The Africa Vegetable Breeding Consortium (AVBC) annual workshop is the public/private platform for collaboration to ensure Africa’s vegetable producers get the seed they need.

Ensuring Africa’s farmers can access the very best seed adapted to their local conditions is among the goals of the Africa Vegetable Breeding Consortium (AVBC), a joint initiative of the World Vegetable Center (WorldVeg) and the African Seed Trade Association (AFSTA).

The consortium held its third annual workshop on 21-22 September 2021 online and at the WorldVeg Eastern and Southern Africa campus in Arusha, Tanzania. More than 65 participants included scientists from WorldVeg headquarters and all regional centers, African vegetable seed companies, the Tanzania Agricultural Research Institute (TARI), and the Tanzania Seed Trade Association (TASTA).

WorldVeg ESA Regional Director Gabriel Rugalema introduced the speakers and participants, encouraging them to ask questions and challenge assumptions. WorldVeg Director General Marco Wopereis gave opening remarks, as did TASTA Executive Director Baldwin “Bob” Shuma and TARI Center Manager Mpoki Shimwela.

“Good quality seed is the starting point of a successful and competitive vegetable sector,” Marco told the group. “Breeding is hard work and it takes a lot of time. All those efforts would serve no purpose whatsoever if farmers would not get access to that new material.”

WorldVeg and AFSTA launched the AVBC in 2018 to promote development of a strong vegetable seed sector in Africa and support companies of all sizes—small, regional and international—in obtaining quality germplasm to develop their own breeding and distribution initiatives.

As advances in biotechnology and genomics accelerate the pace of vegetable cultivar development, seed companies must have a robust understanding of the latest vegetable breeding research, the practical skills to apply new breeding methods, and access to a diverse collection of vegetable germplasm to remain competitive in turbulent markets. Through the consortium, participating companies and WorldVeg researchers have multiple opportunities to discuss and evaluate breeding approaches and discover new avenues to share data and progress.

The first day featured technical presentations from WorldVeg vegetable breeders Peter Hanson (tomato), Derek Barchenger (pepper), Narinder Dhillon (pumpkin), Jean-Baptiste Tignegre (onion) and Ram Nair (legumes). Pepijn Schreinemachers, Lead Scientist for Impact Evaluation, discussed recent research into seed laws affecting the development of the private vegetable seed sector in sub-Saharan Africa. Genebank Manager in Africa, Sognigbe N’Danikou, presented the activities of his team in collecting, conserving and sharing germplasm of global and traditional vegetables.

On Day 2, participants reviewed vegetable field trials (tomato, chili and sweet pepper, African eggplant, amaranth, pumpkin, onion and mungbean). Full AVBC members have a 12-month lead access to the AVBC exclusive lines on trial and can receive up to 10 lines free of charge. Some non-exclusive lines are included in the trials and are available to both Full and Associate members (see sidebar).