Publications

📄 The article, published in Nature Genetics, presents YamHub, an international platform dedicated to research and breeding on yam. The study was led by Komivi Dossa, Gemma Arnau, Erick Malédon,…

📄 The article, published in Nature Genetics, presents YamHub, an international platform dedicated to research and breeding on yam. The study was led by Komivi Dossa, Gemma Arnau, Erick Malédon, and HANA CHAIR (CIRAD), coordinator of the ROTATES project, with contributions from an international team of collaborators.🔗Paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41588-026-02520-2🔗YamHub platform: https://www.yamhub.fr🌍 Yams are a staple food for more than 500 million people worldwide. Yet despite their importance for food security and rural livelihoods, yam breeding has long lagged behind other major crops. Long growth cycles, irregular flowering and complex genetics make genetic improvement particularly challenging. To address these constraints, CIRAD has been developing YamHub since 2010. Located in Guadeloupe, the platform combines tropical agroecological conditions ideal for yam cultivation with the institutional stability and research networks of the European Union. This unique position allows YamHub to connect European research with partners across Africa, the Caribbean and other tropical regions where yams are central to farming systems and diets.🔬 YamHub integrates field, laboratory and data infrastructures dedicated to yam improvement. The platform maintains a living collection of around 250 accessions from 30 countries, covering seven cultivated yam species and providing a key resource for studying genetic diversity and agronomic traits. It also brings together advanced research tools, including field trials, high-throughput phenotyping using drone imaging and environmental sensors, genomics and genome sequencing, plant health laboratories and food quality analysis. Together, these activities support the development of improved yam varieties that are productive, resilient and adapted to farmers’ needs.🌱 Within the ROTATES project, YamHub is one of four EU Breeding Hubs dedicated to root and tuber crops. Together, these hubs are working to design breeding strategies that deliver crop varieties adapted to agroecological farming practices.

The purpose of this report is to provide a diagnosis of the current situation of the MRT crops in those places where the ROTATES project happens, focusing on aspects related to the economic, social an…

The purpose of this report is to provide a diagnosis of the current situation of the MRT crops in those places where the ROTATES project happens, focusing on aspects related to the economic, social and cultural barriers to and enablers of the uptake of MRTs at value chain level and concerning all the cases for the 10 countries involved in the project. It should be noted that the main aim of the report is to provide a background of all the aspects that will be important to consider in the next steps of Workpackage 2 – Value chain development for adoption and new market opportunities, where the specific value chains are going to be studied and where the aforementioned barriers and enablers will be studied in detail. It is also hoped that the material collected will also be useful to other partners in the project. The work carried out has been a desk-based study collecting secondary information of the current situation of the MRTs at value chain level. This has been done considering the supply side (e.g., production, imports) and consumer side (or utilisation in the case of feed). This is because the report wants to highlight the challenges of expanding MRTs, why this needs to be done in a value chain context (i.e., there is the need to build or expand the sequence of productive activities for those crops that go from farmers to their final customers being these consumers or animal producers). Some of the aspects are not only whether the crop is currently produced and, in the country, but also its consumption. In case the crop is not produced or used, then it is crucial to highlight what crop is currently used as the potential introduction of the MRT is going to erode.

🧭 The article contributes to the ongoing debate on how agriculture – today’s largest threat on biodiversity – can be made more benign to nature. Recent discussions have argued maximizing yi…

🧭 The article contributes to the ongoing debate on how agriculture – today’s largest threat on biodiversity – can be made more benign to nature. Recent discussions have argued maximizing yields and concentrating production on smaller areas (“land sparing”) is the most effective strategy to protect nature. In this perspective piece, Baudron complements earlier responses by bringing in an agricultural and livelihood perspective, focusing on smallholder farming systems in sub-Saharan Africa.🌍 In many parts of sub-Saharan Africa, smallholder farmers operate under complex economic, environmental and social conditions. Increasing yields is often only one of several priorities. Farmers must also manage labour, reduce risks, maintain diverse diets and ensure stable harvests across seasons. In addition, maximizing yields often proves uneconomical for many smallholders, and generally lead to the erosion of ecosystem services that are vital in a context of low input use.🔬 The article therefore calls for farming approaches that align with farmers’ primary objectives while supporting biodiversity. These include, among others, practices that maintain key ecosystem services such as soil fertility, pest regulation and pollination, and the careful use of external inputs to avoid spill-over.🌱 These reflections are highly relevant for the ROTATES project, which explores the potential of Minor Root and Tuber crops within agroecological transitions. Understanding how farming practices interact with biodiversity, ecosystem services and farmers’ decisions is essential to develop crop improvement and farming strategies that support sustainable production and resilient agroecosystems.

The present initial version data management plan (DMP) describes the data management life cycle for the data to be collected, processed and/or generated by the  ROTATES project. It includes infor…

The present initial version data management plan (DMP) describes the data management life cycle for the data to be collected, processed and/or generated by the  ROTATES project. It includes information on the handling of research data both during and after the end of the project; the nature of the data, the methodology and standards applied, whether data will be shared or provided in open access, and how the data will be curated and preserved. This initial version of the DMP will be updated during the project with the measures taken by the partners to ensure FAIR data (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable). An intermediate version will be submitted at M24 and the final version of the DMP will be released at the end of the project (M48, June 2029).