What is a CGIAR Research Program (CRP)?

The CRPs are defined as major research efforts, which reach across CGIAR centers and their partners to make a major difference in achieving global development goals. The point of the CRPs is to bring together the research synergies, strengths, and resources from multiple centers to increase efficiencies and enhance impacts.

The food security CRPs are devoted to sustainable productivity increases for global food security. What is food security? Food security exists when all people at all times are free from hunger. It represents a complex challenge that requires a systems-based approach.

Achieving food security means recognizing how crops, such as roots, tubers, and bananas (RTBs), fit into different food and crop systems (e.g., seed systems, production systems, marketing systems, and value chains) to reduce the risk of food shortages and malnutrition. Taking a systems-based approach promotes strategies that can increase potential yields. What’s more it can help boost the value of these crops for improving incomes, nutrition, gender equity, and livelihoods. This is particularly important because the people who grow and depend on RTBs in developing countries tend to be among the most poor and vulnerable.

 

What is the Roots, Tubers, and Bananas CRP?

The Roots, Tubers, and Bananas CRP (RTB CRP) is one of a new series of initiatives spearheaded by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) to bring together the research synergies and resources of multiple agricultural research-for-development centers to improve efficiencies and increase impacts.

The purpose of the RTB CRP is to tap the underutilized potential of root, tuber, and banana crops to improve food security, nutrition, and livelihoods.

The RTB MP partnership includes 7 key themes:

• Theme 1: Conserving and accessing genetic resources
• Theme 2: Accelerating the development, delivery, and adoption of varieties with stable yields, stress resistance, and high nutritional value
• Theme 3: Managing priority pests and diseases and beneficial microbial communities
• Theme 4: Promoting sustainable systems for clean planting material for farmers
• Theme 5: Developing tools for more productive, ecologically robust crops
• Theme 6: Enhancing post-harvest technologies and adding value in markets
• Theme 7: Enhancing impact through partnerships

Why Roots, Tubers, and Bananas?

RTB crops include banana, plantain, cassava, potato, sweetpotato, yams, and other roots and tubers. They play a critical role in the global food system, especially in the developing world. RTBs are among the top 10 most commonly consumed food staples and provide one of the cheapest sources of energy and vital nutrients.

These crops constitute an important source of income in poor, rural areas and can grow in marginal conditions with relatively few inputs and simple techniques. RTBs have many potential industrial uses (e.g., starch, animal feed, processed foods) and are less vulnerable than grains to international price shocks. Finally, their relatively short growing cycles and tolerance for abiotic stress means they can be inserted into cropping systems between grain crops or in nontraditional areas for cultivation, increasing system productivity and diversity.

RTBs share important scientific similarities. They are vegetatively-propagated, meaning that they are not grown from seed but from cuttings or clones. RTBs also share common traits and challenges regarding management aspects, most notably in seed and post-harvest issues.

Partnership

Four centers of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) have initiated a partnership to carry out the full scope of the RTB CRP, including:

• International Potato Center (CIP)
• Bioversity International
• International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT)
• International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA)

The success of the CRPs will depend on further linkages and partnerships with an extensive network of partners and stakeholders.