The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) from Mexico and the German Julius Kühn Institute (JKI) signed a Declaration of Intent to intensify joint research on disease-resistant and stress-tolerant wheat. Representatives of both institutions met in Berlin at the International Conference on Improving Drought Stress Tolerance of Crops.
Read more here.
B.M. Prasanna, Director of CIMMYT’s Global Maize Program and the CGIAR Research Program on Maize, is interviewed by France 24 on the aflatoxin crisis in Kenya. Watch here.
“If we can put a man on the moon, we can solve 800 million people going to bed hungry every day. Wheat is a crucial part of that challenge,” said Martin Kropff, director-general of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) at the first International Wheal Congress held in Saskatoon.
Read more here.
In the midst of Ethiopia’s exponential population climb and the strikes of the climate emergency with erratic rains, dry spells, sharp floods and failed crops, the country launched a digital agro-climate advisory platform, called EDACaP, to put resilience at the center of agricultural livelihoods.
A team effort led by the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR) in partnership with the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA) and the National Meteorological Agency (NMA), alongside numerous research centers and programs: the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) and the International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI), with support from the Agricultural Growth Program (AGP), the EDACaP has come to life.
Read more here.
In this era of climate emergency, what is left when traditional knowledge is no longer enough?
In the midst of Ethiopia’s exponential population climb and the strikes of the climate emergency with erratic rains, dry spells, sharp floods and failed crops, the country launched a digital agro-climate advisory platform, called EDACaP, to put resilience at the center of agricultural livelihoods.
A team effort led by the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR) in partnership with the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA) and the National Meteorological Agency (NMA), alongside numerous research centers and programs: the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) and the International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI), with support from the Agricultural Growth Program (AGP), the EDACaP has come to life.
Read more here: https://www.thereporterethiopia.com/article/launching-digital-agro-climate-advisory-platform-ethiopia
Delhi’s fight against air pollution has more failures than success. As the Supreme Court lashed out at Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh on November 6, 2019, for not taking enough measures to curb crop residue burning in their farms, it also asked these states to reward farmers who refrained from doing so with Rs 100 per quintal of crop.
So what is Haryana doing right? The state started early, says S Narayanan, member secretary, Haryana Pollution Control Board.
It identified villages where farm fires were rampant last year and just as the kharif season began in June, it started distributing machines that can eliminate crop residue burning. “We did quite well on the technological front and supplied machines like Super sms, Rotavator, Happy Seeder and Zero Till Seed Drill,” he says.
“Any new technology takes time to be adopted,” says Kailash Chand Kalwania of the non-profit CIMMYT (International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre). Last year, many farmers were given such machines on subsidy. They used it in small patches.
This year, they saw that the overall cost was less and the yield was high. Read more here.
Assessments of wheat lines from around the world in disease trials and found a total of 19 local and international lines with good resistance to stagonospora nodorum blotch (SNB). Four lines from CIMMYT and ICARDA showed consistently low SNB response across all environments against 42 different SNB fungal isolates. Read more here.
As pollution in Delhi is soaring, agriculture is seen as a big contributor. Farmers are setting fire to their fields to clear excess crop residue in time for the wheat sowing season. CIMMYT scientist M.L. Jat argues that India now needs to undergo a second, “evergreen” revolution, driven by technology such as the happy seeder.
CIMMYT studies show that agricultural productivity can be improved with the use of happy seeders and super sms machines by between 10 and 15%, by reducing labor costs and time and allowing nutrients from the crop residue to be recycled back into the soil. Dr Jat sees it as a win-win situation: “On one side you are increasing your productivity with the happy seeder,” he says, “And on the other you are saving your resources.”
Read more here.
Several climate change agreements were signed in Benguérir, Morocco, promoting climate resilient agriculture. Read more here.
As fall armyworm spread over Africa, Frederic Baudron advocates for a multipronged approach to protect maize from the invasive pest. “The consensus in the continent is that a combination of these three approaches — pesticides, biocontrol and agronomic practices — will be required to effectively control FAW.” Read more here.
CIMMYT Principal Scienist M.L. Jat is optimistic fires from crop burning will be reduced this year in Haryana and Punjab, India. “There are more happy seeder machines in the two states this year than any time in the past.” Read more here.
CIMMYT’s Balwinder Singh, who is with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center in New Delhi and who recently co-authored a study on crop burning in Punjab and Haryana, told The Wire that the air pollution problem could be much more severe towards the end of October.
“Harvesting is getting late this year and burning will move into the cooler days of November, which will be more harmful as particulate matter will not disperse in cooler days. Another risk in delayed harvesting is that many farmers will harvest and burn the residue within a short time span towards the time between the end of October and early November, which will increase the intensity of fire events and also particulate matter,” he said. Read more here.
A study by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), carried out in collaboration with Stanford and Cornell Universities, has shown that there is a sustainable way to increase food production already in the fields: microsatellites. Read more here (in Italian).
“We are talking about testing whether it is possible to use information available in the genome to predict how productive a variety of wheat will be, if it will be drought- or heat-resistant and what quality its grain will have,” explains Carlos Guzmán from the University of Cordoba who participated in the study via his work as head of the Chemistry and Wheat Quality Laboratory at CIMMYT in Mexico.
Read more here.
