Varshney, R K and Ojiewo, C O and Monyo, E (2019) A decade of Tropical Legumes projects: Development and adoption of improved varieties, creation of market-demand to benefit smallholder farmers and empowerment of national programmes in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Plant Breeding (TSI), 138 (4). pp. 379-388. ISSN 01799541
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Abstract
This article highlights 12 years (2007–2019) of research, achievements, lessons learned, challenges and gaps in discovery‐to‐delivery research in legumes emanating from three projects, collectively called Tropical Legumes (TL) with a total investment of about US$ 67 million funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. These projects were implemented by three CGIAR centres (ICRISAT, CIAT and IITA) together with 15 national agricultural research system partners in sub‐Saharan Africa and South Asia. The TL projects together with some of their precursors and complementary projects from other agencies, facilitated the development of 266 improved legume varieties and the production of about 497,901 tons of certified seeds of the target legume crops in the focus countries. The certified seeds have been planted on about 5.0 million ha by more than 25 million smallholder farmers in the 15 countries and beyond, producing about 6.1 million tons of grain worth US$ 3.2 billion. Furthermore, the projects also trained 52 next generation scientists that included 10 women, by supporting 34 Masters degrees and 18 PhD degrees.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Divisions: | Research Program : East & Southern Africa Research Program : Genetic Gains |
| CRP: | CGIAR Research Program on Grain Legumes and Dryland Cereals (GLDC) |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | Tropical Legumes (TL) projects, breeding, food security, genomics, legumes, seed system, Chickpea, Cowpea, Common bean, Groundnut, Pigeonpea, Soybean, Grain Legumes, Legume Crops, legume production, Africa, South Asia, sub‐Saharan Africa, smallholder farmers, crop varieties, crop improvement, ICRISAT, CIAT, IITA, partnership, collaboration, Tropical Legumes |
| Subjects: | Others > Abiotic Stress Others > Agriculture Policy Others > Burkina Faso Others > Crop Improvement Others > Drought Tolerance Others > Ghana Others > Smallholder Farmers Others > Plant Breeding Others > Nigeria Others > South Asia Others > Cowpea Others > Agricultural Research Mandate crops > Chickpea Mandate crops > Pigeonpea Mandate crops > Groundnut Others > Drylands Agriculture Others > Genetics and Genomics Others > African Agriculture Others > India Others > Legume Crops Others > Sub-Saharan Africa Others > Niger Others > Ethiopia Others > Malawi Others > Mali Others > Mozambique Others > Kenya Others > Seed Systems |
| Depositing User: | Mr Ramesh K |
| Date Deposited: | 19 Aug 2019 09:15 |
| Last Modified: | 19 Aug 2019 09:25 |
| URI: | http://oar.icrisat.org/id/eprint/11248 |
| Official URL: | https://doi.org/10.1111/pbr.12744 |
| Projects: | UNSPECIFIED |
| Funders: | Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Grant/Award Number: OPP1114827 |
| Acknowledgement: | The authors of this article/editor of this special issue are thankful to all the scientists, research staff and leadership team of NARS partners and the three CGIAR centres, namely ICRISAT, CIAT and IITA for their contribution to successfully implementing the three phases of the project. We are also thankful to Dr CLL Gowda, Principal Investigator and Dr Tsedeke Abate, Project Coordinator of Phase I and part of Phase II of Tropical Legumes project for all their contributions. Sincere thanks are due to Dr David Bergvinson (2007–2013) and Dr Jeff Ehlers (2013–2019), Program Managers from BMGF for their guidance, support and mentoring and the BMGF for the financial support to the three phases of the project. Thanks are also due to other funding agencies and organizations for leveraging support to TL projects as its activities were initially undertaken as a part of CGIAR Research Program on Grain Legumes and subsequently of the CGIAR Research Program on Grain Legumes and Dryland Cereals (CRP‐GLDC). ICRISAT is a member of the CGIAR System Organization. |
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