Capacity building for integrated breeding

In its second and final phase, the Generation Challenge Programme is focussing on promoting and enabling the adoption of modern molecular breeding strategies and facilitative informatics technologies by developing country breeding programmes. A comprehensive human resource capacity-building programme is a vital part of this effort, and the Integrated Breeding Platform is a pivotal component of this.

GCP is revitalising  its approach to capacity-building, with a proposed training programme that will be spread over three years, starting in April 2012, cumulatively adding up to six weeks of intensive face-to-face training workshops supported by online and other resources made available through the Integrated Breeding Platform Portal. The curriculum will focus on transferring vital skills in experiment design, data collection and management, data analysis and decision making. The different informatics tools and software applications developed under the IBP project will be the primary examples for the application of modern information and communication technologies to the breeding process.

Trainees will be drawn from developing countries of Africa and Asia. They will be required to commit to the entire training programme, to ensure that they will acquire a complete understanding of the progressive pipeline of activities that constitute an integrated breeding project – from initiation, through identification of markers correlated to the breeding objective, to the implementation of markers in the breeding programme.

The ultimate goal of the programme is to build a critical mass of scientists trained in integrated breeding in each of the targeted regions, capable of proficiently employing modern molecular breeding methodologies and using cutting edge bioinformatics tools in their work.

We will be sending further communication on this in the coming weeks, particularly requesting nomination of persons to undergo the training.