Blogs – Page 157

Canadian foodgrains bank highlights CIMMYT’s Christian Thierfelder’s work in conservation agriculture

Written by on April 13, 2015. Posted in News.

Farmers admiring their maize-cowpea intercrop. Photo: Christian Thierfelder/CIMMYT

Christian Thierfelder, CIMMYT senior agronomist stationed at Harare, Zimbabwe, was recently profiled by the Canadian Foodgrains Bank for his work promoting conservation agriculture techniques for smallholder farmers in Africa. Conservation agriculture systems are not only better for soils but help make agriculture more ‘climate-smart’, argues Thierfelder. “The conventional system can only make use of the water that is in the ridge and not further down in the soil,” he said. “In conservation agriculture systems, there is access to deeper layers and a lot of water has infiltrated. The maize can actually access the water much better because of an improved root system.”
In addition, the techniques can provide far-reaching food security benefits to smallholder farmers. As conservation agriculture diminishes the risk of crop failure, it also allows farmers to reduce the land devoted to maize and to diversify the crops they produce. “Then there is room for new crops, cash crops, rotational crops, nutritional crops that help them to improve their diets and reduce malnutrition,” Thierfelder said. “That’s a very good way to overcome all of these problems at once.”To read the full article, click here.

Green manures help Zambian and Malawian farmers feed crops and livestock

Written by on April 13, 2015. Posted in News.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has tasked CIMMYT with a new project to introduce green manure cover crops to smallholder farmers in eastern Zambia and central and southern Malawi.

Green manures can improve fertility, protect soils and provide fodder and grain for farm animals and humans. They also help substitute for mineral fertilizers, which are costly for landlocked African nations to produce or import. Most smallholder farmers cannot afford them and apply less than 10 kg per hectare of fertilizer to their crops, according to a 2013 study on profitable and sustainable nutrient management systems for eastern and southern African smallholder farming systems.

“This is less than one-tenth of average fertilizer rates in prosperous countries and a key reason why maize yields in southern Africa are around only one ton per hectare,” said Christian Thierfelder, CIMMYT conservation agriculture specialist based in southern Africa. “As a result, many farm families in the region remain food insecure and caught in a seemingly unbreakable cycle of poverty.”

With full participation of farmers, the project will test green manures in rotation with maize and as intercrops or relay crops in different farming systems, according to Thierfelder.

“Improved, high-yielding maize can show its potential only under good agronomic practices, such as optimal plant spacing, timely planting, good weed and pest control and adequate fertilization,” Thierfelder explained. “Farmers in Europe and the Americas have followed these basic principles for generations, and some of the ideas spread to Asia and Africa during the Green Revolution. But in Africa mineral fertilizers are most often used by rich farmers and for high-value crops.“

“Improved maize that tolerates drought and other stresses, coupled with conservation agriculture practices –minimum soil disturbance, crop residue retention and diversification through rotations and intercropping systems – are farmers’ best bet to escape the poverty trap,” Thierfelder said.

Keeping crop residues on the soil is a critical component of conservation agriculture, but the residues are traditionally fed to livestock, which also underpin smallholder farmers’ livelihoods. So the use of conservation agriculture hinges on the ability of a cropping system to produce enough biomass to feed farm animals while providing an adequate residue cover. This requires a source of fertilization to feed the cropping system.

The FAO-CIMMYT project will address this by allocating green manure cover crops for different uses. “Over the last five years, CIMMYT’s global conservation agriculture program has identified potential cover crop varieties that fit farmers’ needs,” Thierfelder said. “Velvet bean, lablab, cowpea, sunnhemp or jackbean can provide 10-50 tons per hectare of extra biomass for livestock. They can also leave 50-150 kilograms per hectare of nitrogen in the soil and do not need any additional fertilizer to grow. Finally, lablab and cowpea provide grain that humans can eat.”

One approach Thierfelder promotes is for a farmer to dedicate part of her land to grow maize under conservation agriculture practices, and other areas to sow green manures, nutritional and cash crops that increase soil fertility and household income. “In this way, a farmer can diversify and gradually have money to purchase mineral fertilizer, boost productivity and move out of poverty.”

Green manure cover crops are not new in Africa. Why should they work this time?

According to Thierfelder, there are examples of success in northern Mozambique with CIMMYT’s partner organization CARE International, using lablab and improved germplasm in cassava-based CA systems can increase cassava tuber yields from 4 to 13 tons per hectare, without using additional mineral fertilizer. “In Tanzania, lablab and other green manures are an important part of the cropping system,” he said. “In Zimbabwe, successful experiments with maize and green manures under an ACIAR-funded ZimCLIFFS project also provide hope. The FAO-CIMMYT project will guide the way on integrating green manures cover crops into these farming systems.”

Mother-baby trials promote conservation agriculture in Manica, Mozambique

Written by on April 13, 2015. Posted in Features.

A testament to increased climate variability and risk for farming systems already operating on the razor’s edge, the 2014-15 cropping season will be recognized as a sad write-off by most farmers in Central Mozambique. The rains started six weeks late and most of the rainfall fell in only two months (normally it’s distributed over four), followed by a long drought and some few showers at the end.

But with funds from the CGIAR Research Program on Maize, partners from the Instituto de Investigação Agrária de Moçambique (IIAM) and CIMMYT are working with farmers in Manica Province, Mozambique, to test and promote conservation agriculture practices that better capture and retain precious precipitation, among other advantages.

As part of this, they have revived “mother-baby” trials, a participatory methodology pioneered over a decade ago by CIMMYT for testing drought tolerant maize in Africa and which was subsequently adapted for diverse agronomic practices and is used by researchers worldwide.

Drought-stricken maize: For most farmers around Machipanda village, Manica Province, Mozambique, the situation this season is bleak, auguring complete crop failure or a harvest of a few small maize cobs. Photos: CIMMYT

Comprising field experiments grown in farming communities, mother-baby trials feature a centrally-located mother trial that is set up with researchers’ support. Baby trials, which contain subsets of the mother-trial treatments, are grown, managed and evaluated by interested farmers.

Moving from “business as usual” to innovation

In Machipanda, a small village in Manica on the border with Zimbabwe, IIAM maize breeder Dr. David Mariote established three mother trials, each with two conservation agriculture-based systems and a conventional control plot, combined with four maize varieties from the Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa (DTMA) project, which is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and a traditional variety, in full rotation with cowpeas.

Farmers then put up the baby trials from a menu of practices that included direct seeding with no tillage, crop rotations, residue retention, herbicide applications, fertilizer use and improved varieties. Interest was high: 54 farmers grew baby trials and some even extended their plots beyond the designated areas, in the excitement of trying something new, according to Mariote.

“Conditions are changing fast; business as usual is no longer an option,” Mariote said. “We have to offer improved technologies that farmers can use to mitigate negative effects from climate change and improve their lives.”

Mariote witnessed first-hand the synergistic benefits of combining conservation agriculture and drought tolerant maize, as part of work in the Platform on Agriculture Research and Technology Innovation (PARTI), a project funded through the US Agency for International Development (USAID) via Feed the Future and implemented by CIMMYT in Central and northern Mozambique.

IIAM researcher David Mariote (right) with farmers of Manica Province, Mozambique.

With training from CIMMYT’s global maize program and technical backstopping from the CIMMYT global conservation agriculture program, Mariote sought new and stronger ways to spread these technologies. That’s when he hit upon mother-baby trials, which had never been used before with drought tolerant maize and conservation agriculture in tandem.

Farmers who grew baby trials unanimously agreed that new ways of farming are needed and that the trials had been eye-openers. In a community meeting, some said: “We often do not have money to buy expensive fertilizers but we have seen that with good agronomic practices and good maize varieties we can already increase our maize yields.”

More farmers in Machipanda have signed up for future baby trials and, as a clear indication of commitment and excitement about conservation agriculture and improved maize, they will use their own inputs to grow them.

Industrial water run-off can sustainably boost crop production

Written by on April 13, 2015. Posted in News.

Photo credit: Julie Mollins — Irrigation reservoir at the Kulumsa research station in Ethiopia. CIMMYT/Julie Mollins

KULUMSA, Ethiopia (CIMMYT) — An irrigation reservoir at the Kulumsa Agricultural Research Center in Ethiopia’s highlands captures water from a nearby beer distillery about 168 km (105 miles) southeast of the capital Addis Ababa.

Before the irrigation project was constructed, the industrial runoff from the brewery poured into the nearby river and affected the health of local residents.

Now it nourishes crops growing in neighboring fields during the dry season or in periods of drought. It can store up to 38,195 m³of water.

“The irrigation project has been a key investment – it’s very instrumental for accelerating seed multiplication of improved high-yielding rust resistant varieties for local wheat projects,” said Bekele Abeyo, a CIMMYT senior scientist and wheat breeder.

“It allows us to advance wheat germplasm and seed multiplication of elite lines twice a year, which we couldn’t do previously.”

This cuts the time by half from the currently required eight to 10 years to four to five years for the development and release of new varieties through conventional breeding.

An additional pond with the capacity to capture 27,069 m³of natural water from the river, generates the capacity to irrigate more than 30 hectares of land during the off season.

The project resulted from the joint investment of the East Africa Agricultural Productivity Program, the Durable Rust Resistance in Wheat Project and CIMMYT.

The construction of the ponds began in April 2012. Sprinkler irrigation was completed in 2014 and management of the project was handed over to the Kulumsa Research Center.

CIMMYT joins global move to adopt climate-smart agriculture

Written by on April 13, 2015. Posted in News.

Climate-smart agriculture can be “an effective tool to address climate change and climate variability,” according to Kai Sonder, head of CIMMYT’s geographic information systems (GIS) unit, who was one of 754 participants from 75 countries, including 39 CIMMYT representatives, at the third annual Global Science Conference on Climate-Smart Agriculture, held in Montpellier, France, during 16-18 March.

“Challenges are different for developing and developed countries, but climate change is affecting all of us,” said Sonder. Millions of smallholder farmers in developing countries have less than one hectare of land, earn less than USD $1 per day and are highly vulnerable to extreme climatic events. Many farmers in developed countries struggle to make a living, are dependent on subsidies and insurance payouts and are also highly vulnerable to extreme climatic events.

Modern agriculture, food production and distribution are major contributors of greenhouse gases, generating about one-quarter of global emissions. Climate-smart agriculture addresses the interlinked challenges of food security and climate change by sustainably increasing agricultural productivity, building resilience in food-production systems and reducing greenhouse gas emissions in agriculture.

Challenges and areas where climate-smart agriculture has yet to take hold were addressed at the conference. “California has not practiced it for 50 years and is now dealing with the consequences of poor groundwater management,” said Sonder. “Likewise, Ciudad Obregón and Sinaloa in Mexico are fully-irrigated areas in the middle of a desert where climate-smart practices need to be implemented on a larger scale based on CIMMYT’s activities with local partners.”

Progress and exhibitions on climate-smart agriculture projects were also showcased. “This is becoming an integral part of CIMMYT work, as climate conditions increasingly disrupt growing seasons,” Sonder said. “MasAgro is looking at water and nutrient efficiency in Mexico, and CIMMYT is developing maize and wheat varieties that are tolerant to stresses like heat and drought and their combinations,” said Sonder. In collaboration with the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Food Security and Agriculture (CCAFS), CIMMYT has also piloted 27 climate-smart villages in Haryana, India, which will disseminate key climate-smart agricultural interventions.

The conference also allowed potential partners to meet and identify areas for future cooperation. Sonder mentioned interactions with Jacob van Etten, Senior Scientist at Bioversity International, who works on climate change and climate-smart agriculture in Costa Rica and uses iButton sensors to measure climate data in the field. “Such cheap and effective devices can allow us to reach more places, and I’d like to use them to monitor storage and humidity conditions in metal silos for CIMMYT’s Effective Grain Storage Project in eastern and southern Africa, as well as in the postharvest activities of MasAgro in Mexico,” said Sonder

Seed improvement to prevent rust disease key to boosting wheat productivity

Written by on April 13, 2015. Posted in News.

A new project in Ethiopia aims to improve the livelihoods of wheat farmers by encouraging the development and multiplication of high-yielding, rust-resistant bread and durum wheat varieties.

High-quality seed is the key entry point for elevating farmer productivity in Ethiopia. As Norman Borlaug, the late Nobel Peace Prize laureate and wheat breeder who worked for many years with the International Center for Maize and Wheat Improvement (CIMMYT) wrote: “Rust never sleeps.”

Stem, leaf and yellow rusts choke nutrients and devastate wheat crops without recognition of political boundaries, making it essential that global action is taken to control all virulent strains of these devastating diseases to ensure food security.

At a recent workshop hosted by the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR) in the capital, Addis Ababa, 150 participants from 24 organizations discussed the project, which builds upon the successes of a previous EIAR and International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) program funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

Bekele Abeyo points out that high-quality seed is critical in Ethiopia. Photo: CIMMYT

The purpose of the March workshop titled “Seed Multiplication and Delivery of High-Yielding Rust-Resistant Bread and Durum Wheat Varieties to Ethiopian Farmers” was to launch the three-year seed project, which has a budget of $4.75 million, and strengthen the involvement of stakeholders and key partners.

Aims include enhancing rust disease surveillance, early warning and phenotyping; fast-track variety testing and pre-release seed multiplication; accelerating seed multiplication of durable rust-resistant wheat varieties; demonstrating and scaling up improved wheat varieties; and improving the linkages between small-scale durum wheat producers and agro-industries.

To achieve these goals EIAR, CIMMYT and the University of Minnesota will implement project activities in collaboration with other key Ethiopian stakeholders, including agricultural research centers, public and private seed enterprises, the Ethiopian Agricultural Transformation Agency, the Ethio-Italian Development Cooperation “Agricultural Value Chains Project in Oromia” and the Ethiopia Seed Producers Association.

The project covers 51 districts in four major wheat-growing regions of Ethiopia. Milestones include the following: reaching 164,000 households with direct access to the new technology and having more than 2 million households benefiting from indirect access to high-yielding rust resistant cultivars; wheat yield increases of 25 percent for farmers with access to rust-resistant seed varieties; training for about 5,000 agricultural experts, development agents, seed producers and model farmers; more than 50 percent of the wheat area being sown to cultivars with durable resistance to current rust threats; an increased number of seed growers and associations participating in accelerated seed multiplication; and the increased participation of women farmers to lead accelerated seed multiplication and scaling up.

All partners will be involved in close monitoring and working groups related to the project.

At the workshop, a key topic was emphasizing to farmers that they must avoid susceptible rust suckers as they are pumping more spores on cultivars under production, which is one reason for the recurrent epidemics of wheat rusts and break down of resistant genes.

Delegates also engaged in discussions on the importance of cropping systems and variety diversifications. Fruitful deliberations and interactions occurred and important feedback was captured for project implementation and to ensure successful results.

A previous workshop on the surveillance, early warning and phenotyping component of the project was held at the Cereal Disease Laboratory in Minnesota.

Bekele Abeyo is a CIMMYT senior scientist based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. He will lead the seed improvement project.

Global partnership propels wheat productivity in China

Written by Mike Listman on April 13, 2015. Posted in Features.

Benefits of three decades of international collaboration in wheat research have added as much as 10.7 million tons of grain – worth US $3.4 billion – to China’s national wheat output, according to a study by the Center for Chinese Agricultural Policy (CCAP) of the Chinese Academy of Science.

Described in a report published on 30 March by the CGIAR Research Program on Wheat, the research examined China’s partnership with CIMMYT and the free use of CIMMYT improved wheat lines and other genetic resources during 1982-2011. The conclusions are based on a comprehensive dataset that included planted area, pedigree, and agronomic traits by variety for 17 major wheat-growing provinces in China.

“Chinese wheat breeders acquired disease resistant, semi-dwarf wheat varieties from CIMMYT in the late 1960s and incorporated desirable traits from that germplasm into their own varieties,” said Dr. Jikun Huang, Director of CCAP and first author of the new study. “As of the 1990s, it would be difficult to find anything other than improved semi-dwarf varieties in China. Due to this and to investments in irrigation, agricultural research and extension, farmers’ wheat yields nearly doubled during 1980-95, rising from an average 1.9 to 3.5 tons per hectare.”

The new study also documents increasing use of CIMMYT germplasm by wheat breeders in China. “CIMMYT contributions are present in more than 26 percent of all major wheat varieties in China after 2000,” said Huang. “But our research clearly shows that, far from representing a bottleneck in diversity, genetic resources from CIMMYT’s global wheat program have significantly enhanced China varieties’ performance for critical traits like yield potential, grain processing quality, disease resistance and early maturity.”

WILL CHINA WHEAT FARMING RISE TO RESOURCE AND CLIMATE CHALLENGES?

The world’s number-one wheat producer, China harvests more than 120 million tons of wheat grain yearly, mainly for use in products like noodles and steamed bread. China is more or less self-sufficient in wheat production, but wheat farmers face serious challenges. For example, wheat area has decreased by more than one-fifth in the past three decades, due to competing land use.

“This trend is expected to continue,” said Huang, “and climate change and the increasing scarcity of water will further challenge wheat production. Farmers urgently need varieties and cropping systems that offer resilience under drought, more effective use of water and fertilizer, and resistance to evolving crop diseases. Global research partnerships like that with CIMMYT will be vital to achieve this.”

Dr. Qiaosheng Zhuang, Research Professor of Chinese Academy of Agricultural Science (CAAS) and a Fellow of Chinese Academy of Science, called the new report “…an excellent, detailed analysis and very useful for scientists and policy makers. CIMMYT germplasm and training have made a momentous contribution to Chinese wheat.”

Tribute to Dr. Norman E. Borlaug on his 101st birth anniversary

Written by on April 13, 2015. Posted in News.

BISA director general garlanding
Dr. Borlaug’s statue. Photo: Meenakshi Chandiramani

Borlaug Institute for South Asia (BISA) and CIMMYT India staff members gathered together at NASC Complex, New Delhi to pay tribute to the late Dr. Norman E. Borlaug on what would have been his 101^st Birth Anniversary on 25 March. HS Gupta, director general, BISA, garlanded Borlaug’s statue, in front of the office block at NASC Complex. Staff members offered flowers in respect to the Nobel Laureate. Gupta apprised the staff members about Borlaug’s great contributions, including high-yielding wheat varieties which helped solve hunger around the world and particularly in South Asia. BISA and CIMMYT staff members resolved to work hard and follow Borlaug’s footsteps.

BISA and CIMMYT staff pay tribute to Norman Borlaug, in the shadow of his statue and accomplishments. Photo: Meenakshi Chandiramani

Mobile app will power GreenSeeker use in South Asia

Written by on April 13, 2015. Posted in News.

CIMMYT and the Borlaug Institute for South Asia (BISA) have jointly developed and launched an application for Android called “N Calculator,” to support smallholder farmers using the GreenSeeker, a compact sensor to quickly assess crop vigour and calculate optimal fertilizer dosages. Held in the CIMMYT-CCAFS climate-smart village (CSV) Noorpur Bet of Ludhiana, Punjab, India, the launch was led by John Snape, CIMMYT Board Chair.

The Greenseeker ensures accurate and balanced nitrogen fertilizer applications, cutting farmers’ costs, reducing nitrification and nitrogen runoff into groundwater and water systems, and raising crop yields. But smallholder farmers often lack the training to interpret the raw data from the GreenSeeker. N Calculator automatically calculates the best nitrogen and urea rate using normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) values from GreenSeeker, and right on a mobile handset.

“The application will help scale out GreenSeeker technology and precision nitrogen management in wheat-based systems in South Asia, among other things reducing emissions of nitrous oxide, a potent greenhouse gas,” said M.L. Jat, CIMMYT cropping systems agronomist. “It will also be critical for extension agents to scale out climate-smart agriculture practices across the region.”

Delegates including the BISA Executive Committee and national scientists interacted with farmers and members of farmer cooperatives who are actively disseminating climate-smart agriculture practices.

Participants included S. Ayyapan, DG (ICAR); Thomas A Lumpkin, director general, CIMMYT; Marianne Bänziger, deputy director general for research and partnerships, CIMMYT; Nicole Birrel, CIMMYT board member; Anthony De Sa IAS, Chief Secretary of Madhya Pradesh; B.S. Dhillon, Vice Chair of Punjab Agricultural University (PAU); Suresh Kumar, Additional Chief Secretary of Punjab; B.S. Sidhu, Agriculture Commissioner of Punjab; and H.S. Gupta, Director General, BISA.

KALRO and CIMMYT: a longstanding mutually beneficial partnership

Written by on April 13, 2015. Posted in News.

Eliud Kireger, KALRO Director General, attends the International Wheat Yield Potential Workshop in Ciudad Obregón, Sonora, Mexico. Photo: Alfredo Sáenz/CIMMYT

This week, CIMMYT had the honor of hosting Dr. Eliud Kireger, the Acting Director General of the Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization (KALRO). His visit included travel to the experiment station at Ciudad Obregón for first-hand experience regarding CIMMYT wheat research, as KALRO is one of the few partners in Africa with whom we work on both maize and wheat.

According to Kireger, a burning issue in agriculture today in eastern and southern Africa is “low productivity per unit area. The increase we’ve seen in yields in different countries is largely due to expansion in land area.” He attributed this low productivity per unit area to lack of technologies or knowledge that can boost productivity. This dearth translates itself in many ways, such as low use of fertilizers, improved seed, or mechanization.

Taking a break to capture the moment on camera. Left to right: Bram Govaerts, Associate Director of the Global Conservation Agriculture Program and leader of MasAgro, Eliud Kireger, Stephen Mugo and Victor Kommerell, Program Manager-WHEAT. Photo: CIMMYT Files — Taking a break to capture the moment on camera. Left to right: Bram Govaerts, Associate Director of the Global Conservation Agriculture
Program and leader of MasAgro, Eliud Kireger, Stephen Mugo and Victor Kommerell, Program Manager-WHEAT. Photo: CIMMYT Files

Accompanying Kireger was Stephen Mugo, CIMMYT–Africa Regional Representative who also doubles as country representative for Kenya. Mugo lauded the benefits of the CIMMYT–KARLO synergy. “There is no single institution — working alone — that can be able to address all the challenges facing agriculture,” Mugo said. “From early on, CIMMYT decided that the only way was to team up with national institutions and work together, so that CIMMYT-developed germplasm and technologies reach intended beneficiaries countrywide for the benefit of maize and wheat farmers. CIMMYT and KALRO jointly design common projects on clear and specific areas to improve maize and wheat, then seek funding for these projects to address drought tolerance, crop pests and emerging diseases.”

One such emerging disease is maize lethal necrosis (MLN), which CIMMYT and KALRO are jointly tackling through ultra-modern shared facilities for MLN screening and for doubled haploid technology that both stand on KALRO land.

Read more on the CIMMYT–KALRO collaboration here.

SIMLESA’s seamlessly integrated solution for a perennial problem

Written by on April 13, 2015. Posted in News.

Southern Africa smallholder farmers can attain food security and more income through sustainable intensification of maize-based farming systems. This was revealed during recent field learning tours in Malawi and Mozambique last month. On show were farmer-tested improved maize–legume technologies being disseminated by CIMMYT’s Sustainable Intensification of Maize-Legume Cropping Systems for Food Security in Eastern and Southern Africa (SIMLESA) project.

An on-farm maize-legume rotation exploratory trial in Tete Province, Mozambique. Photo by Isaiah Nyagumbo/CIMMY

Smallholder farmers interacted with non-governmental organizations and private-sector partners who have shown a great interest in the SIMLESA outscaling approach using lead farmers and learning sites. Some of the sites promote smallholder agriculture development by linking farmers with buyers and agrodealers, and by providing access to credit and technical training.

Conservation agriculture (CA) exhibited mixed fortunes and presented more opportunities for learning and information sharing. Due to the excessive rains experienced in January, maize on the conventional ridge and furrow farming systems was generally greener and taller than on the CA plots, although the positive rotation effects in CA were clearly evident from the healthy maize crop following soybeans. Also, some maize varieties under CA were more susceptible to diseases such as leaf rust and suffered more from pests such as white grubs which attacked maize roots.

Transforming agriculture through technology: One of the farmers in Mitundu district, Malawi, Mrs Grace Chitanje, leads in demonstrating the use of Li seeder equipment. Photo by Jefias Mataruse/CIMMYT

Main points from the learning tours included:

Linking the smallholder farmer to input and output markets is an integral part of SIMLESA Phase II’s smallholder commercialization thrust.
The participation of private-sector companies in SIMLESA demonstrations is a vital exit strategy to ensure sustainability and continued engagement with smallholders.
CA technologies performed rather poorly in periods of excessive rainfall, and particularly so for nitrogen-starved crops.
Using different maize varieties could help SIMLESA recommend the best CA-ready maize cultivars capable of tolerating diseases and pests in CA systems.

Read more on SIMLESA’s field tours here.

Malawi Principal Secretary praises CIMMYT contributions to climate change adaptation

Written by on April 13, 2015. Posted in News.

Malawi’s Principal Secretary for Agriculture, Erica Maganga, led a delegation of Government Principal Secretaries and seed company representatives to Mpilisi and Ulongue in Balaka District on 11 March to observe progress in conservation agriculture (CA) adoption, as part of the country’s Agriculture Sector Wide Approach Program (ASWAP).

“CIMMYT is on the forefront in promoting different options to farmers… previous challenges will now not be an issue here as farmers have been exposed to different solutions,” said Maganga, after seeing the benefits of a trial in Ulongue where maize is grown under CA using different types of residues. Over the last several years the country has actively pursued CA, implementing practices that include eliminating traditional ridge-and-furrow tillage systems, keeping crop residues and rotating maize with leguminous crops.

Malawi is smaller than the state of Pennsylvania, yet supports 17.4 million people, half of whom live below the poverty line. Global climate change has disrupted the country’s traditional rain cycles, resulting in longer droughts or extreme floods. Maize is Malawi’s primary food crop, but unpredictable weather causes longer “hungry seasons” – the months until the next maize harvest, after the previous year’s grain has been eaten. With 85% of Malawian farmers depending upon rain-fed agriculture, erratic weather jeopardizes food security and livelihoods.

In 2006, 5 farmers were practicing conservation agriculture in Balaka District, Southern Malawi. Today, there are over 2,200. Photo: T. Samson/CIMMYT

The Malawian government and farmers are working vigorously to address climate variability and support projects in affected communities. One example is Tiyanjane Nutrition Group, a beneficiary of CIMMYT’s ReSEED Maize Project funded by USAID. The group is involved in small-scale farming, value addition and sale of baked goods. Farmers use the proceeds to help orphans and other people in need and to buy inputs for better farming.

“CIMMYT through ReSEED is demonstrating drought-tolerant maize varieties to farmers,” Maganga said. “I want to urge seed companies to be proactive in providing these new maize varieties to farmers.”

The delegation also visited farmers who adopted CA practices such as intercropping pigeonpea with maize. Other demonstrations showcased crop diversification, promotion of indigenous crops, nutrient management, good agriculture practices and construction of infiltration pits and lowland tracts to manage water runoff and filter pollutants.

Mphatso Gama explaining how CA works with Principal Secretary ofAgriculture Erica Maganga looking on. — Mphatso Gama explaining how CA works with Principal Secretary of
Agriculture Erica Maganga looking on.

The high-level delegation included representatives from the Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Water Development, the Principal Secretary for Trade and Industry, the Principal Secretary for Finance, the Principal Secretary for Transport and Public Works, the Principal Secretary for Local Government and Infrastructure Development, the Principal Secretary for Lands and Housing Development, the Principal Secretary for Nutrition, HIV & AIDS, the Principal Secretary for Youth, and the Principal Secretary for Economic Planning and Development. Seed companies including Monsanto, Pannar Seed, Chemicals and Marketing Company, Total LandCare Malawi and Self Help Africa also participated.

“First Lady of Wheat” in Mexico to celebrate her father, Norman Borlaug

Written by on April 13, 2015. Posted in Features.

The late wheat breeder Norman Borlaug was so dedicated to his work that he was away from home 80 percent of the time, either travelling or in the field, recalls his daughter, Jeanie Borlaug Laube.

Photo: Alfredo Sáenz/CIMMYT

Scientist Borlaug, who died in 2009 at age 95, led efforts in the mid-20th century to develop high-yielding, disease resistant, semi-dwarf wheat varieties that helped save more than 1 billion lives in Pakistan, India and other areas of the developing world.

Wheat breeders, scientists and members of the global food security community celebrated his birthday at a week-long meeting hosted by CIMMYT in the vast wheat fields of the Yaqui Valley near the town of Ciudad Obregón in Mexico’s northern state of Sonora.

Each year, CIMMYT Visitors’ Week serves as an opportunity to brainstorm, exchange ideas and celebrate Borlaug’s legacy on the anniversary of his birthday.

Borlaug, who would have been 101 this year, started work on wheat improvement in the mid-1940s near CIMMYT headquarters outside Mexico City.

He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 partly for his experimental work, much of which took place in the hot, dry conditions of Obregón, which resemble conditions in many developing countries where CIMMYT works.

This year, his daughter, who is co-chair of the Borlaug Global Rust Initiative, a partnership to study and and control devastating stem, yellow and leaf wheat rust disease, spoke on women and agriculture at the event. She is also involved with the Jeanie Borlaug Laube Women in Triticum Mentor Award, which honors mentors of both genders who aid women working in Triticum species and near relatives. Additionally, she sits on the board of directors of the Borlaug Training Foundation, established to provide agricultural education and guidance to scientists from developing nations.

She shared her views in the following interview.

Q: What is your current involvement in agriculture?

I’m not officially in agriculture – I’m a Spanish teacher. I taught for 40 years in high school until I retired three years ago. In the last 25 years of my career I had started a community service program at two different schools in Dallas and ran it. This involves 750 kids a year out doing community service. I still taught one Spanish class but my basic job was community service director. I haven’t been involved in agriculture directly. Indirectly, I have been because I was Norman Borlaug’s daughter so I’ve been around it, but I wasn’t raised on a farm, never lived on a farm, didn’t study agriculture or science in school.

What is your current involvement with wheat?

I’m co-chair of the Borlaug Global Rust Initiative – I go to the conferences once a year where all the wheat scientists of the world get together. I go to all the conferences and sit and listen and try to learn and follow what is going on with rust and the different problems they are having with wheat. I’m involved with the Women in Triticum Award. I visit and follow up with them and they are the ones who are out in the field learning how to become scientists and continue the profession. That’s how I’m involved in wheat.

Q: What are your views on women in agriculture?

I was in Pakistan last year and the U.S. Department of Agriculture set up a meeting with women who were all scientists working on their doctoral degrees – or already had a Ph.D. in agriculture. The discussions were very interesting as far as the difficulties that women find in this field and the pluses and minuses that are involved with that. It was interesting to hear different aspects of what they were feeling. The academic studies were not a difficult thing for them, but the reality of raising a family and keeping a profession going and taking care of a husband or children at the same time as being away from home presented problems.

No matter what profession women are in, challenges confront them because we have to multi-task. It doesn’t matter whether you are an accountant, a geneticist or a teacher – as a mother or trying to run a family and a profession, I think it’s challenging for a lot of women.

Q: What impresses you about women in agriculture?

I’m always amazed at the women scientists who are out there working at these wheat conferences and out in the in the field and taking care of their families from afar or even before they get married or have children, just the dedication they have to helping feed the world.

Q: What are your views on food security?

I don’t think the general population has any clue as to what goes on with agriculture. As my dad used to say, everybody just thinks the food comes from the grocery store and that’s where it is – it just pops in there. The average person doesn’t have a clue about that.

Q: What has changed since your father’s time?

I imagine he’d be facing the same challenges. I think it would be really interesting if he were still around because he’d be going crazy right now with all of this fighting about gluten-free and over genetically modified plants. He was so dedicated. His mission was to feed the world.

I think it is still the same mission. I think it is probably just a little harder because you have more public opinion and lack of info for what you need. He was changing genes and they are still doing that and they need to because they need to find plants that require less fertilizer and less water and provide more protein. What is amazing to me is to think about how they are working with computers now and he did all this in his head with notebooks.

He’d leave home at five in the morning and get home at eight at night. When he was in town he was gone about 80 percent of the time. When he first started this shuttle breeding program he’d come to Sonora. That was in the 40s – he had to go up through Arizona and back down at first because there were no roads. He’d be up here for three months, then he’d go back down, then he’d go to Toluca and South America, then he started going to India and Pakistan. In later years he was going Africa, so he was never home.

Q: Where did you grow up?

I was raised in Mexico City. My brother was born in Mexico and I came here when I was 14 months old. I lived here until I went to college. I did my schooling down here.

Q: Did your father try and encourage women in science and agriculture?

Yes he did. Back then there weren’t very many women in agriculture and scence. I think he’d be very pleased to see the turn with what’s happening with women in agriculture.

Q: What is it like celebrating your father?

It’s really neat. When my dad realized that he was going to die he asked me to bring ashes back to Mexico so I did. The last two years we came before he died, we came in a private jet because he couldn’t travel. It was so hard to get here. I remember I looked at his face as we were approaching Obregón. His face was just pure relief. He loved this place and he’d see the wheat fields and it was magical for him. Coming back is kind of bittersweet, realizing how much he loved the farmers too as they loved him.

Research highlights solutions for groundwater management in Bangladesh

Written by on April 10, 2015. Posted in News.

A recent research report ‘Groundwater Management in Bangladesh: An Analysis of Problems and Opportunities’, published by the USAID Feed the Future Funded Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia – Mechanization and Irrigation (CSISA-MI) project, highlights that the policy focus in Bangladesh so far has been largely on ‘resource development’ and not sufficiently on ‘resource management.’ This has resulted in drawdown of aquifers in intensively irrigated areas and high expenditure on subsidies to support the energy costs of pumping water for dry season irrigation. Unless water use efficiency practices and policies are adapted and adopted, these challenges in groundwater irrigation can become a serious threat to sustain agricultural growth in Bangladesh.

“Dry season rice production using irrigation helped Bangladesh to increase its total rice production from 18 million tons in 1991 to 33.8 million tons in 2013. However, this dramatic increase in rice production comes with costs – namely the high energy requirements needed to extract groundwater by pumps, which is a concern giving mounting fuel and electricity prices in South Asia” said Timothy Krupnik, CIMMYT Agronomist and co-author in this study.

Diesel pumps consume about 4.6 billion litres of diesel every year to pump groundwater for dry season rice production, costing USD 4.0 billion. This cost is in addition to USD 1.4 billion of yearly energy subsidies supplied by the Government of Bangladesh (GoB) to maintain groundwater irrigation. Such considerable investments add to the energy cost burden, and may not be financially sustainable in the long-term, the report says. This conclusion is underscored by the GoB’s interest to reduce energy subsidies and shift from ground to surface water irrigation, which is energy-wise less expensive.

The report highlights several supply- and demand-side solutions for sustainable groundwater management. Improving water use efficiencies through the adoption of resource conserving crop management practices such as direct-seeded rice and bed planting could help in reducing groundwater demand for agriculture. In surface water irrigated areas, use of more fuel efficient axial flow pumps that the CSISA-MI project is working with the private sector to scale out, is also crucial.

Water demand for irrigation can also be reduced by rationalizing cropping patterns – specifically by shifting from rice to more profitable crops like maize, and to other food security cereals like rice, in areas where groundwater is a concern. Involvement of water users, investments in improved water and agricultural technologies, and providing extra support for farmers making transition to less water demanding crops is needed.

Since the concept of ‘more water-more yield’ is still prevalent among farmers, the report also highlights the need for policy to focus more on awareness raising through educational programs aimed at wise water use and volumetric water pricing. In addition to technical solutions, strong linkages and improved communications between different organizations involved in the management of groundwater resources will also be required to shift to a more water productive, and less costly, agricultural production system in Bangladesh.

USAID Approves USD 17.8 Million Grant for a New Project to Support Seed Scaling in Eastern and Southern Africa

Written by on April 10, 2015. Posted in News. 1 Comment on USAID Approves USD 17.8 Million Grant for a New Project to Support Seed Scaling in Eastern and Southern Africa

CIMMYT has received a grant of USD 17.8 million from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to implement a new project dubbed Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa Seed Scaling (DTMASS). The three-year project officially started on 15 March 2015.

The project aims to produce and deploy affordable and improved drought-tolerant, stress-resilient and high-yielding maize varieties for 1.8 million smallholder farmers in Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Mozambique and Zambia by the end of the project. Similarly, DTMASS plans to produce approximately 7,900 metric tons of maize varieties with a strategic goal of improving food security and income for the farmers.

“This is a great achievement for the project team, which worked tirelessly to develop the project proposal that has just been approved for implementation”, remarked Tsedeke Abate, DTMASS project leader. He added that the project will go a long way in supporting farmers to increase their returns from maize farming, while at the same time giving them good-quality maize for consumption. “This is a good day for maize in Africa,” said Tsedeke.

DTMASS will be implemented in close collaboration with USAID’s Feed the Future program, building on experience, successes and lessons from the Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa and other complementary CIMMYT maize projects in Africa like Improved Maize for African Soils and Water Efficient Maize for Africa, to strengthen production and delivery of maize seeds to farmers in the seven target countries.

CIMMYT will also work with the respective countries’ extension wings of the ministries of agriculture, public and private seed companies, national agricultural research organizations, community-based organizations and non-governmental organizations. More on DTMASS