About 50 participants at a meeting of the Open Forum on Agricultural Biotechnology (OFAB) held discussions around CIMMYT agronomist Fred Kanampiu’s presentation on “Herbicide Seed Coating: Taming the Striga Witchweed,” on 29 March 2008, in Nairobi, Kenya.

Launched in Kenya in 2006, OFAB brings together stakeholders in agricultural biotechnology and enables interactions between scientists, journalists, civil society, industrialists, lawmakers, and policy makers. Kanampiu’s presentation focused on the economic significance of Striga in sub-Saharan Africa and the potential of the new herbicide seed coating technology for maize farmers there. The practice was jointly developed by CIMMYT, the Weizmann Institute, and the chemical company, BASF. Among other things, Kanapiu addressed concerns regarding possible environmental impacts of the technology, emphasizing that there are no residual effects at the levels being used.

CIMMYT research staff, colleagues from IRRI, GCP, and other special guests, as well as a few members of the Board of Trustees and DG designate, Thomas A. Lumpkin, gathered in El Batán from Monday 03 to Friday 07 March 2008 for the latest edition of CIMMYT Science Week.

Science Week is a forum for exchanges among staff on progress, key issues, and new opportunities related to the Center’s role in science and development for maize and wheat systems. Staff also assess progress in ongoing projects, the delivery of flagship products and adjust the Medium-Term Plan.

Masa welcomed everyone on the first day and spoke of the challenges facing agriculture, including rising food prices, climate change and variability, food (and feed) demands and supply chains, the degradation of soils, and the lack of water. He also stressed that CIMMYT’s core business is science, and that its impacts are based on solid science performed by dedicated and committed staff at all levels. Addressing CIMMYT staff and special guests, Thomas A. Lumpkin spoke of his longtime admiration of the Center’s work, his excitement about leading CIMMYT, and the importance of team work and future partnerships.

Presentations covered the material being prepared for the publications “Maize and Wheat Facts and Futures,” as well as all Projects and flagship products. Questions after the presentations and a panel discussion gave participants a chance to share their views on the Center’s role in work with NARS, NGOs, and the private sector, as well as on many other issues.

Tom Payne touched on his trip to Svalbard, Norway, during his presentation and caused amusment when he said he’d felt warmer inside the -20ºC seed vault than outside it! In between all the presentations and discussions, participants assembled for dinner on Monday and Friday evening and tasted some typical Mexican food before heading home.

Many thanks to all those who organized and participated in Science Week and made it a success.

January 2008 marked the launch of the Cereal Knowledge Bank (CKB) (http://www.knowledgebank. irri.org), an online repository of learning materials related to cereals and cereal production. The CKB was created through the collaboration of CIMMYT and IRRI (the International Rice Research Institute).

The CKB was developed as a tool for enabling the fast and effective transfer of technologies from the researcher to the farmer’s field, a long-time challenge for those working in agricultural development. It provides a number of different extension materials related to the production of maize, rice, and wheat, together with materials on other aspects of cropping systems. Through an easy-to-navigate website, users can access extension resources in a variety of formats: fact sheets, field diagnosis and management tools, reference manuals, training materials, and eLearning courses.

An essential feature of the CKB is the development of country knowledge banks, which contain comprehensive country-specific materials collected from local research. Though they are based upon the same principles of knowledge sharing as the CKB, the country knowledge banks are directed and managed by the countries themselves, though the IRRI-CIMMYT alliance can provide guidance and technical assistance.

Further plans for CKB development include bringing the concept of country knowledge banks to Africa, diversifying formats of content (mp3, video, online user interaction), applying content management systems, and extensive impact assessment. For more information on the CKB, please contact Petr Kosina (p.kosina@cgiar.org), Knowledge Sharing and Capacity Building Coordinator.

On 06 and 07 of February 2008, Julio Flores and Samuel Frías of APER gave a course at El Batán on “Proper management of dangerous materials,” to staff from the laboratories, greenhouses, ICT, and germplasm bank. The course was given as part of the preparations for an evacuation drill that will shortly take place in these areas. A total of 29 staff participated in the simulation. During the course, the group learned about the necessary protective equipment for emergencies in areas where dangerous materials are stored, and how to use protective equipment, especially when handling hazardous materials. There was a simulation where two people had to be “helped” after coming into contact with toxic products. The group applied the skills learned during the session, and used protective overalls, boots, helmets, masks, and oxygen equipment.

On 28 January, Roberto La Rovere, CIMMYT Impact Specialist, launched two new tools recently developed by CIMMYT’s ITAU “Operational guidelines for assessing impacts of agricultural research on livelihooods”, and the “Manual to conduct socioeconomic surveys through Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs)”, with participants from various CGIAR centers, during a session themed “Tools to capture impacts of our work on livelihoods,” organized by CIMMYT Kenya at the ICRAF campus in Nairobi.

Impact assessment (IA) is changing, with the focus shifting from calculating rates of return to measuring impacts on the livelihoods of those targeted by agricultural R&D projects. The Operational Guidelines, coauthored by La Rovere and John Dixon, are aimed at practitioners in impact assessment, particularly at managers who want to write IA projects or projects with an IA component, and at our partners in the field. The Guidelines provide a step-by-step guide on how to plan for and conduct an IA, considering aspects such as cost, capacity, and team composition, and indicators of how to measure impact. Participants held engaging discussions on how to attribute the roles of different partners, how to build IA into program design, and how to discern the effects of confounding factors in determining impact on livelihoods.

The second tool, the PDA Manual, jointly developed by La Rovere and Federico Carrion, guides users on the applications of these devices for collecting quality socio-economic data more quickly. The manual shows how to download the program and how to enter and analyze data, and provides sample surveys. The tool can also be used for agronomic or other types of surveys. The potential for using PDAs in various circumstances and types of surveys raised the interest of participants. Useful for quantitative surveys, the PDA has already been used in IA studies in multi-country surveys in Africa. Its advantages and disadvantages and areas of application were discussed in the seminar.

A similar seminar will be given at El Batán to launch the tools internally. The manuals are available on the CIMMYT website under the “Impacts and impact evaluation” sub-heading of the ITAU page, and users are encouraged to provide feedback for improving them.

On Friday 25 January, representatives from the Texcoco office of John Deere gave a demonstration at El Batán of mid-size tractors and other equipment for intermediate-scale farmers. The event was organized by the Mexico State Secretary of Agriculture and Livestock Development (SEDAGRO), with support from station superintendent Francisco Magallanes, and drew 50 participants.

From 28-30 January 2008, the Genration Challenge Programme (GCP) lived up to its middle name and organized a workshop on an intricate challenge— drought phenotyping. Held at CIMMYT’s El Batán facilities, the workshop brought together experts from diverse disciplines—crop physiologists, GIS specialists, model developers, to name several—to address more effectively the increasing phenotyping needs from genomic studies and breeding programs. During the workshop, several options for tackling the complexity of drought phenotyping in GCP projects were discussed, centering on:

• Improving environment characterization, based on GIS, water balance models, and their combination.
• Improving phenotypic data collection through better experimental designs, protocols, and data capture.
• Selecting potential hubs, based on climatic representativeness and existing facilities and expertise.
• Common activities were agreed upon by the participants, who developed a workplan to be further refined and implemented in the coming
  months.

The participants were: Gregory Edmeades (Consultant), Abraham Blum (Consultant), Glenn Hyman (CIAT, Colombia), Sam Geerts (Leuven University, Belgium), Robert Koebner (Consultant), Paul Brennan (Consultant), Reinaldo Gomide (EMBRAPA, Brazil), John O’Toole (Consultant), Guy Davenport (CIMMYT), Rosemary Shrestha (CIMMYT), Eduardo Hernández (CIMMYT), Humberto Gómez (GCP), Jean-Marcel Ribaut (GCP), and Philippe Monneveux (GCP).