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Farewell and thanks to Masa Iwanaga, Director General, 2002-2008

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CIMMYT Director General, Masa Iwanaga, ends his appointment at CIMMYT today,14 March 2008, after a six-year tenure that included a redirection in center strategy, confronting extreme financial difficulties, establishing important new alliances and partnerships, and through it all, continuing scientific achievements and recognition. At a dinner last Friday to say goodbye to Masa and welcome new DG, Tom Lumpkin, speakers emphasized Masa’s fortitude and thanked him for carrying CIMMYT through—as the words on the plaque he received state— “
the most challenging period of its history.” Lumpkin thanked Masa for leaving a healthy, scientifically-vibrant organization. Masa himself expressed his gratitude to CIMMYT staff for their support and outstanding efforts during his administration. “I firmly believe that the best days of CIMMYT are still ahead,” he said. We thank you, Masa, wish you and Kumiko the best, hope you carry fond memories of CIMMYT and Mexico, and look forward to continued contact with you as a member of the CIMMYT family at-large!

Thank-you message from Masa (abridged)

The CG system has given me wonderful opportunities to grow professionally and personally, going from postdoc to scientist, deputy director general, director general, and board member, and even part of a donor delegation from 2000 to 2002. The most important asset that I have gained during the last 30 years is an international network of friends: this represents the most fortunate gift for my life.

I began my appointment as CIMMYT Director General in mid-2002, and encountered numerous unexpected challenges, including a financial crisis.
 The greatest challenge was not financial per se, but rather that of maintaining the center’s scientific excellence, relevance, and strong partnerships, ensuring that CIMMYT continued to deliver on its humanitarian mission and development impact in the difficult times and with a reduced number of staff. I’m extremely pleased to see CIMMYT back on track again, as evidenced by its receiving the last two King Baudouin Awards in collaboration with many partners and being rated “Outstanding” in the World Bank Performance Measurement system the last two years. Competent and committed staff, Board support and effective partnerships have been instrumental for the recovery.

I will be leaving CIMMYT with a strong sense of relief and sincere appreciation for the kind support the center enjoyed from many investors and partners. Dr. Thomas Lumpkin has been selected as my successor and I am confident he will lead the institute to even higher levels of performance. The center has a proud history of success and delivery, but I firmly believe the best times of CIMMYT are yet to come for delivering development impacts.

Thank you, and see you again,

Masa

Democratizing crop improvement

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Maize breeders in the Mexican highlands are increasingly looking to farmers for input on how to improve crops, after decades of having little impact in these areas. It is estimated that only 7-15% of maize seed planted in the highlands of Mexico State is of improved varieties. “Considering that the Mexican highlands represent 10% of the 6.3 million hectares of highland maize grown globally, this constitutes a glaring discrepancy between those who have benefited from maize breeding programs and those who have not,” says Brian Love, a consultant working with CIMMYT’s global maize program.

Now CIMMYT’s highland maize breeding program is turning to farmers in the state of Mexico for their input. As part of a joint project involving CIMMYT and the US and Mexican Departments of Agriculture, farmers are being asked to give their opinion about improved varieties currently available. Farmers from La Purificación and Tepetlaoxtoc, two villages near CIMMYT’s El Batán research station in Mexico, came to the station and voted on improved maize varieties provided by CIMMYT and other maize breeding programs in the region, including the Mexican national agricultural research program (INIFAP) and the Colegio de Postgraduados. A CIMMYT yellow maize under development and H-40 of INIFAP were clear winners. Farmers explained their desire for materials that perform well under rainfed conditions, resist ear rots, escape frosts, and have small cobs.

“One of the easiest ways for everyone to have their say is to put it to a vote,” says Love. “Democracy is allowed to rule and a CIMMYT staff member facilitates a discussion aimed at learning why selected varieties were preferred. The process allows farmers to experience new maize varieties and researchers to better understand farmers’ circumstances and preferences, both of which should help promote the adoption of improved materials.”

CIMMYT entomology lab technician, Carlos Muñoz, was instrumental in organizing the event, and INIFAP plant breeders Gustavo Valåzquez and José Luis Arellano participated. Velåzquez, who conducts nearly all of his trials with farmers, felt the voting technique (originally developed by researchers at IRRI  in the Philippines for use with upland rice growers in Laos) was effective in highland maize trials, and that INIFAP could apply it.

Mexican maize landraces: eroding, but not lost

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The fates of farmers and maize landraces in the central highlands of Mexico hinge on complex interactions between global and local economies

Researchers, the media, and members of civil society organizations from many quarters have expressed a concern for the perceived loss of native Mexican maize diversity, either through its replacement by scientifically improved varieties or simply the out-migration of the peasant farmers who created and often serve as custodians of this diversity. The number of landraces grown has declined as a result of these phenomena, according to CIMMYT research, but native diversity is still valued and conserved by local farmers.

The intertwined fates of farmers and native maize in the Valley of Toluca, in the Central Mexican Highlands, illustrate the complexity of the forces at work. There, challenges of international competition are balanced by specialized opportunities from large urban markets. Surprisingly, the native races sometimes still hold sway over improved maize varieties.

Farmers seek options in a shifting economy

Ricardo Becerril is a relatively young man, but speaks with the quiet authority of an elder. When asked if the maize varieties grown by generations of farmers in the Toluca Valley are in danger of extinction, he furrows his brow and seems to pull the response up from a well of experience on his father’s farm. “No, not here,” he says. “They’ve worked for us, even without being improved—or at least having had only minimal, empirical selection.”

Today Becerril is hosting a group of some 20 farmers from his home community, Taborda, who came to hear a presentation on organic agriculture. Like nearly all Valley farmers, he is continually seeking new and better options, as the Mexican economy and climate around them shift rapidly. These farmers are large-scale and prosperous by developing country standards, with average holdings of 10 hectares or more and the swelling urban markets of Toluca and Mexico City nearby. They express longing for times past, when they could still live off sales of the maize they grew. That livelihood began to fade in 1994, when the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) opened Mexico’s borders to a flood of subsidized maize from the USA. Now, even with dramatic hikes in maize prices from the biofuels boom, farmers barely cover production costs with grain sales. So, adding value to their traditional skill of maize farming, soon after NAFTA they found a new use for their harvests. “We can’t profitably sell the maize, so we feed it to sheep and cattle,” says Becerril, whose family’s homesteads fatten some 300 to 400 head a year.

When biomass beats grain

Becerril and the other Toluca Valley farmers grow a range of crops, including wheat, oats, and sorghum, but maize is their mainstay. Their local varieties, “criollo blanco” and “criollo amarillo”—essentially, indigenous white and yellow—have previously walked the knife-edge of extinction, according to Dagoberto Flores, research assistant in CIMMYT’s Impacts Targeting and Assessment Unit. “The farmers told me they once replaced their native landraces with improved varieties a number of years ago,” says Flores. “They didn’t like the improved maize, because it was shorter and produced less forage, so they went back to the native varieties. I asked them if they hadn’t lost the seed of the landraces. They said, ‘certainly not—some of the older farmers were still growing the old seed on small plots, so we were able to get it back.’ ”

Flores has talked to farmers in Taborda and other communities in the Toluca Valley as part of CIMMYT studies on the value of maize residues for forage and on local markets for this commodity. The Center is promoting zero-tillage and other resource-conserving practices that normally require farmers to leave stalks and leaves from the previous crop on the soil surface, rather than feeding them all to farm animals. In either case, where forage production brings a premium, a plant type like that of the native maize, with more above-ground biomass, might be advantageous.

Becerril grows an assortment of maize hybrids, but still sows and trusts the native maize. Among other things, he likes the criollos’ yields and the fact that their seed is cheap or free and available locally. “If we can’t make ends meet with our local varieties, how are we going to do it with the hybrids?” he says. “You buy it one year and there’s good seed, and the next year it’s not available. I strongly believe that we should conserve our locals—the hybrids or transgenics will never perform the way as our criollos do.”

The value of diversity

In the maize germplasm bank of CIMMYT, there are 23,000 unique samples of native maize seed, including the Toluca Valley landraces, kept against the day humanity may require it. Much of this maize is no longer grown in farmers’ fields. “Among other things, this diversity represents a hedge against new crop diseases or pests,” explains Suketoshi Taba, head of maize genetic resources at CIMMYT. He cites a recent example of CIMMYT researchers in eastern Africa developing new maize varieties that resist larger grain borer. The pest can chew through a third of a farmer’s grain store in six months. “That resistance came from Caribbean maize seed collected 40 or 50 years ago and enhanced through breeding programs,” Taba says. He and his team also regularly provide researchers or farmers with seed from older collections of native maize to “enhance” the more recent versions, thereby making it more likely that farmers will benefit from growing them.

If farmers stay on the land, so will the maize

Pedro León Peredo’s spry leap from a roaring tractor totally belies his 73 years of age. Native of Los Reyes village in the Toluca Valley, he grows about 20 hectares of maize, oats, and pasture to fatten some 200-300 head of sheep and calves a year. He uses maize hybrids, but also raises considerable stands of the criollo maize. He fertilizes his land with manure, plows in some residues, and rotates crops—especially the local and hybrid maize types: “We’ve tested the hybrids, and after growing them for several seasons in one place, they take up all the nutrients and then don’t grow or yield well,” he says. León also tells Flores of a rainy, windy year where the heavier native maize fell over but the hybrids gave good yields.

Most of the farmers Flores interviewed are 40 years old or more, reflecting the demographics of out-migration. “They are the ones who really appreciate the criollos, saying they make tortillas that are sweeter and store better than those from hybrid grain,” according to Flores. “They say even the animals prefer forage from the native maize.”

A pioneer passes: Bernice “Bernie” Hanson

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We have received word that Mrs. Bernie Hanson, wife of Haldore Hanson, CIMMYT’s second director general, died on April 4, 2007 at the age of 91. She would have been 92 on Sunday, August 19th.

Hal and Bernie were important “pioneers” in CIMMYT’s history. Shortly after arriving in Mexico in 1971, and with no desire to undergo a daily commute to Mexico City, Bernie set out to find property near Texcoco to build a home. She found a series of eight terraces that had probably been farmed since before the arrival of the Spaniards in San Nicolás Tlaminca. They sat at the base of Tezcotzingo, on top of which the Texcoco king, Nezahualcóyotl, had built a summer place. It was love at first sight. With her powers of persuasion, Bernie then convinced Arq. Pedro Ramírez Vázquez, one of Mexico’s most accomplished architects, to design and build their dream home. The house completed in 1972, became Hal and Bernie’s home for the next two decades.

Even with the CIMMYT director general living in the Texcoco area, the lack of a bilingual school discouraged many international staff from relocating closer to El BatĂĄn. So Bernie founded the Columbia School and recruited a number of expatriate women whose spouses were associated with CIMMYT and Chapingo, to teach there.

Bernie also played an important economic development role in San NicolĂĄs. She was instrumental in encouraging greenhouse flower cultivation and helped to create a microfinance organization to support the smallholder growers. She is remembered with great fondness by many.

After Haldore’s death in 1992 Bernie returned to their farm near Leesburg, Virginia. Before leaving Mexico, she gifted the San Nicolás property to CIMMYT (two houses and 4 ha). Her condition was that all revenue derived from the property be deposited in a special fund, called the Hanson Fund, to provide educational scholarships for national CIMMYT staff.

CIMMYT extends its condolences to the two Hanson children, Signe and Eric, and thanks them for the many contributions that their parents made to international agriculture and development, to CIMMYT and to the larger Texcoco community.

Pride and pragmatism sustain a giant Mexican maize

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Long as a man’s forearm, the biggest maize ears in the world are found in Jala, in the state of Nayarit, on the Pacific coast of Mexico. The traditional variety of this community is at risk, but a maize festival and the variety’s value in local culture and dishes keep farmers growing it, while researchers work to restore and improve its potential.

At the annual competition for the longest maize ear in the world, beauty queens and dignitaries wait in obscurity at the back of the stage, while the spotlight is on the bundles of ears lined up at the front. As darkness falls over the main square of the Mexican village of Jala on the evening of August 14, 2007, the 30 participating farmers are called onto the stage one by one, carrying their precious ears of maize. Each ear is systematically stripped of its husks and measured, and the data are recorded under the watchful eye of its grower. Many reach more than 30 cm (12 inches), and the first place goes to an ear 36 cm long.

At the height of the rainy season, lush, green fields and mountains surround Jala. The valley is overlooked by the active volcano Ceboruco, which last erupted in the 1870s and whose mineral-rich ash is believed by locals to make the giant Jala maize grow so well—indeed, it does not reach its full size when grown outside the valley. The variety is intimately adapted to its environment and an integral part of the identity and traditions of the people who grow it. Despite this, like many traditional varieties throughout Mexico, the Jala maize and the genetic diversity it carries are under threat of extinction, as improved varieties take over and young people leave the land looking for a better life. The competition for the biggest ear was established in 1981 in an attempt to ensure the preservation of Jala maize by encouraging farmers to grow it. It is held every year as part of the village’s two-week Feria del Elote, or green maize ear festival.

The Jala maize is a landrace—a traditional variety specific to a particular place that has been grown by farmers over generations. A number of other, regular-sized, landraces originating from other parts of Mexico are also grown in Jala. Collectively they are known as maĂ­z de hĂșmedo, as they have long growing seasons of around seven to eight months and are planted in April to take advantage of residual soil moisture before the summer rains begin.

Key ingredient in rich traditions and dishes

Jala maize grains contain a lot of flour. They are therefore prized for making boiled or roasted green ears, the Mexican flat-bread tortilla, pozole (a kind of pork and maize stew), gorditas (a sweet breadcake), and many other traditional dishes. But their flouriness also means the kernels are less dense and thus fetch a lower price on external markets, where maize is sold by weight.

Improved varieties of maize are inexorably supplanting the Jala landrace. They are shorter, which makes them easier to manage and less prone to falling over (lodging) in high winds, and yield much more (around 7-8 tons of grain per hectare, compared to around 3 tons per hectare for maĂ­z de hĂșmedo). Even more importantly, the improved varieties grown in Jala give relatively high yields of husks, which are exported to the USA and the rest of Mexico for wrapping tamales, a popular Mexican dish. The valley’s climate is changing, and the reduced rainfall also favors improved varieties, which reach maturity in around four to five months and thus can be sown in drier soils, after the rains begin. As a result less than 5% of the Jala’s maize-growing area is currently sown to the landrace. Furthermore, maize itself is being replaced by cash crops, predominantly blue agave for tequila and tobacco.

Recovering lost length

Because it has outcrossed with improved varieties, Jala maize’s prodigious height, ear length, ear thickness, and growing season have all diminished over the last century. In 1907 a visiting scientist recorded ears 60 cm long, whereas the longest in recent times have measured a mere 45 cm. Working to reverse these trends is J. Arahón Hernández Guzmán, research professor at the Colegio de Postgraduados, a Mexican agricultural institution. Hernández is growing landrace seed from 22 farmers in a plot in the valley to recombine the genetic variation. The seed will be redistributed to interested farmers, safeguarded in CIMMYT’s germplasm bank, and re-sown next year to begin selection for longer ears. He is also growing out Jala landrace samples from CIMMYT’s bank for selection and combination with current landrace materials. In addition to recovery and conservation, Hernández aims to develop varieties with added value; for example, dual-purpose maize providing good grain and husk yields, as well as specialized varieties for green ears or pozole. “This is important for me because, as a genetic resource, it’s unique in the world,” he says. “Not only that: if we lose this maize we lose our traditions, culture, and identity.”

Suketoshi Taba, Head of CIMMYT’s Maize Germplasm Collection, agrees the landrace is a unique expression of Jala’s culture, and will have value as long as people there choose to grow it. “CIMMYT holds Jala maize seed in trust, not just as a genetic resource for the world, but also for the people of Jala,” he says. “It’s important for us to preserve it on a permanent basis ex situ in the CIMMYT germplasm bank, and this complements its conservation in the field.” The Center holds 22,600 unique collections of Mexican and other maize landraces, and has provided seed and technical support to numerous researchers and farmers interested in their conservation and use.

Many reasons to grow Jala maize

But even if Jala maize can be restored and improved, will farmers continue growing it? Looking to stem the massive yearly flow of migrants out of the valley, local officials are tending to support the use of other, more profitable varieties and crops. “Maize is economically not very important,” says Jala mayor, Juan JosĂ© Jacobo Solis.

Jala farmers talk of why they grow the landrace with a mixture of pride and pragmatism. They take pride in growing the biggest maize in the world, but also in their long tradition of caring for the seed. Pragmatically, they grow Jala maize for its high quality, because they enjoy eating it and because it can fetch high prices locally. The competition offers both—prizes and prestige.

Farmers will continue to grow more profitable and reliable improved varieties to sell the husks and grain. However, particularly with improved seed and supportive policies, it is likely that farmers will also continue to grow small plots of Jala maize for their own consumption and local sale, and for the competition. Their different purposes are complementary. Ultimately, the conservation of Jala maize in farmers’ fields is in the hands of farmers, and depends on the value they place on it.

As such, Jala is relevant to the conservation of other maize landraces: where people take pride in their local maize and value it for local needs such as traditional foods, it will be preserved. “I will always grow it,” says farmer JosĂ© Elias Partida, “and now my son grows it too, and participates in the competition.”

Message from DG Masa

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The year 2006 is coming to a close and I’d like to share with you my assessment of this busy year and thank the CIMMYT family for its invaluable contribution to making this a productive and rewarding period for CIMMYT.

CIMMYT has made major progress in science leadership, delivery, effective partnership, organizational effectiveness and coherence, financial health and external perception and recognition. Let me give some examples that illustrate why I believe that 2006 has been a successful year for CIMMYT as a science-based organization with a humanitarian mission.

We started with Science Week, a major institutional event. At the end of the week I wrote: “I believe that Science Week was a major success. First of all, the Business Plan inauguration was received with enthusiasm by all staff present and the Board members who attended. We now have a Board-approved business plan and I feel that staff are anxious to join forces to deliver the flagship products highlighted in the plan. Science Week has been a major turning point for CIMMYT. I think that we now have a clear direction, and exciting and challenging tasks ahead of us. I would like to express my sincere appreciation to CIMMYT Board members (Lene, Julio, Bob and Pedro) for their active participation in the events and for providing their great wisdom about our science both its quality and its direction. I also thank those who were involved in logistic support for the successful events.”

CIMMYT organized or led a series of international meetings, showing the strength and relevance of our science. For example:

  • Wheat yield potential workshop (Obregon, March)
  • Fusarium head blight (HQ, March)
  • Global crop diversity strategy meetings on maize and wheat (HQ, May, June)
  • International Plant Breeding symposium (Mexico City, August)
  • Global Rust Initiative technical workshop (Alexandria, Egypt, October)
  • Bio-ethanol international technical workshop (New Delhi, November)

While organizing such events takes great effort, they are very important. Through them CIMMYT shows its proactiveness and relevance to global issues. They are powerful sources of CIMMYT’s influence on the global agricultural research agenda and partnership.

We also made major progress on improving CIMMYT’s organizational effectiveness. A new financial management system, Axapta, has been introduced. The implementation involved not only finance section staff but also program administrative staff in HQ and regional offices. I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for their tremendous energy and efforts in successfully managing the migration and implementation.

CIMMYT will move to strict, Project-based management in 2007. This will ensure priority-based (flagship products) resource allocation, output-oriented activities with clear accountability and monitoring system. This will also assist us to properly cost and price project activities and provide incentives for resource mobilization.

We continue to dramatically improve our operational effectiveness. For example, our cafeteria operations (El Batan) used to lose money (around USD 200,000/year). Through a change of management and improved effectiveness, it now breaks even, saving us that USD 200,000. We will continue to strive for operational effectiveness in all operations, so that more resources will be available for our resultoriented activities.

Effective partnership is a core component for the delivery of flagship products. I am sure we are all aware of its importance and work hard to create partnerships at many levels. I have seen major progress on the development of our alliances with two key sister centers (IRRI and ICARDA) this year. We made also special efforts to actively participate in specific NARS-led events such as APAARI and GFAR.

We have a good history of working with small and medium scale enterprises. We also work effectively with large enterprises to enhance the speed of development of our products (such as improved germplasm and technology). The new Pioneer-CIMMYT joint effort to develop maize germplasm for higher nitrogen use efficiency in Africa is an example.

External perception and review
Two real highlights from an institutional perspective were our top ranking in the CGIAR-World Bank performance indicators and the positive review from the External Program and Management Review panel that took the time to analyze progress at CIMMYT after their formal report in 2005. The new review report is highly complimentary to CIMMYT. It reports in its summary, “The review team congratulates CIMMYT as a whole—the Board, management and staff—on the substantive progress made since the Fifth EPMR and feels that CIMMYT can now move ahead with confidence and optimism.”

The CGIAR performance indicators range from how many peer-reviewed papers each scientist has published to how good the financial management has been over the year. They also include assessments of governance, impact and science quality.

Partnership in science-led development
This year we were presented with the CGIAR’s highest recognition for science for development—the King Baudoiun Award. The award was given to us for our work on stress-tolerant maize in eastern and southern Africa. This is research that has a 20 year history at CIMMYT, starting with the selection of potential germplasm from the gene bank in the late 1980s and continuing through today with the very successful participatory selection work with farmers through the mother-baby trial system and the dissemination of stress-tolerant maize seed on a wide-scale by national programs, small scale seed companies and communitybased organizations. The work is a fine example of how researchled development can enhance the livelihoods of the rural poor. It is also the result of an extraordinary partnership of researchers, farmers, NARS and donors.

Resource mobilization
In 2006, there were 43 grants signed or approved for about USD 22 million. Many CIMMYT staff members were active in all stages of resource mobilization, from generating concept notes and moving them to full proposals, to investor visits. They and their research-for-development partners are to be congratulated for their hard work. It is the kind of effort we will have to continue every year to ensure we have the resources to fulfill our mission. A summary of the current status of new grants received and the project proposal pipeline are given monthly in CIMMYT Resource Mobilization intranet site at http://intranet. cimmyt.org/Resource_ Mobilization/e-index.htm.

Challenges in the new year, 2007
We end 2006 with great satisfaction for the above achievements. We will continue, in the new year, to strive for scientific excellence and organizational effectiveness. The environment surrounding our work is, unfortunately, increasingly uncertain. It includes donor funding, intellectual property policy and the viability of CGIAR as an effective system. We will need to address those challenges in a proactive manner and stay focused on our work while showing resilience and accepting such uncertainties as a matter of institutional life.

In closing, I wish you and your families the very best for this season and the new year. Without your efforts none of our success would be possible.

A World Tour: Program Director Profile

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CIMMYT E-News, vol 2 no. 7, July 2005

JCrouchNow that all of CIMMYT’s new program directors have been officially installed, it is time to get acquainted with them, as well as their ideas and plans for the programs. This month we feature Jonathan Crouch, director of the Genetic Resources Program.

“Probably the best drought team in the world,” raves Jonathan Crouch, director of CIMMYT’s Genetic Resources Program, referring to his new CIMMYT colleagues. Ever since working in the Negev desert breeding heat and salinity tolerant potatoes, Crouch has been interested in harnessing biotechnologies for improving dryland agriculture. “There are many exciting advances in genomics that now offer the possibility of helping to breed better crops for these harsh environments” he says.

He started his career, however, in a very different environment, the swamps of West Africa, using tissue culture and molecular markers in the breeding of plantains and bananas at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) in Nigeria. Soon realizing that he needed more practical experience in plant breeding, he joined the private sector to set up a European canola breeding program. This gave him a better perspective of the realities of biotechnologies in modern crop breeding. From there, going to the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), it was obvious that in many developing countries a chasm exists between the outputs of international public goods research and the inputs of private sector product development. “By working with the private sector, we hope to populate that gap with interdisciplinary scientists, who will bring prestige to this area of research,” says Crouch, who also champions a similar approach in his half-time position in the management group of the Generation Challenge Programme.

The Genetic Resources program aims to foster more diverse and intimate relationships with multinational corporations and small- and medium-sized enterprises. “We also want to build a strong product development pipeline from the genebank to the farmer. The Genetic Resources program will start the reaction, which will then reach farmers through our regional programs and national partners, giving them the traits and tools they need.”

This global research program houses three important aspects of CIMMYT’s work—the maize and wheat genebanks, the biotechnology group, and prebreeding activities, which create suitable starting material for plant breeding programs from tens of thousands of possible unimproved plants. Crouch is excited about this organizational unit, the first of its kind in the CGIAR: “It offers tremendous opportunities for capturing synergies in all disciplines. The regional programs identify priorities, such as drought tolerance, and we work on identifying novel useful genetic variation and the tools required to efficiently manipulate it.”

And considering he is building on CIMMYT’s existing legacy of quality biotechnological science, Crouch’s confidence in this program is not unfounded.

A World Tour: Program Director Profiles

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noticias4Now that all of CIMMYT’s new program directors have been officially installed, it is time to get acquainted with them, as well as their ideas and plans for the programs. This month we feature Marianne BĂ€nziger, director of the African Livelihoods Program.

She recently made history by becoming CIMMYT’s first ever female director, yet Marianne BĂ€nziger, director of the African Livelihoods Program (ALP), refers to herself as “a smallholder farmer at heart.” Fortunate, then, that she heads a program with smallholder African farmers at its heart.

The ALP is one of CIMMYT’s largest and most multifaceted programs, working in and for a continent where, despite strides in agriculture in the rest of the world, food security still eludes 150 million people. “African agriculture continues to struggle under the interrelated constraints in infrastructure, education, politics, policies, technology, and health issues,” says BĂ€nziger, speaking from nearly a decade’s experience living and working in the continent. “However, through combined efforts, Africa could solve its food security issues, and even become a net exporter of goods originating from a vibrant agricultural sector,” she says.

BĂ€nziger has a track record of building strong teams from diverse quarters. She envisions the ALP as drawing on and focusing CIMMYT’s maize and wheat expertise to improve the livelihoods of the smallholder farmer in Africa. “It’s people who must power the process, so our program puts effective partnerships at the fore of its agenda,” she says. She expects ALP impacts to show up soon in several key areas, including:

  • New maize varieties and production packages that stabilize and increase farm-level productivity, improve nutrition, help farmers deal with climate and market variability, add value, and replenish natural resources.
  • Partnerships with other researchers, farming communities, extension staff, policy makers and civil society at large to increase resource-poor farmers’ access to input and produce markets.
  • An “honest broker” approach on genetically modified food crops.
  • True enhancement of Africa’s human and institutional capacities.

After spending much of her childhood on a 14-hectare farm in the hills of her native Switzerland, BĂ€nziger joined the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, where she earned BSc, MSc, and PhD degrees, the latter in crop physiology in 1992. She joined CIMMYT as a postdoctoral fellow soon afterwards. In 1996, she was posted to the center’s research program in Zimbabwe—the first female scientist of the organization to work in a regional program—where she launched the Southern Africa Drought and Low Soil Fertility (SADLF) project. As part of this, she coordinated the work of CIMMYT and partners to develop improved, drought tolerant maize varieties for small-scale farmers in Africa. Always keeping the small-scale farmer in mind, she fostered the adoption of new approaches whereby breeders replicate farmers’ actual constraints on research stations and farmers take part in varietal testing and selection. The “stress-breeding” methodology and “mother-baby” participatory trials have spread to 16 countries in eastern and southern Africa. Most importantly, enough seed of the drought-tolerant maize, which yields 30% more than previously-sown varieties under dry conditions, has been produced to sow a million hectares in southern Africa alone in 2005.

Often asked whether gender has constrained her career, BĂ€nziger responds philosophically: “As a newcomer in any field, you have to establish your credentials, irrespective of your gender. In Africa, I find myself in the company of many strong, high-ranking, and well respected women in various professions.” This year BĂ€nziger relocated to the CIMMYT-ALP office in Nairobi, Kenya. “Wherever I am, I will continue doing my bit to help smallholder farmers in Africa achieve their hopes for the future—a decent standard of living, a better life for their children, and independence from food aid,” she says.

A World Tour: Program Director Profiles

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kpixleyNow that all of CIMMYT’s new program directors have been officially installed, it is time to get acquainted with them, as well as their ideas and plans for the programs. This month we feature Kevin Pixley, director of the Tropical Ecosystems Program.

After growing up in Latin America and working in Africa for over a decade, Kevin Pixley is eager to extend the benefits of CIMMYT’s work in Asia, following the legacy of Nobel Peace Laureate and former CIMMYT wheat breeder, Norman E. Borlaug. “I read about Dr. Borlaug while attending high school in Mexico City,” says Pixley. “Wanting to learn more, I convinced one of my teachers to take our class on a field trip to CIMMYT’s headquarters in Mexico. Little did I know then how familiar this place would become to me, or that I would be seeing Dr. Borlaug fairly often.”

The Tropical Ecosystems Program he heads will focus on developing hardy, productive maize varieties for resource-poor farmers in lowland and highland tropical environments. “Across tropical Latin America, Southeast Asia, and Southern China, agriculture suffers from problems like drought, diseases and insects, and infertile and acidic soils,” says Pixley. “The demand for maize is increasing, but the profitability of maize farming—especially for small-scale producers—is declining. Improving the livelihoods and food security of those farmers is one of our key goals.” More nutritious maize will be another output of the program, including varieties with high-lysine and pro-vitamins A. “On the latter, we’re working with HarvestPlus, the CGIAR’s global alliance to breed and disseminate crops for better nutrition,” he says.

For the farmers in Latin America, where nearly 27 million hectares of maize are grown, the Program is developing and testing varieties that tolerate highly acidic soils, which cover large tracts in South America, and is also trying to reach the many small-scale farmers in remote, highland areas who have missed out on the Green Revolution. “Despite progress in Latin America, millions are still trapped in pockets of rural poverty with no access to markets or viable alternative livelihoods,” says Pixley. “We know that farming is central to their lives and that our work can make a difference.”

A citizen of the US, Pixley completed his BSc at Purdue University and his PhD at Iowa State, and in 1990 joined CIMMYT as a post doctorate in maize breeding—his Spanish language skills coming in handy. After three years he moved with his family to CIMMYT’s office in Zimbabwe to work as a maize breeder, and later became coordinator of the center’s regional program. During his tenure from 1993-2004, the southern Africa group and its partners worked extensively with farmers to test drought tolerant maize and make quality seed available. This year, enough seed was produced to sow more than a million hectares of drought tolerant maize. “Many things inspired me in southern Africa,” Pixley says, “but the commitment of local scientists, who work for very little money and under tough conditions, still strikes me as extraordinary.”

Thank you Norman: Rap song praises Dr. Borlaug

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A rap song heralding the handiwork of Dr. Norman Borlaug is now on air. Father of the Green Revolution, Borlaug has kept starvation at bay for millions of people in developing countries through his semidwarf wheat varieties. The impetus for this project was Borlaug’s 90th birthday party, held in March of 2004. Written by MC Tractor and sung by Rohan Prakash, age 11, the song features vocal accompaniment from Luckie Egnin and Destiny Caldwell, both 10, who hail from Cîte d’Ivoire and Jamaica, respectively. The music was produced, recorded, and edited by Mr. D.J. Redd and D.J. Cadett. Considering it was produced in less than an hour, the song has created quite a splash; it was recognized worldwide on Voice of America, the Guardian, and Science magazine. Rohan has continued to write and make new songs.

You can listen to the song and see the lyrics on AgBioWorld.