Latest News

29 March 2022

Our project partners were trained on how to use the CAPFITOGEN on server application and its different analysis and mapping tools to identify populations of crop wild relatives that potentially have specific useful abiotic traits. The training spanned over 3 days (8, 10 February and 25 March 2022), with participants from Malawi, Tanzania and Zambia. On the first day, an overview on predictive characterisation was provided by Professor Nigel Maxted from the University of Birmingham. This was followed by a hands-on training session with each country partner led by Hannes Gaisberger (Alliance Bioversity and CIAT) and Joana Magos Brehm (UoB) to practice using each tool. Malawi and Zambia both worked on drought and salinity tolerance in wild relatives of Rice (Oryza sativa) and Tanzania focused on drought tolerance in wild relatives of Finger millet (Eleusine indica). This exercise contributed to the capacity building of our partners in understanding how predictive characterisation works and using the CAPFITOGEN tools to identify populations that can be of potential use to breeders based on their distribution and traits of interest.

21 March 2022

On the 14th of March 2022, a two-hours online training session was held by the project team, led by Dr Joana Magos Brehm from University of Birmingham for 11 participants from the SADC member states to provide training on how to analyse species occurrence data. Dr Magos-Brehm went through the different analyses possible using the freewares, CAPFITOGEN and QGIS, to demonstrate to the participants, how they can perform analyses like creation of species distribution maps, identification of CWR hotspots, identification of CWR that are conserved in protected and ex situ in genebanks, complementarity and gap analyses. This training programme aims at strengthening the scientific and technical capacities in the SADC region in CWR conservation planning and equip the participants with the ability of undertaking the relevant diversity analyses in order to identify sites for active in situ conservation of CWR.

14 July 2021

On 1st July 2021, our project leader, Dr Ehsan Dulloo participated in the final four days digital conference “Ensuring Diversity for Food and Agriculture” as part of the Farmer’s Pride project in collaboration with EUCARPIA and ECPGR. During the fourth session themed as “Establishing a European network for in situ conservation and sustainable use of plant genetic resources”, Dr Dulloo shared some of success elements that led to the establishment of the SADC CWR Regional Network that was approved by the SADC Ministers of agriculture and food security last May.

12 May 2021

On the 7th May 2021, the Darwin Initiative project 26-023 “Bridging agriculture and environment Southern African crop wild relative network” achieved a historical milestone. The white paper for the creation of a Regional Network for the conservation and use of Crop Wild Relatives (CWR) in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) developed under the project was approved at the Joint Meeting of the SADC ministers responsible for agriculture and food security and Fisheries and aquaculture. This was made possible by the strong partnership with the SADC Plant Genetic Resources Centre (SPGRC) of the Directorate on Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources of the SADC Secretariat. The SADC CWR Network will be the first regional network for the in situ conservation of crop wild relatives in the world and will hopefully serve as an exemplar for the other regions to follow and progress towards achieving a global network for CWR.

05 May 2021

The Darwin SADC CWR project released a  policy brief  (2.9 MB) on 5th May 2021 regarding the need to establish a regional network for conservation, sustainable use and access and benefit sharing of crop wild relatives (CWR) in the Southern African Development Community (SADC). This policy brief summarizes the current status of the SADC’s CWR and provides an outline for policymakers to form a regional network to better protect CWR in their natural habitats to improve food security, livelihoods, and the conservation of biodiversity. It essentially defines the need for such a network, what are functions that the network will serve, the main actors and beneficiaries involved, the benefits derived and how the network will operate. This document was shared with the policy makers and national focal points of the SADC region.

14 December 2020

The capacity building team, led by Dr Joana Magos Brehm from the University of Birmingham (UK), developed a training programme on CWR conservation planning for the SADC countries that comprised three parts: an online preparatory phase, a face-to-face training workshop and post-training support. The preparatory phase included a one-to-one support via the internet (email, Skype, etc.) and aimed at preparing the data needed for the face-to-face training workshop where specific spatial techniques and tools (e.g. gap, diversity and complementarity analyses) regarding the identification of sites for the in situ conservation of CWR are expected to be taught to the SADC participants. This face-to-face training workshop was due in late October 2020 but, due to the Covid-19 and travel restrictions, five months before the workshop was due to take place, our team decided to convert both the preparatory phase and the physical workshop into flexible modular online sessions. We agreed on a two-hour period for each of the sessions. Our challenge was not only to distil a three day training workshop into a minimum of ten hours online but mainly to assist the participants in using very specific techniques in an attempt to engage them effectively to have a meaningful outcome, i.e. their national CWR checklist, their CWR priority list for conservation; the distribution of their priority CWR and the identification of sites for their active in situ conservation. A pre-training evaluation form was sent to the prospective participants to gauge their preference of online platforms and training mode, the internet access and their previous experience on use of geospatial tools. After the main sessions, which essentially introduce the concepts to the participants through a series of presentations, we also held follow-up Q&A sessions after two weeks of autonomous assignments to respond to any queries or problems the participants faced. Participants were provided with translated versions of the presentations in English, French and Portuguese and with the recorded videos of the Zoom sessions in case they missed them. The team also provided one to one support via the internet (email and skype) to address individual queries.

20 July 2020
Breeders are among the key end-users of crop wild relatives (CWR) in their crop improvement programmes. To gauge the extent to which breeders of the SADC region 1) are aware of the value of CWR and 2) use CWR germplasm, a SWOT survey was carried out, in the context of Darwin Initiative-funded project on SADC crop wild relatives. Six countries of the SADC region participated, and while all respondents acknowledged the importance of CWR in breeding programmes, only half of them have used wild relatives in their breeding programmes. Main challenges that breeders often face included i) lack of funds, ii) no or little capacity in characterization of traits – due to lack of training and equipment, iii) taxonomic identification constraints on field and iv) ease of access to germplasm material. However, there is an overall willingness to adopt CWR in breeding programmes due to their adaptability and other beneficial traits. Breeders in the SADC region seek assistance in capacity building for use of new technology, solicit collaborative research with international universities as well as local and regional gene banks and financial support to identify, conserve and utilize CWR in pre-breeding and crop improvement.

13 July 2020
The Darwin SADC CWR project aims to strengthen the capacity of the Tanzania National Plant Genetic Resources Centre (NPGRC) staff in crop wild relative conservation, with plans to identify their priority species for in situ conservation. During a weeklong technical backstopping meeting held in Arusha, Tanzania from 02 to 06 March 2020, ten staff members of the NPGRC were trained on the different steps of CWR conservation planning. Mr. William Hamisy, head of the NPGRC and the national project coordinator said, “The Government of Tanzania fully recognizes the importance of conserving crop wild relatives and the contribution it can bring to improve its agriculture. The technical assistance offered by the University of Birmingham and Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT was critical in enabling staff to develop a checklist and inventory of CWR in the country. This will facilitate prioritization of CWR species for active in situ conservation. Staff also learned how to collate occurrence data for priority species as well as the development of the National Strategic Action Plan for the Conservation and Use of Crop Wild Relatives in Tanzania”. This technical support helped finalize the national CWR checklist of Tanzania, in association with the National Herbarium of Tanzania and other members who discussed the geographic scope, the methodological approach (floristic or monographic), as well as the inclusion of introduced species of global importance.