The AOCC's - African Plant Breeding Academy
The AOCC opened the ‘African Plant Breeding Academy. The academy will train plant breeders and technicians in genomics and marker-assisted selection for crop improvement.
The African Orphan Crops Consortium (AOCC) opened the ‘African Plant Breeding Academy’ in Nairobi, Kenya, a practical approach to help reduce hunger and malnutrition among the 600 million Africans who live in rural areas, and to boost Africa’s food supply.
The academy will train 250 plant breeders and technicians in genomics and marker-assisted selection for crop improvement over a five-year period. The resulting improved planting materials will then be offered to smallholder farmers throughout Africa.
The academy provides scientists and technicians with a dedicated place to sequence, assemble and annotate the genomes to help develop food crops with higher nutritional value and which can better withstand climate changes, pests and disease. The data derived will be made publically available with the endorsement of the African Union through a process managed by the Public Intellectual Property Resource for Agriculture.
If you are an AOCC member, please visit our how to start your extraction and genotyping project page.
