ACIAR’s Dr. John Dixon and Dr. Daniel Rodriguez of the Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation, with farmers from Melkassa, Ethiopia

A maize – legume farm in Tanzania

Government extension officer Frank Swai, Tanzania

Farmer and single mother of four Felista Mateo, Tanzania

CIMMYT’s Dr. Fred Kanampiu, Tanzania

By Judie-Lynn Rabar and
Dr. Gio Braidotti

East African farmers are spearheading a research drive to intensify crop production of their most important staple foods. The farmers’ experiments with conservation agriculture and variety selection are part of a broader, 5-country push to stave off a looming food and soil-health crisis.

Kilima Tembo is a secondary school in the Karatu district in Tanzania’s rural highlands. Here, near the Ngorongoro Crater and Tarangira National Park, agriculture is king and food security rests squarely on grains grown in the region’s maize–legume intercropping system.

So important is farming to the community that the school has an agriculture teacher and the school head, Ms Odilia Basso, has allowed the Selian Agricultural Research Institute (SARI) to use school grounds to run field trials as part of a 5-country initiative to overhaul the maize and legumes supply chain—from farm to market.

That means breaking with a long-standing cycle of lifting production simply by bringing more land under the plough. The ecological consequences of that approach are catching up with farmers and their environment, but agricultural science is providing more sustainable alternatives to improve food security.

The research-based strategy is called SIMLESA—sustainable intensification of maize–legume cropping systems for food security in eastern and southern Africa. Launched in March 2010, the project is supported by the Australian Government through ACIAR.

Ambitious aims

A major objective is to introduce conservation agriculture techniques and more resilient varieties to increase the productivity and resilience of this vital cropping system. SIMLESA is aiming not only to increase yields by 30% from the 2009 average but also to reduce, by the same factor, risk from yield variability between seasons.

The Kilima Tembo Secondary School will help achieve these goals. The school is hosting the so-called ‘Mother Trial’—a long-term SARI field trial of conservation agriculture. This farming practice involves conserving ground cover between harvests to preserve soil moisture and, over a number of years, radically improve soil health and fertility.

Unlike 11 other farmer-led field sites established by SARI (the so-called ‘Baby Trials’), the Mother Trial is managed directly by the institute’s scientists, landing the school’s students with front-row seats on research and development activities designed to sustain a farming revolution.

Mr. Bashir Makoko, an agronomist working on the SIMLESA project, says students have the opportunity to learn about the project and its significance to the community at an open day with scientists and extension workers from SARI.

The socioeconomist running the trial, Mr. Frank Mbando, is encouraging student participation. He has arranged for data to be collected in ways that allow students to interact with technical staff. “Direct involvement in the project will equip the students with the information they need as potential farmers,” he says.

Household and regional impacts

Supporting these activities are partnerships that link farmers with a suite of national resources—extension officers, research centres and agricultural ministries—and international research centres.

Coordinating these linkages is Dr. Mulugetta Mekuria, from the South African regional office of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT). Also involved is the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT).

Dr. Mekuria says SIMLESA was designed to have impacts at both the household and regional level.

“The aim is to ensure food security through agricultural research, stronger economic institutions, partnerships, and capacity building,” he says. “We want to increase food security and incomes while driving economic development through improved productivity from more resilient and sustainable maize-based farming systems.”

To implement the program, Dr. Mekuria is using the ‘3-I Approach’, a research for development (R4D) strategy designed to enhance smallholder prosperity based on the principles of integration, innovation, and impact. “SIMLESA activities will focus on integrated cropping systems, the use of innovation platforms to test and promote promising practices, and ensuring positive and measurable impacts on food security, sustainability and farm household incomes.”

ACIAR is funding SIMLESA with $20 million in financial support. The centre has enlisted Australian expertise through Dr. Daniel Rodriguez, of the Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation, and Professor John Howieson from the Institute for Crop and Plant Sciences at Murdoch University in Perth.

Positive experience

Ms. Felista Mateo, a 37-year-old farmer from Kilima Tembo village is already benefitting from participating in SIMLESA.

A single mother of four, Ms. Mateo supports her family with produce from her land, mainly maize and pigeon pea. Any surpluses, though small, are stored in granaries and either used domestically or sold to middlemen.

Following advice from government extension officer Mr. Frank Swai, she achieved yield gains that her neighbours are now attempting to duplicate. As her harvest increases, she plans to build a larger granary to store her surplus and sell more grain as a cash crop.

Traditionally, farmers have had no way of tracking the market and the middlemen who buy their produce have exercised control over prices. However, Ms. Mateo owns a mobile phone and since the inception of SIMLESA and its support network, she can now call an extension officer and check market prices. The result is greater bargaining power for the villagers when the middlemen come calling.

Averting food insecurity

More than 200 million people living in extreme poverty in the partner countries stand to benefit from SIMLESA.

Currently, the region is barely self-sufficient in grain, importing 10% of its needs—one quarter in the form of emergency food aid.
Maize is the main staple and legumes —primarily groundnut, pigeon pea and chickpea— are an important source of protein. Instead of a more prosperous future, however, the region is facing growth in demand for maize and legumes in the next 10 years. It is that trend towards food insecurity that SIMLESA is attempting to avert.

But it is not just on-farm practices that are targeted for innovation. Urban grain prices have remained stubbornly high following the global food crisis of 2007–08. But higher prices for consumers have not translated into higher prices for farmers. This has weakened incentives for farmers to increase food crop production, a state of affairs that SIMLESA is attempting to change.

CIMMYT’s Dr. Fred Kanampiu says that the SIMLESA project is aiming to achieve a ‘whole-chain’ impact. “Despite the multiple efforts underway with the researchers, the final focus should not be lost,” he says. “It is the farmer who is to be the end beneficiary of the research. The farmers’ lives should be improved, their pockets well-lined and their families well catered for.”

Of all the crops produced by farmers such as Ms. Mateo, it is pigeon pea that has an important role to play as a cash crop. Farmers are fond of this legume because it yields two harvests a year and there is a good export market to India. Pigeon pea retails up to TZS150,000 (about US$100) per 100 kilogram bag. On average, one acre (0.405 hectares) of land yields 300–400 kg of pigeon pea. Typically, 95% of the crop is sold.

In Karatu district some 15% of farmers live on less than a dollar a day. Mr. Makoko says the major obstacles to lifting their profitability are high inputs costs, low produce prices, lack of markets, and prolonged drought. By introducing pigeon pea or similar crops, and integrating the ‘whole-chain’ approach, these obstacles can be reduced or overcome.

Socioeconomist Frank Mbando, Tanzania.

Senior agronomist Tuaeli Mmbaga, Tanzania. The way forward will include training farmers to provide them with further education on how to manage their land.” –Tuaeli Mmbaga

Better varieties

While the main research thrust is on conservation agriculture, CIMMY T and ICRISAT are participating in accelerated breeding and performance trials that aim to introduce farmers to maize and legume varieties that yield well in good years and are resilient enough in the bad seasons to help reduce farmers’ risks.

Mr. Mbando is tracking impacts associated with the new varieties and says the farmers’ response to the studies has been positive.

“They suggested that breeders take into account farmers’ criteria when making selections, so a participatory approach will be used to evaluate varieties,” he says. “So far, farmers have indicated early maturity, pest and disease tolerance, high yields and marketability as the preferred traits. Variety registration and production will then also be stepped up to make the seed available in sufficient quantities.”

Partnership approach

Mbulu district, located about 50 kilometres from Karatu, is the next community targeted for SIMLESA activities in Tanzania, to start after the current crop has been harvested. At the SIMLESA inception meeting, farmers agreed to leave post-harvest residue on the ground in preparation for the trials. Field activities in the Eastern Zone districts of Gairo and Mvomero are expected to begin in the next growing season.

Ms. Tuaeli Mmbaga, the senior agronomist on this project, says that with support from extension officers, farmers will assess the technology both pre-harvest and post-harvest.

“The way forward will include training farmers to provide them with further education on how to manage their land,” she says. “This will include an Innovation Learning Platform in partnership with farm produce stockists, community leaders, and other stakeholders to ensure that more people become involved with the project.”

Crop modeling scientist Dr. Daniel Rodriguez, who leads the Queensland component of ACIAR’s SIMLESA program, is convinced that research to reduce food shortages in eastern and southern Africa could have many benefits for farmers, including in his native Queensland.

“Our scientists will be working to improve the resilience and profitability of African farms, providing access to better seeds and fertilisers to raise the productivity of local maize–legume farming systems,” Dr. Rodriguez says. “Together we may be able to help solve one of the greatest challenges for the developed world—eliminating hunger and poverty in Africa—while at the same time boosting legume production here in Australia.”

Building agricultural research capacity

ACIAR’s Dr. John Dixon says the emphasis of Australia’s direct involvement is on building capacity within the African agricultural research system.

“Conservation agriculture amounts to a substantial shift in farming practices for the region,” Dr. Dixon says. “But it stands to provide so many advantages—not just greater water-use efficiency and soil health but also opportunities to break disease cycles and improve livestock nutrition.”

These are long-term efforts that need to be adapted to many agro-climatically diverse locations, Dr. Dixon says. “So it is vital that the African agricultural research system is built up so that it can take lead responsibility for implementing innovation into the future.”

In Malawi, farmers who have in the past few years witnessed crop failure due to poor rains are switching to two new drought tolerant maize varieties, and seed companies are changing their business models to keep up.

“The climate is changing, rainfall is decreasing and the weather is now dictating which varieties farmers grow and in turn which varieties seed companies produce,” says Dellings Phiri, general manager of Seed Co. Malawi, a leading southern African seed company.

He refers to two new drought tolerant maize varieties–ZM 309 and ZM 523–developed specifically for Malawi’s drought-prone areas with infertile soils by CIMMYT, Malawi’s Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, and the Chitedze Research Station, through the Drought Tolerant maize for Africa (DTMA) project. The research was supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Howard G. Buffett Foundation. The varieties were officially launched in March 2009.

“In Malawi, each adult eats 300 kilos of maize annually, and ZM 309 and ZM 523 will give farmers a boost in safeguarding their maize harvests from the increasing threat of drought,” says Wilfred Mwangi, associate director of CIMMYT’s Global Maize Program and leader of the DTMA project.

First introduced by local extension agents to farmers in the drought-prone Balaka area through farmer-managed demonstration plots, these varieties have rapidly become popular among farmers, who have been impressed by their superior performance and accepted them. Compared to other popular commercially marketed varieties, farmers have found ZM 309 and ZM 523 to have higher yields, mature earlier, offer better resistance to common maize leafy diseases, and be better for pounding into flour. Locally, ZM 309 is known as Msunga banja, Chichewa for “that which takes care of or feeds the family,” while ZM 523 is Mwayi, which means “fortunate.”

Malawi supports for food security
In March 2009, farmers recommended ZM 309 for inclusion in Malawi’s Agricultural Input Subsidy Program, introduced in 2004 and credited with improving the country’s agricultural productivity and food security. Targeting smallholder farmers with access to land and other production resources, the program involves distribution of coupons for subsidized improved maize seed and fertilizer–one for a 100-kilogram bag of fertilizer and another for either 3 kilograms of standard seed or 2 kilograms of hybrid seed. In September 2009, Malawi’s President Dr. Bingu wa Mutharika endorsed ZM 309 saying, “ZM 309 will give Malawi farmers an advantage because it is high-yielding and drought tolerant. We welcome this research because it will help Malawi cope with climate change and improve food security.” The inclusion of ZM 309 in the subsidy program has seen the variety grown in six of the most drought-prone districts in Malawi, contributing to improved food security of thousands of farm families.

No more hungry months
One such family is that of Bamusi Stambuli, 63. Together with his wife Sagulani, they have they have 7 children and 5 grandchildren. In April 2010, Stambuli harvested nearly 1.8 tons of ZM 309 from his 0.6-hectare plot. “I will now be able to feed my family for a whole year,” says Stambuli proudly.

This year Stambuli will save at least USD 330 that he would have spent to purchase maize for his family. Farmers who grew ZM 309 obtained yields of 3.0 to 3.5 tons per hectare–twice those for the popular local varieties, Kanjelenjele and Kagolo.

In an area where locals rely on farming, fishing, basket-making, sale of firewood, and general trading, Stambuli’s success with ZM 309 is drawing many peers to his farm to buy ZM 309 seed.

Business as (un)usual
ZM 309 and ZM 523 are open pollinated varieties (OPVs), meaning farmers can save seed from one season and plant it for up to three subsequent seasons without punitive losses in yields or other desirable traits. Ordinarily, OPVs are not as attractive to commercial seed companies as hybrids, because with hybrids farmers have to buy and sow fresh seed every season or risk decreased performance of their crops. With ZM 309 and ZM 523 this is not the case. Seed Co. is changing its business model and investing in producing adequate amounts of both varieties to meet increased demand from farmers.

“We hope that from seeing the performance of ZM 309, farmers will be encouraged to start buying certified maize seed to boost production,” says Phiri.

CIMMYT E-News, vol 6 no. 2, February 2009

Demand for maize has popped up across Asia, but much of the grain is enjoyed by poultry, not people. In Bangladesh, maize is a fairly new crop, yet demand in this country already mirrors that of neighboring nations like China and India. A recent CIMMYT report explores these emerging trends and the efforts to incorporate sustainable and economically viable maize cropping systems into a traditionally rice-based country.

“Simply put, people have more money,” says Olaf Erenstein, a CIMMYT agricultural economist. “Asia’s population growth has slowed and incomes have increased. This means dietary demands and expectations are changing as well.”

With extra money in their pockets, many people across Asia are starting to desire something with a bit more bite. In the past 40 years, increased prosperity and a related meat demand have sent two-thirds of global maize production toward animal feed instead of direct consumption. Currently, 62% of maize in Asia is used to feed livestock while only 22% goes straight to the dinner plate. This is not surprising, as total meat consumption in the seven major Asian maize-producing countries1 rose 280% between 1980 and 2000. Poultry, particularly, plays a large role. During the same time period, poultry production rose 7% each year in Asia, compared to a 5% global average.

The bare-bones reason for this shift is that it takes more grain to produce meat than would be used if people ate the product directly. Grain-to-meat conversion ratios for pork are on the order of 4:1. Chicken is more efficient, requiring only 2 kilograms of grain feed for a kilogram of growth. Either way, when people substitute meat for grain, grain production must increase to meet the demand.

From a farmer’s perspective, this is not a bad thing, and what is occurring now in Bangladesh illustrates how farmers can benefit, according to a recently published CIMMYT study. With a 15%-per-year increase in Bangladesh’s poultry sector since 1991, the feed demand has opened a new market for maize. And since the country’s current average per person poultry consumption is at less than 2 kg a year—compared to almost 4 kg in Pakistan, 14 kg in Thailand, and 33 kg in Malaysia—the maize and poultry industries have plenty of room to spread their wings.

What came first: The chicken or the seed?

The poultry industry in Bangladesh employs five million people, with millions of additional households relying on poultry production for income generation and nutrition. “Only in the past 10 to 15 years, as many people got a bit richer, especially in urban centers, did the market for poultry products, and therefore the profitability of maize, take off in Bangladesh,” says Stephen Waddington, who worked as regional agronomist in the center’s Bangladesh office during 2005-07 and is a co-author of the CIMMYT study.

“Many maize growers keep chickens, feed grain to them, and sell the poultry and eggs; more value is added than by just selling maize grain,” he says. “Most Bangladeshis have no history of using maize as human food, although roasting cobs, popcorn, and mixing maize flour with wheat in chapattis are all increasing.” Waddington adds that maize could grow in dinnertime popularity, as the price of wheat flour has increased and the price of maize grain remains almost 40% lower than that for wheat.

Worldwide, more maize is produced than any other cereal. In Asia, it is third, after rice and wheat. But due to the increasing demand for feed, maize production in Asia has almost quadrupled since 1960, primarily through improved yields, rather than area expansion. Future rapid population growth and maize demand will lead to maize being grown in place of other crops, the intensification of existing maize lands, the commercialization of maize-based production systems, and the expansion of maize cultivation into lands not currently farmed. The International Food Policy Research Institute estimates that Asia will account for 60% of global maize demand by 2020.

Maize in Bangladesh is mainly a high-input crop, grown with hybrid seed, large amounts of fertilizer, and irrigation. While a successful maize crop requires high inputs, it also provides several advantages. “Maize is more than two times as economical in terms of yield per unit of land as wheat or Boro rice,” says Yusuf Ali.”Maize also requires less water than Boro rice and has fewer pest and disease problems than Boro rice or wheat.” The maize area in Bangladesh is increasing around 20% per year.

Maize-rice cropping challenges

“The high potential productivity of maize in Bangladesh has yet to be fully realized,” says Yusuf Ali, a principal scientific officer with the On-Farm Research Division (OFRD) of the Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI) and first author of the CIMMYT study. Bangladesh has a subtropical climate and fertile alluvial soils, both ideal for maize. From only a few thousand hectares in the 1980s, by 2007-08 its maize area had expanded to at least 221,000 hectares, he said.

Maize in Bangladesh is cropped during the dry winter season, which lasts from November to April. The other two crops commonly grown during winter are high-yielding irrigated rice (known in Asia as “Boro,” differentiating it from the flooded paddy rice common throughout the region) and wheat. Adding another crop into the mix and thereby increasing cropping diversity is beneficial for farmers, offering them more options.

Rice, the traditional staple cereal crop in Bangladesh, is grown throughout the country year round, often with two to three crops per year on the same land. So as the new crop on the block, maize must be merged with existing cropping patterns, the most common of which is winter maize sown after the harvest of paddy rice. And since rice is the key to food security in Bangladesh, farmers prefer to grow longer-season T. aman rice that provides higher yields than earlier-maturing varieties. This delays the sowing of maize until the second or third week of December. Low temperatures at that time slow maize germination and growth, and can decrease yields more than 20%. In addition, the later-resulting harvest can be hindered by early monsoon rains, which increase ear rot and the threat of waterlogging.

Another problem with maize-rice cropping systems is that the two crops require distinct soil environments. Maize needs loamy soils of good tilth and aeration, whereas rice needs puddled wet clay soils with high water-holding capacity. Puddling for rice obliterates the soil structure, and heavy tillage is required to rebuild the soil for maize. This is often difficult due to a lack of proper equipment, time, or irrigation. Moreover, excessive tillage for maize can deplete soils of nutrients and organic matter. Thus, as maize moves into rice-based cropping systems, agronomists need to develop sustainable cropping patterns, tillage management options, and integrated plant nutrient systems.

Support and supplies vital for success

“For a new crop like hybrid maize to flourish, there needs to be a flow of information and technology to and among farmers,” Waddington says.

In collaboration with the Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI), the Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE), and various non-governmental organizations, CIMMYT provided hands-on training for maize production and distributed hybrid seed (which tends to be higher-yielding and more uniform, but must be purchased and planted each year to experience full benefits) to over 11,000 farm families across 35 districts in Bangladesh from 2000-06. A CIMMYT report showed that farmers who received the training were more likely to plant their maize at the best times and also irrigated more frequently and adopted optimal cropping patterns and fertilizer use, resulting in higher yields and better livelihoods.

“This training is vital, since the country is full of tiny, intensively-managed farms. Maize tends to be grown by the somewhat better resourced farmers, but these are still small-scale, even by regional standards,” says Waddingon, adding that farm families were eager to improve their maize-cropping knowledge and their fields.

Other efforts include BARI’s development and release of seven maize hybrids largely based on germplasm from CIMMYT. Two of the hybrids consistently produce comparable grain yields to those of commercial hybrids. The Institute is also working on short duration T. aman rice varieties that have yields and quality comparable to traditional varieties and could thus allow timelier planting of maize.

Power tillers seed the future

Another important advancement is the power-tiller-operated seeder (PTOS) created by the Wheat Research Center (WRC) of BARI. Originally for wheat, the machine has been modified and used to plant maize. Additional PTOSs need to be built, tested, and marketed. Another promising piece of equipment in the works is a power-tiller-operated bed former. Because making and destroying soil beds between every rice/maize rotation is not practical or efficient, the WRC-BARI/CIMMYT farm machinery program is working on a tiller that simultaneously creates a raised bed, sows seed, and fertilizes. This is vital since the turnaround time between rice and maize crops is limited. Like the PTOS, further testing and promotion are needed.

Though much work is still required to incorporate maize fully and sustainably into Bangladesh’s cropping systems, it has already spread across the country quicker than anticipated. Even so, scientists believe future production will fall short of demand. This gap provides farmers an additional crop option, and plants maize in a good position for future growth in Bangladesh.

For more information: Enamul Haque, program manager, CIMMYT-Bangladesh office (e.haque@cgiar.org).

1 China, India, Indonesia, Nepal, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam were identified in a CIMMYT study as Asian countries with more than 100 K hectares sown with maize. At the time of the study, Bangladesh did not meet this maize area requirement and therefore is not included in this statistic.

CIMMYT E-News, vol 4 no. 8, August 2007

Faster, cheaper, more efficient: gift from DuPont helps CIMMYT scientists look for genes in wheat and maize—and gives breeders an affordable tool to help select the best.

A quiet revolution is taking place in CIMMYT’s biotechnology labs. The team has just received a new generation of genotyping machines. These semi-automated work-horses will make it much easier to determine whether breeding lines contain specific useful genes. It is hoped that this will help maize and wheat breeders—through a process known as marker-assisted selection (MAS)—to make breeding more effective and get crop varieties with valuable traits to poor farmers more quickly.

Traditionally, the only way to find out whether the offspring from a particular cross have inherited useful characteristics, such as drought tolerance, disease resistance, or grain quality, has been to grow them in the field and evaluate the adult plants. MAS can speed up the breeding process, since it makes it possible to track the presence of desired genes in every generation. This does not bypass the need for field evaluation, but can greatly improve the efficiency of the process. “Field screening takes time, space, and resources, and our capacity is limited,” explains CIMMYT maize breeder Gary Atlin, “but with MAS we could use resources more effectively, zeroing in on the best lines to test in the field and filtering out those that haven’t inherited the characteristics we need.”

When researchers want to find out whether a particular line of wheat or maize has the useful version of a gene (for example, disease resistance rather than disease susceptibility), they use nearby, identifiable sections of DNA known as markers, labeled with a fluorescent dye. Different versions of markers and genes are called alleles. DNA that is close together on the chromosome tends to stay together over generations, so a specific allele of a marker will be routinely inherited alongside the desired allele of a nearby gene. Using the new capillary electrophoresis genotyping machines, the sample is forced along a narrow capillary tube under the influence of an electric current. A laser at the end of the tube detects the different alleles of the fluorescent markers, indicating to the scientist whether the sample contains the allele they want.

The two ABI 3700 machines have been generously donated to CIMMYT by DuPont through its Pioneer Hi-Bred seed business, reflecting a fruitful collaborative relationship of more than a decade’s standing. Until now, CIMMYT has run most of its marker-assisted selection work on manual, gel-based electrophoresis apparatuses. In addition, analyses of genetic relationships between different wheat or maize lines have been run on older ABI genotyping machines, including two based on the previous, much slower generation of gel-based machines. The new machines can handle many more samples—96 each at a time—but it’s the savings in hands-on time that makes the real difference. “There’s no comparison,” says Marilyn Warburton, Head of CIMMYT’s Applied Biotechnology Center. “It will take us ten minutes to load one of these new machines, whereas it takes about four hours to make and load a manual electrophoresis gel.”

As well as being much quicker and less labor-intensive, capillary electrophoresis makes it possible to test for more than one marker and run more than one sample at once in each tube. By using different colors of fluorescent dye for each sample, markers for each can be distinguished, like teams of runners wearing different-colored jerseys. For maximum efficiency, scientists can also set up groups of samples to run at slightly different times, like runners set off in a staggered start. CIMMYT will even be able to develop a new type of marker, known as SNPs, which allow numerous traits to be tested simultaneously, providing more information per sample.

All of this means that the new machines have a much higher throughput capacity, and can process many more samples for the same labor input, drastically reducing the per-sample cost—currently the major constraint on use of MAS. “If MAS were significantly cheaper, I would certainly use it in maize breeding,” says Atlin. “Effectively, it lets you quickly transfer the genes you want into improved varieties. If you’re doing a backcross between a donor with a desired trait and an improved parent with good agronomic performance, you’re trying to select for one characteristic from the donor, but against all its other genes. With a number of markers, MAS makes it possible to determine exactly which progeny combine the desired gene from the donor with the good genes from the other parent. You can get results in two generations, compared to four or five normally.”

The challenge for MAS is finding genes with substantial effects, especially for complex traits such as drought tolerance in maize. Atlin believes such genes are still to be found. “In the past, donors with a single useful gene or trait but otherwise poor agronomic qualities were very difficult to use in breeding, as they introduced so much bad material. We can get rid of that useless material through MAS. That opens up the field to look for useful genes in a wider range of parents. And genotyping technology is getting cheaper and better at finding genes all the time.”

In wheat, the hunt for useful markers at CIMMYT is more advanced. “We’re working with new markers to select for nematode resistance, leaf and stem rust resistance, boron tolerance, Fusarium resistance, and grain quality,” says Susanne Dreisigacker, CIMMYT wheat molecular biologist. “Our current work is all gel-based, which means running tests sample by sample and marker by marker. Being able to run many samples at the same time will make a huge difference.”

For more information: Marilyn Warburton, molecular geneticist (m.warburton@cgiar.org)

CIMMYT E-News, vol 4 no. 1, January 2007

Farmers and community leaders in Kenya’s most densely-populated region have organized to produce and sell seed of a maize variety so well-suited for smallholders that distant peers in highland Nepal have also selected it.

According to Paul Okong’o, retired school teacher and leader of Technology Adoption through Research Organizations (TATRO), Ochur Village, Western Kenya, farmers first disliked the maize whose seed he and group members are producing. “It has small grains, and they thought this would reduce its market value,” he explains. “But when you sowed the seed, which looked small, what came out of it was not small!”

Small-scale maize farmers of the Regional Agricultural Association Group (RAAG), another community-based organization in Western Kenya, have quintupled their yields in only one year—now obtaining more than 2 tons of maize grain per hectare—using seed, fertilizer, and training from TATRO, according to RAAG coordinator, David Mukungu. “This has meant that, besides having enough to eat, farmers were able to sell something to cover children’s school fees or other expenses,” says Mukungu. “We started with six farmers the first year, but after other farmers saw the harvest, the number using the improved seed and practices increased to thirty, and we expect it will continue increasing.”

The variety whose seed TATRO grows is called Kakamega Synthetic-I. It is an open-pollinated variety—a type often preferred over hybrids by cash-strapped smallholders, because they can save grain from the harvest and sow it as seed the following year, without losing its high yield or other desirable traits. The variety is also drought tolerant, matures earlier than other local varieties, and is better for making Kenyan’s favorite starchy staple, ugali. “Women say it ‘pulls’ the water, which means you don’t need much maize flour to make a good, heavy ugali,” Okong’o explains. “These things seem small, but when taken together they weigh a lot for farmers who eat ugali as a daily staple.”

A maize that crosses many borders

Kakamega Synthetic-I was released by the KARI research station in Kakamega, Kenya. Its pedigree traces back to the work of CIMMYT and many partners in southern and eastern Africa—national maize research programs, private companies, and non-government organizations—to develop stress tolerant maize for the region’s smallholders. “Kakamega Synthetic I was selected from ZM621, a long-season, drought tolerant, open-pollinated variety now released in several African countries,” says Marianne Bänziger, CIMMYT maize physiologist who took part in the creation of ZM621 and now serves as director of the center’s Global Maize Program. “The variety has also been released in Nepal, after small-scale farmers from the mid-hills chose it as one of their favorites in participatory varietal trials.” Bänziger says. This highlights the role of a global organization like CIMMYT, which can draw upon and distribute public goods and expertise transcending national borders: “The center was predicated upon and has practiced collaborative science ‘globalization’ for agricultural development since its inception four decades ago—long before that term became fashionable in policy circles.”

Finding and filling entrepreneurial niches

By reducing risk for small-scale farmers, varieties like Kakamega Synthetic-I encourage investment in other amendments, like fertilizer, that can start smallholders on an upward spiral out of low-input, subsistence agriculture. Good varieties also entice enterprising farmers and community-based organizations like TATRO into potentially profitable businesses like seed production, for niches inadequately served by existing companies. “We observe the seed production regulations of the KEPHIS, the Kenyan plant health inspectorate, and would like to work toward certification of our organization, to be able to sell certified seed in labeled packages and fetch better prices,” says Okong’o. TATRO is currently producing and marketing just under 2 tons of Kakamega Synthetic-I—enough to sow more than 70 hectares—each year. The lack of effective informal seed production and distribution systems limits the spread of improved open pollinated maize varieties and farming practices in eastern Africa, according to Stephen Mugo. CIMMYT maize breeder in the region, Mugo also coordinated the former, Rockefeller Foundation-funded project “Strengthening maize seed supply systems for small-scale farmers in Western Kenya and Uganda” that involved TATRO and similar farmer organizations. “Improved varieties raised yields in the past and could do so again,” he says, “but only about one-fifth of the region’s farmers grow improved varieties.”

For more information, Stephen Mugo, maize breeder (s.mugo@cgiar.org)

January, 2005

In recent years, CIMMYT’s collaboration with partners in the South Africa Development Community (SADC) has flourished in scope and strength to span research, training, and shared experiences with researchers, extension workers, farmers, seed companies, and four national universities. The various parties bring their strengths to this alliance, resulting in synergy and a fluid transfer of impact-oriented technologies and knowledge to smallholder farmers.

From the Ivory Tower to Farmers’ Fields

Mick Mwala’s friends have nicknamed him “Dr Mobile.” On any given day he can be found at any of three or more places: the lecture halls and laboratories of the Department of Crop Science at the University of Zambia (UNZA), interacting with his students at the CIMMYT-Zimbabwe research station, or in the field visiting smallholder farmers who host “baby” trials in farmer-participatory maize variety evaluations (popularly known as mother-baby trials ) throughout the SADC region. Occasionally, he will also call on the offices of local seed companies to chat about the varieties being tested in the field. The only way to reach Mwala on weekdays is via his mobile phone, hence the nickname.

Mwala, a Senior Lecturer at the University of Zambia (UNZA), is among the many individuals who supply impetus to agricultural progress in the region. Since 2000, he has been allocating 30% of his time to providing regional leadership within CIMMYT’s southern African research agenda. “I advise national research and extension staff in 10 southern African countries, each of them leading a network among farmer and partner organizations to identify new maize varieties suitable to smallholder conditions,” he explains. Marianne Bänziger, director of CIMMYT’s African Livelihoods Program, sees Mwala’s secondment to CIMMYT as one approach to an extremely productive collaboration between an international agricultural research center and the present expertise of African universities, and Mwala concurs.

“Many universities had become ivory towers, with little actual connection to the development issues their research and training activities should address,” he says. His focus on CIMMYT has involved him in a highly relevant, cooperative effort allowing CIMMYT’s state-of-the-art science and technologies—such as new breeding approaches for drought tolerance, or GIS tools—to be utilized. “The experience has definitely cross-fertilized my approach to teaching at the university and equipped me with a developmental perspective towards training and research,” Mwala says. The expanse of collective knowledge is also shared among international agricultural research centers, national agricultural research systems (NARS), non-governmental and community-based organizations, church-based groups, schools, the private sector, and with individual smallholder farmers. In turn, CIMMYT has gained much from Mwala’s experience in capacity building and his intrinsic knowledge of southern Africa and its people.

New Challenges Add a New Dimension to Collaboration

For many decades, agricultural research institutions have grappled with how to design variety release systems that are more responsive to smallholder farmers’ needs. Farmers’ access to seed must be improved, especially for those who have to travel long distances. By partnering with institutions possessing broad and in-depth knowledge of the southern Africa region, its people, cropping systems, and technology transfer approaches, international centers such as CIMMYT are better able to deliver innovative science-based solutions for improved livelihoods.

A troubling phenomenon that Mwala has observed in the course of his work is the extremely high staff turnover rate in the region’s NARS. “It is not unusual for the staffing profile of an institution to completely change in a given year, and this presents a tremendous challenge to agricultural development,” he states. Bänziger estimates that half of the maize breeders in southern Africa leave their posts within three years, and she notes, “This is less time than is needed to identify a variety for release to farmers.” Staff trained in the 1980s are approaching retirement or have already done so

In addition, most staff joining NARS come only with a fresh BSc degree, and the experienced people are involved in management rather than research or have moved to greener pastures. In recent times, many succumb to illness, ranging from preventable diseases like malaria to terminal conditions like HIV/AIDs. Donor investments in graduate training have decreased to the extent that few universities in the region can maintain viable MSc programs.

To address these issues in a more coordinated fashion, Mwala, in collaboration with CIMMYT, obtained support from The Rockefeller Foundation in 2003 for MSc training of NARS scientists at the University of Zambia. Six scientists are completing their research projects at four international centers in the region—CIMMYT, ICRISAT, CIAT and IITA/SARNET —following a year’s course work at university.

Dibanzilua Nginamau, one of the Rockefeller-supported students, says, “I could never have done an MSc degree in plant breeding in Angola, because my country does not have a postgraduate program in that field. While at UNZA, I met colleagues from Zambia, Mozambique, and Tanzania who, like me, were breeders confronted with a tremendous responsibility and no postgraduate education.” The course work at UNZA coupled with his applied research at CIMMYT has equipped Nginamau with the skills, competence, and confidence to breed successfully for Angola’s needs. “I can now lead my own breeding program back home!” he says.

Gaining from this network are farmers, scientists, NARS, universities and their students, as well as organizations like CIMMYT. Building on relationships and working together is essential for smooth transfers of knowledge to the farmers. It is also more cost-effective. “Working together actually required fewer resources than if we had all gone down the path on our own,” Mwala concludes.

CIMMYT E-News, vol 2 no. 7, July 2005

In a country where each person consumes at least 100 kilograms of maize a year, a new, easy-to-use, affordable practice that could raise the crop’s production by 200,000 tons is, naturally, greeted with much celebration in Kenya.

Such was the mood at Kisumu, Kenya, during the 5 July launch of the Clearfield® technology for Striga weed control. “This is good news for farmers, and good news for the government,” stated the chief guest, Romano Kiome, director of the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI). If widely adopted, according to Kiome, the technology could “…lift poor farmers from subsistence to income generation, poverty to wealth, and food insecurity to security.”

A highly invasive parasite, Striga infests 400,000 hectares of Kenya’s farmland. Striga sprouts fasten directly to roots of maize seedlings, sucking away nutrients and 50 to 100% of yields by harvest time. The weed overruns 40% of the arable land in Africa’s savannahs, threatening the livelihoods of more than 100 million people who depend on cereal crops for food and income. Kenyan maize farmers lose at least US$ 50 million annually in grain to Striga.

Taking advantage of a natural variation in maize, for nine years CIMMYT and partners have conventionally bred varieties that yield well under tropical conditions and withstand imidazolinone, an active ingredient in several herbicides and the BASF product, Strigaway®. This imidazolinone-resistant (IR) maize is the starting point for an elegant control method, as CIMMYT agronomist Fred Kanampiu explains: “The IR maize seed is coated with a low dose of the herbicide, which kills Striga as it germinates, allowing the maize to grow clear of the weed.” Besides producing healthy maize plants, over several years the practice helps clear fields of residual Striga seed—a boon to farmers, given that a single Striga plant produces up to 50,000 tiny seeds that can remain viable for 20 years or more.

Four new maize hybrids have been released for marketing in Kenya under the common name Ua Kayongo (literally “kill Striga”) H1–4, and farmers are enthusiastic, as their statements in the Nairobi Daily Nation show: “I have already seen major changes in my farm compared to my neighbors’, whose parcels remain covered with the purple flowers of the parasitic weed,” says Zedekiah Onyango of Baridi farm in Nyahera. “My maize yield is many times higher since I started using IR maize, and I look forward to even higher yields.” Farmers are also urging the government to promote the technology to arrest the perennial food shortages caused by Striga. “I believe it would be much cheaper for the government to invest money in the technology, so that this menace is cleared once and for all, and the production of various cereals is restored,” says Beatrice Ayoo, another small-scale farmer who is interested in the new Clearfield® practice.

The technology was developed through global cooperation involving CIMMYT; KARI; the Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel; BASF; private seed companies; and the Rockefeller Foundation; among others. Peter Matlon, director for the Africa Regional Program, the Rockefeller Foundation, was at the launch, and called the cross-sectoral collaboration “a classic example of partnership.” The Clearfield® control package will be released soon in Tanzania, Uganda and, eventually, 16 other countries of sub-Saharan Africa, in a process spearheaded by the African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF) with DFID support.

For more information, contact Fred Kanampiu (f.kanampiu@cgiar.org).

CIMMYT E-News, vol 2 no. 12, December 2005

CIMMYT’s Ravi Singh is named outstanding CGIAR scientist for 2005.

Ravi Singh is a skilled researcher who has dedicated his career to improving the lives of wheat farmers in the developing world. That dedication, commitment, and skill were rewarded by the members of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) when they named him the outstanding scientist in the system for 2005. CIMMYT is one of the CGIAR’s 15 research centers.

Ravi Singh joined CIMMYT as a post-doctoral fellow in 1983. He has specialized in rusts—fungal pathogens that since the beginning of agriculture have plagued wheat crops. Carried on the wind, rust spores respect no political boundaries. Resource-poor wheat farmers, who have no access to chemical controls, are at the highest risk. One solution is to find a genetic characteristic that will prevent the pathogen from causing damage and incorporate it into wheat varieties farmers will grow. Traditionally this host plant resistance has come from a single, major gene. The problem is that the pathogens mutate and can overcome the resistance provided by a single gene in a relatively short time.

Singh’s great contribution has been the development of the underlying theory of genetic resistance mechanisms in wheat. He has been able to breed durable resistance to both leaf rust and yellow rust by combining several minor resistance genes into a single cultivar to give the plant a resistance to the pathogen that will survive many generations, many growing seasons.

Rust resistance has been one of the most important thrusts of CIMMYT’s wheat breeding work. One study documenting the impact of almost 40 years of breeding for leaf rust at CIMMYT estimated that for every dollar (based on 1990 values) CIMMYT invested, the return to farmers growing spring wheat alone was US$27, for a total of more than US$5.3 billion.

“I’m thrilled for Ravi and thrilled for CIMMYT,” said Dr. Masa Iwanaga, CIMMYT’s Director General. “This award shows once again that scientific excellence combined with a commitment to people in the developing world is a winning combination.”

This is the second time in three years that a CIMMYT researcher has been named the CGIAR’s outstanding scientist. Last year the CIMMYT-convened Rice Wheat Consortium for the Indo-Gangetic Plains won the coveted King Baudouin Award for excellence in agricultural science.

Today Ravi Singh has taken on perhaps the biggest challenge of his career: to find durable resistance for a new, virulent strain of stem rust, the most dreaded of all the wheat diseases. If not contained or controlled, the new stem rust strain could cause billions of dollars of damage every year to wheat crops and immense suffering for resource-poor wheat farmers in the developing world.

“Ravi has been the intellectual linchpin in this research initiative,” says Dr. Ronnie Coffman, the Chair of the Department of Plant Breeding and Genetics at Cornell University. “He is helping scientists in all the essential disciplines and geographies integrate their knowledge and abilities into an effort that I believe will successfully forestall a global stem rust epidemic.”

While the science itself presents a challenge, Singh always has in mind the people for whom he is doing the work. “The issue is how quickly we can put resistance into a cultivar which will be acceptable to farmers in developing countries,” he says. “You feel great when you see that people far away are growing something you developed

For further information, contact David Mowbray (d.mowbray@cgiar.org).