Hundreds of millions of people depend on root, tuber and banana crops for food and income, particularly in the least developed regions of Africa, Asia and the Americas. The CGIAR Research Program on Roots, Tubers and Bananas (RTB) is working globally to harness the untapped potential of those crops in order to improve the food security, nutrition and livelihoods of some of the world’s poorest families.

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RESEARCH PROGRAM ON

Roots, Tubers and Bananas

Why Roots, Tubers, and Bananas?RTB crops – cassava, potatoes, sweet-potatoes, yams, bananas, plantains and tropical and Andean roots and tubers such as aroids, maca or ahipa – are some of the most important crops in the world’s poorest regions. They provide between 14% and 60% of the daily per capita calories consumed by the more than 840 million people living in the least developed countries. They can be grown relatively quickly with few inputs, they tolerate marginal soils or conditions, they produce plenty of calories per hectare,

and some are rich in key nutrients, all of which gives them significant potential for improving food security and nutrition. They are also important cash crops that can be used to increase family incomes, and they are frequently grown or marketed by women. At the same time, they present common challenges for farmers, since they are propagated clonally (rather than with seeds) favoring a build-up of yield reducing pathogens and requiring storage of bulky and perishable planting material.

Who are we?RTB is a collaboration of five research centers with decades of experience in these crops on different continents, including four CGIAR research centers - the International Potato Center (CIP), which leads the research program, Bioversity International, the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) - and the French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development (Cirad), which also represents INRA, IRD and Vitropic. The four CGIAR research centers joined forces in 2011 and launched RTB in 2012, whereas Cirad joined in 2013. These five centers have come together to address common issues, mobilize complementary expertise and resources, avoid duplication of efforts, and create synergies to increase the benefits of their research for smallholder farmers, consumers, and anyone else involved in the value chains for these crops.

Roots, Tubers and Bananas for Food Security and Income

S. Quinn, CIP

BioversityI n t e r n a t i o n a l

A broad alliance of research-for-development stakeholders & partners

The RTB strategy organizes research around seven themes:

• Theme 1: Unlocking the value and use potential of genetic resources

• Theme 2: Accelerating the development and selection of cultivars with higher, more stable yield and added value

• Theme 3: Managing priority pests and diseases

• Theme 4: Making available low-cost, high-quality planting material for farmers

• Theme 5: Developing tools for more productive, ecologically robust cropping systems

• Theme 6: Promoting postharvest technologies, value chains and market opportunities

• Theme 7: Enhancing impact through partnerships

To improve research performance, en-hance progress towards outcomes and increase value for money through evidence-based impact, RTB is adopting a results-based management model. This will be implemented through a set of user-oriented flagships, such as the orange-fleshed sweetpotato, and linked research products to enable uptake. These bring together work in different themes to achieve outcomes.

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What are we doing differently?RTB is changing the way the research centers work and collaborate, creating a more cohesive approach to common challenges and goals through knowledge sharing, multidirectional communications, communities of practice and crosscutting initiatives. Participating centers work with an array of national and international institutions, non-governmental organizations and stakeholders’ groups, and RTB aims to promote greater cooperation among them while strengthening their capacities as key players. Because the impact of RTB research is highly dependent on its adoption by next users and end users, it must be informed by their needs and preferences. RTB has consequently opened channels for stakeholder input and feedback on research options.

Because women are widely involved in the growing and marketing of RTB crops, face a different set of constraints than men, and have traditionally been the last to benefit from agricultural research and extension, RTB is working to improve gender responsiveness among the participating centers and their partners.

Harnessing the potential of RTB cropsDespite the challenge of getting such a global collaboration operational, RTB made significant progress on various fronts during its first two years:

• Stakeholder input: The program began with a participatory process for assessing RTB research priorities using online sur- veys in five languages, which received input from more than 1,600 crop experts and other stakeholders around the world. • Online crop atlas: In conjunction with the priority assessment, the centers collaborated on the creation of an online,

open-access GIS platform called RTBMaps, which allows users to visualize issues such as crop production, constraints and social indicators.

• Conserving genetic diversity: RTB supports several initiatives to strengthen the conservation of crop germplasm, including in-situ (on site).

• Using genetic and metabolite data for breeding: The program has launched an ambitious effort to collect, analyze and associate genetic, metabolite and phenotypic data from the main RTB crops and use the results to accelerate the development of improved varieties.

• Addressing seed degeneration: RTB is supporting an international, cross-crop initiative to reduce seed degeneration (transmission of crop diseases via planting material) that involves the research centers and several universities.

• Priority pests and diseases: RTB is supporting various efforts to improve the management of crop pests and diseases, among them a global alliance to control banana bunchy top disease in Africa, a cross-crop research initiative on bacterial diseases, and a cross-center project to model how climate change may affect various pests and diseases.

• Network mapping: RTB has analyzed its research networks and mapped a baseline of collaboration among 578 researchers at 315 organizations, which will be used to monitor the evolution of RTB partnerships in the future.

• Mainstreaming gender: In order to ensure that its research benefits women and men alike, RTB is integrating gender responsiveness into all areas.

S. de Haan, CIP D. Dufour, CIAT