News – Page 174

MasAgro made promising advances in its 2011 and 2012 activities

Written by on November 26, 2012. Posted in News.

On Monday 12 November CIMMYT and SAGARPA presented the first MasAgro Activities Report 2011-2012 at CIMMYT headquarters in Texcoco, State of Mexico.

In his welcome speech, Thomas Lumpkin stated that he is proud to collaborate with a country that has such a profound vision and a solid commitment to its people and to humanity. He added that he expects that other governments and foundations will follow Mexico’s example and pointed out that India, Nigeria, and Ethiopia have already taken their first steps in that direction.

Jorge Martínez Durán, who described his participation in MasAgro as a farmer, indicated that farmers do not want to be left behind as Mexico goes forward, and that MasAgro has given them the opportunity to make solid advances by providing them with information and training, which he considers to be the best tools for growth.

Participating in the ceremony were the Secretary of Agricultural and Livestock Development of the State of Mexico, Heriberto Ortega Ramírez, and the Secretary of Agriculture, Livestock, Rural Development, Fisheries and Food (SAGARPA), Francisco Mayorga Castañeda, who said that “there is no doubt that MasAgro’s impacts have paved the way for us to face the challenge of increasing production despite adverse climatic conditions, by strengthening research and technological innovation within the framework of national and international collaboration.”

On this point, Bram Govaerts, leader of MasAgro component “Take It to the Farmer,” said that although there is still much to be done, MasAgro has laid down solid bases all along the maize and wheat research, production, and marketing chains, and this will allow Mexico to advance towards having a farm sector that is more productive, prosperous, and sustainable.

To commemorate the occasion, Thomas Lumpkin presented a citation and a statuette of Dr. Norman Borlaug to Secretary Mayorga in recognition of his determined support for implementing a program that has placed Mexico in a position of international leadership in the area of research for food security and sustainable rural development in an environment of climate change.

Also attending the event were farmers, technicians, research cooperators, private sector representatives, federal and local authorities, journalists and representatives of the main international foundations and development agencies, who, all together, totaled 325 guests.

Masagro

Delegation from Bangladesh visits CIMMYT’s conservation agriculture program in India

Written by on November 25, 2012. Posted in News.

141_6903 A delegation from the Government of Bangladesh led by Begum Matia Chowdhury, Minister of Agriculture, and accompanied by Tariq A Karim, High Commissioner of Bangladesh in India, Md Abdul Hamid, Additional Secretary of Agriculture, and Wais Kabir, Executive Chairman of the Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council (BARC), visited the Central Soil Salinity Research Institute (CSSRI) in Karnal, India, and CIMMYT’s projects on conservation agriculture (CA) and mechanization in Karnal on 8 November 2012.

ML Jat, CIMMYT’s senior cropping systems agronomist, introduced key activities of projects and CRPs within which CIMMYT cooperates with the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), state agricultural universities, the State Department of Agriculture, private sector, and farmers cooperatives in Haryana. These include WHEAT, MAIZE, Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS), and Cereal System Initiative South Asia (CSISA). Since the delegation was particularly interested in CA and small-farm mechanization, the visit included field demonstrations of zero tillage wheat, residue management, and recently developed power tiller (2WT) operated laser land leveler for the small holder farmers. According to Kabir, BARC, Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI), and other institutes in Bangladesh are working closely with CIMMYT to introduce such machinery. Karim and Hamid emphasized the collaboration between national agricultural research institutes in India and Bangladesh, and international institutes such as CIMMYT, benefiting farmers in both countries.

During the visit, BR Kamboj, CSISA hub manager, demonstrated and explained operation and importance of the new generation of CA planters currently being used in Haryana. At the end of the visit, DK Sharma, director of CSSRI in Karnal, one of the key collaborating institutes on CA, explained the key benefits of CA-based crop management technologies, emphasizing that they not only conserve natural resources and save inputs, but also help in adaptation to and mitigation of climate change effects.

CIMMYT strengthens partnership with Zimbabwe

Written by on November 15, 2012. Posted in News.

Thomas Lumpkin, CIMMYT director general, and Honorable Joseph Made, Minister of Agriculture and Mechanization of Zimbabwe, signed a new memorandum of understanding on 29 October 2012 to strengthen the relationship between CIMMYT and the government of Zimbabwe.

During the ceremony, Made expressed gratitude to CIMMYT for its continued support of Zimbabwe during the past 10 years of economic hardships. “For so long CIMMYT has been a visitor, but from today it will remain a permanent resident in Zimbabwe and our region — Southern Africa. The Government of Zimbabwe appreciates CIMMYT’s confidence in Zimbabwe to retain its Southern Africa Regional Office and its scientists during the difficult periods we underwent,” said Made. Lumpkin then thanked the Government of Zimbabwe for providing a favorable working environment and support for CIMMYT’s activities. Lumpkin confirmed that CIMMYT would continue to bring cutting-edge science to Zimbabwe and the region as a whole to ensure sustainable maize production. Special focus will be on cooperation in breeding drought and heat tolerant maize varieties, crucial in the face of climate change particularly in sub- Saharan Africa.

The ceremony was attended by a team of senior government officials from the ministry of Agriculture and Mechanization, CIMMYT staff, and Lindiwe Sibanda, CIMMYT Board of Trustees member. During the event, Lumpkin presented the 2012 Award for the Best Maize Breeding Team to Made and the Zimbabwean breeding team for the Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa (DTMA) project. The Zimbabwe team has won this award for the third consecutive year. The DTMA team also received a new pickup truck from Made to facilitate the field breeding work around Zimbabwe.

Conservation agriculture and spatial variability analysis of soils using EM 38 course in India

Written by on November 14, 2012. Posted in News.

CIMMYT and the Borlaug Institute for South Asia (BISA), in collaboration with Punjab Agricultural University (PAU), organized an advanced course on “Conservation agriculture and spatial variability analysis of soils using EM 38” in Ludhiana, India, during 5-13 October 2012. The course was attended by 15 scientists from 3 state agricultural universities (Jawahar Lal Nehru Krishi Viswa Vidyalaya, Rajendra Agricultural University, and PAU), Central Soil Salinity Research Institute, BISA (Jabalpur, Ludhiana, and Pusa), and CIMMYTIndia. It was inaugurated by Jaskarn Singh Mahal (PAU Additional Director of Research; Farm Mechanization and Bio Energy) and organized by Jill Cairns (CIMMYT-Zimbabwe), Raj Gupta and HS Sidhu (BISA), ML Jat (CIMMYT-India), and Yadvinder Singh and Ken Syare (CIMMYT). The course was supported by WHEAT Strategic Initiatives 2 and 3 (Sustainable wheat-based systems: Improving livelihoods while safeguarding the environment, and Nutrientand water-use efficiency).

The training was preceded by a brainstorming session to deliberate the design of the Long-term Research on Conservation Agriculture (CA) at three BISA sites. The session covered critical issues in major production systems, soil types, and agro-ecologies, and identified and prioritized future production systems for long-term CA trials. Component technologies and design protocols of long-term trials were discussed and finalized.

During the actual training, Cairns introduced the EM 38, the non-invasive, nondestructive, quick, and inexpensive sampling method using electromagnetic induction to measure salinity, moisture, and other characteristics of soil. Cairns then described the steps in EM 38 calibration, and the team worked on EM 38 surveys at a BISA farm in Ladowal. Participants were exposed to application of EM 38 in mapping spatial variation in fields with long-term and other trials and learned to generate maps from collected data. At the end of the session, maps generated by participants were presented and described, which was followed by a Q&A session.

As part of the course, HS Sidhu and the BISA Ladowal team provided a hands-on training on operation, calibration, and maintenance of CA-based planting machinery, including multi-crop zero till planter, raised bed planter, Turbo Happy Seeder, New Easy Seeder, relay crop planter, and high clearance tractor.

Sharing experiences with effective grain storage in Africa

Written by on November 14, 2012. Posted in News.

A delegation from Kenya, Malawi, Zimbabwe, and Zambia — the target countries of the Effective Grain Storage for Sustainable Livelihoods of African Farmers (EGSP) Phase-II Project— visited Malawi during 22-23 October and Kenya during 25-26 October 2012 to share experiences with project implementation and to learn about the project’s impact on the livelihoods of smallholder farmers. The delegation comprised of officials from ministries of agriculture and national agricultural research systems from the four EGSP countries, and implementing partners (Kenya Agricultural Research Institute and the Catholic Dioceses of Embu and Homa Bay in Kenya, World Vision in Malawi, Zambia Agricultural Research Institute, and University of Zimbabwe and the Department of Agricultural Mechanization in Zimbabwe).

The tour kicked off in Malawi with visits to Mchinji and Dowa districts. The delegates held discussions with the implementing partners and local artisans trained on metal silo fabrication, school representatives, farmer groups, and farmers who had benefitted from the first phase of the project. Everyone present praised the metal silo for its great results in protecting the grains against the larger grain borers and weevils. “This allows farmers to store maize more effectively and sell it when prices are as high as 47 kwacha [US$ 0.16] per kilogram and not when prices are at 18 kwacha [US$ 0.06] per kilogram,” says Andrew Kasalika, chairman of the Tayamba Group in Mlonyeni Extension Planning Area. “With metal silos, women do not have to climb into granaries, which is quite cumbersome,” added Christine Victory, Tayamba Group’s secretary, noting that the technology is also environmentally friendly, “Men do not have to cut trees to construct the granaries.”

In Kenya, the delegation visited Kamuthatha Boarding Primary School in Embu County, which has acquired six 2,700-kilogram metal silos. Nethy Kathungu, the deputy principal, shared the enormous benefits of metal silos: increased quality of grain and thus increased quality of food for the pupils; reduced postharvest losses (previously amounting to 60% of stored grain); price hikes no longer affecting the school during times of scarcity, as they can now store enough to feed all 450 pupils; no need for pesticides; and less storage space required to store the same amount of grain. As a result, the school saves about Ksh 300,000 (US$ 3,600) per year.

The delegates also visited Gikinyukia Agro-Enterprise Self-Help Group in Mbeere South District, Embu County. The Group participates in collective maize, sorghum, and green grams marketing, and owns three 1,800-kilogram metal silos. According to Gibson Wachira Muchiri, the Group chairman, the plan is to assist every member in acquiring a metal silo through the Group’s fund.

The delegates found the visit very educative and informative, especially officials from Zimbabwe and Zambia who will be implementing the project for the first time. The visit allowed them to witness the implementation of EGSP in Kenya and Malawi as well as the role of different partners in the process. The visits also helped the delegates to identify issues that need to be addressed for the second phase to be successful. These include cost-sharing for sustainability of the project, creating a sense of ownership, and producing a sufficient amount of maize for the metal silos to be fully utilized.

Speaking to the delegates, B.M. Prasanna, CIMMYT’s Global Maize Program director, reiterated the importance of the project in enhancing nutrition and food security of smallholder farmers and consumers. He called on the delegates to be the champions of the project and asked them to take it to the next level: “We can only be a catalyst, but we would like you to be the drivers of this movement. You should stimulate demand for the technology. CIMMYT derives its strength from people like you.” Noting that awareness was critical to the success of the project, Prasanna also encouraged the officials to raise awareness among the target beneficiaries, women, women self-help groups, schools, and women-dominated organizations in particular.

KARI science conference highlights joint Kenya-CIMMYT impacts

Written by on November 13, 2012. Posted in Features.

As a celebration of one of the center’s most valued research partnerships, CIMMYT director general Thomas Lumpkin gave a keynote address during the 13th Kenya Agriculture Research Institute (KARI) Biennial Scientific Conference and Agriforum on 22 October 2012 at the institution’s headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya. The conference theme was “Agricultural Innovation System for Improved Productivity and Competitiveness in Pursuit of Vision 2030”, and there were more than 200 speakers and 60 exhibitors including CIMMYT, which was one of the event’s sponsors.

Chief guest and Kenyan Assistant Minister for Agriculture, Hon Gideon Ndambuki, said the conference reflected government aspirations for a forum to share breakthroughs in agricultural research by the national research systems and their partners. He challenged participants to “walk the talk” by adopting on their own farms the technological innovations discussed in the conference.

Ndambuki also lauded KARI’s efforts to supply drought tolerant crops for farmers in arid and semiarid lands. “This is especially crucial at this time when the whole world is going through the global phenomena of climate change effects,” said Ndambuki. “The seeds help farmers to adapt to these changes, have also become appropriate for areas that earlier had high rainfall, and help to demonstrate that the climate change effects are indeed real.”

Synergies for success

KARI director Ephraim Mukisira highlighted the excellent KARI-CIMMYT partnership and its importance to address challenges such as maize lethal necrosis and wheat stem rust. “The Ug99 disease on wheat is now getting under control with new varieties developed by KARI in partnership with CIMMYT,” said Mukisira, adding that resistant varieties have been released to farmers in this planting season.

In his keynote, Lumpkin called for applied science to tackle today’s food security challenges. “Only new technologies, including stress tolerant germplasm and appropriate agronomy, will help farmers produce more food,” he said. He also signaled the rising use of wheat in Africa, due to income growth and the demand for convenience foods as more women enter the workplace. “Africa will pay 12 billion dollars to import 40 million tons of wheat this year,” he said. “This heavy dependence on imports is making the region highly vulnerable to global market and supply shocks. Affected nations need to invest in wheat research and development.”

Finally, Lumpkin cited KARI-CIMMYT collaboration to assess maize lethal necrosis in Kenya and to develop resistant varieties, and praised public-private partnerships in Kenya to generate, test, and deploy elite drought and low nitrogen tolerant maize varieties for smallholder farmers. Many farmers who visited a CIMMYT display at the event were keen to get new varieties for diverse ecological zones, underlining the importance of center partnerships with the seed sector.

Science for speedy breeding

KARI and CIMMYT are establishing a maize doubled haploid facility at the KARI Kiboko Station. A technology that renders homozygous inbred lines in a year, rather than through many years of self-pollination, its use by public maize breeding programs and seed companies in developing countries had been constrained by the lack of tropical/subtropical inducers. CIMMYT and the University of Hohenheim have recently developed tropicalized haploid inducer lines and provided training in their use for African breeders. The doubled haploid approach will speed the delivery of improved maize varieties to farmers, and the Kiboko facility will play a key role, according to Lumpkin. “Through this important facility that will specially serve African institutions, we hope to generate at least 60,000 doubled haploid lines annually by 2016,” he said.

Australia and CIMMYT continue support for wheat and maize research in Afghanistan

Written by on November 12, 2012. Posted in News.

After a decade of successful work in Afghanistan, CIMMYT has begun a new phase of a project supported by the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID) and the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR). The four-year phase entitled “Sustainable Wheat & Maize Production in Afghanistan” began in October 2012 and builds upon research and development and capacity building activities of the previous phases with a greater emphasis on rainfed wheat and hybrid maize.

The livelihoods of approximately 80% of the Afghan population depend on agriculture and related activities. The central crop in Afghanistan is wheat, providing about 60% of daily calorie intake for an average Afghan. Afghanistan’s annual per capita wheat consumption of 180 kilograms places the country among the top wheat consumers worldwide. While wheat constitutes the most important grain crop in Afghanistan, occupying about 80% of all cereals area, maize is a grossly underutilized food and feed option in the country. It ranks third in importance as far as area and production are concerned, but the current production levels are low at about 0.3 million tons (a considerable decrease from about 0.7 million tons in the 1960s and 1970s). This is expected to change with the Government of Afghanistan’s recently renewed emphasis on maize. CIMMYT, with support from AusAID and ACIAR, has been working towards sustainable growth in wheat and maize production and productivity in the war-torn country.

Agriculture in Afghanistan generally faces various constraints and challenges, including severe droughts and great agro-climatic diversity. However, following a decade of concerted efforts on part of researchers, seed producers, and the farming community, wheat production and productivity is now showing a positive trend. Furthermore, the 10 wheat and 4 maize CIMMYT genotypes that were released in Afghanistan in the past 10 years have contributed to the growth of a public-private partnership within the seed industry, which is expected to produce up to 12% of Afghanistan’s wheat certified demand. Nevertheless, serious issues remain, including the absence of an in-country wheat breeding program and the stark fact that more than 80% of certified seed produced in the country is still Ug99 susceptible. There is also a need to initiate agro-climatic zonespecific varietal testing and to reach out to farmers with zone-specific crop management knowledge.

These are some of the issues to be addressed by the new phase of the project. Additionally, the project will create information management hubs in the provinces of Nangarhar, Herat, Balkh, and Kabul. These hubs, led by the Agricultural Research Institute of Afghanistan (ARIA) and engaging all stakeholders and partners, will undertake baseline and subsequent annual surveys to assess levels of technology adoption. They will also study factors affecting adoption, including the role of children and women in wheat- and maize-based cropping systems, and engage in technology assessment, demonstration, and dissemination.

The current phase aims to empower ARIA to assume a leadership role in all the spheres of technology development and dissemination. To realize this plan, annual workshops will be held to eventually hand over the leadership and coordination role to ARIA and national partners. Implementation of this project in Afghanistan will draw support from in-country partners including, but not limited to, ICARDA-Afghanistan, FAO, the French Agricultural Cooperation, Japan International Cooperation Agency in Kabul, NGOs, seed organizations, farmers, and private sector to ensure sustainable gains.

Climate smart practices and conservation agriculture in India

Written by on November 8, 2012. Posted in News.

Under the aegis of Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS), CIMMYT, Rajendra Agricultural University (RAU), and Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI) organized a travelling seminar on Climate Smart Practices. The seminar was attended by nearly 100 participants, including 60 farmers from village clusters in the CCAFS grid in Vaishali district of Bihar, scientists and officers from RAU, IARI, IFFCO Foundation, CIMMYT, Borlaug Institute for South Asia (BISA), Cereal System Initiative South Asia (CSISA), and several private organizations. The aim was to discuss opportunities for climate-smart practices.

ML Jat (CIMMYT senior cropping systems agronomist) started the seminar with a summary of CCAFS activities, target regions, and priorities for Bihar. He stressed the importance of conservation agriculture (CA) for adaptation, mitigation, and risk management in farming practices in the context of emerging climatic extremes and projected effects of global climate change. In locations like Bihar, with typically uncertain weather, cropping system optimization is crucial for climate change adaptation; this optimization can be facilitated through CA-based management practices.

Jat also discussed the involvement of women farmers in decision making, which is critical not only for risk management but also for women’s empowerment, as it allows them to harness their full potential. Women are generally not involved in the decision making process and they often lack access to information, which prevents them from efficient decision making and full involvement in the farm system. Jat then explained some new nutrient management tools and techniques, such as the Nutrient Expert decision support systems for maize and wheat and the hand-held GreenSeeker sensors. Following the presentation, some farmers expressed their interest to learn about the Nutrient Expert tool in order to provide services to other farmers in their villages.

Raj Kumar Jat (CIMMYT cropping system agronomist) and Mukesh Kumar (RAU professor) discussed the key benefits of CA in terms of productivity enhancement, soil health improvement, water efficiency, production cost, and mitigation of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. IS Solanki (head of IARI-Pusa) and S Chowdhury (BISA seed specialist) then demonstrated seed production of single-cross maize hybrids with CA-based management practices (permanent beds). Solanki and his team also showed hybrid seed production of rice with complete seed chain (production to processing) and discussed opportunities for horticultural diversification. Solanki emphasized the importance of hybrid seed production directly by farmers to ensure timely availability of quality seed and to generate employment opportunities for farmers. RK Malik (CSISA coordinator for eastern India) shared CSISA experiences on alternate tillage, including direct dry seeded rice, mechanical transplanted rice, zero tillage, and raised bed planting. The farmers then visited a seed processing plant at an IARI station and observed the long-term CA experiment on rice-wheat and rice-maize systems established jointly by CIMMYT and RAU in 2006.

VP Singh (RAU director of research) highlighted the importance of this experiment: “CA-based crop management technologies are the way forward not only for reducing production cost and improving income but also for enhancing climate resilience and long-term sustainability of farming in Bihar.”

The Government of Bihar reflects Singh’s sentiment, as it has given high priority to CA and promised to provide over 5,000 zero-till planters to the farmers in 2012. Singh urged the farmers to adopt other best management practices as well, including timely planting, improved varieties, nutrient, water, and weed management practices for higher productivity and profitability, and efficient use of input to help mitigate GHG emissions.

In the end of the seminar, an interaction session was organized at a BISA farm where participants discussed key lessons and critical issues. The session included a demonstration of mechanized harvesting of maize using small multi-crop combine harvester.

Ugandan farmers also coating seed for Striga control

Written by on November 7, 2012. Posted in News.

A Striga infested maize field in Tororo, Uganda.

In Tororo, Uganda, farmers have been losing most of their maize crop to witchweed. However, they now feel that there is hope as research by CIMMYT and its partners is pro viding a solution. During a recent field day in Tororo, farmers Selina and Charles Emoit hosted their peers at an on-farm demonstration of 15 improved maize varieties. Farmers had the opportunity to observe the trial and select the best performing varieties.

Having planted the maize coated with the chemical imazapyr, Selina said she had seen wonderful results on her farm. Previously, the couple would get almost nothing from the farm as a result of Striga infestation. “What used to be seen from my farm is not what is seen today,” said Selina expressing her joy at being able to save her crop. To ensure that the experiment was successful, Selina explained that they had a different person planting each plot to avoid mix-ups; after germination, some variations were observed on the crops in the field. “Despite all the variations, each one of them has a cob which is better than what I used to get,” said Selina urging fellow farmers to collaborate with researchers to ensure good yields. Selina thanked all the Striga project collaborators who had collectively made it possible to fight the weed on her farm.

Farmers-selecting-varieties The field day was attended by James Ogwang, director of National Crops Resources Research Institute (NaCRRI) at Namulonge; Godfrey Asea, maize breeder and head of the Cereals Program; Pearl and NASECO seed companies representatives; Sammy Waruingi from BASF; and CIMMYT maize breeder Dan Makumbi and research assistant Edna Mageto. Ogwang urged the farmers to plant only certified seed and move beyond border issues to work together in Striga management. Asea thanked the government and farmers for their support in the fight against Striga. He said the farmers had become good project ambassadors.

“Striga is a big challenge to maize production,” said Eva Musenero, District Production Officer, thanking the partners for the efforts towards eliminating the pest. She also urged farmers to embrace new weed management technologies. The farmers who participated in the field day were keen to know how they could access the best performing varieties.

New maize brings hope to farmers in Striga-infested regions in Tanzania and Uganda

Written by on November 6, 2012. Posted in News.

For many years, farmers in Tanzania have desperately tried to control the parasitic flowering plant Striga spp.—popularly known as witchweed—that can make maize farming nearly impossible in regions of heavy infestation. In Tanzania Striga infests an estimated 0.6 million hectares over 10 regions, causing yearly losses to farmers of some 1.7 million tons of grain worth US$ 350 million. For lack of cost-effective control measures for this pest, some farmers have stopped growing maize.

However, there is now hope, thanks to a new maize variety, that is effective in controlling Striga. The variety, TAN222, has the added advantage of being high yielding 3.7 tons per hectare, according to Isaka Mashauri, director of Tanseed International, the company that is commercializing the variety in Tanzania.

Many years of joint research by CIMMYT, BASF (a multinational producer and supplier of agrochemicals), and the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel have resulted in a solution and source of hope for farmers. It involves coating seed of a herbicide-tolerant maize variety with the systemic herbicide imazapyr. When the seed is sown and sprouts, any Striga plants that attack it are killed. As part of this research, the partners developed herbicide tolerant maize lines based on a natural mutation in maize.

The African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF) is promoting this technology among farmers and extension agencies in areas of sub-Saharan Africa where Striga is prevalent. In Tanzania, the seed company Tanseed International has used the herbicide tolerant lines from this effort to develop and market the maize variety TAN222.

Anatia Mike, a farmer in Muheza District, Tanzania, tried using herbicide-coated seed of TAN222 and managed to harvest 1.2 tons of grain per hectare from her Striga infested farm, where previously she was getting yields of only 0.5 tons. At a recent field day organized by the research partners on Mike’s homestead to demonstrate the efficacy of this technology, Karimu Mtambo, the Director of Tanzania’s Ministry of Agriculture, Food Security, and Cooperatives, lauded the practice as the best and most effective in controlling Striga and improving maize yields, and called on farmers to adopt it together with other good agricultural practices.

Also present were Mashauri; Denis Tumwesigye Kyetere and Gospel Omanya, Executive Director and Seed Systems Manager, respectively, AATF; BASF representative Sammy Waruingi; Ibrahim Matovu, Muheza District Commissioner; and from CIMMYT agronomist Fred Kanampiu and breeder Dan Makumbi.

Kyetere promised full support from AATF in scaling out the technology, and Kanampiu called on the government to put in place mechanisms like herbicide registration for commercial use that would facilitate speedy adoption of the technology. He also urged seed companies to work with the Ministry of Agriculture to educate farmers on its use. Matovu promised to have Striga control included in the district agenda, particularly in budgeting.

Recent conference gets wheat back on Africa’s map

Written by on November 5, 2012. Posted in News.

DSCN0042 Wheat is increasingly in demand in sub-Saharan Africa as a result of income growth and the demand for convenience foods as more women enter the workplace, but sub-Saharan countries and Africa as a whole produce only about 30% and 40%, respectively, of their domestic requirements, causing a heavy dependence on imports and making the region highly vulnerable to global market and supply shocks.

This was one conclusion reached by some 250 researchers, policymakers, farmer, and seed company representatives who attended the conference “Wheat for food security in Africa: Science and policy dialogue about the future of wheat in Africa,” held in Addis Ababa during 08-12 October 2012. Organized by Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR), CIMMYT, ICARDA, IFPRI, the African Union, and WHEAT-the CGIAR research program, the event was intended to raise awareness about the potential to grow wheat and reduce the region’s imports of the crop, as well as to discuss policy, institutional, and infrastructure constraints. “In 2012, African countries will spend about US$12 billion to import some 40 million tons of wheat,” said Hans Braun, director of CIMMYT’s global wheat program. “If Africa does not push for wheat self-sufficiency, it could face more hunger, instability and even political violence, as bread riots in North Africa showed in recent years.”

Participants hailed from 23 African nations, as well as from Asia, Europe, and the Americas, and included 4 ministers of agriculture (Burundi, Ethiopia, Sudan, and Zimbabwe) and the directors of national agricultural research programs of 16 countries in Africa. Deemed a great success by participants and organizers, the event and the issues discussed were reported widely in regional and global media, including major outlets such as Nature, New Scientist, Le Monde, BBC Radio, and Deutsche Welle, as well as key wire services like Reuters-Thomson, Associated Press, and Bloomberg. An equally important outcome was the “Addis Declaration” formulated by conference participants and intended to get wheat onto Africa’s policy map as a strategic product for food security, according to Bekele Shiferaw, director of CIMMYT’s socioeconomics program and a co-author of a major report1 on wheat farming in Africa. “Unlocking the potential of wheat will require changes in attitudes, policy and donor support for adapting farming systems, empowering African farmers, and developing value chains for seeds, input supply, and output markets,” Shiferaw said.

The busy four-day agenda included visits to Ethiopia’s premier agricultural research stations at Kulumsa and Debre Zeit. The conference program committee would like to thank all who contributed, but special recognition goes to logistics team of Petr Kosina, Bekele Abeyo, and Dave Hodson. Presentations, publications, media reports, and posters are available on the conference web page.

Ravi Singh receives Crop Science Research Award

Written by on November 5, 2012. Posted in News.

Ravi P. Singh, distinguished scientist and head of Bread Wheat Improvement, was awarded the 2012 Crop Science Research Award by the Crop Science Society of America (CSSA). Singh is the first CIMMYT scientist to receive this award.

The award was presented at the CSSA annual meeting in Cincinnati, Ohio, on 24 October 2012, and recognized Singh’s achievements in fighting wheat diseases, rusts in particular. “Wheat rusts are among the world’s most important diseases,” said Singh. “A century of research and breeding has helped to reduce the losses caused by rusts, but new biotypes continue to emerge.”

A fellow of numerous scientific associations, Singh has contributed to the development of over 200 wheat cultivars; 20 of which are resistant to Ug99 and have been released and taken up by farmers in developing countries. His approaches for generating high-yielding and disease-resistant wheat lines have changed wheat breeding at CIMMYT and at breeding programs worldwide. Though an eminent scientist himself, Singh recognizes that science alone cannot solve the critical problems facing agriculture: “Policies to ensure efficient use of water, nutrients, and prices will be important to enhance productivity and profitability.”

MasAgro conservation agriculture technicians graduate

Written by on November 2, 2012. Posted in News.

masagro4 After 12 months of work and dedication, on 19 October 2012 technicians from different parts of Mexico were recognized for their efforts in an August graduation ceremony for the “Technicians Certified in Conservation Agriculture” course. The 48 graduates constitute the third generation of specialists trained to provide technical advice and assistance to new farmers as part of the “Take it to the Farmer” initiative of the Sustainable Modernization of Traditional Agriculture (MasAgro) program.

Held at CIMMYT-El Batán, the ceremony was attended by dignitaries including Francisco Mayorga Castañeda, Mexico’s Secretary of Agriculture; Mariano Ruiz Funes, Mexican Undersecretary of Agriculture; Bruno Gerard, director of CIMMYT’s global conservation agriculture program; Bram Govaerts, leader of “Take it to the Farmer”; Heriberto Ortega Ramírez, Secretary of Agriculture and Livestock Development for the State of Mexico; and Rodrigo Sánchez Mújica, Director General of the Mexican Trust Funds for Rural Development (FIRA).

In his talk to the graduates and other guests, Mayorga Castañeda highlighted the key role of MasAgro in bringing change to farming in Mexico, thus increasing food production while promoting sustainable development, and said the technicians were central to this occurring: “I hope their activities will be successful and the knowledge they have acquired will be applied, for this will undoubtedly bring positive results for rural Mexico.”

In 2011, more than 12,000 farmers benefitted from the training of 2,500 technicians. “With the support of these newly-trained technicians, we hope to significantly expand the 21,000 hectares currently under conservation agriculture in Mexico,” said Govaerts.

USAID and CIMMYT visit the 1st community-managed maize seed company in the hills of Nepal

Written by on November 1, 2012. Posted in News.

PHOTO-NEPAL21 The community based seed production (CBSP) program is one of the most successful interventions of the Hill Maize Research Project (HMRP) Phase IV in Nepal. Through this program, the project has significantly contributed to the increase in maize seed replacement rate, maize productivity, and income of smallholder and resource-poor farmers in the hills of the country. To observe the successes achieved so far, teams from USAID-Nepal, CIMMYT-Mexico, and HMRP visited a community-managed seed company in the Thumpahkar Village of Sindupalchowk district, located about 100 km north-east of Kathmandu, on 12 October 2012. The USAID team comprised of John Stamm (General Development Office director, USAID-Nepal), Luis Guzman (Feed the Future team leader, USAID-Nepal), Shanker Khagi (South Asia Regional Initiative for Energy country coordinator), and Lindsey Moore (USAID-Bangladesh). CIMMYT’s Thomas Short (deputy director general for Corporate Services), Nellooli P. Rajasekharan (International Human Resources director), G. Ortiz Ferrara (HMRP team leader), Nirmal Gadal (HMRP agronomist), and Dilli KC (HMRP seed value chain and marketing expert) were also present, along with about 35 seed growers, including the management team of the company.

The meeting was chaired by Gunda Bahadur Dhami, chairperson of Sindhu-Tuki Seed Production Cooperative Ltd. During a brief presentation, the company’s coordinator D.B. Bhandari summarized the institutional graduation of the farmers’ groups to a cooperative and later to a private seed company. Starting in 2005, the cooperative developed into a private seed company in 2010 with the technical support from HMRP. It currently works with 300 members organized in 14 CBSP groups. Bhandari also discussed the company’s current activities, future plan, operational model, membership policy, marketing activities, and approaches to gender and sustainability.

Stamm acknowledged the project team and congratulated farmers on the impact achieved so far. “USAID-Nepal considers HMRP a very successful project, and your seed company is a model for economic development of rural areas,” he said. Rajasekharan then thanked the HMRP team for organizing the field visit and expressed CIMMYT’s commitment to support the project staff in their work aiming to improve food security among Nepalese maize farmers. Short added: “I echo Raj’s words in congratulating the members of this seed company, but I also take the opportunity to thank the two donors of HMRP, USAID and SDC, for their financial and technical support given to the project.” Ortiz Ferrara stressed that “sustainability is the prime concern of HMRP, and the entire project activities are built on the clearly defined roles and responsibilities of the multiple stakeholders.

This small seed company is now operating on its own resources, and this is only one of the 195 CBSP groups coordinated by HMRP in 20 hill districts.” Responding to a question raised by Khagi regarding the competitiveness of improved maize seed, a female maize seed grower said: “The new maize varieties are high yielding, disease and lodging tolerant, have good taste, and the grain can be stored for a longer time.” Dhami followed: “We are just learning to walk and there is still a lot to do to help small farmers in our hill area to achieve food security and increase their income.” He thanked the guests for their valuable time and their continuing collaboration with the recently established seed company. At the end of the discussion, the team observed the seed processing plant, seed store house, and the community seed bank.

Interview with Ravi Singh

Written by on October 31, 2012. Posted in Features.

1. What kind of research do you specialize in?
My long-term research interest has been to enhance the genetic understanding of resistance to wheat rusts and to achieve durable resistance by developing high-yielding wheat germplasm that has adequate to near-immune levels of resistance based on diverse combinations of minor genes.

2. Why do you think it is important?
Wheat rusts are among the world’s most important diseases. A century of research and breeding effort has helped reduce the losses but new biotypes continue to emerge and cause significant losses. Use of minor gene combinations offers an unique opportunity to achieve long-term, or durable, resistance. This will protect wheat crops without the need of utilizing fungicides and thus enhance farmers’ income while protecting environment.

3. How did you get started in agriculture?
Although my grandparents were farmers and I enjoyed spending time in villages during vacations in my childhood days, my start in agriculture was accidental. When I was growing up in India most of my peers dreamt to become engineers, medical doctors, or civil servants. I was planning to become doctor and studied biology in school. To enter medical school, we had to go through competitive entrance tests. I missed the entrance test the first year as I was in bed for various months due to severe jaundice. So, I took the admission for agriculture, considering it to be relatively easy degree, to prepare for the medical entrance exam. However, when I realized that I was doing extremely well without putting much effort, I decided to stay with agriculture and give it my full effort. I started to set my own milestones during BS and MS programs and completed these degrees by establishing new records.

4. Your field has changed since you began your studies? What are some of the most important/exciting changes you’ve seen?
My PhD was in the area of genetics of rust resistance in wheat from the University of Sydney. This experience brought me to CIMMYT where I started as rust pathologist assigned to the bread wheat breeding program. Soon, I started to learn and contribute to wheat breeding while maintaining activities in wheat pathology and genetics. In other words, I was doing three jobs. This helped me integrate the three disciplines in a more effective manner. When biotechnology initiated at CIMMYT, I embraced it as a new tool and collaborated both with CIMMYT groups as well as outside partners to enhance my knowledge. Science is evolving continuously and, as breeders, we must be open to new science, and to using it where it can be applied more efficiently. Agriculture research and the CGIAR centers have had a roller-coaster ride during my career at CIMMYT. The need for good science, the need for solutions to enhance food production — especially considering climate change scenarios which project limited water availability and temperature stresses — will require serious efforts from scientists, policy makers, and farmers.

5. If you were a researcher just starting out, what would you pursue?
Any researcher starting must see what has worked and what can be done to make it better. Researchers can always contribute based on what they have learned or can learn. This is the way to move forward.

6. What are the most important/critical challenges facing food security/global hunger?
We have to recognize that science alone cannot solve all critical challenges facing agriculture. Implementation of policies to ensure efficient use of water, nutrients, and prices will be important to enhance productivity and profitability. I believe that sufficient food can be produced if there is a will and openness to adopt new technologies that are productive and sustainable.

7. What things/people inspire you to do your work?
Hard working people at all levels, who are ready to give what they have, inspires me a lot. At the end of the day the progress made in work is also inspiring to continue doing better and looking forward for the next day.