Features – Page 3

A promising partnership

Written by Julian Bañuelos-Uribe on May 17, 2023. Posted in Features.

In August 2022, the arrival of a container ship at the port in Cotonou, Benin signaled a major milestone in a developing South-South business relationship that holds the potential to produce a massive change in agricultural practices and output in Benin and across West Africa.

The delivery of six-row seeder planters from India marks the initial fruit of a collaboration between Indian manufacturer Rohitkrishi Industries and Beninese machinery fabricator and distributor Techno Agro Industrie (TAI) that has been two years in the making.

Connecting partners in the Global South

A major area of focus for the Green Innovation Centers for the Agriculture and Food Sector (GIC) projects launched in 15 countries by Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development’s special initiative One World No Hunger is fostering cooperation between nations in the Global South.

Krishna Chandra Yadav laser levels land for rice planting in Sirkohiya, Bardiya, Nepal (Photo: Peter Lowe/CIMMYT)

This story began through the partnership between the Green Innovation Centers for the Agriculture and Food Sector and The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) to increase agricultural mechanization in 14 countries in Africa and 2 in Asia.

GIC in India has been working with Rohitkrishi to develop appropriate mechanization solutions for smallholding farmers in India since 2017.

Under this new cross-border goal, GIC India discussed with Rohitkrishi the opportunity to adapt machines to the agroecological and socio-economic systems of African countries where continued use of traditional farming methods was drastically limiting efficiency, productivity, and yield. Rohitkrishi assessed the need and pursued this opportunity for long-term business expansion.

Small machines for smallholders

Before connecting with farmers and manufacturers in Benin, Rohitkrishi was busy solving problems for smallholding farmers in India, where large manufacturers focus on agricultural machinery designed and produced to meet the needs of the bigger, commercial farms. Sameer Valdiya of GIC India and Sachin Kawade of Rohitkrishi put their heads together to develop a plan for producing machines that could make a difference—and then convince smallholding farmers to try them.

A farmer pulls a row seeder, Maharashtra, India. (Photo: Green Innovation Center-India)

By adapting an existing machine and incorporating continuous feedback from farmers, they created a semi-automatic planter. This unique, co-creative process was accompanied by an equally important change in farmer mindset and behavior—from skepticism to the demonstrated impact and cost-benefit of the planter that was clear to each farmer.

These farmers were the first to adopt the technology and promoted it to their peers. Their feedback also drove continued improvements—a fertilizer applicator, new shaft and drive, safety features, night-lights and (perhaps most importantly) a multi-crop feature to make it useful for planting potatoes, ginger, and turmeric.

Today, Rohitkrishi has distributed 52 semi-automatic planters across India, and these machines are being used by up to 100 farmers each. Users are seeing a 17-20 percent increase in productivity, with an accompanying increase in income, and 30 percent of users are women.

The seeders are a roaring success, but Rohitkrishi is focused on continued improvement and expansion. As they continue to respond to adjustments needed by farmers, the company plans to sell 1000 semi-automatic planters per year by 2025. Reaching that goal will require both domestic and foreign sales.

Market opportunity meets technological need

Thanks to the active partnership of CIMMYT and Programme Centres d’Innovations Vertes pour le secteur agro-alimentaire (ProCIVA), TAI in Benin emerged as a promising early adopter of Rohitkrishi’s planters outside India. Seeing a remarkable opportunity to establish a foothold that could open the entire West African market to their products, Rohitkrishi began the painstaking process of redesigning their machine for a new context.

This ambitious project faced numerous challenges–from language barriers, to the definition of roles amongst major players, to major COVID-19 and supply chain delays. The arrival of the seeders, however, is a major accomplishment. Now Rohitkrishi and TAI will begin working with government representatives and farmer-based organizations to ensure the equipment performs well on the ground and meets Benin’s agroecological requirements.

Once final testing is completed in the coming months, Rohitkrishi’s seeders will have the chance to demonstrate what a difference they can make for soy and rice production in Benin.

“When developing countries with similar contexts and challenges forge alliances and business connections to share their knowledge, expertise, and problem-solving skills with each other, this kind of direct South-South collaboration produces the most sustainable advances in agricultural production, food security, and job creation,” said Rabe Yahaya, agricultural mechanization specialist at CIMMYT.

Scale mechanization through a starter pack that comprises a two-wheel tractor – a double row planter as well as a trailer and sheller (Photo: CIMMYT)

Meanwhile, CIMMYT is studying this pilot project to identify opportunities for reproducing and expanding its success. Through the Scaling Scan–a web-based, user-friendly tool to assess ten core ingredients necessary to scale-up any innovation–CIMMYT is helping Rohitkrishi and TAI set ambitious and reachable goals for scalability.

Most importantly, the Scaling Scan results will identify areas for course correction and help Rohitkrishi and its partners continue to be sensitive to farmer feedback and produce equipment better suited to needs on the ground.

Hot, dry climates call for resilient, high-performing wheat varieties

Written by Mike Listman on May 9, 2023. Posted in Features.

Public and private crop research organizations worldwide have worked behind the scenes for decades, bolstering the resilience of staple crops like maize and wheat to fight what is shaping up to be the battle of our time: feeding humanity in a biosphere increasingly hostile to crop farming.

In the case of wheat — which provides some 20% of carbohydrates and 20% of protein in human diets, not to mention 40% of total cereal exports — harvests spoiled by heat waves, droughts, and crop disease outbreaks can send food prices skyrocketing, driving world hunger, poverty, instability, human migration, political instability, and conflict.

Century-high temperature extremes and the early onset of summer in South Asia in 2022, for example, reduced wheat yields as much as 15% in parts of the Indo-Gangetic Plains, a breadbasket that yearly produces over 100 million tons of wheat from 30 million hectares of crop land.

Around half the world’s wheat crop suffers from heat stress, and each 1 °C increase in temperature reduces wheat yields by an average 6%, according to a 2021 review paper “Harnessing translational research in wheat for climate resilience,” published in the Journal of Experimental Botany, which also outlines nine goals to improve the climate resilience of wheat.

Simulating heat shocks in the field using portable plot-sized ‘heating tents’ (Photo: G Molero/CIMMYT)

Droughts and shrinking aquifers pose equally worrying threats for wheat, said Matthew Reynolds, a wheat physiologist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and lead author of the study. “Water availability is the biggest factor influencing potential yield in a majority of wheat environments globally,” Reynolds explained. “Studies predict severe water scarcity events for up to 60% of the world’s wheat-growing areas by the end of this century.”

Science and sources to toughen wheat

Along with modernized, more diverse cropping systems and better farm policies, more resilient varieties are crucial for sustainable wheat production, according to Reynolds and a wheat breeder colleague at CIMMYT, Leo Crespo, who added that breeders have been working for decades to stiffen wheat’s heat and drought tolerance, long before climate change became a buzzword.

“Breeding and selection in diverse environments and at targeted test sites characterized by heat and natural or simulated drought has brought farmers wheat varieties that perform well under both optimal and stressed conditions and we’re implementing new technologies to speed progress and lower costs,” said Crespo, mentioning that the Center’s wheat nurseries SAWYT and HTWYT target semi-arid and heat-stressed environments respectively and are sent yearly to hundreds of public and private breeders worldwide through the International Wheat Improvement Network (IWIN). “Retrospective analysis of IWIN data has shown that heat tolerance has been increasing in recent years, according to a 2021 CIMMYT study.”

“Climate change is a serious driver of potential disease epidemics, since changeable weather can increase selection pressure for new virulent pathotypes to evolve,” said Pawan Singh, a CIMMYT wheat pathologist. “We must be ever vigilant, and the IWIN is an invaluable source of feedback on potential new disease threats and changes in the virulence patterns of wheat pathogens.”

In the quest to improve climate resilience in wheat, CIMMYT “pre-breeding” — accessing desired genetic traits from sources like wheat’s grassy relatives and introducing them into breeding lines that can be crossed with elite varieties — focuses on specific traits. These include strong and healthy roots, early vigor, a cool canopy under stress, and storage of water-soluble carbohydrates in stems that can be used as stress intensifies to complement supplies from photosynthesis, as well as an array of traits that protect photosynthesis including ‘stay-green’ leaves and spikes and pigments that protect the delicate photosynthetic machinery from oxidative damage caused by excess light.

Screening highly diverse lines – identified by DNA fingerprinting – from the World Wheat Collection under heat stress. (Photo: Matthew Reynolds/CIMMYT)

Though elite breeding lines may contain genetic variation for such traits, in pre-breeding researchers look further afield for new and better sources of resilience. The vast wheat seed collections of CIMMYT and other organizations, particularly seed samples of farmer-bred heirloom varieties known as “landraces,” are one potential source of useful diversity that cutting-edge genetic analyses promise to help unlock.

Rich diversity for wheat is still found in farmers’ fields in India, in the northern states of the Himalayan region, the hill regions, and the semi-arid region of Rajasthan, Gujarat, Karnataka. The landraces there show tolerance to drought, heat, and saline soils.

The so-called “synthetic wheats” represent another plentiful source of resilience genes. Synthetics are the progeny of crosses of tetraploid wheat (having four chromosomes, like the durum wheat used for pasta) with wild grass species. CIMMYT and other organizations have been creating these since the 1980s and using them as bridges to transfer wild genes to bread wheat, often for traits such as disease resistance and heat and drought tolerance.

The study, creation, and use of bridging lines, landraces, and seed collections with useful traits as part of pre-breeding is described in the 2021 paper “Progress and prospects of developing climate resilient wheat in South Asia using modern pre-breeding methods,” published in the science journal Current Genomics.

Lines with new sources of heat- and drought-tolerance from CIMMYT’s pre-breeding are also distributed to public and private breeders worldwide via the IWIN for testing as the Stress Adapted Trait Yield Nurseries (SATYNs), according to the paper. These special nurseries are grown by national and private breeders throughout South Asia, for example in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Iran, Nepal, and Pakistan. Lines from the nursery have on occasion been released directly as varieties for use by farmers in Afghanistan, Egypt, and Pakistan.

A critical challenge in pre-breeding is to identify and keep desirable wild genes while culling the undesirable ones that are also transferred in crosses of elite breeding lines with landraces and synthetics. One approach is through physiological pre-breeding, where complementary crosses are made to improve the crop performance under drought and heat stress. The second approach is using genomic prediction, on the basis of seeds, or accessions, in the gene bank collection that have gone through genomic and phenotyping analysis for target traits such as heat and drought tolerance. These approaches can also be combined to boost the speed and effectiveness of selecting strong varieties.

Breeding revolutions

Wheat breeding is being revolutionized by advances in “high-throughput phenotyping.” This refers to rapid and cost-effective ways to measure wheat performance and specific traits in the field, particularly remote sensing — that is, crop images taken from vehicles, drones, or even satellites. Depending on the wavelength of light used, such images can show plant physiochemical and structural properties, such as pigment content, hydration status, photosynthetic area, and vegetative biomass. Similarly, canopy temperature images from infrared photography allow detection for crop water status and plant stomatal conductance. “Such traits tend to show better association with yield under stress than under favorable conditions”, said Francisco Pinto, a CIMMYT wheat physiologist who is developing methods to measure roots using remote sensing. “A remotely sensed ‘root index’ could potentially revolutionize our ability to breed for root traits, which are critical under heat and drought stress but have not been directly accessible in breeding.”

Innovative statistical analysis has greatly increased the value of field trials and emphasized the power of direct selection for yield and yield stability under diverse environments.

Initial results from genomic selection programs, particularly where combined with improved phenotyping techniques, also show great promise. The potential benefits of combining a range of new technologies constitute a valuable international public good.

New initiatives

Launched in 2012, the Heat and Drought Wheat Improvement Consortium (HeDWIC) facilitates global coordination of wheat research to adapt to a future with more severe weather extremes, specifically heat and drought. It delivers new technologies — especially novel wheat lines to wheat breeders worldwide via the International Wheat Improvement Network (IWIN), coordinated for more than half a century by CIMMYT.

HeDWIC is supported by the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research (FFAR) and is part of the Alliance for Wheat Adaption to Heat and Drought (AHEAD), an international umbrella organization set up by the Wheat Initiative to bring the wheat research community together and to exchange new germplasm, technologies and ideas for enhancing tolerance to heat and drought.

Cover photo: Night heaters to increase night temperature in the field, as increasingly warmer nights are diminishing yield in many cropping systems. (Photo: Enrico Yepez/CIMMYT)

Global science partnership promotes climate-smart pathways to address food security and climate crisis

Written by Mike Listman on May 8, 2023. Posted in Features.

Through decades-long Asian and global partnerships, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) is refining and spreading a suite of resource-conserving, climate-smart innovations for highly diverse maize- and wheat-based cropping systems, including more precise and efficient use of water and fertilizer, as well as conservation agriculture, which blends reduced or zero-tillage, use of crop residues or mulches as soil covers, and more diverse intercrops and rotations.

“Zero-tillage and residue management for cereals — that is, sowing the seed directly into unplowed soils and residues from the preceding rice crop — has been adopted on a significant area in the transact of Indo-Gangetic Plain, with positive impacts on crop yields, profitability, and resource-use efficiencies,” said Tek Sapkota, senior scientist in agricultural systems/climate change, CIMMYT.

Continuous maize plot in El Batán, Mexico (Photo: CIMMYT)

The paper “Conservation agriculture for sustainable intensification in South Asia,” published in the science journal Nature Sustainability reported that, compared to the conventional practice, conservation agriculture resulted overall in a 4.6% higher grain yield, a 14.6% improvement in water use efficiency, and a 25.6% greater net economic return. The net economic return was 40.5% higher for full conservation agriculture but, given the benefits of partial adoption of the practices, rigid adherence to an “all or nothing” approach to spread conservation agriculture in South Asia does not seem warranted.

Conservation agriculture also offers several ecosystem services. In the study data, global warming potential was reduced by as much as 33.5% in rice-wheat systems, values that are consistent with other research. Moreover, conservation agriculture-based practices provide an economically feasible alternative to burning rice residues, a serious public health threat in northwestern India given the roughly 23 million tons of residues that are burned each year in the region.

“More widespread adoption of zero-tillage in India has been made possible with the development of next-generation tractor-drawn implements that allow direct seeding into heavy residues, as well as business models whereby implement owners contract out with neighboring farmers to sow their crops and provide other services,” said Sapkota. “National governments in South Asia are actively promoting conservation agriculture to address residue burning and other farming sustainability problems.”

Aerial view of maize and wheat breeding plots (Photo: CIMMYT)

Fitting conservation agriculture to maize farming in Mexico

Efforts to adapt conservation agriculture and promote its adoption by farmers operating highly-diverse, mostly rainfed maize-based cropping systems in Mexico have had mixed results. A recent study assessed soil health in 20 trials in starting between 1991 and 2016 in agro-ecologies ranging from handplanted traditional systems to intensive irrigated systems, contrasting conservation agriculture effects with those of local conventional practices, which commonly involve tillage, residue removal, and continuous maize production.

As reported in the 2021 paper “Effects of conservation agriculture on physicochemical soil health in 20 maize-based trials in different agro-ecological regions across Mexico,” published in the science journal Land Degradation and Development, conservation agriculture increased maize yields at most sites by 0.85 tons per hectare, on average. Organic matter and nitrates were higher in topsoils under conservation agriculture and soil aggregate stability was greater, meaning the soil more effectively moved air and water to plant roots. For other soil health parameters, such as nutrient content, pH, or compaction, most values were determined more by local soil type than by crop management.

Maize plot in El Batán, Mexico (Photo: CIMMYT)

“Given the significant variation across agro-ecologies, local adaptive trials are important to assess the effects of conservation agriculture on soil health and fit it to local conditions,” said Simon Fonteyne, a CIMMYT cropping systems agronomist and first author of the paper.

Emissions control

Several recent studies have assessed the costs and potential of various sustainable intensification technologies for reducing greenhouse gas emissions in India, Bangladesh and Mexico. Their findings can help inform national policies on food security, economic development and environment, including those relating to the Paris Agreement.

In the 2019 study “Cost-effective opportunities for climate change mitigation in Indian agriculture,” published in the journal Science of the Total Environment, CIMMYT and partners found that estimated total emissions from Indian agriculture were 481 tons of CO₂ equivalent (MtCO2e) in 2012, with crops contributing over 40% and livestock nearly 60%. Under a business-as-usual scenario, agricultural greenhouse gas emissions in India would be 515 MtCO2e by 2030. This annual emissions could be reduced by 85.5 MtCO2e through adoption of mitigation practices and about 80% of that reduction could be achieved through measures that would actually save money and, in many cases, could be implemented with current technology. The efficient use of fertilizer, zero-tillage, and rice-water management could deliver more than 50% of the technical abatement potential.

“Realization of this mitigation potential will depend largely on the extent adoption by farmers,” said Sapkota, who was lead author of the study. “Large-scale adoption of apparently win-win options is not happening, so the government of India will need to apply appropriate policy measures and incentives, consistent with its food security and emission reduction goals.

A similar study in Bangladesh, reported in the 2021 paper “Quantifying opportunities for greenhouse gas emissions mitigation using big data from smallholder crop and livestock farmers across Bangladesh,” published in the journal Science of the Total Environment, found greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture in Bangladesh of 76.8 MtCO2e for 2014–15. Yearly emissions by 2030 under a business-as-usual approach would approximate 86.9 MtCO2e and, by 2050, about 100 MtCO2e. Adoption of realistic, climate-smart crop and livestock management options to reduce emissions offer mitigation opportunities of 9.51 MtCO2e per year by 2030 and 14.21 MtCO2e by 2050. As much as 75% of this potential can be achieved through cost-saving options that benefit smallholder farmers. As is the case for India, realization of this potential largely depends on the degree to which supportive policies and measures can encourage farmer adoption.

The Walmart Foundation and CIMMYT promote crop diversification in Oaxaca, Chiapas, and Campeche, Mexico. (Photo: CIMMYT)

A similar rapid assessment of costs for to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions from crops, livestock, and forestry in Mexico found a national mitigation potential of 87.9 MtCO2eq per year, fully 72.3 MtCO2eq from livestock. As reported in the 2022 paper, “Quantification of economically feasible mitigation potential from agriculture, forestry and other land uses in Mexico,” published in the science journal Carbon Management, implementing mitigation potential on Mexican cropland could bring net benefits, compared to livestock and forestry options, which involve net costs. In the 2021 paper “Reduced Water Use in Barley and Maize Production Through Conservation Agriculture and Drip Irrigation” a reduction of emissions caused by lower fuel use in conservation agriculture of 192 kg CO₂ ha⁻¹ was measured in farmers fields, as well as an increase in soil carbon and a reduction in water use.

The status of women in agri-food systems

Written by Leslie Domínguez on May 8, 2023. Posted in Features.

To provide a comprehensive overview of women and gender issues in agriculture, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) recently released “The status of women in agri-food systems,” which provides compelling examples of policies and programs with a review of what has worked and specific recommendations. The report concludes that increasing women’s empowerment is essential for women’s well-being and has a positive impact on agricultural production, food security, diets, and child nutrition.

Despite the importance of agrifood systems for women’s livelihoods and the welfare of their families, women’s roles are marginalized, and their working conditions are likely to be worse than men’s–irregular, informal, part-time, low-skilled, labor intensive and thus vulnerable.

The International Center for Maize and Wheat Improvement (CIMMYT) recognizes the pressing need for gender equality measures in agri-food systems and has initiated many specific projects to address gender equality. In addition, CIMMYT is committed to introducing a gender component into all its research, programs, and interventions.

“It is an acknowledgment that gender and social equity has always been a critical component of the sustainability of any initiative, regardless of the crop and the geographic area affected,” said Bram Govaerts, CIMMYT’s Director General. “CIMMYT is now more intentional about addressing gender equality issues and we recognize the same old methods might not be the most effective.”

FAO: the collection of high-quality data are paramount for monitoring, evaluating and accelerating progress on gender equality in agrifood systems

In the past, many initiatives have relied on surveys to gather data from farmers, producers, consumers, and other stakeholders. However, in traditional rural societies, survey-based data collection might not be the best way to evaluate women’s agency, as the deeply rooted cultural restrictions might not allow them to talk openly about sensitive issues, like their relationship with a spouse.

As part of the Accelerating Genetic Gains in Maize and Wheat for improved livelihoods in Asia and Africa (AGG) project, in Bihar India, CIMMYT researchers developed an innovative storytelling approach to data collection: using vignettes, farmers are given short stories to relate to their household circumstances. Stories are also easier to remember and help build a connection with the characters quickly.

This storytelling method debunked some long-held ideas about women’s role in agriculture in this area of India, creating a more nuanced view of how and why women engage in agriculture. This method will lead to richer qualitative data, which can improve the development and sustainability of gender interventions.

FAO: Social protection programs have increased women’s employment and enhanced women’s resilience.

CIMMYT’s partnership with the Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA) specifically supports women farmers by improving their access and exposure to modern and improved technological innovations, knowledge and entrepreneurial skills. CSISA works in synergy with regional and national efforts, collaborating with public and private-sector partners.

FAO: interventions must be designed to close gender inequalities and empower women.

While CIMMYT has produced many improved maize varieties, CIMMYT researchers discovered that these new varieties may fall short in meeting the needs of women and the poorest of farmers. We need to explore novel approaches to evaluating farmer demand for seed, considering new questions instead of continuing to look for gender-based differences in preferences.

A first step in that direction is to determine how demand for maize seed differs among farmers according to their needs, priorities, and resource limitations. Gender is a large part of that equation, but the CIMMYT researchers also advocate for other considerations, like how maize fits into household food security and livelihoods, decision-making dynamics around maize production, and seed accessibility.

Internal efforts at CIMMYT

While the FAO report is focused on women in the agri-food system, CIMMYT has also engaged several internal initiatives to ensure a more diverse portfolio of researchers and to cultivate a stronger sense of inclusion at CIMMYT and in the wider scientific community.

At CIMMYT, between 20 and 25 percent of staff in the science career track–careers involving field, lab, data, and socioeconomic work–are female. In 2022, Alison Bentley, Director of CIMMYT’s Global Wheat Program, and Nele Verhulst, cropping systems agronomist started Women in Crop Science at CIMMYT. The group aims to connect and build a network of women in the science career track and commits to achieving a more inclusive environment at CIMMYT and within the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research (CGIAR).

The group recently received the Inclusive Team award at the inaugural CGIAR Inclusive Workplace Awards.

CIMMYT is also helping to develop the next generation of women scientists through the annual Jeanie Borlaug Laube Women in Triticum Awards, which recognizes scientific excellence and leadership potential. To date., over 60 women scientists have received leadership training and professional development opportunities meant to support them as they join the community of scholars who are fighting hunger worldwide.

Cover photo: Women sorting out maize seed at the Mgom’mera Seed Company warehouse in Lilongwe, Malawi. (Photo: CIMMYT/Kipenz Films)

Twenty Years of Enriching Diets with Biofortification

Written by Leslie Domínguez on April 25, 2023. Posted in Features.

It is an important year for biofortification: 2023 will mark the 20th anniversary of this nutrition-agricultural innovation, for which its pioneers were awarded the World Food Prize.

More than three billion people around the world, mostly in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, cannot afford a nourishing, diverse diet that provides enough vitamins and minerals (micronutrients). While efforts to pursue dietary diversity—the accepted gold standard for optimal health—must continue, a healthy diet remains out of reach for a vast majority of the world’s population.

The consequences are dire. A staggering two billion people get so little essential micronutrients from their diets that they suffer from “hidden hunger”, the often-invisible scourge of micronutrient malnutrition.

To combat hidden hunger requires a range of context-specific combinations of evidence-based interventions that complement each other, including dietary diversification, supplementation, commercial food fortification, biofortification, and public health measures (like safe water, sanitation, and breastfeeding).

There is no single solution to ensure everyone, everywhere has access to an affordable, diverse, and healthy diet. Biofortification is one of the many important solutions being implemented by global research partners working together across CGIAR to ensure a food-secure future for all.

It is imperative to implement interventions that are practical and accessible in regions and among people most affected by hidden hunger, such as women and children in rural farming families in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), who primarily eat what they grow. This is particularly important during periods of rapid growth and development like in the first 1,000 days of life, after which the negative impacts of an insufficient diet become largely irreversible.

In this 20th anniversary year of HarvestPlus and biofortification, we review biofortification’s role, advantages, and scale as an essential part of CGIAR-wide effort to improve global nutrition.

Biofortification: A Complementary Approach to Reduce Malnutrition

“Biofortified crops are going to be game-changers in dealing with… malnutrition in our world today.”
Dr. Adesina, President of the African Development Bank, World Food Prize Laureate

Staple food crops contain fewer vitamins and minerals than animal-based foods and some vegetables and fruits. Yet wheat, maize, rice, cassava, sweet potato, beans, pearl millet, and other staple foods make up the foundation of most diets around the world, and should therefore be as nutritious as possible.

Staple foods also offer nutritional protection against food systems shocks, especially for vulnerable populations who are unable to access a healthy and diverse diet, and whose reliance on staple food crops increases during times of crises. Through biofortification, staple crops can contribute a high proportion of the micronutrients needed for good health and nutrition.

Biofortification efforts to date have focused mainly on using conventional plant breeding and agronomic techniques to add more of the micronutrients most lacking in diets around the world—zinc, iron, and vitamin A— into staple crops. This approach acknowledges that many poor people cannot afford or access the variety of non-staple foods they need for optimal health, and are often underserved by other large-scale public health nutrition interventions.

“[Biofortified] crops provide a sustainable source of much needed nutrients to rural communities.”
Prof. Watts, Chief Scientific Advisor and Director for Research and Evidence, UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office

Eating poor-quality, and often unsafe, food perpetuates a cycle of poverty, infection, and malnutrition. Enriching nutrients into staple crops that farmers are already eating provides a safety net against severe levels of deficiency and helps mitigate challenges of nutrition insecurity due to climate change.

CGIAR transdisciplinary, participatory, and action-oriented research and innovations to improve nutritional outcomes, including biofortification, are making a vital contribution towards realizing Sustainable Development Goal 2 to end hunger and all forms of malnutrition.

Meeting Nutritional Needs

Biofortified crops are targeted mostly at rural food systems in LMICs, where deficiencies in vitamin A, iron, and zinc are highly prevalent. Young children, adolescent girls, and women are the priority groups for biofortification because their relatively high micronutrient needs predispose them to hidden hunger.

The scientific body of evidence supporting biofortification spans over two decades. Each biofortified crop is the subject of extensive research to evaluate its intrinsic nutritional value and its potential impacts on human nutrition and health.

Vitamin A orange sweet potato (OSP) was the first biofortified staple to be delivered at scale and evaluated in sub-Saharan Africa, a joint effort by HarvestPlus, the International Potato Center, and the International Food Policy Research Institute. It has very high levels of vitamin A (traditional white varieties contain none) and long-term studies indicate it can help reduce diarrhea in children and is a cost-effective way to improve population vitamin A intake, thereby improving child and maternal health and reducing the likelihood of vitamin A deficiency. Breeding efforts are now simultaneously increasing the iron content of OSP, to deliver more of multiple stacked micronutrients.

Evidence from additional randomized controlled trials have demonstrated that nutrient-enhanced staple crops generate positive direct and indirect health effects on multiple age groups, for example:

Zinc wheat decreased common infections in women and their children in India, thus potentially reducing health care costs and freeing up mothers’ time for childcare and other productive endeavors.
Zinc rice improved linear growth in Bangladeshi children under three years old, which may contribute to reducing stunting and its attributable impact on cognitive and physical performance.
Iron beans and pearl millet improved cognitive performance and physical work efficiency among school-age children and university students—functions essential for good health and a productive life.
Vitamin A maize and vitamin A cassava have improved the vitamin A status of children. Vitamin A maize improved visual adaptation to dim-light conditions, with clear implications on multiple aspects of children’s safety and livelihoods. It also increased the vitamin A content of breast milk, which protects breastfed children against enteral infections.

Supplementation studies have clearly shown that improvements in micronutrient status, particularly zinc, vitamin A, and iron status, generate improvements in immunity, growth, and multiple other dimensions of good health. The improvements are not specific to how the micronutrients are delivered (e.g., by food or pills), but rather due to positive changes in nutritional status.

Breeding for Improved Grain Yield and Nutritional Quality

“The reason for growing these varieties, is better yield, more profitability and better zinc nutrition for our families.”
— Mr Tariq, Pakistani farmer

Adoption of biofortification is demand driven. All released biofortified varieties are agronomically competitive in the agricultural zone(s) for which they were developed, relative to the varieties farmers already grow.

Crop breeding efforts are responsive to the expressed priorities and preferences of farming families and their countries. High yields are among the traits considered non-negotiable by breeders and farmers alike, and are a driver for national authorities to approve the release of new varieties in their countries to farmers to grow them.

Innovative breeders at CGIAR centers and National Agricultural Research Extension Systems have successfully been able to achieve exceptional yield and nutrition gains simultaneously in biofortified varieties, a benefit that is realized by farmers.

“[Nyota, an iron bean] can easily give me over 3 tons per hectare, as compared to other varieties that yield about 2 tons.”
— Mr Burde, Kenyan seed producer

Breeding pipelines are dynamic and always adapting to new stresses. Nutrient-enriched varieties of crops are continuously improved by breeders who breed varieties for progressively higher levels of micronutrients, which are also agronomically competitive (e.g., disease and pest resistant), well adapted to a wide range of climatic conditions (e.g., drought and heat tolerant), and exhibit food quality traits desired by farmers, food processors, and consumers (e.g., fast cooking time and good taste).

In Pakistan, one of the highest wheat-consuming countries in the world, the zinc wheat variety Akbar-2019 is now a ‘mega-variety’. It provides 30 percent more zinc and 8-10 percent higher yield than previous popular varieties. Developed by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) in partnership with HarvestPlus, and released by the Wheat Research Institute of the Ayub Agricultural Research Institute, Faisalabad, Akbar-2019 is also resistant to rusts and well adapted to a range of sowing dates. Farmers attest to the good quality of the chapatti (flat bread) made from its flour. Akbar-2019 is already being grown on more than three million hectares of land—and soon an estimated 100 million people will eat chapatti made from its flour and reap the benefits of added zinc in their diets.

“My father-in-law… has expressed a desire to continue growing only biofortified zinc wheat from now on. In addition to the grain quality, the plants also grow well in tough geographical conditions.”
— Ms Devi, Indian farmer

In Nigeria, HarvestPlus and partners including the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture have developed varieties of vitamin A cassava with multiple traits attractive for farmers. Survey data indicates vitamin A cassava varieties have an average fresh root yield of 20.5 metric tons per hectare (MT/Ha), well above the average yield of 10.2 MT/Ha of other improved but non-biofortified varieties. Nearly 2.1 million farmers are growing vitamin A cassava in Nigeria, providing added dietary vitamin A to over 10 million people in a country where vitamin A deficiency is a severe, yet preventable, public health problem.

Farmers carefully consider yield, profitability, stress tolerance, taste, and more when selecting the varieties they grow—over 17 million farming households chose to grow biofortified varieties in 2022, enriching the diets of over 86 million people.

Contributing To Agricultural Diversity

To establish new crops with higher levels of micronutrients, breeders tap into the spectrum of genetic diversity stored within global plant gene banks to find nutrient-dense qualities from underutilized plant species (including wild species or those naturally evolved in certain geographic areas).

Through breeding for improved nutrition, biofortification also transfers otherwise untapped variation for traits other than micronutrients into newly developed crops, increasing the genetic agrobiodiversity not only in biofortified varieties, but also non-biofortified varieties derived from crossing micronutrient-dense plant ‘parents’ to produce high micronutrient ‘offspring’.

Micronutrient genes are not subject to erosion in the breeding process (as genes are for disease or pest resistance), like the dwarfing genes in wheat and rice that catalyzed the green revolution.

CGIAR has committed to mainstreaming improved nutrient traits in most of their breeding lines through crop breeding, given its proven cost-effective and sustainable approach to enriching staple food crops.

Committed to Scaling

Governments and other “Our aim should be to make every family farm a biofortified farm.”
— Dr MS Swaminathan, World Food Prize Laureate, Father of Indian Green Revolution

HarvestPlus partners, collaborators, and advocates support country-level initiatives that promote the integration of biofortified seeds, crops, and foods into local, national, and regional policies and programs. These collective efforts and alliances are the catalyst behind the scale up to over 86 million people in farming households eating nutrient-enriched foods in 2022, 22% more than in 2021.

In 2022, a declaration adopted by the African Union to scale up food fortification and biofortification in Africa—to make nutrient-rich foods sustainably available, accessible, and affordable—was centered on ensuring healthy diets reach those who need them most.

The Government of DR Congo has committed to scaling biofortified crop adoption and production, and its integration into the wider food system. Biofortified crops are included as one component of a wide-reaching, multi-sectoral nutrition program, funded with a loan from the World Bank.

In India, the Indian Council of Agricultural Research established minimum levels of iron and zinc to be bred into national varieties of pearl millet. The All-India Coordinated Research Project on Pearl Millet encouraged National Agricultural Research Systems to begin breeding programs for micronutrients along with higher yields in 2014. Joint efforts by the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics and HarvestPlus to enhanced the levels of iron in pearl millet have brought notable endorsement of biofortification by the Honorable Prime Minister Modi as a solution to address malnutrition.

The Copenhagen Consensus, a global research think-tank and policy advisory group, assessed biofortification and concluded for every USD 1 spent on biofortification, as much as USD 17 in benefits could be generated, and deemed biofortification, supplementation, and fortification as some of the smartest ways to spend money and advance global welfare.

Systematic reviews and ex-ante (before intervention) analyses of several micronutrient-crop and country scenarios have shown that biofortification is highly cost-effective when measured by the World Bank’s criteria of cost per Disability-Adjusted Life Year (DALY) saved. These analyses show biofortified crops to be in the range of USD 15-20 per DALY saved—far below the World Bank’s cost-effectiveness threshold of USD 270 per DALY.

“Patience, perseverance, and vision are required to achieve the cost-effectiveness of linking agriculture and nutrition in general, and biofortification in particular. The donors to the CGIAR system realized this by continuing investments well after the 20th anniversaries of CIMMYT and the International Rice Research Institute.” — Howarth (Howdy) Bouis, HarvestPlus Founding Director, World Food Prize Laureate

Global Benefit

The number of vulnerable rural families and communities growing and benefiting from nutrient-enriched crops has significantly increased year over year. Today, over 86 million people in farming households are eating biofortified foods—progressing rapidly towards 100 million in later 2023.

Eliminating malnutrition requires multiple solutions, and biofortification is an extremely important part of CGIAR’s efforts in pursuit of this goal.

Research has proven biofortification to be an efficacious, cost-effective, and scalable innovation that can play a pivotal role in transforming food systems to deliver affordable and accessible nutritious food for all.

This story was originally posted by HarvestPlus: Twenty Years of Enriching Diets with Biofortification.

Cover photo: Experimental harvest of provitamin A-enriched orange maize, Zambia. (Photo: CIMMYT)

A seed systems success story

Written by Tawanda Hove on March 21, 2023. Posted in Features.

Stewards Global, trading as Afriseed, is a Zambia seed systems intervention success story. Thanks to support from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and other partners such as the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), Afriseed is transforming rural farmers’ livelihoods through supplying drought tolerant maize seed.

What began as a start-up in 2007 has since grown to be one of the leading companies in Zambia’s seed industry. “I started this company with a team of three people. We did not have much, but we had a compelling vision,” says founder Stephanie Angomwile. “Initially, we were multiplying and distributing legume seed to the market as we had observed the deficit where it was very difficult for any serious farmer to procure improved and high-performing seed.”

“Having set up the business, we were fortunate to get AGRA’s support to secure proper industrial premises where we could focus our operations and serve the Zambian market,” she explains. “Using a basic drum seed dresser, we were able to churn out 100 metric tons of seed per season, which was quite impressive considering how rudimentary our equipment was.”

At this point, USAID bought into their vision and furnished Afriseed with a processing plant that could handle, sort, treat, and package seeds for both legume and maize. The company then pivoted to working with maize seed, based off the observation that most farmers were obtaining yields lower than the genetic potential of existing varieties.

“To do so, it was quite clear that we needed an institution that could help us break into the maize seed industry dominated by large multinational seed companies,” Angomwile explains. “This led us to partner with CIMMYT, which is a partnership that still exists today and has enabled us to accelerate our market penetration strategy through providing us with high-performing drought-tolerant genetics which are growing in popularity among farmers.”

Stephanie Angomwile gives a tour to representatives from the USAID special envoy and CIMMYT during a visit to Afriseed. (Photo: Tawanda Hove/CIMMYT)

The impact of CIMMYT support

Since 2017, CIMMYT has been working with Afriseed to help smallholder farmers access new and improved varieties that are drought-tolerant and can withstand seasonal weather variations induced by climate change. “As CIMMYT, our role is not only to breed improved genetic material that farmers can take up, but also to support business development for the private sector through intensive capacity building programs that position such entities to be sustainable and to excel in the absence project support,” explains Hambulo Ngoma, an agricultural economist working with CIMMYT. The organization has provided Afriseed with two high performing varieties so far: AFS 635 and AFS 638. In addition, CIMMYT has supported Afriseed in stimulating demand within the smallholder farmer market through facilitating the establishment of demonstration plots and designing targeted seed marketing strategies.

During CIMMYT Director General Bram Govaerts’ recent visit to Zambia, Ngoma highlighted that the organization is aware that small-to-medium enterprises may be constrained with regards to marketing budgets and market development investments. “As such, when we are convinced that there is a business case and an opportunity for a food security transformation, we usually support promising entities such as Afriseed with knowledge and resources to stimulate demand,” he said. “This is of extreme importance as farmers growing old, recycled seed from ancient varieties need to transition to new, improved varieties.”

Govaerts said, “We are happy we could contribute to the success of Afriseed in our own small way and we hope our partnership will take you to the next level.”

Afriseed has since grown and now comprises nearly 200 workers: 90 permanent staff and 110 casual workers during the peak season. Production has surged to an excess of 10,000 metric tons per season and there is a growing customer base stretching throughout all regions of the country. Angomwile is very grateful to have had a partner like CIMMYT, which facilitated Afriseed’s membership to the International Maize Consortium (IMC), a global body that provides access to an expanded genetic pool bringing exposure to new genetic gains. “Being a member of IMC is definitely an advantage for us as an entity because the seed supply market is highly competitive,” she explains. “So, we can now quickly become aware of the new genetic materials available and ask our research and development team — established through the immense support from CIMMYT — to develop new varieties for our target market.”

Through a series of exchange visits and trainings, CIMMYT has mentored the research and development team who are now in a position to breed their own varieties without external support. “The number of farmers in high potential areas that are remotely located that are still growing recycled seed is still quite large,” says Peter Setimela, a seed systems specialist who was part of the mentoring team. “We need to continuously render extensive support to entities such as Afriseed such that the seed quality deficiency gap can be greatly reduced.”

As the rains have been in abundance during this 2022/23 season, there is high anticipation that farmers who have grown seed from reputable seed suppliers such as Afriseed, are set for a bumper harvest.

Cover photo: Afriseed staff preparing legume seeds for processing in Zambia. (Photo: Agricomms)

One year of Women in Crop Science at CIMMYT

Written by Sarah McLaughlin on March 7, 2023. Posted in Features.

To mark International Women’s Day 2023, Nele Verhulst, cropping systems agronomist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), shares progress from the Women in Crop Science group and how their work tries to contribute to gender equality in agriculture and science.

Growing up in the nineties in Belgium, I was interested in feminism, but I also assumed that the fight for equal rights for women and men had been fought and won. Studying bioscience engineering in the 2000s, more than half of the students were women, so this demonstrated to me that we were all set (although the large majority of professors were men, it seemed to be just a matter of time for that to be resolved). I have now been working in Latin America as an agronomist and researcher for more than 15 years and have come to realize that there is still a lot of work to do to achieve equal opportunities for female farmers, farm advisors, scientists, and other professionals in agriculture.

At CIMMYT, between 20 and 25 percent of staff in the science career track – careers involving field, lab, data, and socioeconomic work – are female. Because of that, Alison Bentley and I started a group of women in crop science at CIMMYT about one year ago on the International Day of Women and Girls in Science in 2022. In our first meeting, we aimed to connect, discussed how to build a network (we did not even have a list of all women in science at CIMMYT, so it was hard to know who to invite), and decided whether we wanted to commit to additional actions to achieve a more inclusive environment at CIMMYT.

Since that first meeting, we have organized coffee mornings and other events, and have split into smaller working groups to draft action plans on ten topics: gender in the workplace strategy development, advancement for locally recruited staff, mentorship, recruitment processes, microaggressions, harassment policies, work-life balance, family friendly work environment, raising external awareness about women in agriculture, and ensuring internal visibility.

Our group is also linked to the worldwide network of Women in Crop Science and the One CGIAR Women in Research and Science (WIRES) group.

I have enjoyed being able to make some first small changes – who knew sanitary facilities would turn out to be a recurring topic! – but most of all I have loved the opportunities over the past year to connect with women with a shared passion for crop science in all its aspects. That passion and the opportunities it creates to improve the lives of farmers and rural communities is the most important thing we are celebrating today.

Cover photo: Women participate in a public harvest event for timely sown wheat organized by the Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA) project with Krishi Vigyan Kendra (KVK) in in Nagwa village near Patna in Bihar, India. (Photo: Madhulika Singh/CIMMYT)

A deceptively simple hack boosts wheat yields in Bihar

Written by Sarah McLaughlin on February 17, 2023. Posted in Features.

As a warming planet desiccates crops around the world, threatening livelihoods and nutrition, farmers in Bihar, India, are boosting their wheat yields with a deceptively simple adaptation.

“Farmers can plant their wheat crop several weeks earlier, so that their wheat matures earlier and they are able to harvest their wheat before the heat gets bad,” said Amit Kumar Srivastava, a scientist with the International Rice Research Institute in India. “Traditionally, farmers in Bihar planted their wheat in mid-December. This put their crop at risk of what’s called ‘terminal heat’ – high heat during a critical growth stage that impacts the yields. We’ve advised them to begin planting by November 20.”

Bihar is blessed with good soil and adequate water resources. But its yields have been lagging below India’s average. Today, the average hectare of Bihar farmland produces 2.9 tons of wheat – significantly below the average yield in India of 3.4 tons.

Rising heat threatened to reduce this harvest even further. Wheat, like people, can suffer from heat stress. Researchers have found that an increase of just one-degree Celsius cuts wheat yields by 6%. In high heat conditions, wheat produces fewer, smaller grains, potentially impacting nutrition and livelihoods. Bihar, one of the poorest states in India, is considered a climate change hotspot and temperatures are expected to rise by up to 1 degree Celsius by 2050. India can ill afford declining farm yields. In fact, it needs to increase its wheat yields from around 110 million tons to 140 million tons by 2050 just to keep pace with domestic demand.

This seemingly simple adaptation was actually quite complicated to develop, explained Sonam Sherpa, a spatial agronomist with the Sustainable Agrifood Systems (SAS) program of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center. “It required researchers to look at the agricultural system as a whole. We had to understand why farmers were planting so late. And we learned it was because they were waiting for their rice crop to mature. And they couldn’t plant their rice crop earlier because they were waiting for the monsoon rains, which are unpredictable in Bihar. Understanding the system as a whole, led us to recommend a rice variety that matures earlier and to develop weather forecasting tools and systems that can communicate with farmers when the monsoon rains are expected. That will help farmers move forward with planting their rice earlier, allowing for an earlier harvest. And then planting and harvesting their wheat earlier.”

To demonstrate the potential of this shift, researchers established demonstration fields throughout the state and brought government officials and farmers to see the difference.

It was striking. Across the state, farmers who adopted early rice harvesting and early wheat planting grew nearly one ton more of wheat on each hectare than those who planted late – a 36% increase in yield. At the most extreme ends of the planting spectrum the difference in yield is hard to overstate; the difference in yields between the wheat planted in early November versus the wheat planted in late December was 69%. That’s enough of a boost to turn Bihar from a net wheat importer to a breadbasket for the region.

“Seeing is believing,” said Srivastava. As of the 2020-21 wheat growing season, an estimated 22% of farmers in the target districts – about half a million farmers with an estimated 0.83 million hectares of land – have shifted to different varieties of rice that allow them to plant their wheat earlier. Similar gains could be seen elsewhere in Eastern India, research indicates, if the rice-wheat system is managed as a system.

Researchers also established relationships with private sector seed distributors who often advise farmers and help them identify and adopt different varieties of rice that allow for earlier harvesting. “The lesson here is that even with climate change, we can increase production by optimizing agricultural systems,” said Srivastava.

Read the original article: A deceptively simple hack boosts wheat yields in Bihar

Cover photo: A deceptively simple hack boosts wheat yields in Bihar. (Photo: Reuters)

Supporting the careers of women in science

Written by Susan Otieno on February 7, 2023. Posted in Features.

Happy Makuru Daudi, Head of Groundnut Research Program at the Tanzania Agricultural Research Institute (TARI) based at Naliendele Research Center in Mtwara, is a plant breeder specializing in groundnut. For the United Nations International Day of Women and Girls in Science, she shares with us her passion for what she does and why more women should venture into plant breeding.

What inspired you to get into your career?

I was in love with science and my intention was to be a doctor but later I changed my mind. I loved biology a lot and that set my focus on my academic path. At university I had good mentors who influenced my career direction as well.

When I achieved my first degree, I was recruited by the Government of Tanzania as an agricultural officer. My then boss, Omar Mponda, inspired me to be a plant breeder. He encouraged me and I went ahead to study plant breeding for both my Masters and PhD. My first degree was in Agronomy, I then did a Masters in Crop Science, specializing in Plant Breeding, and eventually completed a PhD in Plant Breeding as well.

What did you love about plant breeding?

I realized breeders are very active people. Always trying to improve and change things. Always looking for ways to make a difference. This desire to make a change makes us active lifelong learners.

The other thing I learnt from breeders is that they can change the life of farmers. Most smallholder farmers are women. I love my crop (groundnut) because it is a ‘woman’s crop’. If the breeder develops a product such as groundnut with high impact, it means they have changed the life of women. I realized I work a lot with women in my field and even if I only change the smallest of things, it means I get to change their lives and boost them from one step to the next.

Please elaborate on why you refer to groundnut as a woman’s crop.

Groundnut is a nutritious crop and is used a lot in processing and preparing children’s food, hence most women value it and engage in farming the crop, even though in small plots of land, in order to have nutritious food for their families’ health.

Most women especially in Tanzania view groundnut as their ATM, in that when they need money for use at home, they only need to sell some of their harvested groundnut and get cash to meet their home’s needs, such as buying schoolbooks for their children.

Women are involved in the entire groundnut value chain, that is from farming the crop in the field up to the processing stages, unlike men who mostly only come in at the market stage to sell the produce. Therefore, groundnut is source of income for many women in Tanzania.

Happy Makuru Daudi presents at the Drylands Legumes and Cereals Crop Improvement Review and Planning meeting in Ghana in January 2023. (Photo: Susan Otieno/CIMMYT)

Has the International Maize and Wheat Center (CIMMYT) and the CGIAR at large contributed in any way to your career growth?

Yes! They have contributed a lot. First in building my capacity and, as I work with them in the Accelerated Varietal Improvement and Seed Systems in Africa (AVISA) project. My PhD was sponsored by the Tropical Legumes III Project. I remember when interacting with scientists from these organizations, I observed how they carried themselves with confidence, both the women and men; it motivated me and built my confidence.

What was the focus of your PhD?

My PhD was on breeding for groundnut resistance for rust and high yield in Tanzania.

What is your message for young women and girls interested in getting into science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) careers?

First, they need to trust themselves. They can do anything in this world. They should not be fearful. For instance, those interested in breeding might observe that most breeders are men, and they may tell themselves that it is a difficult career and run away from it. But I would like them to tell themselves they can be and do even better than men. They only need to trust themselves and build their confidence.

Tell me about the formation of your team – are you intentional in working with women in your team?

Yes, I’m usually intentional about this. I always give equal chance to both genders but when I get an opportunity to hire for my team, it makes me happier if a woman lands the job. I realized women are good workers and ready to learn. Most of my casual laborers on my team are also women. They work meticulously. The main work for breeders entails crossing. The best people for crossing are women! I have observed that the success rate of the crosses is higher with women! Crossing is intensive work, physically as well, and needs utmost concentration. So, I trust them in this.

Is there anything else you would like to add?

I want to encourage women not to run away from sciences, and especially agricultural sciences such as breeding. We want more women breeders. They can change this world and help more people put food on the table. The agricultural sector, especially the farms, are dominated by women, and it is easier for them when they interact with other women. When we go meet them in the fields, it is easier for us to understand their needs and change their lives. So, I call girls and women to come on board in this sector and change the lives of many.

Cover photo: Happy Makuru Daudi (center) discussing groundnut varieties with colleagues from TARI and CIMMYT in Mtwara, Tanzania, in 2022. (Photo: Susan Otieno/CIMMYT)

Solar powered dryers boost peanut production in Togo

Written by Sarah McLaughlin on February 3, 2023. Posted in Features.

Solar powered peanut dryers in Togo are helping women-run cooperatives reduce their workload and increase their profits.

A number of West African countries have climate and soil well-suited to groundnut cultivation. In the second half of the twentieth century, the region became a world leader in peanut production. In Togo, peanuts do well, but problems with postharvest processing have kept this crop performing well below its potential.

However, the introduction of the solar powered dryers has had a significant positive impact on the production and preservation of a vital crop for the local population.

From peanut stews and sauces that are staples of national cuisine to overseas export of peanut products, there is no shortage of uses for this groundnut in Togo. However, smallholding farmers struggle to preserve their entire crop in large part because of aflatoxins, which thrive when conditions are too moist and ruin peanuts.

“Peanuts are a very perishable commodity and they can spoil if not stored properly for processing,” said Aïssetou Koura, president of the peanut farmer cooperative in Koumonde.

This is particularly true for smallholding peanut farmers, which in Togo includes many women. The established method for drying peanuts is to lay them out in the open air, which is a labor-intensive process that leaves the crop exposed to unexpected rains and contamination by pests. “In the past, we suffered huge losses,” Aïssetou explained.

Aicha Gaba from the N’kani N’kana cooperative works with a solar dryer in Koumonde, Togo. (Photo: Laré B. Penn/University of Lome)

A better way to dry

In 2021, the introduction of solar dryers began to change things dramatically for peanut farmers in cooperatives from Tovegan to Dapaong. In collaboration with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the Green Innovation Centers for the Agriculture and Food Sector (GIC) in Togo helped a local manufacturer, Guema Concept, develop solar dryer technology for local peanut farmers from plans made by the University of Hohenheim.

Launched in 2014 by Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development’s special initiative One World No Hunger, GIC collaborates with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) to increase agricultural mechanization in 14 countries in Africa and two in Asia.

The dryers are equipped with a ventilation system and a power kit that includes solar panels and a battery so they can operate during periods of reduced sunlight. They have a capacity of 12 kilograms and can complete a drying cycle in as little as two hours, which is about one quarter of the time a manual drying cycle takes. Depending on the solar exposure, cooperatives like the one in Koumonde can perform three or four cycles in a day.

“We have found a solution by preserving our products with the solar dryer,” Aïssetou said.

GIC has helped five smallholding farmer cooperatives procure solar dyers across Togo, and more than 50 women farmers are members of these groups whose work is benefitting from this technology.

Farmers like Aicha Gaba are also increasing their profit because the solar dryers allow them to do more work with fewer laborers.

“Our cooperative dries peanuts with only two people via the solar dryer, unlike conventional open drying, which requires five people to spread, turn, monitor and collect the peanuts,” Gaba said.

“This process reduces the workers’ wages and then saves us the money of three workers, which is a good thing for us.”

The new technology is producing better peanuts thanks to consistent moisture and temperature levels and faster processing speeds, said Djéri Bossa, a member of the cooperative in Bassar.

“Thanks to the solar dryers offered by GIC Togo, we can freely dry our products in good conditions,” Bossa explained.

“The products derived from the processing of peanuts are of improved quality, unlike the conventional open-drying method we used.”

All is not sunny

Despite the initial success of the solar dryers, there are challenges that remain for scaling up this innovation. The dyers are quite heavy and, for smallholding women, it can be difficult to maneuver the machines by themselves. At the same time, farmers say that – even with the greater volume the dryers have helped them achieve – they would still like a higher-capacity machine.

But even with the need for lighter, harder-working dryers, there is enormous potential for this innovation to spread to new areas, bring additional production and income to smallholding farmers (including many women), and help make groundnuts a bigger piece of the economic pie in Togo.

Cover photo: Smallholding peanut farmers Aicha Gaba and Aïssetou Koura lay peanuts into a solar dryer in Koumonde, Togo. (Photo: Laré B. Penn/University of Lome)

Thank you to our partners, Laré B. Penn (University of Lomé) and Johanna Steinkuehler (GIZ Togo).

Farmers harvested double yield by adopting Wengkhar Hybrid Maize 1 in Bhutan

Written by Sarah McLaughlin on January 30, 2023. Posted in Features.

The planting of maize hybrid Wengkhar Hybrid Maize 1 (WHM-1) has helped farmers in the Mongar district of Bhutan double their maize yield.

WHM-1 was developed in partnership with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and became the first maize hybrid to be released in Bhutan to combat the negative effect of increasing temperature or extreme heat events on maize.

The hybrid was designed with characteristics of heat and drought tolerance, as well as a resistance to stem and root lodging. It also had additional stay-green traits after cob maturity and produced a high yield.

The success of the implementation in Bhutan is leading to an increased production of WHM-1, which will aim to meet national demand and work towards country’s self-sufficiency.

Dechen Yangden is one of the smallholder beneficiaries in Tsakaling, a sub-district in Mongar in the east of the country, who have boosted their maize yield by planting WHM-1. “My attempt to grow WHM-1 has doubled my maize production compared to last season where I cultivated some other maize varieties (2.5 metric tons (mt) in one hectare (ha)),” she said.

Farmer holds up a maize cob of WHM-1 in Waichur hamlet, Mongor, Bhutan. (Photo: ARDC)

Farmers’ experiences of WHM-1

Since its official release in 2020, the national maize program based at Agriculture Research & Development Center (ARDC) started producing hybrid seeds and maintaining parental lines. To test the success of the ARDC’s work, planting was carried out in the Tsakaling and Waichur hamlets in Mongar districts, covering an area of six acres.

Maize farmers in Tsakaling shared that although the crop was affected by the insect fall armyworm during the early vegetative stage, the productivity of the crop was not affected, as it recovered at later stage.

Meanwhile, ARDSC Khangma carried out yield monitoring during the harvest, where WHM-1 yielded 5.8 mt ha-1, which is noticeable rise on the national average of 3.7 mt ha-1.

Following the conclusion of their harvest, farmers in the two localities shared their views on the newly released maize in order to review the effect of the implementation of WHM-1. Both sets of growers reported an improved performance from the use of WHM-1 and noted that, unlike other maize varieties, the hybrid has shorter and uniform plant height along with a higher resistance to lodging, which is an essential trait given the conditions it is grown in. Furthermore, the stay-green trait of the hybrid after maturity of cobs gave farmers an added advantage of green fodder, which can be used for feeding their cattle.

In Waichur, the growers found that this hybrid had a tight husk and fully filled kernels. They shared similar views to growers in Tsakaling, reporting positive lodging resistance in the hybrid.

Both communities expressed their interest in continuing to use WHM-1, given the availability and accessibility of the seeds. As a response, the National Maize Program at ARDC Wengkhar, is looking to deploy the newly released hybrid on a larger scale, which will ultimately contribute towards enhancing maize self-sufficiency in the country.

WHM-1 was developed through partnership of the National Maize Program at Wengkhar and CIMMYT under the Heat Stress Tolerant Maize for Asia (HTMA) project for germplasm and technical assistance and the Commercial Agriculture and Resilient Livelihoods Enhancement Program (CARLEP-IFAD/MoAF) for on-farm research and intensification.

Feasibility mapping for WHM-1 showed that its adaption stretches along the southern foothills and some parts of eastern district. The National Maize Program, sister research centers, and farmers are currently working on upscaling the seed production for intensification of national maize production to meet the domestic demands.

Cover photo: Women farmers tagging their first choice of maize crop, WHM-1, in Tsakaling hamlet, Mongor, Bhutan. (Photo: ARDC)

Harvest of hybrid WHM-1 maize. (Photo: ARDC)

This story is written by P.H. Zaidi of CIMMYT and Passang Wangmo and Tsheltrim Gyeltshen of the National Maize Program, ARDC Wengkhar, Bhutan.

More than a drop in the bucket: addressing food security in Nepal through improved sustainable irrigation

Written by Nur-A-Mahajabin Khan on January 26, 2023. Posted in Features.

Agriculture is always impacted by war. However, Russia’s war in Ukraine, fought between two major agricultural producers in an era of globalized markets, poses unprecedented implications for global agriculture and food security. Russia and Ukraine are significant exporters of maize, wheat, fertilizers, edible oils and crude oil. These exports have been compromised by the war, with the greatest impact being on poor and low-income countries that rely most on food imports. Partly because of the Ukraine-Russia conflict and partly due to the decline in agricultural production caused by the climate emergency, food prices have increased between 9.5 and 10.5 percent over the past ten years.

Nepal, where one in four families is impoverished, is an example of a low-income country impacted by the war’s disruption of trade in agricultural goods and inputs. Although wheat, maize and rice are staples, vegetables are also important for nutrition and income, and Nepal imports fuel and fertilizer for their domestic production. Uncertainty in global supply chains, combined with the Nepali rupee’s significant depreciation against the US dollar, has resulted in a 500% increase in the cost of diesel since 2012.

Irrigation to boost homegrown production

Land irrigation is crucial to crop growth and to the capacity of famers to withstand the effects of the climate emergency and economic shock. However, the majority of Nepal’s groundwater resources are underutilized, leaving ample room for increasing climate-resilient agricultural production capable of withstanding an increasing number of drought events. With the right kind of management of its groundwater, Nepal can increase its domestic output, and bolster smallholder resilience and food security in times of economic and climate crisis.

As part of the first prong of this approach, the Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA) advises farmers (particularly women), governments and donors on the targeted support available to enable them to access existing low-cost and fuel-efficient engineering solutions. These solutions can contribute to the immediate goals of increasing agricultural productivity, intensifying groundwater irrigation and improving rural livelihoods. CSISA informs small producers about ways to access irrigation and develop water entrepreneurship. It also and empowers farmers, especially women, to improve service provision and gain access to services and irrigation pumps, including through access to finance.

Policymakers, businesses, researchers and farmers (especially women, youth and marginalized groups) will collaborate to co-create business models for sustainable and inclusive irrigation with development partners and Nepali public and private sector actors. While there are more than one million wells and pumps in Nepal, many of these are not used efficiently, and social barriers often preclude farmers from accessing services such as pump rentals when they need them. To address these constraints and support private investment in irrigation and water entrepreneurship models, CSISA will work with existing infrastructure investment programs and local stakeholders to build a dynamic and more inclusive irrigation sector over the course of the next year, positively impacting a projected 20,000 small farming households.

At the macro-level, these water entrepreneurship models will respond to prioritized irrigation scaling opportunities, while at the farm level they will respond to irrigation application scheduling advisories. CSISA will also create policy brief documents, in the form of an improved farm management advisory, to be distributed widely among partners and disseminated among farmers to support increases in production and resilience. CSISA’s sustainable and inclusive irrigation framework guides its crisis response.

Scaling digital groundwater monitoring to support adaptive water management

In growing resilience-building irrigation investments, there is always a risk of groundwater depletion, which means that accurate and efficient groundwater data collection is vital. However, Nepal doesn’t currently have a data or governance system for monitoring the impact of irrigation on groundwater resources.

To tackle the need for low-cost, context-specific data systems which improve groundwater data collection, as well as mechanisms for the translation of data into actionable information, and in response to farmer, cooperative and government agency stakeholder demands, the Government of Nepal Groundwater Resources Development Board (GWRDB) and CSISA have co-developed and piloted a digital groundwater monitoring system for Nepal.

In a recent ministerial level workshop, GWRDB executive director Bishnu Belbase said, “CSISA support for groundwater monitoring as well as the ongoing support for boosting sustainable and inclusive investments in groundwater irrigation are cornerstone to the country’s development efforts.”

A pilot study conducted jointly by the two organizations in 2021 identified several options for upgrading groundwater monitoring systems. Three approaches were piloted, and a phone-based monitoring system with a dashboard was evaluated and endorsed as the best fit for Nepal. To ensure the sustainability of the national response to the production crisis, the project will extend government monitoring to cover at least five Tarai districts within the Feed the Future Zone of Influence, collecting data on a total of 100 wells and conducting an assessment of potential network expansion in Nepal’s broad, inner-Tarai valleys and Mid-Hills regions. The goal is to utilize this data to strengthen the Feed the Future Zone of Influence in Nepal by increasing GWRDB’s capability to monitor groundwater in five districts.

Ensuring food security

These activities will be continued for next two years. During that time CSISA will increase GWRDB’s capacity to monitor groundwater and apply this to five districts in Nepal’s Feed the Future Zone of Influence, using an enhanced monitoring system which will assist planners and decision-makers in developing groundwater management plans. As a result, CSISA expects to support at least 20,000 farming households in gaining better irrigation access to achieve high yields and climate-resilient production, with 40 percent of them being women, youth and/or marginalized groups. This access will be made possible through the involvement of the private sector, as CSISA will develop at least two promising business models for sustainable and inclusive irrigation. Finally, through this activity government and private sector stakeholders in Western Nepal will have increased their capacity for inclusive irrigation and agricultural value chain development.

CSISA’s Ukraine Response Activities towards boosting sustainable and inclusive irrigation not only respond to crucial issues and challenges in Nepal, but will also contribute to the regional knowledge base for irrigation investments. Many regions in South Asia face similar challenges and the experience gained from this investment in Nepal will be applicable across the region. Given the importance of of groundwater resources for new farming systems and food system transformation, the project is mapped to Transforming Agrifood Systems in South Asia (TAFSSA), the One CGIAR regional integrated initiative for South Asia, that will act as a scaling platform for sharing lessons learned and coordinating with stakeholder regionally towards more sustainable groundwater management and irrigation investments.

Cover photo: Ram Bahadur Thapa managing water in his paddy field in Dailekh district of Nepal. (Photo: Nabin Baral)

For women in Ivory Coast, processing cassava no longer has to be a grind

Written by Sarah McLaughlin on January 2, 2023. Posted in Features.

Attieke is the national dish of Ivory Coast. Served with fried fish or a vegetable stew, this tangy, fermented side is the heart and soul of Ivorian cuisine. And because it’s made from cassava, attieke is gluten free. So, in addition to its status as an iconic food of hospitality from Abidjan to Yamoussoukro, attieke has the potential to catch on in distant locales.

Producing attieke is complicated—transforming tubers in the ground into a delicious bowl of couscous-like cassava involves harvesting, peeling, grinding, fermenting, pressing, and effectively storing the processed crop. And in Ivory Coast, this work is traditionally performed almost entirely by women.

A cooperative member processes cassava using a manual grinder. (Photo: Sylvanus Odjo/CIMMYT)

A grueling process

Traditional methods for processing cassava, however, are very slow and extremely laborious. “We had to use a wooden plank with nails [to grind cassava]”, said N’Zouako Akissi Benedicte, president of the local agricultural cooperative in Mahounou, Nanafoue, about 30 kilometers from the capital, Yamoussoukro. To remove the liquid from the ground cassava, Ivorian women used “a kind of screw press” that required so much strength that “it caused us pain in the chest.”

In addition to being painful and grueling, these manual methods are terribly inefficient, generating about 30 kilograms of product per hour. Benedicte said a worker could process very little cassava in a day’s work using this traditional approach. Limited physically by this hard manual labor and struggling to generate enough income to establish financial independence, women working in cassava production in Ivory Coast face difficult challenges.

Hydraulic cassava press. (Photo: Sylvanus Odjo/CIMMYT)

Lightening the load

Three years ago, things started to change for Benedicte and other women working in cassava production in her area. At that time, her cooperative partnered with the Green Innovation Centers for the Agriculture and Food Sector (GIC) of Ivory Coast to receive training to use hydraulic-powered cassava grinders and presses. These machines, which GIC helped design and adapt for the climate and cultural context of Ivory Coast, promised to significantly increase speed of production while making all aspects of cassava work more accessible to women. For instance, the grinding capacity of the equipment is around 600 kg/hr.

Launched in 2014 by Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development’s special initiative, ONE WORLD no hunger, GIC collaborates with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) to increase agricultural mechanization in 14 countries in Africa and two in Asia.

Beyond helping Benedicte’s cooperative finance the purchase of the new machines and providing instruction in their use, GIC offered the agricultural cooperative a broad range of seminars on topics including selecting seed varieties, soil preparation, processing, and commercialization. This comprehensive approach set the women of Mahounou, Nanafoue up for success.

Gas powered mechanical cassava grinder in Mahounou, Ivory Coast. (Photo: Sylvanus Odjo/CIMMYT)

A message for my sisters

For Benedicte, the new grinder and press are making a huge difference. “The press with the hydraulic system is very efficient and we no longer need to use so much effort to remove the juice,” she said. According to Benedicte, workers in the cooperative are now processing up 1,000% more cassava per day and are only limited by the availability of raw material.

Better yield is also generating financial improvements for these women. “A woman who is working can buy her own machine and earn money that can be used for the education of her children,” Benedicte said. “I have a message for my sisters: a woman cannot solely depend on her husband and expect him to provide everything.”

GIC is working with 32 other groups like Benedicte in Ivory Coast, and the mechanization program has impacted the work of 1,000 women so far.

Taking the next step

There are still hurdles to overcome. In Mahounou, women producing cassava are relying on men to ignite the machines, and when a grinder or a press breaks down, it can be difficult to find spare parts. Benedicte believes electric machines could help solve both problems and take their business to the next level. “We would like to increase our production and sell it at an international level,” she said. “We would like to have a small processing unit here for women that could be used to produce high quality products for the international markets.”

GIC also has plans for a technology transfer that could reproduce this successful program in Malawi. Ivorian staff are collaborating with colleagues there to develop a cassava grinder and press for the Malawian context.

For Benedicte, there is more than food and income at stake in the success of these efforts. “It is important to be autonomous in taking charge of our own expenses,” she said. “This is being a woman. So, please, I invite my sisters to work.”

Cover photo: N’Zouako Akissi Benedicte, president of the local agricultural cooperative, with cooperative members and mechanical cassava grinders. (Photo: Sylvanus Odjo/CIMMYT)

A reluctant farmer changes the fortune of his inherited land

Written by Nima Chodon on December 22, 2022. Posted in Features.

In the sultry spring-summer heat of Bihar, India, the landscape is yellow with wheat grains ready for harvest. Here, in Nagma village farmer Ravi Ranjan attends to his fields — mostly wheat, with some pulses in the adjoining plots. The harvest this year will be a little less than anticipated, he explains, as receding monsoon rains left the soil too moist to begin sowing on time.

Ranjan’s grandfather and father were both farmers who owned sizable land. His father used to say that the land was productive but required a lot of hands, sweat, and time to sustain the yields. Agriculture was all that the family had known and depended on for decades before Ranjan’s father left the sector for the civil service. After the early demise of his grandfather in 2003, and with his father in a secure government job, it fell to Ranjan to shoulder the responsibility of managing the family farm.

As a young man, Ranjan had sometimes helped his grandfather in the fields, but now, as the owner of a hydraulic mechanical service firm working hundreds of kilometers away in Chhattisgarh, he had never imagined becoming a farmer himself. Though reluctant to begin with, Ranjan decided there was no alternative but to take on the challenge and do his best, and while initially he had little success with the new venture, slowly and steadily he began to change the fortune of his inherited land.

Today Ranjan is one of the local area’s success stories, as a progressive and influential farmer with ties to the Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA) project. Researchers on the CSISA team have been working with farmers like him in the region for over a decade and are proud of the ongoing collaboration. Ranjan’s fields are regularly used as CSISA trial plots to help demonstrate the success of new technologies and conservation agriculture practices that can enhance productivity and sustainability. For example, in the 2021-2022 winter cropping season — locally known as Rabi — he harvested 6.2 tons per hectare – while a separate acre plot as demonstration site was harvested publicly with officials from CSISA and the Krishi Vigyan Kendra Network (KVK), JEEViKA, and farmers from neighboring villages for improving yield sustainably.

As India celebrates Kisan Diwas (Farmer’s Day) on December 23, we speak to Ranjan about his hopes for the future and the continuity of farming in his family after he hangs his boots.

Farming has seen a sea of change since your grandfather’s time. What do you think has been the most transformative change in the years you have been involved in farming?

I think using mechanized tools and technology to ensure good cropping practices has tremendously reduced manual work. Furthermore, today with innovations and digitization in agriculture science, farming is not just recognized as a noble profession, but also an enterprising one. I am happy I came into it right when things were changing for good. I have no regrets.

Though not by choice that I came into it, I am now fully invested and devoted to farming. From being an entrepreneur to farming, it has been a transformational journey for me. I am unsure whether my daughters — I have three, the eldest turns 18 next year — will choose to be involved in agricultural farming. But I will encourage and fully support them if they choose to take it up. After all, they will inherit the land after me.

Extreme climate effects are challenging agricultural practices and output. How are you preparing to reduce the impact of these in your fields?

It is worrying to see how extreme climatic effects can be challenging for agriculture, particularly for smallholder farmers in the region. Erratic rains, drought at times, and increasing temperatures have all harmed our cereal and vegetable farms and affected yield in wheat crops significantly. The adoption of new technologies like direct seeded rice (DSR) to avoid puddled rice transplanting, early wheat sowing (EWS) to avoid terminal heat at maturity, zero tillage technology (ZTT), and better-quality seeds, are interventions introduced and supported by CSISA and other agricultural organizations from the state that has helped combat some of these climate-induced problems.

In my own fields, I have also introduced proper irrigation systems to reduce the impact of limited water availability. I hope to stay ahead of the curve and make sure I am aware of all that is possible to keep my farm productive and sustainable.

How did you begin your association with CSISA? What has been your experience of working with them to make your agriculture resilient and productive?

I was initially approached by one of their scientists working in the area. And because of my interest, they slowly began informing me of various technologies I could try. With these technologies implemented in my field, the yield and productivity improved.

Soon after expanding my agriculture output, I got 50 acres of land on lease in the village to grow more crops like pulses, along with rice and wheat. Today, CSISA has started using my fields as their demonstration plots for new technologies and best practices, and to spread awareness and bring in more farmers from neighboring villages to encourage adoption.

CSISA and others call me a progressive and innovative farmer. I am proud that many farmers and other agricultural agencies in the area have appreciated our efforts to continue making agriculture productive and sustainable.

About CSISA:

Established in 2009, the Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA) is a science-driven and impacts-oriented regional initiative for increasing the productivity of cereal-based cropping systems. CSISA works in Bangladesh, India, and Nepal. CSISA activities in India focus on the eastern Indo-Gangetic Plains, dominated by small farm sizes, low incomes, and comparatively low agricultural mechanization, irrigation, and productivity levels.

Cover photo: Ravi Ranjan takes the author on a tour of his fields where wheat grown with conservation agriculture practices like zero tillage technology is ready for harvest, Nagwa village, Bihar, India. (Photo: Nima Chodon/CIMMYT)

CIMMYT crop scientist shares strategies for decolonization

Written by Alex Smith on December 7, 2022. Posted in Features.

International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) crop scientist Sieglinde Snapp is working to break down decolonization and promote inclusivity.

Decolonization is a long standing issue in science and has led to work from marginalized people being erased.

This problem has largely affected scientists in the Global South, who can, as a result, develop a lack of trust in the science community and feel unwelcome in academia.

A 2021 study highlights the scale of the issue of decolonization, with only 16 percent of articles in high-profile development journals being authored by researchers exclusively based in the global south.

In an article which contributes to a series on decolonizing the biosciences, Snapp explained not only the importance of crediting scientists for their work, but also providing those from the Global South with platforms to share and discuss ideas.

“Working for an international research organization that studies global food production, I think we, as an organization, need to change the reward structure,” Snapp wrote. “The current one tends to reward pure science first, then applied research and outreach — and it tends to exclude the global south because much of work there is more locally contextualized and applied. Decolonization should go beyond simply citing colleagues from developing countries to including them in conferences and as co-authors, especially if we are creating knowledge together.”

Participatory research is key to Snapp’s approach of championing diversity. This strategy links indigenous scholars to conventional science through engagement, such as speaking at conferences.

“I’ve studied rain-fed cropping systems alongside colleagues in sub-Saharan Africa, notably Malawi, Tanzania and Zimbabwe, throughout my career,” she added.

“Those colleagues are not invited by their white, Western collaborators to speak at big conferences or to co-author high-profile papers in agriculture. My colleagues at CIMMYT and I hope to reverse this trend by advocating for decolonization through authorship. As a start, my team of researchers will include a paragraph about what each author did, and how the team paid attention to gender and Global South inclusivity in publications.”

Snapp is also encouraged by the development of new technology and programs, which challenge traditional methods of sharing findings. Crucially, these advances mean that research is available much quicker and distributed more equitably than before.

“I’m making the case at CIMMYT that performance evaluations reward sharing data sets and information with and between communities quicker,” Snapp explained. “This is part of decolonization in my view. Rather than, say, top-down fertilizer recommendations from experts, this offers a way to connect people so they can share information more directly in a local context.”

Cover photo: Sieg Snapp, Director of the Sustainable Agrifood Systems (SAS) program, outside CIMMYT headquarters. (Photo: Francisco Alarcón/CIMMYT)