Blogs – Page 13

Gender and development specialist Rahma Adam: Aiding African women to build household food security

Written by on March 8, 2017. Posted in Blogs.

Women account for over 50 percent of farmers in many parts of Africa. Photo: CIMMYT/Peter Lowe

EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) — In a special interview to mark International Women’s Day, International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) gender and development specialist, Rahma Adam, detailed how her research aims to improve the agricultural productivity of women in southern and eastern Africa.

With women making up over 50 percent of farmers in many parts of Africa, it is essential to understand how gender roles, relations and responsibilities encourage and hinder their agricultural productivity, said Adam.

Understanding gender relations improves the work of researchers and development specialists to target programs in the correct areas and with right people in order to get the most impact, she said.

Adam works with the Intensification of Maize and Legume Systems for Food Security in Eastern and Southern Africa (SIMLESA) project to investigate gender relations to best promote sustainable intensification agricultural practices that will improve household food security.

Conservation agriculture systems involve crop rotations and inter-cropping with maize and legumes to increase yields. In the photograph, conservation agriculture practitioner Lughano Mwangonde with the gender development specialist Rahma Adam in Balaka district, Malawi. Photo: CIMMYT/Johnson Siamachira. — Conservation agriculture systems involve crop rotations and inter-cropping with maize and legumes to increase yields. Pictured here are conservation agriculture practitioner Lughano Mwangonde (L) and gender and development specialist Rahma Adam in Balaka district, Malawi. Photo: CIMMYT/Johnson Siamachira.

Sustainable intensification agriculture practices are aimed at enhancing the productivity of labor, land and capital without damaging the environment. In practice, sustainable intensification involves such conservation agriculture practices as minimal soil disturbance, permanent soil cover and the use of inter-cropping and crop rotation to simultaneously maintain and boost yields, increase profits and protect the environment. It contributes to improved soil function and quality, which can improve resilience to climate variability.

Through SIMLESA, supported by the Australian Center for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR), Adam shares her findings with a network of stakeholders, such as governments and non-governmental organizations, aiding the delivery of agricultural technologies, taking into account gender norms to hold a greater chance of adoption.

We spoke to about her work in a short interview listen here or read below:

Q: Please explain a bit about your work. What is SIMLESA, where does it operate and what are its key objectives?

A: SIMLESA stands for, Sustainable Intensification of Maize and Legume Systems for Food Security in Eastern and Southern Africa, we are now in the second phase of the project. We focus on several things, providing the needed knowledge in terms of technology, improved varieties of seeds for maize and legumes and how to use them in the practice of sustainable intensification practices. The idea is to improve crop yields from current levels, that’s the basic idea of SIMLESA.

The project operates in mainly five countries, Tanzania, Kenya, and Ethiopia for Eastern Africa and Malawi and Mozambique for southern Africa. But we have three spill over countries where SIMLESA also have some activities, they are Rwanda, Botswana and Uganda.

We want to make sure farmers know the practices of sustainable intensification, they are able to use them, able to adapt them for the benefit of improving food security of the household and increase their livelihoods.

Q: Why is gender analysis important in meeting SIMLESA’s objectives?

A: Women in sub-Saharan Africa play a lion’s share of farming, the literature shows on average they farm as much as men, they make up 60 percent of farmers or more in some countries. Because they are the majority, there is no way we could put them on the back-burner, and not address or try to understand what are their constraints for agricultural production and agricultural marketing and all the other things that go with an agricultural household being successful in terms of their livelihoods.

It is very important to think about women, not alone, but also their relationships with men, we also have to think about who are their husbands. In sub-Saharan Africa most households are patriarchal, so they are male dominated, meaning a husband has much more say than the wife in terms of decision making in regards to what to grow, how much money should be spent that they have collected from agriculture, among other things.

It is important to not only think about how to improve the lives of women but also to understand the norms that go on. The institutional norms within a community, within a household and how they can play some sort of role that can either make a women successful or make a woman unsuccessful in terms of bringing up her household, in terms of the betterment of nutrition and schooling, etc.

It is a very complex issue. That’s why we cannot ignore gender itself as it sits in the rural households of Africa, because it is the nucleus of it. Once we understand how the relationship works between husband and wife or man and woman working within a society then we will be able to say how we can really propel sustainable intensification in these communities.

Q: Although rural women in southern and eastern Africa play crucial role in farming and food production why are they less likely to own land or livestock, adopt new technologies, or access credit?

A: Most of the problem of women’s lack of ownership of assets, such as land, among others stems from the institutional social norms of the communities in which they reside. Usually for patriarchal societies in sub-Saharan Africa, women are married into their husband’s home, and thus nearly all assets including land, livestock, improved or new technologies and money belong to their husbands and in some occasions, wives have very little say, with regards to those assets.

Because the major assets of the households are under the hands of the husband, it is hard for the wife to be able to access credit facilities, without involving the husband. As most of the credit and financial facilities, require a collateral, before they provide one a loan.

Despite hardships, women running own households provide model of empowerment and innovation

Written by on March 7, 2017. Posted in Blogs.

GENNOVATE research reveals women-headed households often experience high rates of poverty reduction. Photo: CIMMYT/P. Lowe — GENNOVATE focus groups testified to high rates of poverty reduction in communities with more numerous women-headed households. Photo: CIMMYT/P. Lowe

Sometimes change unfolds where least expected.

In many cultures, households headed by widows are among the poorest and most excluded population groups. Across diverse rural areas, and especially where customary laws continue to exert strong force, widows are fully expected to relinquish their family home, farmlands, livestock and other assets to their deceased husband’s family — leaving them destitute, even as they must alone provide for their children. The impoverishment and ostracism endured by women and children involved in divorce or separation can be even more severe as they may lose respect from the community.

However, stories of resilience, change and achievement emerged from the testimonies of many women running their own households who participated in a recent qualitative study exploring gender and innovation processes in 27 villages in maize farming regions of Ethiopia, Malawi, Mexico, Nepal, Nigeria, Tanzania and Zimbabwe.

The research, conducted under the umbrella of GENNOVATE, a CGIAR comparative research initiative funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, explored how gender norms affect agricultural innovation. It showed that many of the “unattached” women in our sample rated themselves as strongly empowered by their experiences with running their households and with managing their own farms and livestock and petty trades to make ends meet. Moreover, focus groups testified to some of the highest rates of poverty reduction in communities where we received reports of more numerous women-headed households.

These findings are consistent with wider trends underway in sub-Saharan Africa where women-headed households now constitute one-in-four of the region’s households and are experiencing faster poverty reduction than male-headed households, according to a recent World Bank study. Heavy male migration is part and parcel of these trends.

In our data we found many widows innovating in their agricultural livelihoods and working their way out of poverty.

“I am proud to say that I am one of them,” said a 42-year-old woman farmer from a village in Ethiopia, describing how she lifted her household out of poverty. “I have been moving up since I divorced my husband and started raising my eight children alone. I have rented land . . . and entered into equb (an informal savings group) to buy inputs for my land. I also am growing vegetables as well as selling firewood.”

In another Ethiopian village, a 35-year-old father of six and farmer relates how a widow in his village escaped poverty and became “known in the area for her bravery.” He shares the story of how she got ahead by processing and selling false banana (a root crop processed into a variety of staple goods) in the market, and using that income to purchase a heifer to get involved in cattle breeding activities.

We also heard about a 48-year-old woman in Ethiopia who separated from her husband and managed to provide for eight children by using farming techniques she learned from him and by planting improved maize seeds. She was also one of the first to cultivate potatoes in her area and became one of the female model farmers of her area.

GENNOVATE case studies reveal more restrictive gender norms in rural Ethiopia than other villages studied. Photo: CIMMYT/P. Lowe

The GENNOVATE case studies set in rural Ethiopia feature more restrictive gender norms — or societal rules governing men’s and women’s everyday behaviors — than many other villages we studied. These are communities where gender norms highly discourage women from participating in household decision making, moving about their village unaccompanied or engaging in paid work. In order to provide for themselves and their children, it is deemed acceptable for women who head their households to work around these social conventions.

Study participants were careful to distinguish between the more fluid gender norms that apply to widows and other women who head their households in comparison to the more restrictive norms for married women.

A participant in the focus group of poor women in a village of Malawi observed that it is easier for a widow to work for pay, “because they have no one to provide for their needs.”

“They are also free to make decisions about working because they are not controlled by their husbands like married women,” she added. In a poor indigenous community of Mexico, a member of the men’s nonpoor focus group declared that the only kind of women to leave their village in order to vend in a market would be widows, because otherwise women “work in the home.”

One of the most unexpected findings to emerge from the GENNOVATE maize case studies is the disproportionate numbers of women who report heading their households in our sample of semi-structured interviews with women “innovators.” They had been identified for these interviews because they are known in their village as liking to try out new things. Among the 54 women innovators interviewed, 21 — nearly 40 percent — report themselves as de jure heads of household — single, widowed, separated, or divorced. This figure does not include women interviewed who report their status as married but whose husbands may be away working. By comparison, among the 54 men innovators interviewed there was only one unmarried man and one widower.

“I have power and freedom to make most major life decisions because I’m now the husband and the wife,” said a 42 year-old widow and mother of six children from 2 to 19 years old from a village in Nigeria.

During her interview, she shared details of how her yields improved from adopting hybrid maize and new practices such as planting only two seeds per hole. “Before now, I used to drop four to five seeds in a hole,” she said, explaining that she learned about improved practices from the local extension agent.

Women who head their households often face great struggles. In Ethiopia, especially, but in other countries as well, testimonies gathered attest to the hard lives, impoverishment, loss of respect and exclusion still endured by women running their own households.

“All the burden is on me,” said a widow from a village in Nigeria, explaining the difficulty of taking responsibility for every aspect of caring for her family.

Yet, across diverse contexts, we find these women moving about the village, accessing information, interacting with the opposite sex, encountering opportunities to apply new learning and assuming leadership positions. Such findings suggest that surveys which target female-headed households, and compare them with male-headed households, may not accurately capture important barriers to agricultural innovations faced by most women.

Our research suggests that women heads of households may offer entry points for strengthening agricultural innovations at the local level as they can provide role models which may help to shift local normative environments for other women and men. More research is needed, however, to identify approaches for supporting these local change agents in ways that ease stigma, work burdens and other risks.

Patti Petesch is GENNOVATE’s expert advisor and a CIMMYT associate researcher.

Lone Badstue chairs the GENNOVATE Executive Committee and CIMMYT’s strategic leader for gender research.

Entrenched gender roles threaten women’s longevity in research careers

Written by on February 10, 2017. Posted in Blogs.

EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) — Despite over a decade of implementing policies and programs to promote gender equity in research, some countries have seen careers for women in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) stagnate and even decrease in some fields.

Research indicates that women start out in equal numbers to their male colleagues – even outnumbering in some cases – while pursuing undergraduate and graduate degrees in STEM fields, but drop off at the doctoral level and even more at the research level, with men now representing 72 percent of the global research pool.

“The age at which many pursue or complete a doctoral degree often coincides with the time people start thinking about having children,” said Denisse McLean, an agrobiodiversity doctoral student at the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna in Pisa, Italy, who is conducting research at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) headquartered near Mexico City. “I knew after my master’s I wanted to do my doctorate right away because I know once I have kids, I won’t have as much flexibility.”

“A number of my male classmates study abroad while their spouses are at home with their kids,” McLean said. “In contrast, none of my female classmates have children. I would not be able to travel and work long hours like I do now if I had children of my own.”

Denisse McLean is an agrobiodiversity doctoral student at the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna who is conducting research at CIMMYT. Photo courtesy of Denisse McLean.

McLean refers to a “maternal wall” which results from expectations that a woman’s job performance will be affected by her taking a leave of absence to have children, or by absences from work to take care of family.

The work environment of a lab or lecture hall frequently does not allow flexibility for child leave or care. Since most women still assume the primary caregiver role regardless of where they live in the world, in heterosexual couples this often results in the woman’s career lagging, not her male partner’s.

“I never had maternity leave,” said Denise Costich, senior scientist and head of CIMMYT’s maize germplasm bank, now over three decades into her career. “There were no provisions in my contracts, either as a graduate student or a postdoctoral researcher, to cover this. I took vacation time to give birth. When my first child was born I took her to the greenhouse with me to check on my experiments, when she was under a week old.”

Costich, who lovingly refers to her three children as her “grad school baby, thesis baby and post-doc baby,” pursued a career in ecological research while raising three kids, at times requiring the deployment of innovative problem-solving skills, including strapping baby seats to lab carts or her baby to her own body in the field. It was at times a challenge to meet the competitive requirements of a career in science, particularly on one occasion when she had to rush to a job interview, just two weeks after giving birth.

According to Costich, tenure positions at any institution can require 80 to 90 hours of dedicated attention a week. Young researchers are also expected to spend 80 to 120 hours a week in the laboratory, putting women with children at an immediate disadvantage.

“I’ve always worked and I’ve never stopped because I know when you ‘take some time off,’ you fall behind, especially in science where the technology changes so quickly,” Costich said. “You get out of the loop and are at an extreme disadvantage trying to play catch up with your career.”

Denise Costich, senior scientist and head of CIMMYT’s maize germplasm bank, conducting field work in Spain with daughter Mara in 1986 (left). On the right, Costich holds maize cobs grown by a farmer on the Nevado de Toluca volcano in Mexico. Photos courtesy of Denise Costich and Jennifer Johnson/CIMMYT.

Both Costich and McLean credit strong support networks for their success, but acknowledge structural changes are needed throughout the research system. Such countries as the United States, that don’t guarantee paid maternity leave or sufficient support for child care must also re-orient their national policies to support working women, Costich said, making reference to her country of origin.

“I was able to make tweaks to the system and keep going, but I know a lot of people who had to give up,” Costich said. “We need to get more women who have gone through these experiences in higher level positions so that we can make effective policy changes.”

Child rearing isn’t the only time women leave their careers to serve as caregivers. Research shows that women also tend to be more likely to take family leave to care for parents, grandchildren and other relatives and were significantly less likely to be employed than their peers, whereas men who take on care giving roles experience no change in employment status.

Reformation of the institutionalized culture and processes that “penalize” a woman for having a family life is vital to ensure more women can have meaningful STEM research careers. Changing generally accepted hiring criteria and accepting flexible work arrangements, publication and research schedules are some of the methods that can help ensure women and men who interrupt their career for family leave will not jeopardize their future careers.

All institutes that are serious about increasing the number of women in their ranks should take these and other steps to remove barriers to women in science, such as bias in the hiring process and peer review, if they want to conduct more effective research.

Crop and bio-economic modeling for an uncertain climate

Written by on December 19, 2016. Posted in Blogs.

Gideon Kruseman, CIMMYT ex-ante and foresight specialist presents household level bio-economic models at workshop. CIMMYT/Khondoker Mottaleb

Gideon Kruseman is CIMMYT’s ex-ante and foresight specialist.

The potential impact of climate change on agriculture and the complexity of possible adaptation responses require the application of new research methods and tools to develop adequate strategies. At a recent five-day training workshop titled “Crop and Bio-economic Modeling under Uncertain Climate,” scientists applied crop and bio-economic models to estimate biophysical and economic impacts of climate variability and change.

Crop system modeling is used to simulate yields for specific weather patterns, nutrient input levels and bio-economic household modeling involves using quantitative economic methodology to incorporate biological, chemical and/or physical processes to analyze the impact of technology development, policy interventions and such exogenous shocks as extreme weather events on the decision-making processes of smallholder farmers and related development indicators. Events influence results in two ways: the probability of occurrence will shape decision-making and actual occurrence will shape realized results.

During the training, which was organized and hosted by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), which took place in November in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, scientists examined how technology development and policy or development interventions may influence farm household decisions on resource allocation and cropping patterns.

The training was beneficial due to its “holistic approach to solve smallholder agricultural production problem using decision support tools,” said Theodrose Sisay from the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research.

Attendees learned in practical terms how shifting weather patterns will change farmer perception of the probability of occurrence of extreme events, which may influence subsequent cropping patterns and technology choices. Cropping system models shed light on the effects of different weather patterns on crop yields under varying management practices. Bio-economic household modeling then places those results in the context of smallholder livelihood strategies.

Bio-economic household model results demonstrated the conditions under which cropping patterns are likely to change as a result of resource constraints and household preferences. The analysis illustrated how cropping patterns may shift as a result of climate change:

Before climate change. After climate change.

Figure: comparison of model results of climate change scenarios

The workshop was organized under the Global Futures & Strategic Foresight (GFSF) project and the “Flagship 1” component of the CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM), which in part explores global and regional foresight modeling tools.

Participants included representatives of the Association for Strengthening Agricultural Research in Eastern and Central Africa (ASARECA) and West and Central Africa Council for Agricultural Research and Development (CORAF), as well as researchers from agricultural research institutes and universities from Benin, Ethiopia, Kenya, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal and Uganda.

This was the third and last of a series of training workshops offered to same group of trainees since 2014. Not only did the 16 participants learn how to apply crop and bio-economic models allowing them to estimate biophysical and economic impacts of climate variability and change, but they also learned how to assess different adaptation options.

The tools they worked with included the Decision Support System for Agrotechnology Transfer (DSSAT), and a bio-economic household model using Gtree with the general algebraic modeling system (GAMS). The training involved plenary discussions, group work, and individual hands-on exercises.

The training program served as a refresher course on GAMS, said Janvier Egah, a socio-economist from Benin.

“Over time, I had forgotten everything,” he added. “With this training, I remembered the notions of the past course and learned new concepts such as integrating the costs of climate change in bio-economic models. These models interest me particularly and I want to write and submit proposals to apply them.”

The participants came with their own input data for the DSSAT cropping system model and learned how to calibrate the model. The participants developed climate change scenarios, ran simulations and interpreted the simulation outputs using graphical and statistical interfaces.

Workshop participants. Photo credit: CIMMYT

The participants, who have worked together in these workshops on three different occasions, indicated a strong willingness to continue collaborating after the conclusion of the project. They took steps to develop a concept note for a collaborative research grant with a major component related to the use of crop and bio-economic models.

The workshop had a stronger component related to the economic analysis of household decision-making than previous training sessions, and trainees used simulation models based on mathematical programming techniques.

At the conclusion of the workshop, participants expressed interest in pursuing further analysis of this type in the future as a complement to crop growth modelling.

Healthy soils are vital for a healthy and food secure future. (Photo: CIMMYT)

Healthy soils for a healthy, food secure future

Written by on December 5, 2016. Posted in Director General's corner.

At the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) we care deeply about one of the Earth’s most precious resources: soils. Humanity relies on soils not only for food production, but also for a range of vital ecosystem services. Soil is the vital substrate for terrestrial ecosystems, whether natural or agricultural.

Increasing population and related food demand are putting tremendous pressure on soils and too often lead to unsustainable practices jeopardizing their long term productivity. When increasing food demand is met by clearing new lands, it often occurs on more fragile soils, and/or at the expense of natural habitats. This short-term solution puts future livelihoods at risk and cannot continue.

For several decades, conservation agriculture (CA) has been a main research topic for CIMMYT’s agronomists. CA, as we define it, is based on three principles: 1) reduced or no tillage; 2) permanent soil cover; 3) crop rotation. Empirical evidence demonstrates the large benefits of CA on soil conservation/reclamation and soil health.

Work has been carried out and knowledge generated in very diverse agro-ecologies and socio-economic environments in the regions where CIMMYT works (Latin America, Southeast Asia, East and Southern Africa). Since many people use the term CA in a less scientific way, I sometimes call it innovation agriculture. I have seen many fields worldwide where our scientists work alongside farmers on sustainable intensification with a focus on these elements.

Agronomic “proof of concepts” is not sufficient, and we cannot just rely on results obtained at the field level to expect adoption at scale. Placing technical innovations, such as CA, into a farming systems context is needed to understand its adoptability and potential contribution to soil conservation, productivity, and climate change adaptation. One major adoption constraint of CA for many smallholder farmers is keeping a permanent crop cover with crop residues (zero tillage without proper soil cover can do more harm than good with regard to soil erosion).

Crop residues are often used to feed livestock, but these materials left in the field after a crop has been harvested are also essential to maintaining rich and fertile soil. Feeding the soil versus feeding animals is often a difficult choice farmers have to make. Through farming system research and participatory approaches, CIMMYT and its partners are working with farmers to develop technological and management options that provide higher profitability, improved resource use efficiency, while maintaining or improving their production base; soils.

The 2016 U.N. World Soil Day theme on Dec. 5, is “Soils and pulses, a symbiosis for life,” which resonates very well with our work: CIMMYT conducts research in maize and wheat based systems and is a strong proponent of diversification through the improved use of legumes in rotation or intercropping.

Soils draw a great deal of interest on the climate change mitigation front. They are a huge carbon reservoir with the potential to store even more under better land management and land use practices, as shown by the recent 4 per thousand initiative launched during the COP21 2015 U.N. climate talks in Paris. However, those mitigation options need to be better quantified to assess sequestration potential and not oversell options and technologies. CIMMYT scientists have recently contributed to several studies on that topic, helping to shed the light on greenhouse gas sequestration potential from technical innovations such as CA and reduced tillage.

Increased productivity through improved varieties of maize and wheat with better management practices is not only soil friendly but also provides land sparing opportunities; reducing the pressure on clearing new land preserving natural ecosystems.

Strategizing for the future: adapting to a changing agricultural landscape

Written by on October 21, 2016. Posted in Director General's corner.

Forging major change is never simple, but one of my top priorities upon taking the helm at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) as director general last year was to develop a new five-year institutional strategy. CIMMYT must continuously change in order to adapt to an increasingly complex world and address urgent agricultural challenges. Not only do almost 800 million go to bed hungry each night, but to cite just a few examples, this year severe drought in southern Africa exacerbated by an El Niño weather system took its toll on crops, deadly wheat blast disease emerged in South Asia for the first time and scientists ratcheted up the fight against virulent maize lethal necrosis disease.

To learn more about the CIMMYT work environment, I sent an email to our key donors and partners seeking answers to some simple questions: What is CIMMYT doing well? What can CIMMYT do better? What new areas of research or collaboration should we explore? I met with staff at headquarters near Mexico City and visited regional offices to get a well-rounded set of responses. The answers I received have become the basis for the new CIMMYT Strategic Plan 2017-2022: “Improving Livelihoods through Maize and Wheat Science.”

From crops to agri-food systems

The new strategy marks a shift in thinking of maize and wheat simply as crops, recognizing that they play a major role in agri-food systems in which they operate. Modern agriculture is increasingly diverse, complex and unpredictable and we need to look beyond science alone to understand the ecological, economic and social forces that are driving change in farming systems. The shift from commodity-based research to an integrated approach centering on agri-food systems is a critical change allowing our community to work more effectively to strengthen food security, reduce poverty and enhance human nutrition.

Contributing to international development goals

Simultaneously, as CIMMYT has been undergoing changes, the CGIAR system of agricultural research centers is also going through a transition. The aim is to improve efficiency, benefiting relationships with our global network of donors and partners. These changes build on past successes, articulating an ambitious new direction known as the “CGIAR Strategy and Results Framework 2016-2030” We have gone through a process of refining our strategy to ensure alignment with the CGIAR strategy and the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals. The strategies emphasize the need to assign higher priority to reducing malnutrition, empowering female farmers, developing new public-private partnerships and sharing knowledge with partners and farmers.

A new strategic direction

The new strategy identifies four interlinked areas of work, each highlighting CIMMYT’s strengths: scientific excellence; impact through partnerships; capacity building and the “ONE CIMMYT” concept, which reflects efforts to synthesize both internal and external activities. To achieve scientific excellence we will further develop our practice of conducting research of the highest quality and create innovations that farmers can readily put to use. CIMMYT will steadily improve the scope and quality of partnerships to accelerate the adoption of technology. CIMMYT’s leadership of the CGIAR Research Programs on MAIZE and WHEAT and the Excellence in Breeding Platform, which will help modernize breeding programs in the developing world by providing access to cutting-edge tools, services, best practices, application-oriented training and practical advice.

These initiatives will form a key part of a new partnership strategy. By creating agricultural knowledge communities, CIMMYT develops capacity and empowers collaborators to help farmers advance to a more food-secure, sustainable future. Finally, “ONE CIMMYT” values have far reaching implications on the way we work, unifying teams and building a common understanding across regions.

Launching this strategy marks the beginning of an evolutionary way of working, which will continue over the next five years to 2022. Its successful implementation requires collaboration across disciplines and the involvement of our vast network of partners. As we move forward, I will continue to consult with key stakeholders to gather insights and assessments about how we can continue to create even more impact in farmers’ fields.

I hope that you will join us.

Gazing into the crystal ball at the future of food: Nutrient-dense maize and wheat

Written by on October 19, 2016. Posted in Blogs.

A scientist examines wheat grain. CIMMYT/Nathan Russell

Gideon Kruseman is CIMMYT’s ex-ante and foresight specialist.

Over the next few decades, projections indicate global population will grow from more than 7 billion to more than 9 billion people by 2050. A large proportion of that world population will be living in low- and middle-income countries in urban environments – often huge — cities.

In India, the country with the largest rural population, for instance, the percentage of urban population is expected to increase from 37 percent in 2011 to 56 percent by 2050. Globally it will grow from 55 percent in 2011 to 70 percent in 2050. The trends we anticipate in India are comparable to Africa as a whole where urban population is projected to increase from less than 40 percent to around 55 percent, although there are differences between countries and regions.

Meeting the sustainable development goals (SDGs) established in 2015 by the United Nations and the global community will be challenging. The 17 goals with 169 targets aim to solve problems related to climate change, hunger, education, gender equality, sanitation, jobs, justice and shared peace by 2030.

In particular, SDG 2, which aspires to eliminate hunger, and SDG 3, which aims to establish good health and well-being, will be challenging even if we concentrate only on climatic, environmental and biophysical constraints. If we also take into account all the implications of urbanization and economic growth on diets and dietary change a new dimension of complexity becomes apparent.

Whether model calculations are based on current consumption patterns and trends, healthy diets or a variety of ecological sustainability criteria, maize and wheat will play a significant dietary role. Currently, these two staple crops feed two-thirds of the world population and will continue to be the main supply of energy in human diets in all scenarios.

However, scenarios for maize and wheat will not ensure decrease in quantitative and qualitative malnutrition unless we act upon projected future demands now. Diets, dietary change and their effects on health and nutritional status form complex interactions with socio-economic and environmental drivers.

In the future, diets will inevitably change as they have in previous decades. Basic commodities in food consumed in urban areas require different traits than food consumed in rural areas where the chain between production and consumption is shorter. The reason for this is that in rural areas in low and middle income countries staple grains are milled and processed locally, while in urban areas people tend to eat industrialized processed or pre-processed food.

In urban areas in Africa and South Asia wheat-based products are starting to replace traditional staples such as maize and rice to some extent. Moreover, research reveals that in urban centers people tend to eat energy dense food, which can help prevent quantitative malnutrition in terms of calorie intake, but does not ensure a healthy diet. Healthy eating requires a wide range of nutrients that traditionally are found in diverse foods. When people opt for less diversity and more convenience, this requires nutrient-dense as well as calorie-dense food. A significant trend that points to convenience food is the increased consumption levels of snacks and fast food, in low- and middle-income countries.

Maize-based snacks are important components of urban diets. Moreover, maize is a key ingredient found in convenience food made by the food industry in the form of starch and syrup. Ensuring that maize and wheat can meet nutritional demands in less diverse diets requires the introduction of new traits into the varieties comparable to the ongoing efforts of maize and wheat biofortification at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).

The development of nutrient-dense varieties takes time since they must also incorporate traits that address environmental conditions, climate change and resistance to pests and diseases as well as feature favorable post-harvest characteristics such as milling and processing quality.

Crucial to this process are the genetic resources that allow the traits to be combined in the breeding done at CIMMYT.

How do we do this? Billions of seeds, expertly and carefully conserved for humankind, are housed in our seed bank. They are freely available to breeders and other researchers around the world who may use them to uncover solutions to some of the challenges that face humanity in the future. Any one seed could help secure the food of our future.

While the potentially desirable traits hidden in the seeds in the seed bank are very valuable, there are costs involved in maintaining this diversity. Diversity is important for finding traits that will allow maize and wheat to be more nutritious than they are already today and so aid in meeting the demands of the future. Today, everyone can be part of this future by joining the “save a seed movement.”

Are cows the next development boom for smallholder farmers?

Written by on September 2, 2016. Posted in Blogs.

HARARE, Zimbabwe- Smallholder livestock farmers in Zimbabwe are beginning to flip every notion about the country’s industry on its head.

Dairy and beef livestock production play an important economic and nutritional role in the lives of many Zimbabwean farm households. However, rearing livestock has traditionally been expensive as livestock take a lot of space and suck up a lot of money for feed and maintenance, leaving poor farmers to rarely see a significant return on investment in these animals, let alone compete with larger livestock producers in the country.

Zimbabwe’s small-scale livestock producers face a wide range of challenges but key among these is the lack of adequate supplementary feed, particularly during the dry winter months when natural grazing pastures are dry. As a result, productivity of the animals is often very poor, and livestock producers miss out on the prospects of increasing their incomes from beef and dairy cattle production.

In addition, increasing human populations associated with expansion in arable land area continues to put pressure on pastures which continue to dwindle in both quality and area leading to insufficient grazing to sustain livestock throughout the year. Because of this and a decreasing natural resource base, farming systems are under greater pressure to provide sufficient food and to sustain farmers’ livelihoods.

In Zimbabwe’s sub-humid Mashonaland East Province, groups of innovative farmers, extension workers and experts in crop-livestock integration are making livestock sustainable and lucrative for more than 5,000 farmers who are now beginning to increase their profits – for some up to 70 percent – thanks to new efforts led by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) in collaboration with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and other partners. This initiative seeks to integrate crops and livestock technologies with a major focus on food, feed and soil.

Joyce Chigama, working in her mucuna field, feeds her six livestock on legume diets. Her animals gained an average of nearly one kilogram (kg) per day for 60 days, allowing her to later sell five of these livestock for USD 3,000. Photo: Johnson Siamachira/CIMMYT.

Together, this consortium is working with the smallholder farmers to introduce forage legumes such as mucuna and lablab using conservation agriculture-based sustainable intensification practices.

With this approach, maize productivity for food security is improved through forage and pulse legume rotations under conservation agriculture while livestock benefit from feeding on increased biomass output and conserved supplementary feed prepared from the forage legumes.

Maintaining the availability of adequate feed for livestock is crucial to rural smallholders in Zimbabwe. Most smallholders could not afford to buy commercial supplements for their natural pastures, especially during the long dry winter season when livestock usually run short of feed. Also, they did not know how to produce cost-effective home-grown feeds. Thanks to this agribusiness, the farmers learned to improve on-farm fodder production.

Conservation agriculture is a cropping system based on the principles of reduced tillage, keeping crop residues retention on the soil surface, and diversification through rotation or intercropping maize with other crops. The immediate benefits of conservation agriculture are: labor and cost savings, improved soil structure and fertility, increased infiltration and water retention, less erosion and water run-off–thus contributing to adaptation to the negative effects of climate variability and change. Through improved management and use of conservation agriculture techniques maize yields were increased from the local average of 0.8 tons per hectare to over 2.5 tons per hectare depending on rainfall and initial soil fertility status.

Mucuna (also known as velvet bean), is well-adapted to the weather conditions in Zimbabwe and can grow with an annual rainfall of 300 mm over four to six months. Growing this cover crop is an agroecological practice that helps farmers address many problems such as poor access to inputs, soil erosion and vulnerability to climate change.

Ben Makono (left) has fed his cattle a legume-based diet and seen their selling price rise by an average of USD 200 per cow. Photo: Johnson Siamachira/CIMMYT.

In addition, mucuna’s high biomass yield also smothers weeds so farmers do not have to spend time weeding. Mucuna also improves soil by fixing up to 170 kilograms of nitrogen per hectare and producing up to 200 kilograms of nitrogen from its residues. Moreover, the biomass produced effectively controls wind and water erosion.

Under the conservation agriculture systems employed here, cattle are used for reduced tillage using an animal drawn direct seeder or rippers in the cereal-legume production systems. Cattle manure is also used for fertilization. In turn, cattle benefit from the system through fattening on home formulated mucuna-based diets and feeding on crop residues.

Since 2012, smallholder farmers have received training and technical assistance on improved agricultural and animal husbandry practices for animal breeding, animal health and nutrition, fodder production and herd management. For example, farmers have learned to prepare nutritious feed rations for their livestock using locally available resources such as molasses and maize residues. As a result of these newly acquired skills, farmers have been better able to adapt to the severe drought currently affecting much of southern Africa.

As part of strengthening the project’s multi-stakeholder platform, a workshop was recently held at CIMMYT’s southern Africa regional office in Harare, Zimbabwe. The meeting brought together 40 participants including farmers and personnel from non-governmental organizations, the government and the private sector. The workshop sought to further enhance crop-livestock integration through facilitating agribusiness deals between the private sector and farmers. Farmers clinched a contract farming agribusiness deal with Capstone Seed Company to supply lablab seed. This means farmers have a guaranteed market for their lablab seed.

Makera Cattle Company also offered opportunities to farmers to improve their cattle breeds through crossing their local breeds with pedigree bulls. They agreed to supply bulls as breeding stock to interested farmers on a loan scheme.

Theresa Gandazha is a smallholder dairy farmer whose first cow produced about 12 liters of milk per dayThe high cost of feed resulted in her barely breaking even when she sold the milk she produced. However, after adopting a legume-based diet for her cow, she has witnessed a dramatic increase in her income due to significantly reduced feed costs. The cow’s milk has increased its yield to 16 liters per day, earning Gandazha nearly USD 130 per month. Photo: Lovemore Gwiriri/ILRI — Theresa Gandazha is a smallholder dairy farmer whose first cow produced about 12 liters of milk per day. After adopting a legume-based diet for her cow, she has witnessed a dramatic increase in her income due to significantly reduced feed costs. The cow’s milk has increased its yield to 16 liters per day, earning Gandazha nearly $130 per month. Photo: Lovemore Gwiriri/ILRI

Thanks to the spread of the crop-livestock project, Zimbabwean farmers are now able to engage in new market opportunities and improve their incomes by increasing crop and livestock productivity at a sustainable, affordable rate.

By focusing on a commercial approach, the project is ensuring long-term sustainability of the dramatic income increases and other benefits that the farmers have already witnessed. Helping farmers improve their productivity and living standards is an important first step, but the project also has to make sure the farmers have access to reliable markets.

CIMMYT’s Integrating Crops and Livestock for Improved Food Security and Livelihoods in Rural Zimbabwe (ZimCLIFs) project is working with more than 5,000 smallholder farmers to introduce fodder production. ZimCLIFs is funded by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) and implemented by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) as the lead agency, in collaboration with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) Ecosystem Sciences, the University of Queensland, the Community Technology Development Organization (CTDO), the Cluster Agricultural Development Services (CADS) and the government of Zimbabwe. It seeks to strengthen potential synergies offered by crop-livestock integrated farming systems.

Syngenta-CIMMYT collaboration on helping smallholders stay safe

Written by on August 18, 2016. Posted in Blogs.

Javier Valdés is country head at Syngenta Mexico, a global seeds and crop protection company. Any opinions expressed are his own.

Improving productivity, fighting rural poverty and protecting the environment are among the significant challenges the Mexican agricultural sector faces. For Syngenta and the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), responding to such demands is a priority and a key component of collaboration projects for promoting sustainable agricultural practices. That is why we have worked together since 2010.

More recently, under an agreement signed in 2013, we strengthened our joint commitment to meet the challenges that Mexican farmers are facing. This public-private collaboration is forged on CIMMYT’s aim to work with various sectors throughout society to establish strategic alliances and on the “Good Growth Plan” an initiative by which Syngenta has made six ambitious commitments with farmers and the environment to contribute to the global fight for food security.

One of these objectives has to do with Syngenta’s commitment to train 20 million smallholder farmers worldwide in the proper use and management of crop protection products, which play a key role in ensuring food security.

In Mexico, CIMMYT-trained technicians working on MasAgro (a research and capacity building project for sustainable intensification of maize and wheat systems funded by Mexico’s Agriculture Department, SAGARPA) are receiving specialized advice from Syngenta experts on the correct use and management of agrochemicals or BUMA, its acronym in Spanish.

https://vimeo.com/164620285

To date, Syngenta has offered the BUMA training to 130 technicians of the States of Mexico, Sonora and Guanajuato, who have, in turn, offered advice to groups of about 25 small farmers each. Moreover, CIMMYT’s knowledge-sharing methodology has a multiplier effect on the transfer of knowledge that increases the number of small farmers trained exponentially.

The BUMA training focuses on five key rules of pesticide application: understand products labeling; follow the labeling; regularly maintain equipment used for pesticide application; proper use of protective equipment and safe clean up practices. Furthermore, the training includes additional basic information about what to do in an emergency, and general information on first aid, among other topics.

Crop protection is vital for modern-day farming because it can substitute soil nutrients absent or depleted in poor soils and eradicate pests or control diseases that affect yields. While large scale farmers in developed countries often have access to crop protection products, smallholder farmers in developing countries face the challenges of applying optimal doses of fertilizer or pesticides to make products affordable but also to prevent environmental damage and increase yields.

The overall intention of the Syngenta-CIMMYT collaboration in Mexico is to improve the working conditions of smallholder producers who make up the majority of farmers, provide security for their families, highlight the importance of the role of crop protection and encourage them to continue using them sustainably.

Syngenta Mexico is a Gold Sponsor of CIMMYT’s 50th anniversary celebration in Mexico from 27-29 September 2016.

Maize: From Mexico to the world

Written by Matthew O'Leary on May 20, 2016. Posted in Blogs.

Scientists agree maize originated in Mexico thousands of years ago. CIMMYT/ Peter Lowe

EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) – For Mexicans, the “children of corn,” maize is entwined in life, history and tradition. It is not just a crop; it is central to their identity.

Even today, despite political and economic policies that have led Mexico to import one-third of its maize, maize farming continues to be deeply woven into the traditions and culture of rural communities. Furthermore, maize production and pricing are important to both food security and political stability in Mexico.

One of humanity’s greatest agronomic achievements, maize is the most widely produced crop in the world. According to the head of CIMMYT’s maize germplasm bank, senior scientist Denise Costich, there is broad scientific consensus that maize originated in Mexico, which is home to a rich diversity of varieties that has evolved over thousands of years of domestication.

The miracle of maize’s birth is widely debated in science. However, it is agreed that teosinte (a type of grass) is one of its genetic ancestors. What is unique is that maize’s evolution advanced at the hands of farmers. Ancient Mesoamerican farmers realized this genetic mutation of teosinte resembled food and saved seeds from their best cobs to plant the next crop. Through generations of selective breeding based on the varying preferences of farmers and influenced by different climates and geography, maize evolved into a plant species full of diversity.

The term “maize” is derived from the ancient word mahiz from the Taino language (a now extinct Arawakan language) of the indigenous people of pre-Columbian America. Archeological evidence indicates Mexico’s ancient Mayan, Aztec and Olmec civilizations depended on maize as the basis of their diet and was their most revered crop.

Maize is entwined in the history and traditions of Mexico. Artwork by Marcelo Ortiz

As Popol Vuh, the Mayan creation story, goes, the creator deities made the first humans from white maize hidden inside a mountain under an immovable rock. To access this maize seed, a rain deity split open the rock using a bolt of lightning in the form of an axe. This burned some of the maize, creating the other three grain colors, yellow, black and red. The creator deities took the grain and ground it into dough and used it to produce humankind.

Many Mesoamerican legends revolve around maize, and its image appears in the region’s crafts, murals and hieroglyphs. Mayas even prayed to maize gods to ensure lush crops: the tonsured maize god’s head symbolizes a maize cob, with a small crest of hair representing the tassel. The foliated maize god represents a still young, tender, green maize ear.

Maize was the staple food in ancient Mesoamerica and fed both nobles and commoners. They even developed a way of processing it to improve quality. Nixtamalization is the Nahuatl word for steeping and cooking maize in water to which ash or slaked lime (calcium hydroxide) has been added. Nixtamalized maize is more easily ground and has greater nutritional value, for the process makes vitamin B3 more bioavailable and reduces mycotoxins. Nixtamalization is still used today and CIMMYT is currently promoting it in Africa to combat nutrient deficiency.

White hybrid maize (produced through cross pollination) in Mexico has been bred for making tortillas with good industrial quality and taste. However, many Mexicans consider tortillas made from landraces (native maize varieties) to be the gold standard of quality.

“Many farmers, even those growing hybrid maize for sale, still grow small patches of the local maize landrace for home consumption,” noted CIMMYT Landrace Improvement Coordinator Martha Willcox. “However, as people migrate away from farms, and the number of hectares of landraces decrease, the biodiversity of maize suffers.”

Women representing four generations from a maize farming family in Chiapas, Mexico. CIMMYT/ Peter Lowe

Diversity at the heart of Mexican maize

The high level of maize diversity in Mexico is due to its varied geography and culture. As farmers selected the best maize for their specific environments and uses, maize diverged into distinct races, according to Costich. At present there are 59 unique Mexican landraces recorded.

Ancient maize farmers noticed not all plants were the same. Some grew larger than others, some kernels tasted better or were easier to grind. By saving and sowing seeds from plants with desirable characteristics, they influenced maize evolution. Landraces are also adapted to different environmental conditions such as different soils, temperature, altitude and water conditions.

“Selection for better taste and texture, ease of preparation, specific colors, and ceremonial uses all played a role in the evolution of different landraces,” said Costich. “Maize’s genetic diversity is unique and must be protected in order to ensure the survival of the species and allow for breeding better varieties to face changing environments across the world.”

“Organisms cannot evolve if there is no genetic, heritable variation for natural selection to work with. Likewise, breeders cannot make any progress in selecting the best crop varieties, if there is no diversity for them to work with,” she said.

Willcox agrees maize diversity needs to be protected. “This goes beyond food; reduced diversity takes away a part of civilization’s identity and traditions. Traditional landraces are the backbone of rural farming in Mexico, and a source of tradition in cooking and ceremonies as well as being an economic driver through tourism. They need to be preserved,” she said.

A CIMMYT staff member at work in the maize active collection in the Wellhausen-Anderson Plant Genetic Resources Center. (Photo: Xochiquetzal Fonseca/CIMMYT) CIMMYT/Xochiquetzal Fonseca

Mexican collection preserves maize diversity

CIMMYT’s precursor, the Office of Special Studies funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, aided in the preservation of Mexican landraces in the 1940s, when it began a maize germplasm collection in a project with the Mexican government. By 1947, the collection contained 2,000 accessions. In a bid to organize them, scientists led by Mario Gutiérrez and Efraim Hernández Xolocotzi drew a chalk outline of Mexico and began to lay down ears of maize based on their collection sites. What emerged was a range of patterns between the races of maize. This breakthrough allowed the team of scientists to codify races of maize for the first time.

Today, CIMMYT’s Maize Germplasm Bank contains over 28,000 unique collections of maize seed and related species from 88 countries.

“These collections represent and safeguard the genetic diversity of unique native varieties and wild relatives and are held in long-term storage,” said Costich. “The collections are studied by CIMMYT and used as a source of diversity to breed for traits such as heat and drought tolerance and resistance to diseases and pests, and to improve grain yield and grain quality.”

CIMMYT’s germplasm is freely shared with scientists and research and development institutions to support maize evolution and ensure food security worldwide.

Willcox said on-farm breeding by Mexican farmers also continues and preserves maize diversity and the culinary and cultural traditions surrounding maize are the reason there is such a wealth of landraces in existence today.

“The diversity preserved in farmers’ fields is complementary to the CIMMYT germplasm bank collection because these populations represent larger population sizes and diversity than can be contained in a germplasm bank and are subjected to continuous selection under changing climatic conditions,” she added.

Examples of some of the 59 native Mexican maize landraces. Photo courtesy of CIMMYT Maize Germplasm Bank

Helping Nepalese farmers adapt to climate change

Written by on May 11, 2016. Posted in Blogs.

This story appeared originally on the Borlaug Global Rust Initiative website to mark Earth Day on April 22, 2016. Linda McCandless is associate director for communications, International Programs, College of Agricultural and Life Sciences at Cornell University. She also oversees communications for the Delivering Genetic Gain in Wheat project.

SINDHULPALCHOWK, Nepal (BGRI) — Farming the terraced hillsides above the Indrawati River Valley of Nepal, Nabaraj Sapkota and his wife Muthu Dei experience the impacts of climate change on an almost daily basis. Erratic rains make planting difficult. Warm, misty conditions and prolonged winter temperatures increase the incidence of wheat rusts that reduce yield. Unpredictable hailstorms flatten wheat and rice before they can be harvested.

“When we need rain, there is no rain. And when we don’t need rain, there is plenty of rain,” says Nabaraj. “We used to only have rain from May through July, now we have rain and mist from November.”

Khim lal Bastola grows wheat, maize and rice in rotation and sustains four generations in his 12-person household near Pokhara. “The change is obvious: man produces something with his hard labor but strong winds and hailstorms destroy it,” he said.

“The climate change scenario for Nepal — where temperature are likely to increase and precipitation is likely to be more erratic — will disproportionally affect smallholder farmers,” said Dhruba Thapa, a senior scientist with the Nepal Agricultural Research Council. “For Nepal, the cost of not adapting to climate change will be high.”

Like many farmers in Nepal, Bastola and the Sapkotas need technical assistance to help them adapt to climate change. They eagerly soak up the education offered by people like Thapa, Sarala Sharma, and Sunita Adhibari, NARC scientists who distribute disease resistant varieties of wheat and help farmers learn to identify diseases.

Scientists and farmers also soak up training from the Borlaug Global Rust Initiative (BGRI), and specialists like Dave Hodson, a wheat surveillance specialist with CIMMYT, who shows them how to scout for wheat rust and upload data into the global RustTracker monitoring system.

FARMING PERVASIVE BUT DIFFICULT IN NEPAL

Farming in Nepal is hard, backbreaking labor predominantly done by hand in fields rarely more than one-quarter of an acre in size. Men plow the small plots on the terraced hillsides with oxen. Women break up the clods with heavy adzes. Although rarely above subsistence level, small farms are of vital importance in sustaining the multi-generational communities scattered throughout the Himalayas in the high hills to the north, the temperate mid-hills, and the subtropical terai to the south.

The livelihoods of more than 75 percent of the people in Nepal are based on agriculture and forestry, and almost 65 percent of the agriculture is rainfed, Nepal is among the 25 nations in the world with the lowest GDP per person and also ranks among the 25 with the greatest decrease in forested land. Rural populations are heavily clustered in river basins whose annual monsoon-fed flood cycles are likely to be exacerbated by warming. Deforestation adds to the problem, intensifying flooding and contributing to the likelihood of landslides.

HELPING FARMERS ADAPT TO CLIMATE CHANGE

Using disease resistant and improved seeds, and adopting different planting and harvesting calendars helps farmers adapt to climate change.

In Chhampi, north of Kathmandu, Krishna Bahadur Ghimire and the local farmers’ cooperative of which he is president, are now producing improved rice, wheat and maize on 140 ropanis of land. Ghimere supplies beans, rice, eggplant, soybeans, wheat and vegetable seeds to his neighbors. He started farming on one ropani of land (~ 500 sq.m) in 1997 but switched to the seed business when he found himself having to drive two hours to Kathmandu to get the improved varieties he needed.

“Our local varieties were not climate smart. We went to Kathmandu to get improved seeds from the Nepalese Agricultural Research Center because their seeds are more disease resistant, higher yielding, and higher quality,” said Ghimire, who has worked with Thapa for 11 years. “New varieties are less lodging and scattering during storms and high winds than the local ones.”

“Farmers need climate smart crops that have been improved for yield and disease resistance, but they also need seeds adapted for variable weather conditions whether we have drought or excess rainfall,” said Thapa. “NARC screens many lines and then provides seeds of promising lines to farmers for participatory variety selection trials, like with Ghimire’s group.”

Naparaj, the Sindhulpalchowk farmer, initially received 300 grams of seven varieties of improved wheat from Thapa. “I was thinking how I could uplift them (my neighbors),” said Naparaj. “I thought to myself, the lives of these people must be uplifted through improved seeds which would give them good production. We used to get one muri (~3.5 liters or 70 kg) of wheat per one ropani (~ 500 sq.m.). Now we are threshing three or four times more. It is a huge profit.”

Ghimere’s 25-year-old nephew Saroj Kumar Bista, speaks of another problem affecting farmers that requires gender-sensitive initiatves. “Many young men are going to the Middle East to work and not moving into the farming sector,” he said.

Nowhere is this more evident than in Godhavari, where Manju Khavas, Radha Basnet and Janaki Silwal’s sons have gone to the Middle East or Japan to work. Their husbands work off the farm, leaving them in charge. “At first we were overwhelmed,” said the 52-year-old Khavas. “We could not find someone to dig the fields. Now it is easier because of the handheld tractor.”

Thapa introduced improved eight or nine varieties of wheat to their community as well as agronomic practices like planting in rows, incorporating manure for fertilizer, and using handheld tractors (similar to heavy duty rototillers).

How does Khavas count improvement? “When we were 7 or 8 members in the family, the produce of this land was not enough. Now the produce is enough for 13 to 14 people,” she said. Wheat yields are so improved that she and her friends want a wheat threshing machine so they don’t have to thresh the greater quantities by hand.

Although the women said they have yet to “evaluate” climate change, they noted the “environment has been spoilt.”

“During the harvesting season of the wheat, we suffer from the fear of rain,” said Khavas. “Hailstorms also scare us. The moment the wheat becomes yellow, we begin to feel afraid whether we will be able to harvest it or not. And then when the wheat is harvested amid the fear of rain, in the paddy rice planting time, there is no rain.”

MORE TRAINING FOR CLIMATE CHANGE ADAPTATION

Dave Hodson, a surveillance expert with CIMMYT and the BGRI, travels to countries like Nepal to train scientists on using handheld tablets to scout for disease and input data into global disease tracking and monitoring systems that can help to predict disease outbreaks.

Since 2008, the BGRI has held five 2-week training sessions on the “Art and Science of Rust Pathology and Wheat Breeding” in Asia for scientists in the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), including scientists from Nepal, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Bhutan. The course is slated to be on-line this summer.

Nepalese farmers lack understanding of meteorological data and how to reduce risks in agriculture and farming. Sushila Pyakurel, who works with ICDO Lalitpur, has helped initiate Climate Field Schools in Nepal where farmers learn the effects of climate change, identifying crops most suitable to grow, seed selection, scheduling farm operations/farm management practices, and adaptation strategies/methodologies.

One of the new areas of expansion for the BGRI is the new Delivering Genetic Gain in Wheat project, a $24M effort funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to make wheat for smallholder farmers around the world more heat tolerant and disease resistant in the face of climate change. It builds on the successes of the 2008-2015 Durable Rust Resistance in Wheat project, which initiated and funded the SAARC training courses.

DEDICATION: April 25, 2016: For smallholder farmers in Nepal, the challenges of climate change are disastrous enough. A 7.8 magnitude earthquake devastated Nepal on 25 April 2015, less than one month after the Borlaug Global Rust Initiative team visited. More than 9,000 people died and almost 900,000 homes were destroyed. Some of the hardest hit areas were Sindhulpalchowk and Chhampi. This Earth Day blog is dedicated to the resilient farmers of Nepal. It is the BGRI’s sincerest hope that their families are well on their way to recovery.

A woman for wheat: Maricelis Acevedo takes on new role

Written by on May 11, 2016. Posted in Blogs.

This story appeared originally on the Borlaug Global Rust Initiative website. Linda McCandless is associate director for communications, International Programs, College of Agricultural and Life Sciences at Cornell University. She also oversees communications for the Delivering Genetic Gain in Wheat project.

“A ship is safe in the harbor, but that’s not what ships are for” is Maricelis Acevedo’s favorite mantra. The newly appointed associate director for science for Cornell University’s Delivering Genetic Gain in Wheat (DGGW) project left her island home of Puerto Rico in 2003 to pursue a career as a pathologist and has been traveling the world ever since.

This past month, Acevedo visited wheat screening nurseries in Kenya and Ethiopia and wheat research centers in India with Ronnie Coffman, director of the DGGW. She feels grateful for the opportunity to lead the scientific component of a project whose goals are to help mitigate the threat of food insecurity in vulnerable regions of the world, especially Ethiopia.

“The job comes with new opportunities and great responsibilities to achieve food security for a growing population,” said Acevedo. “Given the challenges of a changing climate, scarce agricultural resources, and the misinformation about what technology can provide to agriculture in the developing and developed world, I feel privileged to be a voice for farmers, researchers and sponsors in the fight against wheat pathogens.”

Acevedo believes the world can do better in bringing science to smallholder farmers’ fields. Her new journey on behalf of the DGGW began on March 16 when she helped launch the DGGW project in the wheat fields of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), in Ciudad Obregón in Mexico’s state of Sonora. Over the next year she will be visiting farmers and partner agricultural research facilities, including CIMMYT, around the globe.

“For the past eight years, Maricelis has collaborated with the Cornell team on various aspects of the Durable Rust Resistance in Wheat project,” said Coffman, vice-chair of the Borlaug Global Rust Initiative (BGRI). “Maricelis is an accomplished rust pathologist who also comes from an agricultural background. That is enormously helpful in a project whose success is so closely linked to farmer adoption of new varieties. We welcome her with great enthusiasm.”

The new DGGW grant will use modern tools of comparative genomics and big data to develop and deploy varieties of wheat that incorporate climate resilience and heat tolerance as well as improved disease resistance for smallholder farmers.

SMALL FARM ROOTS

Growing up on a small farm in Puerto Rico, in a family that grew plantains, bananas, edible beans, taro, sweet potato, maize and pigeon peas, Acevedo received an early introduction to the agricultural science behind farming. It was her father, now a retired agronomist from the University of Puerto Rico, who first introduced her to the concept of “pathogens.” She remembers watching him spray their fields to protect their crops from disease dressed in a protective suit and face mask. Mimicking his actions as a 4-year-old, she took a small plastic cup and sucked it tight onto her face breaking the capillaries all around her mouth and nose while “spraying” her Mom’s flowers with a watering can — “my first job as a pathologist,” she laughs.

More seriously, she also remembers her father testing farming practices that were going to be introduced to farmers’ fields in following seasons — “participatory breeding and research at its best.” And his first lessons on phenotypic selection of plantains and beans and his eagerness to try the new varieties coming out of the University of Puerto Rico Agricultural Experiment Research Station breeding and crop improvement programs.

Having experienced the devastation of seasonal crops due to drought, hurricanes, diseases and insects, Acevedo said she also knows the heartaches associated with farming. “I will never forget the emotional stress on my dad’s face in those moments.”

UNDERSTANDING HOST-PATHOGEN INTERACTION

During her undergraduate years at the University of Puerto Rico-Mayaguez, Acevedo studied biology, genetics, botany and biotechnology, courses that helped her decide to pursue a master’s degree in agronomy where she focused on crop improvement and the genetics of edible beans.

Working on host resistance helped her decide to understand the pathogen side of the disease equation so she joined James R. Steadman’s laboratory in the department of plant pathology at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln to pursue her Ph.D. in 2003. Acevedo’s research project, partially funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development, focused on virulence diversity of edible bean rust pathogens in Honduras and the identification of resistance in wild beans and bean landraces. “That is how my passion for international agriculture and rust research began,” said Acevedo.

Following her graduation in 2007, Acevedo pursued a postdoc at the U.S. Department of Agriculture – Agricultural Research Service National Small Grain Collection and Potato Research Unit in Aberdeen, Idaho, and then became assistant professor at North Dakota State University (NDSU) from 2010-2016. She said she will miss her friends and colleagues at NDSU, but credits them — along with her family — in helping her achieve her newest position at Cornell University.

Acevedo was in the first class of BGRI Women in Triticum (WIT) Early Career Award Winners in 2010. “The WIT award help me identify and meet an amazing pool of female scientists who have mentored and encouraged me. We have developed collaborations that go beyond our professional lives.”

Acevedo takes seriously her role as mentor to other younger WIT winners who look to her as a role model for their research and academic careers.

SOLUTION ORIENTED

Acevedo believes her role with the DGGW is the perfect opportunity for her to facilitate how great work done by wheat scientists makes it to the field.

“I look forward to being part of the solutions necessary to deliver higher genetic gain wheat and promote better variety adoptions in key regions of Sub-Saharan Africa and Central and South Asia,” said Acevedo. “I also look forward to seeing how we can utilize new technologies such as high through-put phenotyping, genomic selection and early warning systems for pathogen epidemics and implementing them in research and farmers’ fields.

“With the BGRI’s help in capacity building, research and education, we are training the next generation of wheat scientists for their countries and for their regions, increasing wheat production, and helping achieve food security,” Acevedo said. “I am very excited about helping developing countries with high potential for wheat improve their production and yield.”

More on Delivering Genetic Gain in Wheat

YouTube interview with Maricelis Acevedo

Global wheat breeding returns billions in benefits but stable financing remains elusive

Written by on April 27, 2016. Posted in Director General's corner.

Martin Kropff is CIMMYT director general and Juergen Voegele is senior director World Bank’s Agriculture Global Practice.

What do a chapati, a matza, or couscous have in common? The answer is wheat, which is a source for one-fifth of the calories and protein consumed globally.

Yet, stable, assured funding for public research for this important food grain remains elusive.

For 45 years, world-class scientists from two research centers of CGIAR – the world’s only global research system that focuses on the crops of most importance to poor farmers in developing countries – have battled the odds to provide wheat and nourish the world’s growing population. Their innovations have helped to boost wheat yields, fight debilitating pests and ward off diseases, improving the lives of nearly 80 million poor farmers.

Wheat plays a big role in feeding the human family. Over 1.2 billion resource-poor consumers depend on wheat as a staple food.

Small Investment, big gains: Research for free public goods shows the way

A new report by the CGIAR Research Program on Wheat shows that for an annual investment of roughly $30 million, the benefits gained from wheat research are in the range of $2.2 billion to $3.1 billion each year, from 1994 to 2014. Put another way, for every $1 invested in wheat breeding, $73 to $103 were returned in direct benefits, helping producers and consumers alike. Surely these healthy numbers — which are conservative because they do not include benefits from traits other than yield — would whet the appetite of any hard-nosed economist or bean counter looking for a convincing return on investment.

Science products like improved wheat lines from CIMMYT, the Mexico-based International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center, and ICARDA, the International Centre for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas – both members of CGIAR – are freely available to all and keep the global wheat research enterprise humming. Each year CIMMYT alone distributes half a million packets of corn and wheat seed from its research to 346 partners in public and private breeding programs spread across 79 countries where these crops are mainstays of people’s diets.

Today, the rapid spread of wheat varieties adapted to diverse ecologies is one of agricultural science’s unsung success stories. Almost half the world’s wheat land is sown to varieties that come from research by CGIAR scientists and their global network of partners. Even as wheat-free diets are on the rise in industrialized countries – whether due to personal preference, or medical necessity such as celiac disease – it is increasingly clear that wheat will remain an important grain in the diets of millions of people living in emerging economies.

Food in a changing climate: The future is here

So what could possibly be wrong with the scenario painted above? After all, CIMMYT has been around for five decades, and public funding has kept the wheels of discovery science turning and delivering improved varieties of the food crops that farmers demand and consumers need.

The big outlier, our known unknown, is climate change. For every one degree Celsius increase in growing season temperatures, wheat production decreases by a whopping 6 percent.

To beat the heat, CIMMYT scientists are working to reshape the wheat plant for temperature extremes and other environmental factors. New goals include dramatically enhancing wheat’s use of sunlight and better understanding the internal signals whereby plants coordinate their activities and responses to dry conditions and high temperatures.

Food demand is projected to rise by 20 percent globally over the next 15 years with the largest increases in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and East Asia where the map of hunger, poverty and malnutrition has an overlay of environmental stress and extreme resource degradation.

Climate change is already playing havoc with the global food system.

In 2009, one-fifth of Mexico’s corn production was lost due to drought. In 2011, extreme weather events such as cyclones destroyed one-third of Sri Lanka’s rice crop, and badly damaged rice paddies in Madagascar, one of the world’s poorest countries. Two successive seasons of poor rainfall from El Niño have decimated Africa’s corn harvest and left millions facing hunger this year.

Looking to the future, rising food demand – driven inexorably by population, rapid urbanization and increasing global wealth – shows no sign of abating. To meet food needs by increasing productivity, cereal yields – not wheat alone – would need to increase at 3 percent a year, a number that is 40 percent higher than the 2.1 percent gains achieved from 2000 to 2013. Alas, plant breeders do not have the luxury of complacency. New varieties take more than a decade to develop, test, and deploy through national certification and seed marketing or distribution systems.

CGIAR crop scientists are rushing to meet the challenges. In a taste of the future, a team of topnotch scientists at CGIAR’s Lima-based International Potato Center and NASA will test growing potatoes under Martian conditions to demonstrate that hardy spuds can thrive in the harshest environments.

As the world’s policy makers begin to grapple with the interconnected nature of food, energy, water and peace, every dollar invested in improving global food and nutrition security is an investment in the future of humanity.

To develop crops, livestock, fish and trees that are more productive and resilient and have a lower environmental signature, CGIAR is calling for an increase in its war chest to reach $1.35 billion by 2020. Is anybody listening?

Severe drought-affected area in Lamego, Mozambique. (Photo: Christian Thierfelder/CIMMYT)

Will El Niño be a wake-up call to invest in food security solutions?

Written by on April 8, 2016. Posted in Blogs.

HARARE (CIMMYT) — In southern Africa close to 50 million people are projected to be affected by droughts caused by the current El Niño, a climate phenomenon that develops in the tropical Pacific Ocean causing extreme weather worldwide — this year, one of the strongest on record. Many of those millions are expected to be on the brink of starvation and dependent on emergency food aid and relief.

However, severe droughts are nothing new to the region. Between 1900 and 2013 droughts have killed close to 1 million people in Africa, with economic damages of about $3 billion affecting over 360 million people. Over the past 50 years, 24 droughts have been caused by El Niño events, according to research by Ilyas Masih. If droughts are so recurrent and known to be a major cause of yield variability and food insecurity in southern Africa, why are we still reacting to this as a one-time emergency instead of a calculated threat?

Unpredictable harvests: Above, yield variability in the world’s top 5 maize producing countries (left) vs. southern Africa (right) Source: FAOSTAT, 2015

Over the past 50 years, donors have focused on the “poorest of the poor” in agriculture – areas where farming is difficult due to low and erratic rainfalls, poor sandy soils and high risk of crop failure. Investments were made in these areas to change farmers’ livelihoods – and yet the numbers of food insecure people are the same or rising in many southern African countries. Once drought hits, most farmers are left with no crops and are forced to sell their available livestock. Due to many farmers flooding the market with poor meat at once, prices for both livestock and meat hit rock bottom. Only when the situation becomes unbearable does the development community act, calling for emergency aid, which kicks in with a stuttering start. Abject poverty and food aid dependency is the inevitable consequence.

A farmer in Zimbabwe explains his challenges with drought and low soil fertility. Photo: Michael Listman — A farmer in Zimbabwe explains his challenges with drought and low soil fertility. CIMMYT/Michael Listman

Short-term relief can help millions of farmer families in this current crisis, and emergency solutions will likely be necessary this year. However, emergency relief is not the solution to saving lives and money in a world where extreme weather events are only going to become more frequent.

We know that the next drought will come within the next two to three years.

Proactive, strategic and sustainable response strategies are needed to increase farming system resilience and reduce dependency on food aid during extreme weather events like El Niño. This starts with improving the capacity of local, regional and national governments to make fully informed decisions on how to prepare for these events. Interventions must reach beyond poor performing areas, but also support higher productivity areas and emerging commercial farmers, who have greater potential to produce enough grain on a national scale to support areas hardest hit by droughts and dry-spells.

Groundnuts in rotation with maize under conservation agriculture can provide food and nutrition despite climate variability in Malawi. Photo: Christian Thierfelder — Groundnuts in rotation with maize under conservation agriculture can provide food and nutrition despite climate variability in Malawi. CIMMYT/Christian Thierfelder

Climate-smart agriculture technologies, drought-tolerant maize, and such techniques as conservation agriculture, agroforestry and improved soil fertility management are approaches to farming that seek to increase food and nutrition security, alleviate poverty, conserve biodiversity and safeguard ecosystem services.

They need to be scaled out to increase resilience to climate variability. This strategy of improved foresight and targeting coupled with adoption of climate-smart agriculture and improved outscaling can lead to increased resilience of smallholder farming systems in southern Africa, reducing year-to-year variability and the need for emergency response.

Learn more about the impacts of El Niño and building resilience in the priority briefing “Combating drought in southern Africa: from relief to resilience” here, and view the special report from FEWS Net illustrating the extent and severity of the 2015-16 drought in southern Africa.

Combating malnutrition: a new zinc-rich variety of wheat

Written by on April 4, 2016. Posted in Blogs.

VeluBlogpic — A farmer feeds harvested wheat crop into a thresher as a woman collects de-husked wheat in a field at Kunwarpur village, Allahabad in India’s Uttar Pradesh website. Credit: Handout

V.K. Mishra and Ramash Chand are professors at Banaras Hindu University in Varanasi, India. Arun Joshi is a wheat breeder at CIMMYT. Any views expressed are their own.

One of the side-effects of the Green Revolution, which began in the 1960s and led to large increases in crop production, has been a change in the cropping patterns in many parts of India.

Farmers have shifted to crops with higher yields. In the Indo-Gangetic plains, for example, rice and wheat have replaced many other crops. This has reduced crop diversity, affected dietary patterns, and led to malnutrition due to a poor supply of proteins, vitamins, iron and zinc.

Wheat is the staple diet in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Farmers in those states typically have very small landholdings and consume about 70 per cent of the food they produce. One essential mineral missing from their diet is zinc. A zinc deficiency leads to malfunctioning of several proteins and enzymes, and manifests itself in a variety of diseases, including diarrhea, skin and respiratory disorders.

One way of making up for this kind of deficiency is to provide fortification by adding missing nutrients to food, but this is complex for several reasons, including price increases, the problem of quality control, and the possibility of adulteration.

We tested the genetic bio-fortification technology for enhancing the zinc content in wheat crops under the HarvestPlus project of CIMMYT and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Bio-fortification is a seed-driven technology that enables crops to extract a higher amount of zinc from the soil and store it in the edible parts.

Through cross-breeding, we produced several thousand wheat genotypes and screened them for high zinc content and high yield. In India, a new variety would be unacceptable if it does not deliver a higher yield than the varieties already under cultivation. We isolated several of these cross-bred varieties that had both high zinc and high yield, and put them through field trials. The existing varieties of wheat crop had 29 parts per million (ppm) of zinc and the varieties we selected had 40 to 45 ppm of zinc.

These field trials were conducted at 70 different locations. Two specific varieties of wheat were then distributed to about 5,000 farmers for cultivation.

The next stage is national trials, which will be conducted by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR). The first thing that ICAR does is to put the recommended varieties to disease trial. The ICAR tests take about three years. One of the varieties, BHU-35, has recently cleared the disease-testing stage and is ready to be released in Uttar Pradesh for cultivation, after a few more regulatory clearances.

Seven other varieties are currently undergoing disease testing, and in the next few years, many other zinc-rich wheat crops will be ready for cultivation.

This story was originally published in The Indian Express.