On 22 March 2010, Boddupalli M. Prasanna, the new director of CIMMYT’s Global Maize Program (GMP), spent a fruitful day familiarizing himself with the Agua Fría station, its staff, and the work being done there. The day included meetings with staff assistants to discuss ways to strengthen station research activities and ways to improve work and staff conditions, especially in terms of occupational health and safety issues.

“For us, it is a very important opportunity to interact and to meet our new GMP director,” said Jesús Gónzalez, principal field assistant and lowland tropics program worker representative. “He is very enthusiastic and willing to listen to our concerns. We will continue to put in our best efforts to contribute to CIMMYT’s mission.”

Prasanna toured fields and facilities, meeting with staff from several different programs and was accompanied by Félix San Vicente, maize breeder, George Mahuku, senior maize scientist/pathologist, José Crossa, biometrician and distinguished scientist, and Reymunda Labuguen, GMP administrator. Leocadio Martínez, research assistant B, showed Prasanna the work being done on double haploids (DH) and explained the challenges of implementing DH technology. Also highlighted was the work CIMMYT is doing to develop tropically adapted haploid inducer lines, and the search for new phenotypic markers to increase efficiency.

The group also met with the lowland tropical breeding program, where a wide variety of elite inbred lines are in the final testing and characterization stage before they are released by CIMMYT. Discussion with the pathology team included details of the disease nurseries and efforts to identify suitable sources of resistance to different maize diseases.

“I am very impressed with the level of commitment and professionalism shown by the different groups working at Agua Fría and how the trials were being managed,” Prasanna told Agua Fría staff.

“I will do all I can to help you do your work in an efficient manner.”

Prasanna also visited the Tlaltizapán research station on 29 March, accompanied by Labuguen and Jill Cairns, maize physiologist. He visited the various program fields and attended a small ceremony for the planting of an Auracaria tree in honor of Hugo Córdova.

A collaboration of national agricultural research programs has launched a new project to improve farm-level food security and productivity in eastern and southern Africa. The Sustainable Intensification of Maize-Legume Cropping Systems for Food Security in Eastern and Southern Africa (SIMLESA) is a four-year project with various partner institutions. It is led by CIMMYT and funded by the Australian Center for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR).

At the end of March, the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR) hosted a SIMLESA country planning meeting. The goals of the meeting were to plan SIMLESA project activities, develop detailed work plans and budgets, and to identify additional possible partnerships. Abera Deressa, Ethiopia’s state minister of agriculture, opened the meeting and congratulated CIMMYT for being a model for partnerships and for enhancing agricultural research and collaborations in sub-Saharan Africa. He was followed by Adefris Teklewold, director of crops research at EIAR, who welcomed all the participants to the meeting.

Next was a presentation by John Dixon, ACIAR advisor. Dixon gave an overview of the project’s origins; discussed the role of ACIAR and other Australian institutions; and emphasized the importance of integration and innovative systems to achieve real impact and meet SIMLESA objectives. This was followed by an address on CIMMYT’s commitment to SIMLESA and the region, given by Bekele Shiferaw, director of CIMMYT’s Socioeconomics Program.

The meeting continued with SIMLESA program coordinator Mulugetta Mekuria. Mekuria presented a profile of the project and its current status, as well as expected outputs of the planning meeting. Several other participants also gave presentations.

A similar meeting was held during 19-21 February 2010 in Nairobi, Kenya. This was the joint country planning meeting for Kenya and Tanzania, hosted by the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI). More than 35 participants from Kenya, Tanzania, CIMMYT, ICRISAT, and the Association for Strengthening Agricultural Research in Eastern and Central Africa (ASARECA) attended the planning workshop.

Major SIMLESA partners include national agricultural research institutes from Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, and Mozambique, along with the Queensland Department of Employment, Economic Development, and Innovation (QDEEDI), Murdoch University in Australia, ASARECA, ICRISAT, and the Agricultural Research Council of South Africa (ARC).

Nearly 600 participants representing all the wheat regions in China attended the 6th National Wheat Breeding and Genetics Conference in Yangzhou, Jiangsu Province. The conference ran from 28-31 March and was jointly organized by the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Science (CAAS), the Yangzhou Agricultural Research Institute, and CIMMYT. The event included keynote presentations, a forum of young scientists, and oral presentations on yield potential, hybrid wheat, resistance to biotic and abiotic stress, and industrial quality.

China has experienced impressive progress in wheat breeding and management over the past several years. Though the country’s wheat area was reduced by nearly 22% in the past decade, the average yield increased almost 30%. In comparison, yield increases for rice were roughly 3% and for maize 5.5%. Two wheat varieties— Jimai 22 and Zhoumai 18—have yield potential over 10.5 tons per hectare and are the leading varieties in the major wheat areas. Significant progress has also been achieved in quality improvement.

Four wheat breeders were selected to receive the Zhuang Qiaosheng Award (named after Zhuang Qiaosheng, wheat breeder from CAAS and former CIMMYT Board member). They included Ma Yongan, who developed a leading variety Han 6172 from CIMMYT germplasm, and Yang Wuyun, who developed leading varieties from CIMMYT synthetic wheat. Also, six postgraduates were selected to receive the outstanding young scientist award. Notable attendees included Zhai Huqu, president of CAAS; Cao Weixing, vice governor of Jiangsu Province; Li Zhengsheng, well-known wheat geneticist; Cheng Shunhe and Richard Richards from Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO); and Edward Souza from United States Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service.

The National Wheat Breeding and Genetics Conference is held every five years. CIMMYT has played a key role in organizing the conference in the years 2000, 2005, and 2010. The next conference will be held in Henan Province in 2015, hosted by the Henan Academy of Agricultural Science.

Former CIMMYT wheat agronomist Ken Sayre received the first-ever Louis Malassis International Scientific Prize on 29 March 2010 in recognition of his work to promote resource-conserving practices with developing country farmers. He accepted the award in the category of “Distinguished Scientist” from the Agropolis Foundation in a special ceremony held at the Global Conference on Agricultural Research for Development (GCARD) meetings.

CIMMYT-Asia held an awareness meeting on 19 March 2010 for a proposed hybrid maize research consortium. Nearly 50 participants from national, regional, and multinational seed companies attended, representing 37 seed companies. The goal of the meeting and the consortium is to form new private-public partnerships for enhanced utilization of maize germplasm.

The morning session included an introduction and outline of meeting objectives and research priorities by B. Vivek, senior maize breeder, and P.H. Zaidi, maize physiologist. Proposed project activities included 1) germplasm development for collaborator-identified target environments and priorities, with resulting germplasm to be made available to seed companies; 2) training, including implementation of software for data and pedigree management; and 3) a hybrid testing network for India and the Asian region.

The participants then visited the breeding nurseries and trials to see the variety of germplasm available through CIMMYT-Asia. In the afternoon, participants prioritized their target environments and traits and shared suggestions for how the consortium should operate. “The deliberations during today’s planning meeting for a maize consortium went well, and had a very encouraging tone,” said N.P. Sarma, director of Research & Development, Kaveri Seed Company. “We all appreciate your efforts in conceptualizing the consortium approach for an important crop like maize, and look forward for the next meeting.”

Consortium planners have set a tentative launch date of 28 May 2010.

Five CIMMYT scientists are co-authors of a new report published this week in Nature Genetics. In “Rare genetic variation at Zea mays crtRB1 increases ß-carotene in maize grain,” the research team describes a rare genetic variation in maize that leads to increased beta-carotene in maize grain, which is the main source of dietary vitamin A.

According to a SciDev.net article, “Poor people in many developing countries depend on cheap foods such as maize that do not provide enough vitamin A. In Zambia, more than half (53 per cent) of children do not get sufficient vitamin A, and the WHO estimates that up to 500,000 children worldwide are blinded each year by the deficiency, and half of them die of related causes within a year.”

It is believed that new strains of maize with increased beta-carotene could reduce vitamin A deficiency in people in developing countries. The CIMMYT staff involved with this publication include Jianbing Yan, Maria Zaharieva, Raman Babu, Natalia Palacios, and Marilyn L Warburton.

Bangladesh recently gave the go-ahead to release a new wheat variety with resistance to Ug99. Bari Gom 26—commonly known as Hashi, and previously called BAW 1064—has CIMMYT parental lines in its pedigree, fairly good resistance against variants of Ug99, and impressive agronomic performance.

“Bari Gom 26 yielded 10% higher than the most popular variety, Shatabdi, in three years of multilocation testing in Bangladesh,” said T.P. Tiwari, cropping systems agronomist, CIMMYT-Bangladesh, adding that it also performed better than other varieties during on-farm testing. Because of its notable performance under late-sown conditions, Bari Gom 26 is believed to have heat tolerance. It also performs exceedingly well under zero tillage, said Shirajul Islam, director of the Wheat Research Center (WRC).

In Bangladesh, under the guidance of WRC and CIMMYT, Bari Gom 26 is under demonstration and multiplication on 44 hectares of farmers’ fields. This will result in 120 tons of improved seed that will be available for next year, according to Tiwari and Arun K. Joshi, CIMMYT wheat breeder.

This step toward mitigating the threat of Ug99 was made possible in part by a USAID seed multiplication famine fund program in which six countries are currently multiplying wheat varieties resistant to Ug99. The WRC of the Bangladesh Agriculture Research Institute (BARI), and CIMMYT-Bangladesh are working together under this program to identify suitable Ug99 resistant varieties and for seed production and delivery. Wheat scientists involved in the development of Bari Gom 26 include Naresh Chandra Deb Barma, Moznur Rahman, Paritosh Kumar Malaker, Dinabandhu Pandit, and Abdul Hakim. Enamul Haque from CIMMYTBangladesh was involved in promotional activities for the variety.

Conservation agriculture (CA) continues to take root in Mexican fields, and CIMMYT’s CA team is helping it flourish by providing training and technological support to farmers. Examples of this are three CA events that took place in mid-March at El Batán and at Guasave, Sinaloa, Mexico.

On 18 March, 27 technicians and farmers from Apan, Hidalgo, visited El Batán. Apan is a rainfed location where 90% of the land is sown with barley; the remaining 10% is sown with diverse crops (maize, beans, cowpea, potato, and oat). Andrea Chocobar and José Luis Salgado, from the Mexico-based CA program, and Francisco Magallanes, El Batán superintendent, hosted the group.

The visit originated from a request by Joaquín Pérez Aguirre, who is the general manager of a consultant agricultural services bureau and a farmer. Aguirre asked Dagoberto Flores, a member of the CA team, and Salgado to help train fellow farmers on CA practices. Aguirre has collaborated with Flores before, and both agreed that because a CA demonstration plot will soon be established in Apan, it is important to train local farmers, especially on how to calibrate seeders and fumigation equipment. The pending demonstration plot is part of the project “CA hub for small grain cereals in the highlands of Mexico,” which is a collaborative project with the Mexican Agriculture Ministry.

“Most of my colleagues had heard about CIMMYT, but it wasn’t very clear for them what CIMMYT was or did. Today, especially after the introduction by Andrea Chocobar, everybody is very impressed with what you do here,” said Aguirre, who led the group of visiting farmers. “I’ve worked 28 years in agriculture, and have seen programs start and conclude, and a lot of money invested, but in the end, not many outputs. I want to implement a different approach not just focused on keeping knowledge in your head, but on applying it in the field.”

After the field day, at least one farmer was convinced that he wants to apply CA to his field. “I want to learn more about the (CA) technology for the benefits it offers, such as less cost and more productivity,” said Felipe Vera Herrera, of Chimalpa, Hidago. “I’m going to tell my neighbors about the visit, but most of all, I will put into practice what I learned here today so they can see that CA is profitable.”

The following day, Friday 19 March, CA team members Bram Govaerts and Jesús Mendoza met with 10 representatives of the Farmer Association of West River Sinaloa (AARSP) for breakfast in Guasave, Sinaloa. This was followed by a CA course for 15 leading farmers and technicians from AARSP and the seed company subsidiary ASGROW. The course took place at the Experiment Station Miguel Leysón Pérez, and was part of the “CA hub for the irrigated zone of the Pacific,” and in collaboration with ASGROW.

The most recent CA event took place on Monday 22 March. A group of nearly 50 agronomic engineering students from the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana (UAM) in Mexico City visited El Batán. They were accompanied by professors Mariela Fuentes and Manuel Tarín Ramírez. The visit included an explanation of CIMMYT and CA, and a visit to the long-term CA trial at lot D-5. In the field, Chocobar and Mariela Fuentes explained plot management and answered questions from students. The students also saw a demonstration of a multi-use-multi-purpose machine and of a manual seeder, and toured the germplasm bank.

“A visit like this broadens our perspectives because we can see that there are new technologies that could be used in Mexico,” said Aarón Torres López, one of the visiting students. “I decided to study agronomic engineering because I would like to make a difference in my country. I hope my fellow agronomy students also want to change things in the crop fields.” These three events and other activities focused on the development and dissemination of CA in Mexico are part of a global program and strategy to foster the adoption and use of more productive and sustainable practices for crop management. Additionally, the CA team would like to thank Scott Ferguson for arranging free child care at CENDI for famers who brought their children with them to the field training event at El Batán.

CIUDAD OBREGÓN, SONORA, MEXICO, 25 MARCH 2010 –The lovely weather and colorful setting of Norman E. Borlaug’s beloved Mexico graced the morning on what would have been his 96th birthday. Several hundred former friends, colleagues, and Mexican farmers and dignitaries gathered at the experiment station he loved and where he did his most important work to unveil an impressive monument in his honor and to hold a ceremony to rename the Ciudad Obregón station in his memory.

At the center of the superbly organized celebration in honor of Borlaug, who died in September 2009, was his daughter, Jeannie Borlaug Laube. She unveiled an impressive monument including a large, bronze statue of Borlaug looking out toward the Yaqui Valley and, in accord with her father’s wishes, deposited his ashes in the monument, thanking guests for their life-long support of his work. “As you know, my father always loved Mexico and felt at home here,” she said.

In addition to Borlaug Laube, the presidium of speakers included Pedro Brajcich, director of Mexico’s National Institute of Forestry, Livestock, and Agricultural Research (INIFAP); Francisco Javier Mayorga Castañeda, the Mexican Secretary of Agriculture; Guillermo Padrés Elías, the Governor of the state of Sonora; Antonio Gándara, president of the southern branch of the Sonora farmers association Patronato; and CIMMYT director general Thomas A. Lumpkin. Part of the ceremony was the public announcement of the change in name of the experiment station from “Centro de Investigación Regional del Noroeste” (CIRNO) to “Campo Experimental Norman E. Borlaug” (CENEB).

Lumpkin conveyed CIMMYT’s gratitude to Mayorga Castañeda for the special “Dr. Norman E. Borlaug Research Fund” of USD 1 million from the Mexican Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Rural Development, Fisheries, and Food (SAGARPA), launched in October 2009 to support applied agricultural research and technology transfer projects. He thanked the Sonora Governor for the state’s support for research on Ug99, among other areas of center work. He also had special words of appreciation for Patronato, calling the 65-year collaboration with Sonora farmers “…the center’s oldest research partnership.”

“Our collaboration with Mexican scientists, public officials, and producers half a century ago resulted in agricultural technologies that transformed farming worldwide,” Lumpkin said. “Given the extreme challenges to food security and natural resource management that humanity faces today, a new productivity transformation is needed. We hope that Mexico is returning to the leading role it played in the 1960s, when it made valuable contributions to fighting the hunger that affected millions on our planet.”

CIMMYT held a successful maize field day on 14 March 2010 at the CIMMYT maize demonstration block at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) campus, Hyderabad, India. About 110 maize breeders from the public and private sector attended.

Maize physiologist P.H. Zaidi opened the event with an overview of ongoing research activities in the maize program at CIMMYT’s Asia Program at Hyderabad, and also discussed the different types of available early and advanced generation inbred maize lines. Breeders then toured the CIMMYT maize nurseries, which were open for selection.

Sain Dass, director of the Indian Maize Program, was one of the participants, along with 21 maize scientists from the All India Coordinated Maize Program. Dass was happy with the variety of germplasm, which included several new lines in the medium and late maturity groups, as well as a new series of quality protein maize lines and drought and water-logging tolerant lines.

Dass, accompanied by Raj Gupta, CIMMYT South Asia coordinator, Andrew McDonald, CIMMYT cropping systems agronomist at CIMMYT-Nepal, B.S. Vivek, and Zaidi, visited the on-going trials for drought stress and were impressed with the drought management, which resulted in excellent genotypic variability for drought tolerance during the flowering stage.

“The best part of coming to Hyderabad is seeing the excellent drought tolerant materials,” McDonald said, agreeing with the others that the field day displayed an excellent selection of drought tolerant materials in yellow grain color, and that they should immediately be evaluated in water-stressed target environments.

The variety of available germplasm and its maintenance, purity, and phenotypic expression impressed many participants. “We have selected several vigorous and highly productive lines that are very much suitable for developing single-cross hybrids,” said J.P. Shahi, of the maize program at Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, India.

In addition to the public sector, a large number of private sector breeders also attended the field day. These included large multinationals like Pioneer, Syngenta, BIOSEED, Dupont, Bayer Crop Sciences, and Advanta, as well as nearly 40 small- and medium-scale seed companies.

Congratulations to the CIMMYT team in Hyderabad: Zaidi, Vivek, V. Vengadessan, M.T. Vinayan, Jewel Jameeta Noor, Pooja Devi, S. Nagachandra Rao, and S. Murali Mohan.

During 01-05 March 2010, several board members of the new Consortium of the CGIAR Centers traveled to Nairobi, Kenya, for their inaugural board meeting. Those in attendance included Carlos Perez del Castillo, Lynn Haight, Ganesan Balachander, Tom Arnold, and Mohamad Ait Kadi. After the main meeting on 01 March, members had the chance to visit and interact with several CGIAR partners and programs and to see first-hand how they are collaborating for positive change in Africa and other developing areas.

On 02 March, Carlos Perez del Castillo, chair of the Consortium Board of the CGIAR, thanked the Kenyan government for its interest in hosting the Consortium. The board is planning to relocate to a new home base, and Nairobi is one of five cities in consideration (the others being Addis Ababa, Montpellier, New Delhi, and Rome). That night also included a cocktail hosted by the World Agroforestry Center (ICRAF) and the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), during which del Castillo met with Mwangi Thuita and Romano Kiome, Kenya’s permanent secretaries of Foreign Affairs and Agriculture, respectively.

For the next three days, members traveled to various CGIAR facilities. On 03 March, del Castillo and Haight toured the ICRAF and then met with representatives from ICRAF and hosted institutions. Meanwhile, Balachander and Arnold toured the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI) Biotechnology Center in Nairobi. Then, on 05 March, del Castillo and Balachander visited KARI’s Kiboko center. There they saw some of CIMMYT and KARI’s collaborative maize research on drought, insect resistance, and low soil fertility. The team also visited the tropical legume trial sites that are jointly run by KARI and the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT).

“What has impressed me most is the spirit of partnership that I have experienced – partnerships with farmers, national agricultural research systems, financial institutions, and CGIAR centers,” del Castillo said. “The new CGIAR will be about collective action, innovation, synergies, and impacts on the ground to tackle the problems of food insecurity, poverty, and climate change.”

At Kiboko, the consortium team interacted with the director of KARI, Ephraim Mukisira, and several CIMMYT members. Joint work on conventional and transgenic maize trials were highlighted during the visit. Other important conversations included private-public partnerships, impacts in sub-Saharan Africa, intellectual property, climate change, and information and seed dissemination.

“The facility development and research activities at this Kiboko center have been possible because of KARI’s partnerships and collaboration with the CGIAR, especially CIMMYT,” Mukisira said. “We have also benefited by jointly generating many maize varieties and developing our scientists’ capacity through CIMMYT’s training programs.”

Special thanks to our CIMMYT team members for making the visit a success: Wilfred Mwangi, Stephen Mugo, Yoseph Beyene, Dan Makumbi, Tadele Tefera, and Anne Wangalachi.

Keeping with an agreement between CIMMYT and the Mexican Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Rural Development, Fisheries, and Food (SAGARPA) to collaborate in science and technology transfer, CIMMYT hosted a training course on wheat cropping at its Toluca experiment station during 01-05 March.

Thirty-three technical-savvy farmers from wheat producing areas in Mexico attended the program. Toluca station superintendent Fernando Delgado conducted the course, presenting on land preparation, planting alternatives, weed control, efficient use of planting machinery, and diverse farming implements.

Participants are expected to share their newly acquired knowledge from the course with farmers from their respective production areas. Pedro Aquino, principal wheat researcher, will conduct follow-up and impact evaluation. This course will be complemented by a second portion of training in late August that will focus on crop management, identification of common plant diseases, seed health, and grain quality. This two- tiered course is being overseen by Petr Kosina and Roberto Javier Peña.

The Crops Research Informatics Laboratory (CRIL) has been very busy lately, with staff crisscrossing the globe to participate in training and information exchange. From 05 February to 05 March, CRIL members were involved in at least five information sharing events. Several involved collaboration with other CGIAR centers.

In early March, Arllet Portugal, and Juan Carlos Alarcón attended an International Crop Information System (ICIS) meeting in Perth, Australia, during which they met with staff from the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) and Bayer CropScience and members of the Department of Agriculture & Agrifood from the countries of Brunei and Australia. Talks focused on future development of ICIS and user needs. In February, Portugal had previously worked with data managers and breeders from CGIAR centers and other national agriculture research institutes to help them manage data in the current version of ICIS.

Further training on ICIS took place at CIMMYT-El Batán led by Claudio Ayala, Ismael Barrera, and Andrés Corona, and at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) in Nigeria, where it was led by Hector Sánchez. One of CRIL’s goals is to integrate CIMMYT and IITA’s maize programs in ICIS to facilitate information sharing. At IITA, the training included scientists focused on maize, cassava, banana, and cowpea, and IITA expressed interest in following the CRIL approach to implement ICIS for these crops. Additionally, the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) will implement ICIS for sorghum and chickpea.

Last month Guy Davenport presented plans for a new, user-friendly and configurable version of ICIS at the Molecular Breeding Platform (MBP) launch workshop in Hyderabad, India. And in Maputo, Mozambique, Sánchez outlined data management for the Water Efficient Maize for Africa Project (WEMA) at that project’s annual progress meeting.

The Socioeconomics Program (SEP) is collaborating in a new project aimed to evaluate promising technologies, investment, and policy options for improving agricultural productivity and global food security.

The Global Futures for Agriculture project, launched in early March 2010, is led by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and builds upon the already existing economic model IMPACT (International Model for Policy Analysis of Agricultural Commodities and Trade). This model has been used in the past for projecting future production, consumption, and trade of key agricultural commodities while taking into account the effects of climate change, water availability, population growth, urbanization, and other major drivers of global change. The Global Futures for Agriculture project improves upon this model by including location-specific biophysical data; current and future technology options; climate risk; and the impact of potential agricultural investments on global food supply and demand, food prices, economic growth, and poverty alleviation.

The SEP will play a major role in assessing the future outlooks for maize and wheat, and will work on improving database information and creating model scenarios for these two crops. Crop and water availability simulation models will also complement modeling of climate change risks on crop yields and production. All will be important for refining and calibrating the IMPACT model.

A new associate scientist to be based in Nairobi, Kenya, will be hired to work with other scientists on this project, and will closely collaborate with CIMMYT breeders, agronomists, and economists to improve the center’s foresight on alternative futures for maize and wheat in terms of improving global food security and system sustainability. Additionally, CIMMYT will work with the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and the International Center for Research in Agroforestry (ICRAF) to set up a High Performance Cluster of computers able to run the IMPACT model in Nairobi.

Though not a magic bullet “cure all,” agricultural biotechnologies can and should be used in developing countries to improve smallholder farmers’ livelihoods, but farmers themselves need to be involved in decision making, according to participants at an international technical conference on agricultural biotechnologies last week.

During 01-04 March 2010, roughly 300 people from nearly 70 countries attended the International Technical Conference on Agricultural Biotechnologies in Developing Countries (ABDC-10), organized by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations and held in Guadalajara, Mexico. Attendees included representatives from international organizations, civil society, national governments, and national agricultural research programs. Their goal in gathering was to assess the progress of biotechnologies across various agricultural sectors—crops, forestry, livestock, fisheries, and agro-industries—and to generate a forward-looking consensus on ways that biotechnologies can assist smallholder famers in developing countries.

Investment in and improvement of agriculture is vital for the more than one billion people who go to bed hungry each night, as well as for many farming families who survive on only a few dollars a day. Adoption of effective and cost-efficient agricultural biotechnologies is one way to address the food demands of a rapidly expanding and more affluent world population, while also confronting the challenges of increasing land degradation and climate variability.

“Two billion people live on small farms, about one-third of our population,” said Rodney Cooke, of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), while addressing the general session. “Investment in agriculture is two-anda- half-to-three times more effective in increasing the income of the poor than non-agricultural investments.”

The FAO predicts that by 2050 there will be a 70% increase in food demand, requiring at least 170 million more acres of cropland. Meeting this demand looks difficult, because crop yields have slowed from an annual increase of 3-6% to only 1-2%, in the last decade.

Agricultural biotechnologies can sustainably improve food security and help smallholder farmers escape poverty. However, many of these advanced technologies are underutilized in developing countries, where a large portion of smallholder farmers live. Overcoming this will require increased investments, international cooperation, effective national policies and regulatory frameworks, and collaboration with farmers and the various value-chain actors, said ABDC-10 participants. Several farmers and farmer representatives in attendance repeatedly stressed the importance of bottom-up development in applying biotechnology.

During the conference, participants divided their time between plenary sessions in the morning and small group meetings in the afternoon. Topics included region and sector-specific issues, as well as multidisciplinary topics such as empowering public participation in decision making; prioritizing the role of the farmer; and development of genomic resources. All participants discussed successes and failures in biotechnology projects in developing countries. The CGIAR was responsible for leading several group sessions; participating CG members included the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), CIMMYT, and the Generation Challenge Program (CGP).

CIMMYT director general Tom Lumpkin addressed the plenary session in a presentation on the use of biotechnology in the CGIAR. Tom Payne, head of CIMMYT’s wheat germplasm bank, was a panel member for a group session on the conservation and sustainable use of genetic resources. Jean-Marcel Ribaut, Carmen de Vicente, and Rajeev Varshney (ICRISAT) of the GCP also presented on accessing genetic resources, genomic applications, and molecular breeding in developing countries, respectively.

“To meet the challenges of increased food demand in a sustainable way, biotechnologies are essential for the future,” Lumpkin said, stressing as well that such technologies need to show tangible results and the efficient use of time and money.

Payne explained that the CGIAR has 11 gene banks conserving over 530,000 samples of wild and domesticated crops in public trust, but that these genetic resources are not always accessible or useful to breeders. “There are so many accessions but so little information,” he said, adding that the CGIAR is collaborating on a new portal to improve access to the genetic resources (www.global-alis.org).

Additionally, CIMMYT was represented at the ABDC-10’s knowledge share fair, providing publications and information on the center’s biotechnology work. Highlighted projects included rust resistance wheat, nitrogen use efficient maize for African soils, water-efficient maize for Africa, and the conservation and use of maize and wheat genetic resources.