JUNE 2019 SEEDWORLD.COM / 79 currently comprises over 2.6 million samples of crop germplasm or is living tissue from which new plants can be grown. Material in this vast global gene pool is exchanged around the world at an average rate of about 1,000 transfers per day to support farmers, plant breeders and scientists in developing new climate-resilient crop varieties to produce more nutritious food from plants. A second agreement was also signed to collabo- rate in biosaline agriculture, water scarcity, and climate change adaptation, among other things, during an open day at the ICBA head office in Dubai in the presence of Mariam Bint Mohammad Saeed Hareb Al Muhairi, UAE Minister of State for Food Security; Bandar M.H. Hajjar, president of the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) Group; and Razan Khalifa Al Mubarak, managing director, Environment Agency – Abu Dhabi (EAD) and chairper- son of the ICBA Board of Directors. STATUS GHANA The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research – Savannah Agricultural Research Institute (CSIR- SARI) has developed new drought-tolerant seed varie- ties to improve food security in the country. The new varieties to withstand all weather and ensure year-round agricultural production are to complement government’s Planting for Food and Jobs program – for enhancing food security and job-creation as well achieving the Ghana Beyond aid initiative. The new maize, rice, soybean, sorghum and groundnut drought-tolerant foundation seed varieties – tested and proven to increase yield of about 20% more than the existing varieties – have been produced in quantity and distributed to certified seed input dealers to be made available to farmers for their crop production. Nicholas Ninju Denwar, a senior research scientist at CSIR-SARI who disclosed this in an interview with the B&FT, said this will help bridge the gap between demand and supply. He noted that the only way government’s program can be sustained is through produc- tion of the drought tolerant seed varieties to supply farm- ers for their crop production throughout the year. “In the Northern Ghana, rainfall is not adequate and nor is the distribution consist- ent,” said Denwar. “Though we may have enough rain, the distribution is not good – leading to drought during the raining or dry seasons; and sometimes the rain even ends earlier than it is supposed to, which does not allow the crops to grow well; hence the initiative of the research institute.” STATUS ISRAEL PlantArcBio and ICL Innovation, a subsidiary of ICL announced they have signed a collaboration agree- ment for the development of innovative crop productivity enhancers for agriculture. The agreement was signed following a proof of concept that was performed by the companies in 2018. As part of the collabora- tion, PlantArcBio will use its discovery capabilities to iden- tify biological targets and by using innovative techniques, will bring about improved crop productivity in various crops for global agriculture. Targets that will be success- fully identified as possessing a positive impact on crop pro- ductivity will be integrated in the ICL development pipeline for continued development and formulation. Both parties estimate that the commer- cialization of their collabora- tive products will be possible within five years. “This collaboration brings together two very unique companies, each of which possesses distinct capa- bilities,” said Dror Shalitin, Founder and CEO of PlantArcBio. “We believe that in combination with the innova- tive discovery and thinking capabilities of PlantArcBio, we will be able to introduce new biology-based crop enhancers, that we will offer to the market as stand-alone products, or in combination with the ICL products. We are very excited about the potential to improve the pro- ductivity of important agri- cultural crops such as corn. The new potential for the use of this technology is immense and can be applicable, in the future, for all agricultural crops.” SW