“Knowing which strain you have is critical information that can be incorporated into early warning systems and results in more effective control of disease outbreaks in farmer’s fields” said Dr. Dave Hodson, a rust pathologist at CIMMYT in Ethiopia and co-author of the paper “MARPLE, a point-of-care, strain-level disease diagnostics and surveillance tool for complex fungal pathogens.” Read more here.
Energy is vital for modern farming. “Disruption in energy supply to the farm sector can hold back efforts to achieve poverty, hunger, health and education and energy-related SDGs in the rural farming areas,” said Akhter Ali, corresponding author of the study and agricultural economist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center. Read more here.
Newly formed, non-profit ProMaíz Nativo will promote Mexico’s native corn biodiversity with a front-of-pack logo to help consumers choose sustainably-grown, heirloom varieties. Read more here.
CIMMYT researcher Bekele Abeyo remarked at the International Wheat Congress that there are hardly any African countries self-sufficient in wheat, and that food security in Africa is dependent on wheat production.
Matthew Reynolds, CIMMYT researcher and head of the Heat and Drought Wheat Improvement Consortium (HeDWIC), noted that the consortium has already benefited nine African countries and stresses the importance of future work in this area.
Read more here.
Agricultural researchers, who have teamed up to boost harvests and fight the major blight of wheat rust are now forming an international consortium in a bid to make wheat stand up to worsening heat and drought.
“There was a real shift in terms of the intensity of what we do together when we became aware of climate change,” said Hans-Joachim Braun, who heads the global wheat program for the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), based in Mexico. For each 1 degree Celsius global temperatures rise above pre-industrial times, wheat harvests drop 5-8%, he said. That means the world will likely see a 10% drop in harvests even if governments hold global warming to “well below” 2C, as they have agreed, he said – and that drop would come even as the world’s population grows and demand for food rises.
Finding ways to breed wheat that can cope better with heat could help farmers from Australia to India and China, as well as the people who depend on their grain, he said. “It doesn’t matter where you use this trait – it will have an impact,” Braun said. Read more here.
At the opening session of the International Wheat Congress 2019 in Saskatoon, the director general of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), Martin Kropff, told a gathering of 900 wheat scientists that, with CIMMYT support, Bangladesh developed blast resistant wheat in the quickest possible time. Read more here.
Soil scientist David Guerena, who works for the Nepal Seed and Fertiliser Project run by CIMMYT, advocates for zinc-enriched fertilizers in Nepal. Read more here.
In a study by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), water conservation policies by the regional governments of Haryana and Punjab were revealed to actually aggravate air pollution. Read more here.
