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CIMMYT at the AIM for Climate Summit

Written by Alison Doody on . Posted in News.

Sieg Snapp, Tek Sapkota, and partners photographed during AIM for Climate (Photo: CIMMYT)

As climate change threats accelerate, new technologies, products, and approaches are required for smallholder farmers to mitigate and adapt to current and future threats. Targeting smallholder farmers will benefit not only the farmers but the entire agri-food system through enhanced locally relevant knowledge that harnesses handheld sensors and advisories on management options, soil status, weather, and market information.

The Agriculture Innovation Mission for Climate (AIM for Climate / AIM4C) seeks to address climate change and global hunger by uniting participants to significantly increase investment in, and other support for, climate-smart agriculture and food systems innovation over five years (2021–2025).

The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), as a partner of AIM for Climate, organized a breakout session titled “Smart Smallholder Fertilizer Management to Address Food Security, Climate Change, and Planetary Boundaries” during the AIM for Climate Summit in Washington DC, May 8-10, 2023.

Fertilizers are essential for increasing crop yields and ensuring food security, yet fertilizer use for food and fodder is severely skewed at the global level, leading to over-fertilization in some regions and under-fertilization in others.

Farmers in low-income countries are highly vulnerable to fertilizer supply shortages and price spikes, which have direct consequences for food prices and hunger. Improving fertilizer efficiency and integrated organic and inorganic sources is important globally as nutrient loss to the environment from inappropriate input use drives greenhouse gas emissions and pollution.

Innovation Sprint

Because smallholder farmers are the primary managers of land and water, the CIMMYT-led AIM4C Innovation Sprint, Climate-Resilient soil fertility management by smallholders in Africa, Asia, and Latin America is designed to implement and scale-up a range of climate robust nutrient management strategies in 12 countries, and to reach tens of millions of smallholder farmers in close collaboration with nearly 100 public-private partners organizations.

Sieg Snapp called for more investments in data synthesis (Photo: CIMMYT)

Strategies include innovations in extension where digital tools enable farmer-centered private and public advisories to increase the uptake of locally adapted nutrient management practices. Connecting farmers to investors and markets provides financial support for improved nutrient management.

By tailoring validated fertility management practices to their specific conditions, and integrated use of legumes and manure, smallholders will optimize productivity, enhance climate resilience, and mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. Research from other organizations has determined that improved fertilizer management can increase global crop yield by 30% while reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Right place, right time

“We need locally adapted fertilizer management approaches that work for smallholder farmers. By tailoring validated fertility management practices to their specific conditions, smallholders will optimize productivity, enhance climate resilience, and mitigate greenhouse gas emissions,” said Sieg Snapp, CIMMYT’s Sustainable Agricultural Systems Program Director. She continued, “What is needed now is major investment in data synthesis. Through this SPRINT we are exploring options to enable taking sensors to scale, to reach tens of millions of farmers with hyper-local soils information.”

Inequality is the core of the problem in fertilizer management: some regions apply more than the required amount, where in other regions fertilizer application is insufficient for plant needs, leading to low yields and soil degradation.

Tek Sapkota spoke on fertilizer management (Photo: CIMMYT)

“Fertilizer efficiency can be improved through application of the right amount of fertilizer using the right source employing the right methods of application at the right time of plant demand,” said Tek Sapkota, CIMMYT Senior Scientist, Agricultural System/Climate Change.

The session included presentations by the Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research (FFAR), UN Foundation, Pakistan Agricultural Research Council (PARC), Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI), USDA, and Alliance of CIAT-Bioversity. Highlights sustainable and climate-smart practices in Pakistan, novel plant genetics for improved nitrogen cycling, and soil water and nutrient management in the Zambezi to tackle food security and climate change challenges.

Alison Bentley announced as 2023 Borlaug CAST Communication Award recipient

Written by Julian Bañuelos-Uribe on . Posted in Press releases.

AMES, IOWA—The Council for Agricultural Science and Technology (CAST) has announced the 2023 Borlaug CAST Communication Award goes to Alison Bentley.

 

While Bentley is known for her global research on wheat genetics, she is also recognized for her proficiency in science communication. Bentley has a passion for delivering practical applications from innovation to farmers, extensive reach through communicating and influencing, and mentoring and support of individuals and community efforts. Bentley’s exceptional work in raising awareness about the importance of wheat as a food crop is also evidenced by her wide-ranging list of communication activities.

In 2022 alone, Bentley delivered 20 scientific presentations—including five international keynote talks and 15 additional invited talks. Bentley focused her communication efforts around two major areas. The first area was her rapid, science-led response to the impact of the Russian/Ukraine war on global wheat production through a communication article in Nature, followed with a social media campaign and numerous presentations and invited policy briefings. Her second area of focus was a major communications campaign by initiating and leading the Women in Crop Science network. This network was developed to address key issues such as the promotion and championing of females throughout their research careers, creating equal opportunities, and increasing visibility of members.

The extensive breadth of Bentley’s outreach ranges from classic science presentations and open access articles to blogs, podcasts, YouTube videos, and Twitter campaigns. All these formats demonstrate her commitment to science communication and reaching as wide an audience as possible in an accessible way to engage with important, current topics regarding wheat supplies and plant breeding.

The official presentation of the award will take place at a special side event during the World Food Prize Borlaug Dialogue event in Des Moines, Iowa, in October. The Borlaug CAST Communication Award honors the legacy of Norman Borlaug, a Nobel Prize winner and author of the first CAST publication, and Dr. Charles A. Black, the first executive vice president of CAST. It is presented annually for outstanding achievement by a scientist, engineer, technologist, or other professional working in the agricultural, environmental, or food sectors for contributing to the advancement of science through communication in the public policy arena.

ABOUT CAST

CAST is an international consortium of scientific and professional societies, universities, companies, nonprofits, libraries, and individuals. CAST convenes and coordinates networks of experts to assemble, interpret, and communicate credible, unbiased, science-based information to policymakers, the media, the private sector, and the public.

www.cast-science.org

ABOUT CIMMYT

The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) is an international organization focused on non-profit agricultural research and training that empowers farmers through science and innovation to nourish the world in the midst of a climate crisis. Applying high-quality science and strong partnerships, CIMMYT works to achieve a world with healthier and more prosperous people, free from global food crises and with more resilient agri-food systems. CIMMYT’s research brings enhanced productivity and better profits to farmers, mitigates the effects of the climate crisis, and reduces the environmental impact of agriculture.

CIMMYT is a member of CGIAR, a global research partnership for a food secure future dedicated to reducing poverty, enhancing food and nutrition security, and improving natural resources.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION OR INTERVIEWS

Sarah Fernandes
Head of Communications
CIMMYT
s.fernandes@cgiar.org

 

2023: The International Year of the Millet

Written by Julian Bañuelos-Uribe on . Posted in In the media.

The United Nations declared 2023 as the International Year of the Millet.

Millet, with other resilient cereal crops, provides a nutritious and affordable option to families worldwide. CIMMYT and ICRISAT are scaling-up millet cultivation when climate change has placed pressure to protect the food systems that safeguard food security in Africa.

Hot, dry climates call for resilient, high-performing wheat varieties

Written by Mike Listman on . Posted in Features.

Public and private crop research organizations worldwide have worked behind the scenes for decades, bolstering the resilience of staple crops like maize and wheat to fight what is shaping up to be the battle of our time: feeding humanity in a biosphere increasingly hostile to crop farming.

In the case of wheat — which provides some 20% of carbohydrates and 20% of protein in human diets, not to mention 40% of total cereal exports — harvests spoiled by heat waves, droughts, and crop disease outbreaks can send food prices skyrocketing, driving world hunger, poverty, instability, human migration, political instability, and conflict.

Century-high temperature extremes and the early onset of summer in South Asia in 2022, for example, reduced wheat yields as much as 15% in parts of the Indo-Gangetic Plains, a breadbasket that yearly produces over 100 million tons of wheat from 30 million hectares of crop land.

Around half the world’s wheat crop suffers from heat stress, and each 1 °C increase in temperature reduces wheat yields by an average 6%, according to a 2021 review paper “Harnessing translational research in wheat for climate resilience,” published in the Journal of Experimental Botany, which also outlines nine goals to improve the climate resilience of wheat.

Simulating heat shocks in the field using portable plot-sized ‘heating tents’ (Photo: G Molero/CIMMYT)

Droughts and shrinking aquifers pose equally worrying threats for wheat, said Matthew Reynolds, a wheat physiologist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and lead author of the study. “Water availability is the biggest factor influencing potential yield in a majority of wheat environments globally,” Reynolds explained. “Studies predict severe water scarcity events for up to 60% of the world’s wheat-growing areas by the end of this century.”

Science and sources to toughen wheat

Along with modernized, more diverse cropping systems and better farm policies, more resilient varieties are crucial for sustainable wheat production, according to Reynolds and a wheat breeder colleague at CIMMYT, Leo Crespo, who added that breeders have been working for decades to stiffen wheat’s heat and drought tolerance, long before climate change became a buzzword.

“Breeding and selection in diverse environments and at targeted test sites characterized by heat and natural or simulated drought has brought farmers wheat varieties that perform well under both optimal and stressed conditions and we’re implementing new technologies to speed progress and lower costs,” said Crespo, mentioning that the Center’s wheat nurseries SAWYT and HTWYT target semi-arid and heat-stressed environments respectively and are sent yearly to hundreds of public and private breeders worldwide through the International Wheat Improvement Network (IWIN). “Retrospective analysis of IWIN data has shown that heat tolerance has been increasing in recent years, according to a 2021 CIMMYT study.”

“Climate change is a serious driver of potential disease epidemics, since changeable weather can increase selection pressure for new virulent pathotypes to evolve,” said Pawan Singh, a CIMMYT wheat pathologist. “We must be ever vigilant, and the IWIN is an invaluable source of feedback on potential new disease threats and changes in the virulence patterns of wheat pathogens.”

In the quest to improve climate resilience in wheat, CIMMYT “pre-breeding” — accessing desired genetic traits from sources like wheat’s grassy relatives and introducing them into breeding lines that can be crossed with elite varieties — focuses on specific traits. These include strong and healthy roots, early vigor, a cool canopy under stress, and storage of water-soluble carbohydrates in stems that can be used as stress intensifies to complement supplies from photosynthesis, as well as an array of traits that protect photosynthesis including ‘stay-green’ leaves and spikes and pigments that protect the delicate photosynthetic machinery from oxidative damage caused by excess light.

Screening highly diverse lines – identified by DNA fingerprinting – from the World Wheat Collection under heat stress. (Photo: Matthew Reynolds/CIMMYT)

Though elite breeding lines may contain genetic variation for such traits, in pre-breeding researchers look further afield for new and better sources of resilience. The vast wheat seed collections of CIMMYT and other organizations, particularly seed samples of farmer-bred heirloom varieties known as “landraces,” are one potential source of useful diversity that cutting-edge genetic analyses promise to help unlock.

Rich diversity for wheat is still found in farmers’ fields in India, in the northern states of the Himalayan region, the hill regions, and the semi-arid region of Rajasthan, Gujarat, Karnataka. The landraces there show tolerance to drought, heat, and saline soils.

The so-called “synthetic wheats” represent another plentiful source of resilience genes. Synthetics are the progeny of crosses of tetraploid wheat (having four chromosomes, like the durum wheat used for pasta) with wild grass species. CIMMYT and other organizations have been creating these since the 1980s and using them as bridges to transfer wild genes to bread wheat, often for traits such as disease resistance and heat and drought tolerance.

The study, creation, and use of bridging lines, landraces, and seed collections with useful traits as part of pre-breeding is described in the 2021 paper “Progress and prospects of developing climate resilient wheat in South Asia using modern pre-breeding methods,” published in the science journal Current Genomics.

Lines with new sources of heat- and drought-tolerance from CIMMYT’s pre-breeding are also distributed to public and private breeders worldwide via the IWIN for testing as the Stress Adapted Trait Yield Nurseries (SATYNs), according to the paper. These special nurseries are grown by national and private breeders throughout South Asia, for example in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Iran, Nepal, and Pakistan. Lines from the nursery have on occasion been released directly as varieties for use by farmers in Afghanistan, Egypt, and Pakistan.

A critical challenge in pre-breeding is to identify and keep desirable wild genes while culling the undesirable ones that are also transferred in crosses of elite breeding lines with landraces and synthetics. One approach is through physiological pre-breeding, where complementary crosses are made to improve the crop performance under drought and heat stress. The second approach is using genomic prediction, on the basis of seeds, or accessions, in the gene bank collection that have gone through genomic and phenotyping analysis for target traits such as heat and drought tolerance. These approaches can also be combined to boost the speed and effectiveness of selecting strong varieties.

Breeding revolutions

Wheat breeding is being revolutionized by advances in “high-throughput phenotyping.” This refers to rapid and cost-effective ways to measure wheat performance and specific traits in the field, particularly remote sensing — that is, crop images taken from vehicles, drones, or even satellites. Depending on the wavelength of light used, such images can show plant physiochemical and structural properties, such as pigment content, hydration status, photosynthetic area, and vegetative biomass. Similarly, canopy temperature images from infrared photography allow detection for crop water status and plant stomatal conductance.  “Such traits tend to show better association with yield under stress than under favorable conditions”, said Francisco Pinto, a CIMMYT wheat physiologist who is developing methods to measure roots using remote sensing. “A remotely sensed ‘root index’ could potentially revolutionize our ability to breed for root traits, which are critical under heat and drought stress but have not been directly accessible in breeding.”

Innovative statistical analysis has greatly increased the value of field trials and emphasized the power of direct selection for yield and yield stability under diverse environments.

Initial results from genomic selection programs, particularly where combined with improved phenotyping techniques, also show great promise. The potential benefits of combining a range of new technologies constitute a valuable international public good.

New initiatives

Launched in 2012, the Heat and Drought Wheat Improvement Consortium (HeDWIC) facilitates global coordination of wheat research to adapt to a future with more severe weather extremes, specifically heat and drought. It delivers new technologies — especially novel wheat lines  to wheat breeders worldwide via the International Wheat Improvement Network (IWIN), coordinated for more than half a century by CIMMYT.

HeDWIC is supported by the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research (FFAR) and is part of the Alliance for Wheat Adaption to Heat and Drought (AHEAD), an international umbrella organization set up by the Wheat Initiative to bring the wheat research community together and to exchange new germplasm, technologies and ideas for enhancing tolerance to heat and drought.

Cover photo: Night heaters to increase night temperature in the field, as increasingly warmer nights are diminishing yield in many cropping systems. (Photo: Enrico Yepez/CIMMYT) 

Global science partnership promotes climate-smart pathways to address food security and climate crisis

Written by Mike Listman on . Posted in Features.

Through decades-long Asian and global partnerships, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) is refining and spreading a suite of resource-conserving, climate-smart innovations for highly diverse maize- and wheat-based cropping systems, including more precise and efficient use of water and fertilizer, as well as conservation agriculture, which blends reduced or zero-tillage, use of crop residues or mulches as soil covers, and more diverse intercrops and rotations.

“Zero-tillage and residue management for cereals — that is, sowing the seed directly into unplowed soils and residues from the preceding rice crop — has been adopted on a significant area in the transact of Indo-Gangetic Plain, with positive impacts on crop yields, profitability, and resource-use efficiencies,” said Tek Sapkota, senior scientist in agricultural systems/climate change, CIMMYT.

Continuous maize plot in El BatĂĄn, Mexico (Photo: CIMMYT)

 

The paper “Conservation agriculture for sustainable intensification in South Asia,” published in the science journal Nature Sustainability reported that, compared to the conventional practice, conservation agriculture resulted overall in a 4.6% higher grain yield, a 14.6% improvement in water use efficiency, and a 25.6% greater net economic return. The net economic return was 40.5% higher for full conservation agriculture but, given the benefits of partial adoption of the practices, rigid adherence to an “all or nothing” approach to spread conservation agriculture in South Asia does not seem warranted.

Conservation agriculture also offers several ecosystem services. In the study data, global warming potential was reduced by as much as 33.5% in rice-wheat systems, values that are consistent with other research. Moreover, conservation agriculture-based practices provide an economically feasible alternative to burning rice residues, a serious public health threat in northwestern India given the roughly 23 million tons of residues that are burned each year in the region.

“More widespread adoption of zero-tillage in India has been made possible with the development of next-generation tractor-drawn implements that allow direct seeding into heavy residues, as well as business models whereby implement owners contract out with neighboring farmers to sow their crops and provide other services,” said Sapkota. “National governments in South Asia are actively promoting conservation agriculture to address residue burning and other farming sustainability problems.”

Aerial view of maize and wheat breeding plots (Photo: CIMMYT)

Fitting conservation agriculture to maize farming in Mexico

Efforts to adapt conservation agriculture and promote its adoption by farmers operating highly-diverse, mostly rainfed maize-based cropping systems in Mexico have had mixed results. A recent study assessed soil health in 20 trials in starting between 1991 and 2016 in agro-ecologies ranging from handplanted traditional systems to intensive irrigated systems, contrasting conservation agriculture effects with those of local conventional practices, which commonly involve tillage, residue removal, and continuous maize production.

As reported in the 2021 paper “Effects of conservation agriculture on physicochemical soil health in 20 maize-based trials in different agro-ecological regions across Mexico,” published in the science journal Land Degradation and Development, conservation agriculture increased maize yields at most sites by 0.85 tons per hectare, on average. Organic matter and nitrates were higher in topsoils under conservation agriculture and soil aggregate stability was greater, meaning the soil more effectively moved air and water to plant roots. For other soil health parameters, such as nutrient content, pH, or compaction, most values were determined more by local soil type than by crop management.

Maize plot in El BatĂĄn, Mexico (Photo: CIMMYT)

“Given the significant variation across agro-ecologies, local adaptive trials are important to assess the effects of conservation agriculture on soil health and fit it to local conditions,” said Simon Fonteyne, a CIMMYT cropping systems agronomist and first author of the paper.

Emissions control

Several recent studies have assessed the costs and potential of various sustainable intensification technologies for reducing greenhouse gas emissions in India, Bangladesh and Mexico. Their findings can help inform national policies on food security, economic development and environment, including those relating to the Paris Agreement.

In the 2019 study “Cost-effective opportunities for climate change mitigation in Indian agriculture,” published in the journal Science of the Total Environment, CIMMYT and partners found that estimated total emissions from Indian agriculture were 481 tons of CO2 equivalent (MtCO2e) in 2012, with crops contributing over 40% and livestock nearly 60%. Under a business-as-usual scenario, agricultural greenhouse gas emissions in India would be 515 MtCO2e by 2030. This annual emissions could be reduced by 85.5 MtCO2e through adoption of mitigation practices and about 80% of that reduction could be achieved through measures that would actually save money and, in many cases, could be implemented with current technology. The efficient use of fertilizer, zero-tillage, and rice-water management could deliver more than 50% of the technical abatement potential.

“Realization of this mitigation potential will depend largely on the extent adoption by farmers,” said Sapkota, who was lead author of the study. “Large-scale adoption of apparently win-win options is not happening, so the government of India will need to apply appropriate policy measures and incentives, consistent with its food security and emission reduction goals.

A similar study in Bangladesh, reported in the 2021 paper “Quantifying opportunities for greenhouse gas emissions mitigation using big data from smallholder crop and livestock farmers across Bangladesh,” published in the journal Science of the Total Environment, found greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture in Bangladesh of 76.8 MtCO2e for 2014–15. Yearly emissions by 2030 under a business-as-usual approach would approximate 86.9 MtCO2e and, by 2050, about 100 MtCO2e. Adoption of realistic, climate-smart crop and livestock management options to reduce emissions offer mitigation opportunities of 9.51 MtCO2e per year by 2030 and 14.21 MtCO2e by 2050. As much as 75% of this potential can be achieved through cost-saving options that benefit smallholder farmers. As is the case for India, realization of this potential largely depends on the degree to which supportive policies and measures can encourage farmer adoption.

The Walmart Foundation and CIMMYT promote crop diversification in Oaxaca, Chiapas, and Campeche, Mexico. (Photo: CIMMYT)

A similar rapid assessment of costs for to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions from crops, livestock, and forestry in Mexico found a national mitigation potential of 87.9 MtCO2eq per year, fully 72.3 MtCO2eq from livestock. As reported in the 2022 paper, “Quantification of economically feasible mitigation potential from agriculture, forestry and other land uses in Mexico,” published in the science journal Carbon Management, implementing mitigation potential on Mexican cropland could bring net benefits, compared to livestock and forestry options, which involve net costs. In the 2021 paper “Reduced Water Use in Barley and Maize Production Through Conservation Agriculture and Drip Irrigation” a reduction of emissions caused by lower fuel use in conservation agriculture of 192 kg CO2 ha−1  was measured in farmers fields, as well as an increase in soil carbon and a reduction in water use.

The status of women in agri-food systems

Written by Leslie DomĂ­nguez on . Posted in Features.

To provide a comprehensive overview of women and gender issues in agriculture, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) recently released “The status of women in agri-food systems,” which provides compelling examples of policies and programs with a review of what has worked and specific recommendations. The report concludes that increasing women’s empowerment is essential for women’s well-being and has a positive impact on agricultural production, food security, diets, and child nutrition.

Despite the importance of agrifood systems for women’s livelihoods and the welfare of their families, women’s roles are marginalized, and their working conditions are likely to be worse than men’s–irregular, informal, part-time, low-skilled, labor intensive and thus vulnerable.

The International Center for Maize and Wheat Improvement (CIMMYT) recognizes the pressing need for gender equality measures in agri-food systems and has initiated many specific projects to address gender equality. In addition, CIMMYT is committed to introducing a gender component into all its research, programs, and interventions.

“It is an acknowledgment that gender and social equity has always been a critical component of the sustainability of any initiative, regardless of the crop and the geographic area affected,” said Bram Govaerts, CIMMYT’s Director General. “CIMMYT is now more intentional about addressing gender equality issues and we recognize the same old methods might not be the most effective.”

FAO: the collection of high-quality data are paramount for monitoring, evaluating and accelerating progress on gender equality in agrifood systems

In the past, many initiatives have relied on surveys to gather data from farmers, producers, consumers, and other stakeholders. However, in traditional rural societies, survey-based data collection might not be the best way to evaluate women’s agency, as the deeply rooted cultural restrictions might not allow them to talk openly about sensitive issues, like their relationship with a spouse.

As part of the Accelerating Genetic Gains in Maize and Wheat for improved livelihoods in Asia and Africa (AGG) project, in Bihar India, CIMMYT researchers developed an innovative storytelling approach to data collection: using vignettes, farmers are given short stories to relate to their household circumstances. Stories are also easier to remember and help build a connection with the characters quickly.

This storytelling method debunked some long-held ideas about women’s role in agriculture in this area of India, creating a more nuanced view of how and why women engage in agriculture. This method will lead to richer qualitative data, which can improve the development and sustainability of gender interventions.

FAO: Social protection programs have increased women’s employment and enhanced women’s resilience.

CIMMYT’s partnership with the Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA) specifically supports women farmers by improving their access and exposure to modern and improved technological innovations, knowledge and entrepreneurial skills. CSISA works in synergy with regional and national efforts, collaborating with public and private-sector partners.

FAO: interventions must be designed to close gender inequalities and empower women.

While CIMMYT has produced many improved maize varieties, CIMMYT researchers discovered that these new varieties may fall short in meeting the needs of women and the poorest of farmers. We need to explore novel approaches to evaluating farmer demand for seed, considering new questions instead of continuing to look for gender-based differences in preferences.

A first step in that direction is to determine how demand for maize seed differs among farmers according to their needs, priorities, and resource limitations. Gender is a large part of that equation, but the CIMMYT researchers also advocate for other considerations, like how maize fits into household food security and livelihoods, decision-making dynamics around maize production, and seed accessibility.

Internal efforts at CIMMYT

While the FAO report is focused on women in the agri-food system, CIMMYT has also engaged several internal initiatives to ensure a more diverse portfolio of researchers and to cultivate a stronger sense of inclusion at CIMMYT and in the wider scientific community.

At CIMMYT, between 20 and 25 percent of staff in the science career track–careers involving field, lab, data, and socioeconomic work–are female. In 2022, Alison Bentley, Director of CIMMYT’s Global Wheat Program, and Nele Verhulst, cropping systems agronomist started Women in Crop Science at CIMMYT. The group aims to connect and build a network of women in the science career track and commits to achieving a more inclusive environment at CIMMYT and within the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research (CGIAR).

The group recently received the Inclusive Team award at the inaugural CGIAR Inclusive Workplace Awards.

CIMMYT is also helping to develop the next generation of women scientists through the annual Jeanie Borlaug Laube Women in Triticum Awards, which recognizes scientific excellence and leadership potential. To date., over 60 women scientists have received leadership training and professional development opportunities meant to support them as they join the community of scholars who are fighting hunger worldwide.

Cover photo: Women sorting out maize seed at the Mgom’mera Seed Company warehouse in Lilongwe, Malawi. (Photo: CIMMYT/Kipenz Films)

How does CIMMYT’s improved maize get to the farmer?

Six New CIMMYT maize hybrids available from eastern Africa Breeding Program

Written by Leslie DomĂ­nguez on . Posted in News.

How does CIMMYT’s improved maize get to the farmer?

CIMMYT is happy to announce six new, improved tropical maize hybrids that are now available for uptake by public and private sector partners, especially those interested in marketing or disseminating hybrid maize seed across eastern Africa and similar agro-ecologies in other regions. NARES and seed companies are hereby invited to apply for licenses to pursue national release, scale-up seed production, and deliver these maize hybrids to farming communities.

 

Newly available CIMMYT hybrids Key traits
CIM21EAPP1-01-23 Intermediate maturing, white, high yielding, drought tolerant, NUE, and resistant to GLS, TLB, Ear rots, and MSV
CIM21EAPP1-01-22
CIM21EAPP1-02-13 Early maturing, white, high yielding, drought tolerant, NUE, and resistant to GLS, TLB, Ear rots, and MLN
CIM21EAPP1-02-11
CIM21EAPP2-01 Late maturing, white, high yielding, drought tolerant, NUE, and resistant to GLS, TLB, Ear rots, and Striga
CIM21EAPP2-05

 

Performance data Download the CIMMYT Eastern Africa Maize Regional On-Station (Stage 4) and On-Farm (Stage 5) Trials: Results of the 2021 to 2022 Seasons and Product Announcement from Dataverse.
How to apply Visit CIMMYT’s maize product allocation page for details
Application deadline The deadline to submit applications to be considered during the first round of allocations is 21 May 2023. Applications received after that deadline will be considered during subsequent rounds of product allocations.

 

The newly available CIMMYT maize hybrids were identified through rigorous, years-long trialing and a stage-gate advancement process which culminated in the 2022 Eastern Africa On-Farm (Stage 5) Trials. The products were found to meet the stringent performance and farmer acceptance criteria for CIMMYT’s breeding pipelines that are designed to generate products tailored in particular for smallholder farmers in stress-prone agroecologies of eastern Africa .

Applications must be accompanied by a proposed commercialization plan for each product being requested. Applications may be submitted online via the CIMMYT Maize Licensing Portal and will be reviewed in accordance with CIMMYT’s Principles and Procedures for Acquisition and use of CIMMYT maize hybrids and OPVs for commercialization. Specific questions or issues faced with regard to the application process may be addressed to GMP-CIMMYT@cgiar.org with attention to Nicholas Davis, Program Manager, Global Maize Program, CIMMYT.

APPLY FOR A LICENSE

Increasing smallholder inclusion in markets boosts rural livelihoods

Written by Tawanda Hove on . Posted in News.

Sieglinde Snapp (right), director, Sustainable Agrifood Systems Program, CIMMYT, poses with Mr, and Mrs. Banda, who are part of seed producers who sell seed to fellow farmers. (Photo: CIMMYT)

Smallholder farmers have long been considered purely subsistence producers without the capacity to participate in commercial value chains. This has led to their exclusion from many agribusiness enterprises which typically focus on medium- to large-scale growers.

Through the Accelerated Innovation Delivery Initiative (AID-I), the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and partners are supporting smallholder farmers to enter viable legume value chains. Soybean is one crop experiencing a rapidly expanding market. This is a unique opportunity for small-scale farmers to access a legume value chain, one that drives sustainable intensified farming for improved income and livelihoods.

In the Kasenengwa District, in eastern Zambia, Josephine Mbewe produces soybean for local oil production and grain traders who export the commodity to neighboring countries like Zimbabwe and Malawi. She is one of many farmers who are benefitting from the Agriculture Development Agent model, a concept that has been developed by CIMMYT’s implementation partner Catholic Relief Services (CRS) and scaled up in the AID-I project.

“For years we always wanted to produce for the market, but the costs were just too high. In addition, we didn’t exactly know who to sell to so this model really helps us as we sell our products locally but knowing that our aggregated produce will go to distant consumers. This model is helping us to have access to high quality inputs such as improved seed, crop chemicals, fertilizers, and other related products,” Mbewe said.

The Agriculture Development Agent model aims to create a consortium of village based agrodealers who double as seed producers multiplying seed and selling it to surrounding farmers. The same dealers buy back the grain and sell it to oil pressing companies and export commodity trading companies.

The AID-I project scales promising innovations with proven ability to address some of the systemic constraints that have discouraged agribusinesses from engaging with smallholder farmers.

“This is a model that is leveraged on community social capital where trust exists between the ADA and the local farmer,” said James Nguluwe from CRS. “Issues related to seed diversion or side marketing of the harvested crop are kept at a bare minimum as farmers don’t want to spoil their relationship with the Agriculture Development Agent and their general reputation within the community.”

“The model is also catalytic to the use of improved seed as farmers have to produce using a particular seed type. The interactions with ADA over soya seed, production and reverse purchase set up has seen the farmers extending to procure improved maize varieties as well, as opposed to times past where they would recycle seed and reap poor harvests,” he said.

Paitana Mwanza, an ADA agreed and spoke of his positive experiences of the model.

“I have had no contractual breach with the farmers. When they buy the seed, we agree on a separate grain buy back arrangement – the farmers have always delivered as per agreement.”

For years, farmers have been growing recycled seed and use of improved seed has been very uncommon among smallholder farmers. Having a financial incentive where ADAs provide an assured market is proving to be a good enough incentive to facilitate behavioral change.

Agribusiness agents face high costs associated with aggregation of produce, which the Agriculture Development Agent model overcomes. Farmers are organized and supported by ADAs, who are registered market players that have been extensively trained in business practices, seed handling and seed and grain production. As such, both grain traders and processors can make a realistic profit through this innovative system that facilitates small-scale farmers accessing new markets.

One of the key objectives of the AID-I project is to ensure that participating in market systems is a choice for smallholder farmers and exclusion from viable value chains is a thing of the past. The Agriculture Development Agent model promises to transform not only eastern Zambia but the whole country at large.

Twenty Years of Enriching Diets with Biofortification

Written by Leslie DomĂ­nguez on . Posted in Features.

It is an important year for biofortification: 2023 will mark the 20th anniversary of this nutrition-agricultural innovation, for which its pioneers were awarded the World Food Prize.

More than three billion people around the world, mostly in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, cannot afford a nourishing, diverse diet that provides enough vitamins and minerals (micronutrients). While efforts to pursue dietary diversity—the accepted gold standard for optimal health—must continue, a healthy diet remains out of reach for a vast majority of the world’s population.

The consequences are dire. A staggering two billion people get so little essential micronutrients from their diets that they suffer from “hidden hunger”, the often-invisible scourge of micronutrient malnutrition.

To combat hidden hunger requires a range of context-specific combinations of evidence-based interventions that complement each other, including dietary diversification, supplementation, commercial food fortification, biofortification, and public health measures (like safe water, sanitation, and breastfeeding).

There is no single solution to ensure everyone, everywhere has access to an affordable, diverse, and healthy diet. Biofortification is one of the many important solutions being implemented by global research partners working together across CGIAR to ensure a food-secure future for all.

It is imperative to implement interventions that are practical and accessible in regions and among people most affected by hidden hunger, such as women and children in rural farming families in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), who primarily eat what they grow. This is particularly important during periods of rapid growth and development like in the first 1,000 days of life, after which the negative impacts of an insufficient diet become largely irreversible.

In this 20th anniversary year of HarvestPlus and biofortification, we review biofortification’s role, advantages, and scale as an essential part of CGIAR-wide effort to improve global nutrition.

Biofortification: A Complementary Approach to Reduce Malnutrition

“Biofortified crops are going to be game-changers in dealing with
 malnutrition in our world today.”
Dr. Adesina, President of the African Development Bank, World Food Prize Laureate

Staple food crops contain fewer vitamins and minerals than animal-based foods and some vegetables and fruits. Yet wheat, maize, rice, cassava, sweet potato, beans, pearl millet, and other staple foods make up the foundation of most diets around the world, and should therefore be as nutritious as possible.

Staple foods also offer nutritional protection against food systems shocks, especially for vulnerable populations who are unable to access a healthy and diverse diet, and whose reliance on staple food crops increases during times of crises. Through biofortification, staple crops can contribute a high proportion of the micronutrients needed for good health and nutrition.

Biofortification efforts to date have focused mainly on using conventional plant breeding and agronomic techniques to add more of the micronutrients most lacking in diets around the world—zinc, iron, and vitamin A— into staple crops. This approach acknowledges that many poor people cannot afford or access the variety of non-staple foods they need for optimal health, and are often underserved by other large-scale public health nutrition interventions.

“[Biofortified] crops provide a sustainable source of much needed nutrients to rural communities.”
Prof. Watts, Chief Scientific Advisor and Director for Research and Evidence, UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office

Eating poor-quality, and often unsafe, food perpetuates a cycle of poverty, infection, and malnutrition. Enriching nutrients into staple crops that farmers are already eating provides a safety net against severe levels of deficiency and helps mitigate challenges of nutrition insecurity due to climate change.

CGIAR transdisciplinary, participatory, and action-oriented research and innovations to improve nutritional outcomes, including biofortification, are making a vital contribution towards realizing Sustainable Development Goal 2 to end hunger and all forms of malnutrition.

Meeting Nutritional Needs

Biofortified crops are targeted mostly at rural food systems in LMICs, where deficiencies in vitamin A, iron, and zinc are highly prevalent. Young children, adolescent girls, and women are the priority groups for biofortification because their relatively high micronutrient needs predispose them to hidden hunger.

The scientific body of evidence supporting biofortification spans over two decades. Each biofortified crop is the subject of extensive research to evaluate its intrinsic nutritional value and its potential impacts on human nutrition and health.

Vitamin A orange sweet potato (OSP) was the first biofortified staple to be delivered at scale and evaluated in sub-Saharan Africa, a joint effort by HarvestPlus, the International Potato Center, and the International Food Policy Research Institute. It has very high levels of vitamin A (traditional white varieties contain none) and long-term studies indicate it can help reduce diarrhea in children and is a cost-effective way to improve population vitamin A intake, thereby improving child and maternal health and reducing the likelihood of vitamin A deficiency. Breeding efforts are now simultaneously increasing the iron content of OSP, to deliver more of multiple stacked micronutrients.

Evidence from additional randomized controlled trials have demonstrated that nutrient-enhanced staple crops generate positive direct and indirect health effects on multiple age groups, for example:

Supplementation studies have clearly shown that improvements in micronutrient status, particularly zinc, vitamin A, and iron status, generate improvements in immunity, growth, and multiple other dimensions of good health. The improvements are not specific to how the micronutrients are delivered (e.g., by food or pills), but rather due to positive changes in nutritional status.

Breeding for Improved Grain Yield and Nutritional Quality

“The reason for growing these varieties, is better yield, more profitability and better zinc nutrition for our families.”
— Mr Tariq, Pakistani farmer

Adoption of biofortification is demand driven. All released biofortified varieties are agronomically competitive in the agricultural zone(s) for which they were developed, relative to the varieties farmers already grow.

Crop breeding efforts are responsive to the expressed priorities and preferences of farming families and their countries. High yields are among the traits considered non-negotiable by breeders and farmers alike, and are a driver for national authorities to approve the release of new varieties in their countries to farmers to grow them.

Innovative breeders at CGIAR centers and National Agricultural Research Extension Systems have successfully been able to achieve exceptional yield and nutrition gains simultaneously in biofortified varieties, a benefit that is realized by farmers.

“[Nyota, an iron bean] can easily give me over 3 tons per hectare, as compared to other varieties that yield about 2 tons.”
— Mr Burde, Kenyan seed producer

 

Breeding pipelines are dynamic and always adapting to new stresses. Nutrient-enriched varieties of crops are continuously improved by breeders who breed varieties for progressively higher levels of micronutrients, which are also agronomically competitive (e.g., disease and pest resistant), well adapted to a wide range of climatic conditions (e.g., drought and heat tolerant), and exhibit food quality traits desired by farmers, food processors, and consumers (e.g., fast cooking time and good taste).

In Pakistan, one of the highest wheat-consuming countries in the world, the zinc wheat variety Akbar-2019 is now a ‘mega-variety’. It provides 30 percent more zinc and 8-10 percent higher yield than previous popular varieties. Developed by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) in partnership with HarvestPlus, and released by the Wheat Research Institute of the Ayub Agricultural Research Institute, Faisalabad, Akbar-2019 is also resistant to rusts and well adapted to a range of sowing dates. Farmers attest to the good quality of the chapatti (flat bread) made from its flour. Akbar-2019 is already being grown on more than three million hectares of land—and soon an estimated 100 million people will eat chapatti made from its flour and reap the benefits of added zinc in their diets.

“My father-in-law
 has expressed a desire to continue growing only biofortified zinc wheat from now on. In addition to the grain quality, the plants also grow well in tough geographical conditions.”
— Ms Devi, Indian farmer

In Nigeria, HarvestPlus and partners including the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture have developed varieties of vitamin A cassava with multiple traits attractive for farmers. Survey data indicates vitamin A cassava varieties have an average fresh root yield of 20.5 metric tons per hectare (MT/Ha), well above the average yield of 10.2 MT/Ha of other improved but non-biofortified varieties. Nearly 2.1 million farmers are growing vitamin A cassava in Nigeria, providing added dietary vitamin A to over 10 million people in a country where vitamin A deficiency is a severe, yet preventable, public health problem.

Farmers carefully consider yield, profitability, stress tolerance, taste, and more when selecting the varieties they grow—over 17 million farming households chose to grow biofortified varieties in 2022, enriching the diets of over 86 million people.

Contributing To Agricultural Diversity

To establish new crops with higher levels of micronutrients, breeders tap into the spectrum of genetic diversity stored within global plant gene banks to find nutrient-dense qualities from underutilized plant species (including wild species or those naturally evolved in certain geographic areas).

Through breeding for improved nutrition, biofortification also transfers otherwise untapped variation for traits other than micronutrients into newly developed crops, increasing the genetic agrobiodiversity not only in biofortified varieties, but also non-biofortified varieties derived from crossing micronutrient-dense plant ‘parents’ to produce high micronutrient ‘offspring’.

Micronutrient genes are not subject to erosion in the breeding process (as genes are for disease or pest resistance), like the dwarfing genes in wheat and rice that catalyzed the green revolution.

CGIAR has committed to mainstreaming improved nutrient traits in most of their breeding lines through crop breeding, given its proven cost-effective and sustainable approach to enriching staple food crops.

Committed to Scaling

 

Governments and other “Our aim should be to make every family farm a biofortified farm.”
— Dr MS Swaminathan, World Food Prize Laureate, Father of Indian Green Revolution

HarvestPlus partners, collaborators, and advocates support country-level initiatives that promote the integration of biofortified seeds, crops, and foods into local, national, and regional policies and programs. These collective efforts and alliances are the catalyst behind the scale up to over 86 million people in farming households eating nutrient-enriched foods in 2022, 22% more than in 2021.

In 2022, a declaration adopted by the African Union to scale up food fortification and biofortification in Africa—to make nutrient-rich foods sustainably available, accessible, and affordable—was centered on ensuring healthy diets reach those who need them most.

The Government of DR Congo has committed to scaling biofortified crop adoption and production, and its integration into the wider food system. Biofortified crops are included as one component of a wide-reaching, multi-sectoral nutrition program, funded with a loan from the World Bank.

In India, the Indian Council of Agricultural Research established minimum levels of iron and zinc to be bred into national varieties of pearl millet. The All-India Coordinated Research Project on Pearl Millet encouraged National Agricultural Research Systems to begin breeding programs for micronutrients along with higher yields in 2014. Joint efforts by the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics and HarvestPlus to enhanced the levels of iron in pearl millet have brought notable endorsement of biofortification by the Honorable Prime Minister Modi as a solution to address malnutrition.

The Copenhagen Consensus, a global research think-tank and policy advisory group, assessed biofortification and concluded for every USD 1 spent on biofortification, as much as USD 17 in benefits could be generated, and deemed biofortification, supplementation, and fortification as some of the smartest ways to spend money and advance global welfare.

Systematic reviews and ex-ante (before intervention) analyses of several micronutrient-crop and country scenarios have shown that biofortification is highly cost-effective when measured by the World Bank’s criteria of cost per Disability-Adjusted Life Year (DALY) saved. These analyses show biofortified crops to be in the range of USD 15-20 per DALY saved—far below the World Bank’s cost-effectiveness threshold of USD 270 per DALY.

“Patience, perseverance, and vision are required to achieve the cost-effectiveness of linking agriculture and nutrition in general, and biofortification in particular. The donors to the CGIAR system realized this by continuing investments well after the 20th anniversaries of CIMMYT and the International Rice Research Institute.” — Howarth (Howdy) Bouis, HarvestPlus Founding Director, World Food Prize Laureate

Global Benefit

The number of vulnerable rural families and communities growing and benefiting from nutrient-enriched crops has significantly increased year over year. Today, over 86 million people in farming households are eating biofortified foods—progressing rapidly towards 100 million in later 2023.

Eliminating malnutrition requires multiple solutions, and biofortification is an extremely important part of CGIAR’s efforts in pursuit of this goal.

Research has proven biofortification to be an efficacious, cost-effective, and scalable innovation that can play a pivotal role in transforming food systems to deliver affordable and accessible nutritious food for all.

This story was originally posted by HarvestPlus: Twenty Years of Enriching Diets with Biofortification.

Cover photo: Experimental harvest of provitamin A-enriched orange maize, Zambia. (Photo: CIMMYT)

How does CIMMYT’s improved maize get to the farmer?

Five new CIMMYT maize hybrids available from South Asia Breeding Program

Written by Leslie DomĂ­nguez on . Posted in News.

How does CIMMYT’s improved maize get to the farmer?
How does CIMMYT’s improved maize get to the farmer?

CIMMYT is happy to announce five new, improved tropical maize hybrids that are now available for uptake by public and private sector partners, especially those interested in marketing or disseminating hybrid maize seed across South Asia and similar agro-ecologies in other regions. NARES and seed companies are hereby invited to apply for licenses to pursue national release, scale-up seed production, and deliver these maize hybrids to farming communities.

Newly available CIMMYT hybrids Key traits
CAH201 Medium maturing, yellow, high yielding, drought + waterlogging tolerant, and resistant to TLB and FSR
CAH202
CAH203 Medium maturing, yellow, high yielding, drought tolerant, and resistant to TLB and FSR
CAH204 Medium maturing, yellow, high yielding, drought and heat tolerant, and resistant to MSR
CAH205

 

Performance data Download the CIMMYT-Asia Maize Regional On-Station (Stage 4) and On-Farm (Stage 5) Trials: Results of the 2020/21, and 2021/22 Seasons and Product Announcement from Dataverse.
How to apply Visit CIMMYT’s maize product allocation page for details
Application deadline The deadline to submit applications to be considered during the first round of allocations is 5 May 2023. Applications received after that deadline will be considered during subsequent rounds of product allocations.

 

The newly available CIMMYT maize hybrids were identified through rigorous, years-long trialing and a stage-gate advancement process which culminated in the 2021/22 CIMMYT-Asia Maize Regional On-Farm (Stage 5) Trials On-Farm Trials. The products were found to meet the stringent performance and farmer acceptance criteria for CIMMYT’s breeding pipelines that are designed to generate products tailored in particular for smallholder farmers in stress-prone agroecologies of South Asia.

Applications must be accompanied by a proposed commercialization plan for each product being requested. Applications may be submitted online via the CIMMYT Maize Licensing Portal and will be reviewed in accordance with CIMMYT’s Principles and Procedures for Acquisition and use of CIMMYT maize hybrids and OPVs for commercialization. Specific questions or issues faced with regard to the application process may be addressed to GMP-CIMMYT@cgiar.org with attention to Nicholas Davis, Program Manager, Global Maize Program, CIMMYT.

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