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SIDU + ISO = Quality assured

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CIMMYT E-News, vol 4 no. 4, April 2007

apr04The Seed Health Laboratory, part of CIMMYT’s Seed Inspection and Distribution Unit (SIDU) has become the first in the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) to gain International Organization for Standardization (ISO) certification

For the past 10 months there has been a little extra edge at the Seed Health Laboratory at the CIMMYT campus in El Batán, Mexico. Everything every researcher and technician did when handling maize and wheat seeds was being scrutinized in the minutest detail by inspection teams from the Mexican Accreditation Entity (EMA) for the ISO. “It was sometimes tense, but I knew our procedures were already at a high level, so I wasn’t really worried,” says Monica Mezzalama, head of SIDU.

The routine shipment and reception of maize and wheat seed samples is the life blood of a global breeding center like CIMMYT. Its crop improvement research means breeding new types of seed that can enhance the livelihoods and food security of farm families in the developing world. You can improve all the seed you want at an experiment station, but eventually you have to ship seed for testing by farmers and national research programs outside of the country where the breeding was done. Also, given that CIMMYT holds the world’s largest collection of maize and wheat germplasm in trust in its genetic resources center, each year it sends hundreds of shipments of seed from those stores to breeders and other researchers from around the world, in response to their requests for samples.

Seed can carry pathogens—viruses, bacteria, or fungi—that reduce the viability of the seed itself or prevent the plants from growing well. When seed is consumed directly as food or feed, seed-borne organisms may cause chemical changes, degrade seed contents, or release powerful toxins that can harm humans and livestock. In the best of cases, food is simply wasted; in the worst, famine or poisoning can result. Certain seed-borne pathogens are endemic to specific areas of the world; great efforts are made to confine them and not allow their spread.

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In 1989 CIMMYT established an independent Seed Health Laboratory and in 2004 the seed inspection and distribution unit (SIDU) to handle the inspection and shipment of seed, essentially ensuring that no seed with disease pathogens on board enters the center’s breeding programs or leaves its premises for other destinations. All CGIAR research centers with crop genetic resource collections produce and distribute seed from breeding trials or from their genebanks. All maintain their own, stringent standards and have shared their experiences. Until recently, seed health standards at CIMMYT were self-imposed, in cooperation with the government of Mexico. The implementation of free trade agreements between Mexico and other countries—particularly the USA and Canada—brought a commitment from Mexico to ensure that all seed originating from the country conformed to international norms.

The ISO is the world’s largest developer of standards. ISO standards have important economic and social repercussions, making a positive difference not just to organizations for whom they solve basic problems in production and distribution, but to society as a whole. Mexico adopted ISO standards for seed movement, to be administered by EMA. For CIMMYT it is the ISO/IEC 17025-2005 General requirements for the competence of testing and calibration laboratories. “We knew all along that our seed health procedures were the best,” says Masa Iwanaga, CIMMYT Director General. “But having the toughest outside inspection in the world confirm what we knew is very gratifying, not only for us but for our partners in more than an hundred countries.”

More information Monica Mezzalana, Head, SIDU (m.mezzalama@cgiar.org).

CIMMYT researchers say participatory research supports their achievements

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CIMMYT E-News, vol 3 no. 9, September 2006

sep01Farmers participate in a significant portion of CIMMYT research and technology testing, according to center researchers, and the scientists believe this makes their efforts more effective.

The combined budgets of 19 CIMMYT projects cited by their principal investigators in a 2004 survey as including participatory research components exceeded US$9 million—roughly a quarter of the center’s total budget at the time. “Not all that money was spent on participatory activities, but the figure bespeaks a significant investment,” says Nina Lilja, Agricultural Economist in the on Participatory Research and CGIAR Systemwide Program Gender Analysis for Technology Development and Institutional Innovation (PRGA Program).

This conclusion was one outcome of a study on participatory research at CIMMYT by Lilja and Mauricio Bellon, Director, Diversity for Livelihoods Program, International Plant Genetic Resources Institute (IPGRI), and former Human Ecologist at CIMMYT. “Nearly all respondents felt that the use of participatory approaches had been worthwhile and most believed participatory methods had added value to the research,” says Lilja. “In support of this, many respondents provided evidence of project achievements through use of participatory approaches.”

Participatory research—particularly where farmers help evaluate and promote new crop varieties or farming practices—have been used increasingly in CIMMYT research in recent years. This study represents the first-ever analysis of participatory approaches, from the perspective of center researchers. Through the 2004 survey, the scientists reported on projects they considered as having a participatory component. The range of the study was broad: there was great variation in the types and characteristics of participatory research for which researchers provided information. The survey allowed characterization of the projects, but not further critical analysis of the quality or the appropriateness of the methods applied nor an objective assessment of impacts. Information was received for 19 projects from 18 scientists—15 male, 3 female; 5 social scientists, 13 biophysical scientists. Sixteen of the projects involved farmer-participatory research; three targeted national-program scientists and seed agronomists. Most of the projects covered work in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia; only two had activities in Latin America. About a third of the projects involved participatory testing of crop varieties or production practices; the remainder involved focus group activities or stakeholder meetings.

The issues most frequently addressed via participatory methods related to increasing productivity and understanding farmers’ needs and constraints. “Participatory research at CIMMYT was largely of the functional type—that is, aimed at improving the efficiency and relevance of the research, rather than specifically to empower farmers,” says Bellon. “Also, there was an overall lack of awareness of multiple beneficiaries or of differential effects owing to gender. None of the respondents had been trained previously in participatory methods.”

Two major recommendations of this report for adding value to CIMMYT’s participatory research efforts are to (1) create a more conducive environment within the center for scientists to share experiences and learn from each other, and (2) better document outcomes and impacts of the center’s participatory research.

To view or download a copy of the study, click here.

For further information, contact John Dixon (j.dixon@cgiar.org)

Stem Rust Shows Its Strength

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March, 2005

noticias7The greatest pest of crops
-Roman philosopher Pliny, AD 100

Nearly 2000 years after Pliny’s description of stem rusts, plant disease scientist William Wagoire made a startling observation in a Ugandan wheat field. The telltale reddish brown spores he saw on the wheat plants were unmistakable and most unwelcome—they heralded a resurgence of stem rust.

The interim between Pliny and Wagoire’s sightings saw the scourge, which is capable of destroying 100% of a crop, emerge and dissipate countless times at various locations worldwide. Ancient Greeks struggled with it, the Romans sacrificed red animals such as foxes and dogs every spring to appease their rust god Robigus, and the US epidemics of 1916 and 1957 ravaged the nation’s wheat belt. A reprieve came in the 1960s with Norman Borlaug’s semi-dwarf wheat lines, which carried resistance to rust and wiped the worry from farmers’ and scientists’ minds. But now a new strain, called UG99, has reared its head—it is destroying harvests in East Africa and moving fast.

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Wheat’s nemesis, rust is a fungus that spreads quickly over large areas. Tiny spores readily take to the wind and can travel thousands of kilometers via the atmospheric jet streams. With the proliferation of intensive agricultural systems since the 1970s, the stem rust fungus has greater opportunity to multiply, mutate, and evolve, and this is what we may now be witnessing. Since Wagoire’s discovery in Uganda, it was found in Kenya in 2000, Ethiopia in 2002, and there is no reason to believe it will halt its march.

“Stem rust has been a severe disease in the Indian Subcontinent, and it is only a matter of time until the new strain reaches across the Saudi Arabian peninsula and into the Middle East, South Asia, and eventually East Asia,” says Ravi Singh, CIMMYT wheat pathologist. It could also reach Australia and the Americas in the clothes of people who travel in and out of East Africa.

For those Eastern African farmers who can afford it, fungicides offer a short-term defense. When the disease is in epidemic form, however, greater and greater amounts of chemicals are needed to achieve control. Also, this method exerts a considerable toll on the environment. Breeding for new genetic resistance is the preferred technique, especially given the estimates that half of the world’s bread wheat is susceptible.

“The situation is ready for an explosive disaster,” warns Borlaug, who is leading a campaign for concerted action against the new strain.

Funding is currently being sought for a CIMMYT-led Global Rust Initiative (GRI), promoted by Borlaug and others, which will allow breeders to better monitor the spread of the disease and to develop resistant wheat varieties. There is also a vital need to revive training for rust research, and to support such work at the national level.

For further information, contact Dr. Ravi Singh (r.singh@cgiar.org).

 

Helping to Reinvigorate Agriculture in Afghanistan

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CIMMYT E-News, vol 2 no. 8, August 2005
whtVariety
Ghulam m Aqtash, Executive Director, KRA

“The maize brought by CIMMYT and implemented by Kunduz Rehabilitation Agency is doing wonders.”
Years of war (1979-1989) and subsequent internal instability, plus a prolonged drought and an earthquake, devastated Afghanistan’s agricultural infrastructure, production capacity, and agricultural research capabilities. As a result, agricultural production fell to an estimated 45% of 1978 levels, with crop yields declining to about 50% of pre-war levels.
Wheat is the number-one staple crop in Afghanistan, and maize is the third. Together they occupy 80% of the area planted to annual crops in the country. A central aim of CIMMYT in Afghanistan is to make improved, high quality seed of both crops available to farmers, along with appropriate crop management technologies. To date CIMMYT has responded to Afghanistan’s most urgent needs by:

  • Distributing 300 tons of quality seed of the locally-adapted wheat MH-97 to 9,000 farmers in four provinces of Afghanistan.
  • Producing and delivering tons of breeder’s and foundation maize seed.
  • Planting 35 wheat variety trials at 6 sites and 24 maize trials at 8 sites to identify additional materials suited to farmers’ needs.
  • Training Afghan researchers through courses in-country and at CIMMYT in Mexico.

CIMMYT has collaborated with Afghan researchers for over three decades—even during the war. Thanks to the Swedish Committee for Afghanistan and the FAO, Afghan researchers maintained contact with the Turkey-CIMMYT-ICARDA International Winter Wheat Improvement Program (IWWIP) and continued to select the best new wheats from international nurseries. The new seed moved from farmer to farmer; without it, people would have suffered even more hunger and malnutrition than they did. All winter and facultative wheat cultivars currently registered in Afghanistan are derived from those nurseries. In total, several hundred CIMMYT wheat and maize nurseries have been evaluated in Afghanistan over the past 30 years.

Recent Update from the Field

kunduzAn important component of a current ACIAR-funded project (“Wheat and Maize Productivity Improvement in Afghanistan”) has included collaborative work with farmers and non-government and international organizations to verify in farmers’ fields the performance and acceptability of improved wheat and maize varieties. For wheat, the project uses two approaches:

  1. A traditional approach where demonstrations are planted in farmers’ fields and the farmer assessments are recorded informally through topic focused interviews during field days. The varieties included in these demonstrations are released in the country and made available where security allows. Using this approach in Parwan Province, farmers showed a keen interest for the variety ‘Sohla,’ which yielded well and showed superior resistance to diseases like rust. The project is helping to ensure that demand for seed of the variety is met.
  2. A participatory technology development approach implemented by the Aga Khan Foundation brings farmers to research stations to observe yield trials of promising varieties. Farmers identify preferred varieties with red tags; their assessments determine the selection of wheat lines for advancement and subsequent release.

For maize, the project provided non-government organizations with seed of open-pollinated varieties that were distributed to rural communities. Farmer testing and feedback resulted in the identification of two promising varieties: Rampur 9433 and PozaRica 8731. Farmers said the varieties performed well but did not mature quickly enough to fit local cropping systems, so project participants are identifying earlier-maturing varieties. To offer farmers sufficient seed, the project is pursuing two approaches:

  1. A formal scheme whose main partners are the Agricultural Research Institute of Afghanistan (ARIA) and the FAO, through the Improved Seed Enterprise (ISE), and under which breeder’s seed will be offered to recognized producers of certified seed.
  2. Informal farmer-to-farmer distribution systems, which have resulted in up to a 10-fold increase in some areas under improved varieties. For example, the Norwegian Project Office-Rural Rehabilitation Association for Afghanistan (NPO-RRAA) reported that farmers who had planted open-pollinated varieties from the project in 2003 had bartered and sold more than two tons of seed of the varieties in 2004.

afghanFarmers

The project has built human capacity through in-country, technical workshops, five of which have been conducted since 2000 on topics including: agricultural development potential and constraints in specific zones; yellow rust and field scoring for the disease; research methodologies; variety evaluation; and several field days. The workshops have drawn 70 participants, including farmers, workers from non-government organizations, and officers from research stations.

CIMMYT partners in Afghanistan include:
  • The Future Harvest Consortium to Rebuild Agriculture in Afghanistan, funded by USAID and coordinated by ICARDA.
  • AusAID and the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR).
  • The FAO.
  • The International Fertilizer Development Center (IFDC)-USAID.
  • The French non-government organization, ACTED.
  • The Aga Khan Development Network.
  • Improved Seed Enterprise.
  • The Afghan Ministry of Agriculture.
  • ARIA.

For further information, contact Mahmood Osmanzai (m.osmanzai@cgiar.org).

This write-up draws on contributions from Alma McNab, former CIMMYT science writer and the CIMMYT team in Afghanistan, including team leader Mahmood Osmanzai and former CIMMYT maize agronomist Julien de Meyer. De Meyer manages the Effective Development Group (EDG), a non-government organization based in Australia and has been commissioned by ACIAR to assist the Afghanistan project in data analysis, training, planning workshops, and reporting.

Fellows Program, World Food Prize Laureates Highlight Borlaug’s 90th

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March, 2004

borlaug_photo1US Secretary of State Colin Powell paid tribute to Iowa and in particular to one man, known as the father of the Green Revolution, who was born there 90 years ago.

“On behalf of the American people, on behalf of President Bush, we gather to thank heaven for the great state of Iowa,” Powell said at a State Department ceremony to announce the 2004 World Food Prize Laureates on 29 March. “Most of all, we salute Iowa’s own, Norman Borlaug, for creating the World Food Prize and for his own prize winning work against hunger.”

US Secretary of Agriculture Ann Veneman joined Powell in honoring Dr. Borlaug’s 90th birthday in Washington DC. In front of more than 200 guests, including FAO Director General Jacques Diouf, USAID Administrator Andrew Natsios, World Bank Vice President and CGIAR Chair Ian Johnson, CGIAR Director Francisco Reifschneider, and CIMMYT Director General Masa Iwanaga, Veneman described the Norman E. Borlaug Agricultural Science and Technology Fellows Program to be inaugurated by the United States Department of Agriculture.

“Thanks to Dr. Borlaug’s pioneering work in the 1960’s to develop varieties of high-yielding wheat, countless millions of men, women and children, who will never know his name, will never go to bed hungry,” Powell said. “Dr. Borlaug’s scientific breakthroughs have eased needless suffering and saved countless lives. And Dr. Borlaug has been an inspiration to new generations across the globe who have taken up the fight against hunger and have made breakthroughs of their own.”

A tribute to Dr. Borlaug’s individual pursuit of using science and technology to fight hunger, the Fellows Program will focus on strengthening agriculture in developing countries by incorporating and advancing new science and technology. Proposed by Texas A&M University’s Agriculture Program and established by the USDA, it will give scientific training to fellows from developing countries and support exchanges among university faculty, researchers, and policy makers.

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The program aims to prepare professionals who want to lead developing countries in agricultural research and education while embracing the values that Dr. Borlaug’s life and work represent. It will be managed by the USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service, the US Agency for International Development, the US Department of State, land grant colleges, and Texas A&M University, where Dr. Borlaug is professor emeritus.

In 2004, an initial group of fellows from around the world—especially Africa, Latin America, and Asia—will begin training or research programs at US schools, government agencies, private companies, international agricultural research centers such as CIMMYT, and nonprofit institutions. The program will span such diverse areas as biotechnology, food safety, marketing, economics, and natural resource conservation, and it will include studies of policies and regulations to foster the use of new technology.

The US$ 2 million research grant given to the Texas Agriculture Experiment Station by USDA-Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service will be managed by a Consultative Committee, which comprises representatives from universities, foundations, government agencies, and countries affiliated with Dr. Borlaug’s work. This committee will serve as a donor council, advise on the selection and placement of fellows, and evaluate the program.

At the US State Department, Secretary of State Powell named the new World Food Prize Laureates: Yuan Long Ping of China and Monty Jones of Sierra Leone, who have made advances in high-yielding rice.

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Borlaug founded the World Food Prize in 1986 to honor people who have made important contributions to improving the world’s food supply. Endowed since 1990 by businessman and philanthropist John Ruan, this international award recognizes achievements of people who have improved the quality, amount, or accessibility of food in the world to advance human development.

World Food Prize Laureate Yuan has revolutionized rice cultivation in China. Known as the Father of Hybrid Rice, he helped cultivate the first successful and widely grown hybrid rice varieties in the world. More than 20 countries have adopted his hybrid rice, and his breeding methods have helped provide food for tens of millions of people.

World Food Prize Laureate Jones, formerly a rice breeder at WARDA—the Africa Rice Center—in Cîte d’Ivoire, successfully made fertile inter-specific African and Asian rice crosses that combined the best characteristics of both gene pools. This “New Rice for Africa,” or NERICA, has higher yields and better agronomic characteristics for African conditions.

Jones and Yuan will receive a $250,000 prize to share in October.

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Dr. Borlaug has dedicated 60 years to building knowledge and fostering development in poor countries. Since the mid-1940s, when he arrived in Mexico to work on an agricultural project that was the forerunner of CIMMYT, he has worked tirelessly in the cause of international agricultural research. The innovative wheat varieties that he and his team bred in Mexico in the 1950s enabled India and Pakistan to prevent a massive famine in the mid-1960s and to initiate the Green Revolution. This achievement earned Dr. Borlaug the Nobel Prize in 1970 and created extensive support for a network of international agricultural research centers, known as the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR).

In order to meet the 1996 World Food Summit goal of cutting in half the number of chronically hungry people by 2015, Powell said the international community must reduce the number of undernourished people by an average rate of 22 million people per year. The current rate is only a decrease of 6 million people per year. Of the more than 800 million severely malnourished people in the world, 80 percent are women and children, he said, but famine is entirely preventable in the 21st century.

More information on the Borlaug Fellows Program: http://www.usda.gov/Newsroom/0125.04.html

More information on the World Food Prize: http://www.worldfoodprize.org

CIMMYT Intensifies Efforts in Sub-Saharan Africa with Livelihoods Program

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August, 2004

live2On 22 June 2004, CIMMYT culminated a year of hard work and planning to bring a new focus and intensity to the Center’s efforts in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) by launching its new African Livelihoods Program (ALP) in Nairobi, Kenya. An extensive strategic planning exercise involving stakeholders, donors, and Center staff in the year before the launch resulted in a restructuring of the Center and its programs along with the creation of the ALP.

CIMMYT is no stranger to Africa. We began working with national research programs in the region even before our official opening in 1966. Today, around 40% of our budget is spent in the continent, representing one of the higher investments across the entire CGIAR. Outside of headquarters, CIMMYT’s largest contingent of international scientists is based in SSA, primarily in eastern and southern Africa. Center scientists based in Mexico provide active support, and a steady stream of African scientists have been training at headquarters.

Early work focused on the development of improved, higher yielding maize varieties adapted to African agroecosystems. Over time, the mission broadened to include the development of stress and disease tolerant varieties, crop management responses to declining soil fertility, overcoming the parasitic weed Striga, strengthening seed industry and distribution networks, and socioeconomic diagnostic and impact studies.

CIMMYT’s research foci in SSA, which have largely been on target, will not change drastically under the new African Livelihoods Program. However, CIMMYT is going to increase the emphasis on improving rural livelihoods through specific maize system interventions. That could include better nutrition through quality protein maize, higher profitability through intercropping/multicropping systems and access to technology and knowledge, or better and more sustainable land use through conservation agriculture techniques.

africalivThis new course relies on an integrated approach based on teams from diverse fields that bring their expertise to bear on specific problems. Projects will go beyond just the development of variety and technology to explore how to reach farmers with these improvements. CIMMYT cannot do this alone, and there will be a new focus on effective partnerships and networks to “deliver the goods” to farmers.

On hand for the launching event were Kenya’s Minister of Agriculture, Hon. Kipruto Arap Kirwa; the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture, Mr. Joseph Kinyua; CIMMYT Director General, Masa Iwanaga; Director of the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute, Dr. Romano Kiome; the ALP director, Shivaji Pandey; and other distinguished guests.

Activities and Impact Highlights

High yielding hybrids and open pollinated varieties (OPVs), and promotion of varieties resistant to maize streak virus, gray leaf spot, and E. turcicum.

Since the mid-1960s, more than 150 hybrids and open pollinated varieties (OPV) released and planted on more than two million hectares in SSA contain CIMMYT germplasm. About 55% of the disease resistant varieties released since 1988 have contained CIMMYT germplasm.

Abiotic stress tolerant maize varieties

SSA farmers say drought is one of their main constraints. In response, CIMMYT is trying to move stress tolerance into OPVs and hybrids. Seed companies and farming communities are producing seed, with deployment exceeding 250,000 hectares in southern Africa. Sales of these varieties have quadrupled over each of the past four years.

Insect Resistant Maize

Conventionally bred maize varieties with resistance to stem boring insects have entered Kenya’s National Performance Trials. Transgenic Bt maize is charting new ground and is expected in farmers’ fields in 2008. “Firsts” produced by the Insect Resistant Maize in Africa (IRMA) project include the development of insect resistance management strategies for smallholder farmers, extensive pre-release studies on non-target organisms in African cropping systems, marker-free Bt constructs for the African varieties, and construction of the only biosafety greenhouse in SSA outside of South Africa.

Striga resistance and control

Striga inflicts roughly US$2.7 billion in maize losses in SSA annually. CIMMYT and partners have developed a technology based on coating seeds with a herbicide that offers Striga resistance. More than 130 OPVs, inbreds, and hybrids have been converted to herbicide resistance. Five hybrids were nominated for the Kenya National Performance Trials and three have been pre-released.

Quality Protein Maize (QPM)

QPM provides more complete dietary protein, which improves people’s nutrition and also their incomes through its use as animal feed. QPM is rapidly being moved into locally adapted varieties in SSA for distribution to farmers. Uganda has released a QPM OPV (Nalongo) that garnered the interest of the World Food Program, which is encouraging local farmers to grow it for emergency food rations.

Regional approach to soil fertility research and diffusion

CIMMYT has served a prominent coordinating and facilitating role in the formation of the SoilFertNet and the soon to be launched Soil Fertility Consortium, which will serve four countries directly in southern Africa and other countries indirectly through the ECAMAW network.

Training and capacity building

Between 1998 and 2004, CIMMYT either sponsored or coordinated more than 150 training events ranging from PhD committee membership, to GMO awareness programs for parliamentarians, to farmer participatory research workshops. Participants from the region took advantage of about 2,500 individual training opportunities.

Socioeconomics

The CIMMYT Economics program has been active in Africa since the 1970s. It has been instrumental in developing the Farming Systems Research approach, which has been a key link in bringing agricultural research closer to farmers. CIMMYT economists in East Africa organized farm surveys, including 22 adoption studies, which provided the basis for most of the quantitative analysis on maize systems we have today.

Mother-Baby participatory research and diffusion

Participatory research has emerged as a major tenet of CIMMYT’s research efforts. This has been married with the need to improve technology transfer to farmers in the form of the mother-baby trials—a farmer-centered approach promoted and constantly refined by CIMMYT scientists in southern and eastern Africa. Mother-Baby trials, with the involvement of more than 100 partner organizations, are today grown in 12 African countries.

For more information: Dr. Shivaji Pandey

40th Anniversary Celebration of the CGIAR – Program

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 Preston Auditorium, Wednesday, July 6, 2011, 9:15 a.m.
DRAFT AGENDA

Participants:

The Preston Auditorium is expected to be filled.  The audience will include CGIAR Consortium and Fund Council representatives, Directors General of Centers, agricultural research partners, IFPRI Center staff, past CGIAR chairs, World Bank staff, and other external guests.  In addition, the event will be webcast for the benefit of staff at all CGIAR Centers and other partners.

Mr. Zoellick, Ms. Andersen, Mr. Shah, and Mr. Castañeda, will be on stage in the Preston Auditorium, with the podium stage right. A backdrop will feature an image of the 40th anniversary of CGIAR.

Overall Objectives:

  • To celebrate CGIAR’s tremendous achievements in agricultural research over the past 40 years
  • To showcase, through the launch of a CGIAR Research Program (CRP), how the CGIAR has repositioned itself to continue to address emerging challenges for the next 40 years
  • To reiterate the World Bank’s and other donors’/partners’ support to the CGIAR in its drive to enhance food security

 

 

9:15 a.m. Roger V. Morier – Call to order and introduces Inger
9:15 a.m. Inger Andersen: Welcome remarks

  • Introduction of other platform personnel and introduction of each as they speak
  • Introduction of the short video preceding Mr. Zoellick’s remarks.
9:20 a.m. Video Presentation – The Story of the Start of the CGIAR, as told by Norman Borlaug and Robert McNamara
9:30 a.m. Inger Andersen: Invitation to Mr. Zoellick to make remarks (approximately 10 minutes)

  • Focus on state of food security, role of WB and challenge to CG
9:40 a.m. Rajiv Shah, Administrator, USAID invited to make remarks (TBC)

  • On behalf of developed country partners of the CG
  • USAID’s efforts re: food security
9:50 a.m. Mariano Ruiz-Funes, Deputy Secretary of Agriculture, Mexico, invited to make brief remarks

  • On behalf of the developing country partners of the CGIAR
  • Mexico’s commitment to combating food insecurity
9:55 a.m. Presentation by the CGIAR Fund Office to Mr. Zoellick, Mr. Shah, and Mr. Castañeda of a book produced for the 40th anniversary of the CGIAR
10:00 a.m. Mr. Zoellick’s departure from Preston Auditorium. Platform personnel change
Launch of MAIZE CRP
10:05 a.m. Introductory remarks by Inger Andersen, Chair, Fund Council

  • Will emphasize the role and responsibility of donors in new compact
10:15 a.m. Remarks by Carlos Perez del Castillo, Board Chair, Consortium of International Agricultural Research Centers

  • Introduction of other platform personnel and introduction of each as they speak
  • Introduction of the exciting new CGIAR Research Program portfolio and makes the link to MAIZE
10:25 a.m. Video: African farmer and Asian farmer

  • Will emphasize perspective of farmers in developing countries in regard to food security issues
  • A view from the ground
10:35 a.m. Remarks by Ephraim Mukisira, Director, KARI

  • Will emphasize the need for cooperation to address complex challenges of food security
  • No one organization can do it alone
10:45 a.m. Launch of MAIZE Program, Tom Lumpkin, DG, CIMMYT

  • Will explain the composition of the plan including how it was developed, how it will be managed, and what the overall goals are
  • Will emphasize the need for cooperation and commitment over a long period of time
  • Will emphasize the immense challenge – but we can address it if we act now
10:55 a.m. Closing Remarks by Jonathan Wadsworth, Executive Secretary, Fund Council and Head of Fund Office

New Borlaug Institute for South Asia fosters improved farming for food security

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CIMMYT visit in Bangladesh– Based in three key agricultural states of India

– Builds on legacy of Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Norman Borlaug

The Borlaug Institute for South Asia (BISA) was officially launched on Wednesday, 5 October 2011, at the A.P. Shinde Symposium Hall, NASC Complex in New Delhi, India.

The event commenced with a welcome by the Secretary, Department of Agricultural Research and Education (DARE) and Director General of ICAR, S. Ayyappan. The Agriculture Minister of Madhya Pradesh, Ramkrishna Kusmaria; Punjab Agriculture Minister, S. Sucha Singh Langah; and the Union Minister for Agriculture and Food Processing Industry, Sharad Pawar, accompanied by Pratibha Pawar, delivered speeches at the event. Also in attendance was Mr. Rajiv Mehrishi, Secretary of ICAR.

The three agricultural ministers of the states that will be hosting BISA facilities delivered speeches in recognition of the important role which BISA will play in improving food security not only in their own states, but throughout the whole of South Asia. Mr. Pawar highlighted the concerns of population growth both globally and especially in South Asia, in addition to rising food prices and unrest caused by food insecurity. He stated that “it would not be an overstatement to say that Norman Borlaug is a household name in India.” On a personal level, he also recalled his interaction with Dr. Borlaug in India in the 1960s.

BISA will have centers in Ludhiana in Punjab, Pusa in Bihar, and Jabalpur in Madhya Pradesh. Each of the states contains varied agro-ecological zones allowing for testing a variety of maize and wheat cultivars suited to the equally varied environments of South Asia.

Dr. Thomas Lumpkin, CIMMYT Director General, delivered the closing remarks, reminding the audience of the challenges of global food security as well as the humanitarian crisis in the Horn of Africa. He also highlighted the support of the Mexican government and CIMMYT’s role in facilitating and promoting cooperation through its centers in India, Mexico, and Africa. Dr. Lumpkin concluded his speech stating that “CIMMYT has been in India for 50 years. It’s time we laid down some roots.”

The official opening ceremony was marked by a cultural event featuring classical Indian dancing including choreographical styles from all three states. In addition to CIMMYT-India staff and speakers, also present at the launching ceremony were the management committee of CIMMYT and its Board of Trustees. The launching ceremony was attended by representatives from CIMMYT’s sister institutions ILRI, IRRI, and Bioversity, as well as by the Allan Mustard Institute of the US Dept. of Agriculture and the private sector. The event was closed by a dinner and a speech by the Board of Trustees Chair, Sara Boettiger.

BISA was officially approved by India’s Union Cabinet, based on a proposal by the Ministry of Agriculture, Department of Agricultural Research and Education on 30 September. In a press release issued by the government of India (http://pib.nic.in/newsite/PrintRelease.aspx?relid=76358), the approval of BISA is described as follows: “The establishment of BISA in India will enable India to harness the best of international science, in meeting food security challenges. India would be able to rapidly and effectively absorb the research output of BISA thus benefiting farmers of the country.”

The Borlaug Institute of South Asia was conferred international status as detailed in clause 3 of the United Nations (Privileges and Immunities) Act of 1947. The Department of Agricultural Research and Education (DARE), on behalf of the government of India, will be authorized in all matters regarding the establishment of the institute.

Read more:

India and CIMMYT agree to establish new research institute for South Asia

Borlaug Institute South Asia to address food security

Big Bang from World Wheat Breeding Bucks

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CIMMYT E-News, vol 3 no. 5, May 2006

may01Global, collaborative wheat research brings enormous gains for developing country farmers, particularly in more marginal environments, according to an article in the Centenary Review of the Journal of Agricultural Science.

Forty years of worldwide, publicly-funded collaborative research to improve the yield potential and stress tolerance of wheat, along with efforts to extend the outputs of this science in developing countries, has lowered food costs for the poor, allowed food supplies to meet the demands of rising populations, brought harvest surpluses worth US$ 3-6 billion each year to farmers, and saved 1.8 billion hectares of natural ecosystems from conversion to farmland, to name a few results.

These and other findings appear in a recent review article by CIMMYT wheat physiologist Matthew Reynolds and 1970 Nobel Peace Laureate Norman E. Borlaug—one of a series of papers to celebrate 100 years of publishing by the Journal of Agricultural Science. The review traces how international wheat breeding over the last five decades has evolved into “
a global agricultural strategic and trouble-shooting network that plays a central role in providing food security in the developing world.” Led initially by CIMMYT and later with the partnership of the International Centre for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), the network for wheat and related crops provides a forum “
whereby institutional linkages are fostered and maintained globally, not only through exchange of germplasm, but also through knowledge sharing, training programmes, international visits and development of extended partnerships
” According to the article, centers like CIMMYT and ICARDA have also played a key role in collecting and conserving the landraces and other genetic resources that improved varieties have replaced, making those resources available worldwide and, more recently, ensuring that useful diversity is rechanneled into improved cultivars.

“Given its importance and accomplishments, it’s somewhat surprising that global wheat breeding struggles to find investors,” says Reynolds. Also noted by Reynolds and Borlaug was the fact that most of the increased area of adoption of improved wheat varieties since 1977 has occurred in more marginal, rainfed areas, rather than favored irrigated farmlands, and that yield increases from these varieties during 1979-95 were greater in semi-arid and heat-stressed environments (2-3% per year) than in irrigated areas (just over 1% per year).

“Considering the issue of food security and its positive influence on the livelihoods of poor people, it’s clear that publicly-funded international centers provide a continuity in agricultural development that would otherwise be lacking for many countries where economic, political, and social instability are commonplace,” the authors say.

A companion Centenary Review by Reynolds and Borlaug discusses the future of collaborative wheat improvement, in which, according to Reynolds, researchers will apply technology-assisted methodologies and powerful information tools to identify and breed value-added traits into wheat varieties. “At the same time, however, we’ll continue to seek farmer input to increase the amount of useful genetic diversity in the field and the local adaptation of varieties, as well as in testing and promoting conservation agriculture practices.”

Regarding the future, the authors say: “Policy-makers need to balance the appeal of high-risk investments in the latest technologies with the realities of resource-poor farmers, for whom tried and tested technologies offer immediate and reliable solutions.”

To access abstracts or full-text versions of the articles:

Impacts of breeding on international collaborative wheat research

Applying innovations and new technologies for international collaborative wheat improvement

For more information contact Mathew Reynolds (m.reynolds@cgiar.org).

Willkommen, Herr BundesprÀsident!

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alemania-300x227The long-standing and fruitful relationship between Germany and CIMMYT received a boost on 01 May 2011 when, as part of an official tour of Latin America, the President of the Federal Republic of Germany, Christian Wulff, visited CIMMYT headquarters to learn more of the center’s work and discuss strengthened partnerships. President Wulff was accompanied by his wife, Bettina, and nearly 60 distinguished guests including German vice ministers and members of parliament, embassy personnel, and business and media representatives. Greeting the guests were CIMMYT Director General Tom Lumpkin and several of the center’s German and German-speaking staff.

After touring the main exhibition hall showcasing Dr. Norman Borlaug’s achievements and contributions to agricultural development, including his Nobel Prize of 1970 and the Aztec Eagle of the same year from Mexico, the entourage attended a presentation by Hans-Joachim Braun, Director of CIMMYT’s Global Wheat Program. The talk addressed food security and related constraints—climate change, the rising demand for grains, the increasing scarcity of resources like land, water, and fertilizer—as well as CIMMYT’s work in the developing world and its relationship with Germany, a long-term and significant supporter of the center. To name just a few examples, German contributions have funded work on stress tolerant maize for Africa, a regional wheat network for Central Asia, and wheat pathology research for South Asia. German staff at CIMMYT and our partnerships with German universities and institutes have been of enormous value in getting improved technology to farmers.

The whirlwind tour then moved to the seed bank, with exhibitions of maize and wheat genetic resources outside and a visit inside to the upper seed storage chamber. In an impromptu closing statement, President Wulff thanked CIMMYT and described his positive impression of the visit and Braun’s presentation, which he called one of the clearest and most fact-based he had ever heard. Reports on the visit in the German media have referred to CIMMYT as a “highly-regarded research center.”

In addition to Lumpkin and Braun, CIMMYT staff interacting with the guests included Marianne BĂ€nziger, deputy director general, research and partnerships; Scott Ferguson, deputy director general, corporate services; Peter Wenzl, head of the crops research informatics lab; Susanne Dreisigacker, molecular biologist and head of marker applications in wheat; GIS expert Kai Sonder; agricultural economist Tina Beuchelt; Marc Rojas, coordinator of the International Strategy for Maize Improvement; and Petr Kosina, assisting with the event management.

Click here to view/hear


Improved maize varieties and partnerships welcomed in Bhutan

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CIMMYT E-News, vol 5 no. 11, November 2008

nov02Sandwiched between China and India, the Kingdom of Bhutan is a small country that relies on maize in a big way. But maize yields are typically low due to crop diseases, drought, and poor access to seed of improved varieties, among other reasons. CIMMYT is committed to improving Bhutan’s food security by providing high-yielding, pest-resistant maize varieties to farmers and capacity-building for local scientists.

“If there is no maize there is nothing to eat,” says Mr. S. Naitein, who farms maize on half a hectare of land in Bhutan. But it’s not easy to grow, he says, citing challenges such as animals (monkeys and wild boars), insects, poor soil fertility, drought, poor access to improved seed varieties, and crop diseases like gray leaf spot (GLS) and turcicum leaf blight (TLB).

But since planting Yangtsipa—an improved maize variety derived from Suwan-1, a variety introduced from CIMMYT’s former regional maize program in Thailand—Naitein has seen a real improvement in his maize yields. The local maize variety yielded 1,700 kilograms per hectare, whereas Yangtsipa gave him 2,400 kilograms per hectare, a 40% yield increase.

“It’s no wonder that Yangtsipa is by far the most popular improved variety among Bhutanese farmers,” says Guillermo Ortiz-Ferrara, CIMMYT regional cereal breeder posted in Nepal. “Nonetheless, many local varieties of maize still occupy large areas of the country and don’t yield well.”

Maize is a staple food in Bhutan. Many people eat Tengma (pounded maize) as a snack with a cup of tea and Kharang (maize grits) are also popular. “Among the food crops, maize plays a critical role in household food security, especially for the poor,” says Ortiz-Ferrara. About 38% of the rural Bhutanese population lives below the poverty line and some 37,000 households cultivate maize. It’s estimated that 80% of this maize is consumed at the household level, according to Bhutan’s Renewable Natural Resources Research Center (RNRRC).

Leaf us alone: CIMMYT maize varieties help combat foliar diseases

Many farmers in Bhutan have been struggling with crop diseases that cut maize yields. “The recent outbreak of gray leaf spot and turcicum leaf blight affected 4,193 households and destroyed over 1,940 hectares of maize crop,” says Thakur Prasad Tiwari, agronomist with CIMMYT-Nepal. He estimates that maize is grown on 31,160 hectares in the country.

Gray leaf spot is a devastating leaf disease that is spreading fast in the hills of Bhutan and Nepal. To deal with this threat, CIMMYT sent more than 75 maize varieties with possible resistance to GLS and TLB to Bhutan in 2007. Tapping into the resources of its global network of research stations, CIMMYT sent seed from Colombia, Zimbabwe, and Mexico that was planted in GLS and TLB ‘hot spot’ locations in the country.

Ortiz-Ferrara and Tiwari then worked with Tirtha Katwal, national maize coordinator-Bhutan, and his team to evaluate these materials for their resistance.

“Together we identified the top performing lines for gray leaf spot and turcicum leaf blight which will be excellent candidates for Bhutan’s maize breeding program,” says Ortiz-Ferrara. “We are now combining their disease resistance with Yangtsipa, because we know it is high-yielding and well-adapted to Bhutan.”

Kevin Pixley, associate director of CIMMYT’s Global Maize Program, helped to develop a detailed breeding scheme or work plan for Bhutan’s national GLS breeding program. “We want to provide capacity-building for local maize scientists so they themselves can identify and breed varieties that show resistance to crop diseases,” he says.

“We feel more confident in moving forward with the next steps in our breeding program,” said Katwal. He and his team also attended a training course on seed production, de-tasselling, and pollination given by Dr. K.K. Lal, former CIMMYT maize trainee and former chief of the Seed Quality Control Center at the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives (MoAC) in Nepal.

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That’s what friends are for: CIMMYT, Nepal, and Bhutan collaboration

In 2001, Bhutan began collaborating on maize research with CIMMYT-Nepal, the National Maize Research Program (NMRP) of Nepal, and the Hill Maize Research project (HMRP) funded by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) in Nepal. The terrain and agro-climatic conditions of Bhutan and the Nepalese highland are similar, meaning that technologies adapted for Nepal will likely work well in neighboring Bhutan.

CIMMYT aims to facilitate regional and national partnerships that benefit farmers. For instance, during the past 7 years CIMMYT-Nepal has worked with NMRP and RNRRP to introduce 12 open-pollinated varieties (OPVs) to Bhutan. These modern varieties yield more than the local varieties whose seed farmers save to sow from year to year. Included in these 12 OPVs were several quality protein maize (QPM) varieties; these have nearly twice as much usable protein as other traditional varieties of maize.

nov04“Our CIMMYT office in Nepal has assisted Bhutan with maize and wheat genetic material, technical backstopping, training, visiting scientist exchange, and in identifying key consultants on research topics such as grey leaf spot and seed production,” says Tiwari.

Simply put, CIMMYT has useful contacts. For example, at the request of Bhutan’s Renewable Natural Resources Research Center (RNRRC), CIMMYT-Nepal put forward Dr. Carlos De Leon, former CIMMYT regional maize pathologist, to conduct a course on identifying and controlling maize diseases in February 2007. In September 2008, CIMMYT and HMRP also recommended two researchers (Dr. K.B. Koirala and Mr. Govinda K.C.) from Nepal’s NMRP to give a course on farmer participatory research that has been successful in the dissemination of new technologies.

“Ultimately, our goal is to improve the food security and livelihood of rural households through increased productivity and sustainability of the maize-based cropping system,” says Thakur Prasad Tiwari.

For information: Guillermo Ortiz-Ferrara, cereal breeder, CIMMYT-Nepal (g.ortiz-ferrara@cgiar.org) or Thakur Prasad Tiwari, agronomist, CIMMYT-Nepal (tptiwari@mos.com.np)

Saving Mexican maize farmers’ soil

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CIMMYT E-News, vol 4 no. 10, October 2007

Resource-conserving practices introduced by a CIMMYT project are taking root among farmers in the central Mexican Highlands.

In the fields above the community of San Felipe del Progreso, in the central Mexican Highlands, smallholder farmers grow maize year after year in conventionally-plowed fields. Feliciano Cruz says his neighbors think he’s crazy for trying new resource-conserving practices and other crops, but nonetheless many are interested. While he’s showing a group of visiting researchers his fields, a neighboring farmer comes along and asks if Cruz can help him to try the new system. “I want to get involved,” he explains. “My fields are getting too dry, and when that happens the soil becomes really hard.” Cruz enthusiastically explains the benefits of keeping crop residues on the soil to stop it drying out. “We’re learning step by step,” he says. It seems that farmers here are willing to take a risk on something unorthodox.

“There are two major challenges for farmers in this area: soil erosion and labor shortages,” says Bram Govaerts, CIMMYT postdoctoral fellow in crop systems management, “and we think conservation agriculture will help with both.” The region’s volcanic soils are fertile but relatively thin, and when dry and exposed are easily washed away by the heavy, irregular rains, leaving behind rocky, infertile material. This process is clearly visible in the landscape’s scanty topsoils and eroded gullies, and all too apparent to farmers. Few farmers here are able to harvest surpluses to sell, and most rely on supplementary sources of income. Meanwhile, most of the region’s young men leave to seek work in the USA, and many fields lie fallow.

In the new system, introduced by a collaborative project between CIMMYT and local institutions involving local farmers, maize is sown directly into permanent raised beds, and the stalks and leaves, or “residues” of the crop are retained on the fields. These innovations protect the structure of the soil, retain soil moisture, and prevent erosion. Direct seeding is also less labor-intensive; conventional tillage requires several plowings and harrowings, whereas fields with permanent beds require only a single surface pass each year to reshape the beds. CIMMYT has also introduced new crops for farmers to try in rotation with maize.

The project is based on CIMMYT science and involves a number of Mexican partners: ICAMEX, the agricultural research institute for the state of Mexico (providing funding and receiving training), Mexico’s Research and Advanced Studies Center (Cinvestav), and the Autonomous University of the State of Mexico (UAEM), with funding from the Flemish Interuniversity Council – University Development Cooperation (VLIR-UDC). CIMMYT has several long-term conservation agriculture trial plots on its research stations in Mexico. These provide valuable scientific data about management practices, but they are also being used for training and capacity building. The project began with a field day at the Toluca station, where Fernando Delgado, station manager and local conservation agriculture champion, demonstrated resource-conserving practices to farmers from partner communities. CIMMYT is now working to test these in farmers’ fields. “This is a mutual learning process,” says Govaerts. “We’re trying to extend the technology to farmers’ fields; at the same time we are developing on-farm research modules and we’re bringing back what we learn—both from successes and failures.” Next year will be the project’s third planting year, and Govaerts anticipates real success, with good crops under the new system.

The two systems are being tested side by side: on one half of his test plot Olegario Gonzalez has planted conventionally-tilled maize (foreground), on the other he is growing a wheat crop in rotation with maize using resource-conserving practices.

Farmers see the benefits of the system and are as determined as the scientists to stick with it, even where things haven’t gone according to plan. For example, the residues of the first year’s maize crop were left on the fields, but other locals took it for fuel and fodder. In Cruz’s test maize field, this meant that in the second year the soil was too dry for zero-tillage planting (which is shallower than conventional planting) and the maize crop failed. However, in a few places where the residues remained the seedlings grew well, convincing Cruz and other participating farmers that residue retention could work. They themselves decided to replant the field with maize, even though it was too late in the season to yield any grain, just to grow plenty of biomass to retain as residues for the following year. The project will assist the farmers to fence their plots to protect this year’s residues.

“I will definitely continue with the new system,” says Cruz, who is in no doubt as to its advantages. “Firstly, it is less work. There is no plowing or harrowing, which saves a lot on costs. Secondly, it conserves the soil—water filters in and doesn’t run off. Finally, the maize doesn’t fall over as much, as it grows less and the roots go deeper.”

 

Olegario Gonzalez (second from right) discusses his wheat crop; his neighbors are already asking to buy his grain.

Cruz is also enthusiastic about the alternative crops that project members planted with the farmers. “It’s important that we have the option to try new things,” he says. “The land gets tired if we just plant maize, maize, maize.” Oats and triticale are his favorites so far, growing well enough to be used for fodder and still leave good residues. In the neighboring community of San Pablo, farmer Olegario Gonzalez is growing wheat, and he has found that there is a local demand. “My neighbors are already asking to buy my wheat to add to tortillas [the staple Mexican flatbread] and for seed,” he says, indicating the rows of ripening grain.

“Now that we’ve seen that farmers like the system, the next stage is to scale it up,” says Govaerts. “Farmers need zero-tillage machinery suitable for small tractors, so we’re working with companies to commercialize a multi-use, multi-crop machine. We’ll also be helping farmers to find and develop local markets.” The project is currently working with a few farmers who are respected in their communities, and next year plans to invite more farmers to the test plots to see and learn about the system in action.

CIMMYT has been involved in testing conservation agriculture and testing it with farmers all over the world. This project is one of several throughout Mexico developed together with local partners. Govaerts hopes that CIMMYT’s long-term trial plots will act as hubs for farmer visits, sowing the seeds for resource conservation in many more local communities.

For more information: Bram Govaerts, postdoctoral fellow, crop systems management (b.govaerts@cgiar.org)

Farmers get their yield back and more

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CIMMYT E-News, vol 4 no. 3, March 2007

mar06Solving a major disease problem in durum wheat was not enough to satisfy farmers. They need and will get quality too.

Karim Ammar, a durum wheat breeder with CIMMYT, is proud of his new wheat lines growing green and disease-free this season in the Yaqui valley of northern Mexico. Even with the efficiency of a shuttle system between the Yaqui valley and the highland research station at Toluca, Mexico which allows wheat breeders to plant and select wheat twice a year, it still takes six years to get to where Karim is now.

“Between preliminary yield trials and elite yield trials we’ve got about 2500 lines and they are all resistant to leaf rust,” he says.

This is good news for the durum wheat farmers of the world. Durum wheat is the kind used for pasta, couscous and semolina. Today, 85% of spring durum wheat grown in developing countries traces its origins to the durum wheat program at CIMMYT in Mexico. The Center regularly sends out seed samples to national breeding programs around the developing world, and the most suitable in each region are used to breed local varieties. When mutations in the leaf rust fungus allowed it to bypass the resistance mechanisms in durum wheats, the breeding team at CIMMYT was faced with a serious problem.

“We had to rebuild the program, because you can no longer use something that becomes susceptible to a disease. That’s no service to the national programs or farmers in developing countries,” says Ammar, who comes from Tunisia. He is acutely aware that the work he is doing will have a major impact in developing countries where durum wheat is grown.

It might have been easy to look this as a single problem—producing disease-resistant plants or plants that can produce more grain—but the team realized the challenge was much more complicated. Farmers in developing countries need more than grain if their livelihoods are to improve. They need grain that is high in quality and for which there is a market.

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Breeding itself is a process of combination and then elimination—selecting potentially good parent seeds with desirable characteristics and crossing them, then eliminating the offspring plants that don’t measure up. The process is cyclical and repeated until the breeder is satisfied that all required characteristics have been incorporated into the new wheat plants.

Leaf rust reduces yields enough to make growing susceptible varieties a losing proposition for farmers. Their needs were at the heart of the breeding strategy devised by the breeding team.

“So their priority becomes ours and once objectives are defined with our clients and their respective markets in mind, then I start thinking about the plants—how would a plant or a certain cross or combination of genes achieve that objective in the most efficient, fastest way possible,” Ammar says.

The breeders knew that disease resistance was vital but quality that was acceptable to farmers and their markets was equally essential. At the same time they thought they could enhance the performance of the wheats under drought stress and incorporate resistance to other diseases. In the beginning they had to sacrifice yield and other key characteristics to be sure they had resistance to the leaf rust, the biggest problem durum wheat growers were facing. But once that was done, the team focused on making the best possible wheats from all other perspectives.

“Now we’re back to the point where we can address yield, drought tolerance and quality very effectively because we know we have enough variability for rust resistance. It’s no longer the critical trait,” says Ammar.

The most critical trait now might well be the color or the quality of the gluten in durum wheat grains. Last year farmers in the Yaqui Valley of Mexico grew close to 150 000 ha of a durum wheat variety that yielded well and stood up to leaf rust. Unfortunately, because its grain did not have enough yellow pigment, desired by the export market, there was little market for the wheat except as pig feed. Many of the 2500 new lines that Ammar is testing outperform that variety in yield and in the most important quality traits

The best of the lines at the CIMMYT breeding station will be sent to national programs for evaluation. Mexico has already begun to evaluate in parallel so it will be ready as soon as possible to release new varieties based on the CIMMYT lines to the national production system .

For more information Karim Ammar, Wheat Breeder (k.ammar@cgiar.org)

People of the Clouds

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CIMMYT E-News, vol 3 no. 9, September 2006

sep02The Nepal Hill Maize Research Project, supported by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), reaches out to Nepal’s poorest farmers with new varieties and farming practices selected by the farmers themselves.

Coca Cola, arguably the world’s most ubiquitous commercial beverage, has not yet reached the villagers and farmers who live on top of the cloud-shrouded hills of eastern Nepal. That’s how remote they are. There is a road, but it is 600 meters below in the valley and the only way in and out of the village is via a precarious, rubble-strewn and sometimes terrifyingly steep foot-path. Everything must be carried up and down this track on people’s backs. Here the staple food for centuries has been maize but many farmers in the region cannot grow enough maize to last the year. Their needs have provided a focus for work in which CIMMYT, the Nepal Agricultural Research Council (NARC), SDC, and other partners, reach these “unreached” people.

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One of them is Bishnu Maya. She is a single mother of three who farms 0.6 hectares of terraced land on the steep slopes. She is a very good farmer but it takes every penny she earns to make sure her children can go to school. “With education they can get jobs and have a better life,” she says. Bishnu Maya is a ‘dalit’; the poorest of the poor in Nepal, an untouchable often shunned by better-born villagers. Nevertheless, her tiny farm is a marvel. She grows maize, millet, tomatoes, and cucumbers on her land. She has a water buffalo, two cows, some chickens, and goats. A year ago electricity came to the village and now she has a small radio and a light bulb. What she has not had until now is enough maize to last the year. The traditional varieties have small ears, one per plant, and the maize plants themselves grow very tall and often fall down in the wind, not only reducing the maize yield but also damaging the intercropped plants below them.

Maya agreed to help in participatory evaluations of maize varieties developed with material from CIMMYT and NARC that could overcome the main barriers to production on her land. She uses some of her land for a demonstration plot of the variety she has selected as the best replacement for her traditional maize. It is shorter with a sturdier stalk, has two large ears per plant and matures earlier than the maize she has been used to growing. On top of that the new variety stays green after the maize is mature, so it makes a better feed for her livestock.

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The project has intentionally focused on women farmers and those who cannot produce enough food to feed their families, testing and promoting technologies that can be implemented by the farmers themselves. While the initial trials are conduced at the NARC research station at Pakhribas, an hour’s drive away once you reach the road in the valley, vital research work is conducted with farmers like Maya on their farms. In the past recommendations about varieties and agricultural practices were based on trials conducted exclusively at research stations, rarely taking into account the real world in which the hill farmers like Maya live and work. “Even on-farm research tended to try to create conditions on farms that matched the research stations, rather than finding solutions to existing farm problems,” says CIMMYT’s Memo Ortiz-Ferrara, who leads the project.

The new approach has helped farmers choose more appropriate varieties based on their own criteria from a “basket of choices” (5-10 varieties are offered in one season). It has also helped to expand areas growing new varieties on one hand, and improve crop management practices on the other. Depending on the location, farmers have observed 20-50% higher grain yield with the new varieties.

“Now I have enough and can sell some surplus to pay for my children’s education,” Bishnu says.

The second phase of the project is just coming to an end and an evaluation team has begun a series of in depth interviews with participating researchers and farmers to determine the overall impact.

Participatory research is a vital part of many CIMMYT projects around the world (see the companion story: CIMMYT researchers say participatory research supports their achievements).

For information contact Memo Ortiz-Ferrara (g.ortiz-ferrara@cgiar.org)

 

Nutrition Better but Maize Diversity Down in Chiapas

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March, 2005

noticias1Farmer Juan Castillejos Castro of the village Dolores, Jaltenango, state of Chiapas, in southeastern Mexico, leaned forward in the humid, mid-morning heat and pondered the question: had household nutrition improved in the last 10 years? “From the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s, even I was malnourished to the point I couldn’t work,” he says. “Now things have gotten better, and the credits have helped a lot.”

Like many farmers in the “La Frailesca” region of Chiapas, Castillejos has been growing improved, hybrid maize, through a state-sponsored program that offers seed plus other inputs (fertilizer, pesticides, among them) and services (technical advice, crop loss insurance, to name two) on credit, to be repaid at harvest. For the last decade, government policy has also discouraged the burning of crop residues. Burning helped farmers control weeds and pests, but bared often steep, hillside plots to eroding winds and rain and deprived soils of organic matter. Castillejos and most peers now practice a more resource-conserving style of agriculture, sowing with a stick directly into the last year’s crop residues, without plowing or burning.

Folk Varieties Fading in La Frailesca

Unlike many farmers adopting the hybrids, Castillejos still grows small plots of the local maize varieties developed through selection by millennia of predecessors. The local varieties feature a better grain type for tortillas and other preferred foods. Their weaknesses include tallness and a tendency to topple easily. This and their relatively low yields have put them on the road to extinction, according to Dagoberto Flores, research assistant in CIMMYT’s Impacts Assessment and Targeting Program.

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“We still need a systematic study on this,” says Flores, “but I would guess that half the local varieties have disappeared, and only 30% of farmers are growing any local materials.” Flores and an associate, Alejandro Ramírez López, just spent a month surveying 120 farm households in 4 communities in the region. With funding from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), they are comparing the costs to farmers of obtaining seed through formal versus informal supply systems and evaluating farmers’ risks, from village to village.

The village of Dolores Jaltenango lies in the mountainous countryside that bred the Zapatista uprising and is a gateway for undocumented immigrants from Central America. Nine-tenths of maize is relegated to steep hillsides—cattle raising and plantation agriculture claim the choice lowlands. “Dolores is one of the poorer communities in the area,” says Flores. “Dwellings are adobe with dirt floors. There’s normally one large sleeping quarters for an average 10 people, including parents, children, and married children’s spouses.”

Flores and Ramírez are concerned about La Frailesca’s farmers. The prices of the seed technology packages are rising steadily, and subsidies are being reduced. They fear that if farmers lose their native seed, they may have no fallback position. “Farmers look at their neighbor’s yields or the size of the ears, but most haven’t done the math on all the costs and benefits of the new technology,” Ramírez says. He cites the results of last year’s serious drought as an example: “Many farmers had poor crops. But some didn’t qualify for crop loss insurance benefits. Now they’re having trouble paying back their credit debts.”

CIMMYT’s Role: Conserving and Replenishing Diversity

According to Flores, CIMMYT staff have collected and preserved important samples of the Frailesca’s farmer varieties in the center’s germplasm bank. The bank contains seed collections for an estimated 80% of all Latin American maize diversity, including many varieties no longer sown by farmers. The seed is kept in trust for humanity, under a 1994 agreement with FAO. Working with partners in 13 countries in the Americas, center staff have coordinated the rescue, regeneration, and back-up storage of more than 10,000 seed samples of unique maize varieties from this hemisphere. CIMMYT and partners from the Mexican National Institute of Agriculture, Forestry, and Livestock Research (INIFAP) recently restored seed of local varieties to farmers in Oaxaca, Mexico, and could do the same for Chiapas farmers, should this become necessary, Flores says.

Fitting into FAO Research Efforts

Environmental economist Leslie Lipper at FAO will draw on the survey and its results in an emerging, multi-country study on how market access to crop genetic resources affects farmers’ welfare and on-farm crop biological diversity, according to Kostas Stamoulis, Chief of the FAO Agricultural Sector in Economic Development Service (ESAE). “CIMMYT’s work will provide unique data on farmer seed sourcing choices,” says Stamoulis. “Among other things, we’ll get a better read on how those choices are affected by the transaction costs of market participation and farmer’s perceptions of risk.” The study is one of three major ESAE efforts to understand the role of markets in rural livelihoods and environmental sustainability.