College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences (CAES) in collaboration with the Vice-president for Research Affairs Office conducted a two-day training on Demand/Market-Led Plant Breeding for Plant Breeders, Physiologist, Nutritionists, Protectionists, Socio-economists, and Extensions from February 21-22, 2020 at Resource Center.

In his opening speech, Prof. Mengistu Urge, Delegate Vice-president for Academic Affairs, said that “The University will continue to play a key role to improve the quality of both research and academics on Demand/Market-Led Plant Breeding identifying problems and finding solutions to the problems.”

Dr. Firew Mekbib, trainer and Dr. Zelalem Bekeko, Dean of CAES, stated that a Demand-Led Plant Breeding (DLB) is the art and science of plant breeding globally both in the private and public breeding program. It is an objective, impacting, value chain-based and game-changing approach. The approach has been propagated throughout Africa for the last four years. It has received an impressive feedback from various stakeholders across the value chain field. In order to reap the benefits from DLB in Ethiopia, training was given to the program leaders and senior breeders at the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research. Haramaya University being a Center of Excellence in Agriculture and Environmental Science, it is imperative to update its staff in the DLB approach for enhancing its research and academic excellence in plant breeding.

The general objective of the training was to train staff in DLB for adoption of the approach in both research and academics.

In the two-day training, a total of 60 plant breeders, physiologist, nutritionists, protectionists, socio-economists, and extensions workers participated.
Many relevant questions were raised and discussed by the participants of the training. Participants also presented their outputs from the group discussion they had.