Zhuang Qiaosheng (center) receives CIMMYT delegations in Beijing in 1997. (Photo: CIMMYT)
Zhuang Qiaosheng passed away in Beijing on May 8, 2022, at the age of 105. He was the most celebrated wheat breeder in China and enjoyed a high reputation in the international community.
As a leader of Wheat Breeding Program at Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS), Zhuang developed 20 high-yielding and disease-resistant winter wheat varieties from 1947 to 1995, with a total planting area of 28 million hectares in achieving notable yield increase.
Zhuang served as a member of the Board of Trustees of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) from 1984 to 1987. He made great contributions to the collaboration between CIMMYT and China, including the opening of the CIMMYT office in China and the establishment of a shuttle breeding project for improving scab resistance.
Zhuang Qiaosheng (center) with Sanjaya Rajaram (left) and Tom Lumpkin in Beijing in 2017. (Photo: CIMMYT)
He did everything possible to enlarge CIMMYT activities in China before fully retiring in 2015.
He was a close friend to many CIMMYT staff, including the late distinguished scientist Sanjaya Rajaram. He also strongly recommended He Zhonghu, distinguished scientist and CIMMYT Country Representative for China, to work at CIMMYT as a postdoctoral fellow in 1990.
The CIMMYT community sends its deepest condolences to the Zhuang family.
Workshop participants stand for a group photo. (Photo: Danny Ward/John Innes Centre)
On April 26–29, 2022, researchers from Nepal participated in a workshop on the use of MARPLE Diagnostics, the most advanced genetic testing methodology for strain-level diagnostics of the deadly wheat yellow rust fungus. Scientists from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and the John Innes Centre trained 21 researchers from the Nepal Agricultural Research Council (NARC) and one from iDE. The workshop took place at NARC’s National Plant Pathology Research Centre in Khumaltar, outside the capital Kathmandu.
“The need for new diagnostic technologies like MARPLE and the critical timing of the workshop was highlighted by the severe yellow rust outbreak observed this season in the western areas of Nepal,” commented Dave Hodson, Senior Scientist at CIMMYT and project co-lead. “Having national capacity to detect the increasing threats from yellow rust using MARPLE will be an important tool to help combat wheat rusts in Nepal”.
The yellow rust fungus can cause grain yield losses of 30–80 % to wheat, Nepal’s third most important food crop.
Current diagnostic methods for wheat rust used in Nepal are slow, typically taking months between collecting the sample and final strain identification. They are also costly and reliant on sending samples overseas to highly specialized labs for analysis.
MARPLE (Mobile and Real-time PLant disEase) Diagnostics is the first method to place strain-level genetic diagnostics capability directly into the hands of Nepali researchers, generating data in-country in near-real time, for immediate integration into early warning systems and disease management decisions.
“This is a fantastic opportunity to bring the latest innovations in plant disease diagnostics for the wheat rust pathogens to where they are needed most, in the hands of researchers in the field working tirelessly to combat these devastating diseases,” commented Diane Saunders, Group Leader at the John Innes Centre and project co-lead.
Diane Saunders (left), Group Leader at the John Innes Centre and project co-lead, observes workshop participants during the use of MARPLE. (Photo: Danny Ward/John Innes Centre)
Suraj Baidya senior scientist and chief of the National Plant Pathology Research Centre at NARC noted the worrying recent geographical expansion of yellow rust in Nepal. “Due to global warming, yellow rust has now moved into the plain and river basin area likely due to evolution of heat tolerant pathotypes. MARPLE Diagnostics now gives us the rapid diagnostics needed to help identify and manage these changes in the rust pathogen population diversity,” he said.
The highly innovative MARPLE Diagnostics approach uses the hand-held MinION nanopore sequencer, built by Oxford Nanopore, to generate genetic data to type strains of the yellow rust fungus directly from field samples.
Beyond MARPLE Diagnostics, Saunders noted that “the workshop has also opened up exciting new possibilities for researchers in Nepal, by providing local genome-sequencing capacity that is currently absent.”
MARPLE (Mobile and Real-time PLant disEase) Diagnostics is a revolutionary mobile lab kit. It uses nanopore sequence technology to rapidly diagnose and monitor wheat rust in farmers’ fields. (Photo: Danny Ward/John Innes Centre)
What’s next for MARPLE Diagnostics in Nepal?
Following the successful workshop, Nepali researchers will be supported by CIMMYT and the John Innes Centre to undertake MARPLE Diagnostics on field samples collected by NARC. “The current plan includes monitoring of yellow rust on the summer wheat crop planted at high hill areas and then early sampling in the 2022/23 wheat season,” Hodson noted.
“We were struck by the enthusiasm and dedication of our colleagues to embrace the potential offered by MARPLE Diagnostics. Looking forward, we are excited to continue working with our Nepali colleagues towards our united goal of embedding this methodology in their national surveillance program for wheat rusts,” Saunders remarked.
MARPLE Diagnostics is supported by the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Current and Emerging Threats to Crops, funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the UK Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) Innovator of the Year Award, the CGIAR Big Data Platform Inspire Challenge, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the United Kingdom’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office.
With the participation of more than 30 researchers from four CGIAR Centers located in the Americas, a planning workshop for a new CGIAR Research Initiative, AgriLAC Resiliente, was held on April 4–6, 2022. Its purpose was to define the implementation of activities to improve the livelihoods of producers in Latin America, with the support of national governments, the private sector, civil society, and CGIAR’s regional and global funders, and partners.
“This workshop is the first face-to-face planning meeting aimed at defining, in a joined-up manner and map in hand, how the teams across Centers in the region will complement each other, taking advantage of the path that each Center has taken in Latin America, but this time based on the advantage of reaching the territories not as four independent Centers, but as one CGIAR team,” says Deissy Martínez Barón, leader of the Initiative from the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT.
AgriLAC Resiliente is an Initiative co-designed to transform food systems in Latin America and the Caribbean. It aims to increase resilience, ecosystem services and the competitiveness of agrifood innovation systems in the region. Through this Initiative, CGIAR is committed to providing a regional structure that enhances its effectiveness and responds better to national and regional priorities, needs and demands.
This Initiative is one of a number that the CGIAR has in Latin America and the Caribbean and consists of five research components:
Climate and nutrition that seeks to use collaborative innovations for climate-resilient and nutritious agrifood systems;
Digital agriculture through the use of digital and inclusive tools for the creation of actionable knowledge;
Competitiveness with low emissions, focused on agroecosystems, landscapes and value chains, low in sustainable emissions;
Innovation and scaling with the Innova-Hubs network for agrifood innovations and their scaling up;
Science for timely decision making and the establishment of policies, institutions and investments in resilient, competitive and low-emission agrifood systems.
The regional character of these CGIAR Initiatives and of the teams of researchers who make them a reality in the territories with the producers, was prominent in the minds of the leadership that also participated in this workshop. Martin Kropff, Global Director, Resilient Agrifood Systems, CGIAR; Joaquín Lozano, Regional Director, Latin America and the Caribbean, CGIAR; Óscar Ortiz, Acting Director General of the International Potato Center; Jesús Quintana, Manager for the Americas of the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT; and Bram Govaerts, Director General of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), all stated the importance of CGIAR being central to every discussion in which the teams are co-constructing a greater consensus on what AgriLAC Resliente is, what it wants to achieve, the approach it will use, and the goals it aims to achieve through synergies among its five components.
Acting as an integrated organization is also an opportunity for CGIAR to leverage co-developed solutions and solve local challenges in the global South related to climate change and agrifood systems transformation. “Building the new CGIAR involves tons of collaboration and coordination. In this AgriLAC Resiliente workshop, we have had a dialogue full of energy focused on achieving real impact” highlighted Bram Govaerts. He continued, “this is an occasion to strengthen teamwork around this CGIAR Initiative in which the Integrated Agrifood System Initiative approach will be applied in the Latin American region, which is a very interconnected region” he pointed out.
One of the main results of this workshop is an opportunity to carry out the integration of the CGIAR teams in the implementation of the AgriLAC Resiliente Initiative, with applied science and the decisive role of the partners at each point of the region, as mechanisms for change.
In 2022, the research teams will begin to lay the groundwork for implementing the Initiative’s integrative approach to strengthen the innovations to be co-developed with partners and collaborators in the Latin American region, that encompass the interconnected nature of the global South.
South Asia was the epicenter of the Green Revolution, a historic era of agricultural innovation that fed billions of people on the brink of famine.
Yet despite the indisputably positive nutritional and developmental impacts of the Green Revolution of the 1960s, the era of innovation also led to the widespread use of farming practices—like intensive tilling, monoculture, removal and burning of crop residues, and over-use of synthetic fertilizer—that have a deleterious effect on the soil and cause off-site ecological harm. Excess pumping of irrigation water over decades has dried out the region’s chief aquifer.
South Asia’s woes illustrate the environmental costs of intensive food production to feed our densely-populated planet. Currently, one billion hectares of land worldwide suffers from degraded soils.
The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) works with two of the world’s most widely cultivated and consumed cereal crops. To grow enough of these staple foods to feed the world, a second Green Revolution is needed: one that avoids the mistakes of the past, regenerates degraded land and reboots biodiversity in farm areas.
M.L. Jat, a CIMMYT Principal Scientist, has spent 20 years studying and promoting sustainable agricultural practices for maize- and wheat-based farming systems. In the following Q&A, Jat tells us about regenerative agriculture: integrated farming and grazing practices intended to rebuild soil organic matter and restore degraded soil biodiversity.
Q: What major components or practices are part of regenerative agriculture?
A: Regenerative agriculture is a comprehensive system of farming that harnesses the power of soil biology to rebuild soil organic matter, diversify crop systems, and improve water retention and nutrient uptake. The depletion of biodiversity, degradation of soil health, warming, and drier weather in farm areas have necessitated a reversal in agriculture from “degeneration to regeneration.”
The practices address food and nutritional security challenges while protecting natural resources and lowering agriculture’s environmental footprint, in line with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. CIMMYT has worked for years to research and promote conservation agriculture, which contributes to the aims of regenerative agriculture, and is already practiced on more than 200 million hectares globally — 15% of all cropland — and is expanding at a rate of 10.5 million hectares per year.
Q: What are the potential roles of major food crops — maize, rice, and wheat — in regenerative agriculture systems?
A: Regenerative agriculture is “crop neutral;” that is, it is applicable to almost all crops and farming systems. The world’s rice, wheat, and maize crops have an enormous physical and ecological footprint on land and natural resources, but play a critical role in food and nutrition security. Considering that anthropogenic climate change has reduced the global agricultural total factor productivity by about 21% in the past six decades, applying regenerative agriculture approaches to these systems represents a momentous contribution toward sustainable farming under increasing climatic risks.
Q: What elements or approaches of regenerative agriculture are applicable in India and how can they be applied?
A: Regenerative practices for maize and wheat systems in India include no-tillage, crop residue recycling, legume inter-cropping and cover crops, crop diversification, integrated nutrient management, and precision water management.
The potential area of adoption for regenerative agriculture in India covers at least 50 million hectares across a diversity of cropping systems and agroecologies — including irrigated, rainfed, and arid farmlands — and can be approached through appropriate targeting, investments, knowledge and capacity enhancement, and enabling policies.
In the breadbasket region of the Indo-Gangetic Plains, regenerative agriculture can help address the aforementioned second-generation problems of the Green Revolution, as well as contributing to the Indian government’s Soil Health Mission and its COP26 commitments.
Q: In order to get regenerative agriculture off the ground in South Asia, who will be involved?
A: Adapting and applying regenerative agriculture’s portfolio of practices will require the participation of all stakeholders associated with farming. Application of these principles is location- and situation-specific, so researchers, extension functionaries, value chain actors, philanthropists, environmentalists, NGOs, farmers, and policy planners all have a role to play in the impact pathway.
CIMMYT, the Borlaug Institute for South Asia (BISA), public and private programs and agencies, and farmers themselves have been developing, refining, and scaling out conservation agriculture-based regenerative agriculture practices for some three decades in South Asia. CIMMYT and BISA will continue to play a key role in mainstreaming regenerative agriculture in local, national, and regional development plans through science-based policy and capacity development.
Q: Farmers constitute a strong economic and political force in India. How can they be brought on board to practice regenerative agriculture, which could be more costly and knowledge-intensive than their current practices?
A: We need to pursue business “unusual” and harness the potential opportunities of regenerative agriculture to sequester soil carbon and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Regenerative agriculture practices can offer farmers additional income and certainly create a “pull factor” for their adoption, something that has already started and will constitute a strong business case. For example, innovative business models give farmers an opportunity to trade ecosystem services and carbon credits through repurposing subsidies and developing carbon markets for private sectors. CIMMYT, along with the Indian Council of Agricultural Research and private partners such as Grow Indigo, are already helping to put in place a framework to acquire carbon credits through regenerative agriculture in India.
Participants of the kick-off meeting for the Ukama Ustawi Initiative stand for a group photo in Nairobi, Kenya. (Photo: Mwihaki Mundia/ILRI)
Partners of CGIAR’s new regional integrated Initiative in eastern and southern Africa held a kick-off meeting in Nairobi on March 2–3, 2022. Eighty-five people participated, including national agricultural research extension programs, government representatives, private sector actors, funders and national and regional agricultural research and development organizations.
Entitled Ukama Ustawi, the Initiative aims to support climate-smart agriculture and livelihoods in 12 countries in eastern and southern Africa: Kenya, Zambia, Ethiopia and Zimbabwe (in Phase 1); Malawi, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda (in Phase 2); and Eswatini, Madagascar, Mozambique and South Africa (in Phase 3).
The Initiative aims to help millions of smallholders intensify, diversify and de-risk maize-mixed farming through improved extension services, institutional capacity strengthening, targeted farm management bundles, policy support, enterprise development and private investment.
Ukama Ustawi is a bilingual word derived from the Shona and Swahili languages. In Shona, Ukama refers to partnerships, and in Swahili, Ustawi means well-being and development. Together, they resemble the vision for the Initiative to achieve system-level development through innovative partnerships.
The meeting brought together partners to get to know each other, understand roles and responsibilities, identify priorities for 2022, and review the cross-cutting programmatic underpinnings of Ukama Ustawi — including gender and social inclusion, capacity strengthening and learning.
Baitsi Podisi, representing the Centre for Coordination of Agricultural Research and Development for Southern Africa (CCARDESA), said he is excited to be part of the Initiative: “CCARDESA, in its cooperation and coordination mandate, can learn a lot from CGIAR in restructuring to respond to the changing times.” Podisi supported the partnership with CGIAR in the Initiative’s embedded approach to policy dialogue, working with partners such as CCARDESA, the Association for Strengthening Agricultural Research in Eastern and Central Africa (ASARECA) and the Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network (FANRPAN).
Similarly, FANRPAN’s Francis Hale emphasized the need not to re-invent the wheel but to work with partners who already have a convening power, to advance the policy agenda for diversification and sustainable intensification.
What were key issues discussed?
One of the features of Ukama Ustawi is the use of four interconnected platforms: a scaling hub, a policy hub, an accelerator program and a learning platform. These will provide spaces for exchange and learning with partners across all CGIAR Initiatives in the region. Partners conducted a series of ‘fishbowl’ interactions across work packages to review the planned activities and provide a clearer understanding of deliverables, identify synergies, potential overlaps, common partners and countries, and set timelines.
The Initiative will work with innovative multimedia platforms to change knowledge, attitudes and practices of millions of farmers in eastern and southern Africa. One key partner in this area is the Shamba Shape Up TV show and the iShamba digital platform. Sophie Rottman, Producer of Shamba Shape Up, said she is looking forward to the work with Initiative partners, that will help expand the show to Uganda and Zambia.
Jean Claude Rubyogo, representing the Pan-Africa Bean Research Alliance (PABRA) said: “It is time we move away from CGIAR-initiated to country-initiated development activities. This is what Ukama Ustawi is all about”.
Martin Kropff, Global Director of Resilient Agrifood Systems at CGIAR, explained CGIAR’s regional integrated initiatives are designed to respond to national/regional demands. “The initiatives will start by working with partners to assess the food and nutritional challenges in the region, and tackle them by bringing in innovative solutions.”
The event was concluded by agreeing on the implementation of the inception phase of the Ukama Ustawi Initiative, and follow-on discussions to finalize key activities in 2022.
There is growing awareness that not all rural women are alike and that social norms and technological interventions affect women from different castes in distinct ways. The caste system in South Asia, which dates back over 3,000 years, divides society into thousands of hierarchical, mostly endogamous groups. Non-marginalized castes are classified as “general caste” while those living in the social margins are categorized as “scheduled caste” and “scheduled tribe”. Scheduled caste and scheduled tribe farmers face both social and economic marginalization and limited access to information and markets, despite government efforts to level up social inequalities.
In India, women of all castes are involved in farming activities, although their caste identity regulates the degree of participation. General caste women are less likely to be engaged in farming than women of lower castes. Despite their level of participation across caste groups, women are rarely recognized as “farmers” (Kisan) in Indian rurality, which restricts their access to inputs, information and markets.
Gender experts from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and partners investigated caste-gender relations among wheat farmers in Madhya Pradesh, India’s second-largest state by area. The team conducted focus group discussions and interviews in a village community, and carried out a review of GENNOVATE research in the same area. The team also carried out a survey involving about 800 wheat farmers from 18 village communities across the state.
Women work in the fields in India’s Madhya Pradesh state. Our study found that women are involved in all aspects of agricultural work on family farms. (Photo: CIMMYT)
The study, published last month in Gender, Technology, and Development, revealed five key findings:
First, caste distinctions are sharp. There is little interaction between women and men farmers from the scheduled caste category — even between subcastes in this category — and other castes. They live in separate enclaves, and land belonging to scheduled caste farmers is less fertile than others.
Second, all women are fully involved in all aspects of agricultural work on the family farm throughout the year.
Third, despite their strong participation in farming activities, women across caste groups are normatively excluded from agricultural decision-making in the household. Having said that, the findings were very clear that some individual women experience greater participation than others. Although women are excluded from formal agricultural information networks, they share knowledge with each other, particularly within caste groups.
Fourth, about 20 years ago, women across caste groups were being employed as hired agricultural laborers. Over the past four years, increasing mechanization is pushing many women off the field. While scheduled caste women compensate for the employment loss to a certain degree by participating in non-farm activities, general caste women are not able to move beyond the village and secure work elsewhere due to cultural norms. Women therefore face a collapse in their autonomy.
Fifth, gender poses a greater constraint than caste in determining an individual’s ability to make decisions about farm and non-farm related activities. However, a significant difference exists across the caste groups, presenting a strong case for intersectionality.
Challenging social norms in agriculture
The results of the study show that caste matters in the gendered evaluations of agricultural technologies and demonstrates the importance of studying women’s contributions and roles in wheat farming in South Asia.
Agriculture in India is also considered to be broadly feminizing, with men increasingly taking up off-farm activities, leaving women to as primary cultivators on family fields and as hired laborers. However, rural advisory services, policy makers, and other research and development organizations are lagging behind in recognizing and reacting appropriately to these gendered changes. Many still carry outdated social norms which view men as the main decision-makers and workers on farms.
Funding for this study was provided by the Collaborative Platform for Gender Research under the CGIAR Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets as well as the International Development Research Center of the Government of Canada, the CGIAR Research Programme on Wheat (CRP WHEAT https://wheat.org/), CIMMYT and the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR). The paper additionally drew on GENNOVATE data collected in India in 2015–16 with financial support from CRP WHEAT. Development of the GENNOVATE research methodology was supported by the CGIAR Gender and Agricultural Research Network, the World Bank, and the CRP WHEAT and CRP MAIZE, and data analysis was supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Cover photo: A woman harvests wheat in Madhya Pradesh, India. (Photo: CIMMYT)
Representatives of the Government of Mexico, the Embassy of India, the National Agricultural Council, the CGIAR and the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) at the Sanjaya Rajaram Experimental Station in Toluca, State of Mexico. (Photo: Alfonso Cortés Arredondo/CIMMYT)
Collaboration between food security institutions and research organizations has contributed to improvements in global grain production that have benefitted millions of farmers around the world – and must continue today. This message was highlighted during a ceremony hosted by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) to recognize the legacy of World Food Laureate and former CIMMYT Wheat Program Director Sanjaya Rajaram.
The ceremony, held at the CIMMYT Experimental Station in Toluca, State of Mexico, officially dedicated the Station in honor of Sanjaya Rajaram, honoring his memory as an “enemy of world hunger” and one of the scientists who has most contributed to global food security.
The Indian-born naturalized Mexican researcher, who was the third person from CIMMYT to receive the World Food Prize, was recognized for having developed more than 480 high-yielding and adaptable wheat varieties that have been planted on approximately 58 million hectares around the world.
“For this impressive achievement, which seems easy to summarize in one sentence, Raj became a giant of the ‘right to food’ and one of the fiercest enemies of hunger in the world,” said CIMMYT Director General Bram Govaerts.
“Building on the work of Dr. Norman Borlaug, Dr. Sanjaya Rajaram was a driving force in making CIMMYT into the extraordinary institution that it is today,” said Claudia Sadoff, Managing Director, Research Delivery and Impact of CGIAR, a global research partnership of which CIMMYT is a member.
“The challenges of today compel us to redouble our efforts to breed more resilient and more nutritious crops, as Dr. Sanjaya Rajaram did, Sadoff added. “This ceremony reminds us that Dr Rajaram’s legacy and the ongoing efforts of CIMMYT and CGIAR scientists must answer that.”
Awards for international cooperation in food security
At the event, CIMMYT presented awards to the Secretary of Foreign Affairs of Mexico, Marcelo Ebrard Casaubón, and of Secretary of Agriculture and Rural Development (SADER), Víctor Villalobos Arámbula, for their promotion of food security and social inclusion in Mexico and Latin America.
The Secretary of Foreign Affairs of Mexico expressed his gratitude for the Norman E. Borlaug and reaffirmed his commitment to “work in the international arena as we have done, but now we will have to work harder, with greater intensity.”
Bram Govaerts, Director General of CIMMYT, presents the Norman E. Borlaug award to Marcelo Ebrard Casaubón, Secretary of Foreign Affairs of Mexico. (Photo: Alfonso Cortés Arredondo/CIMMYT)
The Secretary of Agriculture and Rural Development of Mexico, Víctor Villalobos Arámbula, emphasized that Mexico, Latin America and CIMMYT play an important role in the struggle to improve the conditions of small-scale farmers and the resilience of agri-food systems, noting that more than 300,000 farmers grow maize, wheat and associated crops on over one million hectares in Mexico using sustainable technologies from the CIMMYT-led MasAgro project, now called Crops for Mexico.
“Throughout this administration,” he said, “we have designed, implemented and refined, through collaboration between SADER and CIMMYT, sustainable development strategies with a systemic approach that facilitates the participation of producers in more integrated and efficient value chains both in Mexico and in other countries.”
India’s Ambassador to Mexico, Pankaj Sharma, highlighted that his nation owes a large part of its Green Revolution to the “Sonora” wheat variety, which was developed in Mexico, a country that is considered one of the cradles of agriculture at a global level, with arable land accounting for 15 percent of the total land dedicated to agriculture in the world.
Ravi Singh, Distinguished Scientist and Head of Global Wheat Breeding at CIMMYT, receives an award. (Photo: Alfonso Cortés Arredondo/CIMMYT)
Report on the results of the Crops for Mexico initiative
CIMMYT’s Wheat Germplasm Bank Curator and Genotyping Specialist Carolina Sansaloni presented highlighted impacts from Crops for Mexico, the main cooperative project between the Government of Mexico — through the Secretary of Agriculture and Rural Development — and CIMMYT, and a flagship initiative in the application of technologies in sustainable agriculture.
The project has been in operation for more than a decade in 28 states in Mexico, with the collaboration of more than 100 national and international partners and private and public sector agencies in 12 regions, offering research infrastructure and training development for sustainable agronomic practices, she explained.
She reported that the results of 40 platforms, 500 demonstration modules and two thousand extension areas have an impact on more than one million hectares and benefit 300,000 maize, wheat and bean producers, with the use of high-yield varieties.
Rosalinda Muñoz Tafolla, a maize farmer in Amacuzac, in the Mexican state of Morelos, explained that her drive to produce healthy food led her to participate in Crops for Mexico, where CIMMYT’s support and advice has enabled her to dramatically increase her farm’s productivity while protecting the soil and conserving natural resources.
She explained that with the conservation agriculture system she learned to improve soil conditions, planted a new maize variety, and was supported in marketing her harvest at a good price and selling 2,000 maize ears (mostly weighing 200 grams each).
CIMMYT’s Wheat Germplasm Bank Curator and Genotyping Specialist Carolina Sansaloni at the Crops for Mexico presentation. (Photo: Alfonso Cortés Arredondo/CIMMYT)
A change in policy by the Nepalese government in February 2022 opens up space for private seed companies to be involved in seed variety development, evaluation and distribution to farmers.
Sorghum field in Kiboko, Kenya. (Photo: E Manyasa/ICRISAT)
As part of the One CGIAR reform, the Global Science Group on Genetic Innovation will implement a crop breeding and seed systems project for key crops including groundnut, sorghum and millet, across western and eastern African countries.
The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), a leader in innovative partnerships, breeding and agronomic science for sustainable agri-food systems, will lead the project.
The Accelerated Varietal Improvement and Seed Delivery of Legumes and Cereals in Africa (AVISA) project aims to improve the health and livelihoods of millions by increasing the productivity, profitability, resilience and marketability of nutritious grain, legumes and cereal crops. The project focuses on strengthening networks to modernize crop breeding by CGIAR and national program partners, and public-private partnerships to strengthen seed systems. The project currently works in Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana, Mali, Nigeria, Uganda and Tanzania.
“Sorghum, groundnut and millets are essential staples of nutritious diets for millions of farmers and consumers and are crucial for climate-change-resilient farming systems,” explained CIMMYT Deputy Director General and Head of Genetic Resources, Kevin Pixley. “The oversight of this project by CGIAR’s Genetic Innovation Science Group will ensure continued support for the improvement of these crops in partnership with the national agricultural research and extension systems (NARES) that work with and for farmers,” he said.
“CIMMYT is delighted to lead this project on behalf of the Genetic Innovations Science Group and CGIAR,” confirms CIMMYT Director General, Bram Govaerts.
“We look forward to contributing to co-design and co-implement with partners and stakeholders the next generation of programs that leverage and build the strengths of NARES, CGIAR and others along with the research to farmers and consumers continuum to improve nutrition, livelihoods, and resilience to climate change through these crops and their cropping systems.”
A recent portrait of Rosalind Morris. (Photo: Courtesy)
Rosalind Morris, a celebrated wheat cytogeneticist and professor, peacefully passed away on March 26, 2022, just a few weeks shy of her 102nd birthday. Morris fought a long battle with cancer in her 90s and, most recently, an infection of COVID-19, which proved fatal to her health.
According to her wishes, there was no funeral or memorial service. Morris’s body was cremated, and her ashes deposited in her family’s plot in Ontario, Canada.
Born in Ruthin, United Kingdom, in 1920 to schoolteacher parents, Morris pursued studies in agricultural sciences at the University of Guelph and earned a bachelor’s degree in horticulture. Morris would later earn a Ph.D. from Cornell University’s department of plant breeding, becoming one of the first two women to accomplish this feat, along with Leona Schnell.
Morris dedicated her life and career to understanding and developing wheat genes.
A pioneer in agricultural science and one of the first women scientists of her time, Morris dedicated her life and career to understanding and developing wheat genes. Her contributions include the development of wheat genetic stocks, or wheat populations generated for genetic studies, with far-reaching impact globally in explaining wheat genetics. The work of Morris provided a premier resource base for the emerging field of functional genomics, which explores how DNA is translated into complex information in a cell.
During World War II, Morris’s deep concern over the effects of atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki led her to study and experiment with the effects of X-rays and thermal neutrons on crop plants. In 1979, Morris became the first woman honored as a fellow of the American Society of Agronomy.
While being an acclaimed scientist internationally, Morris was also known for her passion for teaching. In the same year Morris earned her doctoral degree from Cornell University, she was hired as the first female faculty member in the agronomy department at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) in 1947. This career would last 43 years: first as an assistant professor in 1947, becoming a professor in 1958 and remaining in that role until 1990, when she gained the title of emeritus professor of plant cytogenetics.
Morris was a trailblazer for women in agronomy during a point in history when few women were given the opportunity to pursue a career in the sciences. Morris is remembered by her peers not only for her lifelong contribution to agricultural sciences but also her immense kindness and patience.
Wheat fields in Kostanay, Kazakhstan. (Photo: M. DeFreese/CIMMYT)
A panel of experts convened by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars on April 13, 2022, discussed the effects that the Russia-Ukraine war could have on global supply chains of critical resources including staple crops, oil and natural gas, and strategic minerals.
Bram Govaerts, director general of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), joined three experts representing a security consulting firm, a mining investment company and the academic sector. They analyzed the complex ramifications of the armed conflict and put forward policy recommendations to mitigate its impact on global food and energy systems.
“We have immediate action to take in order to boost the production of crops with fewer resources available, such as fertilizers,” Govaerts said, reflecting on how to help food-insecure countries in the Middle East and North Africa that import most of their wheat supplies from the Black Sea region. “We also need to look at where we are going to be supplied with alternate sources,” he added.
Govaerts took this opportunity to position Agriculture for Peace, the CIMMYT-led call for secure, stable and long-term investment in agricultural research for development, to transform global food systems by shifting their focus from efficiency to resilience.
On the 67th Edition of the Day of the Farmer in Mexico’s Yaqui Valley, Jesús Larraguibele Artola, president of the Agricultural Research and Experimentation Board of the State of Sonora (PIEAES), publicly recognized the work and trajectory of Ravi Singh, Distinguished Scientist and Head of Global Wheat Improvement at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).
An Indian national, Singh first arrived to CIMMYT’s Experimental Station in Ciudad Obregón, Sonora, in 1983, and has since developed 680 wheat varieties in 48 countries, including the Cirno and Borlaug varieties, grown in 98% of the Yaqui Valley’s wheat fields.
At the event, Larraguibele Artola also highlighted the importance of the legacy of Norman Borlaug, father of the Green Revolution, who saved the lives of billions of people from starvation with his improved wheat varieties. He also recalled how the first Day of the Farmer was organized by Borlaug back in 1948, when the American agronomist presented his first rust-resistant wheat varieties to farmers in the region. Over time, the event became a unique place for researchers and scientists in Sonora to increase collaboration with farmers and producers in the region and share their latest scientific advances.
Acknowledging the key role of new technologies and wheat varieties in tackling current and future agricultural challenges, Fátima Yolanda Rodríguez Mendoza, Secretary of Agriculture, Farming, Hydraulic Resources, Fishing and Aquaculture (SAGRHPA) of Sonora, reiterated the commitment of the governor, Alfonso Durazo Montaño, to invest in agricultural research to boost production and drive the growth of the region’s agrifood sector.
“We’ll continue to invest in research and innovation and support scientists, who put their knowledge at the service of the people of Sonora”, she promised.
“We’ll never get back all the diversity we had before, but the diversity we need is out there,” says Matthew Reynolds, head of wheat physiology at CIMMYT.
Farmers learn about two-wheel tractors. (Photo: CIMMYT)
A new project aims to climate-proof Zimbabwean farms through improved access to small-scale mechanization to reduce labor bottlenecks. Harnessing Appropriate-scale Farm mechanization In Zimbabwe (HAFIZ) is funded by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) through ACIAR and led by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).
The project aligns with the Zimbabwean nationwide governmental program Pfumvudza, which promotes agricultural practices based on the principles of conservation agriculture. The initiative aims to increase agricultural productivity through minimum soil disturbance, a permanent soil cover, mulching and crop diversification.
Over 18 months, the project will work with selected service providers to support mechanized solutions that are technically, environmentally and economically appropriate for use in smallholder settings.
Speaking during the project launch, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development in Zimbabwe, John Basera, explained the tenets of Pfumvudza which translates as “a new season.” A new season of adopting climate-smart technologies, conservation agriculture practices and increasing productivity. Simply put, Pfumvudza means a sustainable agricultural productivity scheme.
“Pfumvudza was a big game-changer in Zimbabwe. We tripled productivity from 0.45 to 1.4 [metric tons] per hectare. Now the big challenge for all of us is to sustain and consolidate the growth, and this is where mechanization comes into place,” Basera said. “This project is an opportunity for the smallholder farmer in Zimbabwe, who contributes to over 60% of the food in the country, to be able to produce more with less.”
Service providers participate in a training at the Institute of Agricultural Engineering, Zimbabwe. (Photo: Frédéric Baudron/CIMMYT)
The mechanics of sustainable intensification
Building on the findings of the completed ACIAR-funded project Farm Mechanization and Conservation Agriculture for Sustainable Intensification (FACASI), the new initiative will work with selected farmers and service providers to identify farming systems most suitable for mechanization. It will also assist companies in targeting their investments as they test a range of technologies powered by small-engine machinery adapted to the Zimbabwe context and transfer the resultant learnings to South Africa.
Conservation agriculture adoption offers multidimensional benefits to the farmers with significant yields and sustainability of their systems. The introduction of mechanization in systems using animals for draught reduces the livestock energy demand — energy that will contribute to increasing meat and milk production.
A service provider demonstrates a small-scale maize sheller in Nyanga, Zimbabwe. (Photo: Frédéric Baudron/CIMMYT)
While conservation agriculture and research alone cannot solve all the issues affecting agricultural productivity, awareness-raising is integral to help address these issues, and this is where small-scale mechanization comes in, says ACIAR Crops Research Program Manager, Eric Huttner.
“We learnt a lot from FACASI and a similar project in Bangladesh on the opportunities of appropriate small-scale mechanization as a tool towards sustainable intensification when adopted by farmers,” he explained. “If we avoid the mistakes of the past, where large-scale mechanization efforts were invested in the wrong place and resulted in ineffective machines unusable for farmers, we can make a huge difference in increasing yields and reducing farm drudgery,” Huttner said.
Agriculture is one of the five main greenhouse gas-emitting sectors where innovations can be found to reach net zero emissions, according to the new documentary and ten-part miniseries “Solving for Zero: The Search for Climate Innovation.” The documentary tells the stories of scientists and innovators racing to develop solutions such as low-carbon cement, wind-powered global transportation, fusion electricity generation and sand that dissolves carbon in the oceans.
Three CGIAR scientists are featured in the documentary, speaking about the contributions being made by agricultural research.
Whereas all sectors of the global economy must contribute to achieve net zero emissions by 2050 to prevent the worse effects of climate change, agricultural innovations are needed by farmers at the front line of climate change today.
CIMMYT breeder Yoseph Beyene spoke to filmmakers about the use of molecular breeding to predict yield potential. (Image: Wondrium.com)
Breeding climate-smart crops
“Climate change has been a great disaster to us. Day by day it’s getting worse,” said Veronica Dungey, a maize farmer in Kenya interviewed for the documentary.
Around the world, 200 million people depend on maize for their livelihood, while 90% of farmers in Africa are smallholder farmers dependent on rainfall, and facing drought, heatwaves, floods, pests and disease related to climate change. According to CGIAR, agriculture must deliver 60% more food by 2050, but without new technologies, each 1°C of warming will reduce production by 5%.
“Seed is basic to everything. The whole family is dependent on the produce from the farm,” explained Yoseph Beyene, Regional Maize Breeding Coordinator for Africa and Maize Breeder for Eastern Africa at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT). As a child in a smallholder farming family with no access to improved seeds, Beyene learned the importance of selecting the right seed from year to year. It was at high school that Beyene was shown the difference between improved varieties and the locally-grown seed, and decided to pursue a career as a crop breeder.
Today, the CIMMYT maize program has released 200 hybrid maize varieties adapted for drought conditions in sub-Saharan Africa, called hybrids because they combine maize lines selected to express important traits over several generations. Alongside other CGIAR Research Centers, CIMMYT continues to innovate with accelerated breeding approaches to benefit smallholder farmers.
“Currently we use two kinds of breeding. One is conventional breeding, and another one is molecular breeding to accelerate variety development. In conventional breeding you have to evaluate the hybrid in the field,” Beyene said. “Using molecular markers, instead of phenotypic evaluation in the field, we are evaluating the genetic material of a particular line. We can predict based on marker data which new material is potentially good for yield.”
Such innovations are necessary considering the speed and the complexity of challenges faced by smallholder farmers due climate change, which now includes fall armyworm. “Fall armyworm is a recent pest in the tropics and has affected a lot of countries,” said Moses Siambi, CIMMYT Regional Representative for Africa. “Increased temperatures have a direct impact on maize production because of the combination of temperature of humidity, and then you have these high insect populations that lead to low yield.”
Resistance to fall armyworm is now included in new CIMMYT maize hybrids alongside many other traits such as yield, nutrition, and multiple environmental and disease resistances.
Ana María Loboguerrero, Research Director for Climate Action at the Alliance of Bioversity and CIAT, spoke about CGIAR’s community-focused climate work. (Image: Wondrium.com)
Building on CGIAR’s climate legacy
Ana María Loboguerrero, Research Director for Climate Action at the Alliance of Bioversity International and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), told the filmmakers about CGIAR’s community-focused climate work, which includes Climate-Smart Villages and Valleys. Launched in 2009, these ongoing projects span the global South and effectively bridge the gap between innovation, research and farmers living with the climate crisis at their doorsteps.
“Technological innovations are critical to food system transformation,” said Loboguerrero, who was a principal researcher for the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS). “But if local contexts are not considered, even the best innovations may fail because they do not respond to beneficiaries needs.”
CCAFS’s impressive legacy — in research, influencing policy and informing $3.5 billion of climate-smart investments, among many achievements — is now being built upon by a new CGIAR portfolio of initiatives. Several initiatives focus on building systemic resilience against climate and scaling up climate action started by CCAFS that will contribute to a net-zero carbon future.
Loboguerrero pointed to other innovations that were adopted because they addressed local needs and were culturally appropriate. These include the uptake of new varieties of wheat, maize, rice and beans developed by CGIAR Research Centers. Taste, color, texture, cooking time and market demand are critical to the success of new varieties. Being drought-resistant or flood-tolerant is not enough.
Local Technical Agroclimatic Committees, another CCAFS innovation that is currently implemented in 11 countries across Latin America, effectively delivers weather information in agrarian communities across the tropics. Local farmers lead these committees to receive and disseminate weather information to better plan when they sow their seeds. “This success would not have been possible if scientists hadn’t gotten out of their labs to collaborate with producers in the field,” Loboguerrero said.
Climate adaptation solutions
Across CGIAR, which represents 13 Research Centers and Alliances, and a network of national and private sector partners, the goal is to provide climate adaptation solutions to 500 million small-scale farmers around the world by 2030. This work also covers reducing agricultural emissions, environmental impacts and even the possibility of capturing carbon while improving soil health.
Interested in learning more? The documentary “Solving for Zero: The Search for Climate Innovation” is available at Wondrium.com alongside a 10-part miniseries exploring the ongoing effort to address climate change.
