In December 2014, 23 young scientists from 11 countries and 21 different institutions graduated from the African Plant Breeding Academy at the World Agroforestry Centre’s headquarters in Nairobi. This was the first batch of some 250 scientists who will benefit from training in modern genomics over a 5-year period.

The Academy was launched in 2013 as an initiative of the African Orphan Crops Consortium (AOCC), which aims to improve the quality, productivity and climatic resilience of 101 orphan crops. These are indigenous crops – just under half are trees – that have been used by African farmers, in some cases for centuries, but have been largely ignored by science.

“When it comes to funding crop research, most of the money spent internationally focuses on the big five – wheat, cotton, maize, soybean and rice,” explains Prasad Hendre, a plant breeder who manages the AOCC laboratory in Nairobi. “What we’re doing here is investing in research that will identify the genetic sequences associated with particular traits, such as high yields and resistance to drought, of a wide range of species which could help to transform the lives of African smallholder farmers.”

Between 2000 and 2014, scientists sequenced the genomes of just 57 plants. During the next 5 years, the AOCC will sequence the genomes of double that number in a collaborative research involving Mars, Inc., the World Agroforestry Centre, Beijing Genomics Institute, Life Technologies Corporation, the World Wildlife Fund, the University of California, the African Union’s New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), various CGIAR (Consultative Group of International Agriculture Research) institutes, LGC Genomics, iPlant Collaborative and Google. It will be up to plant breeders, such as those trained in Nairobi in a programme designed by UC Davis, to work out how best to use this new-found knowledge.

One of the first students to graduate from the Academy was Busiso Mavankeni, a Zimbabwean scientist whose focus of interest is the Bambara groundnut (Vigna subterranea). A popular “backyard crop” grown by two-thirds of small-scale farmers in Zimbabwe, Bambara groundnut is highly nutritious.

“It is a long season crop, taking about 140 days to mature,” explained Busiso after the graduation ceremony. “I would like to reduce that to between 90 to 120 days.” The lengthy growing season is not the only challenge she hopes to tackle. She would also like to develop disease-resistant and drought-tolerant strains. The training she has received at the African Plant Breeding Academy will stand her – and the other 22 students who graduated in 2014 – in good stead. “We talk of food security, yet not many people have access to enough food,” she said. “We talk of nutrition, and yet not many men, women

and children in Africa have access to nutritious food. This programme targets the crops that are important for African people, and they will benefit from it.”

The training offers young scientists like Busiso a unique opportunity to use the latest plantbreeding technologies, which include four gene-sequencing machines provided by Life Technologies Corporation and installed in the AOCC laboratory in Nairobi. These are a million times faster and cheaper to use than the old generation equipment of a decade ago. Indeed, it is impossible to exaggerate the importance of recent advances in gene-sequencing technologies.

“In the early 2000s, you needed an area the size of a basketball gymnasium, 100 machines, 70 technicians, five years of effort and US$20 million to sequence the genomes of just one plant,” says Tony Simons, World Agroforestry Centre’s Director General. Now, a machine which can sit on a table top, three months, two researchers and approximately US$200,000 will do the same thing.

But that’s just the start. “Sequencing the genomes provides the treasure map,” says Tony. “Once you have that, you must start bioprospecting – identifying the sequences which are associated with the traits you want in the orphan crops, and building them into a breeding programme.”