World Agriculture Prize, 2018); Dr. Solomon Gyan Ansah*; Dr. Issaka Ahmadou*; Dr. Moses Adeolu Adebayo*; Prof. Venon Gracen (Cornell Professor & Associate Faculty, WACCI); Dr. Ndubuisi Damian*; Dr. Njoku Some Koussao*; Dr. Mamadou Ibrahim Aissata*; Dr. Mamadou Coulibaly*; Dr. Maxwell Darko Asante*; Prof. Samuel K. Offei (Director of Research Programs, WACCI). (*Fresh graduates from the WACCI Cohort 1 PhD Plant Breeding Program)
Another significant point that needs to be made is that the for‐profit private breeding sector is obligated not to focus only on profitability of a product to the company, but they must also price their products such that the farmer can use them profitably. Farmers are not likely to adopt a technology that does not significantly increase their income!
1.9.2 Public sector plant breeding
The USA experience
Public sector breeding in the USA is conducted primarily by land grant institutions and researchers in the federal system (i.e. the United States Department of Agriculture [USDA]). The traditional land grant institutional program is centered on agriculture, and is funded by the federal government and the various states, often with support from local commodity groups. The plant research in these institutions is primarily geared toward improving field crops and horticultural and forest species of major economic importance to a state's agriculture. For example, Oklahoma State University, an Oklahoma land grant university, conducts research on wheat, the most important crop in the state. A fee is levied on produce presented for sale at the elevator by producers, and used to support agricultural research pertaining to wheat.
In addition to its in‐house research unit, the Agricultural Research Service (ARS), the USDA often has scientists attached to land grant institutions to conduct research of benefit to a specific state as well as the general region. For example, the Grazinglands Research Laboratory at El Reno, Oklahoma, is engaged in forage research for the benefit of the Great Plains of the USA. Research output from land grant programs and the USDA is often public domain and often accessible to the public. However, just like the private sector, inventions may be protected by obtaining plant variety protection or a patent.
The UK experience
The information regarding the UK experience is per personal communication with W.T.B. Thomas of the Scottish Crop Research Institute, Invergowrie, UK. The equivalent of a land grant system does not operate in the UK but, up to the 1980s, there were a number of public sector breeding programs at research institutes such as the Plant Breeding Institute (PBI) (now part of John Innes Centre), Scottish Crop Research Institute (SCRI), Welsh Plant Breeding Station (now Institute of Grassland and Environmental Research), and National Vegetable Research Station (now Horticultural Research International) with the products being marketed through the National Seed Development Organization (NSDO). In addition, there were several commercial breeding programs producing successful finished cultivars, especially for the major crops. Following a review of “Near Market Research,” the plant breeding program at PBI and the whole portfolio of NSDO were sold to Unilever and traded under the brand PBI Cambridge, later to become PBI Seeds. The review effectively curtailed the breeding activities in the public sector, especially of the major crops. Plant breeding in the public sector did continue at IGER, HRI, and SCRI but was reliant on funding from the private sector for at least a substantial part of the program. Two recent reviews of crop science research in the UK have highlighted the poor connection between much public sector research and the needs of the plant