From 23 â 26 August, 2015, CIMMYTâs Director General Martin Kropff visited Pakistan to attend the Agricultural Innovation Programâs (AIP) annual conference in Islamabad. Following the conference Kropff met with the CIMMYT team to talk about his observations, suggestions and way forward for continued impact in Pakistan.
Q: Is there room for improvement in the agricultural sector in Pakistan?
A: With an average wheat yield of nearly three tons per hectare, Pakistanâs agricultural sector is in a good position but there are still many opportunities to grow. As highlighted by the Federal Minister for National Food Security and Research, Sikandar Hayat Khan Bosan, technologies such as precision agriculture and hand-held technologies for soil testing, to increase yields present new opportunities. Many farmersâ I met at this yearâs AIP conference are not using these improved technologies, and AIP can help ensure they have access.
Q: What is the role of public-private partnerships in agricultural development?
Kropff talking to CIMMYT-Pakistan team. Photo: Awais Yaqub/ CIMMYT
A: The private sector is essential for scaling up new technologies. CIMMYT, United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and heads of international and national companies in Pakistan and other AIP partners are discussing opportunities for future collaborations. This wonât be just a project on maize or wheat â but a full systems approach incorporating the entire value chain.
Q: How can we improve the seed industryâs capacity?
A: When I was Director at Wageningen University, we established an African Agribusiness Academy. Ambassadors from the university would organize groups of young entrepreneurs from across Africa to innovate and learn from our scientists, and vice versa. This type of partnership and co-learning could help AIP improve the industry and farmersâ lives as well as build relationships with the private sector.
Q: What has been your experience with Pakistani scientists and how can they continue to grow?
CIMMYT-Pakistan team photo with CIMMYT Director General Martin Kropff and former CIMMYT Director General Thomas Lumpkin (front row, fourth and fifth from the left, respectively). Photo: Awais Yaqub/ CIMMYT
A: Pakistani CIMMYT scientists are at a really good level. At CIMMYT we are not just conducting research but also applying it in the field, and we need to keep innovating with Pakistanâs national centers and scientists. We also need to continue training and mentoring Pakistanâs future scientists â students from national universities that are an incredible asset to future development.
A smallholder farmer in Embu, Kenya prepares a maize plot for planting. CIMMYT/file
EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) — Farmer education programs that fail to address traditional gender roles may sideline women, limiting their use of conservation agriculture techniques, which can boost their ability to adapt to climate change, a new research paper states.
Conservation agriculture involves minimal soil disturbance, permanent soil cover and the use of crop rotation to simultaneously maintain and boost yields, increase profits and protect the environment. It contributes to improved soil function and quality, which can improve resilience to climate variability.
Although some scientists believe that such techniques have the potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and increase carbon sequestration, which can help mitigate the impact of global warming, it is important to note that the potential benefits of certain aspects of conservation agriculture — particularly not tilling the soil — have been overstated, write the authors of the study from the International Center for Maize and Wheat Improvement (CIMMYT) and the Research Program on Climate Change Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS).
Titled âGender and conservation agriculture in east and southern Africa: towards a research agenda,â the paper discusses the lack of research conducted into interactions between conservation agriculture use and gender. It proposes a research agenda that will better understand how African farming systems remain strongly stratified by gender.
Despite an increase of women smallholder farmers throughout sub-Saharan Africa â one of the most vulnerable regions to climate change worldwide â agricultural service suppliers and policymakers remain âlocked into the conceptual norm of the primary farmer as male,â said co-author Clare Stirling, a senior scientist in the Sustainable Intensification Program at CIMMYT.
âThe ability of women-led households, or male-headed households with women as primary farmers, to adopt conservation agriculture may be compromised if government policies, extension systems and other actors continue to design interventions and target information and training around the conceptual norm of the male-headed household,â Stirling said, adding that a gender-sensitive approach should become part of mainstream research.
âOverall, normative conceptualizations of âfarmersâ can result in inappropriate targeting and ineffective messaging,â she said.
There is almost no understanding of how gender relations in smallholder agriculture â particularly with regard to decision-making over technology adoption, roles and responsibilities for specific farm tasks â may influence the likelihood of adopting conservation agriculture techniques, the paper states.
The costs and benefits of conservation agriculture adoption to women themselves — in terms of income, labor deployment, contributions to food and nutrition security and relative decision making power at household and community level, remain largely unknown.
In sub-Saharan Africa, about 30 percent of the population is undernourished, and the area has the highest projections for population growth by 2050, the paper states, adding that a projected 2 degree temperature increase related to global warming is likely to be accompanied by reduced rainfall and increased variability of weather patterns.
These factors will put pressure on agricultural systems that are largely small scale, low input, rain fed and already struggling to feed the population, according to the report. Cereal yields in the region are low and stagnant, averaging 1.3 tons per hectare, compared with 3 tons per hectare in the developing world overall.
Women and men typically take on distinctive, sex-segregated roles, responsibilities and tasks in agricultural production systems. While men and women may have different rights and responsibilities for different crops and livestock products, women are typically responsible for household tasks and caring roles.
âWomen more than men are involved in a zero sum game, a closed system in which time or energy devoted to any new effort must be diverted from another activity,â the report states. Access to land, which in many sub-Saharan African countries is managed under customary law, or a patchwork of statutory and customary laws â is also complex and under-researched in terms of understanding the associations between gender, decisions about land management and the willingness of farmers to engage in conservation agriculture or indeed any new intervention that involves a delay in returns, according to the paper.
To build an adequate strategy for marketing basic grains that includes incorporating small- and medium-scale farmers into the market, it is important to consider aspects such as sustainable production and farm organization and the information farmers may have on these subjects. But how can we help farmers organize themselves, plan their work, determine their group requirements, and access timely information for strategic decision making? How much additional value does a supplier or group of suppliers that are efficient, sustainable, and reliable bring to agro-industries or other grain buyers? To answer these and other questions, the MasAgro program organized its first forum on grain marketing titled âTowards Inclusive and Sustainable Grain Marketingâ at CIMMYT headquarters on 9 November.
VĂctor LĂłpez Saavedra, leader of MasAgro Productor, welcomed the participants and highlighted the impacts that the MasAgro initiative has had up to now in Mexican farmersâ fields. He also said that the concept of inclusive and sustainable commercial relations is at the core of MasAgroâs interventions in the area of marketing. The event included three panels that provided a space for representatives of the different sectors involved in maize production systems and grain marketing to exchange knowledge and experiences.
The first panel titled âStrategies for improving farmersâ market linkagesâ was led by MarĂa del Pilar Alcacio, SDAyR Guanajuato; Mayte Reyes, Consultative Group on Agricultural Marketing -GCMA; and Marco Antonio Cabello, FIRA. This panel discussed adequate strategies for fostering and strengthening the associations among farmers, factors that help them use contract agriculture schemes, as well as the best mechanisms for doing so.
The second panel, âMarket opportunities for grain production systems based on sustainable production intensification,â highlighted the advantages of sustainable production and smart information access and use as ways of linking farmers to markets. Adolfo Ruiz, agricultural operations manager at PepsiCo, and Greta Villaseñor, executive director of the Business Council of the Maize Industry and Derivatives, talked about the concrete opportunities that their businesses provide for including small- and medium-scale farmers in their supply chains. Other panel participants were Vinicio Montiel, producer from the Farmer Association of RĂo Fuerte Sur-AARFS AC, and Roberto RendĂłn, academic from the University of Chapingo-CIESTAAM.
The third panel presented cases of farmers who had successfully linked up with markets. Invited farmers shared their experiences and marketing organization strategies, as well as the challenges they faced when seeking new marketing channels. Farmers who took part in this panel were Enrique AbadĂa, from the Innovative Farmers Group of Espinal, state of Morelos; Marcelino VĂĄzquez RamĂrez, lead farmer of Agro-productores Dobladenses SPR, and Urbano Godoy, barley producer from the state of Hidalgo. The panel discussion was closed by Amado RamĂrez Leyva from ItanonĂ, who described how native maize landraces can become market niches.
To wrap up the event, Bram Govaerts, leader of Sustainable Intensification for Latin America, summarized the conclusions reached, which were regarded as recommendations to follow. It was agreed that since adoption of sustainable technologies directly affects the quality and competitiveness of farm production, it is absolutely essential to promote it. The need to strengthen the association among farmers and stimulate their market linkages, and to focus more public and private resources on improving the impact on key actors was mentioned. It was also noted that although large-scale marketing is necessary, it is not the only possible solution: local marketing can also be a desirable and successful strategy.
It is expected that concrete tools that foster environments that favor incorporating farmers into the market and establishing more inclusive and sustainable linkages will continue to be disseminated through this type of fora. This first forum was a definite step towards achieving this goal.
NAIROBI, Kenya (CIMMYT) â As the global community marks World Soil Day, African smallholder farmers are contending with low yields due to low-fertility soils prevalent in most parts of sub-Saharan Africa. This situation has affected the food security of over 300 million people in the region who depend on maize as their staple food.
For the majority of these smallholder farmers, access to inputs like fertilizers to boost soil productivity has been restricted due to their high cost. The reality is that in Africa fertilizers cost up to six times more than in any other continent.
As a result, nearly three quarters (about 70 percent) of eastern and southern Africaâs maize is grown without fertilizers. As the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and partners work to give farmers a partial solution to this enor
mous challenge, efforts must be intensified to protect and maintain soil resources for sustainable development in Africa and the globe.
The Improved Maize for African Soils (IMAS) Project addresses the problem of low nitrogen in soils. Smallholder farmers can expect to harvest up to 25 percent more from new maize varieties developed by the IMAS project.
These varieties are nitrogen use efficient (NUE), which means they utilize more efficiently the small amount of fertilizer that farmers can afford to apply (typically less than 20 kilograms per hectare) compared to varieties currently on the market. The IMAS project is a public-private partnership involving CIMMYT, the Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization, South Africaâs Agricultural Research Council and DuPont Pioneer.
In two years â between 2014 and 2015 â 21 NUE hybrids were successfully released in Tanzania, Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, Uganda and Zimbabwe. In addition, IMAS helped to increase seed production and distribution of three existing NUE varieties. According to Michael Olsen, IMAS Project Leader, these varieties are expected to reach approximately 84,000 farmers.
âGiving smallholder farmers practical solutions within their environmental conditions is a sustainable means to not only preserve soil resources but address key challenges in maize farming, which is a major livelihood for millions in Africa,â Olsen said.
Many of the released NUE hybrids carry additional traits that are important in the region, such as tolerance to drought and maize lethal necrosis, a devastating viral disease that is new in the region. Donasiana Limo, a farmer from Olkalili village in northern Tanzania, attests to the good performance of HB513, a drought-tolerant and NUE variety he planted during the main cropping season between January and March 2015.
âI did not do much to prepare my land because the rains came very late and ended early. With no fertilizer and failed rains, I did not expect to harvest the seven bags of 50 kilograms from eight kilograms of HB513 seed,â Donasiana said.
âIf I had time to prepare my land and added fertilizer, the harvest would have been so much more.â
Many more farmers from this remote village have benefited immensely from HB513, including Valeria Pantaleo.
Sustainable solutions for African farmers need to be addressed during World Soil Day deliberations. Efforts to facilitate smallholdersâ access to inputs like fertilizers are critical. In addition, to help arrest further soil deterioration emphasis must be placed on adopting correct agronomic practices and appropriate crop varieties available on the market that are well suited to different soil management systems.
Policymakers must formulate strategies for adopting universal practices that maintain soil resources and are adapted to farming environments across Africa. Kenya has already set the pace for maize breeding in Africa by including performance in low-nitrogen soils as a special prerequisite for maize variety release, a step that will help enhance healthy soils in Africa if adopted by other regulatory agencies.
Social inclusion activities were conducted with Mayan children. Photo: Rachael Cox and Nadia Rivera/Buena Milpa.
Buena Milpa is the Sustainable Intensification Strategy for Latin America promoted by CIMMYT in Guatemala. It aims to foster innovation to reduce poverty and malnutrition, and enhance the sustainability of maize systems in the Guatemalan highlands.
Recently the Buena Milpa Project took an active role in the XX Lamb and VII Agrobiodiversity Fairs held in the Cuchumatanes Sierra, Chiantla, Huehuetenango, Guatemala, which brought together different social organizations and inhabitants from several departments (states) in the countryâs western region.
Each year, the Association of Cuchumatan Organizations (ASOCUCH), Buena Milpaâs social institution, holds agrobiodiversity fairs where farmers exhibit and exchange varieties of maize, potato, bean, yam, and other crops that they grow on their farms. The objective is to promote the protection and conservation of agricultural and livestock diversity (especially of native maize). During the event, there were tables with displays on themes such as agrobiodiversity to support food security, climate change, and the environment.
During the fair, Buena Milpa made presentations on the work being done in the western region, where the general objective is to foster innovation to reduce poverty and malnutrition, while enhancing the sustainability of maize systems. Maize fields there are diversified by sowing amaranth, which is an important component of the regionâs human diet. Amaranth tastings were held to emphasize that itâs also important to consume it. Informative materials were distributed and the participants were made aware of the importance of conserving and protecting native maize, in the Mayasâ native tongues (mam and poptiâ).
Participants are happy that the diversity of their native maize is being conserved. Photo: Rachael Cox and Nadia Rivera/Buena Milpa.
The Buena Milpa team also provided a space where girls and boys of different ages could take part in learning exercises with seeds of maize and other crops in order to teach them to protect and conserve nature and the native maize varieties. The reason for holding these activities for girls and boys was to allow the women to participate actively in the events. The social and economic reality of rural native women is complex, and they have no one to look after their children. For this reason, they are forced to take them along to these events, where they cannot pay full attention to the presentations because they are keeping an eye on their children.
These CIMMYT-led activities raised awareness among the regionâs inhabitants of the importance of conserving and protecting native maize, adopting crop diversification, and conserving soil and water as a vital part of sustainable native farming in Guatemalaâs highlands. The participants were also made aware of the value of women as agents of change, as well as the importance of fostering love for nature and protection of native seeds in young children.
Valeria and her daughters and part of their bountiful maize harvest from ângamiaâ seed. B. Wawa/CIMMYT
About her last maize harvest in August 2015, Valeria Pantaleo, a 47-year-old wife and mother of four from Olkalili village, northern Tanzania, waxes lyrical: âI finally managed to buy a calf to replace my two oxen that died at the beginning of the year due to a strange disease.â Valeria relies on the oxen to plow her two-acre land.
Valeria beams as she looks at her newly acquired calf. From her joy, one would be forgiven for assuming that the village enjoyed a good season. More so since Valeria had a handsome harvest that gave her a surplus four 50-kilogram bags of maize which she sold to buy the calf.
But nothing could be further from the truth. Farmers from her village suffered from exceptionally low rains during the main planting season in JanuaryâFebruary 2015. To make matters worse, the rains were very late and poorly distributed. And as Olkalili is semi-arid, scanty rains are the biggest challenge for farming. âThe rains came in late February, fell for just one day and only came back towards end of March for a few days,â laments Valeria.
For this reason, many farmers did not anticipate any substantial harvest even from an improved new maize variety â HB513 â introduced to them by Anthony Mwega, a community leader. The variety is locally known as ngamia, Kiswahili for âcamelâ, a testimonial moniker coined by ngamia suppliers, Meru Agro Tours and Consultant Limited, to symbolize the varietyâs proven resilience during drought, compared to other varieties.
A boon in drought
âWe heard about this new seed from Mwega who also sells hybrid seeds. But since it was my first time to use it, and given that the rains were really low, I did not expect much,â explains Valeria. âThis of course was a big worry for me and my family,â she adds.
However, despite the patchy rains, Valeria managed to harvest 10 bags of 50 kilograms each from the one acre on which she planted 10 kilograms of HB513 seed â half of her farm. âI got so much harvest and yet I planted this seed very late, and with no fertilizer,â exclaims Valeria. What is special about HB513 seed is that it is both drought-tolerant and nitrogen-use efficient (see Kenya equivalent). So, compared to other varieties, it not only yields more during moderate drought, but also utilizes what little nitrogen there is in the soil more efficiently. HB513 is one of the 16 hybrid varieties developed for Tanzania by the Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa Project. Besides giving farmers the benefit of nearly 49 percent more grain during moderate drought, this hybrid seed offers them an opportunity to make best use of what little fertilizer they can afford to apply.
More enriching than just meat, and reaching more
For Valeria, it means that her family has enough maize to last them until February 2016. And a âmeatyâ more: at sowing and growing time, since Valeria did not anticipate such a good harvest given the devastation drought portends, she resolved to work extra-hard in her small grocery business to raise enough money for the calf. âEven then, it would have taken me at least nine months to raise enough money for the calf,â she recalls. âBut thanks to my unexpected bonus maize harvest, I got the calf within five months! This was such a huge relief and a blessing to me. Now I will have the much-needed help to plow my land in the next planting season.â
Through partnership with the Improved Maize for Africa Project, in 2015 alone, Meru Agro produced and sold 427 tons of ngamia seed. The result? Approximately 65,000 smallholder farmers across major maize-growing areas in northern, southern highland, central and northwest regions of Tanzania including Valeriaâs village have benefited from this variety. And the good news is that the plan is to reach even more farmers in the coming years with the âgospelâ of ngamia.
What is the bigger picture for Tanzanian maize farmers? Meru Agro has committed to increase production of ngamia seed in 2016. âWe foresee a much higher demand for ngamia because farmers are now more aware of this seed. Our plan is to produce more than 1,000 tons,â says Chacha Watanga, Meru Agro Managing Director.
Meru Agro will not be working alone. CIMMYT, through its Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa Seed Scaling (DTMASS) Project, will continue to partner with Meru Agro and other small- and medium-scale seed companies to increase production of improved maize varieties such as ngamia to reach 2.5 million people in seven target countries across eastern and southern Africa (Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia). âWithin its three-year lifespan, DTMASS will support production of about 12,000 metric tons of certified seed to reach smallholders who need this seed to overcome the big challenge of drought,â adds Tsedeke Abate, DTMASS Project Leader. Watch this space!
Further reading:
Scorecard as a marathon maize project winds up after eight years
Improved Maize for African Soils Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa
About Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa Seed Scaling
CIMMYT genetic resources phenotyping coordinator Martha Willcox (left) reviews some of the many improved maize varieties that are shipped around the world from Mexico each year. (Photo: CIMMYT)
On 19 November, CIMMYT hosted well-known food historian Rachel Laudan, who is currently conducting maize research and came to CIMMYT to interact with maize scientists to better understand the current state of maize in Mexico. Laudanâs website with links to her books, blog, and more may be found here. Read her recent article ‘A Plea for Culinary Modernism’ in Jacobin magazine here.
Martha Willcox (left) points out specific maize varieties being stored in the germplasm bank as author Rachel Laudan looks on. (Photo: CIMMYT)
Watch Rachel Laudan discuss maize and the changing status of food staples globally during her visit to CIMMYT here.
Woman farmer receiving wheat seed at the festival. Photo: Amina Nasim Khan
Farmers, students, scientists, and researchers showed keen interest in new agricultural technologies and practices offered by CIMMYT at the women farmersâ festival organized by Lok Sanjh Foundation at the National Agriculture Research Centre (NARC), Islamabad, Pakistan, on 11 November 2015.
At the festival, CIMMYT showcased high yielding wheat varieties that are resistant to rust, especially Ug99, as well as biofortified and normal yellow and white maize varieties, and information on conservation agriculture.
CIMMYT encourages farmers young and old, men and women, to grow their own wheat for a food secure world. As part of CIMMYTâs mandate to ensure food security, 2,500 smallholder farmers received seed of Faisalabad-08, Punjab-11, Pakistan-13, and NARC-11, wheat varieties that are resistant to rust, including Ug99, at the festival. Seerat Asghar, Federal Secretary, Ministry of National Food Security and Research, Imtiaz Muhammad, CIMMYT country representative, and Nazim Ali, USAID Pakistan representative, distributed the seed.
The team collected farmer information for future follow-up on the wheat varietiesâ performance and yield improvement. More than 60% of the recipients were women farmers from the Pothwar region of Punjab province, including Chakwal, Fateh Jang, Gujar Khan, and Rawalpindi, Mardan district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, and Islamabad.
Seed distribution ceremony during the women farmersâ festival. Photo: Amina Nasim Khan.
Belita Maleko, a farmer in Nkhotakota, central Malawi, sowed cowpea as an intercrop in one of her maize plots, grown under conservation agriculture principles. (Photo: T. Samson/CIMMYT)
The paper examines research to date on the interactions between conservation agriculture interventions – meaning minimal soil disturbance, permanent soil cover and crop rotation that can simultaneously boost yields, increase profits and protect the environment – and gender in East and Southern Africa and sets out a research agenda based on gaps observed. Given the increasing interest in conservation agriculture due to climate change impacts in the region, the authors also argue that greater attention to gender is needed in order to ensure successful interventions. The following Q&A with one of the studyâs authors, Clare Stirling, CIMMYT Senior Scientist with the Sustainable Intensification Program based in Wales, UK, details the studyâs findings and what is needed to ensure gender is included in future conservation agriculture interventions.
Q: How do conservation agriculture practices interact with gender?
A: There are many known and unknown ways in which conservation agriculture interacts with gender and the purpose of this paper is to review the evidence and identify gaps that exist. conservation agriculture is knowledge-intensive and can also be labor-intensive and, along with many soil improvement technologies, involves long-term investment with delayed returns. This clearly has important implications for women, as their ability to invest will depend on many factors such as entitlements, access to information, and their ability to act upon it.
If we take labor requirements as an example – many studies highlight labor shortages as a constraint to the adoption of conservation agriculture, particularly when zero tillage is not complemented by the application of herbicides. Without herbicide use, conservation agriculture techniques for land preparation increase weeding over and above plowing and ridging by as much as three times in maize production. In East and Southern Africa, this burden falls largely on women as weeding is largely a womanâs task. Studies conducted in several countries show that where (frequently subsidized) herbicides have been used, the release of women and children from weeding tasks results in multiple benefits, including more children attending school and more time for women to engage in income-generation activities.
Q: Why has gender been left out of many conservation agriculture studies to date?
A: I am not sure that this is a question that should be posed specifically in relation to conservation agriculture but could be asked of agronomic research in general. Things are improving, but I would suggest that the reason has been that gender is a challenging and complex issue that takes many of us out of our comfort zone both professionally and perhaps personally. It requires an interdisciplinary approach and a set of skills that many agricultural research centers simply have too limited a supply of and I include in this a critical mass of female research staff of sufficient seniority. Without this critical mass of gender expertise, agronomic research will continue to be designed and implemented according to the âmale agronomistâ norm.
Q: What impact has this had on conservation agriculture adoption in East and Southern Africa?
A: lncreased feminization of labor in smallholder agriculture has resulted in major changes in the roles and responsibilities of women in rural Africa, but still agricultural service suppliers and the wider policy environment in general remain locked into the conceptual norm of the primary farmer being male. This inevitably results in inappropriate targeting of research, extension services, and policy, and logic would tell us that it has also contributed to low adoption rates of conservation agriculture.
As the paper explains, the new norm of the âfemale primary farmerâ has not resulted in their widespread recognition as such by external agencies or indeed within their communities. The ability of women-led households, or male-headed households with women as primary farmers, to adopt conservation agriculture may be compromised if government policies, extension systems, and other actors continue to design interventions around the conceptual norm of the male-headed household. This needs to change.
The paper summarizes the gender-related questions that remain to be addressed with regard to conservation agriculture, and there are many. There are overarching questions relating to intra-household decisions making, access to services, and labor. In addition, there are many more questions relating to specific aspects of conservation agriculture, such as the impacts of minimum tillage and weeding on labor; opportunity costs and how increased requirements are met; opportunities, constraints, and trade-offs of conservation agriculture-based crop diversification; and the tailoring of conservation agriculture-based information and training to women farmers.
Q: Moving forward, how can researchers address the gender gaps in conservation agriculture in their studies?
A: Â Gender-sensitive research needs to be mainstreamed into projects. In order to achieve this, we need more multidisciplinary teams including both male and female researchers of similar seniority. While there is a decent body of gender research on the socioeconomic aspects of agricultural technologies such as barriers to uptake and extension services, it seems that there is still a large gap in gender-sensitive agronomic research. What are the implications for gender of increased weeding, need for planting basins, crop diversification, and residue retention? All very basic questions that still need answering. So moving forward, we need more research that involves gender specialists working closely with agronomists on the design, implementation, evaluation, and scaling out of conservation agriculture-based practices.
Distinguished scientist and wheat breeder Ravi Singh at the CIMMYT Toluca research station in Mexico in October 2014. CIMMYT/Julie Mollins
EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) â Scientist Ravi Singh has been named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) this week for his âdistinguished contributions to the field of agricultural research and development, particularly in wheat genetics, pathology and breeding.â
Singh, who leads wheat improvement and rust resistance research at the International Center for Maize and Wheat Improvement (CIMMYT), is among 347 members awarded the honor this year by the scientific organization AAAS, which also publishes the journal âScience.â
The fellows were honored due to their scientifically or socially distinguished efforts to advance science or its applications.
During more than 30 years at CIMMYT, Singh has made significant contributions to enhancing food security throughout the developing world. His work has led to the application of durable resistance to control fungal wheat rust diseases, which result in almost $3 billion in crop losses a year. As a result of this work, many farmers do not need to protect their crops with costly fungicides, boosting the potential for organic farming.
Singhâs research has shown that globally effective, durable resistance to leaf, yellow and stem rust fungi in wheat involves interactions of slow rusting genes that have additive effects and that the accumulation of four or five of these genes results in a level of resistance comparable to immunity.
His research group has identified 11 diverse slow rusting genes and discovered that some slow rusting genes confer partial resistance to multiple diseases. These include genes Lr34/Yr18/Sr57/Pm38, Lr46/Yr29/Sr58/Pm39, Lr67/Yr46/Sr55/Pm46 for leaf, yellow and stem rusts, and powdery mildew, respectively.
Singh was a co-investigator for research that led to the cloning of pleiotropic geneLr34, a landmark in understanding the genetic mechanism for slow rusting resistance that is conferred by a unique gene belonging to ABC (ATP Binding Cassette) transporter of PDR (Pleiotropic Drug Resistance) subfamily.
His research team have identified and designated 25 genes in wheat, including: Sr8b, Sr55, Sr57 and Sr58 for stem rust resistance; Lr31, Lr46, Lr61, Lr68 and Lr72 for leaf rust resistance; Yr18, Yr27, Yr28, Yr29, Yr30, Yr31, Yr46, Yr54 and Yr60 for yellow rust resistance; Pm39 and Pm46 for powdery mildew resistance; Bdv1 for barley yellow dwarf virus tolerance; SuLr23 for suppression of leaf rust resistance; Sb1 for spot blotch resistance; and Ltn1, Ltn2 and Ltn3 for leaf tip necrosis.
More recently, his research group identified various Quantitative Trait Loci that confer slow rusting resistance to stem rust including the highly virulent Ug99 stem rust race-group.
Singh was also part of the global research team that isolated the wheat gene Lr67, revealing how it hampers fungal pathogen growth through a novel mechanism. CIMMYT scientists created and field tested genetic mutations of Lr67, to pinpoint the geneâs exact location in the wheat genome.
CIMMYT-derived wheat cultivars with durable rust resistance cover more than 25 million hectares in the developing world, contributing billions of dollars through enhanced yield potential and yield savings in epidemic years.
Singhâs research team has also developed various widely grown current wheat varieties in various countries with enhanced grain yield potential of five to 15 percent combined with heat and drought tolerance and good processing quality.
More recently, the team also initiated breeding wheat with enhanced levels of grain zinc and iron concentration in grain, which are being tested in India and Pakistan to improve the nutrition of women and children with chronic micronutrient deficiency.
Singh has penned 200 peer reviewed journal articles, 26 book chapters/extension publications, 80 published symposia, and 212 symposia abstracts that he has authored and co-authored.
He has also received the âOutstanding CGIAR Scientist Award,â the 2015 China Friendship Award, and awards from Chinaâs provincial governments in Sichuan, Yunnan and Xinjiang. He is a fellow of the American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America, American Phytopathological Society and the National Academy of Agricultural Sciences of India.
Singh and the other new AAAS fellows will be presented with an official certificate and a gold and blue rosette pin in February during the organizationâs 2016 annual meeting in Washington, D.C.
Cheesman in a direct-seeded maize-soybean rotation in Chavakadzi village, Shamva District, Zimbabwe. Photo: Christian Thierfelder
A new study led by ETH ZĂŒrich graduate Stephanie Cheesman, along with CIMMYT senior agronomist Christian Thierfelder, Neal S. Eash from the University of Tennessee, Girma Tesfahun Kassie, ICARDA, and Emmanuel Frossard, professor at ETH ZĂŒrich, found limited increase in carbon sequestration under conservation agriculture (CA) after up to seven years of practice. In this interview, Cheesman tells us why carbon sequestration is such a complex issue in Southern Africa and what this study reveals about how it can improve.
Q: Why is increasing soil carbon important?
A: Besides the hype about sequestering carbon to contribute to climate change mitigation, carbon is an integral part of soil organic matter (also referred to as âhumusâ), which is possibly the most well-known fertility component of a soil. Soil carbon has strong influence on soil structure, water infiltration, as well as the capacity of the soil to retain water and nutrients that are required for plant growth. Degraded soil has only a little soil carbon and, hence, low fertility and nutrient- (and water) holding capacity.
Q: What were you hoping this study would reveal?
A: Although the study trials had been running for only seven years, I was hoping to show a clearer trend towards an increase in soil carbon under CA as compared to conventional practices (CP) in Southern Africa. We were surprised that, in most cases, the carbon under CA was at the same level as the conventional control treatment, with a few exceptions. Nevertheless, this is one of a very few studies where soil carbon stocks in CA systems have been analyzed across a wide range of Southern African agroecologies. I am now very happy to share this data with the wider research community.
Q: What factors limit carbon sequestration in Southern Africa?
A: There are a range of factors that limit carbon sequestration. Our findings suggest low productivity to be one of the main bottlenecks. Farmers have to decide if they should feed the crop residues to the soil or to their livestock. The long dry season from May to November and high temperatures further increase the mineralization of soil carbon, which can be twice as much as in temperate regions. Another factor that may limit carbon sequestration is the limited use of other strategies such as the integration of legumes or agroforestry species as intercrops in maize-based systems.
CA practitioners and Cheesman conduct bulk density sampling in Zidyana, Malawi, August 2011. Photo: Sign Phiri
Q: Given the findings of this study, how can we increase soil carbon in Southern Africa in the future? Is conservation agriculture necessarily the answer?
A: Unfortunately, our study lacks initial carbon stock measurements, as this was tested on a very large set of on-farm trials and we never had enough financial resources to continuously test this from the onset. We could compare the difference between CA and CP but not how carbon stocks changed over time in the respective systems. Although some of the trial sites were up to seven years old, this is a comparably short time to increase the level of carbon in such environments. From other long-term studies (mainly in the Americas), we know that tillage-based agricultural systems decrease carbon stocks. Thus, I would say that a system like CA where tillage is reduced and residues are âfedâ to the soil will more likely maintain soil carbon and maybe gradually increase it in the longer term. Tillage-based agricultural systems also have much higher soil erosion loads which further decreases carbon, so CA is definitely an answer to reduce soil degradation.
CIMMYTâs mission is to âsustainablyâ increase the productivity of maize- and wheat-based systems to reduce poverty and hunger. By combining improved varieties with sustainable intensification practices, CIMMYT does its best to give smallholder farmers options to improve their productivity and livelihoods. Feeding the soil with residues is one strategy to maintain or gradually increase soil carbon but we should not forget the immediate needs of farmers.
Joseph Mulei on his farm in Machakos County, Kenya, where he planted several drought tolerant hybrid maize varieties including Drought Tego and Sawa (DSL H103). Photo: Brenda Wawa/CIMMYT.
About 100 partners from diverse institutions including CIMMYT, the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), national agricultural research systems (NARS), the private sector, and donors gathered recently at a joint meeting of the Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa (DTMA) and Improved Maize for African Soils (IMAS) projects held in Addis Ababa on 14â17 September 2015. The participants came from 15 African countries, plus India, New Zealand, and USA.
This first joint meeting, opened by Fentahun Mengistu, Director General of the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research, marked the end of the two projects, which will officially complete their work in December 2015 across 14 target countries in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). The meeting reviewed the progress made in Africa through the projects over the last 5 and 8 years, respectively.
The two projects released 200 unique improved maize hybrids and open-pollinated varieties (OPVs) with drought tolerance (DT) and nitrogen-use efficiency (NUE), which are traits favored by smallholder farmers. These varieties â some which combine both traitsâ not only yield much more under moderate or severe drought stress, but also utilize more efficiently the small amounts of fertilizers most farmers can afford to apply to their maize.
Speaking on the importance of maize breeding work in Africa, B.M. Prasanna, Director of CIMMYTâs Global Maize Program and the CGIAR Research Program on MAIZE, said, âSolutions to the worldâs food challenges need the benefit of improved maize varieties that yield well for farmers both in âgoodâ and âbadâ years, withstanding the crippling effects of climatic changes and other stresses.â
DTMA efforts to commercialize DT varieties have enabled 43 million people to access and benefit from these varieties. This, coupled with efforts to promote the new improved DT varieties by small- and medium-scale seed companies, has been instrumental in DTMAâs success. As John McMurdy, from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), said, âIt is very important to create awareness of these improved varieties, particularly the fact that they are excellent even during normal rains. Farmers need to know these key characteristics so they can appreciate and benefit from the seed. I am glad that the next phase of CIMMYTâs work is geared towards reaching out to farmers; this is essential in maize work.â
Influencing policies to support the adoption of improved varieties within partner institutions
Eliamani Saitati, a farmer in Olkolili village in northern Tanzania, shows her harvest from HB513, a variety that is both nitrogen-use efficient and drought tolerant. Photo: Brenda Wawa/CIMMYT
Both DTMA and IMAS targeted policy makers within partner institutions to facilitate adoption of new improved varieties. A policy issue highlighted at the meeting was replacing old and obsolete varieties with the new improved varieties, viewed as critical for adapting to climate change and improving smallholdersâ livelihoods.
Meeting participants were divided into two groups and visited major maize seed companies in Ethiopia, where they observed the performance of various DT varieties and learned about ongoing variety replacement. The sites visited included Ethio VegFru Company, Ano Agro Industry, Meki-Batu Cooperative Seed Company, Shalo Farm, and Bako Agricultural Research Centre, which is Ethiopiaâs national center of excellence for maize research. At the Centre, they were hosted by, among others, Tolera Keno, who is EIARâs National Maize Research Coordinator.
An old variety, BH660, which has been on the market for the last quarter century, is now gradually being replaced by BH661, an improved DT hybrid. According to Fekadu Berhane, Production Manager at Ethio VegFru Company, farmers were most concerned about BH660âs late maturity of about 160 days. âTheir numerous complaints obviously led to a drastic decline in the market,â explained Fekadu. âThe switch to BH661 has taken two years. In 2015, we produced and distributed 60 tons of BH661 seed in the west, south, and southwest of the Oromia Region, and farmers are getting a minimum of 8 tons per hectare.â
Ano Agro Industry began operating Ethiopiaâs first private seed-producing commercial farm 23 years ago. Significantly, some of their early maize hybrids from that time are still in production. âWe are partnering with CIMMYT to replace these old hybrids and demonstrate new varieties, including BH546 and BH547, which are both drought tolerant,â explained Tesfaye Kumsa, Managing Director at Ano Agro Industry. âWe have now started producing basic seed. We also educate farmers on management of improved varieties, since management alone accounts for the greatest proportion of yieldâ sometimes by a factor of up to three or four times in terms of yield obtained.â
Continuous dialogue with policy makers at the Kenya Plant Health Inspectorate Services (KEPHIS) bore fruit in 2014, when Kenyaâs Variety Release Committee included performance in low-nitrogen soil as a special trait for maize variety release. This reaffirms the high premium KEPHIS accords to performance in poor soils, setting the pace for other regulatory bodies in SSA to recognize and address the challenge.
In addition, close collaboration with partners and donors, in particular USAID and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), enabled IMAS to make concrete headway in addressing the maize lethal necrosis (MLN) disease that has rapidly emerged as a major threat to maize farming in East Africa since 2011. The IMAS project rapidly identified diverse sources of MLN tolerance in its germplasm base and, currently, MLN-tolerant maize is being widely disseminated across East Africa, while newly identified sources of tolerance are being shared with other CIMMYT-Africa breeding projects. Gary Atlin, from BMGF, observed that âIn the four years since MLN was discovered, we now have hybrids that have significantly better tolerance to MLN. IMAS is credited with a rapid response to MLN, which has affected breeding work in the region.â
To bring improved DT and NUE seeds to the farmers, collaboration with seed companies and NARS has been an important pillar of DTMA and IMAS work. Abebe Menkir, DTMA project leader at IITA, attributed this strength to âa clearly defined product development plan and harnessing the strengths of the right partners to deliver varieties and hybrids.â
In 2014 alone, production of certified DT and NUE maize seed across 14 target countries was 54,000 metric tons for the benefit of 40.2 million people. Production of these seeds was spearheaded by small- and medium-scale companies that accessed the improved seeds free of charge.
The adoption and uptake of these varieties varies from one country to another. Depending on the type of variety â hybrid or OPV â the adoption rate for DT maize ranges from 18 to 80%, with hybrids getting adopted much faster because of their yield advantage, estimated at 49% compared to improved OPVs currently on the market.
Participants in the joint DTMA and IMAS meeting held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Photo: CIMMYT
Farmers in countries such as Nigeria and Malawi are leading in the adoption of DT maize varieties, largely because of favorable government policies that have made access to the improved varieties much easier and more affordable. These farmers have reported higher yields from the DT varieties compared to non-DT varieties.
The next step for CIMMYT and its partners is to increase adoption of improved DT and NUE varieties and replace the old, obsolete, climate-vulnerable varieties with multiple stress tolerant improved maize varieties to effectively face current and emerging challenges.
Plans for this are already being implemented through various initiatives, including the project Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa Seed Scaling (DTMASS). DTMASS will work closely with seed companies to produce 12,000 metric tons of certified DT seed in the next three years. The aim is to ensure seed availability to smallholders at affordable prices, and to sustain seed demand among these farmers.
Starting in 2016, IMAS conventional NUE breeding will begin a new phase by fusing with DTMA in a proposed new project dubbed âStress Tolerant Maize for Africa.â This project aims to develop improved multiple-stress-tolerant varieties that can effectively face current and emerging challenges.
Given the increased threat of climate change and other stresses to African agriculture, collaborative efforts among major maize projects in Africa will be prioritized by CIMMYT in the coming years. This joint meeting paved the way for collaboration, as it included â for the first time â other maize projects such as Water Efficient Maize for Africa, SIMLESA and TAMASA to identify and create synergies with DTMA and IMAS in the next phase. These projects will continue to draw from one key resource â improved maize varieties, some which have been developed jointlyâ to maximize impact for Africaâs smallholder farmers.
Tortilla dough industry partners evaluating nixtamalized kernels during the workshop âFrom empirical knowledge to technical tools.â Photo: Natalia Palacios/CIMMYT.
With more than 600 food products derived from maize, Mexico is the fifth largest maize consumer globally, and the only country where more than 70% of the maize produced is used for direct human consumption. Farmers in Mexico grow maize mainly for home consumption, the nixtamalized flour industry, and the tortilla dough industry. The productâs end-use quality is greatly determined by the quality of the maize grain. Therefore, for the Mexican market, as well as for processors and consumers, grain quality is crucial.
Since the beginning of MasAgro, special emphasis has been placed on monitoring the quality of improved maize varieties to ensure that they meet the needs of Mexicoâs traditional and industrial nixtamalization processes. Continuous exchanges of scientists with millers and tortilla dough entrepreneurs have been crucial for developing robust and cost-efficient analytical methods that different actors in the maize value chain can use to monitor grain quality. Offering analytical tools to the tortilla dough industry so it can move from empirical to analytical knowledge will help to optimize and professionalize its business.
Farmers selecting pigeon pea varieties at Msingisi village, Gairo district, through SIMLESA. Photo: CGIAR Research Program on Grain Legumes
On 16-31 October 2015, the Sustainable Intensification of Maize and Legume Systems for Food Security in Eastern and Southern Africa (SIMLESA) project undertook a two-week long Mid-Term Review (MTR) of its agricultural research and development activities on station and on farm. SIMLESA undertook this review to assess project performance and recommend actions to refine activities. The last MTR was carried out in 2012.
To wrap up the review, a two-day meeting was held with the participation of 40 people, including representatives from the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR), Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation, the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), the national agricultural research systems (NARS) of Ethiopia, Malawi, Mozambique, Kenya, and Tanzania, and CIMMYT scientists from Ethiopia, Kenya, and Zimbabwe.
Increasing wheat and maize yields in Arsi Negele (southern Ethiopia) is not enough to guarantee a nutritious diet, but maintaining a diverse landscape appears critical. Photo: F. Baudron
Arsi Negele, in southern Ethiopia, is a paradox: local farmers are blessed with good soils, good and reliable rainfall, relatively large farms, and good market connections, but the local hospital in Gambo admits, on average, one child per day suffering from acute malnutrition (kwashiorkor and marasmus). The main cause? A grain-based diet that lacks proteins, vitamins, and other micronutrients. Biofortified maize and wheat that include some of these missing elements could help. But diet diversification is probably the real answer.
From 23 â 26 August, 2015, CIMMYTâs Director General Martin Kropff visited Pakistan to attend the Agricultural Innovation Programâs (AIP) annual conference in Islamabad. Following the conference Kropff met with the CIMMYT team to talk about his observations, suggestions and way forward for continued impact in Pakistan.
