Our Vision

Empowering Breeding Programs to Drive Lasting Impact for Farmers

Since 2015, BPAT (Breeding Program Assessment Tool) has been dedicated to transforming how plant breeding programs across CGIAR and NARES are evaluated and supported. As we enter BPAT Phase III, our vision is to enable a new era of breeding—one that is data-informed, agile, and impact-focused.

Why Our Vision Matters

Plant breeding plays a critical role in addressing food insecurity, climate resilience, and poverty reduction—especially for smallholder farmers in emerging economies. However, to realize its full potential, breeding must evolve. Programs need to be:

  • Performance-driven, not just process-oriented.
  • Adaptable and innovative, while grounded in local realities.
  • Aligned with global goals, such as CGIAR’s Breeding for Tomorrow (B4T) and the Accelerated Breeding Initiative (ABI).

We envision a future where every breeding program:

  • Operates with evidence-based decision-making at its core.
  • Embraces continuous learning and data-informed improvement.
  • Collaborates across networks to maximize impact and efficiency.

From Assessment to Transformation

BPAT is no longer just an evaluation tool. It is a strategic enabler of innovation and accountability. Our modernized approach supports breeding programs in:

  • Understanding their current performance and identifying clear opportunities for growth.
  • Benchmarking progress within and across institutions.
  • Building organizational readiness to adopt more advanced breeding strategies.

Whether helping programs master the basics or guiding them toward breakthrough innovation, BPAT ensures that every program receives support suited to its unique context.

A Shared Journey Toward Impact

Transformation doesn’t happen in isolation. BPAT facilitates collaboration among breeding teams, donors, researchers, and technical experts by:

 

  • Leading thematic reviews that tackle common bottlenecks.
  • Supporting harmonized strategies across crops and institutions.
  • Promoting the exchange of tools, insights, and success stories across the global breeding community.

What we have achieved and looking ahead

Since 2015, BPAT has been used to assess over 50 breeding programs across 12 crops, using a standardized set of questions delivered by global plant breeding experts. These evaluations led to substantial improvements in most programs and spurred the development of CGIAR-wide data systems that now support more streamlined performance tracking. This progress has created new opportunities to make the evaluation process more efficient, with reduced reliance on in-person assessments.

Strategic emphasis from donors has now shifted from breeding system modernization toward developing market-ready products for small-scale producers. From 2026 and beyond BPAT will operate a modernizing tool to reflect recent advances in breeding, changes in CGIAR operations, adoption of standardized metrics, and an increased focus on assessing product development.