In line with the need to target activities where they contribute most to alleviating poverty, CIMMYT and the Rice-Wheat Consortium (RWC) for the Indo-Gangetic Plains, a CIMMYT-convened network of national programs and other partners in South Asia, have produced the publication “Livelihoods, poverty and targeting in the Indo- Gangetic Plains: A spatial mapping approach,” authored by CIMMYT scientists Olaf Erenstein, Jonathan Hellin, and Parvesh Chandna. It outlines results of work to develop a spatial mapping methodology that can guide priority-setting and targeting within the RWC. The approach draws on data for 18 quantitative, spatially-explicit variables, which serve as indicators of poverty based on the natural, social, human, physical, and financial assets of households, complementing the more conventional monetary approach to measure poverty.

Outputs include district-level spatial poverty maps for the four sub-regions of the Indo- Gangetic Plains in India, covering the states of Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and West Bengal. In addition to its relevance for the RWC, the approach outlined and the results are of potential use for policy makers, researchers, or development practitioners who wish to ensure that agricultural research continues to contribute to poverty reduction and economic growth. The publication will soon be available through the RWC and the publications catalog on CIMMYT’s website.

The June 2007 edition of the Colombian publication “Agricultura & Ganadería” (www. agriculturayganaderia.com) carried a report on the recently-released maize hybrid FNC 3056, developed for cropping between coffee rows in fields where coffee plants have been pruned. The practice was adopted with government support several years ago by Colombian coffee growers, who would previously leave the unused rows to weeds, and has added to their profits and to the incomes and food security of the many thousand laborers they employ. Like several other maize varieties for this niche, the hybrid was developed by Colombia’s National Federation of Cereal and Legume Producers (FENALCE), as part of its long-time partnership with CIMMYT, and drew on CIMMYT germplasm.

“The varieties are high-yielding and resistant to two locally harmful maize diseases—tar spot and gray leaf spot,” says Luis Narro, CIMMYT maize specialist in South America.

According to the publication, the area sown to maize in coffee-growing zones of Colombia has increased from 30,000 hectares in 2003 to more than 60,000 in 2006. Eight-tenths of that area is sown to the variety ICA V305, released in 1993 and developed from CIMMYT sources.

Colombian President Álvaro Uribe has said he would like to see 120,000 hectares of improved maize grown in coffee zones by 2008. If this occurs, it will be due partly to the productivity and quality of the maize varieties, which under the coffee farmers’ excellent management yield as much as 9 tons per hectare, and to excellent partnerships with FENALCE and the National Federation of Colombian Coffee Growers (FEDERECAFE).

This week SIDU staff started to prepare the first International Wheat Trial (2nd Stem Rust Resistance Screening Nursery). The process includes selection of the best materials from those that arrived from Mexicali last week, taking samples for analysis at the Seed Health laboratory, and washing, treating and packing the seeds.

A delegation from the National Nature Science Foundation of China (NNSFC) visited CIMMYT El Batán on 11-12 July. The group of seven was led by Zhu Daoben, the Vice-President of NNSFC. During their visit they were briefed on all of CIMMYT’s programs and visited the Wellhausen-Anderson Plant Genetic Resources Center, the Crop Research Informatics Laboratory (CRIL) and saw the biotech facilities.

Eight biology students from Universidad Juárez Autónoma de Tabasco visited CIMMYT El Batán on Wednesday. They had a special interest in the management and conservation of seeds. The students were accompanied by their professor, M.C. Georgina Vargas Simón. They toured the Wellhausen- Anderson Genetic Resources Center and the Seed Health laboratory and had a chance to visit the library and publications distribution unit.

It’s an annual event at El Batán, the arrival of the shipment of wheat seed from the multiplication site near Mexicali in North West Mexico. The seed is grown in Mexicali because that area is free of a fungal disease called karnal bunt that can be carried on seeds. This is vital if CIMMYT is to distribute the seed to partners around the world. The newly arrived seeds will now be washed, treated, and bagged in preparation for shipment to their final destinations.

During 19-29 June 2007, eight students from the Faculty of the Soil and Crop Science Department, Texas A&M University toured CIMMYT-El Batán and talked with center staff as part of an introductory trip to learn about international agricultural research. Accompanied by Ronald Cantrell, former Director of the CIMMYT Maize Program and Director General of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), and Steve Hague, Texas A&M Professor in Cotton Breeding, the students are expected among other things to develop an understanding of the challenges and opportunities in underdeveloped agriculture systems. Their program included visits to the facilities of Mexico’s National Institute of Forestry, Agriculture, and Livestock Research (INIFAP) and of Pioneer-Hibred in Mexico, as well as interacting with subsistence farmers in Tlaxcala State.

The trip came about when Cantrell was invited to give a seminar for Soil and Crop Science Department graduate students. “Participants expressed interest in study abroad,” Cantrell says, “and this coincided with a grant from Dr. Norman Borlaug for this purpose. They decided to use the grant to visit an international center, and asked me to coordinate it. Students applied for this ‘scholarship,’ and these are the ones chosen.” The group includes students from the undergraduate through PhD levels, and crop breeders, agronomists, and molecular biologists.

Dhananjay Mani, arrived at the University a year and a half ago from Muzaffarpur, Bihar, India, and is studying for an MSc in plant breeding. He likes the emphasis on breeding at Texas A&M and the opportunity for contact with the University’s Distinguished Professor, Norman Borlaug. “Regarding CIMMYT, I observe one thing,” he says. “Everyone here is talking and thinking about the whole world, not just local issues, and especially people who really need agriculture.”

Jennifer Winn, an MSc student from Denton, Texas, USA, became interested in crop breeding after reading an autobiographical account of a medical missionary in Africa who was treating the major diseases that affect the poor. “He’d give his patients medicine, then hear a couple of days later that they died from malnutrition,” she says. “The book makes the point that malnutrition is the main cause of death in the developing world, and this emphasizes the importance of agriculture and agricultural research.” She has been impressed with the level of organization she observes in CIMMYT: “Programs are collaborating on a wide range of work—biofortification at the molecular level, then there’s Ken Sayre’s work at the field level. You cover every aspect of the plant!”

Harvest Choice, a partnership between the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), the University of Minnesota, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, held a workshop this week at CIMMYT El Batán. The goal of the meeting was to test and refine a method for assessing the impact on cropping system productivity of key pests within sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, especially with respect to the rural poor.

Afghanistan is still be in the midst of turmoil and conflict, but the work CIMMYT is doing to help rebuild the agriculture sector has won praise from the person responsible for coordinating agricultural research in that country.

“We are very pleased with the cooperation and help we have received from CIMMYT, right from the beginning,” said M. Aziz Osmanzai in an interview with Informa at his office in Kabul, Afghanistan. “I hope CIMMYT will be able to expand staff and operations in our country as the work you are doing has been particularly effective.”

Osmanzai is Director of Agriculture Research Institute (ARIA) of the Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock of Afghanistan (MAIL). He was particularly pleased that two new wheat varieties, based on CIMMYT material were performing very well under local conditions and were being proposed for formal varietal release.

He hoped too that CIMMYT might find ways to help the government encourage and implement more conservation agriculture in the country. While wheat is the number 1 food crop, it is grown by share croppers and small holder farmers using traditional methods. Seeds are broadcast by hand into fields that have been plowed using draft animals and so more modern seeders do not exist in the country, making the transition to zero till more difficult.

Since 1995, staff from Ecuador’s National Institute of Agricultural and Livestock Research (INIAP) have worked with farmers in 17 communities in a remote Andean area to provide them seed of improved cultivars of several crops, mini-credit, and training about profitable and sustainable farming. Subsistence farmers in Saraguro now obtain several times their previous yields for small grains, potatoes, maize, and peas, and their average incomes have increased from US$1 to US$2 per day. With food security assured, farmers are requesting seed of varieties with enhanced market value and moving to cash crops such as onions, tomatoes, or fruits.

The project began when Hugo Vivar, former ICARDA barley breeder posted for many years at CIMMYT, worked with INIAP breeder Jorge Coronel, to introduce a new, highyielding barley variety to the area. On the heels of that barley’s success, Vivar has helped channel seed of improved drought-tolerant wheat from former CIMMYT wheat breeder Richard Trethowan’s research, and an excellent quality protein maize (QPM) variety now being used in food programs for children at two rural schools and sold as green ears by farmers for extra income.

Coronel, who grew up on a farm in Biblian, Cañar Province, Ecuador, studied at the University of Cuenca, in southern Ecuador, has been leading work in Saraguro since the project’s inception, and is a well-known and welcome figure in villages throughout the mountainous Andean valley. As a young researcher in 1991, Coronel took a six-month training course at CIMMYT in Mexico and was especially impressed by the Center’s philosophy concerning the need to work with and for farmers. “I really enjoy what I do here and the fantastic thing is that I get paid for it,” he says.