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Seed companies and public agricultural research systems from 9 West African countries received training in plant variety protection systems, as part of the overall implementation of a Plant Variety Protection (PBR) system, from experts from Switzerland, France and Canada.

Held in Abidjan, the economic capital of Côte d'Ivoire, from September 9 to 11, 2019, this capacity-building activity brought together private seed companies, plant breeders from the public and private sectors and managers from national public organizations currently working or due to work, in the near future, in the field of plant variety protection, as well as experts from the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV), the African Intellectual Property Organization (OAPI), the Groupement National Interprofessionnel des Semences et plants de France (GNIS) and the Association Africaine ce commerce de semences (AFSTA).

Protecting the rights of breeders of new varieties is an important trigger for the development of better plant varieties. Intellectual property rights on a variety give the breeder (research organization) exclusive rights to decide how to exploit and disseminate this innovation in the most appropriate way.

"If properly applied, the plant variety protection system can be an important tool for encouraging the creation and dissemination of new plant varieties, improving producers' access to innovation and greater varietal diversity, and contributing enormously to food security and genetic diversity," said Dr Yacouba Diallo, agricultural inputs specialist at CORAF.

Many African countries have begun to set up or consider introducing a PBR system. To this end, they have chosen to base their PBR system on the UPOV Convention, of which OAPI is a member, in order to set up an effective and internationally recognized system.

With financial support fromUSAID, CORAF, through the Partnership for Agricultural Research, Education and Development (PAIRED) program, is devoting efforts to strengthening human resources and organizational capacities for implementing the PBR system in West Africa. The aim of the Abidjan training session was to provide practical skills for the effective implementation of the plant variety protection (PBR) system in each country. In addition to the African public and private sectors, speakers from Europe and Canada took the opportunity to share their experiences.

CORAF, through PAIRED, intends to promote an innovative system for financing plant breeding programs with the aim of developing new genetic materials to meet the varied needs of small-scale producers. Innovative plant breeding makes it possible to produce excellent germplasm that, for example, has high yields and can be tolerant/resistant to the effects of climate change, drought and flooding, and diseases and pests. It can also help improve the nutritional value of certain crops.

At the end of the training course, action plans for setting up PBR systems in each country were developed, prioritizing successful models for partnerships between public research and private seed companies.