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The African Centre for
Crop Improvement: moving into phase 2 of the project
Mark D.
Laing
The African Centre for Crop Improvement (ACCI) has been operating since
October 2001, with the
first
cohort of students arriving in February 2002. The eight plant-breeding
students of cohort 1 have now completed their research and submitted their
theses for examination. We have cohorts 2 through 6 in the system, another
40 students, from 15 countries, working on 11 crops. The cohort 1
graduates have mostly returned to work for national agricultural research
systems. One student has joined a private seed company in Uganda. All
graduates are being encouraged to apply for funding from AGRA, the
Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, to extend their PhD research
into a larger, longer breeding program.
In phase 2, ACCI’s funding is coming from AGRA, the consortium of the
Rockefeller Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. In this
phase, the ACCI will continue to train eight students each year from
southern and eastern Africa, now including Ethiopia and Rwanda. It will
also undertake institutional support to several universities in the region
in plant breeding. To serve the West African community, a West Africa
Centre for Crop Improvement may be established at the University of Ghana,
Lagon. It will use many elements of the ACCI model, with a West African
approach.
The Generation Challenge Program has agreed to fund a position at the ACCI
for a molecular plant breeder that will include lecturing ACCI students in
molecular breeding, supervising ACCI projects with elements of molecular
breeding, a research program into developing a ‘toolbox’ of biotechnology
for plant breeders and working with our students and partner scientists in
the 15 countries in which ACCI works.
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