More companies, more countries and the first hybrids bring African vegetable breeding a step closer to farmers.
The Africa Vegetable Breeding Consortium (AVBC) staged its largest annual workshop to date in Benin, with more attendees and more countries than ever before. The new breeding lines and hybrids on display could help widen climate-resilient, market-driven vegetable production across Africa and further afield.
The WorldVeg West Africa Regional Office hosted the event. Attendees travelled from places including DR Congo, France, Italy, South Africa and Tanzania, making this the most geographically diverse gathering since the consortium launched in 2018.
Each of these crops matters for nutrition and income across the continent, and each has real room to grow commercially. Yet many farmers struggle to find good seed of resilient varieties that deliver solid yields and quality fruit, cope with tough growing conditions and suit what local markets want.
AVBC channels improved, locally adapted varieties and hybrids to African seed companies, and through them to farmers. Members receive first, exclusive access to WorldVeg-improved breeding lines and hybrids. They can draw on this material to build up their own breeding work and create new varieties and hybrids for commercial release.
At the yearly workshops, members watch the materials perform in the field, talk with WorldVeg breeders and fellow seed companies, share strategies and plan joint work.
WorldVeg's network of scientists and research sites in several African countries allows breeding material and hybrids to be trialled in different agroecological settings.
The Center's English-speaking and French-speaking teams help companies collaborate despite the language barriers that often separate seed businesses in different regions.
AVBC is run jointly by WorldVeg and the African Seed Trade Association (AfSTA).
Described the event as the largest and most varied AVBC workshop so far, and said the turnout shows seed companies are keen for better vegetable genetics. He explained that the goal is for African companies to access these technologies, trial the materials in their own conditions, strengthen their breeding capacity and eventually deliver improved varieties to farmers. In his view, the more companies able to develop and sell competitive products of their own, the stronger and more varied Africa's vegetable seed sector will be.
Pointed to the wider choice on offer this year, from promising breeding lines through to hybrids. He noted that exclusive early access lets AVBC members start sooner in spotting the varieties and products best suited to their farmers and markets.
For the first time, AVBC demonstration plots featured hybrids. WorldVeg developed all 30 of them: 16 tomato types and 14 pepper types (11 chili and 3 habanero).
A breeding line can be released as an open-pollinated variety (OPV), where farmers are free to keep seed and sow it again. A hybrid, by contrast, comes from crossing two carefully chosen parent lines. The first-generation plants can inherit strong traits from both parents and outperform them, a phenomenon called hybrid vigour, or heterosis. In practice that can translate into higher yields, more even crops and better resilience.
Those benefits generally do not carry over when farmers replant seed saved from a hybrid crop, so they purchase fresh hybrid seed for each planting. For seed companies this opens a stronger commercial opportunity, which is why hybrids are a significant addition to the AVBC portfolio.
Visitors toured plots belonging to an AVBC-exclusive Special Project that features tomato and pepper lines able to resist bacterial wilt, one of the toughest diseases these crops face in Africa.
This four-year project is fee-based, and WorldVeg runs it with six African seed companies.
Together they are testing 12 tomato lines and 15 chili pepper lines at bacterial wilt hotspots across the continent.
The tomato lines stack several resistance genes in varying combinations, a method known as gene pyramiding.
Bacterial samples collected at every trial site are sent to WorldVeg for identification. Matching the performance of each gene combination to the bacteria found at each location should reveal which resistance works best in which place, and give the participating companies an early advantage in building locally adapted varieties that resist the disease.
Early findings from both controlled inoculation tests and the Benin field trial show clear differences in resistance levels. This underlines why pyramiding resistance genes is important when facing varied bacterial strains.
AVBC gave awards in two categories.
COPROSEM (Mali) and BOUTAPA (Burkina Faso) were recognized for their active involvement and for releasing over 10 varieties, among them mungbean, pepper and tomato.
COPROSEM, BOUTAPA, East-West Seed and NAFASO Seeds were recognized for regularly reporting on the use and seed sales of WorldVeg breeding lines or the varieties derived from them. Such data is vital for gauging AVBC's impact, proving that the model works and justifying ongoing investment and support.
Record attendance, the arrival of hybrids and more focused breeding projects show AVBC building momentum as Africa's vegetable seed sector expands.
The purpose has not changed: to give more seed companies the genetics and breeding tools to develop competitive varieties in and for Africa, and to speed up the delivery of quality seed to farmers.
AVBC draws on the APSA-WorldVeg Vegetable Breeding Consortium in Asia, which has led to the release of 200 new climate-smart vegetable varieties and is on track to reach one million smallholder farmers by 2030.
Join AVBC to access elite genetics, technical expertise and collaborative opportunities designed for Africa’s vegetable seed sector.
