We are sad to inform readers that on 05 January 2013, at the age of 84, Ripusudan L. Paliwal, a CIMMYT employee for 17 years who served as director of the maize program, passed away in the presence of his family near New Delhi, India. Rip, as he was respectfully and affectionately known by colleagues, came to CIMMYT as associate director of the maize program in 1976, after serving as dean of the college of agriculture of GP Pant University, Pantnagar, India. Former colleague and retired CIMMYT maize director Ron Cantrell called Paliwal a major factor in the success of the maize program. “I have nothing but fond memories of my time at CIMMYT and one of the principal reasons was the support and friendship of Rip,” says Cantrell. “He was an invaluable source of information about tropical maize and the national programs throughout the world.” His activities after retirement from CIMMYT in 1993 included authoring books such as the 2000 FAO publication “Tropical maize: Improvement and production.” The CIMMYT family extends its sincere sympathy and prayers to the Paliwal family, including children Nirupama, Nivedita, Muktesh, and Sarvesh, who worked as a CIMMYT maize scientist in the early 2000s.

Since the beginning of our weekly photo contest, we have received many pictures of maize and wheat from staff and friends around the world. Every week, we chose a winner, but we asked you to choose the best photo of 2012. After three weeks of online voting, the winner is Vadim Ganeyev, one of our friends and partners in Kazakhstan, with his photo of a grasshopper on a wheat spike. Congratulations to Vadim and many thanks for everyone’s participation!

“Women are a key part of the mainstream in agriculture, yet they face formidable obstacles,” said CIMMYT gender and development specialist Vongai Kandiwa during a recent seminar in Nairobi, Kenya. Vongai was speaking on the importance of having a strategy to put men and women’s concerns and experiences at the centre of research design, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation. This involves looking at the socioeconomic settings of men and women to ensure that they benefit equally – often referred to as “gender mainstreaming.” The seminar was attended by colleagues working on various aspects of maize technology development, production, and dissemination. “By closing the gap in access to technology between men and women, we could increase productivity by 30%,” said Vongai, referring to the State of Food and Agriculture report (2010-2011) by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO). According to Vongai, this would contribute to child survival and nutrition, as “women are key to household food security.”

Vongai emphasized the importance of considering gender in our work. She explained that gender shapes patterns of power relations, asset and wealth distribution and control, labor allocations, as well as preferences and aspirations within households. Mainstreaming gender is encouraged by most donors, she said, citing an example from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation which encourages moving from neutrality to awareness and finally to gender transformative program design and implementation.

Many organizations may be considered gender “aware”— that is, they are able to generate gender disaggregated data on the stakeholders that benefit from their development work — but transformation lies in using that information to improve the products and services delivered, paying specific attention to women’s preferences. “The woman is the custodian of food in most African societies,” said Vongai. As the ultimate consumers of our maize products, women ought to be involved in the research for development activities. “We have to make it convenient for women to attend activities and pay attention to the composition of groups we convene,” said Vongai. “This could be done by working with women’s groups and using female technicians,” she said. By making a deliberate effort to accommodate women’s needs and voices in the selection of maize varieties, we make it possible to meet their needs.

Paying particular attention to research innovations that would reduce the drudgery of farm work for women is also important, highlighted the global maize program director B.M. Prasanna. Prasanna pointed to quality protein maize (QPM) as a product developed with the nutrition needs of end users—and particularly women— in mind. QPM has increased amounts of lysine and tryptophan, important amino acids which improve nutrition. Prasanna also pointed out the promise of pesticide resistant maize that would reduce the burden of weeding for women who often provide most of the farm labor.

“When we take the stance that gender matters, we can start to satisfy the needs of our clients, both male and female,” argued Vongai picturing the scenario when gender considerations will be made in all aspects of our work; breeding, seed systems, impact assessment, and communication.

The CIMMYT Maize and Wheat Germplasm Bank achieved ISO9001:2008 certification this week, after nearly two years of data gathering, intensive analysis, and assessment of processes and best practices. The ISO standards relate to quality management systems and are designed to help organizations ensure that they meet the needs of customers and other stakeholders, while meeting statutory and regulatory requirements. The CIMMYT Maize and Wheat Germplasm Bank is the first CGIAR germplasm bank to achieve ISO9001 certification, and is now one of only three genebanks globally to achieve certification (and the first outside of Europe). CIMMYT staff and areas involved in this certification included both the germplasm banks, human resources, purchasing, risk management, security, maintenance, and ICT departments. A special thanks is extended to Bibiana Espinosa and Paulina Gonzalez, both of whom sheparded the lengthy process to this noteworthy conclusion.

“The Ministry, and specifically the Directorate of Research and Development, immensely commends SIMLESA’s participatory approach and would like to recommend it to other research and development partners both at national and international levels. By any means, this approach won’t ignore or omit farmer participation in variety dissemination, as was the case in the past. This participation exactly addresses the value chain approach that has been over emphasized by the Agricultural Sector Development Program that we are implementing in our country,” stated Fidelis Myaka (director of Research and Development, Ministry of Agriculture, Food Security and Cooperatives, Tanzania) in a speech read on his behalf by Ruth B. Madulu, Agricultural Research Institute (ARI)-Mikocheni at the recently concluded Tanzania SIMLESA 2012 Progress Review and 2013 Planning Meeting in Arusha.

In November, twelve researchers and development practitioners implementing phase two of the Effective Grain Storage for Sustainable Livelihoods of African Farmers Project (EGSP II) travelled from Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Kenya, for training on improved postharvest grain storage and loss assessment methods in Nairobi, Kenya.

The course was facilitated by Prof. Rick Hodges, University of Greenwich, UK, and CIMMYT Socioeconomist Hugo De Groote, Policy Economist Jones Govereh, and Project Leader Tadele Tefera. Practical and theory sessions covered topics such as hermetic storage, postharvest technologies, estimating storage losses, assessing ear and grain damage, economic data requirements and collection, and economic analysis of on-station and on-farm storage trials.

Participants were also introduced to the Africa Postharvest Loss Information Service (APHLIS); a system with an innovative framework for analyzing and computing quantitative postharvest losses under different farming and environmental conditions in eastern and southern Africa. It was discussed how using the APHLIS downloadable calculator can support loss reduction projects. According to Hodges, the advantages of this system are that its measure of percentage weight loss of grain is based on an actual reduction in the dry weight of grain; it does not account for changes in quality unless the grain is no longer fit for human consumption; and losses are cumulatively calculated from production and including each step in the postharvest chain.

Despite the importance of economically analyzing crop and storage pest losses, Govereh lamented that such analyses are not well established in the research community. “Economic analysis is rarely available, especially for on-farm losses. In most cases, crop losses are commonly overestimated with benefits often overstated and costs underestimated.”

Govereh outlined the economic analysis of crop and storage pests: estimating the extent of the problem (the area infested); estimating the intensity of the problem (infestation levels, damage, and crop loss); testing efficacy of control methods on-station and on-farm; basic economic analysis of new methods; farmer evaluation of new control methods; modeling and econometric analysis; and impact assessment. According to Hodges, estimating postharvest losses helps in influencing policy makers, improving the efficiency of value chains, and identifying opportunities for increasing food security.

Reiterating the economic benefits of storage, Govereh stated: “Most maize is produced by small-scale farmers in one major season and is meant for home consumption. However, consumption is continuous therefore storage is needed to buffer stocks and protect against price fluctuations.”

Developing public-private partnerships (PPPs) to expand conservation agriculture (CA) is one of the main goals of the USAID-funded Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia in Bangladesh (CSISA-BD). A key stakeholder in CSISA-BD, CIMMYT has partnered with International Development Enterprises (iDE) to develop business models to support Solar International, a leader in the agricultural machinery sector in Bangladesh. To kick-start the PPP, Solar International recently imported 54 seeder-fertilizer drills that can be attached to the ubiquitous two-wheel hand tractors found in Bangladesh, and used for the CA strip tillage technique. Using such machinery allows for rapid precision planting of wheat, reduces the turn-around time before the rice harvest, and responds to the problem of growing labor scarcity for planting in Bangladesh. The PPP prioritizes farmer and service provider training in better-bet agronomic practices, optimum use of the seeder-fertilizer drills, and the marketing of agricultural services to small and marginal farmers at reasonable prices.

In November 2012, supported by CIMMYT, Solar International and iDE completed in-depth training and certification of 108 leading agricultural service providers and their machine operators, who had purchased the seeder-fertilizer drill. To make this approach scalable and sustainable, Solar International embedded the cost of training in the market price of the equipment; emphasizing program sustainability by securing a training and funding source after CSISA-BD withdraws. In turn, CSISA-BD supplied a 50% cost-rebate to purchasing service providers upon successful completion of the training course. This PPP was brokered by CIMMYT’s Timothy J. Krupnik, Cropping Systems Agronomist in Bangladesh, Rajiv Pradhan (iDE), and Sohel Khan (Solar International). Trainings were facilitated by representatives of Solar International, Farhad Hossain (CIMMYT Agricultural Development Officer), Scott Justice (CIMMYT Machinery Consultant), and Shafiq Islam (CIMMYT-CSISA Training and Outreach Officer).

The use of doubled haploids in maize breeding was first proposed more than half a century ago and dramatically reduces the time required to produce homozygous inbred lines. Though widespread in modern maize breeding programs, the technique is little used by public programs and small- and medium-scale seed companies, especially in developing countries, partly due to its complexity.

To gain greater knowledge and mastery of the theory and actual practice, during 26-30 November 2012, 28 maize breeders from private and public entities of 5 Latin American countries attended a course given in Spanish by CIMMYT maize experts at El Batán. Complementing a similar course given in English last August, the event covered haploid induction, chromosomal doubling, breeding using doubled haploid lines, and how to access CIMMYT’s doubled haploid line production services, including hands-on practice in identifying haploid kernels, the chromosomal doubling treatment, and assessing haploid induction rate.

“This is a cutting-edge technology,” says Tito Clauré, Maize Program Coordinator at Bolivia’s Instituto Nacional Autónomo de Investigaciones Agropecuaria (INIAP). “We’re very happy with what we learned about double haploids, but we also attended excellent presentations on statistics, physiology, and database creation.” Clauré mentions that INIAP’s Maize Program is part of the Sustainable Modernization of Traditional Agriculture (MasAgro) project, and has received much useful germplasm from CIMMYT.

“The course was a very good experience for me,” says Victor Moran Rosas, a breeder at the seed company Semillas Berentsen in Mexico. “I’d read about (doubled haploids), but was able to practice all the steps.” Participants widely agreed that a great part of the course was being able to connect with other Latin American maize breeders.

A series of farmer-scientist interaction meetings to create awareness of HarvestPlus and new biofortified wheat varieties with high zinc and iron content, involve farmers in participatory varietal selection (PVS) of biofortified varieties in the next crop cycle, train farmers on soil sampling for iron and zinc analysis, and discuss seed and wheat production technology, took place in eastern Uttar Pradesh, India, in November 2012. The meetings were held in Bhurkura, Mirzapur district, on 4 November, Sota, Chandouli district, on 10 November, and Pidkhir, Mirzapur district, on 18 November, and were attended by 25, 38, and 30 farmers, respectively. They were jointly organized by the Banaras Hindu University, Mahamana Krishak Samiti farmers’ cooperative, Mirzapur district, and CIMMYT, and supported by a private seed company M/s. Shyam Seed.

Balasubramaniam Arun, Ramesh Chand, and Vinod Kumar Mishra, wheat scientists from the Banaras Hindu University, introduced the HarvestPlus project’s objectives and the importance of biofortified wheat varieties. Chandra Prakash Srivastava explained the role of zinc and iron for human health, while soil scientist Satish Kumar Singh focused on their role and importance in crop production, as well as zinc level distribution in different soil types in the ricewheat growing areas of the region. Each meeting included a hands-on training on HarvestPlus trials sowing, during which farmers learned about experimental design with focus on plot area, number of lines, and amount of seed to be sown, and which included soil samples collection demonstrations. This was followed by a discussion on the use of conventional and zero-till drill for experiment planting, and the farmers’ experience with biofortified varieties, seed purity maintenance, and the use of the progeny row method. Balanced use of nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, zinc, sulfur, and boron based on soil analysis was also covered.

CIMMYT wheat breeder Arun Joshi described the steps involved in quality seed production and the importance of seed producers’ organizations for small-scale farmers. He also highlighted advantages of the PVS approach, including the increased adoption rate of new varieties within a shorter period of time. Joshi appreciated the keen interest and active participation of farmers in PVS programs and encouraged them to continue their work and facilitate varietal selection to identify and promote agronomically superior biofortified varieties. The participating farmers showed their interest in HarvestPlus experiments and their continuing support for the wheat biofortification program. They expressed their full satisfaction with the interaction meetings, as these help them to build confidence and enhance their knowledge and capacity for understanding new wheat research processes and results. According to the participants, smallholder farmers have achieved significant gains through the participatory research program, an easier access to new varieties being one of them. Sri Hari Kirtan Singh of M/s. Shyam Seed agreed to multiply all lead varieties seeds identified for high zinc and iron content to allow easy access to an even larger number of farmers.

Abdu Rahman Beshir, a CIMMYT graduate research fellow from Ethiopia, received an award for the best project in the PhD category at a recent Postgraduate Students’ Symposium on Botany and Plant Biotechnology at the University of Johannesburg (UJ) for his paper titled ‘Quality Protein Maize: towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals through better nutrition and stable yields.’ His presentation highlighted the severity of malnutrition in parts of sub-Saharan Africa and the ways quality protein maize (QPM) seeks to address the issue.

Beshir conducted his field research between July 2009 and December 2011 at CIMMYT Kenya, Zimbabwe, and Ethiopia in collaboration with national programs and with support from the Drought Tolerant Maize in Africa (DTMA) Initiative and the Quality Protein Maize Development project. Beshir focuses on the evaluation of yield and secondary traits of early maturing QPM cultivars (both hybrids and open pollinated varieties) under different mega environments of sub-Saharan Africa (his research was featured in Informa 1689). Beshir –is studying at the University of the Free State (UFS) under the supervision of Maryke Labuschagne and Angie Van Biljon (UFS), and Dan Makumbi (CIMMYT) and Peter Setimela (CIMMYT). “I would like to acknowledge the invaluable support from CIMMYT. This award is an indication of the relevance of research conducted at CIMMYT globally,” said Beshir. “There are many people who are looking for such opportunities, who can make a difference and contribute more to science; hence CIMMYT’s efforts are highly commendable,” added Beshir, thanking all who contributed to his studies and career growth.

The UJ symposium is an annual platform for postgraduate students from different universities to present their research findings. These findings are judged by a panel of professors based on the significance of the project, the quality of the content, and delivery.