Crop breeding for climate resilience in southern Africa

Targeting resilience to climate change within seed systems is an area of key investment in contributing to food security in southern Africa, and it presents a variety of challenges and opportunities.

In this webinar University of Leeds researchers Dr Stephen Whitfield and Dr Sarah Chapman will present analysis from work undertaken within the GCRF-AFRICAP programme on characterising current efforts to breed climate resilient crops in southern Africa. They will consider and demonstrate some of the potential applications of climate models in informing breeding priorities and strategies, and discuss some of the principles of pitfalls associated.

Following the presentation, discussant Justify Shava (Head of the SADC Plant Genetic Resources Centre) will provide a response from the practitioner’s perspective, situating the GCRF-AFRICAP research within the broader context of African seed systems and climate resilience. The event will close with a Q&A period.

This seminar is hosted by the GCRF-AFRICAP programme in partnership with the Global Food and Environment Institute, University of Leeds. Visit the GCRF-AFRICAP website for more seminars on food systems and climate resilience in sub-Saharan Africa.

Photo credit: Georgina Smith / CIAT (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)