ICRISAT May 6 2016

Development of a framework for cooperation and integration among different disciplines within ICRISAT to undertake holistic research for greater impacts, was a key focus of scientists from Eastern and Southern Africa (ESA) region at their recent regional planning meeting. They reviewed achievements and lessons learnt from past activities as well as shared and peer reviewed each other’s work plans.

Some key issues identified were:

• - Need to align data management to ensure harmonization of what has been done through different breeding programs to avoid repetition.
• - Biotechnology should be integrated into all breeding programs.
• - Crop-livestock is an opportunity for integrating systems research and should be included in breeding programs and extended to more countries in the region.
• - More work on crop and climate modeling is needed on ICRISAT mandate crops, particularly calibration of relevant varieties to support/inform breeding programs.
• - Scientists from various disciplines presented their research initiatives ranging from crop Improvement (legume and nutri-cereals breeding and biotechnology); crop-livestock systems, including soil and water management; crop and climate modeling; and social sciences.

See more: http://www.icrisat.org/developing-a-framework-for-cooperation-and-integration-to-enable-holistic-research/