Abstract
Main conclusionThe African Orphan Crops Consortium (AOCC) successfully initiated the ambitious genome sequencing project of 101 African orphan crops/trees with 6 genomes sequenced, 6 near completion, and 20 currently in progress.Addressing stunting, malnutrition, and hidden hunger through nutritious, economic, and resilient agri-food system is one of the major agricultural challenges of this century. As sub-Saharan Africa harbors a large portion of the severely malnourished population, the African Orphan Crops Consortium (AOCC) was established in 2011 with an aim to reduce stunting and malnutrition by providing nutritional security through improving locally adapted nutritious, but neglected, under-researched or orphan African food crops. Foods from these indigenous or naturalized crops and trees are rich in minerals, vitamins, and antioxidant, and are an integral part of the dietary portfolio and cultural, social, and economic milieu of African farmers. Through stakeholder consultations supported by the African Union, 101 African orphan and under-researched crop species were prioritized to mainstream into African agri-food systems. The AOCC, through a network of international–regional–public–private partnerships and collaborations, is generating genomic resources of three types, i.e., reference genome sequence, transcriptome sequence, and re-sequencing 100 accessions/species, using next-generation sequencing (NGS) technology. Furthermore, the University of California Davis African Plant Breeding Academy under the AOCC banner is training 150 lead African scientists to breed high yielding, nutritious, and climate-resilient (biotic and abiotic stress tolerant) crop varieties that meet African farmer and consumer needs. To date, one or more forms of sequence data have been produced for 60 crops. Reference genome sequences for six species have already been published, 6 are almost near completion, and 19 are in progress.
Highlights
The world is facing an enormous challenge to feed a growing population with huge economic disparity and uneven development across the globe
The adulthood diseases called as non-communicable diseases (NCDs), the majority of which are exacerbated by malnutrition, will be the major cause of deaths in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) by 2030 (Food and Agriculture Organization 2017)
USA); work on African development questions, advocacy, and policy framework (World Wildlife Fund (WWF), Gland, Switzerland; New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD), Midrand, South Africa; African Alliance for a Green Revolution for Africa (AGRA), Nairobi, Kenya; Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Rome, Italy; United Nation’s International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), Nairobi, Kenya); build training and capacity; provide funding support; and include ground-level organizations working on agricultural questions, germplasm repositories/gene banks, crop/tree improvement and breeding, socioeconomic context, and translational research (UC Davis African Plant Breeding Academy (AfPBA); Bioscience eastern central Africa-International Livestock Research Institute (BecA-ILRI), Nairobi, Kenya; Mars Incorporated, ICRAF, UNICEF, Integrated Breeding Platform, El Batan, Mexico)
Summary
The world is facing an enormous challenge to feed a growing population with huge economic disparity and uneven development across the globe. CyVerse, Tucson, USA; Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium); provide sequencing, genotyping and other ancillary technologies, supplies, data logistics, and infrastructure (Illumina Inc., San Diego, USA; LGC Genomics, Hoddesdon, UK; Google Inc., Mountain View, USA; Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium; KeyGene Inc., Rockville, USA; Oxford Nanopore Technologies, London, UK; Thermo Fisher Scientific, Waltham, USA); share experience of industrial food processing, technological up-scaling, marketing, and building seed value chains (Mars Incorporated., McLean, USA; Corteva Agriscience, Johnston, USA; Benson Hill Biosystems, St. Louis, USA); work on African development questions, advocacy, and policy framework (World Wildlife Fund (WWF), Gland, Switzerland; New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD), Midrand, South Africa; African Alliance for a Green Revolution for Africa (AGRA), Nairobi, Kenya; Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Rome, Italy; United Nation’s International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), Nairobi, Kenya); build training and capacity; provide funding support; and include ground-level organizations working on agricultural questions, germplasm repositories/gene banks, crop/tree improvement and breeding, socioeconomic context, and translational research (UC Davis African Plant Breeding Academy (AfPBA); Bioscience eastern central Africa-International Livestock Research Institute (BecA-ILRI), Nairobi, Kenya; Mars Incorporated, ICRAF, UNICEF, Integrated Breeding Platform, El Batan, Mexico). All the data and accessions created by the AOCC will be made publicly available through gene banks, partners, partners websites, and publications such as GigaScience, NCBI, and/or CNGB Nucleotide Sequence Archive (CNSA: https://db.cngb.org/ cnsa) databases
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