Author: Madeline Dahm

Madeline Dahm is a Communications Consultant at CIMMYT and the CGIAR Research Program on Wheat.

Brown and green fields. (Photo: Elizabeth Lies/Unsplash)

Q&A: Regenerative agriculture for soil health

Written by Madeline Dahm on May 9, 2022. Posted in Features.

South Asia was the epicenter of the Green Revolution, a historic era of agricultural innovation that fed billions of people on the brink of famine.

Yet despite the indisputably positive nutritional and developmental impacts of the Green Revolution of the 1960s, the era of innovation also led to the widespread use of farming practices—like intensive tilling, monoculture, removal and burning of crop residues, and over-use of synthetic fertilizer—that have a deleterious effect on the soil and cause off-site ecological harm. Excess pumping of irrigation water over decades has dried out the region’s chief aquifer.

South Asia’s woes illustrate the environmental costs of intensive food production to feed our densely-populated planet. Currently, one billion hectares of land worldwide suffers from degraded soils.

The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) works with two of the world’s most widely cultivated and consumed cereal crops. To grow enough of these staple foods to feed the world, a second Green Revolution is needed: one that avoids the mistakes of the past, regenerates degraded land and reboots biodiversity in farm areas.

M.L. Jat, a CIMMYT Principal Scientist, has spent 20 years studying and promoting sustainable agricultural practices for maize- and wheat-based farming systems. In the following Q&A, Jat tells us about regenerative agriculture: integrated farming and grazing practices intended to rebuild soil organic matter and restore degraded soil biodiversity.

Q: What major components or practices are part of regenerative agriculture?

A: Regenerative agriculture is a comprehensive system of farming that harnesses the power of soil biology to rebuild soil organic matter, diversify crop systems, and improve water retention and nutrient uptake. The depletion of biodiversity, degradation of soil health, warming, and drier weather in farm areas have necessitated a reversal in agriculture from “degeneration to regeneration.”

The practices address food and nutritional security challenges while protecting natural resources and lowering agriculture’s environmental footprint, in line with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. CIMMYT has worked for years to research and promote conservation agriculture, which contributes to the aims of regenerative agriculture, and is already practiced on more than 200 million hectares globally — 15% of all cropland — and is expanding at a rate of 10.5 million hectares per year.

Q: What are the potential roles of major food crops — maize, rice, and wheat — in regenerative agriculture systems?

A: Regenerative agriculture is “crop neutral;” that is, it is applicable to almost all crops and farming systems. The world’s rice, wheat, and maize crops have an enormous physical and ecological footprint on land and natural resources, but play a critical role in food and nutrition security. Considering that anthropogenic climate change has reduced the global agricultural total factor productivity by about 21% in the past six decades, applying regenerative agriculture approaches to these systems represents a momentous contribution toward sustainable farming under increasing climatic risks.

Download "Regenerative Agriculture for Soil Health, Food and Environmental Security: Proceedings and Recommendations” from the Trust for Advancement of Agricultural Sciences. — Download “Regenerative Agriculture for Soil Health, Food and Environmental Security: Proceedings and Recommendations”.

Q: What elements or approaches of regenerative agriculture are applicable in India and how can they be applied?

A: Regenerative practices for maize and wheat systems in India include no-tillage, crop residue recycling, legume inter-cropping and cover crops, crop diversification, integrated nutrient management, and precision water management.

The potential area of adoption for regenerative agriculture in India covers at least 50 million hectares across a diversity of cropping systems and agroecologies — including irrigated, rainfed, and arid farmlands — and can be approached through appropriate targeting, investments, knowledge and capacity enhancement, and enabling policies.

In the breadbasket region of the Indo-Gangetic Plains, regenerative agriculture can help address the aforementioned second-generation problems of the Green Revolution, as well as contributing to the Indian government’s Soil Health Mission and its COP26 commitments.

Q: In order to get regenerative agriculture off the ground in South Asia, who will be involved?

A: Adapting and applying regenerative agriculture’s portfolio of practices will require the participation of all stakeholders associated with farming. Application of these principles is location- and situation-specific, so researchers, extension functionaries, value chain actors, philanthropists, environmentalists, NGOs, farmers, and policy planners all have a role to play in the impact pathway.

CIMMYT, the Borlaug Institute for South Asia (BISA), public and private programs and agencies, and farmers themselves have been developing, refining, and scaling out conservation agriculture-based regenerative agriculture practices for some three decades in South Asia. CIMMYT and BISA will continue to play a key role in mainstreaming regenerative agriculture in local, national, and regional development plans through science-based policy and capacity development.

Q: Farmers constitute a strong economic and political force in India. How can they be brought on board to practice regenerative agriculture, which could be more costly and knowledge-intensive than their current practices?

A: We need to pursue business “unusual” and harness the potential opportunities of regenerative agriculture to sequester soil carbon and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Regenerative agriculture practices can offer farmers additional income and certainly create a “pull factor” for their adoption, something that has already started and will constitute a strong business case. For example, innovative business models give farmers an opportunity to trade ecosystem services and carbon credits through repurposing subsidies and developing carbon markets for private sectors. CIMMYT, along with the Indian Council of Agricultural Research and private partners such as Grow Indigo, are already helping to put in place a framework to acquire carbon credits through regenerative agriculture in India.

For more information about the application of regenerative agriculture on India’s farmlands, see “Regenerative Agriculture for Soil Health, Food and Environmental Security: Proceedings and Recommendations” from the Trust for Advancement of Agricultural Sciences.

Cover photo: Brown and green fields. (Photo: Elizabeth Lies/Unsplash)

Gender-transformative research for sustainable food systems

Written by Madeline Dahm on March 8, 2022. Posted in Features.

This international Women’s Day, March 8, 2022, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) celebrates the essential role that women play in agriculture and food systems, and acknowledges that gender equality is essential to achieve a sustainable future. The burden of climate change impacts women disproportionately, even though we rely on them to drive change in climate adaptation, mitigation and solutions.

For example, in the last year, CIMMYT research found that educating women farming wheat in Bihar, India, increases the adoption of climate-smart agricultural practices, which, in turn, reduces greenhouse gas emissions, and boosts nitrogen productivity, eco-efficiency and yield. Additionally, in Mexico, a CIMMYT study found that women are less likely to default on agricultural credit than men, but seldom receive loans. Connecting women to financial capital to obtain agricultural inputs is an essential step in boosting their decision-making in food production.

Read more about our pathbreaking work in gender research in the collection of stories below!

Gender equality for climate-resilient, sustainable food systems

The CGIAR GENDER platform is hosting a side event on the margins of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW66), on March 14, 2022: Women’s and girls’ empowerment: Key to equitable food systems in a changing climate?

Registration is open now.

You can also join a Twitter chat hosted by @CGIARgender on March 8, 2022.

Bending gender norms

CIMMYT social researcher Pragya Timsina discusses how women’s participation in agriculture is evolving across the Eastern Gangetic Plains and a new, forthcoming study: “Necessity as a driver of bending agricultural gender norms in South Asia.”

A community gathers to shell maize by hand in Rangpur district, Bangladesh. (Photo: Sam Storr/CIMMYT)

From diagnosis to action on social equity

Building on impact of GENNOVATE, scientists recommend integrating gender-transformative research and methodologies into the new CGIAR Initiatives.

A group of farmers involved in participatory rice breeding trials near Begnas Lake, Pokhara, Nepal. (Photo: Neil Palmer/CIAT/CCAFS)

Gender mainstreaming on climate-smart agriculture

New research explores how the adoption of climate-smart agricultural practices can help address environmental issues, reduce out-migration and ensure household food security.

A farmer weeds a maize field in Pusa, Bihar state, India. (Photo: M. DeFreese/CIMMYT)

Gender-responsive and gender-intentional maize breeding

A new paper by CIMMYT researchers takes stock of lessons learnt on gender inclusivity and maize breeding in Africa. Scientists also assess knowledge gaps that need to be filled to effectively support gender-responsive and gender-intentional breeding and seed systems work.

Alice Nasiyimu stands in front of a drought-tolerant maize plot at her family farm in Bungoma County, in western Kenya. (Photo: Joshua Masinde/CIMMYT)

Towards gender-transformative research in the CGIAR

Gender scientists from ten CGIAR centers and key partner institutions came together in a hybrid workshop to integrate gender-transformative research and methodologies into the new CGIAR Initiatives. In this series of videos, GENNOVATE partners share their insights on this topic.

Cover image: Marcelo Ortiz/CIMMYT

Gyanendra Pratap Singh (center), Director of ICAR-IIWBR, presents at the 60th All India Wheat and Barley Research Workers’ Meet. (Photo: Courtesy of ICAR-IIWBR)

CIMMYT scientists join 60^th All India Wheat and Barley Research Workers’ Meet

Written by Madeline Dahm on September 10, 2021. Posted in News.

The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center’s (CIMMYT) legacy of work with the Indian Centre for Agricultural Research (ICAR) has once again produced more successful collaborations this year. This solid partnership resulted in the release of new varieties poised to bring new, superior yielding, disease-resistant, high-quality wheat varieties suitable for different production environments to Indian farms.

The National Variety Release Committee announced the release of nine new varieties at the 60^th All India Wheat and Barley Research Workers’ Virtual Meet on August 23–24, 2021, hosted by the Indian Institute of Wheat and Barley Research (IIWBR) of ICAR. Of the nine new varieties identified, five were selected by national partners from CIMMYT international trials and nurseries.

At the event, ICAR-IIWBR director Gyanendra Pratap (GP) Singh highlighted the impressive growth trajectory of India’s wheat production, estimated at 109.52 million tons of wheat harvested in 2021, a figure which was 86.53 million tons in 2015 and less than 60 million tons in 1991. Singh highlighted that this success is dependent upon the deployment of superior wheat varieties, bridging yield and information gaps, strengthened seed value chain, supportive government policies and, of course, farmer support to adopt new varieties and technologies.

The CIMMYT-derived varieties announced at the meeting include DBW296, DBW327, DBW332, HUW296 and JKW261. A few days earlier, variety PBW869 was released by the Punjab Agricultural University for growing in Punjab State under conservation agriculture practices.

“An innovative and powerful feature of ICAR-CIMMYT collaboration has been the introduction of long-term (10-month) rotational involvement of Indian young scientists in CIMMYTs breeding program at Mexico as well as in wheat blast screening in Bolivia,” said Arun Joshi, CIMMYT Regional Representative for Asia and Managing Director, Borlaug Institute for South Asia (BISA). “In this way, the breeding program of CIMMYT is an excellent example of joint breeding program with national institutions.”

At the 60th All India Wheat and Barley Research Workers’ Meet, participants highlighted new varieties, production growth and strengthened collaboration. (Photo: CIMMYT)

Beyond expectations

In addition to these important new wheat varieties, some CIMMYT-derived wheat varieties that were released in recent years have now been deemed suitable for regions beyond their initial region of cultivation, showing wide adaptation and yield stability.

Wheat variety DBW222, released in 2020 for the northwestern plain zone, has now been deemed suitable for cultivation in the northeastern plain zone. Similarly, DBW187, which was initially released for the northeastern plain zone, and then for northwestern plain zone as well for early sowing, is now also extended for sowing in the central zone, together representing 25 million hectares of the 31 million hectares of wheat grown in India.

“Farmers prefer these types of varieties that give them flexibility during sowing time, and have high, stable yields, and disease resistance,” GP Singh said at the meeting.

A major achievement discussed at this year’s event was that three of the new varieties — DBW187, DBW303 and DBW222 — achieved record-high demand in Breeders Seed Indent, with first, second and seventh ranks, respectively. This is a reflection and indirect measure of popularity and demand for a variety. IIWBR’s innovative strategy to implement pre-release seed multiplication and create demand for seeds from new varieties has led to a faster turnover of improved varieties.

According to Ravi Singh, Distinguished Scientist and Head of Global Wheat Improvement at CIMMYT, the collaborators are “further expanding our partnership through the support from the Accelerating Genetic Gains in Maize and Wheat (AGG) and zinc-mainstreaming projects, to expand testing of larger sets of elite lines in targeted populations of environments of the four South Asian countries where various IIBWR-affiliated institutions shall expand testing in the 2021–22 crop season.” CIMMYT looks forward to continuing ongoing and new collaborations with the ICAR-IIWBR programs to deliver even faster genetic gain for yield and grain zinc levels in new varieties, he explained.

Speaking during the meeting Alison Bentley, Director of CIMMYT’s Global Wheat Program, highlighted the collaborative efforts underway as part of the AGG project to accelerate breeding progress. “Innovations and discoveries in breeding approaches are being rapidly made — with further investment needed — to quickly and equitably accumulate and deploy them to farmers,” she said.

At CIMMYT's Wheat Quality lab, researchers evaluate how different bread wheat varieties behave at the time of baking. (Photo: CIMMYT)

The science behind the perfect bread and pasta flour

Written by Madeline Dahm on September 6, 2021. Posted in Videos.

Have you ever considered that bread and pasta are made from different types of wheat? How about the fact that there are thousands of different wheat products consumed around the world, and each one has unique characteristics and processing requirements?

Scientists at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) understand that the quality of the final product, be it spaghetti, a loaf of sourdough bread or a tandoori naan, is highly dependent on the quality of the grain and the flour it becomes. Every year, CIMMYT analyzes thousands of wheat lines in detail at its Wheat Quality laboratory to determine the nutritional, processing and end-use quality of the grain. In this short video, CIMMYT’s Wheat Quality lab head Maria Itria Ibba explains exactly what they are looking for and how they find it.

First, CIMMYT scientists test the overall grain quality by analyzing grain weight, density, protein content, moisture content and hardness.

The grains are then milled into flour, which is again analyzed for moisture content, protein content, color and protein quality. Protein quality is especially important to determine the end-use for the type of flour, and CIMMYT conducts several tests to determine this characteristic. Bread and durum wheat flours specifically are analyzed for overall protein quality by checking SDS-sedimentation volume. Mixographs are used to assess the flour’s mixing and absorption characteristics, and alveographs are used to measure dough deformation properties.

At the end of the tests, bread wheat flours are transformed into leavened breads and scored based on the loaf’s volume and crumb quality. Durum wheat flour, used to make Italian-style pasta, is scored based on grain quality, flour yellowness, high protein content and protein quality.

CIMMYT’s work ensures that wheat-derived foods produced in developing countries are nutritious, affordable, and maximize profits for each actor in the value chain.

Cover photo: At CIMMYT’s Wheat Quality lab, researchers evaluate how different bread wheat varieties behave at the time of baking. (Photo: CIMMYT)

Scientists from IPBB evaluate wheat infected with tan spot and wheat rusts in Kazakhstan. (Photo: IPBB)

Genome-wide association study puts tan spot-resistant genes in the spotlight

Written by Madeline Dahm on July 29, 2021. Posted in Features.

Tan spot disease, caused by the fungus Pyrenophora tritici-repentis, may be less well-known than other pathogens of wheat such as rust and blast, but its potential to become a major threat to wheat-growing regions worldwide is a serious concern.

In Kazakhstan, one of the main wheat growing nations in Central Asia, farmers have struggled with tan spot epidemics since the 1980s. During epidemic years, Kazakh farmers have reported losing nearly half of their harvest to the disease.

A recent study published in Frontiers in Genetics has unlocked a promising new weapon against tan spot disease. Scientists at the Institute of Plant Biology and Biotechnology (IPBB) in Kazakhstan and the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) conducted a genome-wide association study (GWAS) which found new sources of genetic resistance to tan spot disease.

“Bread wheat is the most important crop in Central Asia directly linked to food security. 45-60% of daily calories come from wheat,” said Alma Kokhmetova, Professor and Head of the Genetics and Breeding Laboratory at IPBB, who partnered with CIMMYT on this project.

Evaluation of tan spot disease resistance in a greenhouse. (Photo: IPBB)

Creative approaches to challenging, global issues

Global agriculture is repeatedly tested and threatened by emerging pests and diseases.

Fungicides and pesticides are not a one-stop, sustainable solution to controlling outbreaks. In addition to being unaffordable to much of the world’s smallholder population, they have also been found to have some negative environmental and health side effects. But crop breeders will argue that there is a more efficient path to resilience: through genetics.

For example, some wheat varieties are naturally resistant to diseases such as tan spot — it is in their DNA. If breeders can figure out what genes hold the code to tan spot disease resistance, in this case, they can cross and breed future varieties to be naturally immune to the disease. It is a much cleaner, cheaper and greener solution than dousing the world’s crops in fungus- and bug-killing chemicals.

A figure from the genome-wide association study shows novel genomic associations — especially here on chromosome 6A — that display resistance to both races of the tan spot fungus. (Figure: CIMMYT and IPBB)

Finding the needle in the haystack

Working together, CIMMYT and IPBB were able to find some important and novel genetic associations with resistance to tan spot for the two main races of the disease, race 1 and race 5, which are the most prevalent in Kazakhstan. The research centers assembled a panel with 191 samples of wheat having different levels of resistance from Kazakhstan, Russia and CIMMYT, through the International Winter Wheat Yield Partnership (IWWYP).

In order to conduct the genome-wide association study, the scientists used a genotyping platform called DArTseq to sequence the entries in the panel, a device that CIMMYT houses in its global headquarters in Mexico. The DArTseq method sequences the genome representations on the Next Generation Sequencing platforms and generates high-density single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) data in a cost-effective manner.

Using the SNPs generated by DArTSeq and the phenotypic scoring of resistance to tan spot at the seedling and adult plant stages in Kazakhstan, the scientists were able to mark genomic regions associated with resistance to the disease. Novel regions on chromosomes 3BS, 5DL and 6AL were all found to have some promising traits of resistance, especially 6AL, which appears to be superior in protecting plants from both of the races of the pathogen.

Tan spot, caused by Pyrenophora tritici-repentis on susceptible wheat cultivar Steklovidnaya 24. (Photo: IPBB)

Tan spot-resistant wheat cultivar Tyngysh. (Photo: IPBB)

The next steps

This discovery of a new source of genetic resistance to tan spot is exciting to breeders, researchers, donors, national agricultural systems, seed companies and, ultimately, farmers both in and outside of Kazakhstan. Essentially, any country that struggles with race 1 and race 5 of tan spot disease will benefit from this discovery.

“For breeding purposes, 25 lines with the best allele combinations of novel and known genes identified in this study are currently being used in different crossing programs in Kazakhstan,” said Deepmala Sehgal, CIMMYT wheat geneticist. The next stage of this project will also be a collaborative effort with CIMMYT, where the results will be validated in other in genetic backgrounds.

“Once the results are validated, their sequence information will be updated in a genotyping platform called Intertek, which has been designed to assist breeders in genotyping their germplasm with gene-based markers,” added Sehgal

More impact together

“Thanks to the exchange of wheat materials between CIMMYT, Turkey and ICARDA (IWWIP), we have selected and produced disease-resistant advanced wheat lines. These wheat entries now are being evaluated in the different stages of the breeding process,” said Kokhmetova.

The early success of this study and partnership between CIMMYT and IPBB has led to another round of funding approved by the Kazakhstan government to bring this research to the next stage. Additionally, more projects that seek to find sources of genetic resistance to leaf rust and yellow rusts have recently been approved.

“Due to this previous successful collaboration done between IPBB and CIMMYT, two more projects have been funded to our national agricultural research system partner Professor Alma,” said Sehgal.

Although the story of tan spot-resistant wheat is still unfolding, major strides will continue to follow in the footsteps of this exceptional discovery.

Cover photo: Scientists from IPBB evaluate wheat infected with tan spot and wheat rusts in Kazakhstan. (Photo: IPBB)

CRP Wheat Annual Report 2020

Written by Madeline Dahm on July 19, 2021. Posted in Annual reports.

We are proud to present highlighted impacts from WHEAT’s research in our 2020 Annual Report, showcasing the shared accomplishments through global partnerships for the eighth year of the program.

Read a PDF version of the WHEAT 2020 Annual Report

Read the WHEAT 2020 Technical Annual Report

In 2020, the COVID-19 crisis devastated communities, economies, and livelihoods, especially of the world’s most vulnerable populations. At the same time, climate change continued to threaten wheat systems around the world. Under unprecedented challenges, WHEAT scientists and partners responded swiftly, generating new research evidence, forming new partnerships, and improving access to conservation agriculture and farm mechanization technologies.

This web-based report focuses on some of the major impacts the program has had on sustainable intensification, gender and social inclusion, and technological innovations for more productive wheat-based farming. Although they are reported for 2020, these impacts reflect years of dedicated science and strong collaborative relationships with partners.

We are deeply grateful for our partners in the science, research, policymaking, and funding communities who have allowed us to continue our work in the face of urgent and powerful challenges. We hope you enjoy this year’s Annual Report as we look back upon our outcomes and achievements in 2020 and set our targets for the future.

Farmer Bhima Bhandari returns home after field work carrying her 7-month-old son Sudarsan on her back in Bardiya, Nepal. (Photo: Peter Lowe/CIMMYT)

Capturing a clearer picture

Written by Madeline Dahm on June 30, 2021. Posted in Features.

A new guidance note shines a brighter light on the role of women in wheat-based farming systems in the Indo-Gangetic Plains and provides actionable recommendations to researchers, rural advisory services, development partners, and policymakers on how to support working communities more effectively and knowledgeably. The publication, Supporting labor and managerial feminization processes in wheat in the Indo-Gangetic Plains: A guidance note, is based on a literature review, including work by researchers at and associated with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and Pandia Consulting.

“Feminization of agriculture is happening in wheat-based systems in South Asia, but these processes are under-researched and their implications are poorly understood. This guidance note, focusing on Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan, highlights some of the commonalities and differences in feminization processes in each country,” said Hom Gartaula, gender and social inclusion specialist at CIMMYT, and one of the lead authors of the study.

This eight-page publication is based on research funded by the CGIAR Collaborative Platform on Gender Research, the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and the CGIAR Research Program on Wheat (WHEAT).

How great innovations miss critical opportunities by ignoring women

Even the most well-intentioned agricultural interventions can have external costs that can hinder economic development in the long run. The guidance note cites a study that reveals, during India’s Green Revolution, that the introduction of high-yielding varieties of wheat actually “led to a significant decline in women’s paid hired labor because wheat was culturally defined as suited to male laborers. Male wages rose, and women’s wages fell.” Importantly, most women did not find alternative sources of income.

This is not to say that the high-yielding varieties were a poor intervention themselves; these varieties helped India and Pakistan stave off famine and produce record harvests. Rather, the lack of engagement with social norms meant that the economic opportunities from this important innovation excluded women and thus disempowered them.

Wheat farmers during a field day in Odisha, India. (Photo: Wasim Iftikar/CSISA)

A closer look at labor feminization and managerial feminization processes

The guidance note points out that it is not possible to generalize across and within countries, as gender norms can vary, and intersectionalities between gender, caste and other identities have a strong impact on women’s participation in fieldwork. Nevertheless, there seem to be some broad trends. The fundamental cross-cutting issue is that women’s contribution to farming is unrecognized, regardless of the reality of their work, by researchers, rural advisory services and policymakers. A second cross-cutting issue is that much research is lodged in cultural norms that reflect gender biases, rather than challenge them, through careful, non-judgemental quantitative and qualitative research.

In Bangladesh, women’s participation in agriculture is slowly increasing as off-farm opportunities decline, though it remains limited compared to women in the other countries examined. Hired agricultural work is an important income source for some women. Emerging evidence from work from CSISA and CIMMYT shows that women are becoming decision-makers alongside their husbands in providing mechanization services. Nevertheless, technical, economic and cultural barriers broadly constrain women’s effective participation in decision-making and fieldwork.

In India, agricultural labor is broadly feminizing as men take up off-farm opportunities and women take up more responsibilities on family farms and as hired laborers. Yet information derived from CIMMYT GENNOVATE studies cited in the guidance note shows that external actors, like rural advisory services and researchers, frequently make little effort to include women in wheat information dissemination and training events despite emerging evidence of women taking managerial roles in some communities. Some researchers and most rural advisory services continue to work with outdated and damaging assumptions about “who does the work” and “who decides” that are not necessarily representative of farmers’ realities.

Women in Nepal provide the bulk of the labor force to agriculture. With men migrating to India and the Gulf countries to pursue other opportunities, some women are becoming de-facto heads of households and are making more decisions around farming. Still, women are rarely targeted for trainings in on-farm mechanization and innovation. However, there is evidence that simple gender-equality outreach from NGOs and supportive extension agents can have a big impact on women’s empowerment, including promoting their ability to innovate in wheat.

In Pakistan, male out-migration to cities and West Asia is a driving force in women’s agricultural involvement. Significant regional differences in cultural norms mean that women’s participation and decision-making varies across the country, creating differences regarding the degree to which their increased involvement is empowering. As in the other three countries, rural advisory services primarily focus on men. This weakens women’s ability to make good farming decisions and undermines their voice in intra-household decision-making.

Women in Nepal using agricultural machinery. (Photo: Peter Lowe/CIMMYT)

Recommendations

Research should be conducted in interdisciplinary teams and mindsets, which helps design both qualitative and quantitative research free of assumptions and bias. Qualitative and quantitative researchers need to better document the reality of women’s agricultural work, both paid and unpaid.

National agricultural research systems, rural advisory services and development partners are encouraged to work with local partners, including women’s groups and NGOs, to develop gender-transformative approaches with farmers. Services must develop more inclusive criteria for participation in field trials and extension events to invite more women and marginalized communities.

Policymakers are invited to analyze assumptions in existing policies and to develop new policies that better reflect women’s work and support women’s decision-making in the agricultural sector. Researchers should provide policymakers with more appropriate and up-to-date gender data to help them make informed decisions.

These recommendations name a few of many suggestions presented in the guidance note that can ensure agricultural feminization process are positive forces for everyone involved in wheat systems of the Indo-Gangetic Plains. As a whole, acknowledging the reality of these changes well underway in South Asia — and around the world — will not just empower women, but strengthen wheat-based agri-food systems as a whole.

Cover photo: Farmer Bhima Bhandari returns home after field work carrying her 7-month-old son Sudarsan on her back in Bardiya, Nepal. (Photo: Peter Lowe/CIMMYT)

Breaking Ground: Fatima Camarillo invests in education

Written by Madeline Dahm on May 27, 2021. Posted in Features.

It was clear to Fatima Camarillo Castillo from a young age that her future was in agriculture. She grew up on a farm in a small village in Zacatecas, Mexico, and recalls working in the fields alongside her father and siblings, helping with the harvests and milking the cows. And every year, her family ran into the same issue with their crops: droughts.

“Sometimes the harvest was okay, but sometimes we didn’t have any harvest at all,” says Camarillo. “For us that meant that, if we didn’t have enough harvest, then for the whole year my mother and father struggled to send us to school.”

But they did send her to school, and instead of escaping the persistent challenges that agriculture had presented her family in her young life, she was determined to solve them. “After elementary school we had to leave the farm to continue our education,” she explains. “I knew about all the challenges that small farmers face and I wanted to have an impact on them.”

To this day, Camarillo believes in the power of education. Her schooling took her all the way to the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), where she is now not only a researcher, but an educator herself. After her extensive study of plant breeding, genetics and wheat physiology, Camarillo gained a master’s degree from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and a PhD from Texas A+M University.

She was a part of CIMMYT’s fellowship program while pursuing her doctorate, and she joined the organization’s wheat breeding team shortly afterward. Camarillo now splits her time between wheat research and organizing the training activities for CIMMYT’s Global Wheat Program (GWP) wheat improvement course.

Fatima Camarillo analyzes durum wheat in the field at CIMMYT’s experimental research station in Ciudad Obregón, Mexico. (Photo: CIMMYT)

A special legacy

CIMMYT’s wheat improvement course is an internationally recognized program where scientists from national agricultural research programs (NARS) from around the world travel to CIMMYT Headquarters in Texcoco, Mexico, and then to Ciudad Obregón, for a 16-week training. Participants observe an entire breeding cycle and learn about the latest technologies and systems for breeding.

“A crucial component of having an impact on farmers is establishing good relationships with national programs, where all the germplasm that CIMMYT develops is going to go,” says Camarillo. “But at the same time, these partners need training. They need to know what is behind these varieties and the process for developing them, and we try to keep them updated with the vision, the current technologies and the breeding pipeline.”

The organization’s university-focused training programs are also special to Camarillo for many reasons, having participated in one of them herself. In fact, her first ever exposure to CIMMYT was through the annual Open Doors day which she attended during her first year of university, watching the breeders and scientists that would eventually become her colleagues give talks on germplasm development and distribution.

The courses also give students a chance to see all how their theoretical education can be applied in the real world. “When you are in graduate school you care a lot about data analysis and the most recent molecular tools,” says Camarillo. “But there is something else out there, the real problems outside. By taking the breeding program course you understand these challenges and situations.”

Camarillo remembers being struck by the thought that something that happens in a research station in Mexico can have an impact on the whole world. “CIMMYT cares about how other countries will adopt new varieties, it’s not just about developing germplasm for the sake of it,” she explains. “We’re interested in how new varieties are going to reach the farmers who need them, and for that, training is essential.”

“At the end of the day, these researchers are the ones who will help us evaluate germplasm. If they’re well trained, the efficiency of the whole process will increase.”

Fatima Camarillo (standing, third from the right) in Ciudad Obregón, Mexico, with participants on the GWP’s 2019 training program. (Photo: CIMMYT)

Keeping an eye on the breeding pipeline

With one foot in education and the other in research, Camarillo has a unique perspective on CIMMYT’s strategy for bringing tools and findings out of the lab, and towards the next step in the impact pathway. A key part of her work involves helping to research physiological traits by developing new tools to increase phenotyping efficiency in the breeding pipeline.

In particular, she is working on a project to develop high-throughput phenotyping tools, which use hyperspectral sensors and cameras to measure several traits in plants. This can help reflect how the plant is responding to different stresses internally, and helps physiologists and breeders understand how the plant behaves within a specific environment, and then quickly integrate these traits into the breeding process.

“Overall it increases the efficiency of selection, so farmers will have better materials, better germplasm, and more reliable yield across environments in a shorter period of time,” says Camarillo.

Sharing the recipe for success

Camarillo’s role in both breeding and training speaks to CIMMYT’s historic and proven strategy of working with national programs to effectively deliver improved seeds to the farmers who need them. In addition to developing friendships with trainees from around the world, she is helping CIMMYT to expand its global network of research and agriculture professionals.

As a product and purveyor of a great agricultural education, Camarillo is dedicated to it passing on. “I think we have to invest in education,” she says. “It is the only path to solve the current problems we face, not only in agriculture, but in every single discipline.”

“If we don’t invest and take the time for education, our future is very uncertain.”

Tom Payne, Wheat Germplasm Collections & International Wheat Improvement Network Manager. (Photo: X. Fonseca/CIMMYT)

A conservation conversation

Written by Madeline Dahm on May 20, 2021. Posted in Features.

Germplasm banks around the world are protectors of genetic diversity, altogether preserving roughly 700,000 samples of wheat varieties from fields far and wide. Thomas (Tom) Payne, the head of CIMMYTs Wheat Germplasm Collection, or genebank, manages the Mexico-based collection of nearly 150,000 accessions from over 100 countries. He has been affiliated with CIMMYT since 1988, and has dedicated his career to wheat improvement and conservation, working in Ethiopia, Mexico, Syria, Turkey and Zimbabwe. In addition to managing the genebank, he is the chair of the CGIAR Genebank Managers Group, has served as secretary to the CIMMYT Board of Trustees, manages the CIMMYT International Wheat Improvement Network and was awarded the Frank N. Meyer Medal for Plant Genetic Resources in 2019.

In advance of his retirement in July 2021, CIMMYT senior scientist Carolina Saint Pierre sat down with Tom Payne over Zoom to ask him a few questions from the wheat breeding team about his lifetime of experience in wheat biodiversity conservation.

What is your favorite Triticum species?

Triticum aestivum, bread wheat, is my favorite. Bread wheat feeds around 2.7 billion people worldwide. In fact, more food products are made from wheat than from any other cereal. An interesting detail about Triticum aestivum, however, is that it’s a hexaploid, meaning that it is a distinct species formed from three separate species. The inherent genetic diversity resulting from its three ancestral species and its ability to naturally incorporate genetic diversity from other species gives breeders a broad palette of genetic diversity to work with for current and future needs.

How can genebank managers of vital food crops add diversity to existing collections?

Some of the thousands of samples that make up the wheat active collection in the Wellhausen-Anderson Plant Genetic Resources Center at CIMMYT's global headquarters in Texcoco, Mexico. (Photo: X. Fonseca/CIMMYT) — Some of the thousands of samples that make up the wheat active collection in the Wellhausen-Anderson Plant Genetic Resources Center at CIMMYT’s global headquarters in Texcoco, Mexico. (Photo: X. Fonseca/CIMMYT)

There are many vital genebanks, with community, national, regional, and international affiliations. Harmonization of these efforts into a global conservation network is needed. In wheat, for example, we do not adequately understand the diversity of the crop’s wild relatives. A recent study from Kansas State University observed that two thirds of the accessions of Aegilops tauschii held by several key collections were duplicates. This is an alarm to the global wheat community. The ex-situ collection of a critical species is less representative and more vulnerable than the sheer number of accessions would imply. We need to conduct a thorough characterization of all crop wild relatives to assess the risks to diversity, and a gap analysis of newly collected materials to ensure that their long-term conservation adds unique diversity to existing collections.

Which of the Triticum species that you store in the CIMMYT wheat genebank should, in your opinion, be explored much more?

Species that can readily cross with cultivated wheat, both bread wheat and durum wheat, should have intensified conservation and characterization efforts. Examples of these include Triticum monococcum subspecies monococcum (Einkorn) and Triticum turgidum subspecies dicoccon (Emmer).

What were the most surprising results from the genetic diversity analyses of nearly 80,000 wheat accessions from the CIMMYT genebank?

Modern, molecular genetic tools confirmed, for the most part, the centuries-old Linnaean taxonomic classification of Triticum and Aegilops species. There are generally two broad schools of taxonomists, “lumpers” and “splitters.” The former groups species based on a few common characteristics, and the latter defines multiple taxa based on many traits. The Seeds of Discovery work, in partnership with Michiel van Slageren from Kew Gardens, is confirming the salient taxonomy of the Triticum genus. Van Slageren previously studied and published a taxonomic monograph on the wheat ancestral Aegilops genus.

How can a genebank managers help in pre-breeding?

Maintaining native genetic diversity for use in the future is an important role that genebank managers play in pre-breeding and applied breeding processes. Furthermore, the identification of rare and odd variation plays an important role in understanding trait expression. Genebank managers are now gaining a stronger understanding of the genetic representativeness of their collections, and they can identify where gaps in the conserved genetic diversity may exist. A better understanding of the collections will enable their sustainable conservation and use.

Tom Payne at the Global Seed Vault in Svalbard, Norway, for the official opening ceremony in 2008. He holds one of the sealed boxes used to store the nearly 50,000 unique maize and wheat seed collections deposited by CIMMYT. (Photo: Thomas Lumpkin/CIMMYT)

What would you consider the biggest challenge when striving for genetic diversity in breeding wheat for the future?

CIMMYT and other CGIAR Centers are rightfully proud of their stewardship of global public goods, and the free access to and distribution of germplasm and information. Yet outside of the CGIAR, the two-way sharing of germplasm and knowledge is often still not realized by many crop communities. International agreements have attempted to bridge recognition of intellectual property rights with guaranteed access and benefit-sharing mechanisms. However, the playing field remains uneven between public and private organizations due to varied levels of investment and exclusivity, access to technology and information, and marketability.

What is one way we can ensure long-term conservation of staple crops around the world?

In the past few years, several internationally renowned germplasm collections have been destroyed due to civil conflicts, natural disasters and fires — for example in Aleppo, Cape Town and Sao Paulo. Each time, we hear what a shame it was that the destroyed heritage was lost, that it was irreplaceable and beyond value. When a genebank loses an accession, the ancestral lineage extending hundreds of generations becomes permanently extinct. Genebank managers recognize this threat, and hence duplicate samples of all accessions are now slowly being sent to the Global Seed Vault in Svalbard for long-term preservation.

Cover photo: Tom Payne, Wheat Germplasm Collections & International Wheat Improvement Network Manager. (Photo: X. Fonseca/CIMMYT)

A researchers shows a maize leaf affected by fall armyworm at CIMMYT’s fall armyworm screenhouse in Kiboko, Kenya. (Photo: Jennifer Johnson/CIMMYT)

How do we sustainably manage transboundary diseases and crop pests?

Written by Madeline Dahm on March 25, 2021. Posted in Features.

In our hyper-connected world, it should come as no surprise that recent years have shown a major uptick in the spread of transboundary pests and diseases. Integrated approaches have been effective in sustainably managing these border-jumping threats to farmers’ livelihoods and food security.

But a truly integrated approach accounts for not just the “cure,” but also how it can be sustainably incorporated into the agri-food system and social landscape. For example, how do we know if the farmers who adopt disease- and pest-resistant seed will be able to derive better incomes? And how do we ensure that incentives are aligning with community norms and values to enable better adoption of integrated disease or pest management approaches?

Experts from across the CGIAR research system and its partners weighed in on this topic in the recent webinar on Integrated Pest and Disease Management, the third in the International Year of Plant Health Webinar series. Panelists shared valuable perspectives on the science of outbreaks, the social dimensions of crop pest and disease control, zoonotic disease risk, and how national, regional and global organizations can better coordinate their responses.

“The combination of science, global partnerships and knowledge helps all of us be better prepared to avoid the losses we’ve seen. . . Today, we’re going to see what this looks like in practice,” said Rob Bertram, chief scientist for the Bureau for Resilience and Food Security at USAID, and moderator of the event.

Participants on the webinar on Integrated Pest and Disease Management. (Photo: CIMMYT)

Understanding the sources

Wheat and maize, the key crops studied at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) are no stranger to destructive diseases or pests, with fall armyworm, wheat blast, or maize lethal necrosis topping the list. But other staple crops and their respective economies are suffering as well — from infestations of cassava brown streak, potato cyst nematode, taro blight, desert locusts, and fusarium wilt, just to name a few.

What are the reasons for the expansion of these outbreaks? B.M. Prasanna, director of CIMMYT’s Global Maize Program explained that there are several: “Infected seed or planting material, vector movement, strong migratory capacity, contaminated field equipment, improper crop production commercialization practices, and global air and sea traffic” are all major causes.

Prevention and control of diseases and pests requires an integral strategy which mobilizes synergies of multiple institutions. (Graphic: B.M. Prasanna/CIMMYT)

Preventing outbreaks is always better than scrambling to find a cure, but as Prasanna pointed out, this requires a holistic, multi-institutional strategy including surveillance and early warning, quarantine and phytosanitary regulations, and technological solutions. Better access to monitoring and surveillance data, and sensitive, easy-to-use and affordable diagnostic equipment are essential, as is the proactive deployment of resistant crop varieties.

Building awareness about integrated disease and pest management is just as important, he told the attendees. “We must remember that IPM is not just Integrated Pest Management, but also ‘Integrating People’s Mindsets.’ That remains a major challenge. We need to think beyond our narrow disciplines and institutions and really come together to put IPM solutions into farmers’ fields,” Prasanna said.

Not all outbreaks are the same, but lessons can be shared

Regina Eddy, coordinator for the Fall Armyworm Interagency Task Force at USAID, works closely with the complex issue of scaling when it comes to disaster response and the roles of national, regional and global organizations.

“We need to develop inclusive partner stakeholder platforms, not designed ‘for them,’ but ‘with them,’” said Eddy. “We cannot tackle food security issues alone. Full stop.”

Closing the gap between social and biophysical science

Nozomi Kawarazuka, social anthropologist at the International Potato Center (CIP) explained how researchers can improve the uptake of their new seed, innovation, or agronomic practice by involving social scientists to understand the gender norms and social landscape at the beginning of the project — in the initial assessment phase.

Kawarazuka highlighted how involving women experts and extension workers in sectors that are typically male-dominated helps reduce bias and works towards changing perceptions.

“In South Asia, women farmers hesitate to engage with male government extension workers,” she said. “Women experts and extension workers reduce this barrier. Gender and social diversity in the plant health sector is an entry point to develop innovations that are acceptable to women as well as men and helps scale up adoption of innovations in the community.

Gender and social dimensions of pest and disease control: a call for collaboration (Graphic: Nozomi Kawarazuka/CIP)

The world is watching agriculture and livestock

Zoonotic diseases, or zoonoses, are caused by pathogens spread between animals and people. Understanding zoonotic disease risk is an essential and timely topic in the discussion of integrated pest management. Poor livestock management practices, lack of general knowledge on diseases and unsafe yet common food handling practices put populations at risk.

“It’s especially timely, [to have this] zoonosis discussion in our COVID-plagued planet. The whole world is going to be looking to the food and agricultural sectors to do better,” Bertram said.

Annet Mulema, a gender and social scientist at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) described results of a study showing how community conversations transformed gender relations and zoonotic disease risk in rural Ethiopia, where 80% of the population depends on agriculture and has direct contact with livestock.

“There were noticeable changes in attitude and practices among men and women regarding unsafe handling of animals and consumption of animal-source foods,” Mulema explained. “Community conversations give men and women involved a voice, it allows for a variety of ideas to be expressed and discussed, leads to community ownership of conclusions and action plans, and opens communication channels among local service providers and community members.”

Proportion of women and men practicing safe handling of livestock and animal source foods, before and after community conversation intervention. (Graphic: Annet Mulema/ILRI)

Local to global, and global to local

Panelists agreed that improving capacity is the most powerful lever to advance approaches for integrated pest management and plant health, while connected and inclusive partnerships along the value chain make the whole system more resilient. The amount of scientific knowledge on ways to combat plant pests and diseases is increasing, and we have new tools to connect the global with the local and bring this knowledge to the community level.

The fourth and final CGIAR webinar on plant health is scheduled for March 31 and will focus on a the intersectional health of people, animals, plants and their environments in a “One Health” approach.

Lightbulb moments

Written by Madeline Dahm on February 9, 2021. Posted in Features.

The challenges facing our food system are growing, both in size and in complexity. In order to tackle these issues and meet the needs of our changing world, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) understands the importance of assembling a workforce that is diverse, creative and representative. In addition to encouraging STEM careers and hiring more women in scientific positions, we must also foster a more encouraging scientific community for women whose careers are just sparking.

Whether it is through a school field trip, a first internship or a PhD thesis project, CIMMYT is committed to encouraging young women to step into the lab and the fields, and up to the challenge, as we strive to create a more equitable community. On the International Day of Women and Girls in Science, we are inspired by the words of some of the many brilliant women whose scientific careers are just beginning, lighting the pathway to a more equitable future.

The International Day of Women and Girls in Science is particularly meaningful to CIMMYT’s new Global Wheat Program (GWP) Director, Alison Bentley. Listen and watch as she tells her story, from her first lightbulb moment on a high school field trip, to a leadership position in the wheat research world.

In celebration of the International Day of Women and Girls in Science, CIMMYT is participating in a unique marathon event, carrying a global conversation with CGIAR women scientists that are leading change and creating solutions to some of the world’s biggest challenges.

Powered by Women in Research and Science (WIRES), a new employee-led resource group at CGIAR, the event will showcase the many ways women scientists are transforming the way we look at our food, land and water systems around the world. In addition to learning about cutting-edge science, you’ll be able to engage with inspiring speakers in 13 different countries.

Join CIMMYT’s discussion on February 11, 2021, at 1:00 p.m. CST, and learn about the journeys of the 2020 Bänziger Award recipients, an engaging Q&A with four CIMMYT scientists, and our vision for a more equitable workforce. Register for the event.

Breaking Ground: Gokul Paudel finds the best on-farm practices for South Asia

Written by Madeline Dahm on December 18, 2020. Posted in Features.

Gokul Paudel is an agricultural economist working to streamline farming practices in South Asia. He seeks to understand, learn from and improve the efficiency of on-farm management practices in a vast variety of ways. Although he joined the International Improvement Center for Wheat and Maize (CIMMYT) right after university, Paudel’s on-farm education started long before his formal courses.

“I was born in a rural village in Baglung district, in the mid-hills of Nepal. My parents worked on a small farm, holding less than half a hectare of land,” he says. “When I was a kid, I remember hearing that even though Nepal is an agricultural country, we still have a lot of food insecurity, malnutrition and children who suffer from stunting.”

“I would ask: How is Nepal an agricultural country, yet we suffer from food insecurity and food-related problems? This question is what inspired me to go to an agricultural university.”

Paudel attended Tribhuvan University in Nepal, and through his coursework, he learned about plant breeding, genetic improvement and how Norman Borlaug brought the first Green Revolution to South Asia. “After completing my undergraduate and post-graduate studies, I realized that CIMMYT is the one organization that contributes the most to improving food security and crop productivity in developing countries, where farmers livelihoods are always dependent on agriculture,” he explains.

Approaching the paradox

Paudel is right about the agriculture and food paradox of his home country. Almost two thirds of Nepal’s population is engaged in agricultural production, yet the country still has shockingly high numbers in terms of food insecurity and nutritional deficiency. Furthermore, widespread dissemination of unsustainable agronomic practices, like the use of heavy-tilling machinery, present similar consequences across South Asia.

If research and data support the claim that conservation agriculture substantially improves crop yields, then why is the adoption of these practices so low? That is exactly what Paudel seeks to understand. “I want to help improve the food security of the country,” he explains. “That’s why I joined the agricultural sector.”

Paudel joined CIMMYT in 2011 to work with the Socioeconomics Program (SEP) and the Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA), providing regional support across Bangladesh, India and Nepal.

His work is diverse. Paudel goes beyond finding out which technological innovations increase on-farm yield and profit, because success on research plots does not always translate to success on smallholder fields. He works closely with farmers and policy makers, using surveys and high-tech analytical tools such as machine learning and data mining to learn about what actually happens on farmers’ plots to impact productivity.

Gokul Paudel holds up two bags of wheat crop-cuts in a farmer's field in India. (Photo: CIMMYT) — Gokul Paudel holds up two bags of wheat crop-cuts in a farmer’s field. (Photo: CIMMYT)

A growing future for conservation agriculture

Over the last two decades, the development of environmentally sustainable and financially appealing farming technologies through conservation agriculture has become a key topic of agronomic research in South Asia.

“Conservation agriculture is based on three principles: minimum disturbance of the soil structure, cover crop and crop rotation, especially with legumes,” Paudel explains.

Leaving the soil undisturbed through zero-till farming increases water infiltration, holds soil moisture and helps to prevent topsoil erosion. Namely, zero-till farming has been identified as one of the most transformative innovations in conservation agriculture, showing the potential to improve farming communities’ ability to mitigate the challenges of climate change while also improving crop yields.

Still, the diffusion rate of zero-tillage has remained low. Right now, Paudel’s team is looking at a range of factors — such as farmers’ willingness to pay, actual demand for new technologies, intensification under input constraints, gender-disaggregated preferences and the scale-appropriateness of mechanization — to better understand the low adoption rates and to find a way to close the gap.

Can farm mechanization ease South Asia’s labor shortage?

In South Asia, understanding local contexts is crucial to streamlining farm mechanization. In recent years, many men have left their agricultural jobs in search of better opportunities in the Gulf countries and this recent phenomenon of labor out-migration has left women to take up more farming tasks.

“Women are responsible for taking care of the farm, household and raising their children,” says Paudel. “Since rural out-migration has increased, they have been burdened by the added responsibility of farm work and labor scarcity. This means that on-farm labor wages are rising, exacerbating the cost of production.”

The introduction of farm machinery, such as reapers and mini-tillers, can ease the physical and financial burden of the labor shortage. “Gender-responsive farm mechanization would not only save [women’s] time and efforts, but also empower them through skills enhancement and farm management,” says Paudel. However, he explains, measures must be taken to ensure that women actually feel comfortable adopting these technologies, which have traditionally been held in the male domain.

Gokul Paudel records the total above-ground biomass of maize and other maize yield attributes in a farmer’s field in Kanchunpur, Nepal. (Photo: Ashok Rai/CIMMYT)

From farm-tech to high-tech

Right now, amidst the global lockdown due to COVID-19, Paudel’s field activities are highly restricted. However, he is capitalizing on an opportunity to assess years’ worth of data on on-farm crop production practices, collected from across Bangladesh, India and Nepal.

“We are analyzing this data-set using novel approaches, like machine learning, to understand what drives productivity in farmers’ fields and what to prioritize, for our efforts and for the farmers,” he explains.

Although there are many different aspects of his work, from data collection and synthesis to analysis, Paudel’s favorite part of the job is when his team finds the right, long-lasting solution to farmers’ production-related problems.

“There’s a multidimensional aspect to it, but all of these solutions affect the farmer’s livelihood directly. Productivity is directly related to their food security, income and rural livelihoods.”

A changing landscape

About 160 km away from where he lives now, Paudel’s parents still own the farm he grew up on — though they no longer work on it themselves. They are proud to hear that his work has a direct impact on communities like theirs throughout the country.

“Every day, new problems are appearing due to climate change — problems of drought, flooding and disease outbreak. Though it’s not good news, it motivates me to continue the work that I’m doing,” says Paudel. “The most fascinating thing about working at CIMMYT is that we have a team of multidisciplinary scientists working together with the common goal of sustainably intensifying the agricultural systems in the developing world.”

National Wheat Coordinator Ruth Wanyera (third from right) gives a lesson to pathology interns in the field of a fungicide efficiency trial at KALRO Njoro Research Station, Nakuru, Kenya.

“Let there be food to eat”

Written by Madeline Dahm on December 9, 2020. Posted in News.

“We want to feed the people, we don’t want them to go hungry. We have to do something to make sure there is food on the table. That is where my motivation is… Let there be food to eat.”

— Ruth Wanyera, 2019

The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) has long attributed its widespread impact and reach to strong collaborations with national agricultural research systems (NARS) around the world. Today, CIMMYT — and especially the Global Wheat Program and the CGIAR Research Program on Wheat — wish to honor one long-term collaborator whose work and dedication to wheat research has had abiding positive effects beyond her home region of sub-Saharan Africa.

Ruth Wanyera, national wheat research program coordinator at the Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization (KALRO), has spent her more than 30-year career dedicated to plant protection research, fueled by her motivation to “feed the people.” She was one of the first scientists to recognize stem rust in east Africa and has been one of CIMMYT’s strongest allies in fighting the devastating wheat disease, stem rust Ug99.

Wanyera recently won both the Norman Borlaug Lifetime Achievement Award from the Borlaug Global Rust Initiative and the Kenya Agricultural Research (KARA) Award at the High Panel Conference on Agricultural Research in Kenya. Wanyera’s team at KALRO has also been recognized with the prestigious Borlaug Global Rust Initiative (BGRI) Gene Stewardship Award.

A long-term relationship with CIMMYT

Sridhar Bhavani, senior scientist and head of Rust Pathology and Molecular Genetics at CIMMYT has worked closely with Wanyera and her team since the mid-2000s.

“Ruth is a passionate researcher who has tirelessly dedicated her entire career to cereal pathology, and as a team, we coordinated the stem rust phenotyping platform for over a decade and had great successes on multiple international projects,” he said.

CIMMYT’s relationship with Wanyera’s team strengthened when Nobel Prize Laureate Norman Borlaug visited the Kenyan research facility to observe the emerging threat of stem rust. Upon witnessing how serious the outbreak had become, Borlaug organized an emergency summit in Nairobi in 2005, famously “sounding the alarm” for swift and concerted action on stem rust, and ultimately leading to the establishment of the BGRI.

“Ruth and her team of dedicated scientists from KALRO have not only made Kenya proud but have also made a remarkable contribution to the global wheat community in mitigating the threat of stem rust Ug99,” says Bhavani. “Ruth has mentored master’s and PhD students who are now leading researchers at KALRO. She has elevated the research capacity of KALRO to international repute.”

Two recent wheat breeding projects helped extend the CIMMYT-KALRO partnership beyond Kenya. The Durable Rust Resistance in Wheat (DRRW) and Delivering Genetic Gain in Wheat (DGGW) projects brought in a partnership with the Ethiopia Institute for Agricultural Research (EIAR) to establish and operate stem rust phenotyping platforms that addressed the global threat of Ug99 and other serious stem rust races, and helped provide solutions for the region. Thanks to KALRO’s screening efforts at the CIMMYT-KALRO Stem Rust Screening Platform in Njoro, Kenya, CIMMYT-derived rust-resistant varieties now cover more than 90% of the wheat farming area in Kenya and Ethiopia.

Ruth Wanyera receives the Kenya Agricultural Research Award (KARA), during the High Panel Conference on Agricultural Research in Kenya. (Photo: CIMMYT)

The partnership continues to grow

Continued collaboration with Ruth’s team at KALRO will be essential in the new Accelerating Genetic Gains in Maize and Wheat for Improved Livelihoods (AGG) project. AGG — which aims to accelerate the development and delivery of more productive, climate-resilient, gender-responsive, market-demanded, and nutritious wheat varieties in in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia — has a particular focus on enhanced collaboration with national partners such as KALRO.

Its success is also closely tied to the Njoro Stem Rust Screening Platform — which, since its establishment in 2008, has conducted crucial screening for over 600,000 wheat lines, varieties, varietal candidates, germplasm bank accessions and mapping populations. Wanyera’s leadership in the Platform, alongside that of CIMMYT wheat scientist Mandeep Randhawa, plays a major role in screening, monitoring, and clearing seed in time for sowing.

As Hans Braun, former director of the CIMMYT Global Wheat Program said, “Without our national agriculture research system partnerships, CIMMYT would become obsolete.”

Indeed, the unparalleled wealth of knowledge, skills, and research facilities of the CGIAR as a whole would not be so uniquely impactful if it weren’t for the 3000+ partnerships with national governments, academic institutions, enthusiastic farmers, private companies and NGOs that help carry out this work.

CIMMYT’s historic and continued impact depends on close international partnerships with scientists and leaders like Ruth Wanyera, and we congratulate her on her numerous awards, thank her for her collaboration, and wish her a pleasant retirement.

Hans Braun, Director of the Global Wheat Program at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), inspects wheat plants in the greenhouses. (Photo: Alfonso Cortés/CIMMYT)

“CIMMYT is at my heart”

Written by Madeline Dahm on November 24, 2020. Posted in Features.

After a 37-year career, Hans-Joachim Braun is retiring from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT). As the director of the Global Wheat Program and the CGIAR Research Program on Wheat, Braun’s legacy will resonate throughout halls, greenhouses and fields of wheat research worldwide.

We caught up with him to capture some of his career milestones, best travel stories, and vision for the future of CIMMYT and global wheat production. And, of course, his retirement plans in the German countryside.

Beyh Akin (left) and Hans Braun in wheat fields in Izmir, Turkey, in 1989. (Photo: CIMMYT)

Major career milestones

Native to Germany, Braun moved to Mexico in 1981 to complete his PhD research at CIMMYT’s experimental station in Obrégon, in the state of Sonora. His research focused on identifying the optimum location to breed spring wheat for developing countries — and he found that Obrégon was in fact the ideal location.

His first posting with CIMMYT was in Turkey in 1985, as a breeder in the International Winter Wheat Improvement Program (IWWIP). This was the first CGIAR breeding program hosted by a CIMMYT co-operator, that later developed into the joint Turkey, CIMMYT and the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) winter wheat program. “In 1990, when the Commonwealth of Independent States was established, I saw this tremendous opportunity to work with Central Asia to develop better wheat varieties,” he said. “Today, IWWIP varieties are grown on nearly 3 million hectares.”

Although Braun was determined to become a wheat breeder, he never actually intended to spend his entire career with one institution. “Eventually I worked my entire career for CIMMYT. Not so usual anymore, but it was very rewarding. CIMMYT is at my heart; it is what I know.”

Hans Braun (center), Sanjaya Rajaram (third from right), Ravi Singh (first from right) and other colleagues stand for a photograph during a field day at CIMMYT’s experimental station in Ciudad Obregón, Sonora, Mexico. (Photo: CIMMYT)

“Make the link to the unexpected”

One of Braun’s standout memories was a major discovery when he first came to Turkey. When evaluating elite lines from outside the country — in particular lines from a similar environment in the Great Plains — his team noticed they were failing but nobody knew why.

Two of his colleagues had just returned from Australia, where research had recently identified micronutrient disorders in soil as a major constraint for cereal production. The team tried applying micro-nutrients to wheat plots, and it became crystal clear that zinc deficiency was the underlying cause. “Once aware that micro-nutrient disorders can cause severe growth problems, it was a minor step to identify boron toxicity as another issue. Looking back, it was so obvious. The cover picture of a FAO book on global soil analysis showed a rice field with zinc deficiency, and Turkey produces more boron than the rest of the world combined.”

“We tested the soil and found zinc deficiency was widespread, not just in the soils, but also in humans.” This led to a long-term cooperation with plant nutrition scientists from Cukurova University, now Sabanci University, in Istanbul.

But zinc deficiency did not explain all growth problems. Soil-borne diseases — cyst and lesion nematodes, and root and crown rot — were also widespread. In 1999, CIMMYT initiated a soil-borne disease screening program with Turkish colleagues that continues until today. Over the coming decade, CIMMYT’s wheat program will make zinc a core trait and all lines will have at least 25% more zinc in the grain than currently grown varieties.

After 21 years in Turkey, Braun accepted the position as director of CIMMYT’s Global Wheat Program and moved back to Mexico.

Left to right: Zhonghu He, Sanjaya Rajaram, Ravi Singh and Hans Braun during a field trip in Anyang, South Korea, in 1990. (Photo: CIMMYT)

Partnerships and friendships

Braun emphasized the importance of “mutual trust and connections,” especially with cooperators in the national agricultural research systems of partner countries. This strong global network contributed to another major milestone in CIMMYT wheat research: the rapid development and release of varieties with strong resistance to the virulent Ug99 race of wheat rust. This network, led by Cornell University, prevented a potential global wheat rust epidemic.

CIMMYT’s relationship with Mexico’s Ministry of Agriculture and the Obregón farmers union, the Patronato, is especially important to Braun.

In 1955, Patronato farmers made 200 hectares of land available, free if charge, to Norman Borlaug. The first farm community in the developing world to support research, it became CIMMYT’s principal wheat breeding experimental station: Norman Borlaug Experimental Station, or CENEB. When Borlaug visited Obregón for the last time in 2009, the Patronato farmers had a big surprise.

“I was just getting out of the shower in my room in Obregón when I got a call from Jorge Artee Elias Calles, the president of the Patronato,” Braun recalls. “He said, ‘Hans, I’m really happy to inform you that Patronato decided to donate $1 million.’”

The donation, in honor of Borlaug’s lifetime of collaboration and global impact, was given for CIMMYT’s research on wheat diseases.

“This relationship and support from the Obregón farmers is really tremendous,” Braun says. “Obregón is a really special place to me. I am admittedly a little bit biased, because Obregón gave me a PhD.”

Hans Braun (right) and colleagues in a wheat field in CIMMYT’s experimental station in Ciudad Obregón, Sonora, Mexico. (Photo: CIMMYT)

Norman Borlaug (left), Ravi Singh (center) and Hans Braun stand in the wheat fields at CIMMYT’s experimental station in Ciudad Obregón, in Mexico’s Sonora state. (Photo: CIMMYT)

Left to right: Sanjaya Rajaram, unknown, unknown, unknown, Norman E. Borlaug, unknown, Ken Sayre, Arnoldo Amaya, Rodrigo Rascon and Hans Braun during Norman Borlaug’s birthday celebration in March 2006. (Photo: CIMMYT)

Left to right: Hans Braun, Ronnie Coffman, Jeanie Borlaug-Laube, Thomas Lumpkin, Antonio Gándara, Katharine McDevitt and unknown during the unveiling of the Norman Borlaug statue at CIMMYT’s experimental station in Ciudad Obregón, Sonora, Mexico, in 2012. (Photo: Xochil Fonseca/CIMMYT)

Participants in the first technical workshop of the Borlaug Global Rust Initiative in 2009 take a group photo at CIMMYT’s experimental station in Ciudad Obregón, Sonora, Mexico. (Photo: CIMMYT)

A worldwide perspective

Braun’s decades of international research and travel has yielded just as many stories and adventures as it has high-impact wheat varieties.

He remembers seeing areas marked with red tape as he surveyed wheat fields in Afghanistan in the 1990s, and the shock and fear he felt when he was informed that they were uncleared landmine areas. “I was never more scared than in that moment, and I followed the footsteps of the guy in front of me exactly,” Braun recalls.

On a different trip to Afghanistan, Braun met a farmer who had struggled with a yellow rust epidemic and was now growing CIMMYT lines that were resistant to it.

“The difference between his field and his neighbors’ was so incredible. When he learned I had developed the variety he was so thankful. He wanted to invite me to his home for dinner. Interestingly, he called it Mexican wheat, as all modern varieties are called there, though it came from the winter wheat program in Turkey.”

Seeing the impact of CIMMYT’s work on farmers was always a highlight for Braun.

Hans Braun, Director of CIMMYT’s Global Wheat Program of CIMMYT, is interviewed by Ethiopian journalist at an event in 2017. (Photo: CIMMYT)

CIMMYT’s future

Braun considers wheat research to be still in a “blessed environment” because a culture of openly-shared germplasm, knowledge and information among the global wheat community is still the norm. “I only can hope this is maintained, because it is the basis for future wheat improvement.”

His pride in his program and colleagues is clear.

“A successful, full-fledged wheat breeding program must have breeders, quantitative genetics, pathology, physiology, molecular science, wide crossing, quality, nutrition, bioinformatics, statistics, agronomy and input from economists and gender experts,” in addition to a broad target area, he remarked at an acceptance address for the Norman Borlaug Lifetime Achievement award.

“How many programs worldwide have this expertise and meet the target criteria? The Global Wheat Program is unique — no other wheat breeding program has a comparable impact. Today, around 60 million hectares are sown with CIMMYT-derived wheat varieties, increasing the annual income of farmers by around $3 billion dollars. Not bad for an annual investment in breeding of around $25 million dollars. And I don’t take credit for CIMMYT only, this is achieved through the excellent collaboration we have with national programs.”

A bright future for wheat, and for Braun

General view Inzlingen, Germany, with Basel in the background. (Photo: Hans Braun)

After retirement, Braun is looking forward to settling in rural Inzlingen, Germany, and being surrounded by the beautiful countryside and mountains, alongside his wife Johanna. They look forward to skiing, running, e-biking and other leisure activities.

“One other thing I will try — though most people will not believe me because I’m famous for not cooking — but I am really looking into experimenting with flour and baking,” he says.

Despite his relaxing retirement plans, Braun hopes to continue to support wheat research, whether it is through CIMMYT or through long friendships with national partners, raising awareness of population growth, the “problem of all problems” in his view.

“We have today 300 million more hungry people than in 1985. The road to zero hunger in 2030 is long and will need substantial efforts. In 1970, Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) countries agreed to spend 0.7% of GDP on official development assistance. Today only 6 countries meet this target and the average of all OECD countries has never been higher than 0.4%. Something needs to change to end extreme poverty — and that on top of COVID-19. The demand for wheat is increasing, and at the same time the area under wheat cultivation needs to be reduced, a double challenge. We need a strong maize and wheat program. The world needs a strong CIMMYT.”

Left to right: Bruno Gerard, Ram Dhulipala, David Bergvinson, Martin Kropff, Víctor Kommerell , Marianne Banziger, Dave Watson and Hans Braun stand for a photograph at CIMMYT’s global headquarters in Texcoco, Mexico. (Photo: Alfonso Cortés/CIMMYT)

Former Director General of CIMMYT, Thomas Lumpkin (center), Hans Braun (next right) and Turkish research partners on a field day at a wheat landraces trial in Turkey. (Photo: CIMMYT)

Hans Braun (sixth from right) stands for a photograph with colleagues during a work trip to CIMMYT’s Pakistan office in 2020. (Photo: CIMMYT)

Hans Braun (seventh from left) visits wheat trials in Eskişehir, Turkey in 2014. (Photo: CIMMYT)

Cover photo: Hans Braun, Director of the Global Wheat Program at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), inspects wheat plants in the greenhouses. (Photo: Alfonso Cortés/CIMMYT)

Wheat spikes damaged by wheat blast. (Photo: Xinyao He/CIMMYT)

Scientists find genomic regions associated with wheat blast resistance in CIMMYT nurseries

Written by Madeline Dahm on October 5, 2020. Posted in News.

Wheat spike damaged by wheat blast. — Wheat blast damages wheat spikes. (Photo: Xinyao He / CIMMYT)

In an article published in Nature Scientific Reports, a team of scientists led by wheat breeder Philomin Juliana from the International Wheat and Maize Improvement Center (CIMMYT) conducted a large genome-wide association study to look for genomic regions that could also be associated with resistance to wheat blast.

Juliana and fellow scientists found 36 significant markers on chromosome 2AS, 3BL, 4AL and 7BL that appeared to be consistently associated with blast resistance across different environments. Among these, 20 markers were found to be in the position of the 2NS translocation, a chromosomal segment transferred to wheat from a wild relative, Aegilops ventricosa, that has very strong and effective resistance to wheat blast.

The team also gained excellent insights into the blast resistance of the globally-distributed CIMMYT germplasm by genomic fingerprinting a panel over 4,000 wheat lines for the presence of the 2NS translocation, and found that it was present in 94.1% of lines from International Bread Wheat Screening Nurseries (IBWSNs) and 93.7% of lines from Semi-Arid Wheat Screening Nurseries (SAWSNs). Although it is reassuring that such a high percentage of CIMMYT wheat lines already have the 2NS translocation and implied blast resistance, finding other novel resistance genes will be instrumental in building widespread, global resilience to wheat blast outbreaks in the long-term.

The researchers used data collected over the last two years from CIMMYT’s IBWSNs and SAWSNs by collaborators at the Bangladesh Wheat and Maize Research Institute (BWMRI) and Bolivia’s Instituto Nacional de Innovación Agropecuaria y Forestal (INIAF).

Devastating fungal disease

Wheat blast, caused by the fungus Magnaporthe oryzae pathotype Triticum, was first identified in 1985 in South America, but has been seen in Bangladesh in recent years. The expansion of the disease is a great concern for regions of similar environmental conditions in South Asia, and other regions globally.

Although management of the disease using fungicide is possible, it is not completely effective for multiple reasons, including inefficiency during high disease pressure, resistance of the fungal populations to some classes of fungicides, and the affordability of fungicide to resource-poor farmers. Scientists see the development and deployment of wheat with genetic resistance to blast as the most sustainable and farmer-friendly approach to preventing devastating outbreaks around the world.

This work was made possible by the generous support of the Delivering Genetic Gains in Wheat (DGGW) project funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the U.K. Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) and managed by Cornell University, the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Feed the Future initiative, the CGIAR Research Program on Wheat (WHEAT), the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), The Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsråd), and the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR).

Read the full article:
Genome‑wide association mapping for wheat blast resistance in CIMMYT’s international screening nurseries evaluated in Bolivia and Bangladesh

This story was originally posted on the website of the CGIAR Research Program on Wheat (wheat.org).