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Majola Mabuza, Program Officer, The Southern African Confederation of Agricultural Unions. (Photo: UNFCCC)

SACAU’s Majola Mabuza at COP24: How soil can help meet climate targets

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Majola Mabuza, Program Officer, The Southern African Confederation of Agricultural Unions. (Video: UNFCCC)

KATOWICE, Poland (CIMMYT) — Agricultural scientists attending U.N. COP24 climate talks in Katowice, Poland are discussing a wide range of potential solutions to slow global warming and meet targets laid out in the Paris Agreement on climate change.

The agreement, which has been under intense discussion by negotiators, requires keeping global temperatures in check — to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

Delegates participating in a side event session on agriculture, which produces about a third of global greenhouse gas emissions, discussed the role of soil, presenting scientific evidence of the value of recarbonization. Much of the carbon that was formerly stored in soil, which acts as a carbon sink, has been released into the atmosphere, contributing to global temperature increases.

Majola Mabuza, program officer responsible for policy at the non-profit Southern African Confederation of Agricultural Unions (SACAU), participated in the panel on Monday evening and discussed various risks farmers face and hurdles that need to be overcome.

Mabuza, an agricultural economist, whose research interests span institutional economics of farmers’ organizations, food security and the economics of non-conventional agricultural enterprises, shared some views with CIMMYT about recarbonization.

Q: What is the scale of the role soil plays in climate change?

A: The global carbon pool in soils — at a depth of 2 meters — is three times that of carbon found in the atmosphere. As such, both increases in soil organic carbon and protection against losses from this pool are important strategies for environmental protection. Management practices that raise soil organic carbon have co-benefits such as increased productivity and resilience and can in turn improve food security and sustainable rural development.

Land use changes such as intensification of agriculture or converting grasslands into plow lands often turn them into carbon sources, releasing huge amount of carbon into the atmosphere. The time scales of the source and sink function of soils are fundamentally different: whereas building up belowground carbon stocks takes hundreds or thousands of years, depleting these stocks can be measured in decades or even days, [for example in the case of] forest or grassland fires.

Q: Will soil be the silver bullet to meet food security and climate change goals?

A: Not necessarily a silver bullet. To address climate change and improve food security, a lot is required from various actors. For instance, at this conference, we have learned of food that is produced, but almost a third of it is lost or goes to waste along the chain. Lost or wasted food also contributes to emissions in various forms. So, fixing the issue of soils alone will not win the battle, a lot more issues need to be fixed.

At the production stage, soils have an important role to play in reducing carbon emissions. Soil acts as a sink for carbon, the greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming. Agricultural management approaches such as conservation agriculture and agroforestry simultaneously improve soil carbon, soil fertility and water conservation. More food will be produced on the same land to meet the needs of the growing population.

Q: What will you speak about at the COP24 side event Soils Advantage: Transforming Agriculture by Recarbonizing the Earth’s Soil?

A: Farmers are essentially the managers of land and soils and are by far responsible for whatever happens to the soil. Are farmers, including smallholders, aware of the connection between soil activities and climate change? Do they know the carbon content in their farms? What incentives are there for farmers to build soil organic carbon within their farm plans? What lessons have we learnt with the promotion of such programs as organic farming, conservation agriculture and/or climate-smart agriculture that we can tag along in the drive to transform agriculture by recarbonizing the soil? While some advocate for rewarding better practices or performance on soil carbon in financial markets by attracting higher land values, lower interest rates on loans, or lower insurance premiums, how practical will this be in developing countries where most smallholders do not own the land they produce from?

Q: What is the purpose of recarbonizing?

A: The purpose is essentially to take carbon back to the soil. A lot of human activities, including deforestation, repeated soil tillage — industrial agriculture — and burning of fossil fuels have disrupted the carbon cycle, taking it out of balance. Too much of the carbon that was once in the soil has been released to the atmosphere, hence a lot of it is now in the atmosphere and some in the ocean, but not enough where it once was and where it is more beneficial for sustainable food production and food security — in soil.

Q: How is recarbonization achieved?

A: The most feasible route is to cover the soil with plants and trees, promote organic farming, conservation agriculture, agroforestry, and climate-smart agriculture practices. Plant photosynthesis has the remarkable ability to capture atmospheric CO2, release the oxygen back into the atmosphere, and convert the carbon into sugars, which are used by plants for growth. A considerable proportion of the captured CO2 is released through the plant’s roots to feed soil microorganisms, which in turn assist the plant in acquiring nutrients. Soil microorganisms use this energy to make soil carbon and humus. If left undisturbed, soil humus can lock carbon into place for an average lifetime of hundreds to thousands of years.

Q: Are there efforts underway to do this?

A: Current programs include organic farming, conservation agriculture and climate-smart agriculture.

Q: In terms of wheat and maize, will this have an impact? 

A: A great impact. Maize and wheat are the main staples for the poor in Africa and Asia respectively. If we build our soil recarbonizing program around such staple crops.

Q: What is the impact of crop rotations on soil?

A: Crop rotation is an important practice of any sustainable agricultural system. Crop rotation has the following major benefits: It improves soil fertility — as legumes such as groundnuts and beans fix nitrogen in the soil for the benefit of cereals such as maize. Farmers use less chemical fertilizer because legumes in the soil fix the nitrogen naturally. It helps to reduce weeds, diseases and pests by breaking their lifecycles as crops are rotated. It reduces the risk of crop failure in case of drought or disease and improves crop yield.

Soils Advantage: Transforming Agriculture by Recarbonizing the Earth’s Soil was held on Dec. 11, 2018 at 6:30-9:00 p.m. in the Bieszczady side event room in section G at the COP24 venue.

A farmer's son carries his brother through the family field, planted with BH 546 DT maize, in the village of Lobu Koromo, in Ethiopia’s Hawassa Zuria district. (Photo: P. Lowe/CIMMYT)

Farmers cite climate change as biggest challenge, says World Farmers Organization at COP24 talks

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Since 2011, farmers in Nyando climate-smart villages, in Kenya’s Kisumu county, have been working with researchers, development partners, and government extension agents to test a portfolio of promising climate change adaptation, mitigation, and risk management interventions. (Photo: K. Trautmann/CCAFS)
Since 2011, farmers in Nyando climate-smart villages, in Kenya’s Kisumu county, have been working with researchers, development partners, and government extension agents to test a portfolio of promising climate change adaptation, mitigation, and risk management interventions. (Photo: K. Trautmann/CCAFS)

KATOWICE, Poland (CIMMYT) — Controversies over fossil fuels, indigenous rights and the intricacies of the 2015 Paris Agreement, which was designed to keep global temperatures from rising no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, are just some of the key topics in focus at U.N. COP24 climate talks.

A vital thread in the climate change narrative, much debated in the corridors of the conference center in Katowice, Poland, is agriculture — a fragile yet vital sector of the global economy which produces about a third of global greenhouse gas emissions.

The member-driven World Farmers Organization (WFO), a group of 1.5 billion farmers from 54 countries, represents the farm community at the United Nations on climate change and other topics, including the Sustainable Development Goals 2030 Agenda.

A new “Climakers” initiative, launched on the sidelines of the COP24 talks, will help address the biggest threat farmers say they fear, according to Luisa Volpe, head of policy development at WFO in an interview. Volpe, who has been with WFO since 2014, formerly worked on farmers programs with the International Fund for Agriculture and Development (IFAD).

“I decided I wanted to move to the other side of the coin and work directly with those who are the targets of big multilateral governmental organizations and government policies,” Volpe said, adding that farmers, tasked with producing more with less for a growing population, are also among those most affected by climate change.

Q: What is the biggest challenge farmers face?

A: The view of the farmers that I represent is that climate is the most important challenge because climate may have an impact on the harvest, on the seeds, on the area where they want to harvest, whether they should move, migration of young farmers to the city, on the kind of products they can produce. Climate change also has an impact on market prices. Of course there are others — they include access to infrastructure, access to financing, having proper insurance and availability and access to financing mechanisms. Farmers say that among this range of issues they may face, climate is probably the most intense because it’s probably the one that they cannot control. They’re just influenced by it and there is little that they can do. Foreseeing weather patterns is very limited — with technology they’re able to predict weather patterns one week before, but not longer. It’s really challenging for them.

23-year-old Ruby Mehla receives regular updates on weather and climate-smart practices through voice messages on her registered mobile phone in the climate-smart village of Anjanthali, Haryana state, India. (Photo: Prashanth Vishwanathan/CCAFS)
23-year-old Ruby Mehla receives regular updates on weather and climate-smart practices through voice messages on her registered mobile phone in the climate-smart village of Anjanthali, Haryana state, India. (Photo: Prashanth Vishwanathan/CCAFS)

Q: How are farmers managing the challenge of climate change?

A: This is something that represents the common ground for all the farmers of the world despite differences in terms of geographical area, in terms of type of business that they manage. Last May in Moscow, during the WFO general assembly, WFO got a unanimous mandate from all of our constituency — made up of national farmers organizations from all over the world — to initiate, establish and propose a new agenda for climate, driven by the farmers themselves. Basically, our members realized that the impact of climate change on farming is something that’s common to all farmers around the world. Their proposal is to first create a broad alliance with the farmers organizations worldwide who may have either a regional voice or a global voice in order to represent all the areas of the world and work together — to join their hands in a new initiative on climate change.

Q: How will the initiative take shape?

A: The outcome of the initiative will be an overarching document with which we as a farmers organization can advocate at the international level and our members can advocate at the national level. What we’re planning to do is to organize a series of regional workshops to meet the farmers themselves and collect case studies and best practices of what farmers are already doing to mitigate and adapt to climate change. Farmers, as all other sectors of the world, are contributing to the causes of climate change. This agenda would not work if we don’t add other actors to the alliance. It’s farmers first, but then a close dialogue with CGIAR.

We’ve started with CCAFS, the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security. We want to work closely with them to make sure that the practices we propose to governments as examples to follow and to scale up when they propose their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) — country level contributions to reducing emissions as part of the Paris Agreement — are effective and science based. Here, we propose to close the gap with science and improve cooperation between farmers and science, so that science really responds to the questions farmers pose — to which they align their practices. In this sense, the scientific research can be more aligned to what farmers actually need, while the farmers may improve their own practices by also responding to the needs of the research.

To really tackle climate change challenges, we need innovation and technologies that are science-based and sustainable, because the main principle of all these agendas is sustainability. What we propose is that farmers contribute by improving their access to innovation research and technology to make their production more sustainable.

Q: Could you explain how you intend to take this practice to a global scale?

A: The other actors we plan to involve are those belonging to the food value chain, because we think that farmers alone cannot be the only solution. That’s why we’re establishing a partnership, for example, with the International Fertilizer Association as well as the International Seeds Federation. We’re in a partnership with Crop Life because they represent a huge element in the food chain. It has to be a global movement if you really want to achieve something that’s effective and efficient. We’ll expand also to other actors in the food chain. We’re also negotiating with multilateral governmental organizations because we need their support for advocacy work we want to do. Governments will become the targets instead of being those who will just propose and impose policies to the farmers. In our view, farmers have the solution in their hands already. What we have to do is to put them in a condition to really influence and feed the political documents that governments will adopt and that will become national policies.

A farmers group stands for a photograph at a demonstration plot of drought-tolerant (DT) maize in the village of Lobu Koromo, in Ethiopia’s Hawassa Zuria district. (Photo: P. Lowe/CIMMYT)
A farmers group stands for a photograph at a demonstration plot of drought-tolerant (DT) maize in the village of Lobu Koromo, in Ethiopia’s Hawassa Zuria district. (Photo: P. Lowe/CIMMYT)

Q: What is Climakers and the farmer-driven climate change agenda you launched at COP24?

A: Climakers are those who become part of the global alliance for this new initiative. The alliance is global, the agenda is farmers-driven. Farmers expressing their needs and their challenges and their best practices — together with science and the multilaterals and the private sector is that of supporting the agenda, supporting the farmers and take it to the governments. Climakers is the name we have chosen for those who are on the farmer side because we think that farmers may make the climate.

Q: In terms of the COP24 negotiations, are you getting any sense of what could be happening that could benefit farmers or are more demands being put on farmers?

A: I see it [as] a very slow process. We were very happy when we saw the concept of food security and food production in the Paris Agreement because although there is no mention of agriculture, at least they mentioned food production. It means that probably some little political will to address the farming sector is there. There is a will to implement the Paris Agreement in the agricultural sector. The negotiation is very slow between north and south regarding the mitigation and adaptation issue, and also the fact that financing for climate change is there, but probably the way it is managed is not really supporting the communities because the channels are too complicated and too long… There are probably some seeds up there, but it’s still a long way. That’s why farmers want to propose an icebreaking agenda.

Q: Are there any other key points you would like to make in the context of climate change?

A: One element that is a little bit controversial for me is critical in the development of agriculture and also in tackling climate change, which is innovation — innovation in terms of practices, in terms of technology, in terms of research, but also in terms of creating financing for farmers and to support rural areas. These have to come from the government side, from the value chain actors, from the farmers themselves and also from the science, from the research centers.

If we close the gap between the farmers and the science, it’s probably the way out for boosting development for the rural areas. We don’t have to be scared of being innovative. Innovation doesn’t mean GMOs. Innovation may also mean an innovative way to treat soils. It may be a new way to access markets, create access to finance for farmers, but also an innovative way to interact between governments and the farmers themselves. To me, innovation is the way out really, that can give a boost to this process.

A farmer's son carries his brother through the family field, planted with BH 546 DT maize, in the village of Lobu Koromo, in Ethiopia’s Hawassa Zuria district. (Photo: P. Lowe/CIMMYT)
A farmer’s son carries his brother through the family field, planted with BH 546 DT maize, in the village of Lobu Koromo, in Ethiopia’s Hawassa Zuria district. (Photo: P. Lowe/CIMMYT)
Participants of the Excellence in Breeding Platform (EiB) Contributor’s meeting pose for a group photograph. (Photo: Sam Storr/CIMMYT)

Breeders find strength in diversity at EiB contributor meeting

Written by Sam Storr on . Posted in Features.

Around 115 members of the CGIAR breeding community, plus others representing national programs, universities, funders and the private sector, met for a three-day discussion of how to co-develop the next generation of advanced breeding programs that will improve the rate at which resource-poor farmers are able to adopt improved varieties that meet their needs.

The annual Excellence in Breeding Platform (EiB) Contributor’s meeting, held this year in Amsterdam from 13-15 November, caps a year of engagement with CGIAR Centers and national agricultural research system (NARS) partners around the world.

Paul Kimani, from the University of Nairobi, speaks during the meeting. (Photo: Sam Storr/CIMMYT)
Paul Kimani, from the University of Nairobi, speaks during the meeting. (Photo: Sam Storr/CIMMYT)

“Although breeding is one of the oldest functions in CGIAR, we have never had a meeting like this with scientists from all the centers,” said Michael Baum, director of Biodiversity and Crop Improvement at the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas, (ICARDA). “Within CGIAR, plant breeding started as a science, but now we are looking at how to implement it not as a science but as an operation, as it is done in the private sector, so there are many new concepts.”

Key items on the agenda for November were new tools to develop product profiles and create improvement plans that will define the modernization agenda in each center and across the Platform itself, based in part on the Breeding Program Assessment Tool (BPAT) that most Centers completed in 2018.

The conversation was enriched by Paul Kimani (University of Nairobi) presenting on the Demand-led Variety Design project, which produced the book, “The Business of Plant Breeding.”

Ranjitha Puskur, gender research coordinator at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), started an animated discussion on how to incorporate gender into product design by thinking about customer segments.

Tim Byrne from AbacusBio introduced methods for identifying farmer preferences to be targeted by breeding programs.

IRRI's Ranjitha Puskur started a discussion on how to incorporate gender into product design. (Photo: Sam Storr/CIMMYT)
IRRI’s Ranjitha Puskur started a discussion on how to incorporate gender into product design. (Photo: Sam Storr/CIMMYT)

In breakout sessions, contributors were able to have detailed discussions according to their various specializations: phenotyping, genotyping and bioinformatics/data management. The direct feedback from contributors will be incorporated into EiB workplans for training and tool development for the coming year.

A key outcome of the meeting was an agreement to finalize the product profile tool, to be made available to EiB members in early December 2018. The tool helps breeders to work with other specialisms, such as markets, socioeconomics and gender, to define the key traits needed in new products for farmers. This helps to focus breeding activities towards areas of greatest impact, supports NARS to play a greater role, and creates accountability and transparency for donors, in part by defining the geographic areas being targeted by programs.

“Breeding trees is different to the annual crops,” said Alice Muchugi, genebank manager at the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF), “but we are seeing what we can borrow from our colleagues. By uploading what we are doing in maps, for example, donors are able to perceive the specific challenges we are undertaking.”

EiB's George Kotch describes his vision of product profiles. (Photo: Sam Storr/CIMMYT)
EiB’s George Kotch describes his vision of product profiles. (Photo: Sam Storr/CIMMYT)

“I think we have realized there are lot of challenges in common, and the Platform is helping us all work on those,” said Filippo Bassi, durum wheat breeder at ICARDA. “I like to see all the people around the room, if you look at the average age there is a big shift; the number of countries present also tells you a lot.”

Tabare Abadie, R&D external academic outreach lead at Corteva Agriscience, also saw the meeting as a good opportunity to meet a broader group of people. “One of the take homes I hear is [that] there are a lot of challenges, but also a lot of communication and understanding. For me as a contributor it’s an incentive to keep supporting EiB, because we have gone through those changes before [at Corteva], and we can provide some know-how and experience of what happens,” Abadie explained.

“There are still a lot of gaps to fill, but this is a good start,” said Thanda Dhliwayo, maize breeder at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT). “We need to get everyone involved, from leadership down to the guys working in the field.”

Michael Quinn, director of the CGIAR Excellence in Breeding Platform, discusses the CGIAR’s initiative on crops to end hunger.

Delegates of the 3-year review conference pose for a group photograph at the ICRAF Campus in Nairobi. (Photo: Joshua Masinde/CIMMYT)

International coalition keeps devastating maize disease at bay, but risks still linger

Written by Jérôme Bossuet on . Posted in Features.

NAIROBI, Kenya (CIMMYT) — When maize lethal necrosis (MLN) was first reported in Bomet County, Kenya, in September 2011 and spread rapidly to several countries in eastern Africa, agricultural experts feared this emerging maize disease would severely impact regional food security. However, a strong partnership across eight countries between maize research, plant health organizations and the private seed sector has, so far, managed to contain this devastating viral disease, which can wipe out entire maize fields. As another emerging pest, the fall armyworm, is making headlines in Africa, African countries could learn a lot from the initiatives to combat MLN on how to rapidly respond to emerging crop pests and diseases.

On November 19-20, 2018, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), national research and plant protection agencies and seed companies met in Nairobi to review the third year’s progress of the MLN Diagnostics and Management Project, supported by USAID. All participants agreed that preventing any spread of the disease into southern Africa was a great success.

“The fact that we all responded rapidly and productively to this crisis serves as a testament of the success of our collective efforts,” said CIMMYT’s Global Maize Program Director, B.M. Prasanna, while addressing delegates from Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. “That no new country has reported the MLN outbreak since Ethiopia last reported it in the 2014-2015 period, and that we have managed to keep it at bay from southern Africa and west Africa is no mean feat. It would have been a major food security disaster if the disease had spread throughout sub-Saharan Africa.”

However, the MLN Community of Practice warned that risks of severe outbreaks remain, with new cases of MLN reported during the MLN 2018 survey in several parts of Uganda.

Delegates from Rwanda discuss the country's workplan at the 3-year MLN project review. (Photo: Joshua Masinde/CIMMYT)
Delegates from Rwanda discuss the country’s workplan at the 3-year MLN project review. (Photo: Joshua Masinde/CIMMYT)

Rapid response to a food security threat

MLN is caused by the combination of the maize chlorotic mottle virus (MCMV) and other common cereal viruses mostly from the potyviridae family — a set of viruses that encompasses over 30 percent of known plant viruses — like the sugarcane mosaic virus (SCMV). This viral disease can result in up to 100 percent yield loss and has devastated the incomes and food security situation of many smallholder farmers in the region.

CIMMYT, in collaboration with national agricultural research institutions, national plant protection agencies and seed sector partners, developed a multi-layered response system including real-time intensive surveillance, screening, and fast-tracking of the MLN resistance breeding program. Thanks to the MLN Screening Facility in Naivasha, Kenya, maize breeders rapidly discovered that most popular maize varieties were susceptible, which could expose poor farmers to the risk of losing their entire maize crops.

Using its global collection of maize lines and numerous crop improvement innovations, CIMMYT was able to develop and release at least 15 MLN-resistant maize varieties in just 2 to 3 years.

One important step was to understand how the disease spread. Epidemiologists quickly pointed out the necessity to work with the seed companies and farmers, as the virus could be transmitted through seeds. The project helped put in place the protocols for seed firms to adhere to for their products to be MLN-free. Affordable and simple seed treatment procedures yielded promising results. The project also created awareness on better farming methods for effective disease control.

National Plant Protection Organizations were mobilized to create intensive awareness. They were also equipped and trained on low-cost innovative field diagnostic tools like MLN immunostrips and the deployment of GPS-based mobile surveillance and reporting systems.

“For the first time, Rwanda was able to conduct a comprehensive survey on MLN in farmers’ fields, commercial seed fields and at agro-dealers. We are glad that through MLN management and awareness programs within the project, MLN incidences have declined,” said Fidele Nizeyimana, maize breeder and pathologist at the Rwanda Agricultural Board (RAB) and the MLN Surveillance team lead in Rwanda.

“Equally important is that the commercial seed sector took the responsibility of testing their seed production fields, made sure that seed exchange is done in a responsible manner and implemented voluntary monitoring and surveillance within their fields,” remarked Francis Mwatuni, MLN project manager at CIMMYT.

“I am happy that Malawi has maintained its MLN-free status as per the intensive MLN surveillance activities we conducted in the country over the last three years,” noted Johnny Masangwa, senior research officer and MLN Surveillance team lead in Malawi. “We are now able to monitor both seed and grain movement through our borders for MLN traces, courtesy of the lab equipment, reagents and training on laboratory analysis we received through the project”.

B.M. Prasanna, director of the CGIAR Research Program on Maize (MAIZE), discusses what the CGIAR offers in rapid response preparedness to newly emerging pests, diseases and crises.

The maize sector should remain vigilant

Daniel Bomet, maize breeder at Uganda’s National Agricultural Research Organization (NARO), warned that with new infections reported in the northern parts of his country, the maize sector needs to remain alert to the threat of MLN. “We need to step up MLN awareness and management programs, and require seed companies to follow the right procedures to produce MLN-free seeds to arrest this trend,” he said.

Tanzania Seed Association Executive Director, Bob Shuma, also warned that MLN could be spreading to the southern highlands of the country as the virus was detected in some seed shipments from three seed companies operating in that region. A comprehensive MLN survey in Tanzania will hopefully soon give an idea of the countrywide status of the disease in the country.

Conference speakers and participants noted that inefficient regulatory processes in maize seed variety release and deployment still stand in the way of rapid release of MLN resistant varieties to farmers across the region.

“How quickly we scale up and deploy the elite MLN-resistant and stress-tolerant varieties to the farmer is the next most important phase of the project,” Prasanna said.

The Kenya Plant Health Inspectorate Service (KEPHIS) General Manager, Phytosanitary Services, Isaac Macharia, said that with the support of the USAID Feed the Future program, the government agency has set up a team dedicated to assisting seed companies doing seed multiplication to fast-track the release of the MLN-resistant varieties to the market. Some Kenyan seed companies announced they will market MLN-resistant varieties for the next cropping season in March 2019.

As the project enters its last year, the MLN Community of Practice looks to ensure the fully functional pest surveillance and management system it has put in place is sustainable beyond the project’s life.

CIMMYT researchers Dave Hodson (left) and Francis Mwatuni (center) discuss MLN issues with another delegate during the 3-year MLN project review workshop. (Photo: Joshua Masinde/CIMMYT)
CIMMYT researchers Dave Hodson (left) and Francis Mwatuni (center) discuss MLN issues with another delegate during the 3-year MLN project review workshop. (Photo: Joshua Masinde/CIMMYT)
Mechanization could boost Ethiopian wheat production and provide youth with new job opportunities. (Photo: Gerardo Mejía/CIMMYT)

A wheat self-sufficiency roadmap for Ethiopia’s future

Written by Jérôme Bossuet on . Posted in Features.

The Ethiopian government announced recently that the country should become wheat self-sufficient over the next four years. Why is boosting domestic wheat production important for this country in the Horn of Africa, and could wheat self-sufficiency be attained in the next four years? The Ethiopian Institute for Agricultural Research (EIAR), with the support of International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), gathered agriculture and food experts from the government, research and private sectors on November 23, 2018, to draw the first outlines of this new Ethiopian wheat initiative.

The low-tech domestic wheat farming and price support issue

Despite a record harvest of 4.6 million metric tons in 2017, Ethiopia imported 1.5 million tons of wheat the same year, costing US$600 million. Population growth, continuous economic growth and urbanization over the last decade has led to a rapid change in Ethiopian diets, and the wheat sector cannot keep up with the growing demand for pasta, dabo, ambasha and other Ethiopian breads.

The majority of Ethiopia’s 4.2 million wheat farmers cultivate this cereal on an average of 1.2-hectare holdings, with three quarters produced in Arsi, Bale and Shewa regions. Most prepare the land and sow with draft animal power equipment and few inputs, dependent on erratic rainfall without complementary irrigation. Yields have doubled over the last 15 years and reached 2.7 tons per hectare according to the latest agricultural statistics, but are still far from the yield potential.

According to data from the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), wheat is preferred by wealthier, urban families, who consume 33 percent more wheat than rural households. Ethiopia needs to rethink its wheat price support system, which does not incentivize farmers and benefits mostly the wealthier, urban consumers. Wheat price support subsidies could, for instance, target bakeries located in poor neighborhoods.

Where to start to boost wheat productivity?

Ethiopia’s Minister of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Eyasu Abraha, welcomes conference participants. (Photo: Jérôme Bossuet/CIMMYT)
Ethiopia’s Minister of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Eyasu Abraha, welcomes conference participants. (Photo: Jérôme Bossuet/CIMMYT)

Ethiopia, especially in the highlands, has an optimum environment to grow wheat. But to make significant gains, the wheat sector needs to identify what limiting factors to address first. The Wheat initiative, led by Ethiopia’s Agricultural Transformation Agency (ATA), has targeted 2,000 progressive farmers across 41 woredas (districts) between 2013 and 2018, to promote the use of improved and recommended inputs and better cropping techniques within their communities. A recent IFPRI impact study showed a 14 percent yield increase, almost enough to substitute wheat imports if scaled up across the country. It is, however, far from the doubling of yields expected initially. The study shows that innovations like row planting were not widely adopted because of the additional labor required.

Hans Braun, WHEAT CGIAR research program and CIMMYT’s Global Wheat Program director, believes Ethiopian farmers can achieve self-sufficiency if they have the right seeds, the right agronomy and the right policy support.

One priority is to increase support for wheat improvement research to make wheat farmers more resilient to new diseases and climate shocks. Drought and heat tolerance, rust resistance and high yields even in low-fertility soils are some of the factors sought by wheat farmers.

International collaboration in durum wheat breeding is urgently needed as the area under durum wheat is declining in Ethiopia due to climate change, diseases and farmers switching to more productive and resilient bread wheat varieties. Braun advises that Ethiopia set up a shuttle breeding program with CIMMYT in Mexico, as Kenya did for bread wheat, to develop high-yielding and stress-resistant varieties. Such a shuttle breeding program between Ethiopia and Mexico would quickly benefit Ethiopian durum wheat farmers, aiming at raising their yields similar to those of Mexican farmers in the state of Sonora, who harvest more than 7 tons per hectare under irrigation. This would require a policy reform to facilitate the exchange of durum germplasm between Ethiopia and Mexico, as it is not possible at the moment.

Ethiopia also needs to be equipped to respond quickly to emerging pests and diseases. Five years ago, a new stem rust (TKTTF, also called Digalu race) damaged more than 20,000 hectares of wheat in Arsi and Bale, as Digalu — the popular variety used by local farmers — was sensitive to this new strain. The MARPLE portable rust testing lab, a fast and cost-effective rust surveillance system, is now helping Ethiopian plant health authorities quickly identify new rust strains and take preventive actions to stop new outbreaks.

CIMMYT’s representative in Ethiopia, Bekele Abeyo, gives an interview for Ethiopian media during the conference. (Photo: Jérôme Bossuet/CIMMYT)
CIMMYT’s representative in Ethiopia, Bekele Abeyo, gives an interview for Ethiopian media during the conference. (Photo: Jérôme Bossuet/CIMMYT)

Invest in soil health, mechanization and gender

In addition to better access to improved seeds and recommended inputs, better agronomic practices are needed. Scaling the use of irrigation would certainly increase wheat yields, but experts warn not to dismiss adequate agronomic research — knowing the optimal water needs of the crop for each agroecological zone — and the underlying drainage system. Otherwise, farmers are at risk of losing their soils forever due to an accumulation of salt.

‘’2.5 billion tons of topsoil are lost forever every year due to erosion. A long-term plan to address soil erosion and low soil fertility should be a priority,” highlights Marco Quinones, adviser at ATA. For instance, large-scale lime application can solve the important issue of acid soils, where wheat does not perform well. But it requires several years before the soil can be reclaimed and visible yield effects can be seen.

CIMMYT gender and development specialist Kristie Drucza talks about innovation barriers for female-headed households linked to gender norms in Ethiopia. (Photo: Jérôme Bossuet/CIMMYT)
CIMMYT gender and development specialist Kristie Drucza talks about innovation barriers for female-headed households linked to gender norms in Ethiopia. (Photo: Jérôme Bossuet/CIMMYT)

Mechanization could also boost Ethiopian wheat production and provide youth with new job opportunities. Recent research showed smallholder farmers can benefit from six promising two-wheel tractor (2WT) technologies. Identifying the right business models and setting up adapted training programs and financial support will help the establishment of viable machinery service providers across the country.

Better gender equity will also contribute significantly to Ethiopia becoming self-sufficient in wheat production. Women farmers, especially female-headed households, do not have the same access to trainings, credit, inputs or opportunities to experiment with new techniques or seed varieties because of gender norms. Gender transformative methodologies, like community conversations, can help identify collective ways to address such inequalities, which cost over one percent of GDP every year.

‘’With one third better seeds, one third good agronomy and one third good policies, Ethiopia will be able to be wheat self-sufficient,” concluded Braun. A National Wheat Taskforce led by EIAR will start implementing a roadmap in the coming days, with the first effects expected for the next planting season in early 2019.

The consultative workshop “Wheat Self-Sufficiency in Ethiopia: Challenges and Opportunities” took place in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on November 23, 2018.

K.V. Naga Madhuri, Principal Scientist for Soil Science at Acharya N. G. Ranga Agricultural University (front), explains soil spectra during the opening of the soil spectroscopy lab at the Regional Agricultural Research Station in Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh.

New Soil Intelligence System for India provides high-quality data using modern analytics

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NEW DELHI (CIMMYT) — The new Soil Intelligence System (SIS) for India will help the states of Andhra Pradesh, Bihar and Odisha rationalize the costs of generating high-quality soil data and build accessible geospatial information systems based on advanced geostatistics. The SIS initiative will rely on prediction rather than direct measurements to develop comprehensive soil information at scale. The resulting data systems will embrace FAIR access principles — findable, accessible, interoperable, and reproducible — to support better decision-making in agriculture.

SIS is a $2.5 million investment funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. This initiative is led by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), in collaboration with numerous partners including the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), World Soil Information (ISRIC), the Andhra Pradesh Space Applications Center (APSAC), and the state governments and state agriculture universities of Andhra Pradesh and Bihar. The initiative runs from September 2018 through February 2021.

“SIS will make important contributions towards leveraging soil information for decision-making in Indian agriculture by devising new soil health management recommendations,” explained Andrew McDonald, CIMMYT’s Regional Team Leader for Sustainable Intensification and Project Leader for the Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA). Researchers and scientists will combine mapping outputs with crop response and landscape reconnaissance data through machine-learning analytics to derive precise agronomy decisions at scale.

Farmers will be the primary beneficiaries of this initiative, as they will get more reliable soil health management recommendations to increase yields and profits. SIS will also be useful to state partners, extension and agricultural development institutions, the private sector and other stakeholders who rely on high-quality soil information. Through SIS, scientists and researchers will have an opportunity to receive training in modern soil analytics.

The SIS initiative aims to facilitate multi-institutional alliances for soil health management and the application of big data analytics to real-world problems. These alliances will be instrumental for initiating broader discussions at the state and national levels about the importance of robust data systems, data integration and the types of progressive access policies related to ‘agronomy at scale’ that can bring India closer to the Sustainable Development Goals.

CIMMYT scientist Shishpal Poonia places a soil sample on the Tracer instrument for soil spectroscopy analysis.
CIMMYT scientist Shishpal Poonia places a soil sample on the Tracer instrument for soil spectroscopy analysis.

Better soil analysis

Spectroscopy enables precise soil analysis and can help scientists identify appropriate preventive and rehabilitative soil management interventions. The technology is also significantly faster and more cost-effective than wide-scale wet chemistry-based soil analysis.

As part of the CSISA project, led by CIMMYT and funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, two new soil spectroscopy labs were recently set up in Andhra Pradesh and Bihar, in collaboration with the state departments of agriculture. One lab is now operating at the Regional Agricultural Research Station (RARS) in Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh; and the other one at Bihar Agricultural University (BAU Sabour), in Bhagalpur, Bihar.

“The support from CIMMYT through the Gates Foundation will contribute directly to bringing down the cost of providing quality soil health data and agronomic advisory services to farmers in the long run,” said K.V. Naga Madhuri, Principal Scientist for Soil Science at Acharya N. G. Ranga Agricultural University. “We will also be able to generate precise digital soil maps for land use planning. The greatest advantage is to enable future applications like drones to use multi-spectral imagery and analyze rapidly large areas and discern changes in soil characteristics in a fast and reliable manner.”

Under the SIS initiative, soil spectroscopy results will be validated with existing gold standard wet chemistry methods. They will also be integrated with production practice data collected from the ground level, through new statistical tools.

K.V. Naga Madhuri, Principal Scientist for Soil Science at Acharya N. G. Ranga Agricultural University (front), explains soil spectra during the opening of the soil spectroscopy lab at the Regional Agricultural Research Station in Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh.
K.V. Naga Madhuri, Principal Scientist for Soil Science at Acharya N. G. Ranga Agricultural University (front), explains soil spectra during the opening of the soil spectroscopy lab at the Regional Agricultural Research Station in Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh.

Precise predictive models

Drawing information from a limited number of soil observations from a sample dataset, digital soil mapping (DSM) uses (geo)statistical models to predict the soil type or property for locations where no samples have been taken.

“These ‘unsampled locations’ are typically arranged on a regular grid,” explained Balwinder Singh, CIMMYT scientist and Simulation Modeler, “so DSM produces gridded — raster — soil maps at a specific spatial resolution — grid cell or pixel size — with a spatial prediction made for each individual grid cell.”

“Adopting DSM methods, combined with intelligent sampling design, could reduce the strain on the soil testing system in terms of logistics, quality control and costs,” noted Amit Srivastava, a geospatial scientist at CIMMYT. “Improving digital soil mapping practices can also help create the infrastructure for a soil intelligence system that can drive decision-making at scale.”

In partnership with state government agencies and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, CIMMYT will continue to support the expansion of digital soil mapping and soil analysis capacity in India. The CSISA project and the SIS initiative are helping to deliver soil fertility recommendations to farmers, an important step towards the sustainable intensification of agriculture in South Asia.

For more details, contact Balwinder Singh, Cropping System Simulation Modeler, CIMMYT at Balwinder.SINGH@cgiar.org.

An example of digital soil mapping (DSM), showing pH levels of soil in the state of Bihar. (Map: Amit Kumar Srivastava/CIMMYT)
An example of digital soil mapping (DSM), showing pH levels of soil in the state of Bihar. (Map: Amit Kumar Srivastava/CIMMYT)

CIMMYT drought tolerant maize: A key innovation for millions of farmers, says FAO

Written by Jérôme Bossuet on . Posted in Features.

As climate experts forecast another climate-warming El Nino in early 2019, maize varieties developed under the Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa (DTMA) initiative represent low-cost innovations that could improve the crop’s climate resilience and the livelihoods of millions family farmers across Africa, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

Drought tolerant (DT) maize was among 20 success stories featured at the Innovation Fair of the International Symposium on Agricultural Innovation for Family Farmers, organized and hosted by FAO in Rome from 21 to 23 November, 2018. Drawing more than 500 participants from farmer associations, international organizations, United Nations agencies, governments, research institutions and the private sector, the Fair aimed to devise and recommend actions that unlock the potential of agricultural innovation.

Drought-tolerant seeds: An affordable and effective way to cope with dry weather

‘’Since early 1990s, farmers in Zimbabwe face erratic rains and maize crops often fail due to frequent droughts,’’ said Cosmos Magorokosho, maize breeder based at the Harare, Zimbabwe, office of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).

Led by CIMMYT, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Howard Buffett Foundation, and involving 13 national maize breeding programs and various seed companies across Africa, DTMA is responsible for more than 160 new maize varieties, including 15 in Zimbabwe that yield 25 to 30 percent more than conventional varieties under dry conditions and perform as well as those varieties under normal rainfall. The latter was crucial for convincing seed companies to take up and market DT maize, according to Magorokosho.

In one study in drought-prone southern Zimbabwe, farmers using the DT varieties in dry years were able to harvest up to 600 kilograms more maize per hectare — worth $240 and enough maize for 9 months for an average family of 6 people — than farmers who sowed conventional varieties. The added food security comes at no additional cost and, if farmers choose to sell the grain, it brings extra income for other household needs.

Under the Stress Tolerant Maize for Africa initiative, CIMMYT and partners are continuing to develop maize varieties that cope not only with drought but with common constraints such as insect pests, diseases including Maize Lethal Necrosis and infertile soils.

Public-private partnerships enable demand-driven innovation

Adopting new technology or practices can represent unacceptable risks for resource-poor farming families, who live without the official safety nets enjoyed by peers in prosperous economies and will simply starve if their crops fail. Involving farmers, seed companies and other end users in development is essential for agricultural innovations to be widely adopted and sustainable, according to Bram Govaerts, global director of innovative business strategies at CIMMYT.

“Dialogue with global food processing companies can create market opportunities for smallholder farmers through approaches like local, responsible sourcing,’’ said Govaerts, speaking during the fair’s panel ‘Engaging the private sector to accelerate agricultural innovation.’

“More than 3,300 Mexican farmers on more than 35,000 hectares in 5 states will benefit from responsible sourcing arrangements, whereby the companies pay them to grow the grain using sustainable farming practices,” Govaerts explained, adding that the farmers will supply an estimated 400,000 tons of grain to participating companies in the next 3 to 5 years.

Mexico’s Agriculture Department (SAGARPA) supports these and other public-private partnerships through its investments in MasAgro, which studies, develops and transfers innovative farming practices and technologies to the field, with emphasis on family farmers.

In September, the FAO’s Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean acknowledged MasAgro as a replicable and scalable initiative that could contribute significantly to sustainable rural development in that region.

These two impactful examples show that agricultural innovation can only succeed through well-thought research and development partnerships, and building such collaborations is a science in itself.

Hosneara Bibi (top-right) shows her zero-tillage wheat crop. (Photo: SSCOP)

West Bengal agri-entrepreneur a role model for farmers in her community

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Hosneara Bibi (top-right) shows her zero-tillage wheat crop. (Photo: SSCOP)
Hosneara Bibi (top-right) shows her zero-tillage wheat crop. (Photo: SSCOP)

Hosneara Bibi is a farmer in the village of West Ghughumari, in the Cooch Behar district of West Bengal, India. She began her journey as an agricultural entrepreneur two years ago, when members of the nonprofit Satmile Satish Club o Pathagar (SSCOP), a CIMMYT partner, first came to her village.

Their visit was part of CIMMYT’s Sustainable and Resilient Farming Systems Intensification (SRFSI) project. This project aims to reduce poverty in the Eastern Gangetic Plains of Bangladesh, India and Nepal by making smallholder agriculture more productive, profitable and sustainable while safeguarding the environment and involving women.

In the context of the SRFSI project and in collaboration with Godrej Agrovet, Bibi and her self-help group received training on conservation agriculture practices for sustainable intensification. Self-help groups are small associations, usually of women, that work together to overcome common obstacles. With support from SSCOP, Bibi’s fellow group members learned about a variety of improved agricultural practices, including zero tillage, which improves soil nutrient levels and water efficiency. This support helped them to increase their crop yields while promoting sustainability.

Hosneara Bibi works at the rice seedling enterprise she and her fellow self-help group members started. (Photo: SSCOP)
Hosneara Bibi works at the rice seedling enterprise she and her fellow self-help group members started. (Photo: SSCOP)

After adopting the improved practices, Bibi increased her wheat yield by 50 percent. This positive experience encouraged her to implement mechanically transplanted rice technology. Bibi and her self-help group have since started a rice seedling enterprise and they offer their mechanically transplanted rice services to other farmers. This has become a profitable agri-enterprise for the group.

Bibi has been able to expand her farm and now cultivates wheat, rice and jute. She has also adopted digital technologies in her farming practice and now uses a mobile app to aid in pest management for her rice crop, designed by Uttar Banga Krishi Viswavidyalaya.

Because of her higher yields and the profitability of the self-help group’s rice seedling enterprise, Bibi has successfully increased and diversified her income. Her proudest moment was when she was able to buy a motorbike for her husband.

Members of the SRFSI team consider Hosneara Bibi a role model for other farmers and entrepreneurs in her community.

The Sustainable and Resilient Farming Systems Intensification project is funded by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research.

Hosneara Bibi (center, in pink) poses for a photograph with other members of her self-help group, SSCOP representatives and Sagarika Bose, Deputy General Manager of Corporate Social Responsibility for Godrej Agrovet. (Photo: SSCOP)
Hosneara Bibi (center, in pink) poses for a photograph with other members of her self-help group, SSCOP representatives and Sagarika Bose, Deputy General Manager of Corporate Social Responsibility for Godrej Agrovet. (Photo: SSCOP)

Breaking Ground: Huihui Li links new genetic knowledge with crop breeding

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Postcard_Huihui Li Breaking Ground

DNA is often referred to as the blueprint for life. It contains codes to make the proteins, molecules and cells essential for an organism’s growth and development. Over the last decade, scientists have been figuring out how specific sections of DNA in maize and wheat are associated with physical and genetic traits, such as grain size and drought resistance.

Quantitative geneticist Huihui Li with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) helps link this new genetic knowledge with traditional crop breeding, to speed up the development of improved maize and wheat varieties. Li’s research uses cutting-edge genomics, computational biology and statistical tools to turn data into useful information for plant breeders.

“Breeders always accumulate big amounts of data, most of the time they need efficient tools to mine the stories from this data. That’s part of our job in the Biometrics and Statistics Unit,” she explained.

Her research helps breeders more quickly and accurately predict which maize and wheat varieties in the CIMMYT gene bank have the traits they seek to create improved varieties. For example, if a plant breeder wanted to develop a hybrid maize variety with high protein levels and pest resistance, Li could help by identifying which parental varieties would have these traits.

It takes about ten years for crop breeders to develop a new hybrid. Removing some of the guesswork during the early stages of their experiments could reduce this time significantly. With increasing environmental pressures from climate change and population growth, releasing better crop varieties more quickly will be vital to ensure there is enough food in the future.

Li says her family and experience growing up in China greatly influenced her career choice.

“Through my grandfather’s experience as the head of the Bureau of Agriculture and Forestry, I learned that there were many people in China suffering from hunger, poverty and malnutrition,” she said.

Li realized that these issues were prevalent throughout the developing world when her mother left China for two years to serve as a foreign aid doctor in Cameroon.

“As a ten-year-old girl, I told myself that I should make my contribution to reduce hunger and poverty, and improve human nutrition in the future,” Li recalled. “I always ask myself, ‘What’s my value to humanity?”

She studied bio-mathematics and quantitative genetics at Beijing Normal University and Cornell University before joining CIMMYT in 2010 as a consultant.

“I wanted to join CIMMYT because it works throughout the developing world to improve livelihoods and foster more productive, sustainable maize and wheat farming,” Li explained. “Also, CIMMYT provided a platform where I could collaborate with scientists worldwide and receive academic and career-boosting trainings.”

She became staff in 2012 and is currently based out of the CIMMYT office in Beijing. In addition, Li is an adjunct associate professor with the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS). She helps CAAS scientists improve their experimental design and better incorporate genetic information into their crop breeding.

“I love doing research,” Li said. “I’m a curious person so if I can solve a problem, I feel very happy, but I really want my research to have value – not just for myself – but for the world.”

Huihui Li’s work contributes to Seeds of Discovery (SeeD), a multi-project initiative comprising: MasAgro Biodiversidad, a joint initiative of CIMMYT and the Mexican Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Rural Development, Fisheries and Food (SAGARPA) through the MasAgro (Sustainable Modernization of Traditional Agriculture) project and the CGIAR Research Programs on Maize (MAIZE) and Wheat (WHEAT).

Q&A: Expanding CIMMYT’s research agenda on markets and business

Written by Emma Orchardson on . Posted in Features.

TEXCOCO, Mexico (CIMMYT) — Food security is heavily dependent on seed security. Sustainable seed systems ensure that a variety of quality seeds are available to farming communities at affordable prices. In many developing countries, however, farmers still lack access to the right seeds at the right time.

In the past, governments played a major role in getting improved seed to poor farmers. These days, however, the private sector plays a leading role, often with strong support from governments and NGOs.

“Interventions in formal seed systems in maize have tended to focus on improving the capacity of seed producing companies, which are often locally owned small-scale operations, to produce and distribute quality germplasm,” says Jason Donovan, Senior Economist at International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT). “These local seed companies are expected to maintain, reproduce and sell seed to underserved farmers. That’s a pretty tall order, especially because private seed businesses themselves are a fairly new thing in many countries.”

Prior to the early 2000s, Donovan explains, many seed businesses were partially or wholly state-owned. In Mexico, for example, the Instituto Nacional de Investigaciones Forestales, Agrícolas y Pecuarias (INIFAP) produced seed and supplied it to a market-oriented entity which was responsible for distribution. “What we’re seeing now is locally owned private seed businesses carving out their space in the maize seed market, sometimes in direct competition with multinational seed companies,” he says. In Mexico, around 80 locally owned maize seed producing businesses currently exist, most of which have been involved in CIMMYT’s MasAgro Maize project. These are mostly small businesses selling between 150,000 and 500,000 kg of hybrid maize per year.

In the following Q&A, Donovan discusses new directions in research on value chains, the challenges facing private seed companies, and how new studies could help understand their capacities and needs.

Seed storage warehouse at seed company Bidasem in Celaya, Guanajato state, México. (Photo: X. Fonseca/CIMMYT)
Seed storage warehouse at seed company Bidasem in Celaya, Guanajato state, México. (Photo: X. Fonseca/CIMMYT)

How does research on markets and value chains contribute to CIMMYT’s mission?

We’re interested in the people, businesses and organizations that influence improved maize and wheat seed adoption, production, and the availability and quality of maize and wheat-based foods. This focus perfectly complements the efforts of those in CIMMYT and elsewhere working to improve seed quality and increase maize and wheat productivity in the developing world.

We are also interested in the nutrition and diets of urban and rural consumers. Much of the work around improved diets has centered on understanding fruit and vegetable consumption and options to stimulate greater consumption of these foods. While there are good reasons to include those food groups, the reality is that those aren’t the segments of the food market that are immediately available to or able to feed the masses. Processed maize and wheat, however, are rapidly growing in popularity in both rural and urban areas because that’s what people want and need to eat first. So the question becomes, how can governments, NGOs and others promote the consumption of healthier processed wheat and maize products in places where incomes are growing and tastes are changing?

This year, CIMMYT started a new area of research in collaboration with A4NH, looking at the availability of processed maize and wheat products in Mexico City — one of the world’s largest cities. We’re working in collaboration with researchers form the National Institute of Public Health to find out what types of wheat- and maize-based products the food industry is selling, to whom, and at what cost. At the end of the day, we want to better understand the variation in access to healthier wheat- and maize-based foods across differences in purchasing power. Part of that involves looking at what processed products are available in different neighborhoods and thinking about the dietary implications of that.

Your team has also recently started looking at formal seed systems in various locations. What direction is the research taking so far?

Our team’s current priority is to advance learning around the private sector’s role in scaling improved maize varieties. We are engaged with three large projects: MasAgro Maize in Mexico, Stress Tolerant Maize for Africa (STMA) and the Nepal Seed and Fertilizer Project (NSFP). We are looking to shed light on the productive and marketing capacities of the privately owned seed producing businesses and their ability to get more seed to more farmers at a lower cost. This implies a better understanding of options to better link seed demand and supply, and the business models that link seed companies with agro-dealers, seed producing farmers, and seed consumers.

We are also looking at the role of agro-dealers — shops that sell agricultural inputs and services (including seed) to farmers — in scaling improved maize seed.

At the end of the day, we want to provide evidence-based recommendations for future interventions in seed sectors that achieve even more impact with fewer resources.

Farmers purchase seed from an agro-dealer in Machakos, Kenya. (Photo: Market Matters Inc.)
Farmers purchase seed from an agro-dealer in Machakos, Kenya. (Photo: Market Matters Inc.)

This research is still in its initial stages, but do you already have an idea of what some of the key limiting factors are?

I think one of the main challenges facing small-scale seed producing businesses is the considerable expense entailed in simultaneously building their productive capacities and their market share. Many businesses simply don’t have a lot of capital. There’s also a lack of access to specialized business support.

In Mexico, for example, a lot of people in the industry are actually ex-breeders from government agencies, so they’re very familiar with the seed production process, but less so with options for building viable businesses and growing markets for new varieties of seed.

This is a critical issue if we expect locally owned seed businesses to be the primary vehicle by which improved seeds are delivered to farmers at scale. We’re currently in the assessment phase, examining what the challenges and capacities are, and hopefully this information will feed into new approaches to designing our interventions.

Is the study being replicated in other regions as well?

Yes, in East Africa, under the Stress Tolerant Maize for Africa (STMA) project. We’re working with seed producing businesses and agro-dealers in Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda to understand their strategies, capacities, and needs in terms of providing improved seed to more farmers. We’re using the same basic research design in Mexico, and there is also ongoing work in the Nepal Seed and Fertilizer Project. Given that we are a fairly small team within CIMMYT, comparable cross-regional research is one way to punch above our weight.

Why is this research timely or important?

The research is critical as CIMMYT’s impact relies, in part, on partnerships. In the case of improved maize seed, that revolves around viable seed businesses.

Although critical, no one else is actually engaged in this type of seed sector research. There have been a number of studies on seed production, seed systems and the adoption of improved seed by poor farmers. A few have focused on the emergence of the private sector in formal seed systems and the implications for seed systems development, but most have been pretty broad, examining the overall business environment in which these companies operate but not much beyond that. We’re trying to deepen the discussion. While we don’t expect to have all the answers at the end of this study, we hope we can shift the conversation about options for better support to seed companies and agro-dealers.

Jason Donovan joined CIMMYT in 2017 and leads CIMMYT’s research team on markets and value chains, based in Mexico. He has some 15 years of experience working and living in Latin America. Prior to joining CIMMYT he worked at the Peru office of the World Agroforestry Center (ICRAF), where his research focused on business development, rural livelihoods, gender equity and certification. He has a PhD in development economics from the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS).

Breaking Ground: Susan Dreisigacker

Breaking Ground: Susanne Dreisigacker knows wheat inside out

Written by Courtney Brantley on . Posted in Features.

Breaking Ground: Susan DreisigackerEL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) — Through pure coincidence, Susanne Dreisigacker fell into the world of agricultural science and landed in Mexico. Her interest in genetics and biology solidified when she arrived at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) through the University of Hohenheim in Germany to pursue her PhD work. Impressed by CIMMYT’s scientific endeavors and its mission, she found herself permanently back at the institution in 2005 as a resident scientist. Now, as the head of CIMMYT’s Wheat Molecular Breeding Lab, Dreisigacker ensures that wheat breeders use the appropriate wheat material to conduct gene profiling and genome sequencing.

Dreisigacker works to discover and validate molecular markers, or DNA segments, for traits of interest. This information helps breeders to develop improved crop varieties that feature those traits.

At its core, her position centers on defining best practices for genomic tool application in the wheat breeding program. These genomic tools serve as “…indirect selection criteria to ultimately assist breeders select improved outputs at the molecular level, such as disease resistance and enhanced nutritional quality in wheat,” explains Dreisigacker. Furthermore, her research amasses data on grain yield and its corresponding components — such as grain weight and other difficult traits to tackle in the wheat breeding world — to help breeders stabilize high yield rates.

On average, over 40,000 wheat lines a year are analyzed on behalf of breeders under Dreisigacker’s direction. The ultimate challenge is organizing this massive data outcome to effectively support the breeders.

Zooming out from the molecular level

Dreisigacker works to discover and validate molecular markers, or DNA segments, for traits of interest. (Photo: Darell Sison)
Dreisigacker works to discover and validate molecular markers, or DNA segments, for traits of interest. (Photo: Darell Sison)

Working in an environment with interdisciplinary characteristics such as a breeding program, it can be difficult to prioritize which traits merit the bulk of her time. Dreisigacker stresses that teamwork is paramount, from breeders to pathologists to quality specialists, as they all share mutual goals, so their efforts “need to intersect in order to be beneficial.” Dreisigacker enjoys interacting among the disciplines and sharing her work with the international wheat community.

Progress in the application of genomic tools and the push for their usefulness inspires Dreisigacker to continue her work with wheat at CIMMYT. Her work in the laboratory is the backbone of the transmission of better quality germplasm from breeders to farmers. “There is a need to more efficiently integrate gene profiling and genome sequencing into breeding. The transition from upstream genomic research to the processes of application and adaptability are overlooked,” says Dreisigacker.

When she is not looking at wheat at the molecular level, you can find her spending time with her husband and young daughter or teaching exercise classes in CIMMYT’s gymnasium.

The conference organized by the Fall Armyworm R4D International Consortium attracted the interest of a large group of participants. (Photo: African Union Commission)

International research-for-development coalition against fall armyworm, the not-so-nice, very hungry caterpillar

Written by Jérôme Bossuet on . Posted in Features.

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (CIMMYT) — African farmers have lost millions of dollars in earnings since 2016 due to the loss of crops to the voracious fall armyworm.

Since the initial shock, farmers, researchers, extension officers, agribusinesses, governments and donors have reacted quickly to fight the invasive pest in various ways, including with pesticides, agroecological approaches and new seeds.

Yet the situation is far from under control. A more coordinated research-for-development (R4D) action plan is urgently needed to ensure that effective and affordable solutions reach smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa so they can sustainably combat the devastating pest.

Smallholder farm socioeconomics are highly complex, which makes adoption of any new technology or practice a challenge. “We must look at the big picture to design safer, accessible, effective and sustainable solutions against fall armyworm,” said Martin Kropff, director general of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), which jointly coordinated “Fall Armyworm Research for Development: Status and priorities for Africa,” an international conference held from Oct. 29 to 31 at the African Union Commission in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Hosted by the Fall Armyworm R4D International Consortium, the conference was aimed at drawing a science-based roadmap to combat the hungry caterpillar. The partners organizing the conference were the African Union Commission (AUC), the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), the Centre for Agriculture and Biosciences International (CABI), CIMMYT, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (icipe), the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

Vulnerable smallholder farmers

African leaders consider the invasive fall armyworm “a big threat for African food security,” said Amira Elfadil, African Union Commissioner for Social Affairs, at the opening of the conference.

The caterpillar has munched through thousands of hectares of maize, sorghum and a few other commercial crops across Africa and is causing severe concerns among food and agriculture experts and policymakers. Since it was first detected in Nigeria and São Tomé, the moth has spread across more than 40 African countries and has been seen in India since July 2018. It could also invade Europe and other continents.

“Fall armyworm has been the fastest pest to expand across the continent,” said Eyasu Abraha, Ethiopia’s state minister for agriculture development.

The pest is a familiar foe to agricultural experts and farmers in the Americas who have fought against it for several decades. However, the pest has found an ideal environment to flourish in Africa, with diverse agro-ecologies and a warmer climate all year round amplifying its persistent threat.

It has a host range of more than 80 plant species, including maize, a staple food on which millions of people throughout sub-Saharan Africa depend for food and income security. It can cause total crop losses, and at advanced larval development stages can be difficult to control even with synthetic pesticides. The female fall armyworm can lay up to a thousand eggs at a time and produce multiple generations very quickly without pause in tropical environments. The moth can fly 100 km (62 miles) a night, and some moth populations have even been reported to fly distances of up to 1,600 kilometers in 30 hours, according to experts.

Entomologists are trying to fill a knowledge gap on how the fall armyworm behaves and migrates throughout Africa.

Solutions that may work to combat the pest in Brazil or North America may not be applicable for the agricultural context in Africa where most farmers are low-resource smallholders, struggling to access new knowledge and technologies.

The conference organized by the Fall Armyworm R4D International Consortium attracted the interest of a large group of participants. (Photo: African Union Commission)
The conference organized by the Fall Armyworm R4D International Consortium attracted the interest of a large group of participants. (Photo: African Union Commission)

High cost of ineffective collaboration

Hans Dreyer, director of FAO’s plant protection division, listed many collaborative initiatives, including national task forces and expert working groups, which contributed to document and inform the current state of knowledge.

There are still many knowledge and technical gaps. Some resourceful information platforms are already available for the farmers and extension workers, including the fall armyworm web portal created by CABI, the mobile farmer Q&A service PlantVillage, or Precision Agriculture for Development’s text messaging advisory service MoA-Info.

“The cost of not collaborating is pretty severe,” said Regina Eddy, who leads the Fall Armyworm Task Force at the USAID Bureau for Food Security. The real gamechanger will be that “all experts in the room agree on a common and concrete research-for-development agenda and how to organize ourselves to implement it effectively,” she added.

During the conference, the experts debated intensely on the technical gaps and the best ways to combat the pest through an integrated pest management strategy, including how to scout the caterpillar in the crop field, establish monitoring and surveillance systems, pest control innovations and appropriate policy support to accelerate introduction of relevant innovations.

Safe, sustainable, farmer-centered solutions

Short-term responses to the pest at present include synthetic pesticide use. However, there are public health and environment concerns over some of the toxic pesticides being used in Africa to control the fall armyworm.

Brian Sobel from Catholic Relief Services recalled witnessing a woman in Malawi who, in an effort to combat the pest, sprayed much more chemical pesticide on her maize than necessary.

The rapid increase of the pesticide market in Africa has led to the circulation of plenty of banned or counterfeit products, some very toxic for the farmer, said Steven Haggblade, a professor in the Department of Agricultural, Food and Resource Economics at Michigan State University in the United States. Farmers are often not well trained in the use of such chemicals and do not protect themselves during application, he said.

Pesticide use has many negative trade-offs, said Paul Jepson, a professor of environmental and molecular toxicology in the College of Agricultural Sciences at Oregon State University. Natural enemies like parasitic wasps are also often far more vulnerable to pesticides than fall armyworm larvae, which are hard to reach and hide themselves in the maize whorls for instance.

Continental action plan

A key recommendation made by the Fall Armyworm R4D International Consortium is to develop common methodologies and research protocols to ensure data from various studies across the continent are better used and compared. For example, how best could the true impacts of the fall armyworm on food and seed security, public health and environment be measured? Collaborative research could include multilocation assessment of the relationship between observed crop damages and yield losses, which is key to determine the efficacy of a pest control innovation.

Conference participants also agreed to work on defining economic and action thresholds for fall armyworm interventions, to ensure better recommendations to the farming communities.

Because no one solution can fit all farmers and socioeconomic contexts, advice must include use of environmentally safer pesticides, low-cost agronomic practices and landscape management and fall armyworm-resistant varieties, among other integrated pest management tools.

Enhanced cooperation between countries to access new technologies and manage the transboundary pest is seen as a priority. Consortium experts also urge an integrated pest management approach, initiated based on farmers’ needs. Controlling the fall armyworm in the long run will require important investments into research-for-development for generating and sharing knowledge and addressing technical gaps with farmers.

For more information on fall armyworm, this conference and the Fall Armyworm R4D International Consortium, please contact B.M. Prasanna, Director of CIMMYT’s Global Maize Program and of the CGIAR Research Program on MAIZE, at b.m.prasanna@cgiar.org.

Climate change could mean beer shortages on tap

Written by Courtney Brantley on . Posted in Features.

Beer brewing ingredients (Photo: Baker County Tourism)
Beer brewing ingredients (Photo: Baker County Tourism)

EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) — As the impact of climate change on food staples becomes more apparent, scientists with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) are beginning to study how increasing temperatures will affect other contributors to the human diet. A new study indicates that the global beer supply will be hard hit. Given how seemingly plentiful beer is, this is difficult news to hear.

The study, “Decreases in global beer supply due to extreme drought and heat,” was simply “born out of a love for beer and the fear of its potential scarcity,” says Wei Xiong, a senior scientist at the CIMMYT and a key contributor to the research.

Two years ago, Xiong and the other scientists began to design the study to learn more about extreme drought and heat patterns adversely affecting crops around the world. Barley, the primary cereal grain from which beer is brewed, is one of the most heat-sensitive crops, meaning that even short periods of high temperatures can affect grain quality and grain yield.

Despite a number of studies published assessing yield loss of barley and other crops due to global warming, there were no previous studies published connecting the price of beer to barley yield. The study, which the scientists refer to as the “drinking security” project, has garnered world-wide interest from various media outlets given the popularity of beer.

Wanting to connect their research with an interest of the general public, or the price of beer, the study’s authors saw value in researching the intersection of barley, beer and climate change. As a cross-culturally shared beverage, beer — to some extent — is more popular than rice, wheat and maize as it is recognized as a lifestyle staple. “This is the reason why we chose barley and beer as the case crop, to raise awareness of climate change and its impacts. The wide interest in the study proved we succeed,” says Xiong.

The study also points out an alternative way to raise the public awareness of climate change for the future, or presenting an issue that has tangible realities for the average person. “Consuming less beer thanks to climate change won’t necessarily affect global health, but having no beer will definitely add insult to injury, particularly when we’re watching sports matches,” says Xiong. “If you still want a few pints of beer, then the only way to do so is to mitigate climate change.”

In the process of conducting climate and crop model simulations for the study, Xiong improved available data on global barley supply through the introduction of the Decision Support System for Agrotechnology Transfer (DSSAT), a program used for simulating crop growth, to develop a global calibration algorithm to allow the model to reproduce historical and projected future barley production.

This was the first endeavor to date using the DSSAT model for single crop analysis on a global scale — a total of 38 barley producing regions were analyzed. Xiong also assisted in the designing of the study’s extreme warm weather index to identify extreme drought and heat years from climate simulation outputs.

Following the use of DSSAT, CIMMYT-led High Performance Computing (HPC) allowed for the calculation of barely grain yield change due to extreme drought and heat, a fundamental component of the study. CIMMYT is currently establishing the modeling capacity to be able to cover 30 more crops worldwide in addition to barley with multiple HPC models. This will ultimately aid CIMMYT in analyzing agricultural and economic risks associated with maize and wheat.

The study acknowledges its limitations as a result of factors that were kept constant such as the behaviors of barley producers and beer drinkers, global food stock and population growth. “One shortcoming of the paper that could be improved in cooperation with CIMMYT is looking at the spatial shift of crop area under a warming climate,” Xiong says. “This area shift, or cultivar shift between regions, has already happened in many countries to help cope with a warming climate, but we are not clear how it happens and its resulting consequences.”

Despite the study’s findings, there is still space to develop the analysis by further considering the implications of future climate change forecasts. While the fate of beer seems bleak, there is still hope for the beverage in that the study did not consider the world’s progress in developing heat and drought resistant barley varieties and their adoption by farmers. However, Xiong particularly believes that the study signals the butterfly effect in climate change impacts, meaning that everyone will eventually suffer from the effects of climate change if no action is taken to fight it.

With news of a potential decrease in the world’s beer supply, climate change seems to have abruptly arrived on beer lovers’ doorsteps.

General view of the 2018 Borlaug Dialogue venue. (Photo: World Food Prize)

To feed the world, take the science to the farmer

Written by Rodrigo Ordóñez on . Posted in Features.

DES MOINES (Iowa) — Hundreds of food and agriculture leaders from around the world gathered last week in Iowa, USA, for the 2018 edition of the Borlaug Dialogue. Much of the conversation this year was centered on how to “take it to the farmer,” as Norman Borlaug famously said. Experts discussed how to build sustainable seed systems, grounded on solid science, so improved varieties reach smallholder farmers.

General view of the 2018 Borlaug Dialogue venue. (Photo: World Food Prize)
General view of the 2018 Borlaug Dialogue venue. (Photo: World Food Prize)

Louise Sperling, senior technical advisor at Catholic Relief Services, presented a study on the sources of seed for smallholder farmers in Africa. She explained that 52.2 percent of households receive new varieties, but only 2.8 percent of the seed comes through agro-dealers. The biggest source is local markets and own stock, the so-called informal channels.

Quality and variety of seed should be the focus, emphasized Jean Claude Rubyogo, seed systems specialist at CIAT. In his view, we need to integrate formal and informal seed distribution channels, using the competitive advantages of each.

“When we take good seed, we address all African soil,” said Ruth Oniang’o, board chair at the Sasakawa Africa Foundation. Oniang’o explained access to financing is a major hurdle for smallholders to access better seed and other innovations. In her view, current financial products are inadequate. “Why should we get a farmer to pay 20 percent interest rates on a small loan?”

B.J. Marttin, member of the managing board of Rabobank Group, recommended financial institutions to partner with farmers through every stage, from production to sale, so they better understand risk and the whole value chain. Simon Winter, executive director of the Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture, captured the main points from the session on financing for agricultural entrepreneurs. “We have to have the farmer at the center. The farmer is the ultimate customer,” Winter said. “If we are not serving farmer needs, we are not really solving the problems.”

Research to feed the world

The 2018 Global Agricultural Productivity (GAP) Report, presented at the Borlaug Dialogue, shows the growing gap between future food supply needs and agricultural production, particularly in low-income countries. To meet the projected food needs of nearly 10 billion people in 2050, global agricultural productivity must increase by 1.75 percent annually, the report states, but has only increased 1.51 percent annually since 2010.

A plenary session led by CGIAR explored the role of research in tackling this and other complex challenges. “We have to talk about food and agriculture research,” said former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman. People need to understand research is not abstract academic knowledge, but rather useful innovation that goes “from the farm, to the table and to the stomach,” he explained.

“Innovation, no matter where you are in the world, is key to moving forward,” said Patience Koku, a farmer from Nigeria part of the Global Farmer Network. “I don’t think the farmers in Africa or in Nigeria need a lot of convincing” to adopt innovation, Koku noted. If someone is able to explain what a new technology can do, “farmers see that science can make their life better and embrace it.”

Rising to the challenge

Agricultural research is also crucial to confront global threats like pests, conflict and climate change.

A session led by CIMMYT presented the latest research and actions against fall armyworm. (Photo: Rodrigo Ordóñez/CIMMYT)
A session led by CIMMYT presented the latest research and actions against fall armyworm. (Photo: Rodrigo Ordóñez/CIMMYT)

Two separate sessions, hosted by Corteva Agriscience and CIMMYT, shared the latest approaches in the fight against fall armyworm and other pests and diseases. The Director General of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), Martin Kropff, explained how organizations are working together to respond to the rapid spread of fall armyworm in Africa and Asia. “We have to solve the problem based on science, and then develop, validate and deploy integrated pest management approaches,” Kropff said.

As part of the World Food Prize outreach program, Bram Govaerts, director of innovative business strategies at CIMMYT, gave a lecture to students at Brody Middle School about the importance of agriculture and food. “When people can’t grow crops or pay for food to feed their families, desperation turns to conflict.”

At a side event, the Economist Intelligence Unit presented the Global Food Security Index 2018, which ranks food systems in 113 countries based on affordability, availability, and quality and safety. Senior consultant Robert Powell explained that the index now includes an adjustment factor based on each country’s natural resource risks and resilience to the impacts of a changing climate. “All countries will experience the impact of climate change,” Powell said.

The pernicious effects of climate change were also evident to the 2018 World Food Prize winners, David Nabarro and Lawrence Haddad, who have led global efforts to curb child malnutrition. “There is no evidence to me that [this] crisis is going to stop, because climate change is here,” Nabarro declared. “The foods we choose to grow and eat have a large impact on emissions,” Haddad said. “Food has a lot to offer” on climate mitigation and “diversity is the secret sauce” for climate adaptation. “We need food systems that are diverse: in crops, locations, organizations involved in them…”

Less biodiversity translates into “less resilience and worse nutrition,” according to the Vice President of Peru, Mercedes Aráoz. Through improved health and nutrition services, the country more than halved malnutrition among children under five, from 28 percent in 2008 to 13.1 percent in 2016.

2018 World Food Prize winners Lawrence Haddad (left) and David Nabarro speak during the award ceremony. (Photo: World Food Prize)
2018 World Food Prize winners Lawrence Haddad (left) and David Nabarro speak during the award ceremony. (Photo: World Food Prize)

A rallying cry for nutrition

The impact of nutrition on the first 1,000 days of life lasts a lifetime, explained Haddad. “For young kids, these are permanent shocks.”

“If a person is not nourished in those very important weeks and months of life, the long-term consequences are likely to be irreversible,” Nabarro added. According to him, nutrition needs to be the target in the 2030 agenda, not only hunger.

“Nutrition-based interventions present us a new lens through which to create and assess impact as agricultural researchers,” said Elwyn Grainger-Jones, the executive director of the CGIAR System Organization. “Our future success must come not only from ensuring an adequate supply of calories for the global population, but also the right quality and diversity of foods to tackle hidden hunger as well.”

“We are not going to resolve the challenges of undernutrition without the ag sector stepping up in a big way and differently,” argued Shawn Baker, director of nutrition at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. “Nutrition needs you,” Baker told other participants. “Welcome to the nutrition family.”

See our coverage of the 2018 Borlaug Dialogue and the World Food Prize.
See our coverage of the 2018 Borlaug Dialogue and the World Food Prize.
Breaking Ground: Brendan Brown

Breaking Ground: Brendan Brown brings research to small-scale farmers

Written by Carolyn Cowan on . Posted in Features.

Agricultural research for development has tremendous potential for widespread impact in poverty alleviation and food security. However, achieving real benefits for farmers is challenging and many well-intentioned projects fail to achieve large-scale impact. According to Brendan Brown, a postdoctoral research fellow with CIMMYT’s socioeconomics program in Nepal, this is where his work can help.

“There have been decades of work trying to improve agricultural livelihoods, but many of these interventions are yet to have tangible impacts for farmers,” Brown said. “My research seeks to help address this gap, using novel frameworks and applying participatory methods.”

Socioeconomic research at CIMMYT plays a key role at the nexus of agricultural innovations, helping to enhance interventions and initiatives for greater impact. Knowledge from such studies helps to prioritize and target resources, optimizing research capacity and accelerating the uptake of innovations.

“I attempt to understand constraints and opportunities at various scales from farms all the way up to institutional levels,” Brown explained. “I then seek to find pathways to catalyze change that lead to improved farmer livelihoods. Such research is integral to getting agronomic research into farmers’ fields.”

This area of research calls for a mixture of qualitative and quantitative tools and expertise, for which Brown is well suited. He has a bachelor’s degree in Agricultural Science with a major in Soil Science. “However, after working in agricultural research and development for a few years, I saw a gap in linking agronomy to the contextual realities of smallholder farming, so I opted to pursue a career that bridges the gap between the physical and social sciences.”

A desire to help

Brown grew up in Australia, between Sydney and a family farm on the south coast of New South Wales. He enjoyed being outdoors, “preferably barefoot,” participated in hobby farming, and from an early age showed an interest in social justice issues. A career aptitude test taken towards the end of high school revealed he was suited to be one of three things: a ship captain, a nurse or an agricultural scientist. He opted for the latter.

It was at university that Brown gained the insight of applying his agricultural knowledge to helping smallholder farmers. During a backpacking trip from Cape Town to Cairo, which incorporated some agricultural volunteering, he witnessed first-hand the difficulties farmers face in sub-Saharan Africa. Upon returning to his studies, he resolved to pursue a career that would enable him to help smallholders and, at the same time, address some of the world’s biggest ethical dilemmas.

Research with impact

Newly graduated, Brown worked with the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR), based in Canberra, and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), based in Ghana, where he gained hands-on experience working in agricultural systems in developing countries across Asia, Africa and the Middle East. It also inspired his PhD, which explored the disconnect between development work at research stations and the reality experienced by African farmers.

“During my PhD, I collaborated with CIMMYT through the Sustainable Intensification of Maize Legume Systems in Eastern and Southern Africa (SIMLESA) initiative. I developed a more nuanced approach to what ‘adoption’ actually means in terms of uptake and impact assessments. I also studied communities’ attitudes to conservation agriculture practices and diagnosed key institutional bottlenecks within research and extension systems.”

Brown’s studies allowed him to develop novel mixed methods and participatory impact pathways to promote new farming practices, such as conservation agriculture, to smallholder farmers in Africa. “My work with CIMMYT allows me to contribute to solving some of the world’s biggest issues. Through interacting with smallholders, facilitating conversations and creating new understanding, I hope to contribute to real change.”

Brendan Brown during a field visit.
Brendan Brown (left) during a field visit.

Moving to Asia

After spending nearly a decade in and out of Africa, he joined the CIMMYT team in Nepal earlier this year and is relishing the opportunity to explore new contexts in South Asia.

“So much potential exists within the food systems of South Asia given the existence of multiple cropping seasons and diverse markets, as well as exciting developments in the use of mechanization and irrigation that have potential for delivering large-scale benefits, driving improved food security and profits.” However, he points out the integration of such innovations in this part of the world can be challenging due to inherent complex social hierarchies and caste systems. “I still have much to learn within such complex systems.”

Brown’s work in South Asia focusses on understanding the adoption, scaling and impact of sustainable intensification technologies and practices. He is primarily working with the Sustainable and Resilient Farming Systems Intensification (SRFSI) initiative, which aims to reduce poverty by making smallholder agriculture more productive, profitable and sustainable while safeguarding the environment and involving women in agriculture.

By studying the portfolio of CIMMYT-led initiatives in the region, he is also developing his understanding of prevailing sustainable intensification practices and the issues farmers face when implementing them. In addition to his work with SRFSI, Brown is soon to embark on a new ACIAR-funded research project aiming to enhance sustainable mechanization of farming systems in two provinces of Nepal by mobilizing strategic planning and collaboration.

“I look forward to sitting down with local agricultural service providers to understand how they run their businesses and how they structure their livelihoods,” Brown expressed. “This will then be paired with the perspectives of farmers, as well as extension officers, researchers and policymakers to build theories of change and pathways to maximize the uptake and impact of sustainable intensification practices.”

He highlights how local ownership of change can be fostered by implementing participatory methods during this process. This can result in transformative change, felt from the institutional level all the way to the smallholder farmer. Brown hopes his work in South Asia will deliver widespread impact for smallholder farmers and he welcomes collaboration and sharing of ideas and approaches with others working towards similar objectives.