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Evolutionary plant breeding helps farmers develop seeds for local conditions

February 15th, 2019 / Yale Climate Connections, US

A four-minute documentary video on evolutionary plant breeding, a technique that can help farmers develop plant varieties that thrive in local conditions. In the video, Italian plant geneticist Salvatore Ceccarelli explains how the technique could help farmers around the world respond to problems posed by climate change and gain autonomy. Over …

New cassava varieties to ease hunger pangs in Kenya and beyond

July 5th, 2017 / MediaMax

New cassava varieties that should help alleviate Kenya’s food crisis are on the way.
Researchers say the Virus Resistant Cassava for Africa Plus (VIRCA Plus) varieties, which are disease-resistant and nutritionally enhanced, are expected to improve the livelihoods and health status of Kenyans and elsewhere Africa. The planting materials may be …

Make agriculture biotechnology accessible to the public

January 20th, 2017 / Nature Genetics, UK

The benefits of putting a set of variation and selection lines back into the hands of farmers and the gardening public would go beyond creating a social license to operate for gene technologies. There are many ques- tions about local growth conditions and consumer preference that could be crowdsourced for …