Julio Calderón and Tom Lumpkin stop for a photo as they tour the CIMMYT campus. Photos: Xochiquetzal FonsecaThe CIMMYT delegation provides a presentation for Calderón. From left to right: Felix San Vicente, Víctor López, Lumpkin, Calderón, Arturo Hinojosa and Isabel Peña.
In Texcoco, Mexico, on 03 December, Thomas A. Lumpkin, CIMMYT director general, signed a memorandum of understanding with Julio Calderón, Executive Secretary of the Central American Agriculture and Livestock Council (CAC), for shared work to strengthen the seed sector and to promote seed of improved crop varieties and relevant mechanization for small- and intermediate-scale farmers in the region.
Created in 1991, CAC is part of the Central American Integration System (SICA) established by Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama and helps to link agricultural with other key sectors and agencies, in benefit of farmers and rural inhabitants.
From left to right: Bram Govaerts, Calderón, Lumpkin and San Vicente pause for a photo.Calderón and Lumpkin sign the memorandum of understanding.
Masahiro Kishii of CIMMYT’s Global Wheat Program gives students a tour of the Wellhousen-Anderson Genetic Resources Center. Photos: Xochiquetzal Fonseca
A group of 16 undergraduate students and three professors from the University of Tottori, Japan, visited CIMMYT on 26 November. The visit was the last stop of a three-month study visit to Mexico, which also included visits to the Universidad Autonoma de Baja California Sur (UABCS) and the Centro de Investigaciones Biológicas del Noroeste S.C. (CIBNOR).
Jelle Van Loon, leader of smart mechanization for CIMMYT’s conservation agriculture program in Mexico, teaches students about machinery development.
The students began their visit with an overview of CIMMYT from Isabel Peña, Head of Institutional Relations-Latin America, followed by a meeting with Dr. Masahiro Kishii, a Japanese scientist formerly of Tottori University who now works in wheat cytogenetics in CIMMYT’s Global Wheat Program. The group was then given a tour of the Wellhousen-Anderson Genetic Resources Center and the labs of the Biosciences Complex.
The day concluded with a visit to the Global Conservation Agriculture Program’s D5 demonstration plot, where the students learned about developments in machinery and post-harvest technology.
Isabel Peña, Head of Institutional Relations-Latin America, welcomes students to CIMMYT.
A recent review paper released by Britain’s University of Warwick (Lillywhite and Sarrouy 2014) addresses two fundamental questions regarding wheat: “Are whole grain products good for health?”; and “What is behind the rise in popularity of gluten and wheat-free diets?”
The paper was commissioned by cereal-maker Weetabix to address reports in the news media that wheat products are the cause of health problems, resulting in an increasing number of consumers switching to low-carbohydrate grain- and wheat- free diets. For many health professionals this is a worrying trend because wheat not only supplies 20 percent of the world’s food calories and protein, but has important benefits beyond nutrition, the authors state.
The Warwick paper provides a scientific assessment of the benefits of whole grain consumption, information that the authors note seems to have been lost in media headlines and the reporting of “pseudo-science.”
The paper concludes that whole grain products are good for human health, apart from the 1 percent of the population who suffer from celiac disease and another 1 percent who suffer from sensitivity to wheat (Lillywhite and Sarrouy 2014). Eating wholegrain wheat products is positive, improves health and can help maintain a healthy body weight, the authors report.
Scientific evidence regarding wheat- and carbohydrate-free diets is thin and selectively used, they state, and a low cereal and carbohydrate diet “may cost more but deliver less.”
Additionally, an economically viable industry has developed around so-called “free-from” diets and may be persuading consumers to switch from staple foods to specialist foods created especially for those who need to avoid gluten, a protein found in wheat and other grains, they add.
This Wheat Discussion Paper serves as a foundation upon which the authors hope further discussion will develop. It aims to highlight unsubstantiated nutritional claims about wheat and shine a spotlight on the important role of wheat and fiber in human diets. It also seeks to encourage conversation about how non-scientific claims about wheat could affect poor consumers and global food security.
Farmers in the farthest reaches of Pakistan need access to white- grained maize, according to Dr. Iftikhar Ahmad, chairman of the Pakistan Agricultural Research Council (PARC). “There is a good progress in the productivity of yellow maize varieties in the areas of Punjab and KPK provinces,” Ahmad said, “but we need white maize varieties to reach farmers in the marginal areas of KPK, Sindh, Balochistan and Gilgit Baltistan provinces.”
From left to right: Shahid Masood, Md. Imtiaz, Iftikhar Ahmad and AbduRahman Beshir.
Speaking at the first National Maize Workshop-Annual Progress Review of Pakistan, held in Islamabad during 19-20 November, Ahmad also mentioned the importance of public-private partnerships to reduce the cost to farmers of hybrid seed, which is more expensive in Pakistan than elsewhere in South Asia.
There is good progress in the productivity of yellow maize varieties in the areas of Punjab and KPK provinces, but we need white maize varieties to reach farmers in the marginal areas of KPK, Sindh, Balochistan and Gilgit Baltistan provinces.” –Dr. Iftikhar Ahmad Chairman of the Pakistan Agricultural Research Council (PARC).
Dr. Beshir explains the traits of yellow maize at NARC, Islamabad.
Jointly organized by PARC and CIMMYT, the workshop was an activity of the Agricultural Innovation Program (AIP) for Pakistan and its 50 participants represented public and private maize research and development institutions, local and multinational seed companies, higher learning institutions, and departments of extension and food processors from all provinces of Pakistan.
Dr. Md. Imtiaz, project leader of AIP, highlighted the role of CIMMYT in enhancing local capacity and requested the full collaboration of national institutions.
During the concluding session, Dr. Shahid Masood, Member of Plant Science and AIP focal person at PARC, mentioned the importance of deploying biofortified and specialty maize, providing farmers with agronomy training, diversifying maize uses and developing and deploying dual purpose maize for food and feed.
Dr. Iftikhar Ahmad, PARC Chairman, addresses participants.
The workshop was followed by a field visit to the National Agricultural Research Center (NARC), where participants saw the performance of AIP-maize varieties and lines from CIMMYT breeding programs in Colombia, Mexico and Zimbabwe.
AbduRahman Beshir, CIMMYT maize improvement and seed systems specialists, said the event helped to define shared objectives for AIP-maize partners and a common goal to work towards and helped CIMMYT to reactivate maize research and development activities in Pakistan. Finally, partners discussed “seed road maps” that describe and illustrate varietal release pathways and seed production targets.
The Nutritious Maize for Ethiopia (NuME) project recently organized a three-day training workshop on quality protein maize (QPM) seed production and quality control, as part of the project’s activities to enhance QPM seed production. There were 26 participants, including 2 women, from seed companies, farmer cooperative unions, the Ministry of Agriculture, seed laboratories, research institutes and universities. The workshop was facilitated by CIMMYT experts working in eastern Africa.
Opening the event, Dr. Dagnachew Beyene, advisor to the State Minister of Agriculture, said the workshop was very timely. “The expansion of the Ethiopian seed system is constrained by a shortage of skilled professionals,” he said.
Heat-tolerant Maize for Asia Showcased at India-US Technology Summit
Developed over two decades of meticulous breeding from the late 1970s to the early 1990s, QPM contains enhanced levels of amino acids used for protein synthesis in humans and farm animals such as pigs and poultry. Nutritional studies have shown that it can improve the nutrition of people whose diets are highly- dependent on maize, especially young children. Major topics covered included maize variety development, maize seed research and field management for QPM seed production, maintenance of QPM inbred parent lines and open-pollinated varieties, as well post-harvest handling techniques for QPM.
The training also dealt at length with creating communication links between seed companies, customers and farmers and planning and developing seed production, marketing and financial strategies to promote of QPM seeds.
Addressing the participants at the conclusion of the training, the Crops Research Director of the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR), Dr. Asnake Fikre, stated that efforts need to be made to sustain QPM production in Ethiopia, because maize is the most produced cereal and a critical crop for food security in the country.
Asnake also noted that “in the transition to food security in the country, nutritional security is a critical concern and the crop sector in Ethiopia should work hard to sustain the QPM value chain by advocating its nutritional and agronomic benefits and creating demand for the production and use of QPM.” The added that NuME’s important work on QPM needs to be effectively backed up by multi-sectorial engagement and cooperation.
In their feedback, participants said the workshop had been timely, well-organized and valuable. They suggested that future such events include practical sessions and interaction with farmers. Typical remarks included statements that “strengthening of QPM and advocacy issues need to be consistent in promoting QPM until it reaches cutting-edge stage.”
NuME is implemented by CIMMYT in Ethiopia and funded by the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development of Canada (DFATD). It is designed to help improve the food and nutritional security of Ethiopia’s rural population, especially women and children, through the adoption of QPM varieties and crop management practices that increase farm productivity.
CIMMYT entered an important new partnership with Pakistan’s National Rural Support Program (NRSP) on 7 November 2014 for wheat varietal evaluation, promotion and deployment, as well as on-farm agronomic interventions and community-based seed production enterprises.
A not-for-profit development organization established in 1991 that fosters a countrywide network of more than 200,000 grassroots organizations across 56 districts, NRSP enables rural communities to plan, implement and manage development programs for employment, poverty alleviation and improved quality of life. Through direct linkages with some 400,000 smallholder farming families, the organization will help extend the reach of the CIMMYT- led Agricultural Innovation Program for Pakistan (AIP), according to Dr. Rashid Bajwa, chief executive officer of NRSP. “We can now jointly scale out to a vast number of smallholders with average daily earnings of less than two dollars a day,” Bajwa said, mentioning the organization’s activities like microfinance enterprise development.
The work of Pakistan’s National Rural Support Program benefits millions of small-scale farmers and landless families. Photo: Mike Listman/CIMMYT.
Aiming to benefit the disadvantaged
The partnership paves the way for a new and different kind of innovation platform focusing on smallholders, tenants and the landless, female-headed households and vulnerable groups such as flood victims, said Muhammad Imtiaz, CIMMYT liaison officer for Pakistan and AIP Chief of Party: “This will contribute directly to the Center’s mission of improving the food security and resilience of those most at risk, not to mention opening avenues for other AIP partners to join hands in testing and promoting appropriate agricultural innovations.”
Taking advantage of NRSP’s gender-responsive approach, the partnership will work directly with and seek to empower women farmers, identifying wheat varieties and technologies that help increase their food security and incomes. Work will identify, test and deploy high-yielding and rust resistant wheat varieties across 23 districts and include improved farming practices for diverse settings from rain-fed to fully-irrigated.
A major focus will be to develop community-based seed enterprises linked with NRSP, small seed companies, farmer associations and seed regulatory bodies, serving remote villages that have heretofore lacked access to improved varieties.
“This will contribute directly to the Center’s mission of improving the food security and resilience of those most at risk” –Muhammad Imtiaz CIMMYT liaison officer for Pakistan and AIP Chief of Party
A group photo was taken at the NRSP inception meeting and staff training. Photo: Raja Zulfiqar Ali.
Getting Off on the Right Foot
A partnership inception meeting and staff training for NRSP were organized on 10 November in Islamabad, with 32 participants from NRSP and 11 from CIMMYT, including senior management from both the organizations, and with Malik Fateh Khan, NRSP Regional Manager, providing a welcome address.
Imtiaz Hussain, CIMMYT cropping systems agronomist, highlighted conservation agriculture technologies and their relevance for the partnership. Krishna Dev Joshi, CIMMYT wheat improvement specialist, discussed various types of varietal testing, including participatory varietal selection, mother-baby trials and on-farm demonstrations, to creating awareness and demand for improved seed among farmers. Three CIMMYT colleagues who also spoke at the event were: Shamim Akhter, AIP project manager; Amina Nasim Khan, communications specialist; and Ghazi Kamal, monitoring and evaluation specialist.
The CIMMYT community celebrates the illustrious life and mourns the passing on 11 December of Wilfred M. Mwangi, distinguished Kenyan scholar, statesman and researcher who dedicated his career to improving the food security and livelihoods of farmers in sub-Saharan Africa. In 27 years at CIMMYT, Mwangi made significant contributions both as a principal scientist and distinguished economist with authorship on nearly 200 publications, as well as country and regional liaison officer, associate director of the global maize program, leader of the Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa (DTMA) project and CIMMYT regional representative for Africa.
“He served CIMMYT with distinction for decades and was enormously important in promoting smallholder maize research in Africa,” said Derek Byerlee, retired World Bank policy researcher who led CIMMYT’s socioeconomics team in the late 1980s-early 90s and recruited Mwangi. “Even more, he was a great human being who was highly-respected throughout the region. Africa and the world are poorer for his loss.”
“My Mother Still Tells Me How to Farm”
Born in 1947, Mwangi grew up in Nakuru County, Kenya. He completed a B.A. in Economics and Rural Economy at Makerere University, Uganda, in 1972 and M.A. and Ph.D. studies in Agricultural and Development Economics at Michigan State University (MSU) in 1975 and 1978. Returning to Kenya, Mwangi eventually became a Professor and Chair of the Department of Agricultural Economics at the University of Nairobi. He joined CIMMYT in 1987.
His career included stints as Deputy Permanent Secretary and Director of Agriculture and Livestock Production in Kenya’s Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries, and as a World Bank economist. As Deputy Permanent Secretary, he served as part of a “dream team” of eminent figures convened in 1999 by Richard Leakey, then head of the Kenya Wildlife Service, at the behest of President Daniel arap Moi, to help reform government administration and procedures.
Mwangi’s research at CIMMYT analyzed Africa’s seed sector and farm input markets and measured and explained the adoption of improved crop varieties and practices, particularly characterizing the concerns and decisions of rural households. He contributed on several occasions to CIMMYT’s popular “Facts and Trends” series on wheat and maize research and global markets. In 2006 he was named Honorary Life Member by the International Association of Agricultural Economists (IAAE).
With typical modesty and humor, Mwangi once observed that: “Despite all my academic expertise and impressive career, my mother still tells me how to farm.”
Messages Praise a Legacy of Leadership, Mentoring and Passion
Knowledgeable in politics and with prominent policy contacts, Mwangi provided untiring and invaluable support for CIMMYT’s Africa-based partnerships and work to develop and promote better maize and wheat crop varieties and farming systems, particularly to benefit of the region’s hundreds of millions of smallholder farmers. “We have such a noble mission,” he once said, describing his love for his work at CIMMYT. “This is a calling; you’re working for the poorest of the poor.”
Mwangi mentored hundreds of young, national program scientists from Africa and elsewhere. He was particularly effective arguing in policy circles for a focus on small-scale farmers and improved agriculture to foster development, according to Thomas A. Lumpkin, CIMMYT director general: “Wilf put on a formal air when engaging his numerous high-level contacts throughout Africa, but it was easy to see through to his practicality and passion for serving resource-poor farmers. He touched the hearts of many, and many share the grief that he is no longer among us.”
Messages praising Mwangi’s life work have poured in from Africa and around the globe. “Wilfred was a straight, no-nonsense person whose door was always open to share ideas and provide advice,” said Richard B. Jones, Chief of Party for the “Scaling Seeds and Technologies Partnership” of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA). “He was passionate about his work and was always generous in praise of others who supported his mission.”
Mwangi would often express his dedication and wisdom in pointed insights to kindle change and ambitious action, according to Lumpkin. “Someone once said that leaders should be able to motivate and mentor and above all, leave a legacy,” Lumpkin observed. “Wilfred fit that description, and it falls to us to honor and carry forward his legacy.”
The CIMMYT community sends its heartfelt sympathy and prayers to Mwangi’s spouse, Mary, and children Mwangi, Wainaina, Kibiru and Wangui.
Mwangi will be buried in Nairobi on Tuesday, 23 December 2014. Family and friends will meet daily at the PCEA St. Andrews Church, junction of Nyerere and State House Roads, Nairobi, Kenya, during 16-19 December.
Sub-Saharan African farmers typically apply less than 20 kilograms of fertilizer per hectare of cropland — far less than their peers in any other region of the world. In 2014, partners in the Improved Maize for African Soils (IMAS) project developed 41 Africa-adapted maize varieties that respond better to low amounts of nitrogen fertilizer and are up for release in nine African countries through 24 seed companies.
A farmer applies nitrogen fertilizer to her hybrid maize. Photo: CIMMYT/IMAS
After water, nitrogen is the single most important input for maize production; lack of it is the main constraint to cereal yields in Africa, in areas with enough rain to raise a crop. Year after year, infertile soils and high fertilizer prices (in rural areas as much as six times the global average) combine to reduce harvests of maize, sub-Saharan Africa’s number-one cereal crop and chief source of calories and protein for the poor. With funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and led by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), an initiative launched in 2010 has made dramatic progress to address this by exploiting natural genetic variation for nutrient-use efficiency in tropical maize. “Partners have been breeding maize varieties that respond better to the small amounts of nitrogen fertilizer African farmers can afford to apply,” said Biswanath Das, CIMMYT maize breeder and coordinator of the Improved Maize for African Soils (IMAS) project. “We’re aiming to raise maize yields by 50 percent and benefit up to 60 million maize farmers in eastern and southern Africa.”
Smallholder Farmer Conditions: A Maize “Reality Check”
A public-private partnership that, along with CIMMYT, involves national research organizations such as the Kenya Agricultural & Livestock Research Organization (KALRO) and South Africa’s Agricultural Research Council (ARC), African seed companies and DuPont Pioneer, IMAS has advanced quickly in part because participants share breeding lines and technical knowhow, according to Das.
“But a real key to success – and a significant legacy of the project – is that IMAS has established in eastern and southern Africa the world’s largest low-nitrogen screening network for maize,” Das explained. “There are 25 sites in 10 countries and a total of over 120,000 experimental plots. Partners can test breeding lines and quickly and reliably spot the ones with superior nitrogen-use efficiency under smallholder farmers’ conditions.” According to Das, nearly a quarter of the plots are managed by seed companies, which recognize the value of nitrogen-use efficiency as a key trait for their farmer clients.
In an exciting 2014 development, regulatory agencies in eastern Africa began evaluating maize national performance trials — which varieties must pass as a prerequisite for release — under nitrogen stress in the IMAS network. “This is a clear recognition by policymakers of poor soil fertility as a critical constraint for African maize farmers,” said Das. “To meet farmers’ needs, IMAS varieties are also bred for drought tolerance and resistance to the region’s major maize diseases.”
Also Yielding Under Well Fertilized Conditions
Partners are augmenting conventional breeding with DNA-marker-assisted selection and use of “doubled haploids,” a high-tech shortcut to genetically-uniform maize inbred lines. Experimental breeding stocks thus developed are field tested under low-nitrogen stress through “high-precision phenotyping,” involving careful measurement of key traits in live plants.
Low nitrogen trials in Kiboko, Kenya, where new maize varieties are tested. Photo: CIMMYT/IMAS.
“In this way, we’ve quickly developed maize varieties that yield up to 50 percent more than existing varieties under low-fertility stress, characteristic of smallholder farming systems,” Das explained. “Crucially for farmers, these varieties also perform well under well- fertilized conditions, whilst several carry resistance to maize lethal necrosis, a devastating viral disease spreading through eastern Africa.” In 2014, 41 such varieties were nominated for release in nine countries in Africa, in partnership with 24 seed companies.
This year IMAS also worked with seed companies to support the production and dissemination of 3,000 tons of seed of nitrogen-use efficient maize hybrids in Kenya, Mozambique, Tanzania and Zimbabwe, potentially benefitting more than 120,000 smallholder maize farmers and helping to enhance food security for over half a million household members, according to Das. “Close collaboration with the private seed sector has been instrumental to IMAS since its inception,” Das said. “These partners host over a quarter of the regional nitrogen stress screening network and have helped with the quick increase of seed of nitrogen-use efficient varieties and with managing farmer demonstrations and field days to support the fast release of new varieties.”
Frankfurt, Germany – December 9, 2014 – Wild ancestral relatives of wheat will play a key role in fortifying the world’s food supply as climate change warms the planet, according to a team of top scientists.
Heat and drought are already a major cause of wheat yield losses in both developing and developed countries, a situation that scientists predict will worsen due to warmer temperatures and erratic rainfall patterns caused by global climate change. Some of the potential risks were demonstrated in 2003, when farmers in France lost nearly a quarter of their crop due to an unusually hot growing season.
More than 100 plant scientists from 22 major wheat-growing countries in the global south and north, met last week to discuss an ambitious international plan to incorporate the most advanced genetic technologies into traditional plant breeding to improve heat and drought tolerance of wheat.
“Not only are the livelihoods of farmers at risk from climate change, but people living in some of the world’s most vulnerable areas could see entire food supplies wiped out with increasing frequency if we don’t act quickly to boost the resilience of wheat to heat waves and more extreme periods of drought,” said Matthew Reynolds, a distinguished scientist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), who co-organized the three-day Heat and Drought Wheat Improvement Consortium (HeDWIC) meeting.
“A new generation of plant screening and molecular technologies can speed up our capacity to transfer stress-tolerance traits into new wheat varieties. Wild relatives of wheat, which evolved in hot and dry places, will provide the crucial genes we need for crop improvement,” Reynolds added.
Findings in a report released earlier this year by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) state it is very likely that heat waves will occur more often and last longer throughout the 21st century and rainfall will be more unpredictable.
Mean surface temperatures could potentially rise by between 2 to 5 degrees Celsius or more, despite efforts to limit the global rise in temperature to 2 degrees Celsius, the report said.
Wheat – a major staple crop, which provides 20 percent of calories consumed worldwide and is an important source of protein especially for poor consumers– is expected to be subject to dramatic increases in temperature and more variable and extreme precipitation, particularly in tropical and semi-tropical regions.
“The risks to food security will be highest for people living in vulnerable parts of Africa and Asia, but will affect the disadvantaged and low-income communities in every country,” Reynolds said.
Adaptation can play a key role in reducing potential socio-economic shocks caused by climate change.
HeDWIC, launched in 2014 by the Global Agricultural Research Partnership (CGIAR) Research Program on Wheat, is a multi-disciplinary, 15- to 20-year global partnership serving as a vehicle for plant scientists to address these food security challenges. In its initial stages, it will be funded by the CGIAR Research Program on Wheat, and attract support from other public and private sector donors.
The meeting was organized by CIMMYT, CGIAR’s lead research center for wheat, part of a global coalition that includes CGIAR’s International Centre for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), and shares a mandate to deliver new wheat cultivars to resource-poor farmers. It was co-sponsored by Bayer CropScience, which has heavily invested in wheat breeding as part of its overall mission to provide agricultural technologies for professional farmers and growers.
Co-organizers of the event included the Julius Kuehn Institute (JKI), Germany’s Federal Research Centre for Cultivated Plants affiliated with the country’s Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture, and the international public-private Wheat Initiative coalition.
“The meeting was a good example of the private and public sectors working together to solve a common problem,” said Hans Braun, director of CIMMYT’s Global Wheat Program.
“We’ve laid the foundations for a successful research venture that will help farmers and many of the world’s most marginalized people living in some of the most difficult environmental conditions. From here, we’ll produce a comprehensive road map,” he said.
Representatives from international development and science funding agencies also attended the three-day meeting
Contacts:
Matthew Reynolds
Distinguished Scientist
International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT)
Email: m.reynolds@cgiar.org
Julie Mollins
Wheat Communications Officer
International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT)
Telephone: +52 (55) 5804 2004
Email: j.mollins@cgiar.org
Address:
International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT)
Km. 45 Carretera México Veracruz
El Batán, Texcoco
Estado de México, C.P. 56237
About the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) CIMMYT, headquartered in El Batan, Mexico, is the global leader in research for development in wheat and maize and wheat- and maize-based farming systems. CIMMYT works throughout the developing world with hundreds of partners to sustainably increase the productivity of maize and wheat systems to improve food security and livelihoods.
CIMMYT is a member of the CGIAR Consortium and leads the Consortium Research Programs on Wheat and Maize. CIMMYT receives support from national governments, foundations, development banks and other public and private agencies. CIMMYT wheat research: http://staging.cimmyt.org/en/what-we-do/wheat-research Additional links:
The 12th Asian Maize Conference and Expert Consultation on “Maize for Food, Feed, Nutrition and Environmental Security” convened in Bangkok, Thailand from 31 October to 1 November 2014.
Organized by the Asia-Pacific Association of Agricultural Research Institutions (APAARI), CIMMYT, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations and the Thai Department of Agriculture (DoA), the Conference brought together around 350 researchers, policy-makers, service providers, innovative farmers and representatives of various organizations from across the public and private sector.
All photos: APAARI
Maize scientist Dr. Saira Bano from Pakistan is presented an award for best poster by Dr. Hiroyuki Konuma, Assistant Director General of FAO RAP
Dr. B.M. Prasanna, Director of the CIMMYT Global Maize Progam, receives a plaque of appreciation from FAO and APAARI for his contributions to the successful organization of the conference and for strengthening regional maize research and development partnerships.
Dr. Tom Lupkin, CIMMYT Director General, with participants Dr. H.S. Gupta, director general of the Borlaug Institute for South Asia (BISA) and Dr. H.S. Sidhu, Senior Research Engineer, CIMMYT India.
Participants and poster presenters from India, S.V. Manjunatha, M.G. Mallikarjuna and S. Hooda Karambir.
Dr. Mulugetta Mekuria, SIMLESA Project Leader, presents on sustainable intensification of maize-based systems.
Dr. Mark Holderness, the Executive Secretary of the Global Forum on Agricultural Research (GFAR), asks a question.
Wheat breeders involved in the monumental global challenge of ensuring food security for 9.5 billion people by 2050 face enormous hurdles.
Overall, we need to double the amount of food produced to meet demand as population grows steadily from just over 7 billion today, according to the World Bank.
Recent statistics from the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization indicate that at least 805 million people are estimated to be chronically undernourished.
Wheat, a major staple crop, currently provides 20 percent of the overall daily protein and calories consumed throughout the world. Production must grow 70 percent over the next 35 years, according to the international Wheat Initiative – an achievable goal if annual wheat yields are increased from a current level of below 1 percent to at least 1.7 percent.
Governments and the private sector must more fully support research efforts into developing new wheat varieties or face the risk of further global insecurity related to price instability, hunger riots and related conflict.
Modern-day model
The prevailing vision of the “Father of the Green Revolution” Norman Borlaug, my great friend and mentor who died in 2009 at age 95, provides a sound scientific and humanitarian basis upon which we must build.
Borlaug, with whom I worked at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 because, more than any other single person of his era, he helped to provide bread for a hungry world.
The wheat varieties he developed are credited with saving 1 billion lives with the disease-resistant, high-yield semi-dwarf wheat varieties he developed. Previously, Borlaug had introduced similar innovations throughout Mexico – where CIMMYT is headquartered – leading to the country’s self-sufficiency in wheat.
When he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize, he claimed it on behalf of the “army of hunger fighters” with whom he had worked.
“I’m acutely conscious of the fact that I am but one member of that vast army,” he said in his Nobel acceptance speech. “I want to share not only the present honor but also the future obligations with all my companions in arms, for the Green Revolution has not yet been won.”
Two years after he won the Nobel Peace Prize, Borlaug stepped aside and appointed me head of the CIMMYT wheat breeding program where I spent most of my career fighting alongside other Green Revolutionaries developing resilient wheat varieties, except for the eight years I spent at the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA).
Those wheat varieties are now grown on 58 million hectares (143 million acres) worldwide, contributing to the average 700 million metric tons (770 million tons) of wheat produced annually. We estimate these varieties provide wheat to more than 1 billion people a year.
At ICARDA, first as director of the Integrated Gene Management Program, then as special scientific advisor, I also oversaw the promotion of new technologies to help farmers in the Central and West Asia and North Africa (CWANA) region.
We developed wheat improvement strategies to tackle some of the challenges facing wheat in dry areas, including stripe rust disease, which can put wheat crops around the world at risk.
Ensuring results
The challenges we face today are vastly more complex than they were during Borlaug’s time, but they are not insurmountable.
Global objectives for food security can most definitely be met. However, we must be able to rely on guaranteed research funding from both the public and private sectors to address the many challenges we face, including decreasing land availability and erratic environmental changes related to climate change.
Researchers are developing wheat varieties tolerant to the drought, heat, extreme wet and cold conditions that impact wheat now and that are anticipated by scientists to grow more extreme as global average temperatures continue to warm and weather patterns become more volatile.
These efforts must be accelerated. Funding must cover training so that we can carry on the Borlaug legacy – if we do not have that capacity we will not be able to keep up with the demand for wheat and famine will be the result.
Combining biotechnology with conventional breeding methodologies can help both smallholder farmers and large corporate farm operations to avert potential disaster, but we need financial backing to conduct trials.
Moreover, we must address such wide-ranging concerns affecting wheat as soil health, disease resilience, seed diversity, water management, micronutrient imbalance and the impact of carbon emissions.
The world must wake up to the costs of these challenges and the price of not meeting them.
Sanjaya Rajaram is the 2014 World Food Prize Laureate for scientific research that led to an increase in world wheat production by more than 180 million metric tons (200 million tons). He worked at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) for 33 years.
This article originally appeared on the Thomson Reuters Foundation website as part of the 2014 Borlaug Dialogue co-hosted by the World Food Prize Foundation and CGIAR Fund. The op-ed series titled The Greatest Challenge in Human History: Sustainably Feeding 9 Billion People By 2050 highlighted how agricultural research and development are not only tied to food security and nutrition, but that they are also central to achieving many of the forthcoming U.N Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Wheat at sunset at CIMMYT headquarters near Mexico City. CIMMYT/Julie Mollins
EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) — Got a question about wheat? Whether you are a scientist, a researcher or simply interested in learning more about the vital staple crop that provides 20 percent of the world’s calories, the Wheat Atlas can help.
The online resource developed by the Global Wheat Program (GWP) at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) provides statistics on wheat production and trade, wheat varieties, production challenges and international wheat nurseries, which evaluate the suitability of wheat to diverse environments.
“Although the primary users are wheat scientists, we know from anecdotal evidence that donors and policymakers are also using it,” said Petr Kosina, who led the development and recent revamp of the interactive website.
The Wheat Atlas was the brainchild of Hans Braun, GWP director, he explained, adding that the project evolved into a collaboration involving Kosina, web master Paul Moncada, senior scientist David Hodson and Tom Payne, head of the Wheat Germplasm Bank, which stores seeds. CIMMYT’s Geographic Information Services team created maps.
Improvements include a redesign of site structure and navigation based on user trends observed in data provided by Google Analytics and a 2013 survey. The website now features daily wheat news on the homepage.
“The work is ongoing,” Kosina said. “We’re in continuous ‘beta mode’, improving the functionality of the site and user experience. For example, we’re developing an online submission form for users to input data on newly released wheat varieties and a wheat scientists’ ‘hall of fame’. Before the end of the year we’ll also improve data visualizations.”
The website provides up-to-date information on new wheat varieties being released worldwide, as well as data from the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the World Bank and the U.N. Development Programme.
Since the official launch of the Wheat Atlas in 2009, web traffic has increased to an average of 2,200 unique visitors a month, said Kosina, who works closely with webmaster Moncada.
“We’re very happy with recent access statistics, which have improved since the Search Engine Optimization we did earlier this year, but we need secure funding for bigger plans and development,” he said. “We need a new source of funding.”
The Wheat Atlas was supported until 2013 by the Durable Rust Resistance in Wheat project, which aims to reduce the devastating impact of stem rust disease on wheat, led by Cornell University.
The CIMMYT library has a large historic database of scientific publications with descriptions of new wheat varieties compiled over a 15-year time span, Kosina said.
“My dream is to consolidate this database with the Wheat Atlas and GRIS, the world’s largest database of wheat germplasm, with more than 160,000 accessions, and make it available online in the Wheat Atlas – this would be absolutely unique and smashing,” he added.
Every two years, the site managers gather information to provide a snapshot of the most important wheat varieties grown by farmers in developing countries, including acreage estimates. Mina Lantican in CIMMYT’s socio-economics program is conducting the 2014 review as part of an impact assessment study.
Farmer and social entrepreneur Amaha Abraham in a wheat field in Bishoftu, Ethiopia. CIMMYT/Julie Mollins
BISHOFTU, Ethiopia (CMMYT) — Farmer and social entrepreneur Amaha Abraham sets his sights high.
The 45-year-old aims to become as wealthy as Saudi Arabian-Ethiopian Mohammed Al Amoudi, who in March 2014 was estimated by Forbes magazine to have a net worth of $15.3 billion.
In an effort to achieve that goal Abraham is backing big reforms in Ethiopia’s agriculture sector.
He is at the forefront of a new grassroots seed marketing and distribution program supported by the Ethiopian Agricultural Transformation Agency (ATA) and the Ministry of Agriculture to improve the country’s wheat crop through the marketing of improved seed by multiple producers and agents.
Under the program, government-subsidized farmer-run cooperatives produce high-yielding, disease-resistant wheat seed, accelerating distribution and helping smallholder farmers grow healthy crops to bolster national food security.
About 50 farmers belong to each cooperative, planting about 100 hectares (250 acres) of government-certified seed, which produce improved wheat varieties they then multiply and sell to smallholder farmers. Seed sales garner a 15 to 20 percent price premium over wheat-grain sales, providing a significant financial incentive.
“I’ve reached so many farmers, so that their land will be covered by proper improved seeds,” Abraham said.
“When I take the seeds to them I give training and advice, which attracts more farmers to get involved. The government visits and organizes training on my land – they recognize my efforts and they’re pushing other farmers to do the same thing.”
STREAMLINED SYSTEMS
The Direct Seed Marketing (DSM) program is part of Ethiopia’s “Wheat Productivity Increase Initiative,” which aims to end the country’s reliance on wheat imports – equal to 1.1 million metric tons (1.2 million tons) or about 24 percent of domestic demand, which is 4.6 million metric tons in 2014, according to the Wheat Atlas, citing statistics from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Previously, the process of getting new wheat seed varieties to farmers was allocation based, with limited producers and agents and a limited choice of varieties, said Sinshaw Alemu, wheat and barley chain program analyst at ATA.
“It was a seed distribution system, not a seed marketing system,” Alemu explained. “DSM is based on the concept that the producers of the seed should be able to market and then sell it at the primary level and farmers will have their choice of seed.”
Farmers can now collect seeds from a certified agent – either a primary cooperative or a private outlet where a direct channel is established with seed producers, leading to timely deliveries and better estimates of potential demand. They can buy government-allocated seed as they did under the other system or the agent can now contact the seed enterprise and purchase additional wheat varieties at a farmer’s request with no fixed allocations in DSM.
“One of the issues in the previous system was that due to delays on demand estimations from woredas (district councils), the unions and primary cooperatives had little or no control over the kind and quality of seed allocated to them,” Alemu said.
“Primary cooperatives had to take it and seed remained unsold at the end of the planting season because either the variety or quality wasn’t what they were looking for – the primary cooperative was left with hundreds of quintals of seed and they had no use for it.”
“We tried the DSM in five woredas in 2014, and it was very successful – 97 percent of the seed delivered was sold and the remainder taken away – we’ve seen some very encouraging results in this area,” he added.
DISEASE THREAT
In recent years, Ethiopia’s wheat crop has been hit hard by stem and yellow rust epidemics, which at their worst can destroy entire crops. Rust infestation can lead to shriveled grain, yield losses and financial troubles for farmers, who must avoid susceptible wheat varieties.
The revamped seed marketing system can help get the new disease-resilient wheat varieties to farmers more efficiently, said David Hodson, a senior scientist based in Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) who manages RustTracker.org, a global wheat rust monitoring system supported by the Borlaug Global Rust Initiative.
Rust Tracker generates surveillance and monitoring information for emerging rust threats. The information provides an early warning system for disease and can help farmers prepare for epidemics, which could otherwise wipe out their crops.
CIMMYT, a non-profit research institute which works with partners worldwide to reduce poverty and hunger by increasing the sustainable productivity of maize and wheat cropping systems, plays a key role in providing germplasm to be tested and improved by government-run national agricultural research systems before it is potentially released to farmers.
Additionally, CIMMYT provides smallholder farmer training and skills development on such topics as crop management and agricultural practices. In Ethiopia, these activities, along with seed multiplication and delivery are being supported by a new $5.75 million grant from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).
“CIMMYT supports Ethiopia’s agriculture research in a variety of ways including by training researchers, development agents and farmers skills on modern sciences and filling technical gaps by providing field and laboratory equipment, farm machinery, installing irrigation systems, modernizing breeding programs, improving quality of data, providing germplasm and project funds,” said Bekele Abeyo, a CIMMYT senior scientist and wheat breeder based in Addis Ababa.
“The government is now putting an emphasis on agriculture and the situation is far better and improving,” he said. “The structure and extension systems are there to help farmers – Direct Seed Marketing is making it easier to increase the availability of seeds and complements more traditional public seed.”
Adopting improved wheat varieties increases the number of food secure households by 2.7 percent and reduces the number of chronic and transitory food insecure households by 10 and 2 percent respectively, according to CIMMYT scientist Menale Kassie, one of the authors of “Adoption of improved wheat varieties and impacts on household food security in Ethiopia.”
Ethiopia’s wheat-growing area in 2013 was equivalent to 1.6 million hectares (4 million acres), and the country produced 2.45 metric tons of wheat per hectare, according to the country’s Central Statistical Agency.
VENTURE EVOLVES
In 2013, Abraham harvested about 250 quintals (25 metric tons) of the Digalu wheat seed variety near Bishoftu, a town formerly known as Debre Zeyit in the Oromia Region situated at an altitude of 1,900 meters (6,230 feet) 40 kilometers (25 miles) southeast of Addis Ababa.
Abraham is optimistic. He expects he will soon be able to hire many employees, as he plans to expand his agricultural interests to include beekeeping, dairy cattle, poultry and livestock, he said.
“My main aim is not only to earn more money, but also to teach and share with others – that’s what I value most,” he said. “Regardless of money, there are certain people who have a far-sighted view and I want them to be involved. That’s what I value – I’m opening an opportunity for others and envisioning a far-sighted development plan.”
He still has a way to go before he catches up with Al Amoudi, ranked by Forbes as the 61st wealthiest person in the world.
Compared with other cereals, maize has recorded the fastest annual growth in Asia at around 4 percent, but consumption is rising faster than yields.
When BM Prasanna, CIMMYT’s global maize program director, opened the 12th Asian Maize Conference and Expert Consultation on “Maize for Food, Feed, Nutrition and Environmental Security” in Bangkok last week he said that boosting maize crops would be a key to food security. In China, maize is the number one crop in acreage, covering 35.26 million hectares (87 million acres) in 2013, an area comparable to that of the United States, Prasanna said. The big questions are whether or not China can increase yields before 2020 to avoid being the largest importer of maize and whether Asia can meet the demand for maize “by shortening, widening and improving the breeding funnel,” Prasanna said.
He added that efforts are underway to significantly enhance genetic gain per unit over time: CIMMYT and the University of Hohenheim (Stuttgart, Germany) are utilizing doubled haploid technology; other partnerships are focused on genetic diversity and introgressing transgenic traits under humanitarian license through public-private partnerships.
“Strengthening seed systems is also important for breeding programs to make an impact,” Prasanna said. “The sooner farmers, especially smallholders in unreached areas, have access to improved varieties and a complementary agronomic package of practices, the greater the opportunity to increase productivity.”
Challenges are many. Heat stress and drought stress, among others, are an increasing reality in many maize-growing regions in the tropics. Two promising CIMMYT- Asia heat-tolerant commercial hybrids (31Y45 and DKC9108) are currently being marketed in Asia. Scientists also confirm that a strong pipeline of water stress-resilient, Asia-adapted maize hybrids is ready for deployment in rainfed areas of Asia.
Prasanna concluded by reminding the 350 conference participants that “putting women and children at the center of development will help transform their societies.” Quoting Melinda Gates, he said that by ignoring gender inequities, many development projects fail to achieve their objectives.
As he concluded his remarks with a big smile, Prasanna could not resist sharing, “Nothing looks more beautiful to me than maize.”
Like many other farmers in Ethiopia, Abdela and Bayisu Kadir grew kubsa wheat variety until it succumbed to disease. CIMMYT/Julie Mollins
EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) — Until a few years ago, farmers Abdela and Bayisu Kadir grew “Kubsa,” a semi-dwarf bread wheat variety on their small landholding in the Ethiopian highlands known as the Roof of Africa.
The couple manage a 3-hectare farm, which is situated at an elevation of 2,400 meters (7,874 feet) in the Arsi region about 175 kilometers (110 miles) southeast of the capital Addis Ababa.
Kubsa, just one of 480 wheat varieties bred by 2014 World Food Prize laureate scientist Sanjaya Rajaram during his 40-year career, has had a long and successful run since it was first released in 1995.
The variety, developed by Rajaram at research stations operated by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), came from the high-yielding Atilla wheat breeding line he created in 1990.
By 2010, Kubsa was grown on 250,000 hectares (620,000 acres) of cropland in Ethiopia. Over time, as wheat rust disease fungi have mutated in the region, Kubsa has become vulnerable to yellow rust and stem rust, which can devastate crops leading to shriveled grain, yield losses and financial troubles for farmers.
“After yellow rust disease began to appear in our crop a few years ago, we switched to the Kakaba wheat variety,” said Bayisu Kadir, who has six children.
“Last year Kakaba gave us more than 5 (metric) tons of wheat per hectare (75 bushels per acre),” she added, explaining that her husband had sprayed their crop with fungicide to protect it from potential damage.
By 2012, the CIMMYT-derived variety Kakaba covered more than 200,000 hectares in Ethiopia, according to the online Wheat Atlas, and so far remains resistant to yellow rust.
CIMMYT is a member of the Borlaug Global Rust Initiative, an international consortium of more than 1,000 scientists from hundreds of institutions that works to reduce vulnerability to mutating rust diseases. CIMMYT continuously produces high-yielding disease-resistant wheat varieties.
BACKBONE GENES
Atilla, called Kubsa in Ethiopia, is a family of wheat varieties released by governments under different names in various countries. Its two main sister lines were widely adopted around the world.
One sister line, which became the leading variety for over a decade in the bread basket region of northwestern India, contains a combination of resistance genes including Sr31, Yr9 and Yr27, recognized by Rajaram as genes that provided resistance to both stem and yellow rusts.
The other sister variety carried the Yr27 gene and was widely cultivated in many wheat-growing countries. At one time, these two sister varieties were grown on about 8 million hectares throughout Africa, the Middle East and South Asia.
Overall, Rajaram’s adaptable, high-yielding wheat varieties are grown on more than 58 million hectares worldwide. He is credited with producing 480 wheat varieties, which have boosted worldwide yields by more than 180 million tons. These increased yields provide food to more than 1 billion people each year.
He also developed aluminum-tolerant varieties together with Brazilian researchers that were planted in acid soils, areas previously unable to grow wheat.
“Rajaram’s varieties led to more yield and better income for farmers, less yellow rust disease and less chemical application,” said Zuo Yuchun, a professor at the Sichuan Academy of Agricultural Science in China who collaborated with Rajaram for more than 20 years.
Rajaram is the 2014 World Food Prize Laureate for “advancing human development by improving the quality, quantity or availability of food in the world.” He received the award at the World Food Prizeceremony on October 16 in Des Moines, Iowa.
“The prodigious increase in wheat production through Dr. Rajaram’s work is a furtherance of the success of the ‘Green Revolution’,” said molecular scientist Kameswara Rao, formerly with India’s University of Agricultural Sciences in Dharwad and currently chair of the Foundation of Biotechnology Awareness and Education.
“The wheat varieties developed by Dr. Rajaram have been grown by both small- and large-scale farmers across a diverse range of agricultural environments in 51 countries, contributing to an enhancement of food security.”
The late CIMMYT scientist Norman Borlaug, who mentored Rajaram, led efforts to develop semi-dwarf wheat varieties in the mid-20th century that helped save more than 1 billion people in the developing world in what became widely known as the Green Revolution. Borlaug was awarded the 1970 Nobel Peace Prize for his work and subsequently initiated the World Food Prize.
INNOVATIVE BREEDING
Rajaram joined CIMMYT, which aims to sustainably increase maize and wheat productivity to ensure global food security and reduce poverty, in 1969. As head of CIMMYT wheat breeding, Rajaram increased yield potential 20 to 25 percent.
During his career, Rajaram visited farmers groups and cooperatives to teach them about new technologies, said Arun Joshi, CIMMYT senior wheat breeder for South Asia. He taught them tillage and seeding techniques.
“Rajaram’s participatory approach brought confidence among the farmers and they took more interest in their agriculture and new technologies,” Joshi said.
“Training was mostly delivered as roving seminars organized in farmers’ fields before the start of sowing, during sowing, about a month after sowing and at crop maturity. Such initiatives generated new leadership among farmers and helped faster dissemination of technology among less privileged farmers.”
Although Rajaram retired from CIMMYT in 2003, he continues to help train new wheat breeders.
“We’re grateful for the hundreds of new varieties of wheat that Dr. Rajaram has developed,” said U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.
“These will deliver more than 200 million more tons of grain to global markets each year and Dr. Rajaram has helped to feed millions of people across the world through his lifetime of research and innovation.”
The CIMMYT community celebrates the illustrious life and mourns the passing on 11 December of Wilfred M. Mwangi, distinguished Kenyan scholar, statesman and researcher who dedicated his career to improving the food security and livelihoods of farmers in sub-Saharan Africa. In 27 years at CIMMYT, Mwangi made significant contributions both as a principal scientist and distinguished economist with authorship on nearly 200 publications, as well as country and regional liaison officer, associate director of the global maize program, leader of the Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa (
A public-private partnership that, along with CIMMYT, involves national research organizations such as the Kenya Agricultural & Livestock Research Organization (
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 
By Sanjaya Rajaram
When BM Prasanna, CIMMYT’s global maize program director, opened the 12th Asian Maize Conference and Expert Consultation on “Maize for Food, Feed, Nutrition and Environmental Security” in Bangkok last week he said that boosting maize crops would be a key to food security. In China, maize is the number one crop in acreage, covering 35.26 million hectares (87 million acres) in 2013, an area comparable to that of the United States, Prasanna said. The big questions are whether or not China can increase yields before 2020 to avoid being the largest importer of maize and whether Asia can meet the demand for maize “by shortening, widening and improving the breeding funnel,” Prasanna said.
