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Wheat meets

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Staff of CIMMYT’s Global Wheat Program have just concluded a week of intense meetings at El Batán. For the first three days the scientific team presented highlights and research results from work over the past year. Three strong foci for the program emerged from the meetings, according to Hans Braun, the program director. “Increased wheat production needed for food security in many countries on, at best, constant but more likely declining acreage can only be met through higher yields,” he says. “Of course, at CIMMYT it has always been a priority and that will continue.” The other two important research challenges that must be faced are breeding new cultivars with resistance to stem rust, which has now spread from Africa into the Arabian Peninsula, and breeding wheat that is adapted to conditions due to climate change. Braun pointed out to the group that one of the long-standing pillars of the CIMMYT wheat breeding programs—wide adaptation—will contribute to developing germplasm to cope with climate change.

The group also worked on the program’s contribution to this year’s medium-term plan and on the last two days heard presentations that looked to the future. Dave Hodson from ITAU talked about the need and potential for a global wheat production atlas and wheat breeder Yann Manes explored the potential for rapid progress in wheat breeding using techniques such as doubled-haploids.

CIMMYT mourns the passing of Bent Skovmand

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After years of battling illness, former CIMMYT scientist Bent Skovmand died on 06 February 2007 in KĂ€vlinge, Sweden, at the age of 62. Born in Frederiksberg, Denmark, Skovmand did his undergraduate and graduate studies at the University of Minnesota, USA, obtaining a PhD in plant pathology, with a minor in genetics and plant breeding, in 1976. That same year he joined CIMMYT as a postdoctoral fellow with the Wheat Program, working as a breeder and pathologist. After a four-year posting in Turkey, in 1988 he assumed leadership of the Wheat Genetic Resources Unit, where he remained until leaving CIMMYT in early 2004 for an appointment as Director of the Nordic Gene Bank. Known for his mordant humor and enthusiasm for science, Bent will be sorely missed by all who knew him. The CIMMYT community sends its sincere condolences to his wife, Eugenia, and their children.

Published February 2007.

Project 10 meetings in Zimbabwe showcase center work on sustainable systems

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During 30 January-03 February, members of CIMMYT Project 10, “Conservation agriculture for maize and wheat cropping systems,” held annual review and planning meetings in Harare, Zimbabwe.

“The work we reviewed furthers CIMMYT’s strong tradition of helping partners test and promote diverse resource-conserving practices with farmers, as well as backstopping those efforts with relevant research,” says John Dixon, Director of the Impacts Targeting and Assessment Unit, who presided over the meetings.

Scientists reporting on achievements, challenges, and plans included Pat Wall, who with the help of Christian Thierfelder is leading center projects on conservation agriculture in southern Africa; Paul Mapfumo and Mulugetta Mekuria, who work with partners through the Soil Fertility Consortium for Southern Africa (SOFECSA); Olaf Erenstein, who has coordinated surveys to assess the adoption and impacts of zero-tillage and other resource-conserving practices in South Asia; Mirjam Pulleman, who reported on her work and that of Bram Govaerts and Ken Sayre analyzing long-term conservation agriculture trials at El BatĂĄn and Ciudad ObregĂłn; and Stephen Waddington, maize agronomist for many years in southern Africa and now leading CIMMYT efforts in Bangladesh.

Participants, in the company of extension and NGO partners, paid visits to farmers testing conservation agriculture practices in several villages of central and southern Zimbabwe. The region’s degraded and sandy soils and crop-and-animal farming systems are among the most challenging for efforts to keep protective, nourishing residues on the land, and work has been under way for only a few years—barely the blink of an eye for such initiatives. But farmer interest is evident and, particularly in Malawi, adoption of zero-tillage and residue retention for maize-based farming has begun.

Farewell to Raj Gupta

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On January 19, 2007, Raj Gupta stepped down as the CIMMYT Facilitator of the Rice-Wheat Consortium (RWC) based in New Delhi, India. When Raj assumed the leadership of the RWC, the technological foundation had been created for the new resourceconserving technologies (RCT) appropriate for the dominant ricewheat production system of the Indo-Gangetic Plains (IGP), such as zero-till seeding and bed planting of wheat and other crops. It was obvious that these new technologies offered a tremendous potential to benefit the livelihoods of farmers producing rice and wheat in the IGP and that they also offered pragmatic opportunities to enhance the long-term sustainability of this production system.

However, farmer adoption of these new technologies was still negligible. Teaming with former CIMMYT wheat agronomist Peter Hobbs, Raj brought together farmers, the private sector (especially machinery manufacturers), scientists, and extension agents in a partnership essential for the rapid adoption of the RCTs. When Raj began his efforts, the area in the IGP devoted to RCTs was not more than 10,000 ha. After less than seven years, it has reached nearly 3 million hectares. This tremendous achievement of the RWC partnership, led by Raj, was awarded the King Baudouin award in 2004 and represents the best example of the widespread adoption of RCT and conservation agriculture by small and mediumscale farmers in irrigated production systems anywhere in the world.

The CIMMYT community wishes to express a deep sense of gratitude for Raj’s remarkable efforts and wishes him all the best as takes on new challenges with ICAR in India.

“Dedication” for a lifetime’s dedication: Cordova honored by Central American network

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The 53rd Annual Meeting of the Central American Cooperative Program for the Improvement of Crops and Animals (PCCMCA)—a network established by Edwin J. Wellhausen and L. Sterling Wortman with Rockfeller Foundation support in 1954—will be dedicated personally to CIMMYT maize breeder and Distinguished Scientist Hugo Cordova.

“This is a great honor and distinction for more than 30 years of support to maize research and development in the region,” says Cordova.

The meeting, entitled “Cambios globales: Tendencias, efectos y perspectives para la agricultura de MesoamĂ©rica y El Caribe hacia el 2020,” will be held in Antigua, Guatemala, during 23-27 April 2007.

From labs to farmer’s lots: mapping impact pathways for CIMMYT

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How do CIMMYT research products reach farmers, and how can we make that happen better, more quickly, and more often? Those are a few of the issues that CIMMYT staff, with logistical and technical support from the Impacts Targeting and Assessment Unit (ITAU), gathered to consider at a workshop in El BatĂĄn during 11-14 December 2006.

“We got together to specify pathways for the 8 CIMMYT projects, considering the problems they’re addressing and the networks within which they operate,” says Sofia Álvarez, impact assessment specialist from CIAT who facilitated the workshop.

Outputs included network maps and diagrams known as “problem and objective trees.” According to Álvarez, the trick was to strike the middle ground between too generic and too specific. “We hope that people will be able to use the tools and methodologies they acquired here to go deeper into specific products for specific regions.”

Álvarez was particularly impressed with the fact that CIMMYT staff were so concerned about achieving impacts in farmers’ fields. “I thought it would be less likely for, say, scientists in the Genetic Resources and Enhancement Unit to be thinking about impacts. That probably has to do partly with the pro-active work of the ITAU, which has gotten them thinking about things that I don’t know if even other centers are thinking about.”

Transparency and transmission: wheat quality in the marketplace

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According to Erika Meng, CIMMYT economist and organizer of a workshop on wheat quality held at El Batán during 7-8 December 2006: ‘“We’ve worked on wheat quality at CIMMYT for a long time, but usually from the supply side. What we tried to do at this workshop is bring information from the supply and demand sides closer together, because with urbanization and income growth in developing countries, a more segregated demand for types of wheat products and quality is emerging.” The 20 participants included experts from the US and Canada, to draw on their expertise in enabling wheat quality demands to be transparent and transmitted through the marketplace. Outcomes included a prioritized agenda for research and outlines for three concept notes to seek funding for the work.

Visit to the maize and wheat germplasm bank

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M.C. Vidal FernĂĄndez, one teacher, and 10 students from De Roque Technological Institute, Advanced studies on seed, Celaya, Guanajuato. Our colleagues VĂ­ctor H. ChĂĄvez and Eduardo HernĂĄndez guided the visitors through the facilities of the bank to show them innovative approaches to safeguard plant genetic resources, the economic importance of seed, and proper storage methods.

Visit to TlaltizapĂĄn

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1102Chinese journalists Fan Jian (center) of the Science and Technology Daily and Jianke Jiang (right) of the People’s Daily, accompany Xiaofeng Dai, Deputy Director General, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, as he handles an infrared sensor at the Tlaltizapán experiment station, as part of their visit to CIMMYT during November 28-December 2, 2006.

Message from Masa: 2006 King Baudouin Award for CIMMYT work in sub-Saharan Africa

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I am very happy to tell you that today is a very good day for all of us at CIMMYT. We have just been presented with the CGIAR’s highest recognition for science for development—the King Baudouin Award—here at the CGIAR AGM in Washington DC. The award has been given to us for our work on stress-tolerant maize in eastern and southern Africa. This is research that has a 20 year history at CIMMYT, starting with the selection of potential germplasm from the gene bank in the late 1980s and continuing through today with the very successful participatory selection work with farmers through the mother-baby trial system and the dissemination of stress-tolerant maize seed on a large sale by national programs, small-scale seed companies, and community-based organizations. The work is a fine example of how research-led development can enhance the livelihoods of the rural poor.

I want to use this message to congratulate Marianne BĂ€nziger and the rest of the CIMMYT team who have worked so hard over the years to make a difference in Africa and also to recognize the amazing partnership of researchers, farmers, national agricultural research systems, and donors that led to the success of the project. Finally, I want to reinforce the fact that Marianne and I received the award not just on behalf of CIMMYT but on behalf of everyone who contributed to this successful work, which is based on long-term scientific efforts and effective partnerships with many collaborators. The work, of course, is not finished. It never is. But the recognition by the CGIAR is an important milestone of which we can be very proud.

The King Baudouin Award is presented every second year by the CGIAR and this is the second time in a row it has been given to the CIMMYT family (in 2004 the Rice Wheat Consortium, in which CIMMYT is a leading participant, was recognized). In the years between King Baudouin Awards, the highest science prize in the CGIAR is the one that recognizes the outstanding scientist in the system. In 2003 it went to Abdul Mujeeb Kazi and in 2005 to Ravi Singh. The quality of CIMMYT science has been recognized as best in the CGIAR for four consecutive years.

Once again let me offer, on behalf of the whole CIMMYT family, congratulations for the outstanding work and effective partnerships!

Course prepares Turkish researchers to conduct impact assessments

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Referring to the first-ever training course in Turkey on assessing the impacts of agricultural research and development, held during 22 November-01 December, Mesut Keser, Deputy Director General of the Turkish General Directorate of Agricultural Research (TAGEM), called the event a success and said that participants are now eager to apply what they learned: “The lecturers’ intelligence, enthusiasm and friendly approach helped a lot, creating an interactive learning setting which (allowed) participants to get the most from the course.”

Organized jointly by CIMMYT, ICARDA, and TAGEM, and hosted at TAGEM facilities in Ankara, the course drew 26 participants—all Turkish nationals, 9 of whom were women—from diverse research institutes and regions of Turkey.

According to CIMMYT impact assessment specialist Roberto La Rovere, who helped organize the course and served as facilitator and lecturer, objectives included increasing awareness, knowledge, and critical thinking on impact assessment; allowing participants a chance to practice; and identifying opportunities for follow-up impact assessments in Turkey, including one focused on wheat research. “We gave participants an overview of concepts, approaches, and best practices,” says La Rovere.

At the end of the workshop, participants were also able to sketch the main elements of a potential expost impact assessment of the joint MARA/CIMMYT/ ICARDA International Winter Wheat Improvement Program (IWWIP) in Turkey. Other CIMMYT staff involved included wheat breeder/ agronomist Alexei Morgounov, who presented the IWWIP program and oversaw logistics; wheat pathologist Julie Nicol; and economist Erika Meng, who assisted with pre-course preparations.

The course helped lay the groundwork for future ICARDA-CIMMYT-TAGEM collaboration, especially in impact assessment. Says La Rovere: “Despite the wide variety of skills, expectations, and knowledge of English, the workshop went well beyond expectations and yielded a network of potential assessors and partners in for impact assessment in Turkey.”

Marooned at Mt. Meru: Kenya’s floods trap CIMMYT team

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Last Wednesday, Kenya-based maize breeder Alpha Diallo and driver Haron Mwangi had a harrowing experience on the slopes of Mt. Meru in Tanzania, where they were marooned for nearly 6 hours.

“We were on our way from Nairobi to the Selian Agricultural Research Institute (SARI) in Arusha to attend a ceremony for the release of 3 CIMMYT varieties, and harvest collaborative drought trials, but on reaching Donyo Sabuk, 40 km from Arusha, we saw these dark clouds on the hills in the distance,” says Diallo.

They climbed a further 3 km without any signs of rain on the road, but suddenly, black clouds had formed, and it started to pour. “Before we knew it there was a big mass of water coming from the hills,” says Mwangi.

The deluge was relentless, and Diallo and Mwangi had to make a quick decision. “We took off our shoes and jumped out of the car and onto a small island nearby, which we thought was made of rock”. But they looked on in horror as the pounding rain started to eat away at a similar, adjacent ‘island.’ “That’s when we realized our island was nothing but a lump of volcanic soil, and if the rain didn’t stop it would be washed away too, sweeping us into the now-raging current,” says Diallo.

It rained for nearly 4 hours. When the sun finally broke through, the flood level was just 5 feet from the top of their island. Help came from the local Masai people. For the next two hours 10 men with spades excavated the CIMMYT vehicle, which was buried to doorheight in soft mud.

A trip that should have taken 3 hours took 8, and they reached Arusha well after the variety release ceremony at SARI had ended—soaked, exhausted, and traumatized, but safe.

Message from DG Masa

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The year 2006 is coming to a close and I’d like to share with you my assessment of this busy year and thank the CIMMYT family for its invaluable contribution to making this a productive and rewarding period for CIMMYT.

CIMMYT has made major progress in science leadership, delivery, effective partnership, organizational effectiveness and coherence, financial health and external perception and recognition. Let me give some examples that illustrate why I believe that 2006 has been a successful year for CIMMYT as a science-based organization with a humanitarian mission.

We started with Science Week, a major institutional event. At the end of the week I wrote: “I believe that Science Week was a major success. First of all, the Business Plan inauguration was received with enthusiasm by all staff present and the Board members who attended. We now have a Board-approved business plan and I feel that staff are anxious to join forces to deliver the flagship products highlighted in the plan. Science Week has been a major turning point for CIMMYT. I think that we now have a clear direction, and exciting and challenging tasks ahead of us. I would like to express my sincere appreciation to CIMMYT Board members (Lene, Julio, Bob and Pedro) for their active participation in the events and for providing their great wisdom about our science both its quality and its direction. I also thank those who were involved in logistic support for the successful events.”

CIMMYT organized or led a series of international meetings, showing the strength and relevance of our science. For example:

  • Wheat yield potential workshop (Obregon, March)
  • Fusarium head blight (HQ, March)
  • Global crop diversity strategy meetings on maize and wheat (HQ, May, June)
  • International Plant Breeding symposium (Mexico City, August)
  • Global Rust Initiative technical workshop (Alexandria, Egypt, October)
  • Bio-ethanol international technical workshop (New Delhi, November)

While organizing such events takes great effort, they are very important. Through them CIMMYT shows its proactiveness and relevance to global issues. They are powerful sources of CIMMYT’s influence on the global agricultural research agenda and partnership.

We also made major progress on improving CIMMYT’s organizational effectiveness. A new financial management system, Axapta, has been introduced. The implementation involved not only finance section staff but also program administrative staff in HQ and regional offices. I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for their tremendous energy and efforts in successfully managing the migration and implementation.

CIMMYT will move to strict, Project-based management in 2007. This will ensure priority-based (flagship products) resource allocation, output-oriented activities with clear accountability and monitoring system. This will also assist us to properly cost and price project activities and provide incentives for resource mobilization.

We continue to dramatically improve our operational effectiveness. For example, our cafeteria operations (El Batan) used to lose money (around USD 200,000/year). Through a change of management and improved effectiveness, it now breaks even, saving us that USD 200,000. We will continue to strive for operational effectiveness in all operations, so that more resources will be available for our resultoriented activities.

Effective partnership is a core component for the delivery of flagship products. I am sure we are all aware of its importance and work hard to create partnerships at many levels. I have seen major progress on the development of our alliances with two key sister centers (IRRI and ICARDA) this year. We made also special efforts to actively participate in specific NARS-led events such as APAARI and GFAR.

We have a good history of working with small and medium scale enterprises. We also work effectively with large enterprises to enhance the speed of development of our products (such as improved germplasm and technology). The new Pioneer-CIMMYT joint effort to develop maize germplasm for higher nitrogen use efficiency in Africa is an example.

External perception and review
Two real highlights from an institutional perspective were our top ranking in the CGIAR-World Bank performance indicators and the positive review from the External Program and Management Review panel that took the time to analyze progress at CIMMYT after their formal report in 2005. The new review report is highly complimentary to CIMMYT. It reports in its summary, “The review team congratulates CIMMYT as a whole—the Board, management and staff—on the substantive progress made since the Fifth EPMR and feels that CIMMYT can now move ahead with confidence and optimism.”

The CGIAR performance indicators range from how many peer-reviewed papers each scientist has published to how good the financial management has been over the year. They also include assessments of governance, impact and science quality.

Partnership in science-led development
This year we were presented with the CGIAR’s highest recognition for science for development—the King Baudoiun Award. The award was given to us for our work on stress-tolerant maize in eastern and southern Africa. This is research that has a 20 year history at CIMMYT, starting with the selection of potential germplasm from the gene bank in the late 1980s and continuing through today with the very successful participatory selection work with farmers through the mother-baby trial system and the dissemination of stress-tolerant maize seed on a wide-scale by national programs, small scale seed companies and communitybased organizations. The work is a fine example of how researchled development can enhance the livelihoods of the rural poor. It is also the result of an extraordinary partnership of researchers, farmers, NARS and donors.

Resource mobilization
In 2006, there were 43 grants signed or approved for about USD 22 million. Many CIMMYT staff members were active in all stages of resource mobilization, from generating concept notes and moving them to full proposals, to investor visits. They and their research-for-development partners are to be congratulated for their hard work. It is the kind of effort we will have to continue every year to ensure we have the resources to fulfill our mission. A summary of the current status of new grants received and the project proposal pipeline are given monthly in CIMMYT Resource Mobilization intranet site at http://intranet. cimmyt.org/Resource_ Mobilization/e-index.htm.

Challenges in the new year, 2007
We end 2006 with great satisfaction for the above achievements. We will continue, in the new year, to strive for scientific excellence and organizational effectiveness. The environment surrounding our work is, unfortunately, increasingly uncertain. It includes donor funding, intellectual property policy and the viability of CGIAR as an effective system. We will need to address those challenges in a proactive manner and stay focused on our work while showing resilience and accepting such uncertainties as a matter of institutional life.

In closing, I wish you and your families the very best for this season and the new year. Without your efforts none of our success would be possible.

Visit builds links with China

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On Friday, November 17, El BatĂĄn played host to a delegation from the National Nature Science Foundation of China (NSFC), accompanied by Zhong-Hu He, regional wheat coordinator for East Asia based at CIMMYT China. The visitors were Jie Wang, Vice President, Feng Feng, Deputy Director General (life science department), and Yinglan Zhang, Division Director (department of international collaboration).

The visit aimed to develop collaborative research projects between scientists from NSFC and CIMMYT’s wheat and maize programs and genetic resources and enhancement unit. Priority research areas include durable disease resistance, yield potential and grain quality in wheat, and disease resistance, drought tolerance, and high oil content in maize.

The visitors met with key scientists from headquarters for presentations and discussions. The group also saw CIMMYT’s work in action, visiting the Plant Genetic Resources Center, the biotechnology laboratories, the Crop Research Informatics Laboratory, and the Grain Quality Laboratory. On Saturday, November 18, the group spent the day at Tlaltizapán experiment station, where the research focus is on breeding mid-altitude and subtropical maize.

Help to handle the hazards

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On Monday, November 14, an eight-hour course on hazardous materials took place at El BatĂĄn. It was run by biologist Claudina PĂ©rez Baldovino, and covered the proper handling of hazardous materials in the workplace and how to interpret product safety information. Participants considered the effects of hazardous materials, personal protection equipment and emergency procedures.