Dr Dar with participants of the training course and senior ICRISAT scientists.
As a part of the capacity building exercise under the Tropical Legumes I (TLI) – Phase II project entitled Improving chickpea productivity for marginal environments in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa of CGIAR Generation Challenge Programme (GCP), a training course entitled Modern Breeding Technologies for Chickpea Improvement is being held from 25 October to 19 November at Patancheru.
Inaugurating the meeting, Director General William Dar said, “Chickpea is an important source of energy, protein, minerals, vitamins and fibers that can play a vital role in overcoming problems of nutritional insecurity. We can’t afford to gloss over the fact that childhood malnutrition in dryland Asia stands at 42% and at 27% in Africa.“ Referring to ICRISAT’s new strategic plan, he continued, “In addition to all these steps, linking farmers to markets is critical to boost farm production and farmers’ income to check the widening rural-urban disparity and diversify rural livelihood options.”
The participants of the course are taking part in ongoing activities on chickpea breeding, physiology and entomology at ICRISAT; molecular markers and molecular breeding activities for chickpea improvement; training in experimental design, analysis of genomics data for breeding applications (these activities will be covered in the training course Application of Molecular Markers for Crop Improvement, which will be held in the same venue from 8 to 19 November).
In addition, the course participants are also taking part in the 2nd National Workshop on Marker-Assisted Selection for Crop Improvement being held at Patancheru from 27 to 29 October (see lead story). During their stay at ICRISAT, the course participants will also have an opportunity to interact with plant breeders, molecular biologists, pathologists, entomologists, physiologists, biometrics and bioinformatics specialists.
The training course will prepare the participants to apply the knowledge gained at ICRISAT for chickpea improvement in their parent institutes.
Source: ICRISAT Happenings
