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Research initiatives/academic groups

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Africa Harvest Biotech Foundation International

Africa Harvest — founded by Kenyan scientist Florence Wambugu — supports policy development and scientific and institutional capacity building across East Africa and promotes the use of modern biotechnologies to help the region's farmers. The foundation's flagship project uses tissue culture technology to reproduce disease-free banana plants for distribution across East Africa.

It also runs a communication and advocacy programme to promote public acceptance of biotechnologies — especially genetic modification. The organisation publishes information about its tree-planting programme in Kenya and links to other African and international organisations working in biotechnology.

African Molecular Marker Applications Network

AMMANET promotes using genetic marker-assisted selection (MAS) technologies to accelerate African plant breeding efforts and deliver food security and economic growth. Over 100 African scientists established the network in 2003, with support from the Rockefeller Foundation.

The network brings regional and international agricultural researchers together, publishing information about its activities and providing contact information of all its members. It also links to news, scientific articles and other useful resources on MAS.

Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research

The Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research is an association of public and private members supporting a system of 16 Future Harvest centres that work in more than 100 countries to mobilise cutting-edge science to reduce hunger and poverty, improve human nutrition and health, and protect the environment. As well as taking a keen interest in agricultural biotechnology, much of CGIAR's research has direct relevance to biodiversity. CGIAR also coordinates a global network of genebanks that aims to keep the bulk of the world's plant genetic resources in the public domain.

Donald Danforth Plant Science Center

The Donald Danforth Plant Science Center is an independent not-for-profit research institute which opened in 2001 as a parternship between the Missouri Botanical Garden, Monsanto, and various US universities. Part of the Danforth Center’s mission is to facilitate the development and transfer of technologies for developing countries and much of this work takes place in the International Laboratory for Tropical Agricultural Biotechnology (ILTAB) where rice, cassava and tomato currently form the core of research activities.

Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (India)

The Institute of genomics and Integrative Biology is a constituent laboratory of India's Council of Scientific and Industrial Research. It is engaged in various aspects of modern biotechnology with a special focus on functional genomics and genome informatics. Formerly the Centre for Biochemical Technology, the organiastion is evolving into an interdisciplinary institute comprising several networked laboratories.

International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics

This non-profit organisation aims to develop sustainable ecological farming in Africa and India. ICRISAT's mission is "to help empower 600 million poor people to overcome hunger, poverty and a degraded environment in the dry tropics through better agriculture".

ICRISAT's BioPower initiative aims to ensure that bioenergy research benefits the poor. Its activities include analysing bioenergy trends and understanding their repercussions for the poor, and enabling governments to formulate pro-bioenergy policies that benefit poor people.

International Institute of Tropical Agriculture

The International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) was founded in 1967 with a mandate for improving food production in the humid tropics and to develop sustainable production systems. It became the first African link in the worldwide network of agricultural research centres supported by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research. IITA's research agenda addresses crop improvement, plant health, and resource and crop management within a food systems framework, targeted at the identified needs of four major agroecological zones: the dry savanna, the moist savanna, the humid forests, and the midaltitude savanna.

National Innovation Centre for Plant Biotechnology

PlantBio is a grant-making initiative from the South African Department of Science and Technology. It aims to develop a strong and sustainable plant biotechnology sector in South Africa by promoting new products and services, incubating commercial programmes and new businesses, building scientific capacity and developing human resources.

PlantBio prioritises technologies aimed at alleviating poverty and improving food security — for example, biofertilisers, plant breeding, tissue culture and genetic modification. The organisation encourages collaborating institutes to build national capacities and consolidate costs.

It publishes information on how to apply for funding and hosts a useful page of links to South African biotech investors, business incubators, funding agencies and service providers.

The African Agricultural Technology Foundation

The AATF is a not-for-profit foundation established in 2003 supporting public-private partnerships to increase smallholder farmers' access to appropriate technologies in sub-Saharan Africa. It publishes news and information about ongoing projects and hosts a monthly open forum bringing together scientists, journalists and policymakers to discuss how science and technology can improve African agriculture.

Uganda National Agricultural Research Organisation

NARO is an unbrella organisation for nine research institutes in Uganda, tackling the issues surrounding crops, fisheries, forestry and livestock and their applicability to sustainable development.

Information Services

Pest control goes local

Integrating biopesticide research and development with local knowledge and resources is helping India's poor farmers

Let's be reasonable

Albert Weale, of the Nuffield Council, calls for more reasoned and evidence-based debate on GM crops

Consult the experts

A letter to the editor calls on journalists to corroborate anti-GM stories with experts to avoid scaremongering