It comes after the India-based International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) was designated a breeding hub for South Asia under the global Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) to accelerate crop innovation in the region.
With its strategic location and experience across South Asia, ICRISAT believes it is ideally positioned to strengthen regional breeding pipelines and develop the next generation of climate-smart crops.
By being able to offer world-class services and tools, the hub will be able to help breeders in the region scale and accelerate their innovations.
To date, ICRISAT has developed 507 varieties of crops for the region and distributed 594,662 germplasm samples to eight South Asian countries.
“With decades of regional breeding experience and advanced infrastructure, we are now ready to deliver standardised services that accelerate crop improvement and create a lasting impact across the region,” said Dr Himanshu Pathak, Director General of ICRISAT.
With this change, ICRISAT will become a hub for Breeding Resources, which is part of CGIAR’s Breeding for Tomorrow (B4T) Science Program.
The program aims to make food systems more productive, inclusive, and climate resilient by offering, standardised, and evolving cost-effective services.
This supports CGIAR’s mission to deliver better varieties more efficiently and faster.
Which each regional hub operating as part of a connected ecosystem, they all follow the same standards, procedures, and process data in a harmonised manner.
This guarantees that “regardless of who provides the service, it is carried out in the same way and with the same quality and value for breeders and researchers.”
ICRISAT joins other hubs such as International Rice Research Institute in Asia and AfricaRice in West and Central Africa hubs.
Connecting South Asia to a global breeding network
According to the arramgement, ICRISAT will fully integrate Breeding Resources’ harmonised services.
This will allow breeders in the region to access consistent services from genotyping and phenotyping to analytics and process management through CGIAR Breeding Resources’ global network.
There will access to tools such as digital tools like Enterprise Breeding System and Bioflow.
“This hub illustrates ICRISAT Breeding Resources and B4T’s shared commitment to system-wide harmonisation and scalable impact. Thanks to ICRISAT’s leadership, we are ensuring breeders across South Asia can rely on the same high-quality services, tools, and support – no matter where they sit in the network,” added Eng Hwa, Breeding for Tomorrow - Breeding Resources Area of Work Lead.
