Breaking Ground is a regular series featuring staff at CIMMYT
EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) – Growing up on a small farm in India’s northwest Punjab state, Kanwarpal Dhugga was a young boy when the first Green Revolution wheat varieties arrived in his village. Now stationed in Mexico as Principal Scientist and head of biotechnology for agricultural development at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), Dhugga has witnessed vast changes in his boyhood community.
“It was tight for families there, living from season to season with no extra money to spend,” Dhugga said, reflecting on the period during the 1960s before new high-yielding, disease resistant wheat varieties began to reshape agricultural potential throughout Asia. “Farmers used to plant a mixture of wheat and chickpeas. If rains were good, you got good wheat yield; if there was a drought, you got at least chickpeas.”
The use by farmers of the new, high-yielding wheat varieties developed by the late Nobel Peace Prize laureate Norman Borlaug, who was head of the wheat program at CIMMYT headquarters in Mexico, coincided with the introduction of electric power to Dhugga’s area. Electricity enabled pumping underground water for irrigation, making farming more predictable. Within a couple of years, everyone was growing new, more resilient semi-dwarf wheat varieties and yields had increased substantially.
The community was poor and without many educational resources. Dhugga recalls sitting on the ground at elementary school in India and carrying his books in a satchel along with a burlap gunnysack, which he used as a mat to sit on. Despite challenges, his perseverance and determination eventually took him to Punjab Agricultural University, where he earned a master’s degree in plant breeding, then to the University of California, Riverside for a doctoral degree in botany and plant genetics, and finally for a post-graduate degree at Stanford University, where he worked directly with Peter Ray, renowned biologist and now a Stanford emeritus professor.
“I started in genetics and finished in biochemistry,” Dhugga explained. “Science grew on me and I became so fixated that I couldn’t live without it, and that after I had no clue growing up what I wanted to become in life. The vision extended only as far as the next year.”
From 1996 through 2014, he worked at DuPont-Pioneer, the multinational seed producer, where his work included leading research on expressing high-value industrial polymers in maize grains and soybean seeds, developing in-field screening tools to screen maize hybrids for stalk strength, improving nitrogen use efficiency in maize, and on developing a combined genetic marker x metabolites model for predicting maize grain yield, demonstrating that the combined model was more effective than genetic markers alone.
“I was a developer and supplier of advanced plant genetics for a company that was providing high-quality maize seed to farmers around the world, but I felt like something was missing – a social component,” Dhugga said.
Taking a job at CIMMYT, where the focus is on helping improve food security for poor smallholder farmers in the developing world, satisfied this urge, according to Dhugga. “It felt like completing a circle, given where I came from and the role of CIMMYT in improving farmers’ food security and incomes.”
At CIMMYT, he is leading work to apply a recent technology for what is commonly called “gene editing.” Known as the CRISPR-Cas9 system, it allows researchers to enhance or turn off the expression of “native” genes as well as modify the properties of the translated proteins in crops like maize or wheat more simply and effectively than with other methods, including transgenics.
“To deactivate a gene and thus learn about what it does used to be a major undertaking that took years, and even then you didn’t find some of the things you wanted to,” Dhugga explained. “With the new technology, you can find what you’re looking for in much less time. That’s the main focus of my work right now.”
CIMMYT is collaborating with DuPont-Pioneer to fine map, isolate and validate a major gene in maize for resistance to maize lethal necrosis, which appeared in sub-Saharan Africa in 2011 and has caused major losses to maize crops, decreasing food security and the ability of the smallholder farmers to provide for their families.
“We already know a locus that confers high levels of resistance against the combination of viruses that cause the disease,” he said. “Once we have the specific gene, we can edit it directly in elite maize lines used for hybrid production in Africa, eliminating the need for generations of expensive crosses to get uniform lines with that gene.”
Dhugga greatly respects living systems and, rather than viewing his work as inventing new methods, believes he is drawing out the best potential of nature.
“The biology for these processes is already there in nature; we just need to rediscover and apply it to benefit farmers and ensure food security,” he said.
Breaking Ground is a regular series featuring staff at CIMMYT
EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) – Akhter Ali always knew he wanted to have an impact on the livelihoods of farmers in Pakistan.
“I come from a farmer family – the poverty and inequality of rural communities always disturbed me,” said Ali, who was born in Multan district, Pakistan. “I knew from a young age I wanted to do something to help my community and the rural poor throughout my country.”
Ali, an agricultural economist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), is working to sustainably increase agricultural productivity and incomes for farmers through the Agricultural Innovation Program (AIP), an initiative funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development to build up the country’s agriculture sector through the development and dissemination of new agriculture technologies.
“Agriculture supports nearly half of Pakistan’s population – more than two thirds for those living in rural areas – and accounts for over 20 percent of Pakistan’s gross domestic product” Ali said. “Strengthening this sector by connecting and addressing the needs of different actors in rural markets is key to poverty reduction and achieving food security.”
Despite the significant role of agriculture to the economy, the sector has only grown 2.8 percent in recent years due to weak market structures, resource depletion and other challenges. Ali, along with other researchers, is analyzing how maize and wheat farmers can access the best seed, technology and practices to sustainably increase crop yields across the country.
“If we want to boost farmer livelihoods, we need to change how farmers work by ensuring they know how to sustainably manage their land, water and other resources,” Ali said. “We then need to ensure that the markets in which these farmers operate are stable so that they have easier access to agricultural inputs like seed.”
Ali’s research over the past four years at CIMMYT has focused on making these goals a reality, from conducting comprehensive surveys, which are expected to help develop the durum wheat market in Pakistan, to adoption and impact studies of such sustainable technology as zero tillage machines and precision land levelers, now used by thousands of farmers throughout Pakistan.
“There are 80,000 farmers – 20 percent of which are women, whose numbers are growing – working with AIP who have adopted these new, sustainable technologies,” said Ali. In the future, Ali hopes to see his work continue to be used as a tool by policy makers, extension workers and others.
“We still face challenges with farmer access to seed, from engaging women to market constraints, so it’s critical we create policies that facilitate sustainable development in rural communities,” Ali said.
Shifting trends in Pakistan from urbanization to climate change will make it even more necessary to understand how rural communities operate in the coming years, he said, adding that policies supporting its development will be key to feeding the country and alleviating rural poverty.
Farmer Sunita Baineya checking her maize as it comes out of a shelling machine powered by 4WT in Sirkohiya, Bardiya. Photo: P. Lowe/CIMMYT
EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) – Small-scale mechanization is becoming more important on smallholder farms in Nepal as young people, particularly men, migrate away from rural areas in large numbers, leaving women to take on even bigger responsibilities.
Some 13 million people – about 50 percent of Nepal’s population – live in the hills and mountains where most subsistence farming takes place. Women traditionally contribute more agricultural labor than men in these rural areas, typically undertaking time-consuming tasks such as weeding, harvesting, threshing and milling in addition to household chores. Two-thirds of women in Nepal are self-employed or engaged in unpaid family labor.
Nepal has the lowest ratio of men to women in all of South Asia and the proportion of rural households headed by women jumped from 15 to 25 percent between 2001 and 2011. As a result, rural women face many challenges, their potential curtailed in part due to the difficulty accessing credit. Despite a 2002 amendment to the country’s Land Act, the practice of male succession means that women only own property in a fifth of rural households.
“Almost everywhere there are changes, but maybe particularly so in the mountains,” said Scott Justice, a rural mechanization specialist with the Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia project in Nepal (CSISA-NP), who works with smallholders as part of efforts to help improve livelihoods. “Tasks like the upkeep of terraces, plowing or service hiring are getting delayed or passed on to women, at the same time as the prices of hiring are going up.”
Following the April 2015 earthquake in Nepal, CSISA-NP was contracted by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to help affected farming communities recover by providing grain storage tools, farm machinery and training, reaching 33,150 earthquake-affected households.
CSISA-NP, a project led by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) with the International Rice Research Institute and the International Food Policy Research Institute and funded by USAID, aims to address the gender imbalance by increasing access to affordable machinery options to increase farm income while reducing drudgery for women.
An as yet unpublished study on the spread of mini-tillers has shown approximately 7,000 mini-tillers sold in hill districts, Justice said.
“A key priority for the government and projects like ours is getting owners to use the [mini-tiller] engine to power other machinery like wheat and rice threshers, mini-maize shellers, pumps and maybe even reapers and planter-seeder attachments,” said Justice.
“A small cadre of machinery importers who, along with CIMMYT’s market development efforts, are increasingly attuned to small farmers’ needs, bringing in a new generation of small and inexpensive machinery ideas and products emerging from China,” he said. “These qualities make it easier for women and their households to access and use such technologies.”
One of the technologies identified by CSISA-NP is a small, lightweight, precision hand cranked fertilizer spreader, which is growing in popularity because it can increase rice and wheat yields by 5 to 10 percent while cutting labor by half or more. CSISA has trained 150 service providers to use the fertilizer spreader, while cooperating private sector partners have imported over 500 of these spreaders in advance of the 2016-2017 wheat season.
CSISA focuses on the creation of a sustainable private machinery and service sector that serves farmers’ needs. A core group of approximately 15 to 20 (mostly) small businesses are constantly traveling and scouring the markets in China for new machinery and new ideas. One challenge is to encourage them to look more broadly in Asia for innovative scale appropriate technologies that meet the needs of both women and men in Nepal.
“Our activities are based on more than two decades of CIMMYT experience of small-scale mechanization in Nepal’s Terai area – rather than joining farmers’ experiments, we join in small and mid-sized machinery importers’ marketing experiments,” explained Justice.
CSISA is led by CIMMYT with the International Rice Research Institute and the International Food Policy Research Institute and funded by USAID. It was established in 2009 to promote durable change at scale in South Asia’s cereal-based cropping systems.
Breaking Ground is a regular series featuring staff at CIMMYT
EL BATAN (CIMMYT) — Xuecai Zhang wants to merge traditional maize breeding methods with new software and other tools to help improve farmers’ yields faster than ever.
“In the next three decades we need to increase agricultural production by 70 percent to meet projected food demand,” said Zhang, a maize genomic selection breeder at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT). “However, crop yields, while improving, are not increasing quickly enough to meet this challenge. We must explore new methods and technologies that can speed up our crop breeding processes if we hope to feed a world with over 2.3 billion more people by 2050.”
Growing up in Henan province, China, Zhang’s mother was a teacher who instilled a love of science in him from a young age.
“I loved exploring outside and seeing how plants grew — I always wanted to know how they worked,” said Zhang. “Maize was naturally interesting to me because it’s the second most grown crop in Henan, and is becoming a very important crop in China overall.”
Zhang first arrived at CIMMYT in 2009 while completing a doctorate in applied quantitative genetics. He subsequently returned as a postdoctoral fellow in 2011 to undertake molecular breeding and coordinate CIMMYT’s maize genomic selection program.
Since his return, he has focused mainly on helping breeders and statisticians work together to create new tools that can help accelerate the breeding process through genomic selection.
“It’s crucial that as breeders, we’re able to use genomic selection in our work,” Zhang said. “Not only does it speed up the breeding process to deliver better, faster results to farmers in the field, applied well it’s also a more cost-effective option.”
Conventional plant breeding is dependent on a researcher going into the field, observing the characteristics of a plant based on how its genotype interacts with the environment, then painstakingly selecting and combining those materials that show such favorable traits such as high yield or drought resistance. This process is repeated again and again to develop new varieties.
Genomic selection adds DNA markers to the breeder’s toolkit. After initial field evaluation breeders are able to use DNA markers and advanced computing applications to select the best plants and predict the best combinations of plants without having to wait to evaluate every generation in the field. This speeds up the development of new varieties as more cycles of selection and recombination can be conducted in a year compared with field selection alone.
The cost of hiring a human to go and collect phenotypic data for conventional breeding is increasing, while conversely the costs associated with genomic selection are getting lower as genotyping and computing technology becomes more affordable, according to Zhang.
“Breeders need to think about where the technology is pushing our field,” he said. “They will increasingly have to be versed statisticians and computer scientists to effectively apply genomic selection to their work, and I want to help ensure they have the skills and tools to make the most of the technology.”
Zhang has helped demonstrate to breeders in Latin America, Africa and Asia of the value of genomic selection by showing that the technique can improve the prediction accuracy of successful varieties in comparison to conventional breeding. He also credits joint efforts like the GOBII project, a large-scale public-sector effort supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, to apply genomic selection techniques to crop breeding programs across the developing world, as key towards curating the necessary data for genomic breeding programs.
“In the future, I hope to continue to help build better tools for breeders to move towards genomic selection,” Zhang said. “I chose to breed maize because of the potential impact it has to help smallholder farmers globally. Compared with other crops the yield potential of maize is very high, so I want to ensure we are using the best resources available that will help maize reach its full potential.”
Good road networks to facilitate smallholders to access agricultural and seed markets is critical for higher food production both for consumption and investment. Above, the distance that it takes for most smallholder farmers in Mozambique to access different supply chain services. Source: CIMMYT
NAIROBI, Kenya (CIMMYT) – Africa’s agriculture sector is driven by smallholder farmers who also account for 70 percent of people directly reliant on agriculture for their livelihoods. Despite its large-scale impact across the continent, smallholder farming largely remains a low technology, subsistence activity.
Constructively engaging smallholders as investors as well as producers can help attract better investment into the sector, engaging farmers to produce bigger crops for sale rather than only for consumption at the household level. To achieve this goal, bigger financial investments are required to raise the standard of engagement and consequently that of Africa’s agricultural sector, according to Paswel Marenya, a social scientist who works with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT),
Three recent studies conducted by CIMMYT scientists and their collaborators in eastern and southern Africa assessed potential interventions to address current inefficiencies in seed supply chains. They also explored how low purchasing power has hobbled smallholders trying to gain access to maize and legume seed markets. Even though these markets have recently expanded as more private companies invest in maize and legume businesses, smallholders have not benefited despite their significant role in the sector.
A key component of improving agricultural practices is to bolster seed systems to give smallholders better access to high-yielding, stress tolerant seeds. For example, in Tanzania, a weak seed supply chain led to smallholders recycling hybrid maize seeds up to three years in a row in some cases. The main source of legume seeds was often from seed saved from previous harvest.
Elsewhere, in Mozambique, smallholders surveyed were accessing only three improved varieties in 2014 despite the release of over 30 improved maize and legume varieties that year. In a country where 95 percent of the population is dependent on maize and legumes, which particularly for rural families provide the most important source of proteins, deep changes are needed to facilitate access to improved seeds.
The studies determined that ineffective seed distribution contributed significantly to limiting smallholder access to improved varieties. Additionally, low seed production from the few approved seed companies in the country has worsened the situation due to soaring costs, putting improved seed beyond the reach of millions of smallholders.
As a result, approximately 70 percent of Mozambican farmers use local maize varieties with poor resistance to pests and diseases and low productivity potential.
To address these issues, the studies unanimously recommend investments in rural roads to connect isolated communities with agricultural and seed markets and to make it more cost effective for seed distributors to reach far flung communities. Secondly, investments in storage facilities in Mozambique and a more effective national seed system are needed to facilitate adequate foundation seed for seed companies. In addition to favorable policies that attract more private seed and fertilizer companies, a stronger public agricultural extension system is required.
On a broader scale, government policymakers must take advantage of the burgeoning seed sector and mushrooming interest from private sector players.
“Regulatory agencies in the seed sector should take up a bigger role to facilitate and encourage competition that will widen seed access and bring down seed costs,” Marenya said. “This is the most sustainable solution that ensures the private sector is involved, farmers drive seed demand, and profit prospects are good.”
Rising food demand and projected growth of African food markets present a real opportunity for African farmers, Marenya added. In 2011, for example, sub-Saharan Africa imported $43 billion worth of such basic agricultural commodities as wheat, rice, maize, vegetable oil and sugar. Additionally, research estimates from Germany’s Deutsche Bank show that urban food markets will quadruple and that food and beverage markets are projected to grow to about $1 trillion by 2030 leading to bigger economic benefits overall.
While staple crop markets in the eastern and southern Africa region are relatively vibrant, many farmers gain access to these markets through informal links. Structured value chains, which include dependable and transparent information systems, quality storage facilities and supportive financial or credit services would enhance farmers’ role in the markets.
“Real change will occur when efforts be made to enable farmers and traders to profitably invest in superior pre- and post-harvest quality management as well as engage in contract-based supply chains to exploit opportunities brought about by increasing urbanization and trade,” Marenya said.
Monica Mezzalama, head of CIMMYT’s Seed Health Laboratory. Photo: Xochiquetzal Fonseca/CIMMYT.
Breaking Ground is a regular series featuring staff at CIMMYT
EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) — At the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) it all starts with a seed. Each year, the non-profit receives requests and sends more than 700,000 packets of seed to researchers, agricultural organizations and farmers around the world from its headquarters near Mexico City. These seeds stand up to climate change, produce higher yields with fewer resources and provide the nutrition a growing global population needs.
However, before each seed travels across an international border, it is essential to ensure that each one has a clean bill of health, free from virus, fungus and bacteria pathogens. Infected seeds must be controlled or there is a risk that plant pathogens will spread, affecting crop health and potentially threatening food security.
That is where plant pathology expert Monica Mezzalama, head of CIMMYT’s Seed Health Laboratory, gets involved.
“Seed movement around the world is regulated to limit the spread of pathogens across international borders,” said the senior scientist. “I coordinate and supervise seed health testing to ensure all seeds that pass through CIMMYT meet these international standards and do not pose a risk.”
Securing the health of seeds ensures that researchers, breeders and partner organizations don’t encounter infected seed and is essential to maintaining efficient agricultural research that has impact, she added.
Since taking the helm of the Seed Health Laboratory 15 years ago, all seed that has been inspected on its way out of CIMMYT must meet certification. If unhealthy seed is found it must be quarantined and destroyed under the law, explained Mezzalama.
Seeds arriving from partner organizations, researchers or farmers are also tested for disease and granted a “seed release” by Mezzalama and her team. Authorized seed then moves on to CIMMYT researchers to be studied for disease resistance, heat tolerance and micronutrient content and added into international breeding programs. Others are placed in the maize and wheat germplasm bank, where over 175,000 different varieties are preserved on behalf of humanity and are freely available to all upon request.
A curiosity for disease and a passion to cure led Mezzalama to a career as a plant pathologist. While studying for an undergraduate degree in agronomy in her hometown of Turin, Italy, she visited nearby vineyards to study plant pathogens for the first time.
“It was working in the vineyards where I first saw plant pathogens at work and where I saw the impact they have on farmers, and what it means for their livelihoods,” she said.
After graduating in 1986, Mezzalama began her first job at CIMMYT working alongside virologist Peter Burnett on a project dedicated to barley yellow dwarf (BYD) virus, which effects barley, wheat, maize, rice and other grasses worldwide. The experience opened her mind to a new world where she learned the inner workings of plant pathogens and started to study for a doctoral degree in plant pathology in Italy.
Since returning to CIMMYT in 2001, Mezzalama has led the Seed Health Laboratory, set institutional biosafety protocols to protect against harmful incidents, which include regular reviews of the biosafety in laboratory settings, as well as well as guidelines to follow, and participated in several research projects. Most recently, she joined a project to control the spread of Maize Lethal Necrosis (MLN), a devastating virus that poses a severe risk to food security in eastern Africa.
The complex disease results from the infection of two deadly viruses, maize chlorotic mottle virus and sugar cane mosaic virus. It spreads through infected maize seed and insect pests. Mezzalama’s skill in plant pathology detection was called upon to organize the opening of seed health laboratories in Kenya and Zimbabwe and also train staff on how to detect seed infected with MLN or the two associated viruses.
Currently, Mezzalama is in the final stages of developing a standard of detection protocol, providing the agriculture industry with knowledge of best practices and affordable tools to detect MLN infected maize seed.
“There are several products and methods that may be used for MLN detection in seed, these must be tested to see which obtain the most accurate results efficiently while taking into price into account,” she said.
Accuracy, time and cost are important factors when developing MLN detection protocols as common practice, implemented by partners in Kenya and other impacted countries, she explained.
Key donors to CIMMYT’s efforts in controlling MLN include the CGIAR Research Program on Maize (MAIZE), the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture (SFSA), the Association for Strengthening Agricultural Research in Eastern and Central Africa (ASARECA), the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), the Kenya Agriculture and Livestock Research Organization (KALRO), and the Rwanda Agriculture Board (RAB), CGIAR Fund Donors and other generous contributors to CIMMYT maize research.
CIMMYT maize breeder, Thokozile Ndhlela (left), inspects a maize trial field with smallholder farmer, Otilia Chirova, in Mashonaland East, Zimbabwe. Photo: Johnson Siamachira/CIMMYT
HARARE, Zimbabwe (CIMMYT) – Little did 47-year-old Thokozile Ndhlela know that growing up in a rural area in Zimbabwe would inspire her to become a well-respected agricultural scientist, helping to transform agriculture by developing science-based solutions to some of the complex issues facing African farmers.
Currently a postdoctoral staff member with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT)in Zimbabwe’s capital Harare, Ndhlela encourages girls to choose options that lead to careers in agriculture. Most farmers worldwide average an age of over 60, so Ndhlela’s work is also helping to encourage young people to get involved in agriculture.
“There are many exciting opportunities to further improve agricultural productivity and improve food and nutritional security in my country, and beyond,” she said with a chuckle.
She comes from humble beginnings – growing up on a small farm, through primary and secondary school, and universities – and now she has begun to reap the rewards of her hard-won endeavors.
She credits her farmer father as her inspiration to pursue agricultural science.
“My father was my greatest source of inspiration for me to venture into agriculture,” Ndhela said. “From high school, he encouraged me to study sciences. He used to boast, saying his daughter would be studying agriculture and that I’d come back and assist him in his plot.”
His dream came true.
“I’m proud now since he is growing improved maize varieties that l’m providing him,” she said, adding that he proudly tells his friends that the varieties are being bred by his daughter.
Thokozile Ndhlela shows pro-vitamin A maize to visiting scientists at CIMMYT southern Africa regional office in Harare, Zimbabwe. Photo: Johnson Siamachira/CIMMYT
For Ndhlela, the journey has at times been long and winding. She has had to burst age-old stereotypes, which doubt women’s capacity to engage in science and balance career aspirations with family commitments. She started her journey in pursuit of her first desire to become a teacher, but, she changed course to become an agricultural scientist.
She believes making agricultural research a high priority will also attract more skilled professionals to the field — especially women and young people.
“I’m happy to see farmers in my region using results of my research work,” she said.
Her scientific ambition was nurtured by her female secondary school teachers. After finishing secondary school in 1989, she enrolled at Gwebi College of Agriculture outside Harare to study for a national diploma in agriculture. Afterwards, she worked at the Zimbabwe Crop Breeding Institute in the Ministry of Agriculture’s Department of Research and Specialist Services (DRSS). While at DRSS she earned her Bachelor of Science in agriculture at the Zimbabwe Open University and subsequently enrolled for a master’s degree in plant breeding at the University of Zambia. While at the DRSS, she began her research and earned a doctoral degree at the University of the Free State in South Africa in 2012, with a thesis entitled, “Improvement strategies for yield potential, disease resistance and drought tolerance of Zimbabwean maize inbred lines.”
“My greatest passion is to see farmers in Zimbabwe and beyond grow improved maize varieties to step up food security and improve their livelihoods,” she said. “After becoming qualified, I was thrilled to put my skills to work and worked hard in breeding maize for drought, disease, heat and other stresses.”
Ndhlela has had the good fortune to implement the results of her work. While working for the national research system, she led the crop breeding program and won CIMMYT’s Best Breeding Program Award in southern Africa five years in succession. This success later culminated in winning the Zimbabwe Presidential Award for excellence in agricultural research in 2015. Under her guidance, the program saw the release of seven high yielding, drought tolerant hybrids and two open pollinated varieties in five years.
“This was no easy feat since it involved a lot of hard work, tolerance,” Ndhlela said. “I used to spend most of the time in the field since plant breeding is done in the field, and not in the office.‘’
CONFRONTING CHALLENGES
Out in the field with other researchers, Thokozile Ndhlela (far right), demonstrates maize breeding work at a CIMMYT southern Africa partner days in Harare, Zimbabwe. Photo: Johnson Siamachira/CIMMYT
In Africa, food and nutritional security remain a major concern. Declining soil fertility is a significant issue in the region, leading to poor crop performance. Climate change could also result in the number of malnourished people in sub-Saharan Africa increasing by 40 percent by 2050 – from 223 million to 355 million people, according to the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa. This challenge will require a great deal of innovation and focused scientific effort.
Ndhlela said smallholder farmers should shift agriculture from its current largely informal status in the economy into the formal business sector with a more structured system that targets young women. As a result, women in agriculture will play critical roles in agricultural incomes and employment development. When treated appropriately, added Ndhlela, agriculture can be moulded into an attractive career, especially for youth. In addition, she said, Africa needs more scientists, and especially women scientists.
A mother of four boys, Ndhlela believes she can make a difference to people’s lives through her agricultural research in development work. She shares her views on women in agricultural research in the following interview.
Q: Tell us about your early childhood.
A: I was born in Matobo District in Matabeleland South province of Zimbabwe. I’m the second born in a family of three boys and two girls. I spent most of my early childhood with my paternal grandparents in Matobo rural area. My grandparents earned a living off farming, growing horticultural crops commercially. They were passionate about farming, and l remember when l was in Grade One I would be woken up very early to go and work in the field before going to school. After school, or during weekends, l would also take the responsibility of herding goats. My parents were also passionate farmers and during school holidays we would all help my grandparents with farm work.
Q: What was one of your childhood dreams?
A: My childhood dream was to become a teacher. I was being inspired by my parents, and my many relatives who were in that profession.
Q: Was there any particular female scientist who inspired you when you were at school?
A: I was particularly inspired by my high school biology and chemistry teachers, who were both female. They taught me that what boys could do we girls could do too.
Q: “Girls should not believe that science training at university is a male domain.” What’s your comment on this?
A: Girls used to shy away from science especially at college level but with the new generation this seems to have changed as more girls are now doing science- based programs.
Q: Role models are also critical in shaping one’s future. Who was your inspiration to pursue a doctorate in agriculture?
A: Dr. Marianne Banziger, CIMMYT deputy director general for research and partnerships (then leading CIMMYT’s Global Maize Program, based in Kenya) inspired me to pursue doctorate studies. Doing a doctorate was far-fetched for me until Dr. Banziger asked me if l were interested in pursuing doctoral studies. She assured me that CIMMYT would support me secure a place to study.
Q: There’s a general misconception that studying agricultural science only prepares one to work on a farm. Is this the case?
A: This misconception used to be there especially when l was studying for my national diploma. We would play sports with students from other technical colleges whose students would snear at us agriculture students. They thought we could only work on a farm. Even my high school friends never understood why l chose agriculture. They asked me whether l would be able to work on a farm. But this is changing. People are now aware of the opportunities in agricultural science. I have personally had encounters with parents asking me what is required for their children to study agricultural science. I have made a career in science and agriculture and young girls can do it, also.
Q: Tell us about your experiences as a female researcher with DRSS. What does it mean to a female researcher? What are your experiences at CIMMYT?
A: As a female researcher at DRSS, I commanded a lot of respect from both male and female counterparts. This inspired and gave me the zeal to keep aiming higher. I started working at DRSS in 1994 as a diploma holder. With encouragement and inspiration, l ended up with a doctorate in plant breeding.
At DRSS, I led the Crop Breeding Institute to win a national award in maize breeding excellence. Called the “Robert Gabriel Mugabe Award” (after the Zimbabwean president), it is presented bi-annually for critical breakthroughs in research. The $15,000 award was presented to the Crop Breeding Institute’s National Maize Breeding Program, for outstanding research in the production and release of the maize variety ZS265. The variety has excellent tolerance to diseases, drought and low nitrogen and therefore suitable for production under dryland conditions.
In recognition of their sterling effort in using plant breeding to address low maize productivity on smallholder farms, CIMMYT’s Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa project awarded the “Best Maize Breeding Team in southern Africa” prize to Zimbabwe a record five times from 2008 to 2014.
Food insecurity can be overcome if we can bring together new knowledge and skills to farmers in a very sustainable manner. There will be crop production challenges unless we integrate climate change, soil fertility and water.
Joining CIMMYT as a maize breeder in 2014 was a dream come true for me and l really felt rewarded for my work. As plant breeding is male-dominated at CIMMYT- Southern Africa Regional Office, l feel challenged to do even better and prove that even women can do the job. I believe I’m an inspiration to other upcoming female scientists.
Q: During training, what was men’s attitude toward you?
A: I used to command respect from some of my male colleagues. However, some would look down on me. These were forced to change their attitude once they realized that I was better than them in our studies. I vividly remember such a scenario at the University of Zambia where l was the only female in a class of 10 Master of Science students.
Q: What was the main output of your agricultural research?
A: The main output of my agricultural research was the successful production of hybrids that are high yielding, drought and disease tolerant.
Q: To what extent are you involved in agricultural innovation at CIMMYT?
A: I’m particularly working on a special program on pro – vitamin A maize. This research work is both challenging and rewarding as my colleagues respect me because of my achievements. The work seeks to alleviate the problem of vitamin A deficiency that is prevalent in most developing countries, including those in southern Africa. There is very good evidence that vitamin A deficiency leads to an impaired immune system and can even have an impact on brain development. But effective science can make a huge difference here by enriching staple crops such as maize, with pro-vitamin A and providing subsistence farming households with nutritionally enhanced food.
In Zimbabwe, nearly one in every five children under the age of five years are vitamin A deficient. These deficiencies can lead to lower IQ, stunting, and blindness in children, increased susceptibility to disease for both children and adults; and higher health risks to mothers – and their infants – during childbirth. In partnership with HarvestPlus, and other fellow CIMMYT scientists, l have managed to facilitate the research and release of four pro-vitamin A hybrids in Malawi, Tanzania (two), Zambia (six) and Zimbabwe (four).
Q: Has working for CIMMYT in maize biofortification enriched your skills and knowledge?
A: Working at CIMMYT has made me grow in science. Coupled with improved leadership and gradual increase in my communications skills, I have become very confident in my career. Before joining CIMMYT, I had less knowledge on maize biofortification. I have since gained a lot of knowledge so that l can now explain to people what l’m doing with so much confidence and enthusiasm. I’m loving it!
Q: Women face huge challenges daily and often lack the right kind of support. The employment environment can also be hostile to women scientists. Has working for CIMMYT enabled male scientists to view female scientists the same, as equal partners in agricultural research in development?
A: I feel male scientists at CIMMYT are mature and view female scientists as equal partners in agricultural research in development, and l respect them for that.
Breaking Ground is a regular series featuring staff at CIMMYT
EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) – Access to genetic data can revolutionize research partnerships and lead to major benefits for crop breeders aiming to help smallholder farmers boost yields, according to Argentinian geneticist Cesar Petroli.
Hailing from Reconquista in Santa Fe Province, Petroli now works for the MasAgro program at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and is funded by Mexico’s Ministry of Agriculture (SAGARPA). He first became curious about genetics in the mid-1990s when it was a relatively new field in Argentina and the National University of Misiones offered the only bachelor’s degree in the country. Petroli initially focused on cattle and sheep genetics, which gave him his first introduction to molecular markers, which shed light on characteristics of the organism.
His interest in data and plant genetics took root while he was a student. While completing his doctoral degree at the University of Brasilia in partnership with EMBRAPA, Brazil’s agricultural research body, Petroli began to work on the eucalyptus tree with Diversity Arrays Technology (DArT), an Australian enterprise specializing in developing technologies for whole genome profiling.
At that time, CIMMYT wanted to create what was subsequently to become the Genetic Analysis Service for Agriculture (SAGA) using a platform based on the DArT method. Petroli was the perfect fit. Not only did he bring expertise in sequencing and low-cost DNA fingerprinting, he also brought experience of application of large amounts of data in research; in particular, his experience in eucalyptus.
At the heart of operations at the SAGA laboratory is the Illumina HiSeq 2500 sequencing system, one of only three in Mexico, where CIMMYT is headquartered. Petroli and his team have the capacity to determine the genetic make-up up to 2,500 maize samples per week for both CIMMYT and its partners, generating vast quantities of data in the process.
“We determine the genetic make-up maize and wheat varieties and collections,” Petroli said. “This can help maize breeders to identify patterns in the DNA which are associated with characteristics such as drought and heat tolerance. These patterns or molecular signposts can then be used to help select the best materials for breeding,” he added, explaining that heat and drought resistant maize and wheat varieties not only help present-day farmers, but could also mitigate potential future risks to global food security from the impacts of climate change.
The data generated when fingerprinting thousands of maize and wheat samples provide opportunities for scientific exploration and synergies; while one team may be exploring heat and drought tolerance, another team can use the same DNA fingerprint data to explore other characteristics such as disease tolerance.
“Sharing data for use by interested breeders broadens collaboration and maximizes benefits to smallholder farmers,” Petroli said, describing his enthusiasm for making data publicly available. “Accessible data increases the impact of our research and allows the global public to benefit from the wealth of knowledge we generate.”
In the first six years of the MasAgro program, more than 2 billion genotypic data have been made available in the Germinate and Dataverse platforms. Petroli’s work forms part of bigger efforts at CIMMYT to study and characterize genetic diversity for use in breeding programs.
Olum looks at the WE2115 variety that has transformed his microfinance business. Photo: B.Wawa/CIMMYT
LIRA, Uganda (CIMMYT) – Sam Olum started commercial maize farming three years ago in Lira District, situated approximately 340 km north of Uganda’s capital, Kampala.
As an out-grower, Olum owns and manages 25 acres of land, which he has been planting with hybrid maize for sale to seed companies. He was able to earn more profit using hybrid varieties, which yield more, and put this money into his microfinance business – Aninolal Investment Ltd.
A large number of seed companies in Africa use out-growers, also known as contract farmers, who ensure there will be supply for the companies’ agricultural products. Out-growers produce seed on their own land under contract with the seed company, and are guaranteed purchase of the produce.
Olum first came across hybrid maize two years ago when his uncle Gilbert Owuor introduced him to Otis Garden Seed Company that produces and markets improved drought tolerant varieties WE2114, WE2115, UH5051 and Longe 7H. Olum decided to invest his entire 25 acres of land on WE2115, and hasn’t looked back since.
“I have faithfully planted this variety for two years since it got into the market and the amount of yield I harvest each season is worth the money put into this work,” said Olum. Every season he planted WE2115 his farm was filled with at minimum 350 bags of 120 kg each.
His biggest praise for this variety is that it matures fast, the cobs are big and it is high yielding. In addition, given that Otis Garden Company provides Olum with a ready market for his produce, he is guaranteed a stable income that has transformed him into a successful businessman.
Returns from the WE2115 yield have enabled Olum to bolster his microfinance business that is now worth UGX 200 million (approximately $55,000).
Olum with his uncle Owuor who introduced him to the WE2115 variety, and James Olwi, seed production officer at Otis Garden Seed Company. Photo: B.Wawa/CIMMYT
“The profits from this variety have made a very big difference in my business,” Olum said. He has expanded his clientele beyond his hometown and now reaches farmers from other districts. “At the moment we loan out between 50 and 80 million shillings ($ 14,000 and 22,000) to about 200 farmers in Amolatar, Dokolo, Lira, Masindi and Oyam,” added Olum.
The interest of eight percent he charges on the loans is quite affordable for many farmers compared to the interest rates charged by other financial institutions that range from 12 to 15 percent. Besides supporting farmers, Olum has created job opportunities for 15 people employed full time at his company.
WE2115 and other similar varieties are marketed under the brand name DroughtTEGO, currently grown in four other countries in Africa (Kenya, Mozambique, South Africa and Tanzania). In 2016, Uganda’s national variety release committee approved the release of an additional four DroughtTEGO varieties: WE1101, WE3103, WE3106 and WE3109, expected to get into the market by 2018.
A glimpse of Klein Karoo’s sprawling 15-hectare maize field in Manica District, Mozambique. Photo: K. Kaimenyi/CIMMYT
MANICA, Mozambique (CIMMYT) – From years of civil war to the devastation of drought, Mozambique has had its fair share of misfortune over the last six years. Home to an estimated 26 million people, this country holds promise for a mighty economic comeback, with agriculture as a major contributor. Despite struggles to reclaim its former glory, several agricultural multinationals are setting up shop in Mozambique, and reaping great benefits.
One such company is Klein Karoo (K2), a seed producing and marketing giant with presence in Africa and around the world. Founded in Oudtshoorn, South Africa, in 2003, K2 has expanded its reach with seed production and business units in southern Africa (Mozambique, Zambia and Zimbabwe), and distribution partners in Asia and Europe.
Before setting up a seed production unit in Mozambique in 2016, K2 would import seed from South Africa and Zimbabwe, which took up a hefty chunk of total operation costs. Now, these funds can be directed towards production, distribution, and marketing efforts in the country. In 2016 for instance, K2’s sales target for drought tolerant (DT) maize seed was 100 tons. With local production up and running, 40 tons were produced, and 60 tons imported – a significant cost reduction.
The company is currently undertaking multiplication of both hybrid and open pollinated varieties (OPVs) of DT maize, the most popular being Pris 601 and ZM 523 respectively.
Pris 601, a DT hybrid, is particularly favored for its similarities to long loved Matuba, a local variety smallholder farmers have held onto despite its poor yield potential. Much like Matuba, Pris 601 is semi flint, giving it an excellent milling quality preferred by women. On average, farmers planting Matuba can expect a maximum yield of two tons per hectare (t/ha), compared to almost six times more with Pris 601.
Julius Mapanga, operations manager for Klein Karoo in Mozambique, inspects maize at the farm in Manica. Photo: K. Kaimenyi/CIMMYT
“Coupled with good farming practices such as proper spacing, timely weeding, and correct fertilizer application, smallholder farmers in Mozambique could potentially harvest as much as 10 to 12 t/ha by planting drought tolerant maize variety Pris 601,” says Julius Mapanga, operations manager for K2 based in Mozambique, adding, “However, since most farmers are not very consistent with good agronomic practices, actual yield falls to about 5 t/ha, which is still better than Matuba.”
Ensuring uptake and adoption of DT maize varieties among farmers requires innovative strategies, including partnerships with experts in seed promotion. Klein Karoo, in partnership with Farm Input Promotions Africa Ltd. (FIPS-Africa), have rolled out distribution of trial seed packs to farmers, and use of village based advisors (VBAs) to close on sales.
Seed packs, usually weighing between 25 to 75 g, are quickly gaining popularity among seed companies as an alternative to planting demonstration plots. Not only are demonstration plots costly to set up, they are also few and far between, meaning not too many farmers get to see them. Demonstration plots also simulate ideal conditions such as fertilizer application and sometimes irrigation, as opposed to actual farmer habits, which are not always good. Seed packs on the other hand are cost efficient, have a wider reach, and farmers can practice their usual farming methods to see for themselves the product’s performance.
On average, a farmer hosting a demonstration plot will receive a 10 kg bag of maize seed per season, along with fertilizer, and expert advice and follow up on good agronomic practices. Seed packs of 25 g each from a 10 kg bag of maize benefit 400 farmers, and each pack is enough to plant about three rows of maize on a five meter square plot.
Even though Klein Karoo has distributors present in almost all provinces in Mozambique, some gaps in seed distribution still exist. This is where VBAs come in handy, especially in areas with low concentration of agro-dealers, and where farmers live far apart from each other. VBAs are farmers with entrepreneurial skills, and well known in the community, who can purchase seed from K2 and sell within their locality. On average, a VBA can reach between 200-300 farmers per village, to sell improved seed and offer training on good farming practices.
Combining seed packs with promotion by VBAs is possibly the best business strategy K2 could employ. In 2015 alone, over 80,000 seed packs of 30 g each were distributed to farmers across Mozambique, with VBAs making individual sales of between 100-200 kg of improved maize seed.
Through technical and financial support and capacity building initiatives, CIMMYT’s Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa Seed Scaling (DTMASS) project works closely with Klein Karoo and other partners in eastern and southern Africa to bring affordable, improved maize seed to 2.5 million people. DTMASS aims to meet demand and improve access to good-quality maize through production of improved drought tolerant, stress resilient, and high yielding maize varieties for smallholder farmers.
CIMMYT scientist Caixia Lan. Photo: Courtesy of Caixia Lan
Breaking Ground is a regular series featuring staff at CIMMYT
EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) – Support for research into breeding crops resistant to wheat rust is essential to manage the spread of the deadly disease, which has caused billions of dollars of yield losses globally in recent years, said Caixia Lan, a wheat rust expert at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).
Rust disease has historically been a menace to wheat production worldwide. Although agricultural scientists manage the disease by breeding wheat varieties with rust resistant traits, the emergence of new races hinders progress and demands continued research, said the scientist.
With outbreaks of new strands reported in Europe, Africa and Central Asia, wheat rust presents an intensifying threat to the over 1 billion people in the developing world who rely on the crop as a source of food and for their livelihoods.
One of the most recent rust races, Ug99, was detected in 1998 and has since spread across 13 countries, alone causing crop losses of $3 billion in Africa, the Middle East and South Asia, said Lan.
Working with CIMMYT’s Global Wheat Program Lan is identifying and mapping adult-plant resistance genes to different races of rust (leaf, stripe, and stem) in bread and durum wheat and transferring them into new varieties that help secure farmer’s production.
Growing up in an area dependent on agriculture in rural China, Lan knows all too well the impact crop disease and natural disaster has on family food security and livelihoods. The struggles of smallholder farmers to feed and support their families motivated her to pursue a career in agriculture for development, but it was not until university that she became inspired by the improvements made to crop yield through genetic manipulation and breeding, she said.
Rust is a fungal disease that uses wheat plants as a host, sucking vital nutrients and sugars from the plant leaving it to wither and die. Without intervention, wheat rust spreads due to the release of billions of spores, which travel by wind to other plants, crops, regions or countries. Spores have the potential to start new infection, ravage crops and threaten global food security.
The science behind building genetic resistance takes two forms known as major (or race-specific) genes and adult-plant resistance based on minor genes. Major resistance genes protect the wheat plants from infection by specific strains of rust. While adult plant resistance, Lan’s area of specialization, stunts the pathogen by reducing the infection frequency and limiting its nutrient intake from the host wheat plant. Some of the longer-lasting adult-plant resistance genes have been shown to provide protection against multiple diseases for decades and have not succumbed to a mutated strain of rust so far.
Replacing wheat crops for varieties bred with several rust-resistant genes acts as a safeguard for occasions when the pathogen mutates to overcome one resistant gene as the others continue the defense, Lan said.
Lan has identified a number of rust resistant genes in CIMMYT germplasm and developed molecular markers, which are fragments of DNA associated with a specific location in the genome. However, as new races of the disease emerge and old ones continue to spread, research identifying durable and multiple rust resistant genes and breeding them into crops is of high importance, she said.
Bhoja Raj Basnet joined CIMMYT as a postdoctoral fellow working in the bread wheat improvement program in 2012. Photo: A. Cortes/CIMMYT
Breaking Ground is a regular series featuring staff at CIMMYT
MEXICO CITY (CIMMYT) – Scientist Bhoja Raj Basnet knows first hand what it is like to be a smallholder farmer.
Basnet’s earliest memories were formed on a one-acre subsistence farm in Jhapa, in southeastern Nepal, a fertile area in a country where the livelihoods of nearly 65 percent of people depend on agriculture.
The tiny farm provided the foundation for a journey that led ultimately to a doctoral degree in the United States and a career as a wheat breeder in Mexico at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).
Wheat plays a major role in Nepal’s agricultural landscape. It is the country’s third largest crop, cultivated on about 750,000 hectares of arable land each year with an average yield of 2.5 tons per hectare. Above wheat, farmers favor only rice and maize.
“I grew up playing with the plants and soil on my family’s farm and before I entered high school I knew I wanted to pursue a career in agricultural science.” Basnet explained. “As I got older I started to realize the importance of agriculture and how agriculture can really shape a child’s health and future. This is what really pushed me to pursue my career.”
Basnet went on to earn his master and doctoral degrees in plant breeding. After graduation in 2012 from Texas A&M University, Basnet joined CIMMYT as a postdoctoral fellow working in the bread wheat improvement program.
In 2014, Basnet began leading a project conducting research into hybrid wheat in collaboration with Syngenta, which involves researching and developing tools and technology for developing commercially viable hybrid CIMMYT wheat varieties.
Hybrid wheat is created when a breeder intentionally crosses two genetically distinct and stable wheat lines to produce an offspring that combines the best traits of the parents. The process of developing a hybrid can take years, as traits are carefully chosen to achieve desired characteristics, such as increased grain yield or stress tolerance.
The principle behind hybrid varieties is exploitation of heterosis, the superiority of the hybrid offspring over its parent varieties. This is a biological phenomenon observed in almost all living organisms. However, the magnitude of “heterosis” varies significantly based on several biological and environmental factors.
“Hybrid wheat has always fascinated me,” Basnet said, adding, “I really want to see the end results and to see this work succeed.”
Hybrid wheat varieties have proven to be tricky. In fact, CIMMYT’s first attempt to develop hybrid wheat occurred in the 1960s and despite stops and starts over the years, has been ongoing since 2010.
Increasing investment and long-term funding commitments are a key prerequisite to achieving success in crop improvement, especially in breeding, Basnet said. Unlike traditional wheat variety development, successful research into hybrid wheat varieties depends largely on the willingness and active engagement of private sectors into research and seed businesses.
Basnet is working to develop a hybrid wheat foundation at CIMMYT by using new technology and existing research on hybrids. This hybrid wheat foundation will create genetic diversity within wheat to increase genetic gains and develop tools that can produce large amounts of hybrid seed.
“Currently less than one percent of wheat crops globally are hybrid wheat,” Basnet explained. “We need to continue with this research, as hybrid crops could lead to 15 to 20 percent greater yield potential and in particular higher stability, a very important trait with climate change.”
Breaking Ground is a regular series featuring staff at CIMMYT
EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) – Carolina Sansaloni’s passion for genetics began when she was at Universidad de Misiones in Posadas, Misiones, Argentina, an interest that grew as she moved on to receive her master’s and doctoral degrees in molecular biology at Universidad de Brasilia in Brazil.
While completing her doctorate degree, Sansaloni travelled to Canberra, Australia to research the genomic structure of the eucalyptus tree at Diversity Arrays Technology (DArT), learning the ins and outs of sequencing technology.
In 2012, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) wanted to introduce the DArT genotyping technologies to Mexico to serve the needs of the Mexican maize and wheat research communities, and once Sansaloni finished her doctoral degree, she was an obvious choice to lead this initiative.
Working under the MasAgro Biodiversidad project in partnership with DArT, INIFAP and CIMMYT, Sansaloni helped to build the Genetic Analysis Service for Agriculture (SAGA in Spanish) from the ground up.
The service, managed by the CIMMYT-based Seeds of Discovery (SeeD) initiative, brings cutting edge genotyping capacity and genetic analysis capability to Mexico. The facility provides unique insights into the genetic variation of wheat and maize at a “sequence level.” Use of the vast quantities of data generated help understand genetic control of characteristics evaluated at a plant or crop level for example, height variations among wheat varieties.
SAGA’s services are available for all CIMMYT scientists, universities, national agriculture research programs and private companies. Worldwide, few other platforms produce this kind of data and most are inaccessible to scientists working at publicly funded institutions because their economic or logistics difficulties.
“When it comes to genotyping technology, it doesn’t matter what type of organism you are working with. It could be wheat, eucalyptus or chicken – the machine will work the same way,” explained Sansaloni.
Sansaloni has also been focusing her time on the wheat Global Diversity Analysis, which characterizes and analyzes seeds in genebanks at both CIMMYT and the International Center for Agricultural Research in Dry Areas (ICARDA). Her team has characterized approximately 100,000 wheat accessions including 40 percent of the CIMMYT genebank and almost 100 percent of the ICARDA genebank wheat collection. This is an incredible and unique resource for wheat scientists providing a genetic framework to facilitate selection of the most relevant accessions for breeding.
“Currently only five to eight percent of materials in the genebank are being used in the breeding programs,” Sansaloni said. “The Global Diversity Analysis could have huge impacts on the future of wheat yields. It is like discovering the pieces of a puzzle, and then beginning to understand how these pieces can fit together to build excellent varieties of wheat.”
Sansaloni’s goal is to combine information from CIMMYT and ICARDA, making the information accessible to the entire wheat community and eventually enhancing breeding programs across the globe.
“Working at CIMMYT has been an invaluable experience,” Sansaloni said. “I’ve had the opportunity to work and collaborate with so many different people, and it’s brought me from the laboratory into the wheat fields, which really brings me closer to my work.”
SeeD is a joint initiative of CIMMYT and the Mexican Ministry of Agriculture (SAGARPA) through the MasAgroproject. SeeD receives additional funding from the CGIAR Research Programs on Maize (MAIZE CRP) and Wheat (WHEAT CRP), and from the UK’s Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC).
Breaking Ground is a regular series featuring staff at CIMMYT
Deepmala Sehgal, wheat geneticist and molecular breeder at CIMMYT. Photo: M. Listman/CIMMYT
EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) — Molecular analysis research by Deepmala Sehgal, a wheat geneticist and molecular breeder who joined the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) as an associate scientist in 2013, has led to the discovery of novel genes for yield, disease resistance and climate resilience in previously little-used wheat genetic resources.
But getting to the point of applying cutting-edge DNA marker technology to support CIMMYT wheat breeding has involved a few dramatic moves for the New Delhi native, who studied botany throughout middle school and university. “I loved science and chose plant science, because I enjoyed the field trips and didn’t like dissecting animals,” Sehgal said, explaining her choice of profession.
It wasn’t until she was studying for her Ph.D. at Delhi University in 2008 that she first used molecular markers, which are DNA segments near genes for traits of interest, like drought tolerance, and which can help breeders to develop improved crop varieties that feature those traits.
“For my thesis, I used molecular markers in a very basic way to analyze the diversity of safflower species that the U.S. Department of Agriculture had in its gene bank but didn’t know how to classify. I found a place for some and, for several, had to establish completely new subspecies,” Sehgal said.
Later, as a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Aberystwyth in Britain, Sehgal used an approach known as fine mapping of quantitative trait loci (QTL), for drought tolerance in pearl millet. “The aim of fine mapping is to get shorter QTL markers that are nearer to the actual gene involved,” she explained, adding that this makes it easier to use the markers for breeding.
As it turned out, Sehgal’s growing proficiency in molecular marker research for crops made her suited to work as a wheat geneticist at CIMMYT.
“By 2013, CIMMYT had generated a huge volume of new data through genotyping-by-sequencing research, but those data needed to be analyzed using an approach called “association mapping,” to identify markers that breeders could use to select for specific traits. My experience handling such data and working with drought stress gave me an in with CIMMYT.”
Based at CIMMYT’s Mexico headquarters, Sehgal currently devotes 70 percent of her time to work for the CIMMYT global wheat program and the remainder for Seeds of Discovery, a CIMMYT-led project supported by Mexico’s Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Food (SAGARPA), which aims to unlock new wheat genetic diversity able to address climate change challenges.
Over the last two years, she has served as lead author for two published studies and co-author for four others. One used genotyping-by-sequencing loci and gene-based markers to examine the diversity of more than 1,400 spring bread wheat seed collections from key wheat environments. Another applied genome-wide association analysis on a selection of landrace collections from Turkey.
“In the first, we discovered not only thousands of new DNA marker variations in landraces adapted to drought and heat, but a new allele for the vernalization gene, which influences the timing of wheat flowering, and new alleles for genes controlling grain quality, all in landraces from near wheat’s center of origin in Asia and the Middle East.”
Sehgal acknowledges the as-yet limited impact of molecular markers in wheat breeding. “Individual markers generally have small effects on genetically complex traits like yield or drought tolerance; moreover, many studies fail to account for “epistasis,” the mutual influence genes have on one another, within a genome.”
To address this, she and colleagues have carried out the first study to identify genomic regions with stable expression for grain yield and yield stability, as well as accounting for their individual epistatic interactions, in a large sample of elite wheat lines under multiple environments via genome wide association mapping. A paper on this work has been accepted for publication in Nature Scientific Reports.
Sehgal has found her experience at CIMMYT enriching. “I feel free here to pursue the work I truly enjoy and that can make a difference, helping our center’s wheat breeders to create improved varieties with which farmers can feed a larger, more prosperous global population in the face of climate change and new, deadly crop diseases.”
Breaking Ground is a regular series featuring staff at CIMMYT
Jiafa Chen, a statistical and molecular geneticist at CIMMYT. Photo: CIMMYT
EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) – Maize has always been an integral part of Jiafa Chen’s life.
Chen, a statistical and molecular geneticist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), has helped identify new genetic resources that have the potential to be used to breed new maize varieties that withstand a variety of environmental and biological stresses. He has also played a significant role in the development of a recent partnership between CIMMYT and Henan Agricultural University (HAU) in China.
Born in Henan – a province in the fertile Yellow River Valley known for its maize and wheat production – Chen’s family grew maize, which was a major source of income and led to his interest in breeding the crop as a means to help small farmers in China. He went on to study agriculture at HAU, where he focused on maize at a molecular level throughout undergraduate and graduate school, then came to CIMMYT as a postdoctoral researcher in 2013.
“Coming to CIMMYT was natural for me,” Chen said. “CIMMYT’s genebank – which holds over 28,000 maize accessions – offered a wide array of genetic resources that could help to breed varieties resistant to disease and abiotic stress which are large challenges in my country.”
Over Chen’s four years at CIMMYT headquarters near Mexico City, he has helped characterize CIMMYT’s entire maize genebank using DArTseq, a genetic fingerprinting method that can be used to help identify new genes related to traits like tolerance to heat under climate change, or resistance to disease. This research is being used to develop maize germplasm with new genetic variation for drought tolerance and resistance to tar spot complex disease.
“Conserving and utilizing biodiversity is crucial to ensure food security for future generations,” Chen said. “For example, all modern maize varieties currently grown have narrow genetic diversity compared to CIMMYT’s genebank, which holds some genetic diversity valuable to breed new varieties that suit future environments under climate change. CIMMYT and other genebanks, which contain numerous crop varieties, are our only resource that can offer the native diversity we need to achieve food security in the future.”
Chen moved back to China this month to begin research at HAU as an assistant professor, where he will continue to focus on discovering new genes associated with resistance to different stresses. Chen was the first student from HAU to come to CIMMYT, and has served as a bridge between the institutions that officially launched a new joint Maize and Wheat Research Center during a signing ceremony last week.
The new center will focus on research and training, and will host four international senior scientists with expertise in genomics, informatics, physiology and crop management. It will be fully integrated into CIMMYT’s global activities and CIMMYT’s current collaboration in China with the Chinese Agricultural Academy of Sciences.
“I think through the new center, CIMMYT will offer HAU the opportunity to enhance agricultural systems in China, and will have a stronger impact at the farm level than ever before,” Chen said. “I also think HAU will have more of an opportunity to be involved with more global agricultural research initiatives, and become a world-class university.”
Breaking Ground is a regular series featuring staff at CIMMYT
