Vol. 7, Issue 12, Part A (2025)

Common beans (Phaseolus vulgaris L.), play a crucial role in enhancing food security and promoting sustainable agriculture in developing countries. Its production has however been significantly impacted by drought in the Sub-Saharan Africa, exacerbating the problems of food security and economic stability across various regions. This has necessitated tailored adaptation strategies to mitigate the adverse effects of drought on its production and food security in the region that include breeding for drought tolerance. Drought tolerance in agriculture holds significant potential for enhancing crop resilience and ensuring food security, particularly in the face of climate change and increasing water scarcity. Integrating drought tolerance into breeding programs should involve several advanced strategies that include Genomic prediction and Genome-Wide Association Studies (GWAS) as exceptionally powerful and sophisticated instruments for dissecting and elucidating the complex genetic underpinnings associated with drought tolerance. In the realm of agricultural research, it is imperative that future investigations meticulously integrate multi-environment phenotyping techniques alongside comprehensive genomic data in order to more effectively elucidate the intricate interactions between genotype and environment, with a particular emphasis on the vast and diverse gene pools of bean varieties.