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 (2007â2015), 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 â or 43 million people â 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.
Africaâs 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. âI got so much harvest and yet I planted this seed very late and with no fertilizer,â said Pantaleo, who was happy and surprised. âI finally managed to buy a calf to replace my two oxen that died at the beginning of the year due to a strange disease.â In 2015 Meru Agro sold 427 tons of seed of the hybrid, HB513, known locally as ângamia,â Kiswahili for âcamel,â 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 CIMMYTâs 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 CIMMYTâs drought breeding system in the 1980s-90s.
âWe used that trait, known as anthesis-silking interval, as a key yardstick to select maize lines and populations that did well under drought,â he explained, citing important contributions from his post-doctoral fellows Marianne BĂ€nziger, Jorge Bolaños, Scott Chapman, Anne Elings, Renee Lafitte, and Stephen Mugo. âWe discovered that earlier silking meant plants were sending more carbohydrates to the ear.â
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.
âThe 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,â said BĂ€nziger, now Deputy Director General for Research and Partnerships at CIMMYT. âAfter eight cycles of selection for reduced anthesis-silking interval under controlled drought stress, Gregâs model maize population gave 30 percent more grain than conventional varieties, in moderate-to-severe drought conditions.â
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 yearsâ experience in Edmeadesâ team, in 1996 BĂ€nziger aimed to find out, moving to CIMMYTâs office in Zimbabwe and beginning work with breeders in the region to develop Africa-adapted, stress tolerant maize.
âAfrican farmers grow maize by choice,â she explained. âIf 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.â
The efforts started by BĂ€nziger and several other CIMMYT scientists in sub-Saharan Africa involved large, long-running projects in the regionâs 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.Â
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.
âThe long pursuit of drought tolerance in maize shows how successful research-for-development demands doggedness and enduring donor support,â said Edmeades, who credits former CIMMYT scientists P.R. Goldsworthy, Ken Fischer, and Elmer Johnson with laying the groundwork for his studies. âAnd, as can be seen, many donors and partners have helped greatly to amplify the impact of UNDPâs initial investment.â
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 UNDPâs 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) â The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) stepped onto the global stage during the âSwinging Sixties.â 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 Mexicoâs Office of Special Studies, formed in the 1940s as an agency of the countryâs 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, Chinaâs cultural revolution began, Indira Gandhi became Indiaâs 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 âWomenâs Liberation Movement,â ultimately known as second-wave feminism, emerged, supplanting womenâs suffrage movements and deepening debates over womenâs 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 âgender issuesâ and âgender relations,â debates over how to address inequity on farms and in the workplace are ongoing at CIMMYT. Rather than focusing specifically on womenâs 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 worldâs 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 BĂ€nziger 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.
âIn the good old days, women scientists were considered an oddity â women were considered something special, even though a scientist like Eva Villegas was very well integrated into CIMMYT,â said BĂ€nziger, who now serves as CIMMYTâs deputy director general.
BĂ€nzigerâs 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.
BĂ€nziger became known as âMama Mahindi,â Swahili for âMother Maize,â 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 worldâs 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.
âI was always encouraged to go as far as I could,â Costich said. âThe 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.â
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.
âWhether 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,â 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.
âAs a young woman I have to work very hard â I have to work even harder than men in the field to demonstrate my abilities and gain respect,â 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 âGennovate,â 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.
âI 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,â 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.
NuMEâs project staff, and donor Canadaâs Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development (DFATD), are highly committed to gender-based approaches, meaning that Muluneshâs 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 womenâs time constraints into account when organizing events.
This involved introducing some challenging ideas. Due to menâs 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.
âFor 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 projectâs stakeholders resisted some of my ideas. They even questioned me: âHow can we even ask men farmers to cook?ââ
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.
âNutrition is a community and public health issue,â said Mulunesh. âPublic 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.â
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. âOne 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.â
âIn 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!â
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. âMy 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,â said Mulunesh.
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.
âYou 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.â
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 familyâs basic needs, mainly through selling banana flour and maize.
Having farmed for 40 years, the 68-year old mother of 10 â and grandmother of 20 â 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.
âI only plant on a one-acre plot, which is enough to grow food for my family and extra to sell,â 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. âBefore 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,âshe said.
However, regardless of the MLN menace and huge losses, Wanjikuâs 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 Wanjikuâs 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.
âRegardless 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,â 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 Kenyaâs 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 Kenyaâs 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 CIMMYTâs work in WEMA: Brenda Wawa, CIMMYT communications officer.
EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) â Discrimination in the science sector remains a significant challenge to achieving gender balance in education and professional research, said a top maize researcher.
âUnfortunately there is still discrimination, from the education level to the professional environment, and therefore there are still some areas that are largely dominated by men,â said Natalia Palacios, maize nutrition quality specialist at the Mexico-based International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).
Gender balance is essential in science as it provides a range of perspectives that contribute to better solutions, Palacios said. She has been fascinated by nature and its workings since girlhood growing up in a small farming town in Colombia. Putting this fascination into action proved the possibilities a career in science could have, she said.
âI grew up in a very small farming town and I was always exposed to small farmers and agriculture. But it was when I did my undergrad internship at the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) in Colombia that I realized the scope of potential contributing through science and agriculture has.â
However, a U.N. study conducted in 14 countries indicates that woman and girls remain underrepresented in scientific fields. The probability for female students graduating with a bachelorâs, masterâs or doctoral degree in a science-related field are 19, 8 and 2 percent respectively, while the percentages of male students are 37, 18 and 6, it said.
In an effort to address gender disparity, in December, U.N. member states adopted a resolution to establish an annual international day to mark the crucial role women and girls play in science and technological communities celebrated for the first time on Feb. 11 this year. The aim of the International Day for Women and Girls in Science is to further the access of women and girls and their participation in science, technology, engineering and mathematics education, training and research activities.
Palacios pursued her passion for science by studying microbiology at Andes University in Bogota, Colombia, continuing with doctoral studies in plant biochemistry at University of East Anglia and the John Innes Center in Norwich, England. She completed two postdoctoral degrees at the University of Dublin and at the Max Planck Institute for molecular plant physiology in Germany.
She has worked as nutritional quality specialist at CIMMYT since 2005 and is currently head of the maize nutritional quality laboratory. Her main focus is the development of maize germplasm with high nutritional quality, including high-quality protein maize, high zinc and high pro-vitamin A maize. This includes assessment of nutritional quality of food products and phenotyping of genetic diversity for nutritional, end-use quality and culinary quality of maize.
She has more than 40 journal articles published, seven book chapters and more than 10 science magazines and brochures.
Palacios shared her views on women and girls in the science sector in the following interview. Q: Why is it important to have more woman and girls studying as well as working in scientific fields?
Having women and girls in science is as equally as important as having men â you canât have one without the other. We all have the same potential and we all can contribute to solve problems in science. Whether itâs women, men, people from different cultural backgrounds, each have their own unique and different perspective and all of them contribute to creating better solutions when they work together. Q: What challenges do women and girls face with regard to science today?
Unfortunately there is still discrimination, from the education level to the professional environment, and therefore there are still some areas that are largely dominated by men. There are still many pre-conceptual ideas that people uses to generalize the sexes. For example, the perception may be that women have less flexibility or that men are better working in the field. We just have to be open, hold back judgments and refrain from using one-size-fits-all methodologies, you will be surprised how wrong some of those paradigms can be. Letâs not close the doors due to gender before giving people the opportunity to prove themselves. Q. How does your research improve the lives of women and girls in the developing world?
I am part of a team working on developing maize with enhanced nutritional, end-use and culinary quality. I hope this research will lead to better diets and greater opportunities for everyone. However, our research is significantly important for mothers, who are more prone to malnutrition as their diets rely on only staple crops, which has a negative impact on their children. Malnutrition has an impact on their ability to study or work and limits their life opportunities. By ensuring that the end-use and culinary quality of maize is high, we expect to ease the process of cooking or processing it at home and for small-scale enterprises and create new income opportunities. This way, people can save time and money that then can be used for education and other more rewarding activities.
I also try to take any opportunity to encourage youth and women that have a passion for science to follow it and contribute to society based on their passion. Q: What is your advice to young aspiring female scientists?
To follow dreams and aspirations. Keep working hard, believe in yourself and pursue the passion for science. Gender or cultural background should not limit such a passion.
EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) â Scientific change requires innovation and the best solutions emerge when a wide range of perspectives have been considered, if you donât have representation from half of the population the scope for innovation is narrowed, said a leading molecular geneticist on the International Day of Women and Girls in Science.
âWomen often look at problems from a different angle from men â not better, just different â and like men we have a different gender perspective â all perspectives are valid and of value,â said Sarah Hearne, who leads the maize component of the Seeds of Discovery project at the International Center for Maize and Wheat Improvement.
Her passion for science began in girlhood, stemming from a curiosity about how things work.
âI loved experimenting and figuring out how and why things happen; I used to dissect my grandmaâs fish when they died to try to work out why they were floating in the tank â I was six at the time,â she said. âThankfully my parents werenât horrified by this and over the years my requests for microscopes, chemistry sets and supplies of organs to dissect were realized by Santa and the village butcher.â
Not all girls receive such encouragement. A study conducted in 14 countries found the probability for female students graduating with a bachelorâs, masterâs or doctoral degree in a science-related field are 19, 8 and 2 percent respectively, while the percentages of male students are 37, 18 and 6, according to the United Nations.
In response, in December, U.N. member states adopted a resolution to establish an annual international day to mark the crucial role women and girls play in science and technological communities celebrated for the first time on Feb. 11 this year. The aim is to further the access of women and girls and their participation in science, technology, engineering and mathematics education, training and research activities.
She kicked off her career in adulthood by earning a Bachelor of Science degree in Applied Plant Science at the University of Manchester and a doctoral degree at the University of Sheffield where she focused on work based across the University of Sheffield, the John Innes Center and Syngenta. Since graduating she has worked at two CGIAR centers in Latin America and East and West Africa.
She currently works with CIMMYT in the Seeds of Discovery project where she develops and applies tools to identify and enable the use of the valuable genetic variation present in genebanks for the benefit of farmers and consumers around the world.
She shared her views on women and girls in science in the following interview.
Q: Why is it important to have an increased number of woman and girls studying as well as working in scientific fields?
Girls rock!
Half the population is female but in science careers we are underrepresented, this imbalance becomes increasingly acute as you move up in career structures towards positions of more decision making.
Gender-balanced companies tend to have higher profitability and rank higher in terms of institutional health. This translates to the non-profit sector â impact instead of profitability is the measure of success. More women are needed in scientific research and development at all levels of organizations. This ideal requires a gender-balanced pool of potential applicants â something that is hard to obtain when women are underrepresented in sciences from school to university.
Q: What inspired you to follow a career in science and agriculture?
I grew up in Yorkshire, a rural area in the UK, my dad was an agricultural engineer and my mum still runs her own shop. Farming was an integral part of our community and our lives.
I loved science at school and was one of the few who studied chemistry and physics. Indeed, I was the only girl who studied the four sciences on offer. I enjoyed studying biology and environmental science the most, and after leaving school I deliberated whether to study genetics or plant science at university, eventually deciding to do a degree in applied plant science.
I spent my third year at university working with Zeneca â now Syngenta. My fellow interns and I were plunged into the deep end of applied research with very limited supervision; I LOVED IT! I got to research design, test, evaluate and develop tools and resources that mattered to the company and to farmers; my boss was very supportive and he encouraged me to try out some of my more âwackyâ ideasâŠI was allowed to fail and learn from failure, developing better methods as a result. After earning my B.Sc. I applied for Ph.Ds., all the Ph.Ds. I applied for were focused on different aspects of crop improvement â I wanted to work with plant science that had an impact on peopleâs lives. The Ph.D. I chose was on maize molecular genetics and physiology working on Striga (a parasitic weed endemic to Africa) and drought. My Ph.D. experiences importantly gave me first-hand experience of the hard reality of the precariousness of food and nutritional security across vast swathes of the human population. When completing my Ph.D. I decided I wanted to be able to contribute to food security through research but I didnât want to do this within a university setting- I thought that was too far from farmers. I came to know CIMMYT through my doctoral research and I have been working in the CGIAR system of agricultural researchers ever since completing my Ph.D.
Q: What challenges do women and girls face with regard to science today?
Perceptions: Women can face direct sexism related to their choice of class/degree/career not being considered gender appropriate, this often has cultural influence so while a girl may be more or less accepted in one culture she is not in another. Role models also pose a challenge. There are few female role models in many areas; those that exist have often sacrificed much personal life to be where they are. This gives a skewed picture to girls in an image-obsessed world where people are expected to be perfect in all aspects of life. Science is still very male dominated, especially agricultural science. Overt and unintentional sexism is rife in many organizations – women can be made to feel like a âtokenâ staff member..
Being assertive and focused is often viewed very negatively when women display this behavior with gender-specific terms being used. I have been called âbossy, bitchy, emotional, aggressive, ice queen, scary, etc.â, my male colleagues exhibiting the same behavior are âdriven, focused, tough, go-getters, etc.â I have never heard them being called bossyâŠ.
Inequality at home results in inequality in science. Women still tend to bear the brunt of home and childcare activities and this creates real or perceived impacts. Institutions and national governments donât always help – shared maternity/paternity leave would be a good starting point.
Q: What is your advice to young aspiring female scientists?
Wow, there are lots of wisdom picked up and passed on I could share, here are a few I have found the most useful:
Personal: Check your own prejudice and ensure you treat others in an equal way. I get tired of hearing statements like âmen canât multi-taskâ⊠it is as offensive as âwomen canât read mapsâ. If we want equality we have to ensure we model it ourselves.
Work on self-confidence, self-esteem and develop a good, self-depreciating sense of humor. Build a support network to help maintain these things and give you honest feedback. Donât be afraid to ask questions; ask lots of questions.
Donât stress about titles, positions or detailed career paths â career paths donât usually follow a straight or planned path and you discover more fulfilling things on the journey. Give yourself time to explore and discover an area of science you love and are inspired by; believe me it is worth every second invested. Happiness is more important that a title on a business card.
Pick your partners carefully, life is full of surprises and striving for equality shouldnât stop in the classroom or workplace.
In school/the workplace, do not accept gender loaded statements; âyou are bossyâ should be quickly but firmly rebuked with ânot bossy, simply assertiveâ. Speak out about gender bias âbe it female, male, bi -or trans gender â and enable and support others to speak out. If someone says something that makes you feel uncomfortable, articulate this to them. In addition, I would advise that you should never, ever accept sexual harassment of yourself or others in the workplace. Report it and if needed shout and scream about it. It is a good idea to build a financial/family safety net for yourself so that you have the freedom to leave situations where there is unwillingness of employers to deal with sexual harassment.
Learn to program Python and a bit of Java. Data is getting easier to capture and as a result the volume of data we are processing grows year on year. Having the skills to manipulate and analyze this is increasingly critical â off the shelf solutions no longer work. Being able to program is an increasingly valuable skill and one many girls are not encouraged to explore.
Try to understand the gender climate of the organization you are working for â or want to work for â and seek out allies to navigate and â hopefully â start to influence the climate to a more gender neutral workplace.
Donât view every decision as having gender bias – sometimes there really isnât any- you just donât like the decision.
Apply for jobs even when you donât meet all of the requirements – if you can do half of the things well and can learn the others then apply- nothing ventured nothing gained (and few candidates, male or female, tick all of the boxes).
Learn how to negotiate and try not to enter a situation in which you are unaware of the facts about what you are arguing for. Women often feel uncomfortable to negotiate salaries â you feel worse when you realize a male colleague doing the same job is being paid more.
Donât let anyone shout at you, and donât let anyone talk over you – calmly, quietly, and privately explain how you want to be treated – if the shouting continues walk away from the situation.
Consider family issues whether you have a family or not; do you need to send an urgent request to someone at 5pm on a Friday? -This helps all colleagues â men have families too and we all need work-life balance.
âThis project is transforming Mexico and, four years after its launch, it has benefited more than 200,000 farmers,â said Silverio GarcĂa Lara, professor at ITESMâs School of Engineering and Science, Monterrey campus. âThe project focuses on the base of the productive and economic pyramid,â explained the researcher, who favors âdeveloping cutting-edge technologies to regenerate and renew Mexican farming.â
ITESMÂ is involved in a project focusing on biotechnology for food security that applies cutting-edge technologies to analyze MasAgroâs new maize varieties and ensure they meet the nutrition and processing quality parameters of the Mexican market, explained Natalia Palacios, the person responsible for CIMMYTâs Maize Quality Laboratory, in an information bulletin that was broadcast when the winning project was presented at the 46th Research and Development Congress held on 20-22 January at ITESMâs Student Center, Monterrey campus.
âWe are very proud of MasAgro because its results in the lab and especially in farmersâ fields have been widely recognized both nationally and internationally; today ITESM, a research partner that has collaborated with us since the beginning, also recognizes the project,â said Bram Govaerts, Leader of CIMMYTâs Sustainable Intensification Strategy for Latin America.
Among MasAgroâs main achievements, Govaerts highlighted the adoption of sustainable intensification of basic grain production on half a million hectares. He also emphasized the development of 20 high yielding maize hybrids which, combined with MasAgroâs sustainable agronomic practices, have increased rainfed maize farmersâ income by 9-31%. According to Govaerts, 16 precision machines for use in different production situations, from subsistence to intensive or commercial farming, and different postharvest storage solutions are among the technologies that MasAgro offers.
âOur farmers out in the fields are very interested in innovating and obtaining new technologies coming from the labs and from international research institutions such as CIMMYT,â stated GarcĂa Lara when presenting ITESMâs award for the work done by MasAgro.
After wheat seeds are planted in the greenhouse, the samples are then harvested and prepared to be sent to the laboratory for DNA extraction and genotyping. Photo: Carolina Sansaloni/CIMMYT
EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) – With Syria torn apart by civil war, a team of scientists in Mexico and Morocco are rushing to save a vital sample of wheatâs ancient and massive genetic diversity, sealed in seed collections of an international research center formerly based in Aleppo but forced to leave during 2012-13.
The researchers are restoring and genetically characterizing more than 30,000 unique seed collections of wheat from the Syrian genebank of the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), which has relocated its headquarters to Beirut, Lebanon, and backed up its 150,000 collections of barley, fava bean, lentil and wheat seed with partners and in the Global Seed Vault at Svalbard, Norway.
In March 2015, scientists at ICARDA were awarded The Gregor Mendel Foundation Innovation Prize for their courage in securing and preserving their seed collections at Svalbard, by continuing work and keeping the genebank operational in Syria even amidst war.
âWith war raging in Syria, this project is incredibly important,â said Carolina Sansaloni, genotyping and DNA sequencing specialist at the Mexico-based International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), which is leading work to analyze the samples and locate genes for breeding high-yield, climate resilient wheats. âIt would be amazing if we could be just a small part of reintroducing varieties that have been lost in war-torn regions.â
Treasure from wheatâs cradle to feed the future
Much of wheat seed comes from the Fertile Crescent, a region whose early nations developed and depended on wheat as the vital grain of their civilizations. The collections could hold the key for future breeding to feed an expanding world population, according to Sansaloni.
âAn ancient variety bred out over time could contain a gene for resistance to a deadly wheat disease or for tolerance to climate change effects like heat and drought, which are expected to become more severe in developing countries where smallholder farmers and their families depend on wheat,â she explained.
Cross-region partners, global benefits
Sansaloniâs team has been sequencing DNA from as many as 2,000 seed samples a week, as well as deriving molecular markers for breeder- and farmer-valued traits, such as disease resistance, drought or heat tolerance and qualities that contribute to higher yields and grain quality.
They are using a high-end DNA sequencing system located at the Genetic Analysis Service for Agriculture (SAGA), a partnership between CIMMYT and Mexicoâs Secretariat of Agriculture, Livestock, Rural Development, Fisheries and Food (SAGARPA), and with the support of a private company from Australia, Diversity Arrays Technology.
The sequencer at SAGA can read 1600 samples of seed at once and develops more data than ever before. The HiSeq 2500 boils down data and shows the information at a âsequence levelâ, for example, height variations among wheat varieties.
Worldwide, there are few other machines that produce this kind of data and most are owned by private companies, explained Sansaloni. This was the first non-Latin American based project used by the HiSeq 2500.
âThe success of this project shows what a fantastic opportunity for international collaboration we now have,â Sansaloni said. âI canât even put a value on the importance of the data we have collected from this project. Itâs priceless.â
After data has been collected, seed samples will be âregeneratedâ by ICARDA and CIMMYT. That is, the process of restoring old seed samples with healthy new seeds.
ICARDA and CIMMYT will share seed and data from the project and make these results available worldwide.
âWith these new seeds, we hope to reconstruct ICARDAâs active and base collection of seeds over the next five years in new genebank facilities in Lebanon and Morocco,â said Fawzy Nawar, senior genebank documentation specialist, ICARDA.
Funded through the CGIAR Research Program on Wheat, the effort benefits both of the international centers, as well as wheat breeding programs worldwide, said Tom Payne, head of CIMMYTâs Wheat Germplasm Bank. âICARDA is in a difficult situation, with a lack of easy access to their seeds and no facilities to perform genotyping,â he explained. âThis was the perfect opportunity to collaborate.â
M.L. Jat shows resilient cropping system options for eastern Indo-Gangetic plains at BISA farm
CIMMYT Senior Scientist M.L. Jat has received Indiaâs National Academy of Agricultural Sciences (NAAS) fellowship in Natural Resource Management for his âoutstanding contributions in developing and scalingâ conservation agriculture-based management technologies for predominant cereal-based cropping systems in South Asia.
Research such as M.L.âs is more important every day, as we learn to do more with less on a planet with finite resources and changing climate. Sustainable innovation, including climate-smart agriculture, is a major theme at the ongoing COP21 climate talks where global leaders are gathered to decide the future of our planet. M.L. tells us below how CA can play a part in climate change mitigation and adaptation, and the future of CA in South Asia.
What are the major threats global climate change poses to South Asian agriculture?
South Asia is one of the most vulnerable regions in the world to climate change. With a growing population of 1.6 billion people, the region hosts 40% of the worldâs poor and malnourished on just 2.4% of the worldâs land. Agriculture makes up over half of the regionâs livelihoods, so warmer winters and extreme, erratic weather events such as droughts and floods have an even greater impact. Higher global temperatures will continue to add extreme pressure to finite land and other natural resources, threatening food security and livelihoods of smallholder farmers and the urban poor.
How does CA mitigate and help farmers adapt to climate change?
In South Asia, climate change is likely to reduce agricultural production 10â50% by 2050 and beyond, so adaptation measures are needed now. Climate change has complex and local impacts, requiring scalable solutions to likewise be locally-adapted.
Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) practices such as CA not only minimize production costs and inputs, but also help farmers adapt to extreme weather events, reduce temporal variability in productivity, and mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, according to numerous data on CA management practices throughout the region.
What future developments are needed to help South Asian farmers adapt to climate change?
Targeting and access to CA sustainable intensification technologies, knowledge, and training – such as precision water and nutrient management or mechanized CA solutions specific to a farmerâs unique landscape – will be critical to cope with emerging risks of climate variability. Participatory and community-based approaches will be critical for scaled impact as well. For example, the climate smart village concept allows rural youth and women to be empowered not only by becoming CA practitioners but also by serving as knowledge providers to the local community, making them important actors in generating employment and scaling CA and other climate-smart practices.
Where do you see your research heading in the next 10-15 years?
Now that there are clear benefits of CA and CSA across a diversity of farms at a regional level, as well as increased awareness by stakeholders of potential challenges of resource degradation and food security in the face of climate change, scaling up CA and CSA interventions will be a priority. For example, the Government of Haryana in India has already initiated a program to introduce CSA in 500 climate smart villages. Thanks to this initiative, CA and CSA will benefit 10 million farms across the region in the next 10-15 years.
Climate-Smart Villages
Climate-Smart Villages are a community-based approach to adaptation and mitigation of climate change for villages in high-risk areas, which will likely suffer most from a changing climate. The project began in 2011 with 15 climate-smart villages in West Africa, East Africa and South Asia, and is expanding to Latin America and Southeast Asia. CIMMYT is leading the CCAFS-CSV project in South Asia.
Participants see a demonstration of artificial inoculation at MLN screening site. Photo: K. Kaimenyi/CIMMYT
NAIROBI — Since maize lethal necrosis (MLN) was first reported in Kenya in 2011, CIMMYT and its partners, including Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization (KALRO), have been intensively engaged in breeding for resistance to the disease, which was later confirmed to be present in D.R. Congo, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda.
KALRO and CIMMYT invited public and private sector partners in eastern Africa to a MLN field day at the screening facility at KALRO-Naivasha on 20 January 2016. KALRO Director General Eliud Kireger officially opened the field day, which was attended by about 70 participants from national agricultural research organizations, multinational, regional and national seed companies, national plant protection agencies, international institutions, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and CIMMYT.
The field day demonstrated 21,074 maize germplasm entries from 16 institutions, including public and private sector partners. Several promising inbred lines and pre-commercial hybrids with tolerance/Â resistance to MLN were on display in the field blocks. These included MLN tolerant/resistant hybrids that are currently undergoing national performance trials (NPTs) in eastern Africa.
Kireger expressed his appreciation for the work being done at the facility and pointed out, âLast year there were very few germplasm entries offering promise against MLN at the screening site. Today we have seen materials that have potential to be released in the next two years or less.â
âWithin the next few years, we can reach out to the farmers in eastern Africa with seed of MLN resistant varieties. We can now confidently tell farmers and the ministries of agriculture that there is a strong ray of hope,â he added.
Using molecular marker assisted breeding, CIMMYT is currently working on more than 25 elite inbred lines that are susceptible to MLN but are parental lines of several prominent commercial maize hybrids in sub-Saharan Africa.
âOur vision of replacing a large set of commercial MLN-susceptible varieties with MLN-resistant hybrids is well on track. Within three or four years we hope to have at least 20 to 25 MLN-resistant hybrids released, scaled up and delivered to farmers in eastern Africa with the help of our seed company partners,â stated B.M. Prasanna, Director of CIMMYTâs Global Maize Program and the CGIAR Research Program MAIZE.
Collaborative work at the MLN facility will continue to help partners identify MLN-resistant germplasm, including inbred lines and hybrids. âThe work being done at the MLN screening facility is critical in successfully responding to the MLN epidemic in eastern Africa,â said L.M. Suresh , CIMMYT maize pathologist and manager of the MLN screening facility.
Participants also visited a seed treatment trial, where seed care treatments from Syngenta and Bayer are being evaluated for their effectiveness on a selected set of six hybrids. âToday we have not only seen excellent work on breeding for MLN resistance, but also very good research work being done on seed treatments. This is very important for seed companies,â said Maarten van Ginkel, consultant breeder, SeedCo. âFrom the trials we have seen today, we are assured that in the near future we will have MLN resistance introgressed in all our hybrids, enabling seed companies to improve the quality of seed delivered to the market.â
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has declared 2016 the International Year of Pulses under the motto âNutritious seeds for a sustainable future.â Pulses, an annual leguminous crop yielding from one to 12 seeds (dry beans, kidney beans, dry peas, lentils and others), have been named by the FAO as essential in the fight for food security for their nutrient value and their key role in crop rotations through the ability to fix nitrogen.
When we plant the same species on the same land every year, we are engaging in what is called monoculture. Monoculture has unfavorable consequences for production, since it increases the incidence of weeds, pests and diseases, which become resistant to control methods.
To counteract this, one of the principles of Conservation Agriculture (CA) is crop rotation, which involves planting different crops in the same field in a specific order. Crop rotation reduces the incidence of pests and diseases by interrupting their life cycles; it also maintains weed control and promotes more appropriate nutrient distribution in the soil profile (crops that have deeper roots extract nutrients at a greater depth) and helps reduce the economic risk when an unforeseen event affects one of the crops. It also enables farmers to balance residue production because crops that produce few residues can be rotated with crops that produce a large amount.
Crop rotation should include pulses (leguminous crops) that make efficient use of water and provide soil nutrients (such as nitrogen) that are extracted by grains.
The year will be a unique opportunity to foster connections all along the food chain in order to benefit more from proteins derived from pulses, increase pulse production worldwide, make better use of crop rotation and face the challenges of commercializing pulses.
The creation, development and strengthening of farmersâ and techniciansâ capacities are a pillar of the MasAgro strategy. For this reason, besides investing in research and technological development, SAGARPA and CIMMYT are also investing in building the capacities of agents of change to foster testing and implementation of new technologies with farmers. To this end, as part of the MasAgro Productor (Take It to the Farmer) extension strategy, in 2013, they set up a network of trainers responsible for detecting areas of opportunity for the technicians they supervise and designing a training plan to develop their technical and social skills, which will enable them to innovate together with farmers.
Thanks to this information and their efforts, a book titled Options Available for Implementing MasAgro Technologies has been published which analyzes the options available for implementing sustainable agricultural practices and technologies in 23 Mexican entities where MasAgro instructors have supported, mentored, followed up and evaluated the agents of change who have provided technical backup to farmers involved in this strategy.
This systems focus of agricultural innovation fosters interaction among different actors with the purpose of developing new technologies, better practices, new processes and new ways of organizing and managing. This in turn promotes learning and sets aside the old innovation paradigmââwhich considers innovation to be the result solely of scientific research and technological developmentââand regards innovation as a collective event for which everyone is responsible.
This document will undoubtedly be useful to farmers, technicians, researchers, decision makers, input suppliers, development organizations, traders and other actors involved in MasAgroâs innovation network.
[i] A hub is an agricultural innovation node and a model of agricultural extension where farmers interact with technicians and technicians interact with researchers. These innovation nodes usually have similar agroecological conditions for establishing production systems where different technologies promoted by the MasAgro program are developed, disseminated, adapted and improved (for more information, go to http://conservacion.cimmyt.org).
The latest research from CIMMYT covers gender and agriculture in Malawi, topsoil and organic carbon variability, and reallocation of farm resources. Explore the latest publications below, and remember to stay current on new articles related to maize/wheat/conservation agriculture, CIMMYT journal articles, CIMMYT libraryâs acquisitions and related news at the Knowledge Centerâs blog here!
