METHODS article

Front. Sustain. Food Syst.

Sec. Agricultural and Food Economics

Volume 9 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fsufs.2025.1545600

Costing of the Breeding Operations for the National Maize Programs in Eastern and Southern Africa

Provisionally accepted
Biswanath DasBiswanath Das1,2Samuel K MutigaSamuel K Mutiga1*Olivia OdiyoOlivia Odiyo1,2Sammy MadahanaSammy Madahana1,2Dragan MilicDragan Milic1,2Lubasi SinyindaLubasi Sinyinda3Kabamba MwansaKabamba Mwansa3Ronica MukaroRonica Mukaro4Davison ChaingeniDavison Chaingeni4Godfrey AseaGodfrey Asea5Daniel Bomet KwemoiDaniel Bomet Kwemoi5Lennin MusundireLennin Musundire1,2*
  • 1The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), Nairobi, Kenya
  • 2Genetic Innovations Initiative on Accelerated Breeding of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research, Nairobi, Kenya
  • 3Zambia Agriculture Research Institute (ZARI), Lusaka, Zambia
  • 4Department of Research and Specialist Services, Harare, Zimbabwe
  • 5National Crops Resources Research Institute (NaCRRI), Kampala, Uganda

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The Genetic Innovation Initiative on Accelerated Breeding (ABI) of The Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) has been supporting the costing of breeding operations for the CGIAR-National Agricultural Research and Extension Systems-Small to Medium Enterprises (CGIAR-NARES-SME's) crop breeding networks. The aim is to help these breeding programs to accurately estimate operational costs, develop precise budgets, set appropriate service fees, and choose the best technologies for increased genetic gains. Breeding programs are being guided in using the University of Queensland's open-source breeding costing tool (UQ-BPCT). This paper outlines the costing strategy and demonstrates the tool's utility using data from national breeding programs in Uganda (NARO), Zambia (ZARI), and Zimbabwe (DR&SS). Results show that the percentage of budgets allocated to germplasm development ranged from 25% (DR&SS) to 52% (NARO), with conventional methods costing 7 to 47 times more than doubled haploids. Costs for trials varied, with ZARI spending 14% and DR&SS spending 51%. In one breeding cycle, NARO released 5 hybrid varieties, ZARI 2, and DR&SS 1. The programs can be optimized by implementing several strategies: adopting an Enterprise Breeding System, incorporating digital technologies for disease screening and phenotyping, network-based procurement of consumables, using modern breeding techniques like doubled haploids, genomic selection, and speed breeding to shorten cycles, and training personnel for more efficient resource use. Keywords: Costing of breeding operations, breeding program costing tool, resource allocation, optimization of breeding operations, maize breeding

Keywords: Costing of breeding operations, breeding program costing tool, Resource Allocation, optimization of breeding operations, Maize breeding

Received: 09 Jan 2025; Accepted: 07 Apr 2025.

Copyright: © 2025 Das, Mutiga, Odiyo, Madahana, Milic, Sinyinda, Mwansa, Mukaro, Chaingeni, Asea, Kwemoi and Musundire. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence:
Samuel K Mutiga, The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), Nairobi, Kenya
Lennin Musundire, The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), Nairobi, Kenya

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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