Features – Page 21

‘Merry-go-round’ groups spin Kenyan women farmers to success

Written by on October 22, 2018. Posted in Features.

This month’s report from the United Nations’ scientific panel on climate change highlights worsening food shortages as one of the key impacts of global warming.

Tackling the monumental challenges set out in the report may seem like a mountain to climb, given the policy changes and rapid government action required. Yet, on her 4-acre farm on the foothills of Mount Kenya in Embu county, 65-year-old Purity Gachanga proves it is possible to fight eroding soils, enrich farmland, and increase and diversify food production.

What’s more, she shares her methods with 60 women making up a “merry-go-round” group that meet regularly in her front garden. They each contribute a small sum of money which forms their communal savings system. “Many have put the money towards their farms but we also use it for other things we want like blankets, utensils or chairs,” explains Gachanga.

The group also helps the women share new methods, she adds. “I have learnt many techniques from scientists during training days and I am always one of the first to try these out on my farm. So when we get together for the merry-go-round meetings, I show the others what I am doing and how well it works. They then want to try on their own farms.”

Gachanga points to neat rows of fodder plants on the edges of her farm. “Before I would lose all this topsoil when it rained heavily. I learnt that planting certain varieties of fodder plants with deep roots holds the soil together. The plants also add fertility to the soil and give me good feed for my goats.”

Her goats are very precious as besides providing milk and meat, they helped her pay the school fees for nine of her children. The animals are an essential part of her sustainable farming system as they provide fertilizer for her fields.

The farm is flourishing with beans, kale, amaranth, tomatoes and pumpkins. Gachanga rotates the crops so the soil is never left exposed. “I get a profit from each patch so it makes sense to plan how to use it. I make money, keep my soil and animals in good health and we have a varied diet ourselves.”

The training she has received is part of an initiative called the Sustainable Intensification of Maize-Legume Cropping Systems for Food Security in Eastern and Southern Africa (SIMLESA), whose goal is to scale up proven soil conservation and food production techniques. Its demonstration sessions bring researchers, extension agents, the private sector, and farmers together to discuss and share expertise, and Gachanga is a keen learner.

Richer soils, more food

Continual farming and mono-cropping of maize along with minimal fertilizer and manure use has rapidly depleted African soil nutrients and resulting yields. Farmers are also used to feeding their livestock with crop remnants from their fields which leaves the soils exposed, further worsening erosion and soil fertility. To address this, farmers are encouraged to leave either all or some crop residues on the field and add nitrogen-fixing legume crops in rotations with cereal crops and forages.

SIMLESA is on target to achieve its overall goal of reaching 650,000 farmers and increasing farm productivity in Eastern and Southern Africa by 30 percent by 2023.

Rahma Adam, gender specialist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) which is leading SIMLESA, said rural women can access better opportunities by being part of a farming innovation group.

The Liganwa women farmers group in Siaya County in Kenya’s Nyanza Province, started in 2007 to help widows in the community get capital to start micro-businesses, and also uses the rotating ‘merry-go-round’ credit and savings system.

After initial challenges in raising capital, as some members were unable to pay their contribution, they joined SIMLESA as part of an agriculture innovation platform. “By experimenting with the demonstrated conservation agriculture techniques, the Liganwa women have since transformed their farming and incomes,” says Adams.

The platform has also enabled women as a group to negotiate better prices to buy inputs and sell produce. Better yields and markets mean members bring money to the group from the surplus maize they sell. So, the merry-go-round now turns with 3 to 5 times more borrowing capacity and 100 percent repayment rates.

One priority of the United Nations’ International Day of Rural Women on October 15 each year is to foster women’s empowerment through climate-resilient agriculture, as with Gachanga and the merry-go-round farmers groups. The challenge is making sure governments put policies and systems in place to ensure other farmers can, and want to, follow suit.

This article was originally published by Thomson Reuters Foundation here.

Sustainable Intensiﬁcation of Maize-Legume Cropping Systems for Food Security in Eastern and Southern Africa (SIMLESA) is an eight-year food security program supported by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR).

Launched in 2010, SIMLESA is managed by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and implemented by national agricultural research systems in Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania. In Kenya, CIMMYT is working closely with the Kenya Agriculture and Livestock Research Organization (KALRO).

Scaling up mechanization in Bangladesh through partnerships

Written by on October 17, 2018. Posted in Features.

Over the last two decades, a significant number of rural Bangladeshis – especially youth – have migrated to urban centers, looking for higher paying jobs and an escape from agricultural labor. Conor Riggs is the Global Director of Markets and Entrepreneurship at iDE. He says smallholder farmers in Southern Bangladesh are increasingly struggling to find and afford farm labor to help harvest crops and perform a variety of other on-farm activities.

Riggs says small-scale mechanization, such as two-wheeled tractors fitted with intensification machinery and surface irrigation pumps, can help farmers make up for this labor gap and increase productivity, while boosting the local economy by supporting micro- and small enterprises.

But as Riggs discussed at the recent Scale Up Conference at Purdue University, designing the perfect machine or technology is not enough to create sustainable, far-reaching impact. On the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, we’re following up with him to learn more about the role of markets and partnerships in bringing small-scale mechanization to rural Bangladesh.

Q: Five years ago, CIMMYT and iDE co-designed and began implementing the USAID Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia – Mechanization and Irrigation (CSISA-MI) project. What were the goals when you began?

Our goal was to establish a new industry for attachments in two-wheel tractors in agricultural mechanization, technologies like seeders, reapers and high-volume irrigation pumps for surface water. We wanted to help farmers access services through a fee-for-service model – small entrepreneurs buy machines and rent out those machines to farmers or directly provide that service themselves. There wasn’t really a market naturally growing for these machines in ways that included smallholders while being commercially viable, so we aimed to build it as best we could.

The results of this effort to date have been strong: 191,000 farmers can now access machinery services from a growing network of nearly 3,000 local microenterprise service providers, representing improved cultivation across 92,000 hectares in Southern Bangladesh. And we see abundant evidence that this market is scaling organically now that it’s established a model that works for both firms and farms.

Q: How did you create a market?

We incentivized several large conglomerates in the agri-business space to co-invest with us on several container-loads of these machines, which we imported from Thailand and China. We helped them find some early adopter dealers and local service providers who would actually buy them. Then we developed short-term smart subsidies to drive down the costs of supply chain development, accelerated customer adoption of the machines, and overall market growth.

An important aspect of our strategy is that we did not present these accelerating investments as typical subsidies; rather, we worked with our private partners to offer commercial discounts so that service providers and farmers would recognize the true value of the product and the short-term opportunity to adopt the technology in its initial commercialization phase.

We first implemented this strategy with two leading firms in the market who concurrently launched a very proactive marketing campaign. Then we started pulling back those discounts overtime, year by year, as the initial partner firms found the market opportunity, and redirected this acceleration process with an additional group of interested companies that also wanted to enter the market in an inclusive manner.

Q: So the companies were benefiting from the discount?

Yes, but we created a lot of conditions. Essentially, the more project investment that was committed by the project to discount the cost of the machinery, the more we expected to see both cash and in-kind investment from those companies. In the end, about a dozen companies come into the game with about five that have really driven a lot of heavy investment.

Partnerships have been key throughout this project. What were the different strengths iDE and CIMMYT brought to the table?

iDE is a market development organization. We focus on market-based solutions, technology commercialization, last mile distribution, and market access. Fundamentally, we see our job as de-risking the market for companies to invest in lower income areas and empower the farmer and their family as both consumers and suppliers in the formal economy. To do this, we employ a lot of supply chain development, product re-design and most importantly, we develop networks of micro-entrepreneurs to serve the ‘missing middle’ between the formal and informal economies.

CIMMYT brings leading capabilities in linking science and practice, with an un-paralleled strength in understanding the agronomic rationale and the agronomic and economic combinations of the technologies as they’re applied on the ground.

CIMMYT knew what technologies were needed on the ground in Southern Bangladesh to genuinely improve productivity and efficiency in the face of changing economic circumstances, and understood how to apply them to real world conditions in alignment with market-based diffusion mechanisms. CIMMYT was also instrumental in working closely with the Bangladesh Agriculture Research Institute (BARI) and extension services, key government partners that helped us ensure market development was in alignment with public and social policy.

It can be difficult finding a synergy between two different organizations. Did you run into any challenges?

CIMMYT and iDE have different specializations, and at the beginning, we had natural, friendly debates about how to best integrate them and achieve highly ambitious project objectives. But relatively quickly, we figured out how to learn from each other and synthesize our approaches for the best results. Both CIMMYT and iDE approached the partnership with a mission driven focus and a sense of constant, mutual respect for the value each partner brought to the table.

What do you see for the future?

As for iDE, we’re excited to expand this successful partnership with CIMMYT to figure out how we can further replicate this success in other countries where we both work. While some of the market conditions in Bangladesh have provided us with unique opportunities for technology scaling in mechanization, we’re highly optimistic that the underlying partnership principles and management systems of CSISA-MI can be replicated in other programs and country contexts – even in ostensibly more challenging market environments.

The CSISA-MI project is funded by USAID.

Rómulo González’s daughter holds a corncob. (Photo: Sarah Caroline Mueller)

Better together: Partnership around zinc maize improves nutrition in Guatemala

Written by Jennifer Johnson on October 16, 2018. Posted in Features.

On World Food Day, October 16, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) joins the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and partners around the world in their call to realize Sustainable Development Goal 2: Zero Hunger by 2030. Learn how CIMMYT, HarvestPlus and Semilla Nueva are working together to use biofortified zinc-enriched maize to reduce malnutrition in Guatemala, an important component of Goal 2.

Over 46 percent of children under five in Guatemala suffer from chronic malnutrition. More than 40 percent of the country’s rural population is deficient in zinc, an essential micronutrient that plays a crucial role in pre-natal and post-natal development and is key to maintaining a healthy immune system. CIMMYT, HarvestPlus and Semilla Nueva are working together to change this, through the development and deployment of the world’s first biofortified zinc-enriched maize.

“In Latin America, Guatemala is among the top 3 countries with the highest rates of zinc and iron deficiencies, and it is characterized by a high production and consumption of staple foods such as maize and beans. This made Guatemala, along with Haiti, the top prioritized countries for biofortification in the region, according to the Biofortification Priority Index (BPI) for Latin America,” said Salomón Pérez, the HarvestPlus country coordinator for Guatemala. HarvestPlus developed the BPI in 2013 to select the countries, crops and micronutrients in which to focus their efforts in Latin America. The BPI combines three sub-indexes: production, consumption and micronutrient deficiency level. “As maize is a staple food in Guatemala, with high levels of consumption and production, the development of biofortified maize with enhanced zinc was prioritized for the country,” he said.

Biofortified maize is a unique and efficient way of improving nutrition. As the nutrients occur naturally in the plant, consumers do not have to make any behavioral changes to get results. Rather than having to import supplements or fortify food, seeds and crops are sourced within the country, which makes this option more sustainable and accessible even in remote rural areas. It tastes the same as non-biofortified maize varieties and requires no special preparation methods. This made biofortification the obvious choice for improving zinc deficiency in Guatemala, and CIMMYT the obvious partner.

“CIMMYT has over 50 years of experience in tropical maize breeding for different traits,” said Félix San Vicente, one of the CIMMYT maize breeders leading the project. “Throughout our history we have developed elite materials with important agronomic and nutritional traits, such as Quality Protein Maize (QPM).”

The long lineage of zinc maize

Developed by CIMMYT scientists Evangelina Villegas and Surinder Vasal, QPM has enhanced levels of lysine and tryptophan, essential amino acids, which can help reduce malnutrition in children. Villegas and Vasal would later go on to win the World Food Prize in 2000 for this groundbreaking work, and genetic variation found in QPM would serve as the baseline for developing zinc-enriched maize.

*A maize plot of the Fortaleza F3 variety in Guatemala. Photo: Sarah Caroline Mueller.*

After years of breeding work and research, the world’s first biofortified zinc maize hybrid, ICTA HB-18, was released in Guatemala in May 2018. It was developed by CIMMYT, the CGIAR Research Programs on Maize (MAIZE) and Agriculture for Nutrition and Health (A4NH), and Guatemala’s Institute for Agricultural Science and Technology (ICTA) with support from HarvestPlus. Commercialized by Semilla Nueva under the name Fortaleza F3, the biofortified zinc maize hybrid contains 6-12ppm more zinc and 2.5 times more quality protein compared to conventional maize varieties. An open pollinated variety, ICTA B-15, was also released.

Just 100 grams of tortilla made of either of these varieties can provide 2.5 milligrams of zinc, 50 percent of the daily recommended intake for children, making zinc-enriched biofortified maize an excellent tool in the fight against malnutrition and hidden hunger.

As CIMMYT is a breeding organization, it depends on national partners to get seeds to the farmers. That is where Semilla Nueva comes in. This non-profit social enterprise is working to get high yielding biofortified seeds to farmers in Guatemala.

Rómulo González's daughter holds a corncob. — *Rómulo González’s daughter holds a corncob. Photo: Sarah Caroline Mueller.*

The last mile

“We need to be able to impact farmers with our improved germplasm,” said San Vicente. “Semilla Nueva takes us to the last mile, to the farmers, which alone we could not do, so that our breeding work can achieve impact in farmers’ fields and lives.”

Semilla Nueva targets commercial farmers in Guatemala, as they are the main source of maize consumed in the country. Typically, a quarter of their harvest is consumed at home and surplus is sold in local markets, meaning that the zinc maize not only provides increased income to farmers, but also improves nutrition in their families, communities and country at large.

“CIMMYT, along with partners like HarvestPlus, have provided the technologies and support to allow us to come up with new ways to improve farmers’ lives. Tapping into decades of research from qualified scientists is the only way that an organization of our size can have hope of making an impact in the lives of millions of farmers. That’s what makes the partnership so incredible,” said Curt Bowen, executive director and cofounder of Semilla Nueva. “We provide the innovative way to get technologies to farmers through our social enterprise model. CIMMYT and HarvestPlus come up with the technologies that we never could have come up with on our own. Together, we help thousands of families make huge changes in their lives and take on malnutrition, which is one of the world’s biggest challenges to ending global poverty.”

Semilla Nueva plans to produce 5,000 bags of Fortaleza F3 next year, which will represent 5 percent of the Guatemalan hybrid seed market.

*Farmer Rómulo González on his maize plot.Photo: Sarah Caroline Mueller.*

“Farmers have responded very positively to Fortaleza F3. They are convinced of its performance, especially during the dry season,” said Angela Bastidas, senior operations director at Semilla Nueva. “The way we approach farmers is not different than other seed companies; through farm visits, meetings, or field days. We are not reinventing the wheel. The difference with us has been offering farmers exactly what they need in terms of maize performance and price. Additionally, they find that our maize produces soft tortillas that taste better!” she explained.

In the end, the results speak for themselves. Fortaleza F3 increases yields by 13 percent and profits by $164 per bag compared to other mid-priced seeds, which goes a long way in improving farming families’ livelihoods, food security and nutrition.

“With Fortaleza F3, I pay less for the seed compared to other mid-priced competitors that I used to plant. F3 also yields more, giving me a greater profit,” said Rómulo González, a farmer from the southern coast of Guatemala. “With the extra income I’ve gotten since switching to F3, I’ve been paying for my daughter to go to school. Fortaleza F3 not only gave me a good harvest, but also the ability to support my daughter’s education.”

The feminizing face of wheat farming in South Asia

Written by Courtney Brantley on October 12, 2018. Posted in Features.

In wheat systems throughout South Asia, the gender myth that “wheat is a man’s crop” is still pervasive. To debunk this myth, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) is combatting stereotypical norms of women in agriculture through GENNOVATE, a project carried out by 11 CGIAR Research Programs. Led by CIMMYT, this global comparative research initiative strives to address the questions of how gender norms influence men, women and youth to adopt innovative practices and technologies in agriculture and natural resource management.

Surprisingly, there was little knowledge and little literature on the intersection of wheat farming and gender before 2013. What was peculiar about the narrative of women wheat farmers in South Asia was that they were described — by rural advisory services, research organizations and even farmers themselves — as if they had never set foot in a field. On the ground, however, the local reality has long been different. Women, typically from particular castes and income groups, are involved in field operations.

South Asia is experiencing a rise in innovative undertakings by women in agriculture. This change, fueled by strong male outmigration in some locations, has been promoted by equality narratives created through social and women’s movements, NGOs and education. They have all contributed to strengthen women’s desire to have a voice in decision-making. “The face of agriculture in South Asia, particularly wheat farming, is feminizing,” says Cathy Rozel Farnworth. She is a social inclusion, gender and agriculture expert working with CIMMYT’s Gender Research Unit to analyze interactions between changing gender norms and agricultural innovation.

This shift was one of the findings in a series of comparative studies conducted through GENNOVATE in three research hotspots in South Asia: Bangladesh, India and Nepal. Farnworth and co-authors from the region, CIMMYT and Glasgow Caledonian University analyzed the similarities and distinctions in each country.

In the village of Nalma, Lamjung District, Nepal, most of the adult male population has gone abroad for work, leaving only children, women and the elderly. (Photo: Mokhamad Edliadi/CIFOR) — *In the village of Nalma, Lamjung District, Nepal, most of the adult male population has gone abroad for work. (Photo: Mokhamad Edliadi/CIFOR)*

Shifting rules

In Nepal, women are traditionally seen as destitute and far from equals in the farming community. However, migration of men to urban areas and to other countries has given way to more opportunities in agriculture for women in rural communities. “This translates to a fundamental change in the social structure of communities and the roles of men and women, due to the absence of men,” says Farnworth. Women in the community are increasingly taking on the challenging managerial roles that men once occupied. While women in Nepal support themselves and their families, they rarely have institutional support from rural advisory services, for example, training on new wheat technologies. On occasion, support comes from individual male extension workers, and women report that NGOs have been critical to building their sense of empowerment and entitlement. Learning networks between women farmers are also important. Overall, the gender myth that “wheat is a man’s crop” is shifting in Nepal, but extension services, researchers, the private sector and others need to catch up quickly with this new reality to help provide women with adequate support.

Wheat is also increasingly becoming a women’s crop in India, despite limited institutional support and neglect. In some locations, women are responding to male outmigration not only by increasing their work in the field, but also taking key decisions, for example on hiring labor and machinery. Some women are also driving machinery themselves. In other locations, women, though not involved in fieldwork, are trying to strengthen their participation in decision-making around wheat technologies. They have an understandable interest in what happens on the farm and in how investments will impact family income. Overall, the GENNOVATE data shows that, “Women are limited by, working with and increasingly renegotiating gender and caste identities,” says Farnworth.

In Bangladesh, a women-only agricultural organization dominated by the Santal indigenous community is strongly innovating in wheat. Interestingly, the organization is drawing in and supporting low-income Muslim women innovators as well. This case study is particularly valuable in relation to achieving Sustainable Development Goals because it shows that even though Santal women are truly “left behind” in Bangladesh, very small institutional modifications have enabled them to take charge of the organization and inspire a whole community.

Taking decisions and innovating

*Women use a mini-tiller for direct seeding in Ramghat, Surkhet, Nepal. (Photo: P. Lowe/CIMMYT)*

The driving force surrounding these cases in South Asia is the gender equality narrative. The narrative is not driven by men or external partners; rather, it is being transformed by women from within. Women have been long working in the fields; they have always been part of the wheat story. Now many women are demonstrably taking more decisions about wheat, giving them more control over their own lives and households.

GENNOVATE researchers are now looking for ways to work with women themselves, with their partners, with rural advisory sectors, the private sector, community leaders and others to address the demand for technological advances to improve their wheat harvest, including machinery. The starting point is that women need to be seen as capable farmers. Partners need to get on board and start working the new realities of “who does what,” “who decides” and “who benefits,” rather than continue subscribing to old myths. Rural women farmers have critical interests in wheat, whether they farm in the field or not. Women want and are seeking inclusion. Women are collectively expressing, “We have the right to be interested, and participate in innovating around wheat,” Farnworth states.

The comparative studies are available for download:

CHALLENGING GENDER MYTHS: Promoting inclusive wheat and maize research for development in Nepal

LEAVING NO ONE BEHIND: Supporting women, poor people, and indigenous people in wheat-maize innovations in Bangladesh

STRENGTHENING WOMEN IN WHEAT FARMING IN INDIA: Old challenges, new realities, new opportunities

Cathy Rozel Farnworth is a social inclusion, gender and agriculture expert. She holds a PhD in Rural Development Studies from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and an MA in Gender Analysis. Farnworth collaborates with CIMMYT on the CGIAR GENNOVATE global research project, among others. Farnworth trained and mentored the Ethiopian GENNOVATE research teams and has also supported CIMMYT’s gender research under the CGIAR research program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS).

Avoiding the next Aral Sea: Scaling responsibly

Written by on October 11, 2018. Posted in Features.

The Aral Sea was once the world’s fourth largest inland body of water. But in 1959, Soviet premier Nikita Khruschev unfurled a plan for industrialized agriculture across Central Asia. The government constructed irrigation canals to divert water from the Amu Syr and Amu Darya rivers, the two primary feeders for the Aral Sea, to thirsty cotton fields in Uzbekistan. Today, only about two-fifths of the sea remain. Evaporation exasperated by climate change and pesticide runoff have left the remaining body of water salty and polluted.

MSI's founder and president Larry Cooley presents at the Purdue Scale Up Conference 2018. (Photo: Rachel Cramer/CIMMYT) — *MSI’s founder and president Larry Cooley presents at the Purdue Scale Up Conference 2018. (Photo: Rachel Cramer/CIMMYT)*

The disappearance of the Aral Sea is a tragic story about scaling gone wrong. Larry Cooley, one of the top scaling experts in the world, describes scaling as the attempt to overcome a gap between the need for something and the extent to which that need is being met. In the case of the Aral Sea, the Soviet Union saw a need for more robust cotton production and decided to overcome the gap through large-scale irrigation.

They were successful in reaching their scaling ambition but at a high and unsustainable cost. Would Kruschev still go ahead with his development scheme if he knew it would cause irreversible ecological damage in the future? Would he still prioritize high cotton yields if he knew it would decimate the local fishing industry and leave thousands unemployed?

At the recent Scale Up Conference at Purdue University, over 200 researchers and practitioners gathered to discuss effective approaches to scaling up agricultural technologies and innovations in the developing world. The tagline read “Innovations in agriculture: Scaling up to reach millions.” Several of the presenters, however, argued development organizations should think about potential tradeoffs before trying to reach the biggest impact.

Finding the optimal scale

*CIMMYT’s scaling advisor Lennart Woltering (left) and mechanization specialist Jelle van Loon led a session. (Photo: Rachel Cramer/CIMMYT)*

CIMMYT’s scaling advisor Lennart Woltering and mechanization specialist Jelle van Loon led a session on the opportunities and challenges to scaling two-wheeled tractors in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Van Loon explained how mechanization can decrease labor costs, improve livelihoods and help farmers stay locally and internationally competitive, but he acknowledged a few potential downsides. Small tractors of this kind require fossil fuels and maintenance, and introducing mechanization to a rural community has the potential to displace jobs and shift gender roles.

Woltering explained a new tool can help researchers and development organizations think through these tradeoffs in a systematic way. The Scaling Scan, which he developed in a collaboration with The PPPLab, guides users through a series of questions and prompts them to reflect on what scaling means, what it takes to take a project to scale and what the unintended consequences could be in a particular context.

Lennart Woltering (second from left) presents the "ingredients" of the Scaling Scan tools during one of the sessions of the Purdue Scale Up Conference. (Photo: Rachel Cramer/CIMMYT) — *Lennart Woltering (second from left) presents the “ingredients” of the Scaling Scan tools during one of the sessions of the Purdue Scale Up Conference. (Photo: Rachel Cramer/CIMMYT)*

The first step of the Scaling Scan is “Defining a realistic scaling ambition.” It contains a responsibility check, prompting users to consider how an intervention could affect power equity and natural resources if that scaling ambition is indeed reached. “We tried to make this check as simple as possible, but still have people anticipate what unintended consequences their scaling effort might have ten years down the line,” said Woltering.

The responsibility check includes questions like: Who are the winners and who are the losers when the innovation is adopted at a large scale? Will the scaling of the innovation affect the availability of important natural resources, such as water and land?

Woltering emphasized that development organizations should try to identify the scale that optimizes tradeoffs. “We want people to be aware that bigger is not always better,” he said.

“You might think you’re benefitting the irrigation farmers, but at the same time, the fishermen or other people might be paying the price for that,” Woltering explained. “If you’re only focused on those irrigation farmers and not the whole system, it’s easy to think, ‘Oh, we’re doing a fantastic job,’ when you’re not.”

The reasons to scale up responsibly

At the conference, Tricia Wind and Robert McLean of the International Development Research Center (IDRC) presented some of their lessons learned about responsible scaling.

“If you’re working on the problem at different scales, you need to think about the problem differently and think about the solutions differently,” said Wind. “The first principle is thinking about what scale you are starting with and what the optimal scale would be for the problems that you’re focused on solving.”

The second principle is the justification for scaling. “So stepping back from the how and thinking about the why,” she explained. “What difference would this make?” Similar to the responsibility check in the Scaling Scan, the second principle explores the issue of equity. Who would be reached by this solution, and who would be left out or even negatively affected by it?

The third principle is about coordination. McLean said, “This is about accepting that all scaling happens in a system. Are the alternative solutions? How do you displace solutions that might already exist if you try to scale something? What about the cultural norms and the institutions that exist in the area where you’re scaling, and how do you coordinate to scale responsibly?”

The fourth principle is dynamic evaluation. Maclean said an organization should learn as it scales. “It’s never going to be a 1-2-3 step process that’s going to get you from innovation to impact at scale,” he explained. “Scaling itself is also an intervention. So you have your intervention you’re trying to scale, and as you scale, systems change.”

*Participants and panelists of the Scale Up Conference pose for a group photograph. (Photo: Courtesy of Purdue University)*

Johannes Linn, Nonresident Senior Fellow with the Brookings Institute and another one of the world’s top scaling experts, emphasized, “Scaling is not a linear process. It is iterative with feedback loops to learn and adapt.”

During the opening reception, Woltering and van Loon congratulated Seerp Wigboldus, a senior advisor and researcher with Wageningen University, on his recently completed PhD thesis, published as a book: To scale, or not to scale – that is not the only question.

Someone asked, “What do you do if 40 people are going to be harmed by an intervention while 50 people benefit?” Wigboldus replied, “Well, unfortunately, there’s no formula for this kind of thing. There will always be tradeoffs, but hopefully we can get people to slow down a bit. We need to be transparent and justify our decisions.”

Nearly all of humanity’s greatest challenges originate from the scaling of innovations. The depletion of the Aral Sea in order to scale cotton production is just one example. Climate change and industrialization is another. By adopting a responsible scaling approach, the agricultural development sector can minimize negative impacts and side effects and seek optimal solutions.

The full version of the Scaling Scan contains detailed practical information on how and when to use this tool. A condensed, two-page version is also available. We also recommend the companion Excel sheet, which generates average scores and results automatically.

This work is supported by the German Development Cooperation (GIZ) and led by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).

In your seeds I trust: African seed companies test the SeedAssure application

Written by Jérôme Bossuet on October 11, 2018. Posted in Features.

NAIROBI (Kenya) — More than 20 representatives of eastern and southern African seed companies and regulatory agencies recently took part in the demonstration of a new seed certification application that can help get quality seed to market more quickly and curb sales of counterfeit seed.

As part of an event organized by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Program (CIMMYT) at the Kiboko research station of the Kenya Agricultural & Livestock Research Organization (KALRO) on September 17, 2018, participants field-tested a beta version of SeedAssure, a digital platform that gives automatic feedback on compliance and seed production management, along with remedy options.

SeedAssure was developed by Cellsoft, a supply chain management software company, with input from the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), the Qualibasic Seed Company, the Kenya Plant Health Inspectorate Service (KEPHIS) and CIMMYT.

“This is very useful for companies like ours, spread as we are over different countries, to manage at a distance our seed growers,” said Andy Watt of QualiBasic Seed Company, who has been testing SeedAssure on the company’s farms. “The application’s dashboard will point out which farms to visit quickly for corrections.”

Mobile innovations enhance quality and speed

For over a decade, the region’s seed sector has sought fast, cost-effective and transparent seed quality control and certification approaches for use across the value chain and the region. Seed companies often rely on under-staffed national certification agencies that may miss critical inspections or give inaccurate reports. Registration of new varieties can take many years, discouraging investment in improved seed and impeding regional trade.

Worse, by some estimates as much as 40 percent of the seed sold in eastern and southern Africa is falsely labelled or not what farmers are told they are buying. KEPHIS recently confiscated over 13 tons of “fake” seeds.

The seed sector has sought mobile innovations such as tablet-based field inspections whose data load to centralized, cloud-based dashboards.

With SeedAssure’s “traffic light” system, field inspection results for factors such as plant population will score green (complied – good quality), amber (needs improvement) or red (reject) and be readily visible to key actors in the seed certification and supply chain, according to David Laurence-Brown, SeedAssure co-developer.

“This quality assurance system can help seed companies get licenses faster, speeding product to market and greatly reducing the financial risk of getting new varieties to farmers,” said Laurence-Brown. “The vision is that all actors have access to timely and accurate data on products, licensing and trade movements, with quality control checks along the value chain.”

He said that SeedAssure features 260 critical questions in 13 seed production checklists. “Putting the right questions in the right order is crucial to determine how sustainable your seed production is,” Laurence-Brown explained.

*Partners test the SeedAssure app on a tablet during a field visit in Kiboko, Kenya. (Photo: Jerome Bossuet/CIMMYT)*

Fixing the bugs

Participants emphasized that national and regional regulatory bodies needed to be on board.

“Advocacy has to be done at different levels, from COMESA, national plant protection organizations, big and small seed companies, and research institutes and donors,” said Kinyua Mbijjewe, a well-known figure in the African seed industry and co-creator of SeedAssure, adding that this has been underway for a year now with a positive response, and public engagement is now ramping up with partners like AGRA and USAID.

Participants also suggested simplifying SeedAssure by reducing the number of questions and the subjectivity of certain data fields. For example, they observed that a more objective method was needed for scoring pest infestations, rather than SeedAssure’s current approach of rating infestations as low, moderate or intense via visual estimation.

“This will not be adopted if it’s too complex,” said Nicolai Rodeyns, NASECO seed company, Uganda.

Developers are addressing these issues, as well as comments that the application should not mix compliance and seed production management features.

CIMMYT announced that it would offer members of the International Maize Improvement Consortium (IMIC) a one-year trial subscription to SeedAssure.

Finally, AFSTA, AGRA, CIMMYT, COMESA, USAID, and other partners are forming a SeedAssure Alliance to support testing and rollout with companies and public organizations in eastern and southern Africa.

Innovation, partnerships and knowledge for African farmers meet at AGRF 2018

Written by Jérôme Bossuet on September 19, 2018. Posted in Features.

KIGALI, Rwanda (CIMMYT) — The African Green Revolution Forum (AGRF) is the place to be for organizations interested in Africa’s agricultural development. Research institutions, development agencies, funders, farmers’ organizations, large agribusinesses and green start-ups came together for the latest edition of this event in Kigali, Rwanda, on September 4-8. Organized by the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) since 2010, this year’s theme was “Lead. Measure. Grow.”

The President of Rwanda, Paul Kagame, recalled a sentence stuck in his memory since childhood: “Everything is agriculture, the rest is good luck”. All the top leaders present at AGRF 2018 agreed that investing in smallholder agriculture is a top development priority, since the growth of the primary sector “drives down poverty, two to four times faster than other sectors” and provides livelihoods for three quarters of the African population.

Transforming policy declarations into impact on the ground

Even though African governments agreed on a roadmap towards inclusive agricultural growth — the Comprehensive African Agriculture Development Programme, or CAADP — in 2003, the agriculture sector has remained stagnant since the 1980s. A majority of African countries continue to be net food importers despite their bountiful natural resources, as highlighted in the Africa Agriculture Status Report 2018.

Some African food ventures are quite successful exporting beans, roses or avocados to Europe. However, most African farmers still live on less than one dollar a day, on small rain-fed plots of less than two hectares, having to cope with high climate variability and damages from numerous pests and diseases. They often plant low quality seeds, on acid and degraded soils, with little fertilizer. Rapid ageing of the farming population, 60 years old on average, is a particular concern at a time when many young people are underemployed.

“African agriculture is at a defining moment” was a message hammered home by several keynote speakers of AGRF 2018. So what makes this moment different?

In recent years, some countries have seen a significant rise in farm productivity. Ethiopia, for instance, exceeded the CAADP target of 6 percent annual agricultural growth in the last 25 years, halving its poverty rates over the same period.

African agriculture is facing new threats, from climate change to devastating pests like the fall armyworm, but researchers can be fast to respond, particularly if they are properly funded and listened to.

“The challenge is to design the right partnerships or business models between research, government, civil society and the private sector, to reach impact at scale”, explained CIMMYT’s director general, Martin Kropff. One example would be the Fall Armyworm Research for Development (R4D) International Consortium, officially launched at AGRF 2018.

CIMMYT has also partnered with public and private organizations to implement a very successful breeding program to fight maize lethal necrosis and to develop detailed guidelines for integrated pest management of the fall armyworm.

Research has to anticipate and respond to the needs of smallholder farmers in diverse ecological and socioeconomic contexts. The agenda has to become demand-driven and researchers have to look at new collaborations if they want to reach the farmers.

The director general of CIMMYT, Martin Kropff, was the keynote speaker of the AGRF 2018 round-table discussion "Quality Means Quantity – Seed Processing Technology and Production Approaches for Agricultural Benefit." (Photo: CIMMYT) — The director general of CIMMYT, Martin Kropff, was the keynote speaker of the AGRF 2018 round-table discussion “Quality Means Quantity – Seed Processing Technology and Production Approaches for Agricultural Benefit.” (Photo: CIMMYT)

Make agriculture resilient and attractive to youth

Leaders discussed the ways to build viable, fair and sustainable food systems that will provide good opportunities for African farmers, especially the next generation, and affordable, nutritious food for the whole population.

In their view, the roadmap for the coming years includes several key actions: investing in infrastructure, investing in youth and education, investing in value addition and food processing and removing trade barriers.

Speakers also flagged irrigation as a top priority. “African farmers do not need rain; they need water,” summed up John Mellor, who coordinated the African State of Agriculture Report 2018. He explained that top-down irrigation schemes are difficult to manage and maintain, so the focus should rather be on farmer-led irrigation.

The conference highlighted how digital agriculture, big data and other innovations offer the opportunity to leapfrog agriculture growth and make farming attractive to youth. For instance, Hello Tractor, a CIMMYT partner, is an Uber-like service linking tractor owners and machinery service providers with farmers. CIMMYT research shows that appropriate rural mechanization adapted to smallholders, like two-wheel tractors, will ease labor problems and enable adoption of more sustainable practices, like direct sowing. This can make farming more attractive for young people and create opportunities for them to become service providers.

Taking knowledge to farmers

Many innovations are out there to help African farmers grow more and better food; from climate resilient new varieties and customized agronomic advice to new e- or m-business models.

Mobile finance solution Tulaa brings together farmers, agro-dealers and credit providers on a virtual marketplace. Through Tulaa, farmers can borrow money to purchase the right fertilizers or seeds at the right time. Another platform, Precision Agriculture for Development, is providing more than 120,000 Kenyan farmers with agronomic advice via SMS, so they can better identify and manage fall armyworm. Other new digital platforms are linking smallholder farmers with quality inputs, extension services, finance, food processing and market opportunities.

All these operators will need to use accurate, science-based data. That is where CIMMYT’s expertise could play a big role, for instance providing customized fertilization recommendations to individual farmers, as planned in the Taking Maize Agronomy to Scale in Africa (TAMASA) project.

B.M. Prasanna, director of CIMMYT’s Global Maize Program, concluded that “AGRF is an excellent platform to network, debate issues relevant to African agriculture, form alliances and think forward.” Providing more resources in agricultural research for development will generate a stream of new technologies and solutions that will drive agricultural growth. Something African countries urgently need with their fast-growing population (2-3 percent annually) and one additional billion people to feed by 2050.

When legumes are intercropped with maize they act as a green manure adding nutrients to the soil through nitrogen fixation. Intercropping legumes and cereals along with the principles of conservation agriculture are considered away to sustainable intensify food production in Africa. (Photo: Christian Thierfelder/CIMMYT)

What is green manure? And how is it helping maize farmers?

Written by Matthew O'Leary on September 14, 2018. Posted in Features.

Farmer Eveline Musafari intercrops maize and a variety of legumes on her entire farm. She likes the ability to grow different food crops on the same space, providing her family with more food to eat and sell. (Photo: Matthew O’Leary/CIMMYT)

Honest Musafari, a fifty-year-old farmer from rural Zimbabwe, eagerly picks up a clump of soil from his recently harvested field to show how dark and fertile it is. A farmer all his life, Musafari explains the soil has not always been like this. For years, he and his neighbors had to deal with poor eroding soil that increasingly dampened maize yields.

“My soil was getting poorer each time I plowed my field, but since I stopped plowing, left the crop residues and planted maize together with legumes the soil is much healthier,” says Musafari. His 1.6-hectare maize-based farm, in the Murehwa district, supports his family of six.

For over two years, Musafari has been one of the ten farmers in this hot and dry area of Zimbabwe to trial intercropping legumes and green manure cover crops alongside their maize, to assess their impact on soil fertility.

The on-farm trials are part of efforts led by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) in collaboration with Catholic Relief Services (CRS) and government extension services to promote climate-resilient cropping systems in sub-Saharan Africa.

Increasing land degradation at the farm and landscape level is the major limitation to food security and livelihoods for smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa, says CIMMYT senior cropping systems agronomist Christian Thierfelder.

“Over 65 percent of soils in Africa are degraded. They lack the nutrients needed for productive crops. This is a major part of the reason why the region’s maize yields are not increasing,” he explains. “The failure to address poor soil health will have a disastrous effect on feeding the region’s growing population.”

The area where Musafari lives was chosen to test intercropping, along with others in Malawi and Zambia, for their infamous poor soils.

Mixing it up

Planted in proximity to maize, legumes — like pigeon pea, lablab and jack beans — add nitrogen to the soil, acting as green manure as they grow, says Thierfelder. Essentially, they replace the nutrients being used by the cereal plant and are an accessible form of fertilizer for farmers who cannot afford mineral fertilizers to improve soil fertility.

“Our trials show legumes are a win for resource poor family farmers. Providing potentially 5 to 50 tons per hectare of extra organic matter besides ground cover and fodder,” he notes. “They leave 50 to 350 kg per hectare of residual nitrogen in the soil and do not need extra fertilizer to grow.”

Added to the principles of conservation agriculture — defined by minimal soil disturbance, crop residue retention and diversification through crop rotation and intercropping — farmers are well on their way to building a resilient farm system, says Geoffrey Heinrich, a senior technical advisor for agriculture with CRS working to promote farmer adoption of green manure cover crops.

For years Musafari, as many other smallholder farmers in Africa, tilled the land to prepare it for planting, using plows to mix weeds and crop residues back into the soil. However, this intensive digging has damaged soil structure, destroyed most of the organic matter, reduced its ability to hold moisture and caused wind and water erosion.

Letting the plants do the work

Growing legumes alongside maize provides immediate benefits, such as reduced weeding labor and legume cash crops farmers can sell for a quick income. The legumes also improve the nitrogen levels in the soil and can save farmers money, as maize needs less fertilizer. (Photo: Christian Thierfelder/CIMMYT)

Musafari says the high price of mineral fertilizer puts it out of reach for farmers in his community. They only buy little amounts when they have spare cash, which is never enough to get its full benefit.

He was at first skeptical green manure cover crops could improve the quality of his soil or maize yields, he explains. However, he thought it was worth a try, considering growing different crops on the same plot would provide his family with more food and the opportunity to make some extra cash.

“I’m glad I tried intercropping. Every legume I intercropped with my maize improved the soil structure, its ability to capture rain water and also improved the health of my maize,” he says.

Thierfelder describes how this happens. Nitrogen fixation, which is unique to leguminous crops, is a very important process for improving soil fertility. This process involves bacteria in the soil and nitrogen in the air. The bacteria form small growths on the plant roots, called nodules, and capture the atmospheric nitrogen as it enters the soil. The nodules change the nitrogen into ammonia, a form of nitrogen plants use to produce protein.

In addition, legumes grown as a cover crop keep soil protected from heavy rains and strong winds and their roots hold the soil in place, the agronomist explains. They conserve soil moisture, suppress weeds and provide fodder for animals and new sources of food for consumption or sale.

Farmers embrace intercropping

Extension worker Memory Chipinguzi explains the benefits of intercropping legumes with cereals to farmers at a field day in the Murehwa district, Zimbabwe. (Photo: Christian Thierfelder/CIMMYT)

Working with CIMMYT, Musafari and his wife divided a part of their farm into eight 20 by 10 meter plots. On each plot, they intercropped maize with a different legume: cowpea, jack bean, lablab, pigeon pea, sugar bean and velvet bean. They also tried intercropping with two legumes on one of the plots. Then they compared all those options to growing maize alone.

“Season by season the soil on each of the trial plots has got darker and my maize healthier,” describes Musafari. “Rains used to come and wash away the soil, but now we don’t plow or dig holes, so the soil is not being washed away; it holds the water.”

“I really like how the legumes have reduced the weeds. Before we had a major problem with witchweed, which is common in poor soils, but now it’s gone,” he adds.

Since the first season of the trial, Musafari’s maize yields have almost tripled. The first season his maize harvested 11 bags, or half a ton, and two seasons later it has increased to 32 bags, or 1.5 tons.

Musafari’s wife Eveline has also been convinced about the benefits of intercropping, expressing the family now wants to extend it to the whole farm. “Intercropping has more advantages than just growing maize. We get different types of food on the same space. We have more to eat and more to sell,” she says.

The family prefers intercropping with jack bean and lablab. Even though they were among the hardest legumes to sell, they improved the soil the most. They also mature at the same time as their maize, so they save labor as they only have to harvest once.

The benefits gained during intercropping have influenced farmers to adopt it as part of their farming practices at most of our trial sites across southern Africa, CRS’s Heinrich says.

“Immediate benefits, such as reduced weeding labor and legume cash crops that farmers can sell off quick, provide a good incentive for adoption,” he adds.

Honest and Eveline Musafari with extension worker, Memory Chipinguzi. Neighbors have noticed the intercropping trials on the Musafari’s farm and are beginning to adopt the practice to gain similar benefits. (Photo: Matthew O’Leary/CIMMYT)

Climate-resilient farming systems for Africa

Food security is at the heart of Africa’s development agenda. However, climate change is threatening the Malabo Commitment to end hunger in the continent by 2025. Temperatures are increasing: the past three decades have been the warmest on record, according to the International Panel on Climate Change.

Hotter climates, more dry spells and erratic rainfall are a major concern to farmers in sub-Saharan Africa, where over half of maize is grown in rain-fed farming without irrigation.

The majority of African farmers are smallholders who cultivate less than 2 hectares, explains Thierfelder. If they are to meet the food demand of a population set to almost double by 2050, bringing it to over 2 billion people while overcoming multiple challenges, they need much more productive and climate-resilient cropping systems.

New research identifies that the defining principles of conservation agriculture alone are not enough to shield farmers from the impacts of climate change. Complementary practices are required to make climate-resilient farming systems more functional for smallholder farmers in the short and long term, he warns.

“Intercropping with legumes is one complementary practice which can help building healthy soils that stand up to erratic weather,” says Thierfelder. “CIMMYT promotes climate-resilient cropping systems that are tailored to farmers’ needs,” he emphasizes.

“To sustainably intensify farms, growers need to implement a variety of options including intercropping, using improved crop varieties resistant to heat and drought and efficient planting using mechanization along with the principles of conservation agriculture to obtain the best results.”

A Maasai woman holding a baby (center) attends the plenary session of the GLF Nairobi 2018. (Photo: Global Landscapes Forum)

Towards more sustainable food systems through a landscape lens

Written by Jérôme Bossuet on September 7, 2018. Posted in Features.

NAIROBI, Kenya (CIMMYT) — The latest event of the Global Landscapes Forum (GLF) took place on August 29-30 in Nairobi, Kenya, under the topic of forest and landscape restoration in Africa. To tackle the urgent issue of deforestation and land degradation, the sessions and panels covered topics as diverse as community-led restoration, how to address social inclusion in land management, or how to work with supply chain actors to achieve sustainable landscapes and better livelihoods for local communities.

Landscape degradation directly affects 1.5 billion people. Local communities are usually the first ones to experience the negative effects of this problem on their livelihoods, access to water and loss of topsoil and farm productivity.

However, Africa provides the most opportunities for landscape restoration.

When landscapes support nutrition

Sustainable landscapes play a role in CIMMYT’s work. In Ethiopia, CIMMYT’s research in collaboration with CIFOR showed that a landscape approach can improve the nutrition and resilience of farming families. The transfer of organic matter and nutrients from forest patches to farmers’ fields, through livestock manure and fuelwood, enriches the soils and increases the zinc and protein content of wheat grain.

CIMMYT scientists are also looking at the link between livestock management and farming. In the Central Rift Valley of Ethiopia, zero-grazing in farmland led to an 80 percent increase of organic matter in the topsoil after 8 years, and as a result teff yields increased by 70 percent.

While agronomy tends to look at the field’s scale, a landscape perspective may also be important for more efficient pest control, as CIMMYT’s research with Wageningen University found. A useful learning as agriculture experts look at ways to combat emerging pests like the fall armyworm.

Voices of the Landscape Plenary at the GLF Nairobi 2018. (Photo: Global Landscapes Forum)

Better soil and rights

Participants in GLF Nairobi 2018 called for concrete collective action to restore degraded landscapes.

Having real-time accurate dashboards of land degradation could help governments and development organizations build coherent policies and restoration programs. Mark Schauer from the Economics of Land Degradation Initiative explained why soil is important and how monetizing the costs and benefits of sustainable soil management practices could help decision-makers build more sustainable food systems. Sharing data in transboundary contexts is a challenge but can be overcome, as the Eastern Africa Forest Observatory (OFESA) has shown.

Asking uncomfortable questions is necessary to support the people who depend the most on landscapes’ health. Milagre Nuvunga from the MICAIA Foundation in Mozambique recommended to put women’s rights at the center of landscape restoration programs. Several testimonies reminded that women living in patriarchal societies often do not have land rights, so land will go back to the husband’s family in case of death or divorce. Even if they know the benefits of landscape restoration, “why would women care” to invest time and energy on it if their rights are not secured, she asked.

To learn more about the Global Landscape Forum Nairobi 2018, visit https://events.globallandscapesforum.org/nairobi-2018/.
The main event of the Global Landscapes Forum will take place on December 1-2, 2018, in Bonn, Germany.

Breaking Ground: Santiago López-Ridaura supports farmers facing tough decisions

Written by on August 22, 2018. Posted in Features.

Farmers frequently encounter trade-offs between maximizing short-term profits and ensuring sustainable, long-term production. Santiago López-Ridaura, a senior scientist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), says these trade-offs are even more complicated for small-scale farmers who grow a mix of crops and raise livestock. With computer models to play out different scenarios, he and his team are helping them find optimal solutions.

“If you have $100, one hectare of maize, a half hectare of beans and three cows, you have limited resources,” indicates López-Ridaura. “You have to decide how you allocate those resources.”

Should the farmer use the money to buy new equipment or vaccinate the cows? What would happen if the farmer replaced the half-acre of beans with maize? These trade-offs, López-Ridaura explains, are one aspect of a farming system’s complexity.

“The other is that these farmers are trying to satisfy multiple objectives,” he adds. “They want to generate income. They want to produce enough food to feed their family and they may be trying to maintain cultural values.”

For example, a hybrid maize variety may produce higher yields under certain growing conditions, but the farmer could decide to continue growing the native variety because it carries cultural or even religious importance. Seasonal migration for off-farm jobs, climate change and access to markets are just some of the other factors that further complicate the decision-making process. López-Ridaura points out many models in the past have failed to capture these complexities because they have focused on one objective: productivity at the plot level.

“Our models show the bigger picture. They take a lot of time to develop, but they’re worth it,” says López-Ridaura.

Custom solutions to farming challenges

The models start with hundreds of in-depth household surveys from a specific region. López-Ridaura and his team then organize the large pool of data into several categories of farming systems.

“We make a model that says, ‘OK, this farm in Oaxaca, Mexico, has five hectares, 20 sheep and five people,” he explains. “We know how much the animals need to eat, how much the people need to eat, how much the farm produces and how much production costs.”

He and his team can then adjust certain factors in the model to explore different outcomes. For example, they can see how much water the farmer could use for irrigation to maximize his/her yields without depleting the local water supply during a drought. They can see which farmers would be the most vulnerable to a commodity crop price drop or who would benefit from a new policy.

Senior scientist Santiago Lopez-Ridaura (left) asks a farmer in Guatemala about his priorities — produce food, generate income, maintain soil health and feed his livestock — and the reasons behind his agricultural practices. (Photo: Carlos Sum/Buena Milpa) — Santiago López-Ridaura (left) asks a farmer in Guatemala about his priorities — produce food, generate income, maintain soil health and feed his livestock — and the reasons behind his agricultural practices. (Photo: Carlos Sum/Buena Milpa)

“The political guys often want a simple solution so they may say, ‘We should subsidize inputs such as seeds and fertilizers.’ In Mexico, for example, you might miss 60-70% of farmers as they don’t use much of these inputs,” López-Ridaura says. “So that’s great for 30% of the population, but why don’t we think about the other 70%? We must be able to suggest alternatives from a basket of options, considering the diversity of farming systems.”

López-Ridaura emphasizes that the models on their own do not provide solutions. He and his research team work with farmers to learn what they identify as their main challenges and how best to support them.

“We have networks of farmers in Guatemala and Oaxaca, and some may say, ‘Well, our main challenge is being self-sufficient with forage crops,’ and we’ll say, ‘OK, why don’t we try a crop rotation with forage crops? Our model suggests that it might be an appropriate option.’”

He and his team can then help the farmers access the right kind of seed and find out how best to grow it. This relationship is not a one-way street. The farmers also provide feedback on what is or is not working on the ground, which helps the researchers improve the accuracy of their models. This approach helps the researchers, farmers and policymakers understand different pathways forward and develop locally adapted, sustainable solutions.

Santiago López-Ridaura and his team work in Africa, Latin America and South Asia. Their funding often comes from development agencies such as IFAD and USAID.

After receiving training from CIMMYT, this group of young men started a small business offering mechanized agricultural services to smallholder farmers near their town in rural Zimbabwe. (Photo: Matthew O’Leary/CIMMYT)

African youth find entrepreneurial opportunity in agricultural mechanization

Written by Matthew O'Leary on August 9, 2018. Posted in Features.

The sound of an engine roars as Gift Chawara, a 28-year-old from rural Zimbabwe, carefully removes a mesh bag bulging with maize grain hooked to his mechanized sheller. Fed with dried maize cobs, the sheller separates the grain from the shaft before shooting the kernels out the side into the awaiting bag. Chawara swiftly replaces the full bag with an empty one as the kernels continue to spill out.

It is eleven in the morning and the sun beats down over the small farm. Chawara and his friends have only been working a few hours and have already shelled 7 tons for their neighbor and customer Loveness Karimuno; thirteen more tons to go.

The widowed farmer watches as the bags of grain line up, ready for her to take to market. It used to take Karimuno two to three weeks to shell her maize harvest by hand, even with the help of hired labor. This grueling task saw her rub each maize ear on a rough surface to remove the grain from the shaft. Now, these young men and their mechanized sheller will do it in just a few hours for a small fee.

“When my neighbor told me the boys were shelling small amounts of maize at reasonable prices, I got in contact with them,” said Karimuno. “It’s cheaper than hiring people to help me do it manually and the speed means I can sell it faster.”

It used to take widowed farmer Loveness Karimuno (left) two or three weeks to shell her 20-ton maize harvest manually, even with the help of hired labor. Using mechanization services, all of her maize is shelled within a day, meaning she can take her grain to market faster. (Photo: Matthew O’Leary/CIMMYT)

The group of young entrepreneurs is serving almost 150 family farms around the village of Mwanga, located about two hours northwest of the capital Harare. They offer services such as shelling and planting, powered by special machinery. Since Chawara and his partners started the business three years ago, word has spread and now they are struggling to keep up with demand, he expressed.

Mechanized agricultural services have traditionally only been used by large-scale farmers who could afford the high prices, but small and medium-sized machines are fast becoming affordable options for family farmers through the advent of service providers, explained Frédéric Baudron, an agronomist with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).

The five young men are among the increasing number of youth across eastern and southern Africa creating a stable living as entrepreneurs in agricultural mechanization service provision, Baudron said.

Tired of the lack of profitable work in their rural community, the group of youths jumped on the opportunity to join a training on agricultural mechanization, run by CIMMYT. They heard about this training through local extension workers.

“We would probably be out of work if we hadn’t had the opportunity to learn how agricultural mechanization can be used to help smallholder farmers and gain skills to run our own business to provide these services,” Chawara expressed as he took a quick rest from shelling under a tree.

“It has really changed our lives. Last season we shelled over 300 tons of maize making just under US $7,000,” he said. “It has gone a long way in helping us support our families and invest back into our business.”

Masimba Mawire, 30, and Gift Chawara, 28, take a break from shelling and rest under a tree. The small car behind was bought by Chawara with his profits earned from the mechanization service business. (Photo: Matthew O’Leary/CIMMYT)

Mechanization as a way out of poverty

Sub-Saharan African youth struggle with high unemployment and working poverty. Agriculture is perceived as a sector that can absorb much of the rising level of unemployment, particularly when combined with entrepreneurship. Mechanization is one of the ways youth can get ahead, pointed out Baudron.

Through the Farm Mechanization and Conservation Agriculture for Sustainable Intensification (FACASI) project, supported by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR), CIMMYT is offering training courses to promote mechanization in Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania and Zimbabwe. Trainings equip entrepreneurs with essential business skills and knowledge, tailored to rural environments, so they can support farmers with appropriate mechanization services that sustainably intensify their production.

Chawara and his partners attended one of these trainings, hosted on the grounds of an agricultural technical college on the outskirts of Harare. For a week, they participated in practical courses led by local agriculture and business experts.

As part of the CIMMYT research project, the youth group paid a commitment fee and were loaned a planter and sheller to start their business, which they are now paying off with their profits.

Youth tend to be better at managing modern technologies and successfully take to service providing, said Baudron, who leads the FACASI project.

“We found consistently, in all countries where we work, that being a successful service provider is highly correlated to being young,” he highlighted. “However, other factors are also important, such as being entrepreneurial, educated, able to contribute to the cost of the machinery and preferably having an experience in similar businesses, particularly in mechanics.”

(From left to right) Shepard Kawiz, 24, gathers dried maize cobs into a bucket passing it to his brother Pinnot Karwizi, 26, who pours the maize into the sheller machine by feeding the hopper. The maize falls into the sheller’s barrel where high-speed rotation separates the grain from the cob. As the bare shafts are propelled out one side, Masimba Mawire, 30, is there to catch and dispose of them. Meanwhile, Gift Chawara, 28, is making sure a bag is securely hooked to the machine to collect the maize grain. (Photo: Matthew O’Leary/CIMMYT)

Mentoring and support are key to success

The young men operate like a well-oiled machine. Shepard Kawiz, 24, gathers dried maize cobs into a bucket and passes it to his brother Pinnot Karwizi, 26, who pours the maize into the sheller machine by feeding the hopper. The maize falls into the sheller’s barrel where high-speed rotation separates the grain from the cob. As bare shafts are propelled out one side, Masimba Mawire, 30, is there to catch and dispose of them. Meanwhile, Gift Chawara is making sure a bag is securely hooked to the machine to collect the maize grain.

Trials showed that when youth form a group and are provided guidance they are more inclined to succeed as service providers, explained CIMMYT agribusiness development specialist Dorcas Matangi.

“The group model works because they share the costs, the workload and they are more attractive to lenders when looking for investment capital,” she remarked.

Throughout the season, Mantangi works with local government extension workers and engineers from the University of Zimbabwe to mentor those starting out. They also organize meetings where service providers can gather to discuss challenges and opportunities.

“This is a good opportunity to iron out any problems with the machines, connect them with mechanics and spare part providers and we gain their feedback to improve the design of machinery,” she added.

Mechanization backs resilient farming systems

CIMMYT has provided a model to promote the use of agricultural mechanization among smallholder farmers through service providers, affirmed Misheck Chingozha, a mechanization officer with Zimbabwe’s Ministry of Agriculture.

Farm machinery helps farmers implement sustainable crop practices that benefit from greater farm power and precision,” he said. “This is in line with the government’s strategy to promote conservation agriculture – defined by minimal soil disturbance, crop residue retention and diversification through crop rotation and intercropping.”

CIMMYT promotes small-scale mechanization, such as two-wheel tractor-based technologies, including direct seeding planters that reduce labor and allow for improved resource allocation when implementing these practices, described CIMMYT’s Baudron.

Conservation agriculture is a sustainable intensification practice that seeks to produce more food, improve nutrition and livelihoods, and boost rural incomes without an increase in inputs – such as land and water – thus reducing environmental impacts.

With support from CIMMYT, students at the University of Zimbabwe are working to develop agricultural machinery fitted to the environmental conditions and needs of farmers in their country and other parts of Africa. (Photo: Matthew O’Leary/CIMMYT)

Students fuel next-generation machinery

As part of their degree, students at the University of Zimbabwe are working with CIMMYT to continuously improve the effectiveness and efficiency of agricultural machinery.

In a bid to improve the allocation of resources, agricultural engineering student Ronald Mhlanga, 24, worked on a prototype that uses sensors to monitor the amount of seed and fertilizer distributed by planters attached to two-wheel tractors. The device sends information to the driver if anything goes off course, helping farmers improve precision and save resources.

“Often planters will get clogged with mud blocking seeding. The sensors identify this and send a signal to the driver,” said Mhlanga. “This allows the driver to focus on driving and limits wasted resources.”

Learning from farmer feedback and working with agricultural engineers and the private sector, CIMMYT is building agricultural mechanization suited to the needs and conditions of sub-Saharan African farms, concluded Baudron.

How to get your high-impact research published in leading journals: top tips from the Senior Editor of Nature Genetics

Written by on August 2, 2018. Posted in Features.

At CIMMYT’s Science Week 2018, Nature Genetics Senior Editor Catherine Potenski spoke on how to publish plant genomics research that has broad, novel impact.

Catherine Potenski, Senior Editor of Nature Genetics, talks to participants of CIMMYT's Science Week on June 26, 2018. (Photo: Alfonso Cortés/CIMMYT) — Catherine Potenski, Senior Editor of Nature Genetics, talks to participants of CIMMYT’s Science Week on June 26, 2018. (Photo: Alfonso Cortés/CIMMYT)

Having research that is high-impact is not only critical to doing excellent science that has meaning, but also a premier way to let the research community know what you are doing and reach a broader audience, according to Catherine Potenski, Senior Editor at Nature Genetics, one of the more than 70 high-quality academic journals of publishing company Springer Nature.

“Plant genomics is an exciting field that is a priority for Nature Genetics given climate change and other challenges,” said Potenski. “We look for studies with novelty, a genetics scope and resource value.”

Nature Genetics is highly selective and publishes approximately 200 papers per year. Potenski wants to make the editorial review process more productive and simple for researchers so they can share their best work.

“You should organize your paper to highlight the impact of the findings and write a cover letter that places your work in context, highlighting what gap of knowledge it fills and how others will use this research,” explained Potenski. In addition, scientists should target the right journal for their research. In case of doubt, they can send a pre-submission inquiry and work with editors.

Impact is not always immediate, and the impact factor is not necessarily a good or proven metric. “The first CRISPR articles published in the early 2000s are now very impactful, but nobody knew the impact they would have then. Just because it is not in a high-impact journal, it does not mean it is not high-impact,” she said.

Potenski shared the six questions plant researchers should ask themselves when submitting research to Nature Genetics.

Is my main approach genetic?

Your main analyses should be based on genetic screens, Quantitative Trait Locus (QTL) mapping, genome re-sequencing or other genetic approaches. If the main analysis of a paper is in transcriptomics, imaging or biochemistry, this could be considered off scope (but fine if they are secondary analyses).

Are the findings highly novel?

Your research should reflect a new method or finding that is really groundbreaking. Findings that just provide insight into a known process, are confirmatory or incremental do not meet Nature’s standards. If the finding is only new for a specific crop, that might also not be sufficiently novel.

Is there a large user group for the data?

Bigger is usually always better; you want your research to apply to or benefit as many people as possible. If the crop you are studying is widely consumed like wheat, or you have a large study scope such as large-scale GWAS (Genome-Wide Association Study) analysis, that will impact many more people than if you are studying watermelons using single QTL mapping.

Is this a very large or unique dataset?

You want large, high-quality datasets and analyses that are unique and other groups cannot easily repeat. Ideally this leads to a new approach in your field. Data that are open and easily available, and studies using the latest technologies also get priority.

Do the findings provide biological insights?

You want people reading your study to learn something new about plant biology. Instead of merely reporting domestication patterns, you want something new about the mechanisms of evolution or adaptation. Editors look for comprehensive, molecular mechanistic insight into the processes studied.

Is there evidence for crop improvement?

Editors prioritize studies with potential for crop improvement, especially in the context of climate change and food security. You want your research to be demonstrated in a crop plant, ideally in the physical plant and not in a model simulation.

Unleashing innovation at CIMMYT

Written by on July 27, 2018. Posted in Features.

CIMMYT staff share lessons learned at UNLEASH innovation labs with colleagues

Jennifer Johnson (first from right) and her team at UNLEASH 2018 work on solutions to improve nutrition for adolescent girls in Nepal. (Photo: Jennifer Johnson)

Four young staff members from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) are working to bring home lessons learned at UNLEASH to foster innovation across CIMMYT programs. UNLEASH is a global innovation lab that brings together people from all over the world to transform personal insights into hundreds of ideas and build lasting global networks around the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The annual event, which began in 2017 and is scheduled to occur each year until 2030, brings together 1,000 selected young talents for 10 immersive days of co-creation and problem solving.

Innovation is key to finding solutions to major global challenges such as hunger, climate change and sustainability. However, innovation cannot occur in a vacuum – the strongest and most inclusive solutions are often interdisciplinary approaches developed by a wide range of people from diverse backgrounds and perspectives. What sets UNLEASH apart from other innovation labs and processes is this commitment to diversity, as well as its focus on the Sustainable Development Goals.

While at UNLEASH 2017 in Denmark, CIMMYT staff Aziz Karimov, Daniela Vega and David Guerena were part of 200 teams that were split across 10 ‘folk high schools’ in the Danish countryside. There, they worked through an innovation process with facilitators and experts, refined their ideas to contribute to the SDGs and finally reconvened in the city of Aarhus to pitch the solutions they had developed.

Jennifer Johnson, Maize Communications Officer at CIMMYT, attended the UNLEASH Innovation Lab 2018 in Singapore last June. She worked alongside a diverse team of young people to develop solutions to improve nutrition for adolescent girls in Nepal.

The UNLEASH innovation process has five main phases: problem framing, ideation, prototyping, testing and implementing. “UNLEASH is really about finding and framing the problem,” said Vega, a projects coordinator and liaison officer for the Americas at CIMMYT and UNLEASH 2017 alumna. “Innovation is 90 percent about understanding the problem. Once you get that right, everything that follows becomes easier,” she explained.

Daniela Vega (third from left), UNLEASH 2017 alumna, leads CIMMYT colleagues in a breakout session on innovation during Science Week. (Photo: Alfonso Arredondo/CIMMYT)

Johnson, Guerena and Vega held a session on innovation and lessons learned at UNLEASH at CIMMYT’s Science Week 2018. Participants were walked through an abridged version of the UNLEASH innovation process to develop creative solutions to real-world problems relating to agriculture. The session emphasized diversity, respect and creativity, which are central tenets of both CIMMYT and UNLEASH.

“One of the key takeaways I got from UNLEASH was the power of diversity and collaboration,” said Guerena, a soil scientist and systems agronomist at CIMMYT who participated in UNLEASH 2017. “The diversity of the participants and collaboration lead to better solutions.”

Vega agreed. “People come from different backgrounds, geographically and professionally, and the level of cooperation and openness with no judgement is essential. We all share a similar value set, we are here because we want to make the world a better place by solving problems on a very hands-on level.”

In just one hour, participants of the CIMMYT session formed diverse teams, developed problem framings, brainstormed potential solutions and gave a three-minute pitch presenting their solution to the audience. Participants expressed extreme satisfaction with what they had learned and the innovation process they had been guided through, as well as interest in participating in similar programs in the future.

“This is a great idea, a very good experience. Often creativity doesn’t get enough attention,” said Lennart Woltering, CIMMYT scaling expert.

“This is fantastic and I’m going to adopt it. This is a great way to introduce concepts such as gender,” said Rahma Adam, CIMMYT gender and development specialist.

In the future, CIMMYT’s UNLEASH alumna hope to continue sharing their experience with colleagues and implementing lessons learned within their work.

“Unleash helps young people to think freely and differently,” said Karimov, a CIMMYT development economist whose team won second place in UNLEASH 2017’s ‘Sustainable Consumption & Production’ category which targeted Goal 12 of the SDGs. “We think innovation is something very complicated but by attending UNLEASH I realized that very simple moves can make a big change. You start believing that what is not possible is actually very possible. You just have to have will and strong desire.”

Agricultural and development economist Aziz Karimov (left photo, fifth from left) and soil scientist and systems agronomist David Guerena (right photo, fifth from left) represented CIMMYT at UNLEASH Innovation Lab 2017. (Photos: UNLEASH)

Orange maize conventionally bred to contain high amounts of vitamin A is fighting child malnutrition in Zimbabwe. (Photo: Matthew O'Leary/ CIMMYT)

Nutritious vitamin A orange maize boosts health and livelihoods in Zimbabwe

Written by Matthew O'Leary on July 25, 2018. Posted in Features. 2 Comments on Nutritious vitamin A orange maize boosts health and livelihoods in Zimbabwe

Ashley Muzhange, 18 months old, eats sadza porridge in the Chiweshe Communal Area. This porridge is made of vitamin A orange maize, a variety improving the nutrition of children and families in Zimbabwe. — Ashley Muzhange eats sadza with her family in rural Zimabwe. Her sadza is made with vitamin A orange maize, a variety improving the nutrition of children and families in the nation. Photo: Matthew O’Leary/ CIMMYT

In the rural Chiweshe Communal Area, about two hours north of Zimbabwe’s capital Harare, 18-month-old Ashley Muzhange tucks into a bowl of vitamin A orange maize sadza. Sadza, a thickened porridge made from finely ground maize grain with a side of stewed vegetables, is the staple dish for rural families.

Ashley’s sadza is made from biofortified maize, conventionally bred by researchers at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) under the work of HarvestPlus to contain a higher amount of nutritious vitamin A.

As Zimbabwe’s child malnutrition rate peaks above the international threshold for emergency response, nutritious vitamin A orange maize gains ground on the national market.

Recent prolonged drought pushed malnutrition to levels not seen in over 15 years, with almost 33,000 children in need of urgent treatment for severe acute malnutrition, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). Many experience micronutrient deficiencies, since their diets lack the vitamins and minerals required for growth and development.

Ashley's mother, , prepares fritas made with vitamin A maize grown on their family farm. Photo: Matthew O'Leary/ CIMMYT — Ashley’s mother, Lilian Muzhange, prepares fritas made with vitamin A orange maize grown on their family farm. Photo: Matthew O’Leary/ CIMMYT

According to the World Health Organization, 35.8 percent of preschool aged children suffer from vitamin A deficiency. The leading cause of preventable blindness in children, it compromises the immune system increasing the risk of death from diseases like measles, diarrhea and respiratory infections.

Biofortification increases the density of vitamins and minerals in a crop through conventional plant breeding or agronomic practices. When consumed regularly, biofortified crops generate measurable improvements in health and nutrition. The process develops crops rich in nutrients for consumers as well as the agronomic characteristics like drought and disease resistance valued by farmers. It is considered a sustainable way to bring micronutrients to populations with limited access to diverse diets.

Even though baby Ashley is unaware her sadza not only fills her stomach, but also provides her with a dose of vitamin A, her family is conscious of the benefits.

“This orange maize assures me that my daughter gets a nutritious meal and means we don’t only rely on the supplements provided by the government,” said Lilian Muzhange, her mother.

Orange the color of health

The farming family first began trialing the biofortified vitamin A orange maize in 2015 and are now growing it in place of traditional white maize. The nutritious variety contains high levels of beta-carotene, a vitamin A precursor that produces the rich orange color and once ingested is converted into the micronutrient, acting as an antioxidant to protect cells.

“Our family now prefers the new vitamin A orange maize over the white maize, as it has great health benefits for my children and granddaughter and the taste is delicious. The sadza truly is better,” said Ashley’s grandfather Musonza Musiiwa. “I was also pleased the variety is drought tolerant. Despite a dry spell in January my maize was able to yield a good harvest.”

Rural diets mainly consist of what farming families can grow, which is predominantly maize, said CIMMYT maize breeder Thokozile Ndhlela. The majority of rural households do not meet minimum dietary diversity, reliant on a cereal-based diet where meat is a rarity, the Zimbabwe Food and Nutrition Council finds.

“White maize traditionally used for the staple sadza is predominantly starch and very low in nutritional value,” said Ndhlela, who leads CIMMYT’s biofortified breeding efforts in Zimbabwe. “Biofortifying this staple crop ensures consumers have access to nutritious food season after season as farmers continue to grow it.”

Musiiwa not only sees the health and agronomic benefits of vitamin A orange maize, but has also identified its economic opportunity. The farmer is planning to increase the amount he grows to capitalize on the market he believes is set to grow.

Getting vitamin A maize into farmers’ fields and onto plates

Sakile Kudita, HarvestPlus researcher, eplains the benefits of of biofortified orange maize to seed company and government representatives. Photo: Matthew O'Leary/ CIMMYT — Sakile Kudita, HarvestPlus researcher, explains the benefits of of vitamin A orange maize to seed company and government representatives. Photo: Matthew O’Leary/ CIMMYT

For the new biofortified maize to be part of the food system it must be commercialized creating a full value chain, said Sakile Kudita, a demand creation researcher with HarvestPlus, a program improving nutrition and public health by developing and promoting biofortified food crops.

“Vitamin A orange maize needs to be a product millers take up and processed foods are made of, so that seed companies have an incentive to keep producing seed and farmers have an incentive to grow more than just for consumption but also sale in order to generate income,” she said.

The efforts of HarvestPlus and CIMMYT to engage government, food processors and seed companies at field days, where they learn about the nutritional and agronomic benefits and taste the orange maize have yielded success, said Kudita. Working with the government, four biofortified varieties have been commercialized since 2015.

Prime Seed Co, a subsidiary of the regional certified seed company Seed Co, was the first company commissioned by the government to commercialize vitamin A orange maize in Zimbabwe and now sells the variety Musiiwa uses in his field.

Prime Seed Co worked with CIMMYT, HarvestPlus and the Zimbabwe government to release the first orange variety onto the market. Photo: Thoko Ndhlela/ CIMMYT — Prime Seed Co worked with CIMMYT, HarvestPlus and the Zimbabwe government to release the first vitamin A orange maize variety onto the market. Photo: Thoko Ndhlela/ CIMMYT

“Through our partnership with CIMMYT and HarvestPlus we are developing a market for vitamin A orange maize in Zimbabwe,” said Masimba Kanyepi, a sales manager at Prime Seed Co. “We have seen our sales improve since launching the first variety and expect an increase.”

Kanyepi is confident the market will grow following a new government regulation requiring all processed maize products to contain added micronutrients, including vitamin A, through fortification.

Food industry representatives taste test foods made with vitamin A orange maize at an open day. Photo: Matthew O'Leary/ CIMMYT — Food industry representatives taste-test foods made with vitamin A orange maize at an open day. Photo: Matthew O’Leary/ CIMMYT

“Adding vitamin A to maize at the processing stage is expensive for food companies due to the cost of importing the vitamin from overseas,” said Kanyepi. “Buying vitamin A orange maize grown by local farmers already biofortified at the same price as the white variety makes economic sense.”

Food companies see the saving with Zimbabwe manufacturer, Cairns Foods, confirming it’s taking steps to include biofortified maize in its cereals and biofortified beans in its canned products.

With food processors and millers buying vitamin A orange maize there is demand for farming families like the Musiiwas to grow more, ensuring not only a boost to their health but also their livelihood, said Kudita.

Breeding for a more nutritious future

Biofortified orange maize in a farmer's field. Photo: Matthew O'Leary/ CIMMYT — Vitamin A orange maize in a farmer’s field. Photo: Matthew O’Leary/ CIMMYT

Nutritional studies show vitamin A biofortified maize is as effective as supplementation in improving total body stores of the micronutrient, and significantly improving visual function in children with a marginal deficiency.

With maize the preferred staple in sub-Saharan Africa, where the World Health Organization records almost half of all children 6 to 59 months as vitamin A deficient, biofortification is a sustainable solution to improve health in the region, said CIMMYT’s Ndhlela. Across Africa almost 50 varieties of biofortified maize have been released onto the market.

The crop diversity found in the maize species is key to nutritional gain. The plant grows in distinct environments and has developed a diverse range of valuable traits including nutritional properties.

Following a lengthy analysis of thousands of samples in the CIMMYT Maize Germplasm Bank researchers discovered native landraces and varieties from South and Central America containing increased levels of beta-carotene, explained Ndhlela. These were included in breeding programs in Africa and crossed with local varieties to ensure they were fit for the subtropical climate and were tolerant to local biotic and abiotic stresses.

Working alongside Zimbabwe’s national breeding program Ndhlela continually monitors, improves and combines dozens of characteristics, which include high yield potential, nitrogen use efficiency, and tolerance to drought, into new varieties that meet farmers’ preferences.

The most recent biofortified varieties contain about 39 percent more vitamin A compared to the first, she said.

“CIMMYT’s support through free access to maize germplasm and breeding expertise has allowed us to continue developing this nutritious maize,” said Prince Matova, a maize breeder with the Zimbabwe Ministry of Agriculture. “In the next few years we expect to release two more varieties.”

At the end of the day, farming is a business and farmers value varieties with high yield, adapted to stress conditions. The breeders are currently trialing new vitamin A maize varieties with the hope of identifying those with the potential to yield as much as the traditional white varieties and are already garnering positive feedback from farmers.

CIMMYT maize breeder Thoko Ndhlela shows food industry representatives the agronomic benefits of orange maize in the field. Photo: Matthew O'Leary/ CIMMYT — CIMMYT maize breeder Thoko Ndhlela shows food industry representatives the agronomic benefits of vitamin A orange maize in the field. Photo: Matthew O’Leary/ CIMMYT

CIMMYT’s biofortified vitamin A maize breeding is supported by HarvestPlus. HarvestPlus improves nutrition and public health by developing and promoting biofortified food crops that are rich in vitamins and minerals, and providing global leadership on biofortification evidence and technology. HarvestPlus is part of the CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health (A4NH). CGIAR is a global agriculture research partnership for a food secure future. Its science is carried out by its 15 research centers in collaboration with hundreds of partner organizations. The HarvestPlus program is coordinated by two of these centers, the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) and the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).

HarvestPlus’ principal donors are the UK Government; the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; the US Government’s Feed the Future initiative; the European Commission; and donors to the CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health. HarvestPlus is also supported by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

Breaking Ground: Gemma Molero sheds light on wheat photosynthesis

Written by Mike Listman on July 18, 2018. Posted in Features.

Despite the rising interest in advanced methods to discover useful genes for breeding in crops like wheat, the role of crop physiology research is now more important than ever, according to Gemma Molero, a wheat physiologist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).

“Physiology starts with the physical, observable plant,” Molero said. “It attempts to understand plant traits and processes and, ultimately, to provide breeders with selectable traits. Take for example the plant’s ability to capture and use sunlight. This is a complex trait and there are no useful DNA markers for it, so we have to analyze how it works and then help breeders to select plants that use sunlight better and yield more grain.”

A key goal of breeders and physiologists is to boost wheat’s genetic yield potential dramatically. Progress through current breeding is less than 1 percent each year. Molero said that needs to go to 1.7 percent yearly, to meet the demand expected by 2050 from expanding and urbanizing populations.

“Science must also adapt wheat to rising temperatures, less water, and mutating disease strains, and physiology is contributing,” she added.

Applied science and fieldwork drew Molero to CIMMYT

Molero grew up near Barcelona, Spain, in a family that included a folk-healing grandmother and a grandfather whose potato fields and orchards she recalls helping to tend as a child, during summers in Granada.

“My family called me ‘santurrona’ — something like ‘goody-two-shoes’ in English — because I was always trying to help people around me,” Molero explained.

Molero completed bachelor’s and master’s degrees in biology at the University of Barcelona, Spain, by 2006. She then pursued a doctorate in eco-physiology under the supervision of José Luis Araus, a University of Barcelona professor who was also working as a CIMMYT maize physiologist around the same time.

“Araus was an example of persistence and enthusiasm for me,” Molero explained. “He sent me to the CIMMYT research station near Ciudad Obregón, in northwestern Mexico, for fieldwork as part of my Ph.D. research. That sealed the deal. I said ‘This is the type of work where I can have impact, in an interdisciplinary setting, and with fieldwork.’ ”

She joined CIMMYT in 2011 as a post-doctoral fellow with Matthew Reynolds, a CIMMYT distinguished scientist who leads wheat physiology research.

Wheat spikes hold grain and catch light

Molero has quickly made a mark in CIMMYT wheat physiology research. Among other achievements, she has spearheaded studies on photosynthesis in wheat spikes — the small ears that hold the grain — to increase yield.

“In elite wheat varieties, spike photosynthesis adds an average 30 percent to grain yield,” she said. “In wheat wild relatives and landraces, that can go as high as 60 percent. This has put wheat spike photosynthesis in the science limelight.”

Practical outputs of this work, which involves numerous partners, include molecular markers and other tools that breeders can use to select for high spike photosynthesis in experimental lines. “We have a project with Bayer Crop Science to refine the methods,” Molero said.

Molero is also collaborating with plant biologists Stephen Long, University of Illinois, and Elizabete Carmo-Silva, Lancaster University, UK, to understand how quickly wheat returns to full photosynthesis after being shaded — for example, when clouds pass overhead. According to Molero, wheat varies greatly in its response to shading; over a long cropping season, quick recoveries can add 20 percent or more to total productivity.

“This is a breakthrough in efforts to boost wheat yields,” explained Molero, who had met Long through his participation in the International Wheat Yield Partnership (IWYP), an initiative that aims to raise wheat’s genetic yield potential by 50 percent over the next two decades. “I was fortunate to arrive at CIMMYT at just the right time, when IWYP and similar global partnerships were being formalized.”

Training youth and improving conditions for young women

From a post-doctoral fellow to her current position as a full scientist at CIMMYT, Molero has supervised 13 Ph.D. students and post-doctoral fellows, as well as serving as an instructor in many training courses.

“During my first crop cycle at Ciudad Obregón, I was asked to coordinate the work of five Ph.D. students,” she said. “I’d arrive home exhausted from long days and fall asleep reading papers. But I love supervising students and it’s a great way to learn about diverse facets of wheat physiology.”

Regarding the challenges for women and youth in the scientific community, Molero believes a lot needs to change.

“Science is male-dominated and fieldwork even more,” she observed. “It’s challenging being a woman and being young — conditions over which we have no control but which can somehow blind peers to our scientific knowledge and capacity. Instances of what I call ‘micro-machismo’ may appear small but they add up and, if you push back, the perceived ‘feminism’ makes some male scientists uncomfortable.”

Molero also believes young scientists need ample room to develop. “The most experienced generation has to let the new generation grow and make mistakes.”