A one-day field training on scoring for spot blotch was organized on 17 March 2012 at the Borlaug Institute for South Asia (BISA) experiment station in Pusa, Bihar. Participants were 16 young scientists and students of Rajendra Agricultural University (RAU) and the Regional Station of Indian Agriculture Research Institute (IARI). Renowned pathologist Professor Ramesh Chand, Banaras Hindu University, was the main resource person, supported by Dr. Rajeev Kumar (RAU) and Raj Kumar Jat (CIMMYT).

The training program covered spot blotch symptom identification, scoring, and laboratory analysis. Theory sessions on each topic were supplemented by field practicums, and participants were divided into small groups for an exercise on disease scoring. The readings were cross-verified across groups and the data compared. The trainees were also shown the presence of leaf tip necrosis (Ltn) Sr2 symptoms and how to score them. Dr Rajeev Kumar provided laboratory facilities.

On 13 March 2012, the first field day of the International Maize Improvement Consortium–Asia (IMIC-Asia) was held. The meeting, organized by CIMMYT-Asia and held at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), welcomed 50 participants from 26 national, regional, and multinational seed organizations.

B.S. Vivek, CIMMYT-Asia senior maize breeder, started the day with a warm welcome and a brief overview of the field demonstrations of maize materials. The participants then made field selections of those that interested them. The afternoon session started with Vivek detailing the progress made in IMIC-Asia since the consortium began in 1 July 2010. P.H. Zaidi, CIMMYT-Asia senior maize physiologist, then coordinated a discussion on priority traits and locations for IMIC hybrid evaluations. The meeting concluded with members giving their impressions of the field day and suggestions to further strengthen IMIC activities. They expressed their appreciation of CIMMYT’s efforts and the progress already made. They were confident that it would serve as a platform for strengthening their maize breeding programs and their product portfolios.

The consortium approach has been adopted to enable partnerships between CIMMYT and private seed companies to facilitate the development and testing of inbred and hybrid maize, and for training of maize breeders. Some of the underlying principles include client determined research prioritization; a more focused, demand-driven approach; and an engagement where partner accountability is better defined. This mode of operation with partners is expected to have a targeted impact on agricultural productivity and poverty.

On 25 March 2012, CIMMYT celebrated what would have been Norman Borlaug’s 98th birthday with the unveiling of a new statue at CENEB, Ciudad Obregón, Mexico. CIMMYT Director General, Thomas Lumpkin, presented this tribute to the “Father of the Green Revolution” in front of a crowd of over 100 people from 34 countries, which together produce 97 percent of the world’s wheat.

In his speech, Lumpkin paid tribute to the legacy left by Borlaug, both in Ciudad Obregon and around the world, and emphasized how important it is that this statue by Katharine McDavitt represents Borlaug in the field, in his prime. The bronze statue, sponsored by the Patronato, took hundreds of hours to make, and replicates are being planned for the CIMMYT headquarters at El Batán, and in Borlaug’s home state of Iowa.

Borlaug’s daughter, Jeanie, also spoke at the commemoration. Jeanie acts as the chair of the Borlaug Global Rust Initiative (BGRI), which aims to continue Borlaug’s work by reducing the world’s vulnerability to stem, leaf, and yellow rusts of wheat. The BGRI was well represented at the event, alongside many of Borlaug’s other colleagues.

Lumpkin also used this opportunity to express his pleasure that one of Borlaug’s last wishes, his desire to rebuild CIMMYT’s links with Mexico, has been fulfilled.

Collaboration with Mexico inspired Borlaug’s work in wheat research, and ultimately led to the Green Revolution and the saving of approximately one billion lives through improved wheat varieties. On Borlaug’s birthday we are reminded of what CIMMYT is capable of, and why our work is so important; he “believed that no child deserved go to bed hungry, and that all children deserved an education,” said Jeanie, “with all these challenges ahead, a hungry world depends on you.”

By: Chris Cutter

There was a spirited debate here at the Planet Under Pressure conference in London on the possible uses of social media. The session, moderated by BBC journalist Richard Black, provided plenty to think about concerning the utility of platforms like Twitter and Facebook. Held in London during 25-29 March 2012, Planet Under Pressure is a conference dedicated to using science to better influence policymaking decisions. The conference is attended by government officials, scientists, researchers, academics, and NGOs who are all looking to social media as a tool to better advance the shared goal of creating a more sustainable future.

Recently, Malcolm Gladwell wrote a piece in the New Yorker that provided a context for this growing debate www.newyorker.com. Gladwell’s argument was that social media provide excellent tools for organizing and communicating but their use takes the personal courage of individuals who are willing to risk harm or even death to stand up against injustice. As an example he cited the civil rights movement in the United States in the 1960s and pointed out that although social media had its coming out party during the Arab Spring, it still took countless acts of physical bravery to affect the remarkable changes that transpired across the Middle East.

Just as Gladwell’s article sparked a debate across the Internet, the session hosted by Mr. Black brought forth several points of view. Mr. Black pointed out that traditional styles of communication have not enabled science to inform public policy and, therefore, social media offer new opportunities. He also noted the concern that social media may be dangerous to the scientific community, eventually becoming a tool for scientists to expend a tremendous amount of energy to talk to themselves.

On one side of the debate was New York Times journalist Andrew Revkin, who pointed out that debates over difficult issues such as climate change are not simply arguments of fact but there are Nobel Laureates who disagree on fundamental issues related to climate change. Social science shows us clearly that even if the facts were laid out, unadorned and accepted by the public, there would still be tremendous disagreement. Revkin, however, was optimistic about the future of social media. He noted that we are in a time where the ways in which we have traditionally communicated are unraveling and re-raveling in new ways. We are in flux and should expect confusion and disagreement. We are all still figuring it out. Uncertainty should not be taken as failure. Revkin used the analogy of a pen pal, referring to the letters many of us traded as children with peers around the world. Social media are now enabling those same connections continually, daily, and serendipitously. People are using social media platforms to connect to each other and solve problems.

An alternative point of view was articulated by Amy Luers of the Skoll Global Threats Fund. Luers pointed out challenges that social media present to the scientific community. She noted that the scientific community is largely a closed community requiring a PhD for entry, and that most scientific journals are closed to the general public (or costly) in ways that other periodicals are not. Finally, she pointed out that articles that run in scientific journals are peer reviewed — essentially signed off by colleagues — rather than consensus driven. All of these factors reinforce the closed nature of the scientific community. Luers pointed out additional statistics concerning scientists in the United States, such as the fact that only 20% of Americans know a scientist and most scientists live clustered in college towns.

Likewise, scientists have not adopted social media at the same pace as the rest of society. For instance only 15% of scientists use LinkedIn compared to 85% of the general population. Luers, however, was not a pessimist. Despite making a convincing argument that the scientific community is a closed society of sorts and that social media may in fact, as Mr. Black pointed out, result in scientists talking to themselves, there are other trends that can be leveraged to open and extend the scientific community into the general public. One such trend is the growing number of citizen scientists who are increasingly doing field research and providing this information in an open source form for the web. Bird watching is one such example. Luers also noted that the more scientists can extend their networking to these kinds of bridging communities and boundary organizations, the better the likelihood that the very important work being done by scientists all over the world can contribute to the conversation regarding the problems we face as global citizens.

Days #2 and 3 of CIMMYT Visitors Week, Ciudad Obregon, Sonora, Mexico

Many people perceive that wheat is a food eaten only by the rich; but they are wrong, argues Hans Braun, Head of CIMMYT’s Global Wheat Program. Addressing the group of scientists, farmers, politicians, and policymakers, in the INIFAP auditorium at CENEB, Ciudad Obregon, Braun presented some dramatic figures, illustrating just how many of the world’s poor are dependent on this staple crop.

Wheat is the main staple for approximately 1.2 billion poor people (living on less than 2 USD per day); providing 20% of the daily calories and 20% of the protein for people in the least developed countries. Rural migration in sub-Saharan Africa is causing the demand for wheat to increase faster than any other commodity – it is the basis of many of the ‘fast foods’ preferred by men who have left their families behind to earn money in the city.

Perhaps what is most concerning are the predictions for the near future. South Asia, where wheat is the second most important crop after rice, and where 74% of people live in poverty, will soon be home to 25% of the world’s population. If you look at a map showing the sites of recent food riots, it is almost identical to a map that shows countries where wheat provides more than one third of a person’s daily calories. The extreme heat wave and subsequent fires that led Russia to close it’s borders to wheat exports caused a dramatic rise in food prices and sparked riots across the region. “If food prices rise, governments fall,” stated Braun, and with climate change predicted to cause more extreme weather events such as those seen in Russia, CIMMYT’s wheat program is working to develop new varieties of drought-, heat-, and pathogen-resistant wheat.

On Day Two of Visitors Week, we visited Roberto Encinas, who is not a rich man at all. He farms 12 hectares of wheat just outside of Ciudad Obregon, 2 of which are now farmed under conservation agriculture (CA) practices. In fact, one of the reasons Encinas started to adopt CA was to reduce his costs, and so far he estimates that his CA crop has cost 200 USD less per hectare. Not only that, his crop his healthier. “I could see a difference right from the start,” says Encinas, “the CA crop is greener and has developed more slowly.” His technician says that whereas the conventional crop will probably produce 5tons/ha, the CA crop should produce 7tons/ha. “I am very convinced that CA is working and I will extend next year,” stated Encinas. Together with his farmer group, next year they hope to plant 50% of their 200ha total land under CA, with the support and guidance of CIMMYT-trained technicians.