Workshop to design a wild yam plant project

This workshop was held in Montpellier in 2nd-4th July 2013. It was organized by IRD, Cirad, Global Crop Diversity Trust and Royal Botanical Garden Kew. The workshop gathered together 26 yam specialists, some of them coming from countries were yam is important (Madagascar, Benin, Nigeria, Ethiopia, India, Philippines).
The aim of the workshop was have the main actors of yam research to meet and to discuss about wild yams and breeding of cultivated yams.
Three points emerged from the discussions:
 The importance of clarifying wild yam species taxonomy, phylogeny and genetic structure.
 The necessity to collect wild yam species and to set up a comprehensive database.
 The main obstacles to overcome for yam breeding (control of flowering, development of genetic tools, use of local knowledge, etc.).