CIMMYT E-News, vol 3 no. 11, November 2006

A CIMMYT scientist is working to see if instead of replacing old varieties with “new and improved”, it is possible to combine the best of the new while retaining the old.

In the village of Tumbadero, Mexico, adjacent to CIMMYT’s Agua Fría maize research station, the farmers place a very high value on their traditional varieties. The maize they grow has small ears so it does not yield much. What makes each ear special is a long husk that dwarfs it. The village is close to a major transportation route and traders pay a premium for the husks, which are used to wrap one of Mexico’s most famous foods, the tamale. “We make more money selling the husks than we do selling the grain” says Ruben López, a farmer in the village. But he and the other villagers have a problem: storing the ears without their husks is an open invitation to insects to feast on the maize. With so little yield, saving every grain possible for food is extremely important.

Less than a hundred kilometers from Tumbadero is another village—Cañada Rica. It is well off the beaten track and far from traders. Farmers like Eva Cruz care much more about the cooking quality of the maize flour than they do about the husks, which they cannot sell. Eva uses husks as kindling for the fire on which she cooks tortillas each morning. “Our maize makes the best tortillas,” she says. “They are thick and filling, much better than ones you make with maize flour from the store.” But Eva Cruz’s maize is not without problems either. Storage pests attack her harvest regularly, just as they do the maize in Tumbadero.

Clearly the traditional varieties grown by the farmers of these two villages are very different and have been bred by them to meet specific needs. Each variety is also well-adapted to its local environment. Farmers have no desire to abandon those traits, but also need maize that yields, stores, and tolerates stress better than their traditional varieties. That conundrum became a challenge for Dave Bergvinson, a CIMMYT entomologist who specializes in maize pests. “What if, instead of breeding whole new varieties on a mass scale, you gave the farmers themselves a chance to breed their own?” asks Bergvinson. “You take their best and combine it with our best and then let them do the rest.” To test the idea, he is working with farmers in isolated, economically disadvantaged regions in Mexico. He takes seed from farmers to a CIMMYT research site, like the station at Agua Fría, where he can cross it with CIMMYT maize that has the characteristics missing in the farmers’ varieties. Each cross is specific to a particular village or farmer. After one season of crossing, Bergvinson selects the progeny that perform the best and most closely match farmer preferences for husk, grain type, adaptation, and other traits. Finally, he returns seed of the improved local variety to the farmers. From then on each farmer has what is basically his traditional variety, but with certain improved characteristics.

According to Bergvinson, CIMMYT lacks the resources to carry out such work on a global scale. “It’s not a mass, large-scale solution,” says Bergvinson. “But it is a way of getting to the small pockets of deep poverty and giving those farmers a chance.” It also provides another way for breeders to get a true sense of what end-users of breeding products—the farmer and consumer—consider important.

The pilot project is only in it’s fourth season and there is much analysis to be done, but farmers like Eva Cruz and Ruben López have grown their new seed and can see the improvement. They also see that the traits they value so much in their maze have not been lost.

For more information, David Bergvinson (d.bergvinson@cgiar.org)

May, 2005

CIMMYT-Peru maize, Marginal 28, outstrips expectations for farmers in Peru

On a hillside that abuts more than 3,000 kilometers of Amazonian expanse beginning in Peru and reaching clear across Brazil to the Atlantic, farmer Virgilio Medina Bautista weeds his maize field under the stifling equatorial sun. He and his wife Sabina Bardales typically arise before dawn to cook a meal for their field workers, and will work all day until bedtime, around 9 p.m. “We come to the field with the food for brunch and ready to work,” Medina says. “It’s a hard life, but there’s no other way, for someone without an education.”

Like 90% of the farmers in this region of Peru—the lowland zones east of the Andes known as the “jungle”—as well as many on the coastal plains or in inter-Andean valleys, Medina sows Marginal 28. This open-pollinated maize variety, developed in the 1980s by Peru and CIMMYT, is popular for its high yields and broad adaptation. It provides two or three times the average yield of the local variety it replaced, and grows well in diverse environments. “Private companies have been trying to introduce maize hybrids here, but they yield only six tons per hectare,” says Edison Hidalgo, maize researcher from the National Institute of Agricultural Research (INIA) “El Porvenir” experiment station, whose staff help spread productive farming practices throughout the region. “Marginal 28 gives that or more, under similar management, and because it’s an open-pollinated variety, farmers don’t have to purchase new seed every season.”

Luis Narro, CIMMYT maize researcher in South America and a native of Peru who helped develop Marginal 28, says the cultivar’s adaptation and uses have far outstripped expectations. “This variety is sown most widely in jungle zones—truly marginal, lowland areas characterized by poor soils, heavy weeds, and frequent drought, to name a few constraints,” Narro says. “But I was just at a station in Ayacucho, at over 2,700 meters in the Andes, and saw seed production fields of Marginal 28 where the yields were probably going to hit seven tons per hectare.” Farmers in jungle areas use it chiefly in animal feeds or for export to the coast. Coastal farmers grow Marginal 28 because the seed is relatively cheap and yields high-quality forage for their dairy cattle. In the Andes, the grain goes for food and snacks.

Its adaptability may be explained in part by its genetically diverse pedigree, which even includes as a parent an internationally recognized variety from Thailand. “This suggests part of the value of a global organization like CIMMYT, which can combine contributions from around the world to develop a useful product for small-scale farmers,” Narro says.

Can Poor Farmers Stop Chopping Down Jungles?

Despite the clear benefits of Marginal 28, Peruvian farmers are still struggling as markets shift, production costs rise, and maize prices remain low. Farmer Jorge Dávila Dávila, of Fundo San Carlos, in Picota Province, in the Amazon region of Peru, grows maize, cotton, banana, and beans on his 10-hectare homestead. Because he is relatively far from the trans-Andean highways leading to the coast, where maize is in heavy demand for use in poultry feed, middlemen pay him only US $70 per ton of maize grain—well below world market prices. “Maize is a losing proposition; that’s why so many farmers here are in debt,” he says. “They can’t take their maize to local companies for a better price, because they already owe it to the middlemen who provide inputs.”

Unlike most peers, Dávila makes ends meet through hard work and what he calls “an orderly approach” to farming. Many in the region slash and burn new brushland, cropping it for two or three seasons till fertility falls off, and then they move to new land. Dávila has stayed put for eight years on the same fields. “I tell my neighbors not to cut down their jungle,” he says. “I’ve seen that leaving it brings me rain.” With support from INIA researchers like Hidalgo, Dávila is testing conservation agriculture practices. For example, on one plot he plans to keep maize residues on the soil surface and seed the next crop directly into the soil without plowing. Research by CIMMYT and others has shown that this practice can cut production costs, trap and conserve moisture, and improve soil quality.

For further information, contact Luis Narro (l.narro@cgiar.org)

CIMMYT E-News, vol 4 no. 7, July 2007

Infrared sensors help better target fertilizer for wheat on large commercial farms in northern Mexico, cutting production costs and reducing nitrogen run-off into coastal seas.

Farmers of the Yaqui Valley, Sonora State, northern Mexico, and fish in the Sea of Cortez: what ties could they possibly share? Well, if CIMMYT wheat agronomist Iván Ortíz-Monasterio and fellow researchers at Stanford University and Oklahoma State University achieve their aims, both farmers and fish may breathe a little easier.

Ortíz-Monasterio and his partners have been testing and promoting with Yaqui Valley farmers a sensor that measures light reflected from wheat leaves and thereby gauges the health and likely yield of the plants. The device is calibrated to capture red wavelengths, which indicate chlorophyll content, and infrared wavelengths, a measure of biomass. The readings are run through a mathematical model to provide a recommendation about whether or not the crop requires a mid-season application of fertilizer.

Yaqui Valley wheat farmers work large holdings (averaging around 100 hectares), use irrigation and mechanization, and grow improved varieties with fertilizer, fungicides, and other inputs. They typically get excellent yields—on the order of 6 tons per hectare. Despite this, they are feeling squeezed by the rising costs of diesel fuel, water, fertilizer, and other inputs, and many are actually in debt; so they are fervently seeking ways to save money.

Too much of a good thing?

“Farmers here typically apply 230 kilograms of nitrogen per hectare, and 150 kilograms of this goes on 20 days before sowing,” explains Arturo Muñoz Cañez, a consulting agronomist who works a lot of the time with the Asociación de Organismos de Agricultores del Sur de Sonora, an umbrella group that includes seven farmer credit unions serving producers on some 140,000 hectares in the region. “Our studies with Iván have shown that local wheat crops actually use only about one-third of that fertilizer.”

Where does the rest go? Some evaporates into the atmosphere, in the form of nitrous oxide, a notorious greenhouse gas that is nearly 300 times more damaging than carbon dioxide. Another part leaches as nitrate into groundwater, and much of the rest dissolves in run-off irrigation and rainwater, eventually finding its way to the west coast of Sonora and into the sea. There it may fertilize oxygen-hungry algae that can suffocate other marine life and cut into fishermen’s catches.

From Mexico to the world

With the help of Ortíz-Monasterio, Muñoz, and other agronomists, Yaqui Valley farmers used the sensor on 174 plots in 2006-07, comparing readings from a fully-fertilized comparison strip with those from the rest of the field at 45 days after sowing—a point at which most important differences in crop development are evident. They then followed the resulting recommendations concerning how much additional fertilizer was needed, if any. In 66% of the cases, the recommendation was to apply nothing more. At harvest, yields from both the fully-fertilized strips and 86 test plots were compared by weighing the grain. “92% of the farmers got good yields—that is, comparable to those of fully-fertilized strips—and on average saved around US$ 75 per hectare in fertilizer they did not apply,” says Muñoz. That’s a US$ 7,500 savings for a 100-hectare farm.

Ortíz-Monasterio attributes the success partly to residual fertility in the local soils, but would like to see eventual adoption of more precise, resource-conserving agricultural practices—including direct seeding without tillage, retaining crop residues on the soil surface, and improved water use efficiency—on at least half of the total 200,000 hectares of the Yaqui and nearby Mayo Valleys. “The Yaqui Valley has been a sort of laboratory for the rest of the world,” says Ortíz-Monasterio, who has worked for several years with researchers in Pakistan to adapt the sensor for the country’s extensive irrigated wheat lands. “A lot of what was first developed here—high-yielding wheat varieties, sowing on raised beds, and now the sensor—has gone on to be used in other wheat farming regions of the developing world. In some ways, what happens here is a reflection of how successful or not CIMMYT is.”

Ortíz-Monasterio is also promoting a lower-cost alternative for farmers who may not be able to work with a sensor: “You simply establish a well-fertilized strip in your field. If the rest of your crop looks comparable in health and development to plants in the strip, then you don’t need to apply more fertilizer. If there is any difference, then you apply what you would normally apply. In this way, we’d help at least half the irrigated wheat farmers in the world.”

For more information: Iván Ortíz-Monasterio, wheat agronomist (i.ortiz-monasterio@cgiar.org)

May, 2004

Drought, arguably the greatest threat to food production worldwide, was the focal point of a high-level, weeklong workshop supported by the Rockefeller Foundation and CIMMYT, commencing May 24, in Cuernavaca, Mexico.

Approximately 140 scientists from Asia, Africa, and Latin America–working on various aspects of drought tolerance in plants–met to present their research results and discuss ways forward with their colleagues. The meeting, entitled the “Resilient Crops for Water-Limited Environments workshop,” looked mainly at maize, rice, and wheat, which account for more than half of the calories consumed by people in the developing world, and are the basis for their food security and livelihoods. Scientists comprehensively addressed drought, looking at drought tolerance from the ground-level perspective of incorporating farmer participation into varietal development, to the heights of molecular genetics, and how plant genes interact and respond to water stress.

The workshop was opened by Dr. Gordon Conway, President, The Rockefeller Foundation, and Dr. Masa Iwanaga, Director General of CIMMYT.

Dr. Conway, in his address, declared a “war on drought.” He explained that 70% of the one billion African and Asians in extreme poverty (less than $1/day) live in rural areas, and that agriculture is their primary route to improved nutrition and income. For developing world farmers, drought wreaks havoc, forcing them to sell off their meager assets, such as livestock or their own off-farm labor, and forego health care and their children’s education. Often the results are far more dire: hunger, malnutrition, and even starvation. In the 1960s and 70s, the Green Revolution saved hundreds of millions from famine, said Conway, but many living in less favored environments were bypassed as much of the success was based on adequate water and soil fertility. What is needed now is a Doubly Green Revolution to lift up the African and Asian smallholders left behind. Drought tolerant crops are key to this cause .

Dr. Iwanaga recounted the long and close relationship between CIMMYT and The Rockefeller Foundation, dating back to the pre-CIMMYT era and the Foundation’s support for Norman Borlaug’s work on semi-dwarf cereals, leading to the Green Revolution. That success led to the birth of CIMMYT and the CGIAR, with considerable backing again provided by the Foundation.

Even today, Dr. Iwanaga pointed out, the Foundation remains one of CIMMYT’s most important supporters, both financially, but more importantly, in the confluence of the Foundation’s goals and CIMMYT’s research activities. Both institutions see drought tolerant crops, soil fertility, and the development of seed markets and distribution systems as essential pillars for improving productivity for smallholder farmers, thereby providing a path out of poverty to better livelihoods for the developing world’s rural poor.

Extended abstracts from the workshop are forthcoming and will be made available to the public before year’s end.

November, 2004

How could a wheat research station in the middle of a maize-growing state become a resource for its neighbors? Campaigning for conservation agriculture and maize hybrids, CIMMYT’s Toluca Station superintendent Fernando Delgado Ramos is changing the way some farmers think about the plow. What started out as a crop rotation for a wheat experiment is now turning heads for its advances in maize yields.

Julián Martínez is one of the farmers to have noticed. He has seen tremendous differences in his efforts since adopting hybrid maize seeds and direct seeding methods on raised soil beds, which he started two years ago. Early in the season he was ashamed of his crop, but now smiles with pride when people pass on the nearby road, touching the tip of his hat and grinning. His results last year planting hybrids directly into raised soil beds were so abundant that the landowner increased the rent, which compelled Martínez to shift his efforts to a nearby ejido, or communal land. Small as the area may be, another bumper crop came this year, with not a bit of lodging in his straight and strong stocks of maize. Well-protected, fuller husks are another benefit of the particular hybrid Martínez has chosen. Driving through Toluca, located in a mountain valley, it’s obvious that lodging is a prevalent problem here. Even when leaning maize stocks were no longer Martínez’s problem and his yield doubled to eight tons per hectare, many local farmers have not taken the practices he and Delgado espouse seriously.

“My father thought I was crazy when I started,” Martínez says. “‘What are you doing with this?!’ he asked me. He thought I wasn’t being a good farmer, that I was doing bad work,” Martínez admits, and explains that at first he wasn’t allowed to rent his father’s three hectares. In May and June, when early-maturing local varieties dwarfed his late-maturing hybrids, he was worried, “but not anymore,” he says. By the end of the 2003 harvest, his father and brother were convinced. Martínez’s mentor throughout this process, Delgado sees these experiences as valuable because “if one farmer takes up the technology, I am happy, and the idea will spread itself.” Next year he anticipates helping two farmers in Jalisco convert over 250 hectares to permanent soil beds. Big strides for an idea that has started out small.

An Off-station Sideline Brings Local Benefits

Delgado is a leader among an array of seasoned and experienced field workers at Toluca Station, many who have been working there for over 20 years. Their combined experience and constancy have been enormously beneficial to Toluca’s success developing wheat for acidic soil and high rainfall environments. It has only been in the last few years that Delgado has made progress helping the maize farmers around the station, something he accomplishes as a sort of sideline after completing a full day of balancing office and fieldwork. Farmers gravitate to this tall Mexican, who knows his stuff after working at CIMMYT for 14 years. Educated in agronomy, he started out in a joint program between the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas and CIMMYT, providing Latin America with improved barley strains, and now he has risen to superintendent at Toluca.

After exhausting other sources of information and assistance, it is the serious farmers, bent on improving their harvests, who flock to Delgado. Most Toluca Valley farmers do not fully depend on agriculture; rather, they supplement their day jobs with these side ventures. The ambitious ones want to improve their yields, but most just sow to fill the land and hope for a moderate harvest. Still, each year about 600 farmers attend presentations led by Delgado on conservation agriculture. Although their established methods do not allow them to thrive, local farmers are reluctant to change, he explains. “I put their hand to the land and show them. It’s not impossible to change their minds.”

Putting Aside the Plow

But it is intensive work, conversing, going through all options and strategies of this new idea, sometimes for five hours at a time. The “culture of the plow” is ingrained in Mexican life, and to uproot it is hard work. This is why Delgado works with children as well, going to schools and introducing his ideas. “To change the culture is to put conservation agriculture into the minds of children,” he says, “It is beautiful to explain to children, for they appreciate how they eat, and what they eat.”

Delgado’s movement toward conservation agriculture started as a way to save money in operations at the Toluca Station through use of less water, fuel, and machinery passes. Fifty percent of the station’s land is used for wheat experiments, and the other half is devoted to crop rotations to sustain the land. It was in this section that Delgado started using direct seeding methods on raised beds to rescue money for other projects. After a couple of harvests, 10 tons of grain was recovered per hectare, compared to an average of 5–8 before. Conservation agriculture had captured his attention.

It is obvious that the planet has been disturbed by human existence, and conservation agriculture is “a little bit to support the world,” Delgado says. He feels very passionately about this, his words coming slowly and deliberately. “Conservation agriculture is the future,” he affirms, “It is common sense, it is how we help the environment.” Its goals include preservation, improvement and more efficient use of resources such as soil, water, and fuel for machinery. As well as the environmental benefits, conservation agriculture makes farming more sustainable with better yields. To realize these goals, a permanent soil cover must be allowed to develop, which makes plowing obsolete. This is the detail farmers find most difficult to swallow, because tilling the land is the way they and their parents have survived. They assume that not using a plow to turn the soil allows weeds to overrun a field, and find the idea of planting seeds into a field with last year’s stubble untidy. But using conservation agriculture with well-timed herbicides and proper crop rotations can actually improve yields.

“People visit the station, and the farmers want to be better than CIMMYT,” Delgado laughs. A friendly rivalry has grown out of Toluca’s success, and now the farmers want to better their own yields to exceed the research station’s results. He thinks this is “nice, because the healthy competition has transformed the farmers to better their techniques. A little revolution in Toluca, but a big change in the farmer’s mind. Farmer to farmer to farmer.” he says. The same people who, a few years ago, were saying how crazy the innovative farmers were, are now asking how they can try the new technology.

Adaptation, to make fit by modification, not adoption, is suggested for the farmers to make a seamless transition to conservation agriculture. Rather than purchasing all new equipment to replace what they already have, Delgado promotes the adjustment of their current machinery. “For the small farmer, to spend USD 1,800 on a new machine is not an option. But to insert a piece that can be bought for half that is practical, and they can afford it.” Delgado says. This enables the small- and medium-sized farmers like Julián Martínez to start off in conservation agriculture. CIMMYT wheat agronomist Ken Sayre applauds Delgado’s efforts. “People like Fernando still believe that improving the crop production situation directly in farmers’ fields is the most valuable way to achieve impact,” he says. His practical initiatives are certainly helping many farmers to increase their productivity and profitability.