Corn is one of the most widely produced crops in the world, and Mexico is home to at least 60 recorded unique landraces, the traditional, locally adapted strains. Preserving these ancient varieties is key for future sustainability, explains geneticist Martha Willcox, who works with the Mexico-based International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) to conserve the genes of dwindling crops. But left in the hands of aging campesinos, ancestral maize is at risk of becoming extinct. And the consequent loss of biodiversity, the FAO warned in its 2010 report, will have a major impact on the ability of humankindâwhich will number nine billion by 2050âto combat food insecurity in the face of climate change.
When it comes to labor markets, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) is one of the most gender unequal regions in the world. The male labor force participation rate in MENA is no different from other regions, at around 75%, but female labor force participation rates have remained stubbornly low, at around 20% .
Agriculture is the largest employer of women in the MENA region and the female share of the agricultural workforce increased from 30% in 1980 to almost 45% in 2010, exceeding 60% in Jordan, Libya, Syria and the occupied Palestinian Territory. However, women in the region still face significant challenges accessing land and benefitting from technologies and decent, equitable working conditions.
In the fall of 2019, a group of experts, including London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) professor of Gender and Development Naila Kabeer, came together to discuss the persistent limited access to labor market opportunities for women in South Asia and MENA, despite an increase in womenâs education and access to fertility planning. The workshop organized by LSE discussed barriers, opportunities and policy challenges.
We share some of the expert panelâs key recommendations for the MENA region, which featured research funded by the CGIAR Research Program on Wheat.
1. Recognize women as workers not helpers
According to the World Bank, agriculture employs 36% of women and 22% of men in Egypt. However, research shows that women who work in agriculture are widely categorized as âhelpersâ to male workers rather than workers in their own right. Whatâs more, women are listed as âhousewivesâ on their national ID cards, while men are listed as âagricultural workers.â As a result, these women are unable to even access opportunities to bargain for better wages and working conditions.
Legally and socially recognizing these women as workers is a first step to introducing equal pay legislation for men and women in agriculture. It would also justify their inclusion in agricultural extension services and strengthen social protection measures.
2. Change perceptions of property ownership
The MENA region has the lowest level of womenâs landownership in the world, at just 5%. Our research findings indicate completely different perceptions of ownership among women and men.
Research in Egypt shows that women tend to identify land officially owned solely by themselves as belonging to themselves and their husbands. Men, on the other hand, are less likely to consider their wives as co-owners, identifying male relatives instead.
In the New Lands â lands irrigated after the building of the High Aswan Dam in Egypt â there are land distribution quotas to encourage more land ownership among women. This has enabled some women to gain significant economic, social and political power. Despite this, these women still prefer to bequeath their land to their sons rather than their daughters due to social pressure and the expectation that their sons will provide for them in their old age.
To mitigate these low levels of womenâs land ownership, policy change on its own is not enough. Changing perceptions of land and property ownership needs to go hand in hand with changes at a policy level.
3. Enforce legislation for equal pay and zero tolerance for sexual harassment
In Morocco, female employment in agriculture has jumped from 29% in 1980 to 48% in 2010. However, womenâs wages, working conditions and bargaining power have not risen with it.
Research shows that women are designated lower paid and more time-consuming tasks, and are systemically paid less than men, even for the same tasks. Women agricultural workers also face high levels of sexual harassment and have limited bargaining power.
Moroccan legislation already stipulates equal pay and zero tolerance for sexual harassment. However, enforcement remains extremely weak. Enforcing existing pro-active legislation is an essential step towards equality for women in agriculture.
4. Revitalize agriculture as a valuable and necessary occupation in society
Much of the world sees agriculture as an occupation of last resort. When surveyed, men and women in Morocco both complained about agricultural work being an unstable and unreliable way of making a living. Women were found to be hired more easily but only because they were paid less than men.
To shift how agriculture is viewed and rebrand it as an important and respected occupation, it needs to be reformed as a safer, more equal and respectful space for both women and men.
Building resilience for smallholder farmers in marginal drylands. (Photo: ICARDA)
A key overall take-away message from the expert panel is that supportive policies alone are not enough. Rather, in order to tackle the institutionalization of harmful gender norms and stimulate actual change in practice at all levels, policy interventions need to go hand in hand with strong consciousness-raising, critical reflection and behavior change initiatives.
Some of Mexicoâs favorite dishes are taking on a new hue with blue corn chips, blue tortillas or blue tamales. But should breeders, millers, processors and farmer organizations invest in expanding the production of blue maize and blue maize products? Are consumers really interested, and are they willing to pay more?
CIMMYT markets and value chain specialist Trent Blare explains, in one minute, the results of his study, which gives insight into Mexican consumersâ preferences and demand for blue maize tortillas. Consumers near Mexico City perceived blue maize tortillas to taste better and were willing to pay up to a third more to buy them for special family events or to consume them in a restaurant .
Farmer Dhansa Bhandari (left) sows maize seed while Bikram Daugi (right) ploughs with his oxen in Ramghat, Surkhet, Nepal. (Photo: P. Lowe/CIMMYT)
Although the conventional wisdom in South Asian rural villages is that men are principally responsible for pulling their families out of poverty, our recent study showed the truth to be more subtle, and more female.
In our new paper we dig into focus groups and individual life stories in a sample of 32 farming villages from five countries of South Asia. Although we asked about both menâs and womenâs roles, focus groups of both sexes emphasized men in their responses â whether explaining how families escaped poverty or why they remained poor.
âWomen usually cannot bring a big change, but they can assist their men in climbing up,â explains a member of the poor menâs focus group from Ismashal village (a pseudonym) of Pakistanâs Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
The focus group testimonies presented rich examples of the strong influence of gender norms: the social rules that dictate differential roles and conducts for men and women in their society. These norms significantly influenced how local people conceived of movements in and out of poverty in their village and in their own lives.
According to the womenâs focus group from Rangpur district in Bangladesh, women âcannot work outside the home for fear of losing their reputation and respect.â
However, in these same communities, menâs and womenâs productive roles proved far more variable in the mobility processes of their families than conveyed by the focus groups. We encountered many households with men making irregular or very limited contributions to family maintenance. This happens for a number of reasons, including menâs labor migration, disability, family conflict and separations, aging and death.
Whatâs more, when sharing their life stories in individual interviews, nearly every woman testified to her own persistent efforts to make a living, cover household expenses, deal with debts, and, when conditions allowed, provide a better life for their families. In fact, our life story sample captured 12 women who testified to making substantial contributions to moving their families out of poverty.
Movers and shakers
We were especially struck by how many of these women âmoversâ were employing innovative agricultural technologies and practices to expand their production and earnings.
âIn 2015, using zero tillage machines I started maize farming, for which I had a great yield and large profit,â reports a 30-year-old woman and mother of two from Matipur, Bangladesh who brought her family out of poverty.
Another 30-year-old mover, a farmer and mother of two from the village of Thool in Nepal, attests to diversification and adoption of improved cultivation practices: âI got training on vegetable farming. In the beginning the agriculture office provided some vegetable seeds as well. And I began to grow vegetables along with cereal crops like wheat, paddy, maize, oats. [âŠ] I learnt how to make soil rows.â
Among the women who got ahead, a large majority credited an important man in their life with flouting local customs and directly supporting them to innovate in their agricultural livelihoods and bring their families out of poverty.
Across the âmoverâ stories, women gained access to family resources which enabled them to step up their livelihood activities. For example, three quarters of the women âmoversâ spoke of husbands or brothers supporting them to pursue important goals in their lives.
Womenâs most important relationship helping them to pursue goals in life: women “movers” (on left) versus “chronic poor” (right).
Sufia, from a village in the Rajshahi district of Bangladesh, describes how she overcame great resistance from her husband to access a farm plot provided by her brother. The plot enabled Sufia to cultivate betel leaves and paddy rice, and with those profits and additional earnings from livestock activities, she purchased more land and diversified into eggplant, chilies and bitter gourd. Sufiaâs husband had struggled to maintain the family and shortly after Sufia began to prosper, he suffered a stroke and required years of medical treatments before passing away.
When Sufia reflects on her life, she considers the most important relationship in her life to be with her brother. âBecause of him I can now stand on my two feet.â
We also studied women and their families who did not move out of poverty. These âchronic poorâ women rarely mentioned accessing innovations or garnering significant benefits from their livelihoods. In these life stories, we find far fewer testimonies about men who financially supported a wife or sister to help her pursue an important goal.
The restrictive normative climate in much of South Asia means that womenâs capacity to enable change in their livelihoods is rarely recognized or encouraged by the wider community as a way for a poor family to prosper. Still, the life stories of these âmoversâ open a window onto the possibilities unlocked when women have opportunities to take on more equitable household roles and are able to access agricultural innovations.
The women movers, and the men who support them, provide insights into pathways of more equitable agricultural change. What we can learn from these experiences holds great potential for programs aiming to relax gender norms, catalyze agricultural innovation, and unlock faster transitions to gender equality and poverty reduction in the region. Nevertheless, challenging social norms can be risky and can result in backlash from family or other community members. To address this, collaborative research models offer promise. These approaches engage researchers and local women and men in action learning to build understanding of and support for inclusive agricultural change. Our research suggests that such interventions, which combine social, institutional and technical dimensions of agricultural innovation, can help diverse types of families to leave poverty behind.
Incompatibility of surveys did not allow big-picture analysis, so a team of CGIAR researchers began tackling the household survey interoperability problem in 2015. They invited the global research-for-development community to contribute to the open-access dataset, which today includes more than 30,000 interviews conducted in 33 countries.
Broad adoption of the standardized survey tool may help guide international efforts to address smallholder challenges related to climate change, food security, nutrition, farm productivity, and social inclusion.
In crop research fields, drones and other high-tech sensing tools are now a common sight. They collect high-resolution data on a wide range of traits â from simple measurement of canopy temperature to complex 3D reconstruction of photosynthetic canopies.
This technological approach to collecting precise plant trait information, known as phenotyping, is becoming ubiquitous. According to experts at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and other research institutions, breeders can profit much more from these tools, when used judiciously.
Examples of different classes and applications of breeder friendly phenotyping. (Image: M. Reynolds et al.)
In a new article in the journal Plant Science, CIMMYT Wheat Physiologist Matthew Reynolds and colleagues explain the different ways that phenotyping can assist breeding â from simple to use, âhandyâ approaches for large scale screening, to detailed physiological characterization of key traits to identify new parental sources â and why this methodology is crucial for crop improvement. The authors make the case for breeders to invest in phenotyping, particularly in light of the imperative to breed crops for warmer and harsher climates.
Providing climate data that is useful for farmers is crucial for adapting Europeâs agriculture to weather and climate extremes. Several programmes within the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) are tailoring their climate data and models to help agriculture respond better to climate change.
The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) is using C3S data to improve crops; by looking at how the plants perform in various weather conditions, researchers focus on selecting cereal varieties resilient to drought and heat.
The locust invasion is the biggest in Ethiopia and Somalia in 25 years, and the biggest in Kenya in 70 years, according to the FAO. Photo: Ben Curtis/AP
East African countries are battling the worst desert locust invasion in decades. The locusts are devouring crops and pasture leaving in their wake a region that is staring at a potential food crisis. The swarms have swept across Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, South Sudan, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda, with some of these countries reporting the worst outbreak in 70 years.
Experts have warned of a second round of the flare-up, as the eggs laid along the locust path hatch. Both aerial and ground spraying with insecticides continue but such interventions have not yielded much success.
Stephen Njoka, Director of the Desert Locust Control Organization for Eastern Africa (DLCO-EA) and Hugo De Groote, Agricultural Economist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) share some insights on the outbreak, effective control measures and what can be done to mitigate the damage currently and in potential future outbreaks.
Q: What is your opinion on the locust invasion across the eastern Africa region?
A: The current locust invasion in the eastern Africa region is one of the most serious occurrences in decades. For Ethiopia and Kenya, this is the worst outbreak in over 25 years and 70 years respectively. The locusts have caused significant damage in pastoral regions, where they have devoured pasture and tree leaves. They are now reaching some of the major maize growing areas where they are likely to cause a lot of damage to the crops.
Q: Why are they called desert locusts?
A: They breed in the wet desert sands. In west Africa for instance, they would breed in the border areas between the Sahel and the Sahara Desert. They go through six stages; five of which are the non-flying phases. Once they reach adult stage, they start flying, mating and laying eggs, and the cycle continues.
They are usually solitary in nature, but occasionally move into their gregarious state, in which they alter their behavior and physical appearance, form swarms and migrate over long distances following the winds. This is what differentiates locusts from grasshoppers. When they land at a particular location, they cause a lot of damage in that specific area. Apart from that local destruction, however, they may not cause much harm on a national scale.
Q: How serious of a problem is this invasion to the food security status of countries like South Sudan that are just recovering from decades of conflict and a recent drought?
A: The invasion could pose a serious food security challenge in some areas as these insects consume their own weight in a day (one insect weighs 2 grams and a swarm can contain over 50 million insects).
For countries like South Sudan and Somalia where conflicts can hamper locust control efforts, the food insecurity situation gets compounded. Pastures are the worst hit as locusts tend to prefer hotter climates where livestock keeping is the main source of livelihood.
Q: In your experience, what is the best way to deal with such an invasion? What are the most effective control measures?
A: The best way to deal with such an invasion is to conduct aerial spraying using Ultra Low Volume (ULV) chemical or biological pesticides at the early stages for effective control. It is important to identify the egg-laying sites early on so that the emerging hoppers are sprayed before they can fly.
Q: We understand that this is the worst invasion in Kenya in about 70 years and the worst in 25 years in some neighboring countries such as Ethiopia. Should we expect another infestation a few years from now?
A: It is unlikely that we can expect another invasion of this magnitude in the near future. The current invasion may have been driven by climatic changes in the breeding areas of the Red Sea coast, war-torn Yemen and Somalia.
Q: How can we be better prepared given that such invasions are cyclical in nature and may happen again after some years or decades?
A: Continued monitoring and forecasting of the locust population in the traditional breeding sites should be a priority. Countries in the invasion areas should establish Locust Control Units under the appropriate ministries. These units should frequently get updates from the FAO Desert Locust Information Service (DLIS) in Rome and take precautionary steps as advised.
As the eastern Africa region, member countries of DLCO-EA should step up their support for the organization by acquiring modern aircrafts, which can conduct aerial spraying more effectively and efficiently.
Q: What monitoring measures are in place for the surveillance and recommended remedial measures, especially in periods of low densities just before they become gregarious? Who does the monitoring and how frequently is the monitoring done?
A: Locust scouting teams in the breeding areas are charged with monitoring and surveillance of these pests. The exercise is continuous and largely supported by FAO DLIS using appropriate equipment like elOCUST 3, a data recording and transmission system for crop pest monitoring, currently used as a detection and early warning tool for desert locusts.
Q: Are mitigation measures such as compensation for affected farmers an option?
A: Where farmers are seriously hit, government, intergovernmental agencies or non-governmental organizations may consider easing the farmersâ losses by offering food and/or financial support.
Q: We have seen efforts such as aerial or ground spraying of the pests. How effective are these interventions? What implications does this control measure have on the environment and peopleâs health?
A: The safe use of pesticides remains the best choice for control of insects occurring in such big numbers. It is important to use environmentally safe products which cause minimum harm to non-targets. Spray teams should be well trained on how to handle the pesticides.
People living in the invaded areas should also be alerted on keeping themselves and their livestock safe by not getting into the sprayed areas as advised. One effective biological control is the use of the Metarhizium, which the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) developed out of the locust skin fungus.
Nevertheless, some chemicals may cause more harm to the environment, especially when aerial spraying is applied on swarms in flight. The pesticides can contaminate the environment, water, crops and can cause skin rashes or respiratory, neurological or eye problems. They can also cause harm to animals and aquatic species.
In times of locust outbreaks, like now, there is a tendency to procure large quantities of pesticides. However, once the locusts are gone, stockpiles of the unused pesticides remain. This brings about a new challenge of destroying or safely disposing of the old or obsolete pesticide stock.
Q: Can the locusts be eaten?Â
A: Many communities in the world eat locusts and other insects. It is, however, important to caution against eating sprayed locusts. Additionally, locust swarms can contain billions of locusts, so catching them for food may not have a significant effect in reducing their population.
When disease outbreaks occur, the impacts can be devastating. In the 1840s, the Irish potato famine, caused by the fungal disease late blight, killed around one million people and caused another million to emigrate.
The recent invasion of desert locusts throughout the horn of Africa â the worst in decades â shows how vulnerable crops are to pests as well.
The desert locust is one of the most destructive pests in the world, with one small swarm covering one square kilometer eating the same amount of food per day as 35,000 people. The outbreak could even provoke a humanitarian crisis, according to the FAO.
How does climate change affect pests and diseases?
Climate change is one factor driving the spread of pests and diseases, along with increasing global trade. Climate change can affect the population size, survival rate and geographical distribution of pests; and the intensity, development and geographical distribution of diseases.
Temperature and rainfall are the big drivers of shifts in how and where pests and diseases spread, according to experts.
âIn general, an increase in temperature and precipitation levels favors the growth and distribution of most pest species by providing a warm and humid environment and providing necessary moisture for their growth,â says Tek Sapkota, agricultural systems and climate change scientist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).
However, when temperatures and precipitation levels get too high, this can slow the growth and reproduction of some pest species and destroy them by washing their eggs and larvae off the host plant, he explains.
This would explain why many pests are moving away from the tropics towards more temperate areas. Pests like warmer temperatures â but up to a point. If it is too hot or too cold, populations grow more slowly. Since temperate regions are not currently at the optimal temperature for pests, populations are expected to grow more quickly in these areas as they warm up.
Crop diseases are following a similar pattern, particularly when it comes to pathogens like fungi.
Movement towards the earth’s poles
Research shows that since 1960, crop pests and diseases have been moving at an average of 3 km a year in the direction of the earthâs north and south poles as temperatures increase.
Tar spot, a fungal disease native to Latin America, which can cause up to 50% of yield losses in maize, was detected for the first time in the US in 2015. Normally prevalent in tropical climates, the disease has started emerging in non-tropical regions, including highland areas of Central Mexico and many counties in the US.
Maize-producing counties in the USA vulnerable to tar spot complex (TSC) calculated based on climate similarity. Khondoker Mottaleb et al. 2018
The southern pine beetle, one of the most destructive insects invading North America, is moving north as temperatures rise and is likely to spread throughout northeastern United States and into southeastern Canada by 2050.
Wheat stem rust was reported by the Greeks and Romans, and the latter sacrificed to the gods to avoid disease outbreaks on their wheat crops. Photo: CIMMYT/Petr Kosina
Wheat rusts, which are among the greatest threats to wheat production around the world, are also adapting to warmer climates and becoming more aggressive in nature, says Mandeep Randhawa, CIMMYT wheat breeder and wheat rust pathologist.
âAs temperatures rise, larger quantities of spores are produced that can cause further infection and could potentially result in pathogenic changes through faster rate of their evolution.â
Scientists recently reported that stem rust had emerged in the UK for the first time in 60 years. Climate changes over the past 25 years are likely to have encouraged conditions for infection, according to the study.
Rising CO2 levels
Rising carbon dioxide (CO2) levels could also affect pests indirectly, by changing the architecture of their host plant and weakening its defenses.
âElevated CO2 concentrations, as a result of human activity and influence on climate change, will most likely influence pests indirectly through the modification in plant chemistry, physiology and nutritional content,â says Leonardo Crespo, CIMMYT wheat breeder.
Despite high confidence among scientists that climate change will cause an increase in pests and diseases, predicting exactly when and where pests and diseases will spread is no easy task. There is significant variation between different species of pests and types of pathogens, and climate models can only provide estimates of where infection or outbreaks might occur.
Keeping pests and disease pandemics at bay
To address these uncertainties, experts increasingly recognize the need to monitor pest and disease outbreaks and have called for a global surveillance system to monitor these and improve responses.
Recent technological tools like the suitcase-sized mobile lab MARPLE, which tests pathogens such as wheat rust in near real-time and gives results within 48 hours, allow for early detection. Early warning systems are also crucial tools to warn farmers, researchers and policy makers of potential outbreaks.
Breeding pest- and disease-resistant varieties is another environmentally friendly solution, since it reduces the need for pesticides and fungicides. Collaborating with scientists worldwide, CIMMYT works on developing wheat and maize varieties resistant to diseases, including Fusarium Head Blight (FHB), wheat rust, wheat blast for wheat and maize lethal necrosis (MLN) for maize.
A ladybug (or ladybird) beetle sits on a wheat spike of an improved variety growing in the field in Islamabad, Pakistan. Photo credit: A. Yaqub/CIMMYT.
Beneficial insects can also act as a natural pest control for crops. Ladybugs, spiders and dragonflies act as natural predators for pests like aphids, caterpillars and stem borers. Other solutions include mechanical control measures such as light traps, pheromone traps and sticky traps, as well as farming practice controls such as crop rotation.
The United Nations has declared this year as the International Year of Plant Health, emphasizing the importance of raising global awareness on how âprotecting plant health can help end hunger, reduce poverty, protect biodiversity and the environment, and boost economic development.â
As part of this initiative, CIMMYT will host the 24th Biannual International Plant Resistance to Insects (IPRI) conference from March 2-4. The conference will cover topics including plant-insect interactions, breeding for resistance, and phenotyping technologies for predicting pest resistant traits in plants.
Cover photo: A locust swarm in north-east Kenya. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization has warned that the swarms already seen in Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia could range further afield. Photograph: Sven Torfinn/FAO
A new study by researchers at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) assesses how three large projects have scaled service provision models for agricultural mechanization in Bangladesh, Mexico and Zimbabwe. In what is possibly the first cross-continental assessment of these issues to date, the study gauges the extent to which each initiative fits with the needs of its environment to enable sustained machinery use by farmers at a large scale, while acknowledging the influence of project design on outcomes.
Each of the projects has made considerable progress towards increasing the adoption of agricultural machinery in their target area. In Bangladesh and Mexico, mechanization service providers and machinery dealers have been able to strengthen their business cases because the projects use geospatial and market data to provide targeted information on client segmentation and appropriate cropping systems. In Zimbabwe, CIMMYT and partners have worked to strengthen the market for two-wheeled tractors by creating demand among smallholders, developing the capacity of existing vocational training centers, and spurring private sector demand.
However, despite these initial successes, it can often be difficult to gauge the sustained change and transformative nature of such interventions.
Applying a scaling perspective
To address this challenge, research teams held a series of workshops with project partners in each country, including regional government representatives, national and local private sector stakeholders, and direct project collaborators such as extension agents and site managers. Participants were asked to answer a series of targeted questions and prompts using the Scaling Scan, a user-friendly tool which facilitates timely, structured feedback from stakeholders on issues that matter in scaling. Responses given during this exercise allowed project designers to analyze, reflect on, and sharpen their scaling ambition and approach, focusing on ten scaling âingredientsâ that need to be considered to reach a desired outcome, such as knowledge and skills or public sector governance.
Local service provider uses a bed planter for crop production in Horinofolia, Bangladesh. (Photo: Ranak Martin)
âAlthough at first sight the case studies seem to successfully reach high numbers of end users, the assessment exposes issues around the sustainable and transformative nature of the project interventions,â says Lennart Woltering, a scaling advisor at CIMMYT.
The added value of this approach, explains Jelle Van Loon, lead author and CIMMYT mechanization specialist, is that lessons learned from project-focused interventions can be amplified to generate broader, actionable knowledge and implement thematic strategies worldwide. “This is especially important for CIMMYT as we do exactly that, but often face different constraints depending on the local context.”
The use of a scaling perspective on each of these projects exposed important lessons on minimizing project dependencies. For example, though each project has invested considerably in both capacity and business development training, in all three case studies the large-scale adoption of recommended service provision models has been limited by a lack of finance and insufficient collaboration among the value chain actors to strengthen and support mechanization service provider entrepreneurs.
âWhile provision of market and spatial information helps local businesses target their interventions, local stakeholders are still dependent on the projects in terms of transitioning from project to market finance, facilitating collaboration along the value chain, and provision of leadership and advocacy to address issues at governance level,â Woltering explains. This, Van Loon adds, demonstrates a need for the inclusion of properly planned exit strategies from projects, as well as a degree of flexibility during the project development phase.
In all three regions, the supply of appropriate mechanization services is struggling to meet demand and few solutions have been found to support the transition from project to market finance. Continued capacity development is required at all stages of the value chain to ensure the provision of high-quality services and it has been suggested that incentivizing potential clients to access mechanization services and linking service providers with machinery dealers and mechanics might produce more satisfying results than simply supporting equipment purchases.
Reduced response diversity does not negatively impact wheat climate resilience. 2019. Snowdon, R.J., Stahl, A., Wittkop, B., Friedt, W., Voss-Fels, K.P., Ordon, F., Frisch, M., Dreisigacker, S., Hearne, S., Bett, K.E., Cuthbert, R.D. In: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS) v. 116, p. 10623-10624.
The Mutwales farm a small plot of land in the camp, growing primarily cassava and maize for food. They are also one of the 105 refugee farming families participating in an initiative during the 2019/2020 growing season to help them cultivate nutritious, vitamin A-biofortified orange maize, which was developed by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) in partnership with HarvestPlus.
The public sector plays a vital catalytic role, through enabling policies and programs, in ensuring that biofortified crops like iron pearl millet, zinc wheat, and zinc rice reach the most vulnerable populations to address the problem of âhidden hungerâ.
Farmer receiving information from a phone-based service. (Photo: Michelle DeFreese/CIMMYT)
Agricultural research is entering a new age in Bangladesh. The days, months and years it takes to collect farm data with a clipboard, paper and pen are nearing their end.
Electronic smartphones and tablets are gaining ground, used by researchers, extension workers and farmers to revolutionize the efficiency of data collection and provide advice on best-bet practices to build resilient farming systems that stand up to climate change.
Digital data collection tools are crucial in todayâs âbig dataâ driven agricultural research world and are fundamentally shifting the speed and accuracy of agricultural research, said Timothy Krupnik, Senior Scientist and Systems Agronomist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).
âEasy-to-use data collection tools can be made available on electronic tablets for surveys. These allow extension workers to collect data from the farm and share it instantaneously with researchers,â he said.
âThese tools allow the regular and rapid collection of data from farmers, meaning that researchers and extension workers can get more information than they would alone in a much quicker time frame.â
âThis provides a better picture of the challenges farmers have, and once data are analyzed, we can more easily develop tailored solutions to farmersâ problems,â Krupnik explained.
It is the first time extension workers have been involved in data collection in the country. Since the pilot began in late 2019, extension workers have collected data from over 5,000 farmers, with detailed information on climate responses, including the management of soil, water and variety use to understand what drives productivity. The DAE is enthused about learning from the data, and plans to collect information from 7,000 more farmers in 2020.
Bangladeshâs DAE is directly benefiting through partnerships with expert national and international researchers developing systems to efficiently collect and analyze massive amounts of data to generate relevant climate-smart recommendations for farmers, said the department Director General Dr. M. Abdul Muyeed.
Workers spread maize crop for drying at a wholesale grain market. (Photo: Dreamstime.com)
For the first time widespread monitoring examines how farmers are coping with climate stresses, and agronomic data are being used to estimate greenhouse gas emissions from thousands of individual farmers. This research and extension partnership aims at identifying ways to mitigate and adapt to climate change, he explained.
âThis work will strengthen our ability to generate agriculturally relevant information and increase the climate resilience of smallholder farmers in Bangladesh,” Dr. Muyeed said.
Next-gen big data analysis produces best-bet agricultural practices
âBy obtaining big datasets such as these, we are now using innovative research methods and artificial intelligence (AI) to examine patterns in productivity, the climate resilience of cropping practices, and greenhouse gas emissions. Our aim is to develop and recommend improved agricultural practices that are proven to increase yields and profitability,â said Krupknik.
The surveys can also be used to evaluate on-farm tests of agricultural technologies, inform need-based training programs, serve local knowledge centers and support the marketing of locally relevant agricultural technologies, he explained.
âCollecting farm-specific data on greenhouse gas emissions caused by agriculture and recording its causes is a great step to develop strategies to reduce agricultureâs contribution to climate change,â added Krupnik.
Global schemes to fight climate change may miss their mark by ignoring the âfundamental connectionsâ in how food is produced, supplied and consumed, say scientists in a new paper published in the journal Nature Food. Global bodies such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), handle the different components of the food system separately. This includes crop and livestock production; food processing, storage and transport; and food consumption. Scientists argue this disjointed approach may harm strategies to reduce food emissions and safeguard food from climate impacts, and that a âcomprehensiveâ and âunifiedâ approach is needed.
Food and climate change are deeply interlinked, but food emissions need to be tracked beyond the âfarm gate,â that is, beyond the emissions arising from growing crops or raising livestock. Researchers are uncovering new insights on how the different subcomponents of the food system contribute to climate change mitigation and adaptation. They argue that we must understand how these components work together â or clash in some cases â in order to effectively address agriculture in a changing climate.
How can we ensure we have enough food to meet the demand by 2030? First, we need to understand food consumption patterns and how they are influenced by variables such as urbanization, population and economic growth, income, beliefs and more.Â
Agricultural economist Khondoker Mottaleb is working on a project to examine food demand by 2030, considering these factors. Watch him share preliminary results â in just one minute. Â
