ICARDA proudly supports the advancement of Bioflow, CGIAR’s open-source breeding analytics platform, developed as part of the Crops to End Hunger initiative

Bioflow, CGIAR’s open-source breeding analytics pipeline developed under the Crops to End Hunger initiative, provides National Agricultural Research and Extension Systems (NARES) with immediate access to advanced analytical tools and standardized workflows. By streamlining data analysis across CGIAR centers and NARES breeding programs, Bioflow accelerates data-driven decisions, reduces errors, and delivers quick access to performance metrics—freeing scientists to innovate and develop new breeding methods.

ICARDA plays a strategic role as a key contributor to Bioflow’s fast-track development team, underscoring its commitment to capacity building and innovation in national breeding programs. The institute is helping deliver a scalable, user-friendly platform that enables NARES to adopt standardized, data-driven breeding workflows, aligning with ICARDA’s mandate to strengthen national systems and promote scientific self-reliance.

A major recent advancement led by ICARDA’s Khaled Al-Sham’aa, in collaboration with the Enterprise Breeding System (EBS) team, is a new cloud-based storage feature. This enhancement allows users to securely store analysis results on the cloud, overcoming bandwidth and local storage challenges. “By moving storage to the cloud, even users with limited computing power can perform all tasks online—from running analyses to saving results,” said Al-Sham’aa. This upgrade increases accessibility and scalability, particularly benefiting users in resource-constrained settings, and supports Bioflow’s mission to democratize high-quality analytics for faster, informed decision-making in plant breeding.

The Crops to End Hunger initiative is funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and implemented by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) through the Fund for International Agricultural Research (FIA).