AGROBIOTEC: CLEAN PLANTING MATERIAL MICROPROPAGATION FOR IMPROVED CROP PRODUCTION IN BURUNDI

Agrobiotec is the first private tissue culture (TC) laboratory established in Burundi in 1998. Its main goal is to increase crop production for food security and sustainable farmers’ incomes by providing clean planting material. Banana (Musa spp.) is the main crop micropropagated by the company. Plantlets are micropropagated in the TC laboratory in Bujumbura and hardened in greenhouses disseminated all over the country. The company faces various constraints including: inadequate laboratory infrastructure, unskilled personnel, lack of chemicals and spares parts, unfavourable investment policy for the private sector and the Burundian postconflict economic environment. To overcome these constraints, Agrobiotec is building a new laboratory which will be functional by the end of 2009. The number of greenhouses will be increased to ten to achieve an annual production of approximately 2,500,000 plantlets.