P.K. Malaker, BARI senior wheat pathologist (2nd from left) and other BARI scientists showing blast affected wheat to Martin Kropff in Jessore district. Malaker first identified the emergence of wheat blast in Bangladesh. Photo credit: CIMMYT/Bangladesh
DHAKA, Bangladesh (CIMMYT) — On a recent visit to Bangladesh, Martin Kropff , director general of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) held discussions with partners and government officials on combating wheat blast disease and other aspects of maintaining food security in the country.
Meetings were held with Bangladesh’s agriculture minister and member of Parliament Begum Matia Chowdhury and Secretary of Agriculture Mohammad Moinuddin Abdullah, where CIMMYT’s activities in Bangladesh were also discussed. Wheat blast is one of the most feared and intractable wheat diseases.
A new, severe outbreak of the disease in Bangladesh validated the prediction of the spread of the disease beyond its origins in Latin America to Africa and South Asia. The spread of wheat blast could be devastating to South Asia, which is home to 300 million undernourished people and whose inhabitants consume over 100 million tons of wheat each year.
Martin Kropff and Nynke Kropff-Nammensma with CIMMYT-Bangladesh staff. CIMMYT/Utam Barman
During a two day field visit, Kropff saw the impacts of wheat blast in the Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute’s (BARI) research station in Jessore and farmers’ fields. He also spent the visit meeting Bangladeshi farmers, observing mechanization scaling efforts and visiting a range of CIMMYT varietal and agronomic research trials and demonstrations funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research in Jessore and Dinajpur districts. In addition he held discussions with scientists from BARI and visited the organization’s headquarters in Gazipur and
Martin Kropff (L) meets with Bangladesh’s agriculture minister and Member of Parliament Begum Matia Chowdhury (2nd from left) to address the spread of wheat blast in the country, along with (from L-R) Nynke Kropff – Nammensma, CIMMYT-Bangladesh Country Representative TP Tiwari and Secretary of Agriculture Mohammad Moinuddin Abdullah. CIMMYT/Zia Ahmed
the Wheat Research Centre in Dinajpur district. Kropff also learned how irrigation management advisory with satellite technology is being developed with BARI, the Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council (BARC) and other core partners to release mobile applications for farming.
Kropff also held discussions with partners, including BARI Director General Rafiqul Islam Mondal and Abul Kalam Azad, executive director of BARC. Mondal lauded CIMMYT for its continuous support of BARI’s promotion of maize and wheat for food security in Bangladesh.
EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) — Almost half the world’s wheat land is sown to varieties that come directly or indirectly from research by a longstanding, global network of crop scientists, according to a new report by CIMMYT.
Yearly economic benefits of that research ranged from $2.2 to 3.1 billion (in 2010 dollars), and resulted from annual funding of just $30 million, a benefit-cost ratio as high as 103:1, the study shows.
Published to coincide with CIMMYT’s 50th anniversary, the new study tabulates and analyzes the pedigrees of 4,604 wheat varieties released worldwide during 1994-2014, based on survey responses from public and private breeding programs in 66 countries.
Fully 63 percent of the varieties featured genetic contributions from the breeding research of CIMMYT or of the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), both members of CGIAR, a publicly-funded agricultural-research-for-development consortium.
“The fourth in a series of wheat impact assessments first published in 1993, the latest report highlights impressive CGIAR contributions in all wheat-growing regions,” Baum said. “In South Asia, for example, which is home to more than 300 million undernourished people and whose inhabitants consume over 100 million tons of wheat a year, 92 percent of the varieties carried CGIAR ancestry.”
FREE SEED, FUNDING CRUCIAL
CIMMYT and ICARDA depend on donor assistance and national partnerships to achieve meaningful farm-level impacts, but national co-investments do not figure in the current study, according to Hans Braun, director of CIMMYT’s global wheat program. “In 2014 alone, CIMMYT distributed free of charge more than 12 tons of seed of experimental lines for testing and other research by 346 partners in public and private breeding programs of 79 countries,” Braun said. “The partners return performance data to us, but can freely use lines they choose for their own breeding and varietal development efforts.”
“Started in the 1950s by the late Norman Borlaug, this global wheat improvement pipeline has been the main source of new genetic variation for wheat yield increases, adaptation to climate change, and resistance to crop pests and diseases,” Braun added. “The latest impact study attests to its continued worth, but reliable and consistent funding is critical, if global wheat breeding is to satisfy rising demand for the crop in developing countries.”
Led by Borlaug, who won the 1970 Nobel Peace Prize for his contributions and worked at CIMMYT until 1979, wheat breeding advances during the 1960s-70s helped to spark the Green Revolution from which the 15-member CGIAR arose and to keep food prices at historically low levels for decades.
But by 2050 the current global population of 7.3 billion is projected to grow 33 percent to 9.7 billion, according to the United Nations. Demand for food, driven by population, urbanization, and increasing global wealth, will rise more than 60 percent, according to a recent report from the Taskforce on Extreme Weather and Global Food System Resilience.
Experts say that wheat farmers must meet this rising demand from the same or less land area, while confronting more extreme and erratic rainfall and temperatures and using inputs like water and fertilizer much more effectively.
Developing countries received the greatest benefit from CGIAR contributions, particularly in spring bread and spring durum wheat areas, an outcome that aligns with CGIAR’s mandate to help resource-poor farmers and alleviate poverty and malnutrition. Still, adoption of CGIAR-related cultivars was not limited to developing countries and the study highlights significant spill-overs:
In Canada, three-quarters of the wheat area was sown to CGIAR-related cultivars.
In the U.S., nearly 60 percent of the wheat area was sown to CGIAR-related varieties.
In Western Australia, CGIAR-related varieties were used on more than 90 percent of the wheat area.
To view or download a copy of the study, click on the title below:
First place winner of the photo contest “Mujeres innovando,” Photo: Yashim Victoria Reyes C.
OAXACA – In agriculture, extension agents are change agents: they intervene to bring about change in order to help improve the lives of farmers and their families. They are critical to any extension program succeeding.
MasAgro’s annual Pacífico Sur Hub photo contest “A look at agriculture in Oaxaca” has documented the work of extension agents in the area since 2014. These photos show the field environment where extension agents work every day, by showcasing the agents’ daily work and life, as well as record farmers’ adoption of innovations, from their point of view.
Extension agents working in different regions of Oaxaca have sent in their photos to participate in the following categories: The Oaxacan landscape, The farmer and his/her community, The innovating farmer, and The innovative plot. Out of sixty selected photos that were presented at a 2015 hub meeting, the winning image was chosen to be on the cover of EnlACe magazine’s June 2016 issue. 12 of the top-rated photos on Facebook will also be included in the same issue.
The winners include:
“Mujeres innovando”, by Yashim Victoria Reyes C.
“La fuerza de las alturas”, by Jacinto Rafael Valor
“Cultivo de maíz en área de impacto”, by Oscar Noel Mejía Domínguez
“Siembra de maíz en módulo de AC”, by Oscar Noel Mejía Domínguez
“La organización que se niega a desaparecer”, by Jacinto Rafael Valor
“El productor y sus tradiciones”, by Zenaida Pérez Martínez
“Un vistazo por la cocina”, by Aminta Olvera Avendaño
“Atardecer en el campo”, by Zenaida Pérez Martínez
“Mujer trabajadora”, by Zenaida Pérez Martínez, 48 votes
“Siembra tradicional en Piedra Azul”, by Jeremías García Orozco
“La familia”, de Xel Reyes
“Cosecha de cacahuate”, by Yashim Victoria Reyes Castañón
“Ociendo el suelo de mi parcela”, by Yashim Victoria Reyes Castañón
Congratulations to the extension agents who took part in the contest and who are aware of the important role that communications play in their activities!
Pollination of maize. Photo courtesy of aip.cimmyt.org.
United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Mission Director John Groarke presented new varieties of maize seed to Pakistani research organizations and private-sector seed companies on 17 February at the National Agricultural Research Center in Islamabad, according to a U.S. embassy press release.
These varieties were developed by the Agricultural Innovation Program (AIP), a joint effort led by CIMMYT and supported by USAID, to jump-start the production of quality hybrid maize seed in Pakistan. The varieties distributed are resistant to drought and heat, have enhanced nutritional quality and increased tolerance to insect attacks and low soil nitrogen.
AIP for Pakistan is working to sustainably increase agricultural productivity and incomes in the agricultural sector through the promotion and dissemination of modern technologies/practices in the livestock, horticulture (fruits and vegetables) and cereals (wheat, maize and rice) sector. The $30 million initiative also collaborates with the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), the World Vegetable Center (AVRDC), the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), the University of California – Davis and the Pakistan Agricultural Research Council (PARC).
Kropff with with CIMMYT Bihar staff. Photo: Nynke Kropff-Nammensma/CIMMYT
NEW DELHI — The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) Director General Martin Kropff presented the organization’s draft strategy with its unifying vision of ‘One CIMMYT’ at the staff session in the Delhi office during his India visit from 24 February to 3 March. Kropff highlighted that CIMMYT’s excellent scientific work, global presence, partnerships and people are its strengths. However, the organization needs to focus on engaging with new donors and increasing organizational effectiveness in the future.
In the meeting, Kropff shared reflections on his eight months at CIMMYT, emphasizing that improving integration among different projects, teams and geographies through shared values and teamwork will help to achieve a common mission: “Maize & Wheat Science for Improved livelihoods.”
Kropff examines zero tillage wheat in Bihar. Photo: Nynke Kropff-Nammensma/CIMMYT
Staff discussed different elements of the strategy in smaller group breakout sessions and suggested various steps to raise scientific excellence, increase capacity building and to achieve the One CIMMYT objective across all regions. The groups agreed that the “will play a key role in bringing innovative ideas and developing the next generation of well-trained scientists.
During his first visit to the state of Bihar, Kropff visited BISA research farm at Pusa, where he was accompanied by Hari S. Gupta, Director General of BISA, senior officials from Rajendra Agriculture University and CIMMYT scientists. Raj Kumar Jat, BISA cropping systems agronomist, explained the positive impacts of long-term conservation agriculture research on productivity, profitability and soil health at the farm. Kropff saw demonstrations of small farm mechanization, climate-smart practices and the latest research tools and techniques for breeding crop varieties.
The team visited the research platform of the Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA) project in Patna. R.K. Malik, CIMMYT cropping systems agronomist, highlighted that research results have shown that using shorter hybrid rice varieties can help facilitate an early rice harvest and advance wheat sowing. This will help combat the adverse effects of climate change such as rising heat during the wheat ripening phase and will increase wheat productivity in Bihar. Kropff also interacted with women farmers and service providers to understand their business development services around service provision model.
Kropff and the CIMMYT-BISA team then met with Nitish Kumar, Bihar Chief Minister to discuss how CIMMYT and BISA’s work on new technologies could be helpful to double the productivity in the state with less cost and less water while improving the soil quality. The meeting was also attended by the senior officials of the state government and the Agricultural Production Commissioner of Bihar.
Actors celebrating a fruitful harvest thanks to drought-tolerant maize. Photo: Brenda Wawa/CIMMYT
KOLA, Kenya (CIMMYT) – A new video aimed at raising awareness among farmers about high-yielding, drought-tolerant maize varieties is set for distribution in eastern Kenya ahead of the long rains that begin in March 2016. In the video, which was made by Michigan State University, farmers discuss the challenges of food scarcity related to poor maize seeds that wither because of moderate drought conditions prevalent in the area. The climate, coupled with poor agronomic practices, results in very low yields that cannot sustain households, the video shows.
“The actors are local farmers who are known and trusted,” said Charles Steinfield, a professor at Michigan State University (MSU), who led the project, which focuses on Kola village in Machakos County, about 62 kilometers East of Nairobi.
“The context of the story is real, therefore, this approach comes out as more engaging, practical and has some entertaining bits to appeal to the audience.”
Additional cast members include a leader, an agro-dealer and an agronomic expert who guides the farmers to use improved drought-tolerant maize varieties and recommended agronomic management practices during land preparation, planting, harvesting and post-harvest.
The video was made in the farmers’ homesteads and farms, as a way of including them in the filming and encouraging them to become part of the process. David Kyule and Winfred Kyule were among the main actors. They said they found the experience exciting; adding that they think the video will encourage farmers to plant improved drought-tolerant seeds.
KDV6, a drought-tolerant maize variety was filmed among improved maize suitable for Kola location, in eastern Kenya. Photo: Brenda Wawa/CIMMYT
The videos will be shown to farmers in local meetings called barazas organized by Farm Input Promotions Africa (FIPS), which supports farmers in Kola and the greater eastern Kenya region to access improved farm inputs through a network of village-based advisors and network coordinators. Given the lack of electricity in the targeted areas, some of which are remote, the video will be screened using portable battery-operated projectors.
The plan is to screen the videos just before the farmers start their next planting season in March 2016, Steinfeld said. In addition to sharing information, farmers will be encouraged to engage in discussions about drought-tolerant varieties before and after they see the video. Any change in perception and adoption of these varieties in the coming planting season will be monitored. The screening will target at least 600 farmers in Kola location.
“Our key message in the video is on the benefit of Drought Tolerant varieties and we want farmers to simply try the varieties and see how they perform,” Steinfeld said.
“We are not asking farmers to throw away their local varieties, but giving them a chance to know and experiment the improved drought tolerant varieties that will give them much better yield. All they have to do is try the seeds.”
Through FIPS, the farmers will receive small packets of the drought-tolerant varieties to plant on a small portion of their land to see how it performs.
Plans are underway to air the videos by mid-February 2016 when farmers will be preparing to plant during the March-to-May long rains season.
The main cast of the film (from L to R) Winfred Kyule, Damaris Kyala, Boniface Kyala and David Kyule. Photo: Brenda Wawa/CIMMYT
Soon after the video screening, pre-recorded mobile phone voice messages will be sent to farmers to remind them to buy improved certified drought-tolerant varieties. The messages will be followed up in April by another voice message recommending required agronomic practices that include fertilizer or manure application and weeding. In August, farmers will receive messages including advice on drying and storing the maize harvest.
SEED ACCESS
After raising awareness about the drought-tolerant varieties, demand for the seed is expected to increase. The Drought Tolerant Maize for Seed Scaling project, run by CIMMYT is currently working with seed companies to increase availability of affordable drought-tolerant seed. Some of the varieties, which feature in the video, include DroughtTego, KDV2, KDV4 and KDV6 developed under International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) maize projects – Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa and Water Efficient Maize for Africa.
The participatory farmer video filming project in Kola location, Machakos County in eastern Kenya was developed by Michigan State University and funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development with support from FIPS and CIMMYT.
EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) – Scientists battling to increase wheat production by more than 60 percent over the next 35 years to meet projected demand are optimistic that they have begun to unravel the genetic mysteries that will lead to a more productive plant.
A recent study conducted at 26 international sites with a new generation of improved wheat breeding lines crossed and selected for superior physiological traits, resulted in yields that were on average 10 percent higher than other wheat varieties.
In the study, scientists identified many useful traits in the wheat plant suited to heat and drought adaptation, including: cooler canopy temperature indicating the ability of the plant to access subsoil water under drought and root proliferation under hot irrigated conditions.
They also discovered the plants have the ability to store sugars in the stem when conditions are good and the capacity to remobilize them to the grain when needed for seed filling if conditions do not permit enough photosynthesis. Leaf wax also plays a role by reflecting excess radiation and reducing evaporation from the leaf surface, lowering the risk of photo-inhibition and dehydration.
Additionally, scientists discovered that total aboveground biomass, a trait, which indicates overall plant fitness and with the right crossing strategy can be converted to produce higher grain yield.
“What we have revealed is a proof of concept – namely that designing crosses on the basis of wheat’s physiology results in a range of novel genotypes with significant improvements in yield and adaptation,” said Matthew Reynolds, a distinguished scientist and wheat physiologist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).
“We have a long road ahead, but we hope eventually this work will lead to the discovery of the best combinations of genes suited to specific heat and drought profiles.”
HEAT STRESS
Climate change poses considerable risks to food security and political stability. Wheat is a vital food staple providing 20 percent of the calories and protein consumed by people worldwide.
Projections indicate that it is very likely that rainfall will be more unpredictable and that heat waves will occur more often and last longer throughout the 21st century, according to a report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Mean surface temperatures could potentially rise by between 2 to 5 degrees Celsius or more, the report said.
A recent comprehensive modeling exercise, which incorporated data from international heat stress trials led by CIMMYT’s wheat physiology team in the 1990s, shows that for each degree increase in average temperature, there is a 6 percent reduction in wheat yield, so an increase of 5 degrees would lead to a 30 percent reduction or more.
“A 30 percent yield reduction would be very harmful to food security because we know that wheat production must increase by 60 percent just to keep up with population projections,” Reynolds said. “Combined with predicted climate risks, the challenge increases – if this happens, we’ll need to double the yield capacity of our current varieties.”
While demand for wheat is projected to increase at a rate of 1.7 percent a year until 2015, global productivity increases at only 1.1 percent. Conventional breeding approaches achieve less than 1 percent per year, a yield barrier that scientists aim to break.
“If the relative rate of improvement in yields continues at its current pace, there will be a large gap between the amount of available wheat and the amount we need to feed the global population,” Reynolds said.
Under IWYP and HeDWIC scientists will be redesigning the wheat plant for adaptive traits relating to temperature extremes, photoperiod, soil depth, and other environmental factors. Other goals will include attempting to drastically increase radiation-use efficiency, and to understand how plants use signaling to coordinate their activities and respond to environmental fluxes.
Such crops as rice and triticale can be used as potential models for wheat redesign. Rice is similar to wheat in terms of its basic metabolism, but tolerates much higher temperatures, Reynolds said. Triticale could also be used as a model, since it almost never lodges – or falls over – and its spikes have a very high grain number, he added.
Scientists also aim to increase their understanding of the role of roots and their potential to boost yield and ability to adapt to stress.
Because roots are hidden and messy to work with their physiology has been largely ignored in comparison to the parts of the plant above ground, but new technologies are helping to overcome these disadvantages, Reynolds said.
Such challenges are now more feasible to tackle due to a new generation of genomics tools and other biotechnologies which become more powerful each year.
“The revolution in phenomics – work that the Wheat Physiology Group helped pioneer – especially remote sensing for temperature and spectral indices, which indicate specific physiological properties of the plant-, means that we can now evaluate a much larger numbers of lines than in the past,” Reynolds said.
“We’ve already screened 70,000 accessions from the World Wheat Collection in the CIMMYT Genebank, and have identified a veritable powerhouse of novel material to support this work related to breeding and gene discovery for decades to come. So although the challenge is enormous, we remain optimistic.”
John R. Porter on the top floor of the French National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA) building in Paris. Porter was honored as a Knight of the Order of Agricultural Merit at a ceremony on 1 March 2016 at the French Embassy in Denmark. Photo: John R. Porter
John R. Porter of The University of Copenhagen, the Natural Research Institute of the University of Greenwich, UK, and member of the WHEAT Independent Steering Committee, was granted Knight of the French Order of Agriculture Merit at a ceremony on 1 March.
The Order of Agricultural Merit is awarded to those that have made extraordinary contributions to agriculture via research or practice. The Order, which was established in 1883 by France’s Ministry of Agriculture, is one of the most important recognitions awarded in the country.
To become a knight, a person must be at least 30 years of age and have dedicated at least 15 years of service to the agricultural community, covering both developed and developing country farming.
“France has had an extremely important role in the development of agriculture and food production in Europe and the world. The production of food serves one of the most basic human needs, and this award and its history recognizes that fact,” said Porter in an acceptance speech at the French Embassy in Denmark. “I was extremely honored and surprised when I learned that I would be bestowed with this honor.”
Porter is best known for his pioneering work in the development of crop simulation models that are now regarded as being central to guiding research identifying new crop phenotypes, the impacts of and adaptation to climate change and carbon mitigation to the benefit of agriculture globally. He has also made major contributions to agriculture via his multi-disciplinary work in the response to arable crops, energy crops and complex agro-ecosystems to their environment with an emphasis on climate change, agronomy and ecosystem services.
Focusing on agriculture in the developing world, Porter took the initiative to bring the secretariat and hub of the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS), to his university in Copenhagen. He has also collaborated with European pasta manufacturers to develop methods to identify high quality sources of durum wheat prior to harvest by using a combination of models and remote sensing technologies.
Porter has published more than 140 papers in reviewed journals and has won three international prizes for his research and teaching. Apart from serving on the WHEAT Independent Steering Committee, he was appointed by the French Ministry of Agriculture and serves as a member of the Science Council of the French National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA) and previously served as the president of the European Society for Agronomy.
Most recently, Porter was the lead author of a critically important chapter for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on food production systems and food security for the IPCC 5th Assessment Report, which was the scientific bedrock of the COP21 agreement, signed December 2015.
Congratulations to John R. Porter on this prestigious award!
Sukhwinder Singh at a field of Punjab Agricultural University, India, with Mexican wheat landrace evaluation trial (foreground) and wheat lines derived from the landraces (background). Photo: Mike Listman
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Findings can help to boost wheat’s climate resilience worldwide
For the first time ever, a research team from China, India, Mexico, Uruguay, and the USA has genetically characterized a collection of 8,400 centuries-old Mexican wheat landraces adapted to varied and sometimes extreme conditions, offering a treasure trove of potential genes to combat wheat’s climate-vulnerability.
Published today in Nature Scientific Reports and led by scientists from the Mexico-based International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), the study details critical genetic information about Mexican landraces for use in breeding to boost global wheat productivity.
This is essential, given the well-documented climate effects that imperil key wheat-growing areas, according to Sukhwinder Singh, CIMMYT wheat scientist and co-author of the report.
“The landraces, known as Creole wheats, were brought to Mexico as early as the 16th Century,” said Singh, who also credited the study to MasAgro, a long-term rural development project between Mexico and CIMMYT. “Wheat is not native to Mexico, but this gave the Creoles time to toughen in zones where late-season temperatures can hit highs of 40 degrees Centigrade (104 degrees Fahrenheit).”
Heat can wreak havoc with wheat’s ability to produce plump, well-filled grains. Research has shown that wheat yields plummet 6 percent for each 1-degree-Centigrade rise in temperature, and that warming is already holding back yield gains in wheat-growing mega-regions such as South Asia, home to more than 300 million undernourished people and whose inhabitants consume over 100 million tons of wheat each year.
“Typically, massive seed collections constitute ‘black boxes’ that scientists have long believed to harbor useful diversity but whose treasures have remained frustratingly inaccessible,” Singh explained. “New technology is helping to change that. As part of MasAgro’s ‘Seeds of Discovery Component,’ the team used the latest genotyping-by-sequencing technology and created unique sets of the landrace collections that together capture nearly 90 percent of the rare gene variants, known as ‘alleles.’ ”
According to Kevin Pixley, director of CIMMYT’s genetic resources program and an expert crop breeder, wheat scientists will be able to home in on groups of landraces from regions with conditions similar to those they presently target or will target in coming decades. “The next step is for breeders to identify seed samples and genes for their programs; say, alleles common to a set of landraces from a heat-stressed area, providing a valuable starting point to exploit this newly-revealed diversity.”
A pillar for global food security, wheat provides 20 percent of protein and calories consumed worldwide and up to 50% in developing countries. A 2015 World Bank report showed that, without action, climate change would likely spark higher agricultural prices and threaten food security in the world’s poorer regions.
For more information
Mike Listman, CIMMYT communications, email at m.listman@cgiar.org, mobile at +52 1 595 957 3490. Geneviève Renard, head of CIMMYT communications, email at g.renard@cgiar.org, mobile at +52 1 595 114 9880.
About CIMMYT
The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), is the global leader in research for development in wheat and maize and wheat- and maize-based farming systems. From its headquarters in Mexico and 14 global offices, CIMMYT works throughout the developing world with hundreds of partners to sustainably increase the productivity of maize and wheat systems, thus contributing to better food security and livelihoods. CIMMYT is a member of the 15-member CGIAR Consortium and leads the CGIAR Research Programs on Wheat and Maize. CIMMYT receives support from national governments, foundations, development banks and other public and private agencies.
Young lady carrying home flour from millers, Salina, Malawi. Photo: Tsedeke Abate/ CIMMYT
The Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa (DTMA) Project has contributed towards improving seed system in sub-Saharan Africa for almost nine years (2007–2015), through 233 varieties released including about 200 distinct drought-tolerant (DT) maize hybrids and open-pollinated varieties (OPV) developed to help farmers cope with drought constraint in maize farming.
The main purpose of DTMA was to increase the food and income security of smallholder farmers through the development and dissemination of drought tolerant, well-adapted DT hybrids and OPV maize varieties. The project was jointly implemented among the National Agricultural Research systems by CIMMYT (eastern and southern Africa) and the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture in West Africa and concluded at the end of December 2015.
Since its inception, the project has supported production of nearly 54,000 tons of certified DT maize seed benefiting an estimated 5.4 million households – or 43 million people – across the DTMA countries (Angola, Benin, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe).
The new DT maize varieties are adapted to the various agro-ecologies in each of the target countries. Most of them have been commercialized or are in the process of being commercialized. These varieties produce the same or better yields as the currently available commercial varieties. All of them are resistant to major diseases. In addition, several of them are tolerant to the parasitic weed Striga hermonthica and nitrogen-use efficient.
Africa’s food security is on a positive trajectory, and DTMA is contributing to this progress. The strong partnership developed with over 90 small – and – medium seed companies currently stocking DT varieties will facilitate continued production and supply of certified DT seed to reach many more smallholders in Africa.
New hybrid helps farmers beat drought in Tanzania. With seed of a maize hybrid developed by the Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa (DTMA) project and marketed by the company Meru Agro Tours and Consultant Limited, Valeria Pantaleo, a 47-year-old farmer and mother of four from Olkalili village, northern Tanzania, harvested enough grain from a 0.5-hectare plot in 2015 to feed her family and, with the surplus, to purchase an ox calf for plowing, despite the very poor rains that season. “I got so much harvest and yet I planted this seed very late and with no fertilizer,” said Pantaleo, who was happy and surprised. “I finally managed to buy a calf to replace my two oxen that died at the beginning of the year due to a strange disease.” In 2015 Meru Agro sold 427 tons of seed of the hybrid, HB513, known locally as “ngamia,” Kiswahili for “camel,” in recognition of its resilience under dry conditions. The company plans to put more than 1,000 tons of seed on the market in 2016. Photo: Brenda Wawa/CIMMYT
This story is one of a series of features written during CIMMYT’s 50th anniversary year to highlight significant advancements in maize and wheat research between 1966 and 2016.
EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) — In the early 1990s, before climate change caught popular attention, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) provided funding for an international team of scientists in Mexico to find a better way to breed resilient maize for farmers in drought-prone tropical areas.
Fast forward several decades and that scientific concept is now reality. By early 2016 more than 2 million farmers were acquiring and growing drought-tolerant varieties from that early research in 13 countries of sub-Saharan Africa, a region where maize, the number-one food crop, frequently fails under erratic rainfall and lethal droughts.
Survival of the fittest
The core methodology, developed at CIMMYT, was to genetically select maize lines that survive and yield grain under controlled drought or low soil nitrogen on experimental plots. This imparts tolerance in maize to both dry conditions during flowering and grain-filling, when the plant is particularly sensitive to stress, and to the nitrogen-depleted soils typical of small-scale farms in the tropics.
Maize plants are designed with male flowers, called tassels, at the top, and female flowers, known as silks, which emerge later from young ears and catch pollen. Research in the 1970s had shown that, under drought, maize plants whose silks appear soonest after tassels also produce more grain, according to Greg Edmeades, a retired maize physiologist who led development of CIMMYT’s drought breeding system in the 1980s-90s.
“We used that trait, known as anthesis-silking interval, as a key yardstick to select maize lines and populations that did well under drought,” he explained, citing important contributions from his post-doctoral fellows Marianne Bänziger, Jorge Bolaños, Scott Chapman, Anne Elings, Renee Lafitte, and Stephen Mugo. “We discovered that earlier silking meant plants were sending more carbohydrates to the ear.”
Ground-truthing the science
In their studies, Edmeades and his team subjected many thousands of maize lines to stress testing on desert and mid-altitude fields in Mexico, dosing out water drop by drop. Reported in a series of journal papers and at two international conferences on maize stress breeding, their results outlined a new approach to create climate-resilient maize.
“The idea was to replicate the two most common and challenging nemeses of resource-poor farming systems, drought and low nitrogen stress, in a controlled way on breeding stations, and to use this to select tolerant varieties,” said Bänziger, now Deputy Director General for Research and Partnerships at CIMMYT. “After eight cycles of selection for reduced anthesis-silking interval under controlled drought stress, Greg’s model maize population gave 30 percent more grain than conventional varieties, in moderate-to-severe drought conditions.”
But could the approach be implemented in developing country breeding programs, where researchers typically tested and showcased high-yielding, optimally-watered maize?
Capitalizing on several years’ experience in Edmeades’ team, in 1996 Bänziger aimed to find out, moving to CIMMYT’s office in Zimbabwe and beginning work with breeders in the region to develop Africa-adapted, stress tolerant maize.
“African farmers grow maize by choice,” she explained. “If you give them access to varieties that better withstand their harsh conditions and reduce their risk, they may invest in inputs like fertilizer or diversify crop production, improving their incomes and food security.”
The efforts started by Bänziger and several other CIMMYT scientists in sub-Saharan Africa involved large, long-running projects in the region’s major maize-growing areas, with co-leadership of the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), extensive and generous donor support, and the critical participation of regional associations, national research programs, private seed companies, and non-governmental organizations. Partners also pioneered innovative ways for farmers to take part in testing and selecting varieties and worked to foster high-quality, competitive seed markets.
The most recent initiative, Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa (DTMA), has been responsible for the development and release of more than 200 drought tolerant varieties. A new phase aims by 2019 to attain an annual production of as much as 68,000 tons of certified seed of resilient maize, for use by approximately 5.8 million households and benefitting more than 30 million people in the region.
Maize stress breeding goes global
Selecting for tolerance under controlled moisture stress has proven so successful that it is now a standard component of maize breeding programmes in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, according to Edmeades.
“The long pursuit of drought tolerance in maize shows how successful research-for-development demands doggedness and enduring donor support,” said Edmeades, who credits former CIMMYT scientists P.R. Goldsworthy, Ken Fischer, and Elmer Johnson with laying the groundwork for his studies. “And, as can be seen, many donors and partners have helped greatly to amplify the impact of UNDP’s initial investment.”
Over the years, generous funding for this work has also been provided by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, Germany (GTZ); the Howard G. Buffett Foundation; the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD); the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA); the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC); the UK Department for International Development (DFID); and the US Agency for International Development (USAID).
This short history of drought tolerance breeding for tropical maize was developed in collaboration with UNDP, as part of CIMMYT and UNDP’s 50th anniversary celebrations, which coincide in 2016. To read the version published by UNDP,click here.
This story is one in a series of features written during CIMMYT’s 50th anniversary year to highlight significant advancements in maize and wheat research between 1966 and 2016.
EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) – The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) stepped onto the global stage during the “Swinging Sixties.” The decade was defined by social upheaval dominated by left-right political tensions provoked in large measure by Cold War rivalries between the United States and the former Soviet Union.
It was 1966 when Mexico’s Office of Special Studies, formed in the 1940s as an agency of the country’s Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock in partnership with the Rockefeller Foundation to improve bean, maize, potatoes and wheat crops, became CIMMYT.
That same year, civil war exploded in Chad, China’s cultural revolution began, Indira Gandhi became India’s first woman prime minister and musician John Lennon met his future wife Yoko Ono. In the United States, the feminist National Organization for Women (NOW) was formed. Throughout the decade, as the Vietnam War rumbled and more than 30 countries declared independence in Africa, women in many developing countries struggled to gain basic human rights, including the chance to vote.
In wealthy western nations, the “Women’s Liberation Movement,” ultimately known as second-wave feminism, emerged, supplanting women’s suffrage movements and deepening debates over women’s rights.
At CIMMYT, efforts to meet agricultural needs of women farmers and those in charge of nutritional wellbeing within the household to bolster global food security took shape.
Women make up 43 percent of the agricultural labor force in developing countries, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). However, rural women suffer systematic discrimination with regard to their ability to access resources for agricultural production and socio-economic development.
Now referred to as “gender issues” and “gender relations,” debates over how to address inequity on farms and in the workplace are ongoing at CIMMYT. Rather than focusing specifically on women’s rights, gender studies focus on how notions of women or men are determined through characteristics societies attribute to each sex. Gender relations consider how a given society defines rights, responsibilities, identities and relationships between men and women.
As staple foods, maize and wheat provide vital nutrients and health benefits, making up close to one-quarter of the world’s daily energy intake, and contributing 27 percent of the total calories in the diets of people living in developing countries, according to FAO.
Globally, if women had the same access to agricultural production resources as men, they could increase crop yields by up to 30 percent, which would raise total agricultural output in developing countries by as much as 4 percent, reducing the number of hungry people by up to 150 million or 17 percent, FAO statistics show.
SCIENTIFIC CONTRIBUTIONS
From the outset, women scientists played a key role as maize and wheat researchers at CIMMYT.
Evangelina Villegas, who in 2000 became the first woman to win the World Food Prize, joined CIMMYT in 1967. She shared the prestigious award with CIMMYT colleague Surinder Vasal for efforts and achievements in breeding and advancing quality protein maize to improve productivity and nutrition in malnourished and impoverished areas worldwide.
Maize scientist Marianne Bänziger joined CIMMYT in 1992. When she was transferred to Zimbabwe in 1996 to lead the Southern African Drought and Low Soil Fertility Project (SADLF), she became the first woman scientist at CIMMYT posted to a regional office.
“In the good old days, women scientists were considered an oddity – women were considered something special, even though a scientist like Eva Villegas was very well integrated into CIMMYT,” said Bänziger, who now serves as CIMMYT’s deputy director general.
Bänziger’s work was centered on eastern and southern Africa, where the livelihoods of about 25 million people depend directly on agriculture and maize is the staple crop of choice. Drought and poor soil quality often erode food security and increase socio-economic pressures in the region.
Bänziger became known as “Mama Mahindi,” Swahili for “Mother Maize,” for her work developing stress-tolerant maize and for fostering the widespread access of seed producers and farmers to improved drought-tolerant maize now grown by at least 2 million households.
Denise Costich manages the world’s biggest maize gene bank at CIMMYT headquarters near Mexico City. She joined CIMMYT to work closely with farmers. She now holds farmer field days to help improve seed distribution. Her aims include understanding how best to move genetic resources from gene bank to field through breeding, so they become products that help improve food security.
“I was always encouraged to go as far as I could,” Costich said. “The way I prove that women can be scientists is by being a scientist. Let me get out there and do what I can do and not spend a lot of time talking about it.”
Wheat physiologist Gemma Molero spent two years inventing a hand-held tool for measuring spike photosynthesis, an important part of the strategy for developing a high-yielding plant ideotype. Now, Bayer Crop Science is interested in joining a collaborative project with CIMMYT, which will focus around use of the new technology.
Wheat scientist Carolina Saint Pierre has made important contributions towards obtaining the first permits for growing genetically modified wheat in open field trials in Mexico. The trials have allowed the identification of best-performing genetically modified wheat under water stress and helped understand the genetic control of physiological mechanisms related to drought.
WORKPLACE EQUITY
Despite a daycare at headquarters and other efforts to encourage gender equity, women scientists at CIMMYT continue to face different burdens than men in maintaining a work-life balance.
“Whether you are a western woman in a white-collar job worrying about a daycare or a woman farmer in a developing country worrying about her aging parents, women have a different level of responsibility,” said Jenny Nelson, manager of the Global Wheat Program.
A lot of women drop out of agricultural science after earning their doctoral degrees once they have a family, said Costich, acknowledging a challenge many women working in agricultural science face related to long hours and travel requirements.
“As a young woman I have to work very hard – I have to work even harder than men in the field to demonstrate my abilities and gain respect,” Molero said.
Overall, economists concur that gender inequity and social disparities have a negative impact on economic growth, development, food security and nutrition.
Through various projects, CIMMYT aims to address the challenges of gender equity to improve development potential. For example, CIMMYT researchers are among the leaders of a global push to encode gender into agricultural research in tandem with other international research partnerships.
In more than 125 agricultural communities in 26 countries, a field study of gender norms and agricultural innovation, known as “Gennovate,” is underway. The aim is to help spur a transformation in the way gender is included in agricultural research for development. Gennovate focuses on understanding how gender norms influence the ability of people to access, try out, adopt or adapt new agricultural technology.
When designing and implementing agricultural development projects, it is difficult to ensure that they are responsive to gender dynamics. For Mulunesh Tsegaye, a gender specialist attached to two projects working on the areas of nutrition and mechanization in Ethiopia, participatory approaches are the best way forward.
“I have lived and worked with communities. If you want to help a community, they know best how to do things for themselves. There are also issues of sustainability when you are not there forever. You need to make communities own what has been done in an effective participatory approach,” she said.
Maize dish prepared with QPM maize with cook Amina Ibrahim at NuME field day, Sayo village, Dano district. Photo: P. Lowe/CIMMYT
Including both men and women
The CIMMYT-led Nutritious Maize for Ethiopia (NuME) project uses demonstrations, field days, cooking demonstrations and messaging to encourage farmers to adopt and use improved quality protein maize (QPM) varieties, bred to contain the essential amino acids lysine and tryptophan that are usually lacking in maize-based diets. The Ethiopian government adopted a plan to plant QPM on 200,000 hectares by 2015-2017.
NuME’s project staff, and donor Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development (DFATD), are highly committed to gender-based approaches, meaning that Mulunesh’s initial role was to finalize the gender equality strategy and support implementation with partners.
By involving partners in an action planning workshop, Mulunesh helped them to follow a less technical and more gender-aware approach, for example by taking women’s time constraints into account when organizing events.
This involved introducing some challenging ideas. Due to men’s role as breadwinners and decision-makers in Ethiopian society, Mulunesh suggested inviting men to learn about better nutrition in the household in order to avoid perpetuating stereotypes about the gender division of labor.
“For a project to be gender-sensitive, nutrition education should not focus only on women but also on men to be practical. Of course, there were times when the project’s stakeholders resisted some of my ideas. They even questioned me: ‘How can we even ask men farmers to cook?’”
Now, men are always invited to nutrition education events, and are also presented in educational videos as active partners, even if they are not themselves cooking.
“Nutrition is a community and public health issue,” said Mulunesh. “Public involves both men and women, when you go down to the family level you have both husbands and wives. You cannot talk about nutrition separately from decision-making and access to resources.”
Faxuma Adam harvests green maize Sidameika Tura village, Arsi Negele Photo: Peter Lowe/ CIMMYT
Empowering men and women through mechanization
The Farm Power and Conservation Agriculture for Sustainable Intensification (FACASI) project is involved in researching new technologies that can be used to mechanize farming at smaller scales. Introducing mechanization will likely alter who performs different tasks or ultimately benefits, meaning that a gender-sensitive approach is crucial.
Again, Mulunesh takes the participation perspective. “One of the issues of introducing mechanization is inclusiveness. You need to include women as co-designers from the beginning so that it will be easier for them to participate in their operation.”
“In general, the farmers tell us that almost every agricultural task involves both men and women. Plowing is mostly done by oxen operated by men, but recently, especially where there are female-headed households, women are plowing and it is becoming more acceptable. There are even recent findings from Southern Ethiopia that women may be considered attractive if they plow!”
Women and men are both involved to some extent with land preparation, planting, weeding, harvesting or helping with threshing. However, women do not just help in farming, they also cook, transport the food long distances for the men working in the farm, and also take care of children and cattle.
A study by the Dutch Royal Tropical Institute, Gender Matters in Farm Power, has already drawn some conclusions about gender relations in farm power that are being used as indicators for the gender performance of the mechanization project.
These indicators are important to track how labor activities change with the introduction of mechanization. “My main concern is that in most cases, when a job traditionally considered the role of women gets mechanized, becomes easier or highly paid, it is immediately taken over by men, which would imply a lot in terms of control over assets and income,” said Mulunesh.
Front row, from left to right: Mulunesh Tsegaye, FACASI gender and agriculture specialist; Katrine Danielsen KIT; Elizabeth Mukewa consultant; Mahlet Mariam, consultant; and David Kahan CIMMYT, business model specialist. Back row, from left to right: Anouka van Eerdewijk KIT; Lone Badstue CIMMYT strategic leader, gender research and mainstreaming; and Frédéric Baudron, FACASI project leader. Credit: Steffen Schulz/CIMMYT
Community conversations
In order to foster social change and identify the needs of women and vulnerable groups, Mulunesh initiated a community conversation program, based on lines first developed by the United Nations Development Programme. Pilots are ongoing in two districts in the south of Ethiopia; a total of four groups are involved, each of which may include 50-70 participants.
“You need to start piece-by-piece, because there are lots of issues around gender stereotypes, culture and religious issues. It is not that men are not willing to participate; rather it is because they are also victims of the socio-cultural system in place.”
When asked about the situation of women in the community, many people claim that things have already changed; discussions and joint decisions are occurring in the household and women are getting empowered in terms of access to resources. Over the coming year, Mulunesh will compare how information diffuses differently in gender-segregated or gender mixed groups.
NuME is funded by DFATD and managed by CIMMYT in collaboration with Ethiopian research institutions, international non-governmental organizations, universities and public and private seed companies in Ethiopia.
Purity has journeyed with women farmers in her village for last three years helping them access land to plant food for their families. Photo: B.Wawa/CIMMYT.
NAIROBI, Kenya — Purity Wanjiku lives in Mirera village in Naivasha County, about 90 kilometers from Nairobi. Like most women in her village, for years she has depended on farming to meet her family’s basic needs, mainly through selling banana flour and maize.
Having farmed for 40 years, the 68-year old mother of 10 – and grandmother of 20 – is not just a guru in agricultural matters but has been a pillar for women in her village who depend on her land to grow food for their families.
Wanjiku owns a six-acre farm, which she describes as too big to grow food just for her husband and youngest son. Her other children are adults and have their own homes; the youngest is currently a college student. With all this land at her disposal, Wanjiku leases out part of it to seven women neighbors who farm it to grow food for their families.
“I only plant on a one-acre plot, which is enough to grow food for my family and extra to sell,” Wanjiku said. The seven women join forces to pay her US$400 (KES 4000) each to access five acres for the full planting and harvesting seasons.
Maize is among the important crops Wanjiku and her neighbors grow. And though she has seen good years in maize farming, Wanjiku confessed that the last three years have been most difficult because of the outbreak of Maize Lethal Necrosis (MLN) that has devastated farmers in the Naivasha area. “Before the disease struck, I used to harvest a minimum of 50 bags of 90 kilograms from one acre. But now the harvest has really gone down,”she said.
However, regardless of the MLN menace and huge losses, Wanjiku’s resilience and commitment to keep planting maize is admirable. This resilience has inspired the seven women farming her land, who also plant maize despite the very high risk of losing their crop to MLN. They all remain optimistic that a lasting solution to MLN will be found through research being conducted at the MLN screening site, just five kilometers away from Wanjiku’s farm.
Most of these women prefer maize over other crops because it can be consumed in different forms, as flour, roasted, boiled or cooked with beans or other crops.
“Regardless of the little maize we harvest from the farm, it becomes a precious commodity, because of the many ways we consume it even in little amounts,” Wanjiku added.
If this resilience is anything to go by, then women farmers in Africa are pillars of the transformation Africa is searching for to address food security, which is marred by an array of constraints ranging from climate change, low fertility soils, insect pests and other stresses.
Their involvement in the production, post-harvest storage and processing of maize contributes directly to the maize economy in Africa, and is therefore a key contributor to a stronger food system at the household, national and continental levels.
CIMMYT has for the past 50 years prioritized gender as essential for enhancing agricultural growth and food security for smallholders. It continues to address gender equality and equity to bridge the gap between men and women so that women can play bigger roles in farming and food production.
Kenyan farmers to realize full yield potential and harvest better quality maize from Bt maize. Photo: CIMMYT/B.Wawa
NAIROBI – The Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization (KALRO) announced it received official approval from Kenya’s National Biosafety Authority (NBA) to conduct National Performance Trials (NPTs) in Kenya using genetically-transformed, insect resistant maize on Feb. 9.
This is the first time Kenyan authorities have approved the environmental release of genetically-transformed maize, meaning the varieties can be grown in non-restricted field conditions like any other variety.
The approval comes as a result of an application submitted to NBA in April 2015 by KALRO and the African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF), as part of the Water Efficient Maize for Africa (WEMA) Project, for field testing of WEMA maize that carries genes from Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt). The genes confer targeted resistance to particular insect species that attack maize in the field, causing annual losses in Kenya’s maize harvest of up to 400,000 tons.
The approval paves the way for the eventual release, registration, and marketing through local seed companies of Bt maize varieties, in the same manner as any other variety.
As part of the approval, WEMA partners are required to conduct environmental and social impact studies, submit a product stewardship management plan, and carry out compositional analyses of Bt maize grain.
Led by the AATF, WEMA includes KALRO and CIMMYT among its partners. The project already has a stewardship plan, is consulting with relevant regulatory institutions to begin the studies required, and would enter at least four maize varieties in NPTs.
Maize with Bt genes has been grown for nearly 20 years in 25 countries worldwide.
For more information about CIMMYT’s work in WEMA: Brenda Wawa, CIMMYT communications officer.
