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Press and News The Alliance To Announce Strategic Collaboration with Bayer to Advance Modern Breeding and Scale Benefits for Smallholder Farmers

by Sylvia Pineda

The Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT have formalized a strategic collaboration with Bayer’s Crop Science division under the Modern Breeding Project to accelerate the development of improved crop varieties, strengthen resilient seed systems, and expand the reach of innovation to smallholder farmers across regions and crops.

This partnership advances a high-impact public–private model for agricultural transformation, combining the Alliance’s public-good mandate and global scientific leadership with Bayer’s expertise in breeding operations, strategy, and scaling. Together, the organizations aim to increase genetic gain, improve breeding efficiency, and reduce the time required to translate research innovations into farmer-ready solutions.

“This collaboration is important because we are going to leverage Bayer’s expertise in managing breeding programs—particularly in operations and strategy—to improve the efficiency of our own breeding programs,” said Dr. María Fernanda Álvarez, Director for Crops for Nutrition and Health Research Area at the Alliance. “We expect to strengthen capacity within our teams and generate learnings that will allow us to develop faster and better products with impact across continents and crops.”

The Modern Breeding Project is grounded in the shared belief that sustainable agricultural transformation requires cross-sector collaboration to ensure innovation reaches farmers effectively and responsibly.

“Collaborations at the intersection of public and private spaces are powerful” said Livia Torres, Corn Product Development Scientist at Bayer ‘s Crop Science division and Breeding Partnership Lead for the Modern Breeding Project. “ By sharing knowledge from our diverse experiences, we gain a broader perspective, which enables us to do better in applying science to create innovative farming systems that benefit smallholder farmers.”

A Partnership Designed for Scale and Sustainability

Modern breeding requires more than scientific discovery demands strong systems, advanced tools, streamlined operations, and the ability to scale innovations sustainably. The collaboration brings together:

  • Bayer’s operational expertise in managing advanced breeding programs, including strategy, process optimization, and scaling
  • The Alliance’s global breeding networks and scientific leadership, supported by its Crops for Nutrition and Health Research Area

The partnership is structured around three strategic pillars:

1. Customer Focus — ensuring breeding outputs align with farmer needs, market demand, and adoption pathways
2. Operational Excellence — strengthening integration, efficiency, and performance of breeding pipelines
3. Organizational Leadership — improving governance, collaboration, and institutional learning across diverse teams

These pillars are supported by core technical work areas, including target product profiles, breeding operations optimization, portfolio planning, gene discovery, and bioscience integration across crops.

Expected Outcomes and Value for Partners and Donors

The Modern Breeding Project is designed to generate measurable benefits for farmers, institutions, and innovative ecosystems. Expected outcomes include:

  • Increased genetic gain at the farm level
  • Faster and more efficient product development
  • Stronger and more resilient public breeding programs
  • Expanded reach of innovative seed products and enabling digital services
  • Improved sustainability outcomes across crops, geographies, and farming systems

For donors and strategic partners, this collaboration offers a compelling investment opportunity: supporting a scalable, replicable model that multiplies impact across multiple crops and continents, strengthens public-sector capacity, and accelerates delivery of climate-resilient innovations.

A Public–Private Collaboration with a Public-Good Purpose

The Modern Breeding Project also demonstrates how private-sector engagement can accelerate good public outcomes. Through this partnership, Bayer contributes expertise to benefit crops and farming systems that may not traditionally receive significant private-sector investment, supporting broader development goals and global food security.

By combining scientific rigor, operational excellence, and shared sustainability objectives, Bayer and the Alliance are advancing a modern breeding collaboration built for long-term impact.