CIMMYT wheat physiologist Matthew Reynolds presents a new proposal for expanding the wheat network to include other major food crops and speed farmers’ adoption of vital technologies. Photo: CIMMYT archives.
A little-known global research network founded 50 years ago and supported by diverse funders — including the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia — has helped keep the daily bread of over 2.5 billion resource-poor consumers from disappearing under the onslaught of rising temperatures and virulent new crop disease strains, to mention a few threats. Nowadays, the International Wheat Improvement Network (IWIN) shares and tests as many as 1,000 breeding lines yearly at 700 field stations representing the world’s 12 major wheat-growing environments.
Now, a Financial Times editorial by CIMMYT wheat physiologist Matthew Reynolds presents a new proposal for expanding the wheat network to include other major food crops and speed farmers’ adoption of vital technologies that can end hunger and address climate change. The idea has the support of experts from leading funding and development agencies.
EL BATAN, Mexico (8 November 2017) – Professor Dr. John R. Porter, from the Agropolis/Montpellier Supagro/INRA/CIRAD conglomeration in Montpellier, France, has been elected as Chair of the Independent Steering Committee that advises the CGIAR Research Program on Wheat (known as WHEAT) on research strategy, priorities and program management. In this appointment, Porter succeeds Dr Tony Fischer, Honorary Research Fellow, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Australia.
An internationally recognized researcher and teacher in crop ecology and physiology, biological modelling, and agricultural ecology, Porter’s contributions have focused on climate change, agronomy, and ecosystem services.
“I am very proud and pleased to be elected as chair of the WHEAT Steering Committee. This CGIAR research program connects over 300 partners into a global alliance for climate-resilient and profitable wheat agri-food systems,” Porter said.
“Accounting for a fifth of the world’s food, wheat is the main source of protein in the developing world and is second only to rice as a source of calories for consumers there,” Porter explained. “The challenge for WHEAT is no less than to raise the crop’s productivity and keep wheat affordable for today’s 2.5 billion resource-poor consumers in 89 countries and for a world population that will surpass 9 billion around mid-century.”
Porter observed that this must be done while cutting greenhouse gas emissions and improving soil health, in wheat-based cropping systems. “As WHEAT moves into its 2nd Phase,” he said, “I would like the Independent Steering Committee to continue the work pioneered by my predecessor Tony Fischer and look at some new areas, such as human capacity development and innovation in wheat-based food production systems.”
Meeting wheat demand, protecting food and farming from worsening climate impacts
According to Porter, WHEAT is actively catalyzing the efforts of CGIAR and partner institution scientists, farmers, governments and private companies in lower and middle-income countries, to develop and share climate-smart innovations that increase farm resilience and productivity, while reducing the climate footprint.
Technology such as high-yielding wheat varieties that tolerate drought and high temperatures, as well as resisting new or modified strains of deadly crop diseases spawned in rapidly warming environments, are the outputs from WHEAT research that lead to positive outcomes for farmers and consumers.
Developing such technologies requires that WHEAT also invest in human capacity development. “Varieties derived from WHEAT breeding lines are already sown on nearly half of the world’s wheat lands and which bring economic benefits of about $3.1 billion each year,” Porter said, citing a 2016 analysis of WHEAT impacts.
Resource-conserving cropping practices from WHEAT, such as more targeted use of nitrogen fertilizers or sowing wheat into untilled soils and crop residues, can raise wheat farmers’ incomes while curbing greenhouse gas emissions, if widely adopted, he added. “Zero tillage is already being used to sow wheat on 1.8 million hectares in South Asia’s extensive rice-wheat rotations, and state government officials in India are implementing policies to support more widespread adoption.”
Perfect experience for the job
A member of the WHEAT Independent Steering Committee since 2014, Porter has published more than 140 papers in reviewed journals, won four international prizes for research and teaching, and served as president of the European Society for Agronomy and was Chief Editor of the European Journal of Agronomy for many years. He led the writing of the chapter on food production and security for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 5th Assessment. Porter was elected as both a Fellow of the Royal Swedish Academy for Agriculture and Forestry and the European Academy of Sciences in 2014 and was knighted by the French government via the Order of Agriculture Merit in March 2016. Porter is an emeritus professor at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark and the Natural Resources Institute at the University of Greenwich UK and an honorary professor at Lincoln University, New Zealand. He is a member of the Scientific Council of the Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA) and currently consulting professor at Montpellier SupAgro, France on a project for Capacity Building in Crop Modelling financed by the Agropolis Foundation and Labex Agro.
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Index insurance is one of the top 10 innovations for climate-proof farming. Photo: P. Lowe/ CIMMYT
What stands between a smallholder farmer and a bag of climate-adapted seeds? In many cases, it’s the hesitation to take a risk. Farmers may want to use improved varieties, invest in new tools, or diversify what they grow, but they need reassurance that their investments and hard work will not be squandered.
Climate change already threatens crops and livestock; one unfortunately-timed dry spell or flash flood can mean losing everything. Today, innovative insurance products are tipping the balance in farmers’ favor. That’s why insurance is featured as one of 10 innovations for climate action in agriculture, in a new report released ahead of next week’s UN Climate Talks. These innovations are drawn from decades of agricultural research for development by CGIAR and its partners and showcase an array of integrated solutions that can transform the food system.
Index insurance is making a difference to farmers at the frontlines of climate change. It is an essential building block for adapting our global food system and helping farmers thrive in a changing climate. Taken together with other innovations like stress-tolerant crop varieties, climate-informed advisories for farmers, and creative business and financial models, index insurance shows tremendous promise.
The concept is simple. To start with, farmers who are covered can recoup their losses if (for example) rainfall or average yield falls above or below a pre-specified threshold or ‘index’. This is a leap forward compared to the costly and slow process of manually verifying the damage and loss in each farmer’s field. In India, scientists from the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) and the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), have worked out the water level thresholds that could spell disaster for rice farmers if exceeded. Combining 35 years of observed rainfall and other data, with high-resolution satellite images of actual flooding, scientists and insurers can accurately gauge the extent of flooding and crop loss to quickly determine who gets payouts.
The core feature of index insurance is to offer a lifeline to farmers, so they can shield themselves from the very worst effects of climate change. But that’s not all. Together with my team, we’re investigating how insurance can help farmers adopt new and improved varieties. Scientists are very good at developing technologies but farmers are not always willing to make the leap. This is one of the most important challenges that we grapple with. What we’ve found has amazed us: buying insurance can help farmers overcome uncertainty and give them the confidence to invest in new innovations and approaches. This is critical for climate change adaptation. We’re also finding that creditors are more willing to lend to insured farmers and that insurance can stimulate entrepreneurship and innovation. Ultimately, insurance can help break poverty traps, by encouraging a transformation in farming.
Insurers at the cutting edge are making it easy for farmers to get coverage. In Kenya, insurance is being bundled into bags of maize seeds, in a scheme led by ACRE Africa. Farmers pay a small premium when buying the seeds and each bag contains a scratch card with a code, which farmers text to ACRE at the time of planting. This initiates coverage against drought for the next 21 days; participating farms are monitored using satellite imagery. If there are enough days without rain, a farmer gets paid instantly via their mobile phone.
ACRE makes it easy for Kenyan farmers to get insurance. Source
Farmers everywhere are businesspeople who seek to increase yields and profits while minimizing risk and losses. As such, insurance has widespread appeal. We’ve seen successful initiatives grow rapidly in India, China, Zambia, Kenya and Mexico, which points to significant potential in other countries and contexts. The farmers most likely to benefit from index insurance are emergent and commercial farmers, as they are more likely than subsistence smallholder farmers to purchase insurance on a continual basis.
It’s time for more investment in index insurance and other innovations that can help farmers adapt to climate change. Countries have overwhelmingly prioritized climate actions in the agriculture sector, and sustained support is now needed to help them meet the goals set out in the Paris Climate Agreement.
Kristie Drucza, a gender and social development research manager at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and project lead, recently co-authored a report detailing how researchers can boost gender equality and reach program goals even faster by applying people-centered research methods in their work.
Traditionally, communities are not involved enough in development processes for researchers to offer permanent solutions. The seven methodologies laid out in the report use participatory methods, such as mapping exercises, to put people in control of the agenda.
“Program managers seem to be looking for ways to improve gender within their programs, these methodologies work and should be used more. Currently, non-government organizations implement these methodologies to change behaviors and gender norms, but the data is not collected. These methodologies generate a rich source of data that reveals how gender norms change and at what pace, this data could advance our understanding of how and why gender norms change.”
Drucza tells us more about these methodologies and where they’ve been successful in the following interview:
Creating a gender balance tree. Photo courtesy of Kristie Drucza.
Q: What are ‘participatory methodologies’?
Participatory methodologies are a collection of research tools or activities that are designed to get participants to think, learn, analyze and plan for action. They often use visioning exercises and diagram tools to enable participants to see the world in a new way, build empathy for those who are less fortunate and plan to change what they do not like.
Each participant draws all the members of their household at the trunk, and the tasks family members do at the roots. The branches represent expenses and symbols are placed on the tree to show who owns what property and who makes which decisions.
The participants discuss any imbalances and draw an action plan to make the tree more balanced.
This exercise helps put a focus on gaps that are directly identified and agreed upon by families and helps illiterate people envision a future that they can control.
Q: How do these methodologies boost gender equality?
Participants at a gender workshop. Photo courtesy of Kristie Drucza.
We collected data from four wheat-growing communities, and in one there was a really big difference in gender relations: in how people understood it, explained it and how equal their relations were.
We found out that this community was doing community conversations (CCs), a methodology that we identified as being very effective. This community was part of a health program that was using CCs, but it also had a positive and unintended impact on the agricultural sector by enabling women and men to work as one economic unit.
Usually, men make decisions without consulting their wives on things like household expenditure and which crops to grow. This can leave a wife having to secretly take from the harvest, or sell assets so that she can make ends meet. In the community where CCs were held, households worked better together to make more informed and transparent decisions that benefited the whole family.
Q: How does your project help boost gender equality?
The most important thing we need to realize is that gender equality doesn’t just mean focusing on women, and doing so can actually create more inequality. We need to empower women but not at the expense of male sense of self and happiness.
Moreover, the social norms that underpin gender inequality need to be addressed for lasting change to ensue. Because these methodologies put communities in the driving seat, they deliver empowerment with community cohesion.
MEXICO CITY (CIMMYT) – Zhonghu He, CIMMYT distinguished scientists and country liaison office in China, was one of a small number of scientists invited to the recent 19th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party. He was selected based on his outstanding contributions in wheat research.
Left to Right: Mr Jin Liu (chairperson), Dr Huajun Tang (CAAS president), Dr Zhonghu He (CIMMYT scientist), Lingling Wei (CAAS scientist), Yijun Shen (MOA scientist), Jihe Ling, farmer from Jiangxi province. Photo courtesy of Zhonghu He
He gave a keynote presentation on agriculture and wheat research to the assembly, together with eight ministers including the Minister of Agriculture, Changfu Han, in an open discussion forum at The Great Hall of the People, with coverage by Chinese and global media.
Zhonghu He with His Excellence Changfu Han, Minister of Agriculture in China. Photo courtesy of Zhonghu He
His presentation emphasized the nutritional and health value of wheat-based foods and the environmental benefits of wheat, particularly the role of winter wheat in protecting protect the soil during winter and spring.
He also described the importance of international germplasm exchange and collaboration.
CIMMYT has been a valued partner of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Science (CAAS) and other national and provincial organizations for several decades. Genetic contributions of CIMMYT breeding are present in more than 26% of all major wheat varieties released in China after 2000 and over 350 Chinese researchers have taken part in CIMMYT wheat training programs since 1970.
Zhonghu He on CCTV News. Photo courstesy of Zhonghu He
The paper taps into decades of agricultural research for development conducted by CGIAR research centers to identify the top innovations for climate adaption in agriculture. As world leaders convene for the UN Climate talks in Bonn this week and make a potential decision on agriculture, countries are being encouraged to adopt and advance best practices in their National Adaptation Plans.
Climate change has led to increased incidences of drought, heat and extreme weather events as well as crop pests and diseases, all of which can severely limit the growth of staple crops such as maize, wheat, rice and potato. As the demand for staple crops such as maize is expected to increase by 60 percent by 2050, this poses a grave danger for global food production.
CGIAR Research Centers and Programs have long worked to develop stress tolerant crop varieties that allow smallholder farmers to sustainably increase food security despite climate change. One key example of this work is the Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa project, implemented through the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and the CGIAR Research Program on Maize (MAIZE) with support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. From 2010-2016, the project released over 200 stress tolerant maize varieties for smallholder farmers in 13 countries in Africa, which has the potential to generate between $362 million to $590 million over a 7 year period through both yield gains and reduced yield variability.
On-farm trials have found that climate resilient maize varieties yielded up to 20 percent more maize under stress prone conditions, and double in severe stress environments, such as the El Niño event of 2015/16. This can significantly increase household income and food security. A recent study on drought-tolerant maize varieties in Zimbabwe found that climate resilient maize could provide farming families with an additional 9 months of food, or $240 per hectare, in drought-prone regions. Based on these results, drought-resilient crops have been dubbed a Tesla-like innovation for agriculture by Dr. Bruce Campbell, Director of the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS)
The benefits are not limited to Africa alone—in South Asia, 18 pre-commercial heat tolerant maize hybrids from the Heat Tolerant Maize for Asia (HTMA) have been licensed. Of these, 6 have broad adaptation across agro-ecological zones in South Asia (suggesting they likely possess both heat and drought tolerance) and 12 hybrids had good adaptation to specific mega-environments in Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal and Pakistan.
To be successful, crop breeding needs to stay several steps ahead of climate change. The paper argues that strengthened breeding systems, using the latest technologies, together with more open international exchange of germplasm, and rapid change in varieties are fundamental components of this adaptation strategy. In addition, strengthened breeding pipelines for climate resilient maize also offer the co-benefit of faster development of maize with pest and disease resistance or enhanced nutrition in addition to tolerance to other stresses. In Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe maize varieties are now on the market with both drought tolerance and high pro-vitamin A content, which can prevent blindness in children. Research is currently underway to develop drought and heat tolerant, nutritionally enhanced maize rich in pro-vitamin A and zinc.
CIMMYT, MAIZE and other CGIAR research centers and programs are dedicated to supporting smallholder farmers in climate change adaptation by delivering stress tolerant crop varieties through strengthened breeding systems, cutting-edge technologies and the open exchange of international germplasm. The adaption innovations outlined in this working paper must be considered and supported in the search for a food secure, climate resilient future for all.
For more information on the 10 innovations highlighted in this paper, please click here.
At this year’s UN Climate Talks at COP23 in Bonn, Germany, CIMMYT is highlighting innovations in wheat and maize that can help farmers overcome climate change. Click here to read more stories in this series and follow @CIMMYT on Facebook and Twitter for the latest updates.
Farmer weeding maize field in Bihar, India. Photo: M. DeFreese/CIMMYT.
India needs to tackle greenhouse gas emissions from its rice and livestock sectors according to a study by CIMMYT and partners. Researchers say this can and must be done in ways that improve yields, and sustain food and nutrition security.
Paradoxically, India is also the world’s second largest food producer, and agriculture is a vital part of the country’s economy. Indian agriculture also accounts for about 18% of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions, making agriculture a key sector for climate action. In fact, India’s government has already indicated willingness to reduce emissions from agriculture as part the Paris Climate Agreement, in an effort to keep global warming below the 2-degree target. To take action, the country’s leaders need to know where to focus their efforts, and find ways to reduce emissions without compromising food and nutrition security.
Indian agriculture’s climate ‘hotspots’
A new study uncovers some answers to this question, and offers insights into how dietary shifts might influence future emissions. The study, Greenhouse gas emissions from agricultural food production to supply Indian diets: Implications for climate change mitigation, was done by researchers from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and partners at the University of Aberdeen and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. Using the empirical model Cool Farm Tool, researchers analyzed the farm-level greenhouse gas emissions of 20 major food commodities in India, and two types of food products emerged as the worst culprits: rice and animal products such as meat, milk and eggs.
When looking at the level of emission per unit of area and unit of product, rice was the top source of emissions in agriculture. Continuously flooded paddies release huge amounts of methane, especially compared to intermittently flooded or irrigated rice land. The scientists found that the total global warming potential of rice on a per hectare basis was even higher than what was being reported in existing literature and at the national level.
Meat, eggs and milk were also found to have high emissions per unit of production. The authors warn that animal products will contribute an increasing share to overall emissions as India’s middle class grows, traditions evolve, and diets shift towards consumption of more animal products. That said, it will probably not match the rapid trajectory towards meat consumption of other large countries like China, due to India’s cultural preference for a lacto-ovo-vegetarian diet.
No tradeoff between mitigation and food security
The revelation of India’s agricultural emission ‘hotspots’ are a crucial step towards action. “These findings can help farmers, researchers and policy makers to understand and manage these emissions, and identify mitigation responses that are consistent with India’s food security and economic development priorities,” according to CIMMYT scientist Tek Sapkota, who co-authored the paper. “Agriculture is an important sector of the economy,” he said. “If India is to reduce its total emissions then agriculture has to play its part,” he explained, mentioning that emissions from agriculture must decline worldwide in order to meet the 2°C warming target.
In the UN climate discussions on agriculture, there has been ongoing resistance among some countries about promoting mitigation in agriculture, due to fears that this could compromise food security and nutrition. This is a “misconception” according to Dr. Sapkota. “Many agricultural practices advocated to increase production and increase the capacity of a system to cope with climate change also happen to reduce emissions,” he explained. The paper’s authors emphasize that mitigation must be a co-benefit of improved and more efficient agronomic practices, and interventions will need to consider the nutritional and health implications. Negotiators at the upcoming UN climate talks in Bonn should take note as they mull a decision on agriculture.
Sustainable solutions
There are many approaches and technologies in agriculture that can contribute to food and nutrition security and at the same time deliver climate change adaptation and mitigation services. Dr. Sapkota is part of a team undertaking a detailed analysis of mitigation options, their national level mitigation potential and associated cost of their adoption to come up with total technical mitigation potential sector of Indian agriculture. This study is coming out very soon, and will help build a more complete picture of the solutions available.
A new study finds sustainable agriculture can cut emissions in India. Photo: M. DeFreese/CIMMYT.
As an example, Dr. Sapkota points to conservation agriculture, which is based on the principles of minimum soil disturbance, continuous soil cover and diversified crop rotation. Conservation agriculture techniques can increase production in a sustainable way, by improving water use efficiency, reducing fertilizer consumption and reducing machinery use and fuel consumption. Through this approach, “you can reduce production costs, without compromising yield. In some instances you can increase yields. It’s a win-win from every perspective,” he says. Farmers are already getting more precise at managing nutrients, using several tools like the GreenSeeker and the , and techniques such as drilling fertilizer into the soil instead of broadcasting it. They are also using decision support systems like Nutrient expert and the Crop Manager, to help them determine how much fertilizer to apply, at the right time and in the right place. These approaches have been shown to reduce the amount of fertilizer needed while maintaining and even increasing yields.
In a similar vein, Alternative Wetting and Drying of rice fields, which otherwise remain continuously flooded, can reduce methane emissions substantially. In Vietnam and the Philippines, farmers have successfully used this method and reduced methane emissions by 48% without reducing yield.
In the livestock sector, there several ways to address emissions, including improved manure management, changing feed rations, growing feed crops in a more sustainable way, and feeding animals crop residues that would otherwise be burned.
Although the study points out food products with a particularly high climate footprint, it’s important not to think about solutions on a commodity-by-commodity or crop-by-crop basis, according to Dr. Sapkota. “Farmers grow crops in a system and we need system-based solutions,” he says. “For example, in the rice-wheat system in Indo-Gangetic Plains, if you want to go for conservation agriculture you cannot just focus on one crop. The way you manage water, energy,nutrients and other resources for one crop will have repercussions on other crops,” he explains.
The results of this study are an important starting point. “India is moving in the right direction,” says Dr. Sapkota. “Now there needs to be more research to show the effectiveness of technical mitigation options which can reduce emissions without compromising yield and profit,” he says. The government must also work closely with people on the ground: “There must be more awareness among extension workers and farming communities that they are part of this movement to tackle climate change,” he adds.
At this year’s UN Climate Talks, CIMMYT is highlighting innovations that can help farmers overcome climate change. Read more stories in this series and follow @CIMMYT for the latest updates.
The 2002 World Food Prize laureate, Pedro Sanchez, a professor at the University of Florida and Akinwumi Adesina, 2017 World Food Prize laureate and president of the African Development Bank speak about the fall armyworm at a press conference on the sidelines of the 2017 Borlaug Dialogue conference in Des Moines, Iowa. Credit: World Food Prize
DES MOINES, Iowa (CIMMYT) – World Food Prize laureates have joined forces with an international alliance battling the fall armyworm (Spodoptera frugiperda), an aggressive pest indigenous to the Americas with a voracious appetite, now widespread throughout Africa.
The 2002 World Food Prize laureate, Pedro Sanchez, currently a research professor at the University of Florida, addressed delegates at the Borlaug Dialogue conference in Des Moines, Iowa, which is timed each year to coincide with annual World Food Prize celebrations.
Sanchez described the severity of the challenge posed by the pest, which has a host range of more than 80 plant species, including maize, a staple food on which millions of people throughout sub-Saharan Africa depend for their food and income security.
Fall armyworm activities not only put food security, livelihoods and national economies at risk, but also threaten to undo recent hard-earned crop production gains on the continent, Sanchez said.
“Hopefully, it will be controlled; it will never be eradicated,” Sanchez said. “I think the fate of African food security really hinges now on this clear and present danger. It threatens to reverse the gains achieved in the last 10 years. It’s the epitome of an invasive species.”
The pest, which has no known natural predators, can cause total crop losses, and at advanced larval development stages can be difficult to control even with synthetic pesticides. The female fall armyworm can lay up to a thousand eggs at a time and can produce multiple generations very quickly without pause in tropical environments. The moth can fly 100 km (62 miles) a night, and some moth populations have even been reported to fly distances of up to 1,600 kilometers in 30 hours, according to experts.
Sanchez said that Akinwumi Adesina, 2017 World Food Prize laureate and president of the African Development Bank, and Rob Fraley, 2013 World Food Prize laureate and chief technology officer at Monsanto, had united with him to urgently “raise the alarm” about the threat from the pest.
By joining forces as laureates, we aim to really bring attention to this issue to avoid a food crisis, Adesina said. Mobile phones should be effectively used in the fight against the pest, he said.
“There’s just no better way in which farmers can detect, recognize and send information very fast to extension agents or universities that can allow them to identify it and get the information they need to deal with it,” he said, adding that the new African Development Bank initiative Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation (TAAT), will play a key role in fighting the fall armyworm.
Projections by the Centre for Agriculture and Biosciences International, (CABI), indicate that if left unchecked, the fall armyworm could lead to maize yield losses of around $2.5 to $6.2 billion a year in just 12 of the 28 African countries where the pest has been confirmed.
Joint force
In April, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) hosted an international joint stakeholders meeting in Nairobi, committing to an integrated pest management strategy to tackle the pest.
CIMMYT, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and experts from several national and international research organizations, are currently developing a detailed field manual on Fall Armyworm management in Africa, said B.M. Prasanna, director of the Global Maize Program at CIMMYT and the CGIAR Research Program on Maize, who spoke at a Borlaug Dialogue side event with a panel of scientific experts.
Scientist B.M. Prasanna, director of the Global Maize Program at CIMMYT and the CGIAR Research Program on Maize, speaks at a Borlaug Dialogue side event about the fall armyworm with a panel of scientific experts. CIMMYT/Julie Mollins
“The manual will offer protocols and best management practices related to fall armyworm scouting, monitoring and surveillance; biological control; pesticides and pesticide risk management; host plant resistance; pheromones and sustainable agro-ecological management of fall armyworm, especially in the African context,” Prasanna said, adding that the pest has so far devastated at least 1.5 million hectares of maize in just six countries.
A Southern Africa Regional Training-of-Trainers and Awareness Raising Workshop on Fall Armyworm management was conducted in Harare, Zimbabwe, from Oct. 30 to Nov. 1, while a similar workshop for Eastern Africa is scheduled for Nov. 13 to 15 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and for West Africa in early 2018.
The workshops are aimed at supporting pest control and extension actors to effectively scout, determine the need for intervention, and apply specific practices to control the pest in maize and other crops, Prasanna said.
Fall armyworm toolbox
Prasanna announced that the CIMMYT team in Africa is intensively evaluating maize germplasm for resistance to fall armyworm. Initial experiments have indicated some promising breeding materials, which need to be validated further and utilized in product development and deployment pipelines, he said.
“The crisis is quickly escalating due to the loss of quality maize seed in production fields, and the extensive and indiscriminate use of low cost highly toxic pesticides,” Prasanna said.
“We need to quickly bring awareness among the farming communities in Africa about environmentally safer approaches of Fall Armyworm management,” he said, adding that the international community can learn from the experiences of Brazil and the United States, where the pest has been endemic for several decades.
“Sustainable agro-ecological management at the field and landscape levels is key,” Prasanna said. “We must make our solutions affordable to smallholder farmers.”
Panelist Mark Edge, director of collaborations for developing countries at agrochemical and biotechnology company Monsanto, said that integrated pest management, collaboration and public-private sector partnerships would be key to fighting the pest.
“First and foremost, it really is about an integrated pest management system – we’re not trying to propose that biotechnology is a silver bullet for this,” he said. “We need to continue to use many different technologies and biotechnology is one very powerful tool that we have in the toolbox.”
Over the past 10 years, the Water Efficient Maize for Africa (WEMA) a Monsanto-CIMMYT partnership project funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and USAID has led to the development of almost 100 hybrid varieties effective against drought and a Bt – or biological pesticide – trait effective against the maize stem borers (Chilo partellus and Busseola fusca). The varieties will be available royalty-free to smallholder farmers.
“Insect resistance together with drought is our target; we’ve made tremendous progress over the past 10 years,” Edge said. “In the Americas, we still have challenges with fall armyworm, but we’re certainly able to control it to where farmers are actually able to get very good yields and manage the pests very effectively.”
Smallholder farmers need access to these varieties as soon as possible, so the focus should be on getting regulatory approvals in place by encouraging governments to support the technology, Edge said. The Bt trait varieties will need to be managed carefully so they do not develop resistance to the pest, he added.
“Scientists alone are not going to carry the day on this,” Edge said. “We need to bring together the science on this, but we also need the political will to help make that happen.”
Panelist Segenet Kelemu, director general of the International Institute of Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE), said that techniques used to fight the stem borer have proven effective against the fall armyworm, although experiments are ongoing to craft an integrated pest management strategy to control various stages of the pest from egg to moth. The continent will face deepening challenges from insects due to climate change, she said.
“If there were capacity on the ground, fall armyworm would have been identified sooner,” Kelemu said. “We need a more comprehensive way and a global partnership to tackle this.”
Panelist Gregg Nuessly, a pest management researcher and the director of the Everglades Research and Education Center at the University of Florida, said that the fall armyworm could be effectively controlled through an integrated pest management approach.
“Success in control is not only possible, it’s quite common in the Western Hemisphere,” Nuessly said.
There are no easy fixes nor can business as usual continue, if humankind is to reduce the climate footprint of global agriculture while intensifying farming to meet rising food demands, according to an international scientist who has studied agriculture and climate interactions for nearly three decades.
“Climate change is a threat multiplier, intensifying the challenges of population growth, food insecurity, poverty, and malnutrition,” said Clare Stirling, a scientist in the sustainable intensification program of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT). “With almost 60% of global food production coming from rainfed agriculture and more than 650 million people dependent on rainfed farming in Africa alone, our food system is already highly vulnerable to changing climates.”
Stirling, who is CIMMYT’s liaison with the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS), believes that agriculture—including smallholder agriculture—can play a key role in meeting greenhouse gas emission targets, but only with combined and coordinated efforts that cross institutional and disciplinary boundaries.
CIMMYT contributes through a systems approach to developing and promoting climate smart technologies—including drought tolerant maize and wheat varieties, conservation agriculture, and precision nutrient and water management—as well as research on climate services, index-based insurance for farmers whose crops are damaged by bad weather, and data and models for greenhouse gas emissions in India and Mexico.
“Take the case of India, the world’s second-largest food producer,” Stirling explained. “Mitigation options for crops, of which rice-wheat systems are a major component, include improved water management in rice, more precise use of nitrogen fertilizer, preventing the burning of crop residues and promoting zero or reduced tillage, depending on local conditions and practices. With the right policies and training for farmers, these options could spread quickly to reduce emissions by as much as 130 Megatons of CO2e per year from the crop sector alone. The big challenge is achieving large-scale adoption for significant mitigation to occur.”
Science needed for local mitigation targets
Born in Malawi and having spent her early childhood in Zimbabwe, young Stirling also lived a year with her parents and siblings in a house trailer on a farm in Devon, United Kingdom. “Most of my childhood and teen years were spent living in villages, riding horses, and working on farms during school holidays. Out of this came a desire to work in agriculture and overseas.”
Stirling obtained a bachelor’s degree in plant science and a doctor’s degree in environmental crop physiology at Sutton Bonnington, University of Nottingham, U.K., performing fieldwork for the latter at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) in Hyderbad, India.
As a Ph.D. student at Nottingham, she also joined a research group under the late Professor John Monteith that was quantifying relationships among crop growth, radiation, and water use. The resulting equations underpin many of today’s crop simulation models. “My research since has focused on environmental interactions and crop growth, so climate change became an important part of this, starting with an M.Sc. course on the topic that I set up in Essex University in the 1990s.”
Among the intractable challenges Stirling sees is soil degradation. “Unless this is addressed, it will be impossible to sustainably intensify or build climate resilience into food systems,” she explained. “We must manage limited organic matter and fertilisers better and more efficiently, to achieve healthier soils.”
She is also concerned that the climate science to support national and local climate change adaptation planning is much less certain than that which informs long-term global scale targets. “CIMMYT has an invaluable role with its global and strategic research mandate to develop technologies that will raise productivity and resource use efficiency in future, warmer climates,” Stirling asserted.
“Local climate predictions are likely to remain uncertain and adapting to current climate variability may not be enough for long-term adaptation in many places, with the surprises that may be in store,” Stirling added.
“International organizations such as CIMMYT need to offer stress-tolerant, high-yielding germplasm and sustainable management systems, as well as harnessing big data and digitization, to transform adaptation to deal with future, more extreme climates. Finally, future farmers will need to get the most out of good conditions and good years because, the way things are headed, there may be little hope for coping in bad years.”
Read about research by Stirling and colleagues:
Click here to read “Tek B. Sapkota, Jeetendra P. Aryal, Arun Khatri-Chhetri, Paresh B. Shirsath, Ponraj Arumugam, and Clare M. Stirling. 2017. Identifying high-yield low-emission pathways for the cereal production in South Asia.Mitig Adapt Strateg Glob Change DOI 10.1007/s11027-017-9752-1.
Speakers on panel “How Can CRISPR-Cas Technology Assist Small Holder Farmers Around the World?” at 2017 Borlaug Dialogue in Des Moines Iowa. L-R: Kevin Pixley, leader of Seeds of Discovery and the Genetic Resources Program at CIMMYT; Feng Zhang, core member of Broad Institute; Neal Gutterson, member of CIMMYT’s board of trustees and vice president of research and development at DuPont Pioneer, in DowDuPont agriculture division; Nigel Taylor, interim director, Institute for International Crop Improvement, Donald Danforth Plant Science Center. Picture credit: World Food Prize
DES MOINES, Iowa (CIMMYT) – Gene editing technology could revolutionize the way scientists breed high-yielding drought, disease and pest resistant, quality plant seeds, greatly reducing the time it currently takes to develop new varieties, said a panel of expert scientists at the Borlaug Dialogue conference in Des Moines, Iowa.
Using CRISPR-Cas9 to select or suppress desired traits in a genome is almost as simple as editing a Microsoft Word document on a computer, said Feng Zhang, the originator of the technology who is a core member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard.
To edit genes, a protein called Cas9 is programmed to create an RNA search string, which can search and edit paired DNA to alter a genome to achieve desired effects in plants, Zheng said.
“There’s a lot of exciting opportunity to apply this technology in both human health and in agriculture,” he said.
Although the gene editing process itself is extremely fast, it will likely be several years before the benefits of the process for smallholder farmers begin to be realized, said Kevin Pixley, who leads the Seeds of Discovery project and the Genetic Resources Program at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).
CIMMYT scientists aim to use the breakthrough technology to help smallholder farmers in the developing world address food security, nutrition shortcomings and economic threats to their livelihoods caused by climate change, pests and disease. Additionally, they see the potential to reduce the use of pesticides, and to boost nutrition through bio-fortification of crops.
“We want sustainable agriculture that provides food and nutrition security for all, while enabling biodiversity conservation,” Pixley said. “CRISPR-Cas9 is an affordable technology that can help us close the technology gap between the resource rich and resource poor farmers of the world.”
CRISPR-Cas9 improved varieties could also reduce the risk of investing in fertilizers, grain storage or other technologies, thereby contributing to “double benefits” for smallholder farmers, Pixley said.
Poverty alleviation and improved livelihoods for farmers are part of the shared vision for CIMMYT and our research partners, and we see CRISPR-Cas9 as a technology that can make a significant contribution to achieving this aim, he added.
DELIVERING BENEFITS
“We think about this as being about bringing abundant potential to agriculture through this technology,” said Neal Gutterson, a member of CIMMYT’s board of trustees and vice president of research and development at DuPont Pioneer, part of the agriculture division at DowDuPont.
“For us, it’s part of the evolution of breeding systems, it’s targeted breeding that’s enabled by CRISPR-Cas9 technology,” he said, describing joint research projects with CIMMYT and the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center.
Currently, CIMMYT and DuPont Pioneer are researching the benefits of using CRISPR-Cas9 to combat maize lethal necrosis (MLN) disease in East Africa. MLN is caused by a combination of two viruses, which can only be treated by developing genetic resistance in the plant.
“We can ultimately accelerate the delivery of improved products that are really highly performing, high yielding, and also resistant to that viral disease,” Gutterson said, explaining how the technology would benefit smallholders. “Should the disease spread outside of Africa we’ll be poised to deliver solutions even faster.”
DuPont Pioneer and the Broad Institute have signed an agreement to allow universities and non-profit organizations to use the technology for agricultural research and product development.
The joint licensing relationship opens up democratic access to CRISPR-Cas9 for agriculture, Gutterson said, adding that research collaborations with CIMMYT and Donald Danforth Plant Science Center will facilitate access to the technology in the developing world, enriching the livelihoods of farmers.
The technology will also benefit non-commodity crops, known as “orphan crops,” said Nigel Taylor, interim director of the Institute for International Crop Improvement at Donald Danforth Plant Science Center.
“The exciting thing about them is that they have huge potential because they have not undergone the improvement maize or rice have gone through,” Taylor said.
Donald Danforth and DuPont Pioneer are conducting joint research using CRISPR Cas9 into cassava brown streak virus disease, which is projected to spread from East Africa to Nigeria, the largest producer of cassava in the world.
“We edited two of the genes, which means the virus cannot replicate properly in the plant,” Taylor said. “We’re seeing the viral load is completely reduced.”
Taylor also said he would like to develop improved varieties of teff, which is widely grown in Ethiopia and Eritrea, where the seeds are used to make the food staple “injera,” a sourdough flatbread.
REGULATORY FRAMEWORK
To ensure access to the technology, consumers, farmers and scientists in Africa must be involved, and questions about how new crops are regulated must be addressed, the scientists agreed.
“We must engage in regulatory work with stakeholders,” Taylor said. “African research centers and others around the world must be part of this conversation right now – communication and education about new technologies are essential.”
If scientists use CRISPR-Cas9 to rapidly convert popular varieties from, for example, MLN-susceptible to MLN-resistant, they will make a lasting contribution to farmer livelihoods in Africa, Pixley said.
“However, we can’t yet assume that the benefits of these technologies will reach smallholder farmers,” he said.
“Public opinion is largely unformed because few people know about CRISPR-Cas9, and since the regulatory framework is largely undefined, we have a great opportunity to help form it in a way to make the benefits of these technologies available to smallholder farmers.”
We need to begin by recognizing and respecting the sovereignty of every country to decide if, when and how they are going to use this technology, he added.
I think we have a great responsibility to provide accurate, complete and trustworthy information to the public as we bring this technology into the public domain and to the regulatory process, he said.
“We know that it’s not going to be a magic bullet because no technology is, but we also think that it’s unethical to dismiss any technology without responsibly considering its possible contributions,” Pixley said.
The Borlaug Dialogue conference is held each year in Des Moines to coincide with World Food Prize celebrations. This year delegates feted the 2017 laureate Akinwumi Adesina, president of the African Development Bank, thematically focused on “The Road out of Poverty.”
Progressive farmer sharing experience of using CSAPs and yielding higher gains. Photo: CIMMYT.
SAMBALI, India (CIMMYT) – In the 1960s, India became the center of the Green Revolution by adopting high-yielding crop varieties and new technologies and practices that staved off famine for millions.
Today, India needs a new Green Revolution.
The country’s combination of high greenhouse gas emissions, vulnerability to climate change and pressure to feed nearly 2 billion people by 2050 is driving farmers to find ways to grow more food in harsher environments.
Climate-smart agriculture is a new approach to farming that combines adaptation options that sustainably increase productivity, enhance resilience to climatic stresses and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This option is becoming increasingly popular among smallholder farmers, who make up nearly 80 percent of India’s farmers and produce more than 40 percent of its food.
Harynana is a north-western state in India, and part of the Indo-Gangetic Plain, which covers an area of over 2.5 million square kilometers and feeds 500 million people. The village of Sambali, in Haryana, is one of the first communities in India to officially become “climate-smart” as part of the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security project (CCAFS), which is helping smallholder farmers globally find practical adaptation options to improve food security and resilience to climate change effects like drought, flooding and other extreme weather events.
In Sambali, more than 60 percent of the population depends on agriculture for their livelihoods. For over 50 years, farmers from the village have worked with Indian Council of Agricultural Research-Central Soil Salinity Research Institute (ICAR-CSSRI), this long-term knowledge exchange and exposure has resulted in 45 percent of the farming community practicing climate smart farming.
However, residue burning – the burning of excess residue on fields after a crop is harvested, as a means to clear the area to plant the next crop – remains a common practice in highly cultivated regions in India. Sambali becoming a residue-burning free village is setting an example of a model village contributing towards a healthier environment.
Besides triggering costly respiratory ailments in humans and animals in farm regions and urban centers, burning rice residues has negative agricultural implications. For example, residue burning depletes soil nutrients, with estimated yearly losses in Punjab alone of 3.9 million tons of organic carbon, 59,000 tons of nitrogen, 20,000 tons of phosphorus and 34,000 tons of potassium, according to M.L. Jat, a principal scientist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), who leads CIMMYT’s contributions to CCAFS’ climate-smart villages in South Asia.
In response, a CIMMYT-CCAFS campaign was recently organized in Sambali to eliminate residue burning and combat its harmful effects to the environment, soil and human health.
It is advisable to have one percent organic matter in soil to assist conservation and increase productivity. According to Sunil Mann, the State Development Officer of the Department of Agriculture in Haryana, there has been a decline in organic matter in this region due to burning from one percent to less than half of one percent, highlighting a significant threat to soil health and productivity. The challenges of burning are exacerbated by the risk of areas turning into ‘dark zones,’ areas where groundwater has been over-exploited, due to the declining water table.
Hanuman Sahay Jat, a Scientist at CIMMYT, expressed concerns about the amount of chemicals released while burning crop residue and emphasized the need to stop this practice and adopt residue and nutrient management strategies. One way to achieve this is by using technologies like the GreenSeeker, a compact sensor that quickly assesses crop vigor and calculates optimal fertilizer dosages, to reduce dependency on chemical fertilizers and improve soil health.
Climate Smart Van launched to widespread knowledge and adoption. Photo: CIMMYT.
M.L. Jat also highlighted the need for all stakeholders to do cost-benefit analyses before adopting new technologies. Farmers should ensure that profits will be worth investments in new technologies and researchers should ensure the efficiency and environmental impact of new technologies. For example in Basmati rice growing areas, zero-till machines, which help farmers plant new seeds directly in the residue of their previous crop’s harvest, are half the cost of the traditionally used “turbo happy seeder,” saving farmers money.
A positive result from Sambali will gain political attention and is likely to contribute to the development of new policies favoring climate-smart agriculture and their efficient utilization.
A “Climate Smart Van” was also launched during the campaign, which will drive through villages to spread knowledge, garner support and clarify the aspects of climate smart agriculture.
Sambali and other villages are taking steps towards integrated farming, with stakeholders’ engagement focusing sustainable development and scaling climate-smart agriculture practices while including women in decision making and engaging youth with profit-making opportunities.
DES MOINES, Iowa (CIMMYT) – A scientist whose work is projected to significantly increase wheat production for smallholder farmers around the world has won the 2017 Ted Crosbie MBBISP Impact Award presented by Monsanto.
Bhoja Raj Basnet, who heads a hybrid wheat-breeding program at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), received the award on the sidelines of World Food Prize celebrations in Des Moines, Iowa.
Basnet was recognized as the former recipient of Monsanto’s Beachell-Borlaug International Scholars Program (MBBISP) whose work since graduation has developed beyond his academic experience. The program provided support for his doctoral studies at Texas A&M University.
“He received the award for the impact his work has had and will continue to have on smallholder farmers,” said Bonnie Finger, Jen Jacobs and Stella Salvo, the Monsanto team that liaises with Ed Runge, director of the scholars program at Texas A&M University.
“Monsanto truly wants to improve lives through better harvests, and the aim of this award was to improve the lives of smallholder farmers,” Finger said. “Dr. Basnet’s work on hybrid wheat has the potential to make a huge impact.”
Runge tracks the progress of Beachell-Borlaug alumni and led the judging panel, which was comprised of world-renowned scientists and World Food Prize laureates, with Finger, Jacobs and Salvo. Since 2008, 89 scholars have received $13 million in funding through the program.
Basnet, who grew up on a one-acre subsistence farm in southeastern Nepal, studied plant breeding at Texas A&M University, receiving the Beachell-Borlaug scholarship in 2009 and graduating with a doctoral degree in 2012.
Since 2014, Basnet has led CIMMYT’s research to develop tools and technology to produce commercially viable hybrid wheat varieties, which could lead to a 15 to 20 percent improvement in yield potential.
Hybrid wheat is created by intentionally crossbreeding two genetically distinct wheat lines to produce offspring that combine the best traits of the parents, a process that can take many years. Traits are chosen to achieve such characteristics as increased grain yield, heat, drought or stress tolerance.
“I’m thrilled to receive the award,” Basnet said. “I’m truly honored that my team’s work, which has massive potential to increase wheat production globally, has been recognized in this way. It’s so encouraging to receive support for our project and my work since graduation.”
The award honors the memory of Ted Crosbie, former vice president of Global Plant Breeding and leader of Integrated Farming Systems for Monsanto, an agrochemical and agricultural biotechnology company, as well as Iowa’s chief technology officer, who died at age 65 in 2016.
In Nepal, collective action helps improve farmers’ incomes. Photo: CIMMYT.
EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) – A new study examines the role of collective resource management in conflict.
Climate-induced migration can spur competition for resources such as cropland and freshwater, and stress or undermine existing social institutions according to the authors of the new study. The food security crisis and international ‘land grabs’ have drawn renewed attention to the role of natural resource competition in the livelihoods of the rural poor.
The study focuses on how collective action in natural resource competition can strengthen social-ecological resilience and mitigate conflict.
The scientists identified three action recommendations: using policy interventions to promote collectively managed natural resources, support natural resource management institutions to expand their ability to support collective action in response to competition and increase measures to affect the action arena by shifting incentives toward cooperative resolutions of resource conflicts and enhancing conflict resolution processes.
The authors note that stakeholders cannot write collective action into existence, but that collective natural resource management under effective guidance has been an effective peacebuilding mechanism.
Addressing conflict through collective action in natural resource management. Ratner, B.D.; Meinzen-Dick, R.; Hellin, Jon; Mapedza, E.; Unruh, E.; Veening, W.; Haglund, E.; May, C.; Bruch, C.. International Journal of the Commons 11 (2): 877-906. DOI: http://doi.org/10.18352/ijc.768Netherlands. Uopen Journals.
Land use and agricultural change dynamics in SAT watersheds of southern India. Ahmed, I.M., Murali Krishna Gumma, Shalander Kumar, Craufurd, P., Rafi, I.M., Amare Haileslassie, In: Current Science, vol. 110, no. 9, p. 1704-1709.
Linkages and interactions analysis of major effect drought grain yield QTLs in rice. Vikram, P., Mallikarjuna Swamy, B.P., Dixit, S., Trinidad, J., Sta Cruz, T., Maturan, P.C., Amante, M., Arvind Kumar, In: PLoS One, vol. 11, no. 3: e0151532.
Long term effect of conservation agriculture in maize rotations on total organic carbon, physical and biological properties of a sandy loam soil in north-western Indo-Gangetic Plains. Parihar, C.M., Yadav, M.R., Jat, S.L., Singh, A.K., Kumar, B., Pradhan, S., Chakraborty, D., Jat, M.L., Jat, R.K., Saharawat, Y.S., Yadav, O.P. In: Soil and Tillage Research, vol.161, p.116-128.
Maize maintains growth in response to decreased nitrate supply through a highly dynamic and developmental stage-specific transcriptional response. Plett, D., Baumann, U., Schreiber, A.W., Holtham, L., Kalashyan, E., Toubia, J., Nau, J., Beatty, M., Rafalski, A., Dhugga, K., Tester, M,. Garnett, T., Kaiser, B.N. In: Plant biotechnology journal, vol.14, no.1, p.342-353.
Mapping of spot blotch disease resistance using NDVI as a substitute to visual observation in wheat (Triticum aestivum L.). Suneel Kumar, Roder, M.S., Singh, R.P., Kumar, S., Ramesh Chand, Joshi, A.K., Kumar, U. In: Molecular Breeding, vol.36, no.95, p.1-11.
Independent introductions and admixtures have contributed to adaptation of European maize and its American counterparts. Brandenburg, J.T., Tristan Mary-Huard, Rigaill, G., Hearne, S., Corti, H., Joets, J., Vitte, C., Charcosset, A., Nicolas, S.D., Tenaillon, M.I. In: PLoS Genetics, v.13, no.3: e1006666.
Maximizing maize quality, productivity and profitability through a combined use of compost and nitrogen fertilizer in a semi-arid environment in Pakistan. Iqbal, S., Thierfelder, C., Zaman Khan, H., Hafiz Muhammad Rashad Javeed, Muhammad Arif, Muhammad Shehzad. In: Nutrient Cycling in Agroecosystems, v. 107, p. 197-213.
Modeling preference and willingness to pay for Drought Tolerance (DT) in maize in rural Zimbabwe. Kassie, G., Awudu Abdulai, Greene, W.H., Shiferaw, B., Tsedeke Abate, Amsal Tesfaye, Tarekegne Sutcliffe, C. In: World Development, v. 94, p. 465-477.
Nitrogen transformations in modern agriculture and the role of biological nitrification inhibition. Coskun, D., Britto, D.T., Weiming Shi, Kronzucker, H.J. In: Nature Scientific reports, v. 3, no. 17074, p. 1-10.
Occurrence of wheat blast in Bangladesh and its implications for South Asian wheat production. Chowdhury, A.K., Mahender Singh Saharan, Aggrawal, R., Malaker, P.K., Barma, N.C.D., Tiwari, T.P., Duveiller, E., Singh, P.K., Srivastava, A., Sonder, K., Singh, R.P., Braun, H.J., Joshi, A.K. In: Indian Journal of Genetics and Plant Breeding, vol. 77, no. 1, p. 1-9.
MEXICO CITY (CIMMYT) – A new book from Columbia University Press offers social sector organizations a how-to guide on applying new and creative methods to solve complex problems.
Design Thinking for the Greater Good tells 10 stories of the struggles and successes of organizations from across the world working in industries from healthcare to agriculture that have applied design thinking, a human-centered approach to problem solving, in order to truly understand the problems they wanted to solve, generate testable ideas and develop solutions for vulnerable groups who actually adopted them.
“Our path into the world of design thinking came originally through the for-profit world,” says Jeanne Liedtka, a professor at the University of Virginia Darden School of Business and co-author of the book, during her online course offered through Coursera. “For almost a decade now, we’ve been studying design thinking as a methodology for improving business innovation and growth and examining its successful use in global corporations like IBM, Toyota and 3M.”
According to Liedtka, design methods are even more powerful in the social sector, since these organizations have to frequently navigate complex bureaucracies, work with limited resources and juggle a large range of stakeholder expectations, among other challenges.
MasAgro is also cited as a textbook example of how to develop new practices and technologies by building on traditional knowledge through innovation networks, or “hubs,” which are able to “cut through communication barriers, allowing MasAgro and the farmers to combine the old and the new into best practices that serve local farmers and communities,” according to the authors.
The authors conclude that MasAgro made innovation safe by relying on respected community leaders and innovation networks that develop, test and adapt agricultural methods and innovations that visibly outperform alternative agricultural practices.
“MasAgro has been acknowledged as an innovation in the social sector by design thinking experts because risk averse smallholder farmers in Mexico, whose annual income depends on one agricultural cycle determined by nature, have embraced new sustainable farming practices to improve their livelihoods,” said Bram Govaerts, CIMMYT’s regional representative for the Americas.
Purchase Design Thinking for the Greater Good at Columbia University Press here and check out Jeanne Liedtka’s online course here.
MasAgro is a research for rural development project that promotes the sustainable intensification of maize and wheat production in Mexico, supported by SAGARPA and CIMMYT. Learn more about the project here.
Farmer Kausila Chanara direct dry seeding rice in Ramghat, Surkhet, Nepal. Photo: P.Lowe/CIMMYT
KATHMANDU, Nepal (CIMMYT) — Nepal will benefit from a new project that will strengthen the country’s seed and fertilizer sectors, boost farmer income and increase the country’s food security through 2021.
More than 70 percent of Nepal’s population works in agriculture, yet a profound lack of resources, infrastructure and networks have weakened rural economies, increased urban and international migration and strained the ability of families to avoid malnutrition. Two out of every three Nepalese suffer from food insecurity at some time during the year and the prevalence of stunting is nearly 40 percent.
“With right seeds, resources and practices Nepalese farmers could produce 50 percent more food on their land, enough to not only eliminate domestic food insecurity but even become a food surplus country,” said Dyutiman Choudhary, coordinator and market development specialist for the five-year Nepal Seed and Fertilizer project (NSAF).
Research has shown the better application of fertilizer and planting improved hybrid seeds are the two most impactful steps Nepalese maize farmers can take to boost income and grain yields in their fields. Adopting just these two practices can increase grain yields 1.8 and 1.4 tons per hectare, respectively.
Launched on August 1, NSAF will build competitive and vibrant seed and fertilizer systems that significantly expand seed production, marketing and distribution by enhancing the capacity and role of public, private and community sectors in seed and fertilizer value chains. It is funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and led by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) in collaboration with the Ministry of Agricultural Development (MOAD) and private sector.
During an event for the project’s launch in Kathmandu, Choudhary presented an overview of the project’s overarching strategy and key approaches being implemented to increase adoption of quality seed and integrated soil fertility management technologies for more than 100,000 smallholder farmers in 25 of Nepal’s 75 districts.
MOAD Secretary and Program Chair Suroj Pokharel and Deputy Chief of Mission to the United States Embassy in Nepal Michael C. Gonzales also acknowledged the contribution of robust agriculture projects that support the Government of Nepal’s Agriculture Development Strategy through the promotion of innovations in digital technology and market research development to improve farming practices. Other event invitees included government representatives, the U.S Embassy, USAID, partner organizations, local media, project beneficiaries and other private stakeholders.
Learn more about the Nepal Seed and Fertilizer project (NSAF) through this infographic and fact sheet from the U.S. government’s Feed the Future initiative.
DES MOINES, Iowa (CIMMYT) – A scientist whose work is projected to significantly increase wheat production for smallholder farmers around the world has won the 2017 Ted Crosbie MBBISP Impact Award presented by Monsanto.
Runge tracks the progress of Beachell-Borlaug alumni and led the judging panel, which was comprised of world-renowned scientists and World Food Prize laureates, with Finger, Jacobs and Salvo. Since 2008, 89 scholars have received $13 million in funding through the program.
One of the 10 stories in the book shows how the 