While CGIAR scientists have long used big data in their research for development, the COVID-19 pandemic highlights the urgency of harnessing its full potential to accelerate the delivery of technologies that increase food and nutrition security, build resilience to global shocks, and contribute to the transformation of food systems. “Scientific information is needed now more than ever before, to help people make decisions in this crisis that agri-food systems are facing,” observed Oscar Ortiz, the International Potato Center’s (CIP) deputy director general for research and development.

Ortiz explained that CIP is increasingly tapping the power of big data to enhance its work, from the conservation of biodiversity held in its  genebank, to breeding climate-resilient crop varieties, to developing agronomic tools that enable men and women farmers to produce more nutritious food.

The genebank has digitalized and increased the information available on the approximately 20,000 accessions it safeguards – among the world’s largest collections of potato, sweetpotato and Andean root and tuber agrobiodiversity. A growing number of those accessions have been genotyped and screened for useful traits, such as disease resistance or heat tolerance. That information is being made available to scientists across the globe through the genebank website and bioinformatics pipelines established under G2P-SOL – an international research alliance focused on potato, tomato, peppers and eggplant.

Read the full article Big data drives solutions to global challenges from the International Potato Center.