The CGIAR Research Program on MAIZE, CIMMYT and IITA are pleased to announce that effective 1 June 2015, MAIZE will be led by a dedicated CRP Director, who is spearheading the international maize research agenda of CGIAR. The CIMMYT Board, upon endorsement of the MAIZE Stakeholder Advisory Committee (StAC), has agreed to the CIMMYT Director General appointing Dr. B.M. Prasanna as MAIZE CRP Director.
Texcoco, Mexico, 11 June 2015.- Mexico’s Secretary of Agriculture, Livestock, Rural Development, Fisheries and Food (SAGARPA) and the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) discussed today their continued commitment to Mexico’s food security and pledged to work together to raise Mexico’s self-sufficiency of cereal production to 75 percent by 2018. Enrique Martínez y Martínez, head of SAGARPA, and Martin Kropff, newly appointed director general at CIMMYT, held a meeting to discuss research and development priorities in the framework of their strategic collaboration. As an example of the collaboration the MasAgro project aims to boost maize productivity by promoting use of improved seeds and sustainable farming practices among Mexico’s smallholder farmers and how these past efforts can be improved for more impact that responds to real needs.
Secretary Martínez y Martínez acknowledged CIMMYT’s efforts in increasing maize and wheat productivity in Mexico and in the world but requested the non-profit international research organization to come up with new ideas to tackle food security challenges in Mexico within the new global context. President Peña Nieto pledged to increase spending in research to 1 percent of Mexico’s GDP. Current investment stands at 0.35 percent and SAGARPA counts on CIMMYT to help increase investment in agricultural research for development, Martínez said.
During the meeting, Martin Kropff restated CIMMYT’s commitment to Mexico’s development. “We strongly believe in public – private partnerships and want to help Mexico further strengthen its links with international research networks,” said Kropff who was Rector of Wageningen University, a world class agricultural higher education institution in the Netherlands, before recently joining CIMMYT. Research, however, should not be done for the sake of research but garantee impact and respond to demand-driven needs, agreed both leaders.
SAGARPA and CIMMYT agreed to work together to develop a yellow maize integrated seed sector in Mexico. The country is self-sufficient in white maize production but imports between 8 to 10 million tons of yellow maize to meet industry and livestock demand for yellow grain. Also a plan for a public-private investment platform in the wheat sector could jointly be developed through a bilateral working agenda.
by Derek Byerlee
Visiting Scholar, Stanford University and Adjunct Professor, Georgetown University, United States
Date: Monday, 1st June 2015
Time: 12:30-13:30hrs.
Venue: New Auditorium
Download Presentation
*The idea behind brown bag lunchtime seminars is to use the lunch break in everyone’s busy schedule to hold a brief exchange of ideas.
by Derek Byerlee
Visiting Scholar, Stanford University and Adjunct Professor, Georgetown University, United States
Date: Monday, 1st June 2015
Time: 12:30-13:30hrs.
Venue: New Auditorium
Download Presentation
*The idea behind brown bag lunchtime seminars is to use the lunch break in everyone’s busy schedule to hold a brief exchange of ideas.
Under-nourishment affects some 795 million people worldwide. According to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), more than one out of every nine people do not eat enough to lead healthy, active lives. Almost 780 million undernourished people live in developing countries, with about 94% in Asia and Africa, FAO reports.
But these statistics tell only part of the story. Two billion people around the world also suffer from micronutrient deficiency, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Also known as “hidden hunger,” micronutrient deficiency occurs when the food consumed by people does not provide enough vitamins and minerals. People in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa are hardest hit by hidden hunger, which is characterized by iron-deficiency anemia, and vitamin A and zinc deficiency.
Zinc is important for cellular growth, cellular differentiation and metabolism. Zinc deficiency, which affects about one-third of the global population, limits childhood growth and decreases resistance to infection. According to WHO, zinc supplements may help to improve linear growth of children under five years of age.
Tackling hidden hunger is the major focus of the HarvestPlus-led wheat biofortification breeding program at CIMMYT and its national program partners in South Asia. The main objective of the program is to develop and disseminate competitive wheat varieties with high grain zinc content and other essential agronomic features.
The biofortification breeding program introduces high zinc levels derived from the best sources (wild species and landraces) into adapted wheat backgrounds. The result is widely adapted, high yielding, high zinc varieties with durable disease resistance. These new varieties are 20-40% superior in grain zinc concentration and are agronomically on a par or superior to other wheat cultivars popular in South Asia. Research is also underway to transfer genomic regions into adapted backgrounds in a more precise and targeted manner, thus accelerating breeding efficiency, as well as to identify biofortified varieties for specific growing conditions in target countries.
Competitive high zinc wheat varieties have already been distributed to national program partners in South Asia to reach resource-poor smallholder farmers. In 2012, HarvestPlus devised a strategy with Banaras Hindu University and CIMMYT to reach thousands of wheat farmers with zinc-biofortified, disease resistant wheat in eastern Uttar Pradesh, India. Wheat productivity in this region is low compared to other parts of the country, which is why it was chosen to serve as a platform for testing and promoting high zinc wheat varieties.
After various demonstrations in 18 villages, many of the farmers became interested in adopting high zinc wheat. In 2013, seed mini-kits were distributed to farmers in the region and by 2014, more than 10,000 farmers had adopted high zinc wheat.
Public-private partnerships are contributing to fast-track commercialization. As a result, more than 50,000 farmers adopted zinc-biofortified wheat varieties during the 2015-2016 crop cycle. Farmers are happy with the “Zinc Shakthi” variety for its good performance, including a yield advantage of about 5-10% under both full and limited irrigation, as well as its grain size, cooking quality, grain color and overall appearance.
EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) – Paula Kantor had an exceptionally sharp, analytical mind and a deep understanding of how change can empower men and women to give them greater control over their own lives, helping them shape their future direction, said a former colleague.
Kantor, a gender and development specialist working with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), died tragically on May 13 at age 46, in the aftermath of a Taliban attack on the hotel where she was staying in Kabul, Afghanistan.
At the time, she was working on a new CIMMYT research project focused on understanding the role of gender in the livelihoods of people in major wheat-growing areas of Afghanistan, Ethiopia and Pakistan.
The aim of the three-year project, supported by Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), is to find out how wheat research-and-development can contribute to gender equality in conservative contexts so that, in turn, gender equality can contribute more to overall development.
“Paula’s research was targeting a very large populace facing serious threats to both food security and gender equality,” said Lone Badstue, gender specialist at CIMMYT, an international research organization, which works to sustainably increase the productivity of maize and wheat to ensure global food security, improve livelihoods and reduce poverty.
“Paula had vast experience – she spent most of her working life in these contexts – in very patriarchal societies – and had a great love for the people living in these regions. She also had a deep understanding of what she felt needed to change so that both men and women could have a better chance to influence their own lives and choose their own path.”
Kantor, a U.S. citizen, was no stranger to Afghanistan. Several years before joining CIMMYT, she had been based in Kabul where she worked as director and manager of the gender and livelihoods research portfolios at the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit (AREU), an independent research agency, from 2008 to 2010.
The project Kantor was working on at the time of her death builds on the idea that research and development interventions should be informed by a socio-cultural understanding of context and local experience, Badstue said.
Ultimately, this approach lays the groundwork for a more effective, equitable development process with positive benefits for all, she added.
WHEAT AND GENDER
Globally, wheat is vital to food security, providing 20 percent of calories and protein consumed, research shows. In Afghanistan, wheat provides more than half of the food supply, based on a daily caloric intake of 2,500 calories, while in Pakistan wheat provides more than a third of food supply, and in Ethiopia it provides about 13 percent of calories, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the Global Food Security Index. These data do not reflect gender disparity with regard to food access.
In Afghanistan, Ethiopia and Pakistan, the central role of wheat in providing food security makes it an important part of political stability. Overall, gender inequality and social disparities have a negative impact on general economic growth, development, food security and nutrition in much of the developing world, but particularly in these three countries, Badstue said.
Women make up between 32 to 45 percent of economically active people in agriculture in the three countries, which are classified by the U.N. Development Programme’s Gender Inequality Index in the “low human development” category.
Although women play a crucial role in farming and food production, they often face greater constraints in agricultural production than men, Badstue added.
Additionally, rural women are less likely than men to own land or livestock, adopt new technologies, access credit, financial services, or receive education or extension advice, according to the 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.
“Addressing gender disparities between women and men farmers in the developing world offers significant development potential,” Badstue said.
“Improvements in gender equality often lead to enhanced economic efficiency and such other beneficial development outcomes as improved access to food, nutrition, and education in families.”
METICULOUS RESEARCHER
Paula was brilliant,” Badstue said. “She had a clear edge. She was someone who insisted on excellence methodologically and analytically. She was very well equipped to research issues in this context because of her extensive experience in Afghanistan, as well as her considerate and respectful manner.”
Kantor’s involvement in “Gennovate,” a collaborative, comparative research initiative by gender researchers from a series of international agricultural research centers, was also critical, Badstue said.
The group focuses on understanding gender norms and how they influence the ability of people to access, try out, adopt or adapt new agricultural technology. Kantor provided key analytical and theoretical guidance, inspiring the group to take action and ensure that Gennovate took hold.
Kantor’s work went beyond a focus on solving practical problems to explore underlying power differences within the family or at a local level.
“Agricultural technology that makes day-to-day work in the field easier is crucial, but if it doesn’t change your overall position, if it doesn’t give you a voice, then it changes an aspect of your life without addressing underlying power dynamics,” Badstue said.
“Paula was trying to facilitate lasting change – she wasn’t banging a particular agenda, trying to force people into a particular mind-set. She was really interested in finding the space for manoeuver and the agency of every individual to decide what direction to take in their own life. She was a humanist and highly respected throughout the gender-research community.”
Before joining CIMMYT, Kantor served as a senior gender scientist with the CGIAR’s WorldFish organization for three years from 2012. She also worked at the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW) in Washington, D.C., developing intervention research programs in the area of gender and rural livelihoods, including a focus on gender and agricultural value chains.
A funeral mass will be held for Paula Kantor at 11 a.m. on June 11, 2015 at St Leo the Great Catholic Church in Winston Salem, North Carolina.
CIMMYT will hold a memorial service for Paula Kantor on Friday, June 12, 2015 at 12:30 p.m. at its El Batan headquarters near Mexico City.
Derek Byerlee, former director of the CIMMYT economics program (1987-94) and current visiting scholar at Stanford University and adjunct professor at Georgetown University, presented some of his latest research at a brown bag lunch at CIMMYT headquarters on 1 May. His presentation, “Growing Land Scarcity, the Borlaug Hypothesis and the Rise of Megafarms,” examined the economic and environmental benefits and repercussions of cropland expansion, the recent rise of agribusiness and the delicate balance between crop intensification and deforestation.
The “Borlaug Hypothesis” is the idea that increasing crop yields can help prevent cropland expansion and deforestation, thus alleviating hunger and poverty without dramatically increasing environmental impact. Developed by the legendary Nobel Prize Laureate and CIMMYT scientist Norman Borlaug, the postulate is controversial in environmental circles, and some researchers have published studies showing that higher crop yields in the tropics increase incentives to clear forests, thus making investments in crop research potentially counterproductive to sustainable growth.
Byerlee noted that the world has increased per capita cereal production by about 40 percent over the last 50 years on about half the arable land per capita that it used in 1961. Models developed by Byerlee and his associates show that, without CGIAR work since 1965 to develop improved crop varieties, the land area devoted to food crops would have increased by 18 to 27 million hectares, mostly in developing countries. Byerlee supports Borlaug’s claim that broad-based investment in crop research and development indeed contributes to saving the world’s forests, although estimates by Byerlee and his associates are an order of magnitude lower than those of Borlaug.
Investment in crop intensification may be more important than ever, as the world’s growing population demands ever-growing quantities of food and land. “Meta-analysis of demand estimates suggests that, given current yield trends, agriculture will require an additional 200 to 450 million hectares of land by 2030 — as much as the entire combined land area of India and South Africa,” Byerlee said. At the same time, Byerlee found that an estimated 450 million hectares of land could be available for crop expansion but is concentrated in just a few countries and its cultivation could have negative impacts on the environment and on people already using that land for other purposes.
Linked to the question of where crops should be cultivated is the issue of who will cultivate them, especially on the land frontier. Byerlee described the recent rise of “megafarms” run by agribusiness companies and examined their economic benefits (or lack thereof) in comparison to traditional family farms that still prevail across the world. Byerlee argued that family farms were more efficient, equitable and contribute to more growth than megafarms, which benefit from professional management and technologies that allow for larger scale but do not display significant cost advantages over traditional family farms. Byerlee ultimately recommends models that combine agribusiness and smallholder farms for best results.
Please click here to view the full presentation.
The international training workshop “Approaches for integrated analysis of agricultural systems in South Asia: Field, to farm, to landscape scale,” jointly organized by CIMMYT and the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR)-Central Soil Salinity Research Institute (CSSRI), was held at Karnal, Haryana, India, during 18-23 May. The workshop targeted farming systems and agricultural development researchers in South Asia and provided an overview of the approaches and tools used to assess agricultural systems.
Compared to the rest of the world, South Asia’s natural resources are 3-5 times more stressed due to population and economic pressures. Several agricultural technologies and practices have been developed to address resource management challenges. However, researchers need to conduct specialized analyses of complex farming systems to find out which technologies are appropriate for farmers.
The training workshop allowed participants to share their experiences in the field and create better methods to ensure successful interventions. P.C. Sharma, Head of the Crop Improvement Program, CSSRI, commenced the workshop and greeted the participants, who comprised 30 young researchers from national research institutions and universities in India, Nepal and Bangladesh. Santiago López Ridaura, CIMMYT Global Conservation Agriculture Program Systems Agronomist, presented workshop objectives, which included introducing participants to integrated farming systems analysis as well as to modeling tools and technology designed for specific farming communities.
“This course is the first of its kind in the region,” emphasized M.L. Jat, CIMMYT Cropping Systems Agronomist. “It is unique, demand-driven and organized to strengthen the capacity of young researchers in the region so that they may more effectively help build livelihood security for smallholder farmers.”
D.K. Sharma, CSSRI Director, stressed the need for systems research in the region and how partnerships with centers ike CIMMYT have helped to successfully implement conservation agriculture, sustainable intensification and other practices. Sharma also described CSSRI’s farmer participatory model, which provides farmers with land for cultivation against their annual compensation, thereby improving livelihoods.
Workshop attendees participated in modeling, analysis and participatory exercises that helped them to better understand the challenges of technology adoption in the field. Participants also visited farms, where they learned farmers’ needs first-hand and observed the complexity of different farming systems.
The workshop was supported by the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS), the Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA) and the Sustainable and Resilient Farming Systems Intensification in the Eastern Gangetic Plains (SRFSI) project of the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research’s (ACIAR). Other attendees included Mahesh Gathala, CIMMYT Cropping Systems Agronomist and SRFSI Project Leader; Jeroen Groot, Wageningen University Farming Systems Modeling Specialist; David Berre, CIMMYT Farming Systems Agronomist; Timothy Krupnik, CIMMYT Agronomist; and Alison Laing, Cropping Systems Modeler at ACIAR CSIRO Climate Adaptation Flagship.
The Wheat Productivity Enhancement Program (WPEP), led by CIMMYT and funded by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), held technical training sessions on wheat seed production from March to May 2015 for farmer enterprise groups (FEGs) in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Province. The training was held in collaboration with the Outreach Programme of the Agriculture Research System in KP Province, which formed the FEGs, each comprising 30-35 persons including farmers, seed dealers and seed company representatives.
Wheat ranks first among the food crops of KP Province and is grown mainly on a rainfed area covering 0.729 to 0.776 million hectares. Compared to the rest of Pakistan, KP Province has low yields due to water scarcity, weak extension services and low adoption of recommended technologies, including improved varieties. The public seed sector produces only 5-8 percent of all wheat seed planted in the province, leaving a large gap for private sector investment in wheat seed production and improvement.
More than 92 percent of farmers plant their own wheat seed, which is of inferior quality. Farmers need to be trained to produce quality seed to plant in their own fields and share with neighboring farmers. In response, WPEP has engaged all wheat breeders at KP partner institutes and seed regulatory agencies to enhance production of early generation seed of both advanced lines and released varieties. WPEP also carries out seed demonstrations and variety popularization trials in farmers’ fields to create awareness about new varieties and production technologies.
Five training courses were held at the Cereal Crops Research Institute (CCRI), Pirsabak, the Agriculture Research Stations at Buner and Mansehra, and Bamkhail-Swabi and Tarnab-Peshawar Research Institutes. The training enabled FEGs to learn of quality seed and update their knowledge on seed production, seed laws, seed storage, the most recent high-yielding varieties, available seed sources and varietal identification. They also learned about wheat stem rust disease and rust resistant varieties that have been planted in KP by public and private seed companies and also on farmers’ fields. Other subjects included varietal testing and evaluation, the release, registration and approval system, variety maintenance, and production of pre-basic and basic certified seed.
Trained FEGs are expected to become registered private or public sector seed growers in the future. Building the capacity of FEGs will strengthen farming communities, improve farmers’ incomes and increase wheat productivity throughout the KP region.
We have come a long way when it comes to obtaining aerial images of our research sites. My colleagues and I once used helium-filled balloons and twin cameras to obtain infrared and color images in an all-day operation; now we use unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) fitted with high-resolution lenses and multispectral cameras to take dozens of images over large areas in a matter of minutes.
Farmers and researchers need to know every square meter of their fields, to determine spatial variability, take remedial action and implement adaptive controls and responses. UAVs can achieve this without anyone setting foot in the field. In an era where we are time- and resource-poor, we can accurately assess the health of entire fields in mere minutes, which could have an enormous impact on agriculture.
However, in Northwestern China, the notion of using UAVs to take aerial pictures in an agricultural setting evokes suspicion, elicits numerous questions and is extremely novel.
As a result, we have to provide detailed explanations and gain permission from a number of local authorities before we can undertake what is a simple non-invasive task that would normally go unnoticed on a farm in Australia or Mexico.
CIMMYT-China’s Global Conservation Agriculture Program (GCAP) and the Ningxia Academy of Agricultural Sciences obtained permission from the Wuzhong City Agricultural Mechanization Bureau to fly a UAV. Earlier this month, my colleague Mr. Zhang Xuejian, Director of the Information Research Institute, enlisted a local UAV operator to take images of conservation agriculture, relay cropping and wheat variety trials at a demonstration site near Wuzhong City in Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region.
Although the Information Research Institute has a fixed-wing UAV with sophisticated imagery equipment, the system is somewhat dated and requires extensive documentation, a landing strip and up to six operators. However, the GCAP-Ningxia Academy of Agricultural Sciences collaboration recently demonstrated the flexibility, capability and efficiency of a modern, multi-rotary wing UAV that rapidly produces imagery and readily displays agronomic traits, farm management and genetic responses not easily appreciated or identified at ground level. Given the success of this demonstration, we will seek funding to buy a new aircraft and develop proximal sensing and imagery within the region.
Smallholder farmers need accurate, inexpensive, readily-available data to increase production, but have traditionally not had access to precise spatial information due to time, money and labor constraints. UAVs can collect visual, thermal and hyperspectral data, which when analyzed provide a broad range of information that would otherwise be unavailable. UAV imagery can also focus on specific biotic and abiotic issues such as diseases, crop stress and farm management. UAV technology would provide breeders and agronomists in NW China not only a new view of agriculture, but also a new path to achieving increased production and food security, while conserving natural and human resources.
CIMMYT’s Heat Stress Tolerant Maize for Asia (HTMA) project held a hybrid maize field day during 21-22 April at the Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute’s (BARI) Regional Agricultural Research Stations (RARS) in Khoirtola, Jessore and Gazipur. The event was attended by over 60 participants, including local maize farmers, Bangladeshi seed company representatives, agricultural input dealers, Bangladesh government seed system officers and BARI maize researchers.
Maize is the third most important food crop in Bangladesh after rice and wheat, covering from 3,000 hectares (ha) in 1990 to over 300,000 ha at present. This growth is largely demand driven, as maize is used both as feed (poultry, fish and cattle) and food. Annual maize demand in the country is approximately two million tons, with domestic production meeting only about 14% of that. Almost all maize grown is hybrid maize, and about 6,500 metric tons of hybrid seed are required annually. However, only about 15% of annual seed demand is met by domestic seed production; the rest is imported, mainly from India. Bangladesh must enhance domestic sources of hybrid seed to meet demand more reliably and at a lower cost.
To accelerate hybrid maize production and address climate-change effects, BARI joined HTMA in developing and deploying high-yielding, climate-resilient hybrids for stress-prone ecologies across the region. Under the project, which is funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), every two years a new wave of products is available for on-farm testing and deployment. The most recent hybrids were planted at four locations in Bangladesh, including BARI research stations.
HTMA project details and progress were shared with participants during a pre-field visit session by Sirajul Islam, Chief Scientific Officer and Head of BARI-RARS, Jessore. CIMMYT maize breeder P.H. Zaidi discussed HTMA’s potential impact and importance in addressing climate change effects, especially in Bangladesh. Salahuddin Ahmad, BARI’s Principal Scientific Officer, gave an overview of the 24 HTMA hybrids, plus four popular commercial hybrids and two BARI hybrids that were planted in the field. Participants then visited the field sites and evaluated the HTMA hybrids, scoring each one by preference. Of the 30 hybrids, the top 8 were from HTMA. Many participants, including Nurul Hoque, Additional General Manager of the Bangladesh Agricultural Development Corporation (BADC), Nasir Uddin Khan, DAE Additional Director, Jessore Region, and Jalal Uddin, BARI Director of Research, expressed the need to increase domestic maize production to minimize imports and maintain food security and self-sufficiency.
Sadananda explained the importance of public and private sector partnerships for successful development and deployment of the HTMA hybrids. T.P. Tiwari also stressed the need for maize diversification to achieve sustainable production and the need to develop salt tolerant varieties. B.R. Banik, BARI Training and Coordination Director, said the newly developed HTMA hybrids will help Bangladesh deal with climate change effects currently and in the future.
Rafiqul Islam Mondal, BARI Director General, highlighted HTMA’s progress and the need to explore the potential for cultivating maize in unutilized areas to boost production.
“It is truly exciting to see the enthusiasm of stakeholders,” said Mohammad Amiruzzaman, Chief Scientific Officer of BARI’s Plant Breeding Division, in his concluding remarks. “We will work on finalizing the best-bet products, officially register and then deploy them in collaboration with our seed company partners.”
Other participants included representatives from Lal Teer Seed Ltd., Supreme Seed Company Ltd., ACI Ltd., Krishi-bid Group, Monsanto Bangladesh Ltd., Syngenta, Petrochem Ltd., the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC), Christian Commission for Development in Bangladesh (CCDB), Katalyst, BADC and the Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE). CIMMYT representatives included T. P. Tiwari, CIMMYT-Bangladesh Country Liaison Officer, P.H. Zaidi, Senior Maize Physiologist and HTMA Project Leader, and A.R. Sadananda, Seed System Specialist.
CIMMYT has been awarded an Excellence Through Stewardship (ETS) certificate of achievement for successfully completing the ETS audit requirements for its operations in Mexico and Kenya. ETS is a global, not-for-profit industry-coordinated organization dedicated to “promote the responsible management of agricultural technology, through encouraging product stewardship and quality management systems practices and by educating the public.” The ETS audit was an independent third-party review of CIMMYT’s quality management system and standard operating procedures (SOP) for transgenic research. “The successful ETS certification is an important milestone in implementing and modeling – teaching and demonstrating – responsible stewardship of transgenic research,” according to Kevin Pixley, Director of CIMMYT’s Genetic Resources Program. CIMMYT is the first CGIAR center to achieve ETS certification.
CIMMYT has had a clear policy guiding its work in transgenic crops since the mid 2000s. Principles include respecting sovereignty and safety and assisting partners to responsibly avail the technologies, if their countries have the legal framework and regulatory capacity and if they request CIMMYT collaboration or assistance. Transgenic research is a small part of CIMMYT’s breeding portfolio and no CIMMYT-derived wheat or maize variety currently sown by farmers is transgenic. CIMMYT’s involvement in transgenic research can help ensure that transgenic crops remain an accessible option for resource-poor farmers.
To demostrate the advances of the project “Increasing the profitability of maize-coffee systems” conducted by CIMMYT in Colombia over the past 10 years in collaboration with the National Federation of Colombian Coffee Producers (FEDERECAFE, Spanish acronym), two field days were held at the Paraguaycito–Quindío (29 April) and La Catalina–Risaralda (7 May) Experiment Stations belonging to CENICAFE, FEDERECAFE’s research unit. At these events, attended by 158 representatives of the Local Coffee Growers’ Committees and the National Federation of Cereal Growers (FENALCE, Spanish acronym), the latest advances in the areas of climate change, agronomy and genetic improvement were presented.
Agronomy
In the field of agronomy, there were demonstrations on how to use a manual maize planter and the GreenSeeker sensor. These inventions are available to farmers today thanks to the work and perseverance of Bill Raun and his colleagues at Oklahoma State University, USA.
In the 1980s, when Bill was working for CIMMYT’s Agronomy Program for Central America, he realized the risks farmers faced when growing maize. The seed was treated with insecticides and fungicides to protect it and promote germination and crop establishment. Farmers would take the seed in their bare hands and put it into the soil, in holes made with the help of a stick; they did not use gloves or any kind of protection.
More than 20 years later, farmers finally have a manual planter. The most important parts of the planter are a plastic tube where the seed is placed, a cylinder that regulates seed drop and a device at the end of the planter that passes the seed from the plastic tube into the soil. During the sowing demonstrations, the attendees observed the excellent germination of a plot sown with the planter the previous week. The planter can also be used for fertilization and is ideal for planting maize on the very steep slopes where coffee is grown and where mechanization is not possible. Most of the region’s coffee growers are small-scale farmers whose land holdings average 1.54 hectares.
Argemiro Moreno, former CENICAFE scientist, spoke on efficient nitrogen use for maize crops in Colombia’s coffee growing region. He also explained the basics of GreenSeeker use to calculate the precise amount of nitrogen that plants need for maximum growth and production and to avoid polluting the atmosphere or the ground water through excess fertilizer use. There was also a demonstration of how to use the GreenSeeker in the field and for converting the readings into fertilizer dosage recommendations (by cell phone at www.nue.okstate.edu).
Genetic improvement––biofortified maize
As Luis Narro, CIMMYT-Colombia, explained during both field days, biofortification uses conventional breeding to develop varieties with higher content of micronutrients such as iron, zinc and provitamin A. Normal maize grain contains, on average, 20 ppm Zn and 2 ppm pro-vitamin A, whereas biofortified maize being developed at CIMMYT with support by HarvestPlus contains 32 ppm Zn (white maize) and 8-10 ppm provitamin A (orange maize).
As a HarvestPlus activity, 81 white experimental hybrids with high zinc content and 81 orange hybrids with high provitamin A content are being evaluated in Colombia’s coffee growing region. Preliminary results at La Catalina Experiment Station indicate that the best hybrid with high Zn content (8.9 t/ha) yielded 10% more than the normal (check) hybrid and showed less ear rot and less tar spot damage. The yield of the best hybrid with high provitamin A content was 5.4 t/ha, similar to that of the normal check.
At the same time, the HarvestPlus team at CIAT, in collaboration with small food product manufacturers in Colombia’s Cauca Valley, are conducting pilot studies aimed at developing food products from biofortified maize, as well as sensory studies and studies on micronutrient retention and on shelf life. Consequently, it’s very possible that cropping and consumption of biofortified maize will be promoted in Colombia’s coffee region as an alternative for improving food security.
* This is the second part of a two-part report; the first was published in the previous issue of the CIMMYT Informa.
Agricultural research for development must reconcile approaches that place resource-poor farmers at the center, said CIMMYT’s new Director General addressing staff at CIMMYT headquarters near Mexico City on his first day in the new job.
“Our mission at CIMMYT is to use science and innovation to improve livelihoods, particularly in the developing world. Research projects must be centered on the impact in farmers’ fields,” said Kropff, who joined CIMMYT this week from Wageningen University and Research Center in the Netherlands, where he was Rector Magnificus and Vice Chairman of the Executive Board.
The world of agricultural research for development is changing; yields need to increase but increases alone are insufficient, added Kropff. A joint approach based on innovations in breeding, solid agronomy based on precision farming, systems research and innovations in the value chain are all essential to have the greatest impact in farmers’ fields, Kropff continued.
“CIMMYT’s scientific expertise is unparalleled in the public sector, with expertise in breeding, sustainable intensification, genomics, statistics and the social sciences,” Kropff said.
“CIMMYT is the flagship institute within the CGIAR and must be at the forefront of new reforms,” he said. One of his top priorities will be to align CIMMYT with the new CGIAR Strategic Results Framework and the CGIAR Research Programs (CRP reforms). The CGIAR is a 15-member consortium of international agricultural researchers of which CIMMYT is a member and leads the CRPs on MAIZE and WHEAT. Prior to joining CIMMYT, Kropff was member of the Consortium Board.
Standing with his wife, Nynke Nammensma, Kropff opened his address in Spanish to applause. “My job is to listen to you, and hear your vision for CIMMYT as we start a new phase of our journey together,” he said. “It’s important to have a direct connection with all staff and a visible presence”.
During a pilot program with members of the Kisan Sakhi Group in Muzzafarpur, Bihar nearly 350 women farmers were trained on operating the Diesel Engine Powered Open Drum Thresher. In this picture, Suryakanta Khandai (center), postharvest specialist, IRRI, is conducting a demonstration for two of the women’s self-help groups (SHGs) that have expressed interest in purchasing four machines next season.
In India, farmers with large landholdings from prosperous agricultural states like Punjab can buy expensive and sophisticated machines for farm operations. However, resource-poor farmers with smaller landholdings from states such as Bihar may not have funds to buy these machines. “A huge bottleneck exists in terms of time wasted in harvesting and threshing that is preventing timely sowing of crops,” said Scott Justice, agriculture mechanization specialist, CIMMYT.
The Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA) is working to ensure that farmers all along the spectrum of landholdings have access to differently priced and scale-appropriate machinery based on their specific requirements. One of the ways CSISA does this is by improving existing designs of harvest and postharvest machinery to better meet local needs.
For shelling maize, farmers in Bihar could either purchase a very large, highly productive machine that costs approximately US$ 786 or use a handheld maize sheller that is cheap but can only shell 15 – 20 kg per hour. A medium-sized mechanized single cob maize sheller brought to Bihar from Nepal broke the cobs because the sheller had been optimized for Nepal’s hybrid varieties that had longer and thinner cobs. Farmers in Bihar need their cobs to remain intact so they can be used as fuel for their stoves. According to Justice, “These lightweight and affordable shellers are relatively new entrants on the scene. Their simple designs mean that they can be made easily by local manufacturers.” More importantly, they can also be modified as required.
CSISA worked with a local fabricator to modify the existing design and created an electric motor powered double cob maize sheller, which can shell 150 kg maize per hour and consumes only 2 – 4 units of electricity. Priced at US$ 126, the machine is also fairly affordable. “In fact, half the cost of the machine is that of the electric motor alone. For farmers who already own one, the machine would merely cost US$ 63,” said Suryakanta Khandai, postharvest specialist, IRRI, who works for CSISA in Bihar.
Similarly, until recently, farmers in Bihar only had two options for mechanized rice threshing – the very large axial flow thresher that can cost up to US$ 2,700 after subsidy or the compact pedal-powered open drum thresher that has very low capacity and is difficult to operate for extended periods of time.
“Farmers clearly needed a medium-sized, affordable, efficient and portable mechanical rice thresher,” said Khandai. But to build a truly relevant product understanding the shortcomings of the existing options was critical. “The existing models also lacked winnowing or bagging functions, which were included in the new design. Besides giving it wheels, we also decided to use a diesel engine to power the machine to allow for threshing in the field immediately upon cutting, which would help reduce losses.” The result was the diesel engine powered open drum thresher.
It costs US$ 23.96 to hire one person to manually thresh 1 acre of rice in 7 days. Using the diesel engine powered open drum thresher, however, the same area can now be covered in just over four hours at a total cost of US$ 10.54.
Since modifying these medium-sized machines does not offer sufficient profit margin for larger manufacturers and retailers, CSISA approached local fabricators to fill this gap. The maize sheller was customized in cooperation with Dashmesh Engineering, which sells the machine at a profit of US$ 11–13. “Profits help ensure that the fabricators put in efforts on their own to scale out the machines. Other dealers have also expressed interest in the maize sheller, which is great because having multiple fabricators involved ensures that the pricing remains competitive,” said Khandai.
Justice added, “Equipment like powered open drum threshers for rice are very simple but they have not spread very widely. I feel these should now also be promoted with owners of two-wheel tractors and mini tillers in India and Nepal.” Since the thresher can easily be adapted again to be powered by those engines, the cost of the machine can be brought down even further.
“We are all gravely concerned about the rapid spread of maize lethal necrosis [MLN], not just due to the wide prevalence of insect vectors that can transmit the MLN-causing viruses, but also due to production, distribution and cultivation of commercial seed contaminated with MLN pathogens,” said Stephen Mugo, CIMMYT’s Regional Representative for Africa, at the opening of the recently concluded three-day International Conference on MLN Diagnostics and Management in Africa. This captures a core message the conference – seed transmission is a primary means of MLN’s spread in East Africa.
Jointly organized by the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), CIMMYT and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in collaboration with the Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization (KALRO), the conference brought together scientists, regulators and policymakers from 17 African countries, USA and Mexico, to discuss how to effectively control seed transmission of MLN pathogens, especially to non-endemic countries.
MLN presents a new and unprecedented challenge to East Africa’s robust seed industry since it can be transmitted through infected seed. Needless to say, seed companies are crucial in limiting seed contamination and thus in stemming further spread of the disease. For this reason, major seed companies participated in the conference to help map feasible joint action to control transmission through seed. Companies in MLN-endemic areas of East Africa are already feeling the heat from the disease leading to massive production losses, increased production costs and reduced sales. “We have had to shut down almost all our maize-production sites in the endemic areas across eastern Africa because of major losses attributed to MLN,” said Kassim Owino from Seed Co, Kenya.
Officials at the opening of the MLN international conference in Nairobi. Left to right: George Bigirwa (standing, AGRA), Stephen Mugo (CIMMYT), Joe DeVries (AGRA), Felister Makini (KALRO) and Gary Atlin (Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation).
Seed poses a problem, but also presents a solution
“The seed sector can ensure that when a series of MLN-resistant varieties are developed, farmers benefit from the seed. But we must recognize the fact that in the case of MLN, the seed sector can also be a factor in its spread. So we need to work together to identify means of preventing spread,” remarked Dr. Joe DeVries, Director of AGRA’s Program for Africa’s Seed Systems.
Collective efforts will be required not only to control the spread of MLN but also to effectively manage the disease where already present, including developing and deploying new MLN-resistant varieties as a lasting solution. Ongoing research to develop MLN-resistant varieties is at the core of CIMMYT’s work in Africa and is being undertaken in close partnership with the private and public sectors including seed companies. The Africa RISING Project and the CGIAR Research Program on MAIZE have also supported these efforts. However, there are no quick solutions, and developing and disseminating MLN-resistant maize varieties will take several years.
In the meantime, seed companies and seed producers need to ensure that seed is MLN-free. To do this, they require support to train their personnel to recognize early infection in addition to adopting best practice on surveillance, diagnostics and management of MLN. CIMMYT’s MLN diagnosis and protocols and MLN-free seed production are examples of best practice. In parallel, regional phytosanitary bodies need to regulate and monitor production and movement of seed, especially into areas currently unaffected.
What next and what needs to be done?
The CIMMYT–KALRO MLN screening facility at Naivasha, Kenya, will continue to have a critical role in the ongoing research. This facility screens germplasm from transnational and national seed companies, and from national research programs. Conference participants visited the facility and witnessed MLN leaf sampling and ELISA diagnostics systems, as well as experimental maize hybrids demonstrating promising MLN tolerance. Seed companies were invited to send their germplasm for screening for the current cropping season.
Viewing experimental maize hybrids at the MLN screening facility with explanations from CIMMYT staff.
Other than a recent CIMMYT study on Kenya, there is little information on MLN incidence, distribution, severity and impact. More studies like this would help to quantify the magnitude of the disease.
The conference made important recommendations on joint action and regional protocols, summed up by Gary Atlin from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation:, “Efforts to manage seed production within an environment that seems conducive to the spread of MLN are very important. There are strategies and tools available that can help manage the disease. We hope to get a clear picture of these strategies and how they can be applied in the region’s seed systems, to safeguard the maize-seed supply for African farmers and ensure delivery of germplasm continues in the positive direction it has been moving.”
Some of the presentations from the conference are on SlideShare.
The conference was widely reported in national and regional newspapers and television, as indicated by the links below.
Links