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A customer chooses bread in a small shop in Dinajpur, Bangladesh. (Photo: S. Mojumder/Drik/CIMMYT)

New publications: Do market shocks generate gender-differentiated impacts?

Written by Emma Orchardson on . Posted in Publications.

Female-headed households are likely to experience higher welfare losses due to commodity price hikes than their male-headed counterparts, as they tend to spend a larger percentage of their income on food items. However, the full extent of this impact of market has not been widely examined in the empirical literature.

Applying the difference-in-difference estimation procedure to data collected from more than 22,000 households in Bangladesh in 2005 and 2010, researchers at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) set out to examine the gender-differentiated impacts of the commodity price hikes during the food price crisis of 2008 on food and non-food consumption behavior based on the sex of the household head.

They found that, in general, the commodity price hikes had more adversely affected female-headed households, which reduced their expenditure on food and non-food items such as cereals and education at a greater rate than their male-headed counterparts did.

However, their study also reveals that the welfare impacts on these households varied greatly depending on socio-economic conditions. Results showed that households headed by women who were relatively better educated, who owned larger pieces of land and received remittances were buffered to a certain extent and their expenditure was affected less.

Understanding these buffering factors, the authors argue, is crucial when designing policy interventions in developing countries. The study provides a number of recommendations for government and international donor agencies to help female-headed households better cope with market shocks. For example, they could improve the reach of general education, increase women’s access to land and agricultural assets and remove barriers to the in-flow of remittances for female-headed households. Extending the reach of social protection and microcredit programs could further complement market shock buffering capacity, as could providing targeted capital.

Read more results and recommendations in the study, “Do market shocks generate gender-differentiated impacts? Policy implications from a quasi-natural experiment in Bangladesh” in Women’s Studies International Forum, Volume 76, September–October 2019.

This study was made possible through the support provided by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to the Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia – Mechanization and Irrigation (CSISA-MI) project, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to the CSISA Phase II project.

See more recent publications by CIMMYT researchers:

  1. Elucidating the genetic basis of biomass accumulation and radiation use efficiency in spring wheat and its role in yield potential. 2019. Molero, G., Joynson, R. , Piñera Chavez, F.J. , Gardiner, L.J. , Rivera Amado, A.C. , Hall, A.J.W. , Reynolds, M.P. In: Plant Biotechnology Journal v. 17, no. 7, p. 1276-1288.
  2. Identification of recombinants carrying stripe rust resistance gene Yr57 and adult plant stem rust resistance gene Sr2 through marker‐assisted selection. 2019. Lodhi, S., Bariana, H.S., Randhawa, M.S., Gul Kazi, A., Peter John., Bansal, U. In: Plant Breeding v. 138, no. 2, p. 148-152.
  3. Effect of different tillage and residue management practices on crop and water productivity and economics in maize (Zea mays) based rotations. 2019. Parihar M.D., Parihar, C.M., Nanwal, R.K., Singh, A.K., Jat, S.L., Hari S. Nayak, Prakash Chand Ghasal, Jewlia, H.R., Choudhary, M. , Jat, M.L. In: Indian Journal of Agricultural Sciences v. 89, no. 2.
  4. A multi-scale and multi-model gridded framework for forecasting crop production, risk analysis, and climate change impact studies. 2019. Shelia, V., Hansen, J., Sharda, V., Porter, C., Aggarwal, P.K., Wilkerson, C.J., Hoogenboom, G. In: Environmental Modelling and Software v. 115, no. 144-154.
  5. Averting wheat blast by implementing a ‘wheat holiday’: in search of alternative crops in West Bengal, India. 2019. Mottaleb, K.A., Singh, P.K., Sonder, K., Kruseman, G., Erenstein, O. In: PLoS One v. 114, no. 2, art. E0211410.
  6. Estimating soil evaporation in dry seeded rice and wheat crops after wetting events. 2019. Gupta, N., Eberbach, P.L., Humphreys, E., Singh, B., Sudhir-Yadav, Kukal, S.S. In: Agricultural Water Management v. 217, p. 98-106.
  7. Dependence of temperature sensitivity of soil organic carbon decomposition on nutrient management options under conservation agriculture in a sub-tropical Inceptisol. 2019. Parihar, C.M., Singh, A.K., Jat, S.L., Ghosh, A., Dey, A., Hari S. Nayak, Parihar M.D., Mahala, D.M., Yadav, R.K., Rai, V., Satayanaryana, T., Jat, M.L. In: Soil and Tillage Research v. 190, p. 50-60.
  8. Biogas adoption and elucidating its impacts in India: implications for policy. 2019. Mottaleb, K.A., Rahut, D.B. In: Biomass and Bioenergy v. 123, p. 166-174.
  9. Reaction of Australian durum, common wheat and triticale genotypes to Karnal bunt (Tilletia indica) infection under artificial inoculation in the field. 2019. Emebiri, L. C., Singh, P.K. , Tan, M. K. , Fuentes DĂĄvila, G., Xinyao He, Singh, R.P. In: Crop and Pasture Science v. 70, no. 2, p. 107-112.
  10. A farm-level assessment of labor and mechanization in Eastern and Southern Africa. 2019. Baudron, F., Misiko, M.T., Getnet, B., Nazare, R., Sariah, J., Kaumbutho, P. In: Agronomy for Sustainable Development v. 39, no. 2, art. 17.
Surveyors in Mexico collect data from farmers. (Photo: CIMMYT)

UN-sponsored report acknowledges CIMMYT’s use of data and technologies to promote sustainable farming in Latin America

Written by Ricardo Curiel on . Posted in News.

Surveyors in Mexico collect data from farmers. (Photo: CIMMYT)
Surveyors in Mexico collect data from farmers. (Photo: CIMMYT)

CIMMYT’s projects in Latin America feature in a new report that aims to help countries use data to design public policies and projects that help achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030.

The Counting on The World to Act report was released on September 23, 2019, by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) and the Thematic Research Network on Data and Statistics (TReNDS) during the 74th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA 74) in New York City.

The report describes CIMMYT’s data management systems and tools as examples of “frontier technologies” for data gathering, management and analysis that effectively contribute to sustainable farming in Colombia, Guatemala and Mexico.

“As part of the data revolution, efficiencies are being derived from lower-tech approaches such as using citizen-generated data and smartphones to speed up existing survey-based approaches,” reads the introduction to CIMMYT’s sidebar story in Chapter 4, Incentives for Innovation.

The MasAgro Electronic Log that field technicians use to monitor crop cycles and management practices, and the AgroTutor application that offers farmers more specific and timely recommendations are some of the new affordable tools for data management that CIMMYT is successfully implementing in Latin America.

Read the full report on the TReNDS website.

Read more about MasAgro’s work for sustainable farming in Latin America here.

Toolkits to deal with Asian droughts

Written by Mary Donovan on . Posted in In the media.

In July 2019 ICIMOD, along with its partners and the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre in Mexico, launched a web-based Regional Drought Monitoring and Outlook System for South Asia – an integrated information platform linking weather and climate data with agriculture practices in South Asia. The system provides multiple indices for droughts and seasonal weather outlooks, besides maps and baseline. Read more here.

Bread wheat improvement using genomic tools will be critical to accelerate genetic gains in the crop's yield, disease resistance, and climate resilience. (Photo: Apollo Habtamu/CIMMYT)

Large-scale genomics will improve the yield, climate-resilience, and quality of bread wheat, new study shows

Written by Mike Listman on . Posted in Press releases. 2 Comments on Large-scale genomics will improve the yield, climate-resilience, and quality of bread wheat, new study shows

Bread wheat improvement using genomic tools will be critical to accelerate genetic gains in the crop's yield, disease resistance, and climate resilience. (Photo: Apollo Habtamu/CIMMYT)
Bread wheat improvement using genomic tools will be critical to accelerate genetic gains in the crop’s yield, disease resistance, and climate resilience. (Photo: Apollo Habtamu/CIMMYT)

Using the full wheat genome map published in 2018, combined with data from field testing of wheat breeding lines in multiple countries, an international team of scientists has identified significant new chromosomal regions for wheat yield and disease resistance and created a freely-available collection of genetic information and markers for more than 40,000 wheat lines.

Reported today in Nature Genetics, the results will speed up global efforts to breed more productive and climate-resilient varieties of bread wheat, a critical crop for world food security that is under threat from rising temperatures, rapidly-evolving fungal pathogens, and more frequent droughts, according to Philomin Juliana, wheat scientist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and first author of the new study.

“This work directly connects the wheat genome reference map with wheat lines and extensive field data from CIMMYT’s global wheat breeding network,” said Juliana. “That network in turn links to over 200 breeding programs and research centers worldwide and contributes to yield and other key traits in varieties sown on nearly half the world’s wheat lands.”

The staple food for more than 2.5 billion people, wheat provides 20% of human dietary calories and protein worldwide and is critical for the nutrition and food security of hundreds of millions of poor persons in regions such as North Africa and South Asia.

“Farmers and societies today face new challenges to feed rising and rapidly-urbanizing populations, and wheat epitomizes the issues,” said Ravi Singh, CIMMYT wheat breeder and corresponding author of the study. “Higher temperatures are holding back yields in major wheat-growing areas, extreme weather events are common, crop diseases are spreading and becoming more virulent, and soil and water are being depleted.”

Juliana said the study results help pave the way to apply genomic selection, an approach that has transformed dairy cow husbandry, for more efficient wheat breeding.

“Molecular markers are getting cheaper to use; meanwhile, it’s very costly to do field testing and selection involving many thousands of wheat plants over successive generations,” Juliana said. “Genome-wide marker-based selection can help breeders to precisely identify good lines in early breeding generations and to test plantlets in greenhouses, thereby complementing and streamlining field testing.”

The new study found that genomic selection could be particularly effective in breeding for wheat end-use quality and for resistance to stem rust disease, whose causal pathogen has been evolving and spreading in the form of highly-virulent new races.

The new study also documents the effectiveness of the global public breeding efforts by CIMMYT and partners, showing that improved wheat varieties from this work have accumulated multiple gene variants that favor higher yields, according to Hans-Joachim Braun, director of CIMMYT’s global wheat program.

“This international collaboration, which is the world’s largest publicly-funded wheat breeding program, benefits farmers worldwide and offers high-quality wheat lines that are released directly to farmers in countries, such as Afghanistan, that are unable to run a full-fledged wheat breeding program,” Braun explained.

The study results are expected to support future gene discovery, molecular breeding, and gene editing in wheat, Braun said.

Together with more resource-efficient cropping systems, high-yielding and climate-resilient wheat varieties will constitute a key component of the sustainable intensification of food production described in Strategy 3 of the recent EAT-Lancet Commission recommendations to transform the global food system. Large-scale genomics will play a key role in developing these varieties and staying ahead of climate- and disease-related threats to food security.

Funders of this work include USAID’s Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Applied Wheat Genomics. Contributing to the research described are research teams engaged in wheat improvement at CIMMYT, and the lab of Jesse Poland, Associate Professor at Kansas State University and Director of the USAID Applied Wheat Genomics Innovation Lab.

For more information, or to arrange interviews with the researchers, please contact:

Marcia MacNeil, Wheat Communications Officer, CIMMYT
M.MacNeil@cgiar.org, +52 (55) 5804 2004, ext. 2070

Climate-smart agriculture: A winning strategy for farming families in El Niño seasons

Written by Shiela Chikulo on . Posted in Features.

Approaching the homestead of Joseph Maravire and his wife, Reason, on a warm late August afternoon in Bvukururu, Zaka district, Zimbabwe, heaps of dry straw in their farmyard are prominent. ‘’This is for mulching for the forthcoming cropping season,’’ explains Reason. Maize stalk residues from last harvest are also stored to feed their livestock and to mix into the manure or for bedding the herd of cattle. These practices have become the norm for the Maravire family as they prepare for the next maize planting season in Zaka, one of the hottest areas of southern Zimbabwe.

“We never knew of mulching until we interacted with CIMMYT scientists in 2009. Now I cannot imagine working in my field without applying mulch,” says Reason. As one of five families selected in their village to participate in the scaling out of climate-smart agricultural technologies since 2009, the Maravire family demonstrates the evident transformative power of climate-smart agriculture.

Joseph and Reason by their heap of dry straw which is collected in preparation for mulching in the forthcoming 2019-20 season. In this drought-prone region, the Maravire learned the benefits of mulching to protect crops from recurrent dry spells. (Photo: Shiela Chikulo/CIMMYT)

Climate-smart agriculture involves farming practices that improve farm productivity and profitability, help farmers adapt to the negative effects of climate change and mitigate climate change effects, e.g. by soil carbon sequestration or reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Climate-smart practices, such as the locally practiced conservation agriculture, aim at conserving soil moisture, retaining crop residues for soil fertility, disturbing the soil as minimally as possible and diversifying through rotation or intercropping.

As CIMMYT research shows, these practices can boost production and make farmers more food secure.  This is good news for Zimbabwean farmers such as the Maravires. During an episode of El Niño in the 2015-16 and 2018-19 cropping seasons, large parts of southern Africa experienced prolonged dry spells, erratic rainfall and high temperatures initially with floods towards the end of the cropping season. A recent humanitarian appeal indicated that at least 2.9 million people in Zimbabwe were severely food insecure due to poor or no harvests that year.

Under the “Out-scaling climate-smart technologies to smallholder farmers in Malawi, Zambia & Zimbabwe’’ project — funded by the German development agency GIZ and the Centre for Coordination of Agricultural Research and Development for Southern Africa (CCARDESA), and implemented under the leadership of the Zambian Agriculture Research Institute (ZARI) with technical oversight by CIMMYT and other collaborating partners from Malawi and Zimbabwe —  farmers from 19 rural communities in the three target countries received training and guidance on climate-smart agriculture practices and technologies, such as mulching, rotation and the use of direct seeders and ripper tines to practice no tillage.

Mastering climate-smart techniques, season by season

On their 0.4-hectare plot dedicated to the project activities, Joseph and Reason practiced four different planting techniques: direct seeding (sowing directly into crop residue), ripline seeding (sowing in lines created by animal draft-powered rippers), basin planting (sowing manually into planting basins created by hand hoes), and the traditional ox drawn plowing and seeding. They then planted one traditional and three drought-tolerant maize varieties.

“It soon became clear to us that using a direct seeder or ripper tine, combined with mulching, was the best option, as these sections of the field retained more moisture and produced more maize than the conventional system,” explained Joseph Maravire. Beginning in 2013, the family also started rotating maize and cowpeas and observed a significant increase in their yields. They decided to apply climate-smart agriculture practices on the rest of their 2.5-hectare farm.

“We learned that cowpeas leave nitrogen in the soil and by the time of harvesting, the leaves from the cowpeas also fall to the ground as residue and add to the mulch for the soil. The shade of cowpea also reduces weed pressure and manual weeding,” said Maravire.

Yields and food security

With these practices, the family has harvested remarkably, even during the dry seasons. In 2015-16, the worst El Niño on record, they harvested 2 tons of maize, despite the severe drought, while other households barely got anything from their fields. In good years, like the last cropping season, the family harvests 3.5 to 4 tons of maize from their entire field, three times more than their annual family food needs of approximately 1.3 tons. The additional cowpea yields of both grain and leaves provide protein-rich complementary food, which improves the family’s nutrition. To share some of these benefits with their community, the Maravire family donates up to 10% of their produce to poor elderly households in their village.

Overcoming challenges and building resilience

However, the new farming practices did not come without challenges.

“In the early days of the project, the ripper tine was not simple to use because we could not get the right depth to put manure and the maize seeds,” said Joseph Maravire.

They found a solution by making rip lines around October or November, applying manure at the onset of the rains, ripping again and placing the seed to mix with the manure.

Fall armyworm was another devastating challenge for their plot, as was the case around Zimbabwe. Like other farmers in Zimbabwe, the Maravires had access to pesticides, but the caterpillar showed some resistance to one type of pesticide. Maravire expressed interest in learning biological control options to reduce the pest’s spread.

Scaling climate smart technologies beyond the Maravire homestead

After several years of consistently good harvests with climate-smart agriculture options, the Maravire family has become a model within their community. Working closely with their agricultural extension officer, they formed a CSA farmer support group of 20 families. Joseph Maravire provides services for direct seeding and ripping to the CSA group and ensures that all of their land is prepared using no-tillage planting techniques. The couple regularly demonstrates climate-smart practices to peers during field days, where an average of 300 villagers attend. They also share their knowledge about green manure cover crops — crops such as lablab, jackbean, sunhemp, and velvet bean which, retained on the soil surface, serve as organic fertilizer — a practice they learned from project activities.

For Reason and Joseph Maravire, the rewards for adopting climate-smart agriculture benefit the family beyond food security. The income earned from maize grain sales and cowpea marketing has helped them acquire assets and rebuild one of their homes that was destroyed by Cyclone Idai in March 2019.

Joseph is confident that his family will always produce well on the replenished soil and the technologies they have learned through the project will continue to define their farming practices.

The house of Maravire homestead was damaged by Cyclone Idai in March. Joseph is nearing completion of rebuilding the house using proceeds from recent cowpea sales. (Photo: Shiela Chikulo/CIMMYT)

More photos of the Maravire family can be seen here.

Smallholder farmers’ multi-front strategy combats rapidly evolving wheat rust in Ethiopia

Written by Leslie Domínguez on . Posted in News. 1 Comment on Smallholder farmers’ multi-front strategy combats rapidly evolving wheat rust in Ethiopia

 

Ethiopian wheat planting. (Photo: CIMMYT)

New research shows that smallholder farmers in Ethiopia used various coping mechanisms apart from fungicides in response to the recent wheat rust epidemics in the country. Scientists from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR) call for continuous support to research and extension programs to develop and disseminate improved wheat varieties with resistant traits to old and newly emerging rust races.

Rising wheat yields cannot catch up rising demand

Wheat is the fourth largest food crop in Ethiopia cultivated by smallholders, after teff, maize and sorghum. Ethiopia is the largest wheat producer in sub-Saharan Africa and average farm yields have more than doubled in the past two decades, reaching 2.74 tons per hectare on average in 2017/18. Farmers who use improved wheat varieties together with recommended agronomic practices recorded 4 to 6 tons per hectare in high-potential wheat growing areas such as the Arsi and Bale zones. Yet the country remains a net importer because demand for wheat is rapidly rising.

The Ethiopian government has targeted wheat self-sufficiency by 2023 and the country has huge production potential due to its various favorable agroecologies for wheat production.

However, one major challenge to boosting wheat production and yields is farmers’ vulnerability to rapidly evolving wheat diseases like wheat rusts.

The Ethiopian highlands have long been known as hot spots for stem and yellow wheat rusts caused by the fungus Puccinia spp., which can spread easily under favorable climatic conditions. Such threats may grow with a changing climate.

Recurrent outbreaks of the two rusts destroyed significant areas of popular wheat varieties. In 2010, a yellow rust epidemic severely affected the popular Kubsa variety. In 2013/14, farmers in the Arsi and Bale zones saw a new stem rust race destroy entire fields of the bread wheat Digalu variety.

In response to the 2010 yellow rust outbreak, the government and non-government organizations, seed enterprises and other development supporters increased the supply of yellow rust resistant varieties like Kakaba and Danda’a.

Fungicide is not the only solution for wheat smallholder farmers

Two household panel surveys during the 2009/10 main cropping season, before the yellow rust epidemic, and during the 2013/14 cropping season analyzed farmers’ exposure to wheat rusts and their coping mechanisms. From the survey, 44% of the wheat farming families reported yellow rust in their fields during the 2010/11 epidemic.

Household data analysis looked at the correlation between household characteristics, their coping strategies against wheat rust and farm yields. The study revealed there was a 29 to 41% yield advantage by increasing wheat area of the new, resistant varieties even under normal seasons with minimum rust occurrence in the field. Continuous varietal development in responding to emerging new rust races and supporting the deployment of newly released rust resistant varieties could help smallholders cope against the disease and maintain improved yields in the rust prone environments of Ethiopia.

The case study showed that apart from using fungicides, increasing wheat area under yellow rust resistant varieties, increasing diversity of wheat varieties grown, or a combination of these strategies were the main coping mechanisms farmers had taken to prevent new rust damages. Large-scale replacement of highly susceptible varieties by new rust resistant varieties was observed after the 2010/11 epidemic.

The most significant wheat grain yield increases were observed for farmers who increased both area under resistant varieties and number of wheat varieties grown per season.

The additional yield gain thanks to the large-scale adoption of yellow rust resistant varieties observed after the 2010/11 epidemic makes a very strong case to further strengthen wheat research and extension investments, so that more Ethiopian farmers have access to improved wheat varieties resistant to old and newly emerging rust races.

Read the full study on PLOS ONE:
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0219327

Plates of boiled and roasted maize are displayed for tasting during a farmer participatory varietal selection exercise in Embu, Kenya, in August 2019. Flavors of varieties are very distinct and could explain why some old varieties are still preferably grown by farmers. (Photo: S. Palmas/CIMMYT)

Collaborative product profiling captures farmers’ demand for greater impact

Written by JĂ©rĂŽme Bossuet on . Posted in Features.

The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) organized its first ever Maize Product Profile-based Breeding and Varietal Turnover workshop for eastern Africa in Nairobi, on August  29 and 30, 2019. The workshop, funded by USAID, was attended by maize breeders from national research institutes in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Ethiopia and South Sudan, and by several partner seed companies including Seedco, Kenya Seeds, Western Seeds, Naseco and Meru Agro.

Participants from CIMMYT, EiB, NARs and seed companies attending the Product Profile workshop held in Nairobi on August 29-30, 2019. (Photo: CIMMYT/Joshua Masinde)

A product profile is defined as a list of “must-have” maize characteristics or traits that are the unique selling points for the target beneficiaries who are looking for these qualities. The breeders also consider additional traits in their breeding strategy, “value-added” or desirable traits that could be future unique selling points.

“A product profile is not a secret sauce” nor a checkbox to tick, explained Georges Kotch, a renowned expert in the seed industry and lead for Module 1 of the Excellence in Breeding (EiB) platform on product profiling. A product profile is a blueprint to help maize breeding programs ensure their new varieties released respond to a true need with a clear comparative advantage for seed companies and ultimately for maize farmers. This demand-driven process “starts with the end in mind” by understanding what the customers want. The end goal is to replace leading old varieties on the market with better ones that will improve farmers’ livelihoods, for example, with greater climate resilience and productivity.

Steering the breeding program through “healthy tensions”

Breeders may have had the tendency to focus on optimum yield for a certain agroecology, yet their priority traits may not reflect exactly the market or what farmers want. In addition to good yield, drought or disease resistance, grain color, taste, nutritional value, and appearance of plants and cobs are important in farmers’ choice of seed. Socio-economic research tools like participatory varietal selection (PVS) or willingness-to-pay experiments help us weigh the importance of each trait to trigger adoption.

Boiled and roasted maize tasting during a farmer participatory varietal selection exercise in Embu, Kenya in August 2019. Flavors of varieties are very distinct and could explain why some old varieties are still preferably grown by farmers. (Photo: CIMMYT/S. PALMAS)

There may be tensions between farmers’ needs, what suits seed companies like the seed reproducibility ratio, and what is possible and cost-effective from a breeder’s perspective. CIMMYT does not only look through the lens of economic return. The social impact new varieties could have is also considered, for example developing provitamin A or quality protein maize (QPM) as a solution to combat malnutrition even if there is not a major demand from private seed companies in Africa for nutritious maize.

Qualities valued by some actors may be overlooked by others. For example, some maize varieties have leafy ears with deceptively small cobs, which may protect the grain against pests but could be rejected by farmers.

It is important to have a wide array of expertise from breeding, market research and socio-economic analysis so that the different trait choices are weighed according to different lenses and a clear strategy for varietal turnover is defined.

High performing hybrids may not be enough for large-scale adoption

In southern Africa, climate experts warn that farmers could face drought every three years. CIMMYT has rightly prioritized drought tolerance (DT) over the last decade under the Stress Tolerant Maize for Africa initiative. Recently developed DT maize hybrids often outperform the popular varieties on the market, yet the varietal turnover has been slow in some regions. Farmers’ perceptions of what is a good maize may influence the success or rejection of a new variety. The risk for farmers and seed companies to try out a new variety is an important factor in adoption as well.

An appropriate seed marketing strategy is key, often seen only as the responsibility of private seed companies, but should be considered by public research as well.

CIMMYT has been selecting maize that can withstand drought during the critical phase just before and during the flowering stage, when the silks of the future cobs form. Even if rains stop at this stage, farmers growing DT maize will harvest some decent grain. If a long dry spell occurs just after planting, the crop will fail regardless of drought-tolerant breeding efforts. Farmers may then reject DT maize after such failure if the messaging is not clear.

Product profiling is a collaborative process, not an imposing one

Redefining the breeding strategy through product profiling is not set in stone. Kotch recommends annual review as a vehicle for constant improvement. B.M. Prasanna, director of CIMMYT’s Global Maize Program and the CGIAR Research Program on Maize (MAIZE) explained that the product profiles could vary among various partners, as each partner looks at their own comparative advantage to reach success.

It is important to have everyone from the maize seed value chain on board to succeed. Regina Tende, maize breeder and entomologist at the Kenya Agricultural & Livestock Research Organization (KALRO), warned that regulatory bodies who review and authorize new varieties to reach the market must be integrated in the discussion “as their interest, primarily yield, may not be the final requirement for the target market.”

Seed systems specialists are also crucial to operationalize a successful breeding and delivery strategy, to address the different scaling bottlenecks and identify “the market changer.”

According to Kotch, CGIAR and national research organizations should avoid developing products too similar to the popular varieties on the market. Adoption occurs when something very different, for example new resistance to the devastating maize lethal necrosis, gives an innovation edge to seed companies. In Ethiopia, the replacement of an old popular variety BH660 by climate resilient BH661 was successful for various reasons including superior hybrid seed production with grey leaf spot resistance built in the seed parent population.

This demand-driven, multi-lens approach of product profiling including breeding, gender, socio-economic and policy dimensions will help to ensure that new varieties are more likely to be picked by farmers and partner seed companies, and increase the impact of CIMMYT’s Global Maize Program.

Kenyan maize farmers set to benefit from development of improved varieties

Written by Mary Donovan on . Posted in In the media.

Anne Wambui has been growing maize in her farm located in the upper eastern Kenyan county of Embu for three decades to cater for domestic consumption and sale in the nearby market.

During this period, she has relied on buying varieties from seed stockists that are either recommended by the agricultural extension officials or not necessarily varieties that she prefers to plant.

However, scientists at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) emphasized that farmers should be availed varieties that meet their varied needs.

Read more here.

Back from the brink of extinction

Written by Emma Orchardson on . Posted in Features. 2 Comments on Back from the brink of extinction

In the early 20th century, Aaron Aaronsohn, a prominent agronomist best known for identifying the progenitor of wheat, began looking for durum wheat landraces in Israel. He traveled to villages across the country, carefully collecting and recording details of the local varieties used in each area.

This task was not without purpose. Aaronsohn recognized that as increasing numbers of settlers like himself came to the territory, the varietal change from the introduction of new and competitive wheat varieties and the rapid intensification of agriculture would soon cause all the traditional structures he had identified to disappear.

IPLR durum wheat landrace, Rishon LeZion, Israel. (Photo: Matan Franko/ARO-Volcani Center)

Aaronsohn was one of the first to begin collecting germplasm in the region, but others saw the importance of collecting before large-scale change occurred. For example, Russian botanist Nikolai Vavilov gathered samples from Israel on one of his expeditions through the Middle East. By the end of the century, a number of collections had been established, but overall efforts at conservation were fragmented.

“That’s why we say the collection was on the verge of extinction,” explains Roi Ben-David, a researcher at the Volcani Center, Israel’s Agricultural Research Institute (ARO). “There were single accessions in genebanks around the world but no one really gave them special treatment or saw their value. Many were in private collections; others were simply lost.”

When Ben-David and his colleagues began looking for landraces six years ago, even the collection housed at the Israeli Genebank (IGB) was disappointing, with many samples stored in unmarked boxes in sub-optimal conditions. “When we came in nobody was really trying to study what we had and put it together to represent the area’s wheat landscape as it was 100 years ago.”

Long-term efforts to restore and conserve a collection of Israeli and Palestinian wheat landraces (IPLR) have led to the restoration of 930 lines so far, but there are many varieties that cannot be recovered. Therefore, it came as a great surprise to Ben-David when he arrived at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) headquarters in Mexico and stumbled upon one of the collections presumed lost. “I think it was actually my first week at CIMMYT when I spotted a demonstration plot growing one of the lost varieties — a subset of the Ephrat-Blum collection — and I couldn’t believe it.”

He had heard about this collection from the late Abraham Blum, but had never been able to locate it. “Someone might have moved the seeds, or maybe the box was not well labelled and thrown out. We don’t know, but needless to say it was a very good surprise to rediscover 64 of our missing lines.”

What prompted you and your colleagues to start looking for landraces in Israel?

We began because we recognized local landraces are good genetic resources but unfortunately, we couldn’t find any. It wasn’t so much that they didn’t exist, but the accessions were scattered across the world, mostly in private collections in countries like the USA or Australia. The Israeli Genebank, which sits only two floors above my office, had a few buckets of germplasm but nobody really knew what was inside.

The Middle East and the Fertile Crescent are centers of diversity, not only for wheat but for all crops that were part of the Neolithic revolution 10,000 years ago. They started here – the exact point of origin was probably in what is now southeast Turkey – so we have had thousands of years of evolution in which those landraces dominated the agricultural landscape and adapted to different environments.

Why do you think so much of the collection was lost?

The lines from Israel were lost because their conservation simply wasn’t prioritized. Losses happen everywhere but what was missing in this case was the urgency and understanding of just how important these collections are. Luckily, the current manager of the IGB, who is a fundamental partner in building the IPLR, understood the need to prioritize this and allocated a budget to conserve it as one collection.

What is the value of conserving landraces and why should it be prioritized?

Landraces are an extremely important genetic resource. Wild relatives are the biggest treasure, but breeders are usually reluctant to use them because they are so very different from modern varieties. So landraces form the link between these two, having already been domesticated and developed within farming systems while remaining genetically distinct from the modern. In wheat, they’re quite easy to spot because of how tall they are compared to the semi-dwarf varieties that replaced them in the 20th century.

There are two main reasons why we need to prioritize conservation. First, we believe that the evolution under domestication in this region is important to the community as a whole. Second, it is now a critical time, as we’re getting further from the time in which those traditional lines were in use. The last collection was carried out in the 1980s, when people were still able to collect authentic landraces from farmers but this is just not possible any more. We travelled all over the country but the samples we collected were not authentic – most were modern varieties that farmers thought were traditional. Not everybody knows exactly what they’re growing.

The time factor is critical. If we were to wake up 50 years from now and decide that it’s important to start looking for landraces, I don’t know how much we could actually save.

Plant height variability among IPLR wheat landraces, Rishon LeZion, Israel. (Photo: Matan Franko/ARO-Volcani Center)

Are there any farmers still growing landraces in Israel?

When we started looking for farmers who are still growing landraces we only found one farm. It is quite small – only about ten acres shared between two brothers. They grow a variety which is typically used to make a traditional food called kube, a kind of meat ball covered in flour and then then either fried or boiled. If you boil it using regular flour it falls apart, so people prefer to use a landrace variety, which is what the brothers grow and are able to sell for up to six times as much as regular durum wheat in the market. However, they’re not really interested in getting rich; they’re just trying to keep their traditions alive.

How are you and your colleagues working to conserve the existing collection?

There are two approaches. We want to develop is ex-situ conservations to preserve the diversity. As landraces are not always easy to conserve in a genebank, we also want to support in-situ conservation in the field, like traditional farmers have done. Together with the IGB we’ve distributed seed to botanical gardens and other actors in the hope that at least some of them will propagate it in their fields.

Having established the collection, we’re also trying to utilize it for research and breeding as much as possible. So far we’ve characterized it genetically, tested for drought tolerance and other agronomic traits and we’re in talks to start testing the quality profile of the lines.

Did you continue working on this while you were based at CIMMYT?

Yes, this was an additional project I brought with me during my sabbatical. The main success was working with Carolina Sansaloni and the team at the Genetic Resources program to carry out the genotyping. If it were left to my own resources, I don’t think we could have done it as the collection contains 930 plant genotypes and we only had the budget to do 90.

Luckily, CIMMYT also has an interest in the material so we could collaborate. We brought the material, CIMMYT provided technical support and we were able to genotype it all, which is a huge boost for the project. We had already been measuring phenotypes in Israel, but now that we have all the genetic data as well we can study the collection more deeply and start looking for specific genes of interest.

What will happen to the lines you discovered at CIMMYT?

They’ve been sent back to Israel to be reintegrated into the collection. I want to continue collaborating with people in CIMMYT’s Genetic Resources program and genebank to do some comparative genomics and assess how much diversity we have in the IPLR collection compared with what CIMMYT has. Is there any additional genetic diversity? How does it compare to other landraces collections? That is what we want to find out next.

Roi Ben-David is based at Israel’s Agricultural Research Organization (ARO). He works in the Plant Institute, where his lab focuses on breeding winter cereals such as wheat. He has recently completed a one-year sabbatical placement at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).

CIMMYT’s germplasm banks contain the largest and most diverse collections of maize and wheat in the world. Improved and conserved seed is available to any research institution worldwide.

Ethiopian policymakers consider wider use of DNA fingerprinting

Written by Rodrigo Ordóñez on . Posted in Features. 1 Comment on Ethiopian policymakers consider wider use of DNA fingerprinting

How to track adoption and assess the impact of maize and wheat varieties? Some of the methods used until now, like farmers’ recall surveys, have various limitations. In addition to relying exclusively on people’s memory and subjectivity, they are difficult to replicate and prone to errors.

DNA fingerprinting, on the other hand, allows objective evaluation and is considered the “gold standard” method for adoption and impact assessments.

It consists of a chemical test that shows the genetic makeup of living things, by separating strands of DNA and revealing the unique parts of their genome. The results show up as a pattern of stripes that can be matched against other samples.

This technique is extremely helpful in tracking crop varieties and monitoring their adoption. It can be used to assess the impact of research-for-development investments, guide breeding and seed system strategies, implement the intellectual property rights of breeders, assess the use of crop genetic resources, and informing policy.

On June 25, 2019, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) held a half-day workshop in Addis Ababa to discuss the use and application of DNA fingerprinting in Ethiopia for the tracking of crop varieties.

High-level government officials and major players in the agricultural sector were interested in learning more about the policy implications of this tool and how to mainstream its use.

CIMMYT’s Socioeconomics Program Director, Olaf Erenstein (left), talks to Eyasu Abraha, Minister of Agriculture and Natural Resources (center), and Mandefro Nigussie, Director General of the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research.
CIMMYT’s Socioeconomics Program Director, Olaf Erenstein (left), talks to Eyasu Abraha, Minister of Agriculture and Natural Resources (center), and Mandefro Nigussie, Director General of the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research.

Introducing DNA fingerprinting in Ethiopia

The main DNA fingerprinting project in Ethiopia has been in operation since January 2016, focusing on the country’s two major staple crops: wheat and maize. The project covers the Amhara, Oromia, SNNPR, and Tigray regions, which together account for 92% and 79% of the national wheat and maize production.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has funded the project, which was jointly implemented by CIMMYT, the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR), Ethiopia’s Central Statistical Agency (CSA) and Diversity Arrays Technology (DArT).

The main objective of the project was to generate a knowledge base for the practical use of DNA fingerprinting, to mainstream the use of this technology, and to offer policy options and recommendations.

CIMMYT scientists Dave Hodson (left), Bekele Abeyo (center) and Sarah Hearne participated in the workshop.
CIMMYT scientists Dave Hodson (left), Bekele Abeyo (center) and Sarah Hearne participated in the workshop.

Better monitoring for wheat self-sufficiency

At the workshop, researchers presented two policy briefs specific to Ethiopia: one focusing on policy implications of DNA fingerprinting for tracking bread wheat varieties and another one on how to revitalize the durum wheat sub-sector.

Speaking at the workshop, Eyasu Abraha, Minister of Agriculture and Natural Resources, noted that the government planned to achieve wheat grain self-sufficiency in the next few years by increasing wheat productivity in the highlands and expanding wheat production to the lowlands through irrigation.  In this regard, improved crop variety development and dissemination is one of the key elements to increase agricultural productivity and improve the livelihood of millions of smallholder farmers.

According to Abraha, more than 130 wheat varieties have been released or registered in Ethiopia since the late 1960s, in collaboration with international research organizations. Public and private seed enterprises have multiplied and distributed these varieties to reach smallholder farmers.

Even though adoption studies have been conducted, there is still a strong need for more accurate and wider studies. In addition to tracking adoption and demand, using DNA fingerprinting could help understand the distribution of varieties across space and time.

Seed production innovations, conservation agriculture and partnerships are key for Africa’s food security

Written by JĂ©rĂŽme Bossuet on . Posted in Features.

Members of the International Maize Improvement Consortium Africa (IMIC – Africa) and other maize and wheat research partners discovered the latest innovations in seed and agronomy at Embu and Naivasha research stations in Kenya on August 27 and 28, 2019. The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and the Kenya Agriculture & Livestock Research Organization (KALRO) held their annual partner field days to present sustainable solutions for farmers to cope with poor soils, a changing climate and emerging diseases and pests, such as wheat rust, maize lethal necrosis or fall armyworm.

Versatile seeds and conservation agriculture offer farmers yield stability

“Maize is food in Kenya. Wheat is also gaining importance for our countries in eastern Africa,” KALRO Embu Center Director, Patrick Gicheru, remarked. “We have been collaborating for many years with CIMMYT on maize and wheat research to develop and disseminate improved technologies that help our farmers cope against many challenges,” he said.

Farmers in Embu, like in most parts of Kenya, faced a month delay in the onset of rains last planting season. Such climate variability presents a challenge for farmers in choosing the right maize varieties. During the field days, CIMMYT and KALRO maize breeders presented high-yielding maize germplasm adapted to diverse agro-ecological conditions, ranging from early to late maturity and from lowlands to highlands.

João Saraiva, from the Angolan seed company Jardins d’Ayoba, said having access to the most recent improved maize germplasm is helpful for his young seed company to develop quality seeds adapted to farmers’ needs. He is looking for solutions against fall armyworm, as the invasive species is thriving in the Angolan tropical environment. He was interested to hear about CIMMYT’s progress to identify promising maize lines resistant to the caterpillar. Since fall armyworm was first observed in Africa in 2016, CIMMYT has screened almost 1,200 inbred lines and 2,900 hybrids for tolerance to fall armyworm.

“Hopefully, we will be developing and releasing the first fall armyworm-tolerant hybrids by the first quarter of 2020,” announced B.M. Prasanna, director of CIMMYT’s Global Maize Programme and the CGIAR Research Program on Maize (MAIZE).

“Through continuous innovations to build varieties that perform well despite dry spells, heat waves or disease outbreak, maize scientists have been able to deliver significant yield increases each year across various environments,” explained Prasanna. “This genetic gain race is important to respond to growing grain demands despite growing climate risks and declining soil health.”

Berhanu Tadesse, maize breeder at the Ethiopian Institute for Agricultural Research (EIAR), was highly impressed by the disease-free, impeccable green maize plants at Embu station, remembering the spotted and crippled foliage during a visit more than a decade ago. This was “visual proof of constant progress,” he said.

For best results, smallholder farmers should use good agronomic practices to conserve water and soil health. KALRO agronomist Alfred Micheni demonstrated different tillage techniques during the field tour including the furrow ridge, which is adapted to semi-arid environments because it retains soil moisture.

Late maturity hybrid demonstration plot at Embu station. (Photo: JĂ©rĂŽme Bossuet/CIMMYT)

Innovations for a dynamic African seed sector

A vibrant local seed industry is needed for farmers to access improved varieties. Seed growers must be able to produce pure, high-quality seeds at competitive costs so they can flourish in business and reach many smallholder farmers.

Double haploid technology enables breeders to cut selection cycles from six to two, ultimately reducing costs by one third while ensuring a higher level of purity. Sixty percent of CIMMYT maize lines are now developed using double haploid technology, an approach also available to partners such as the Kenyan seed company Western Seeds.

The Seed Production Technology for Africa (SPTA) project, a collaboration between CIMMYT, KALRO, Corteva Agriscience and the Agricultural Research Council, is another innovation for seed companies enabling cheaper and higher quality maize hybrid production. Maize plants have both female and male pollen-producing flowers called tassels. To produce maize hybrids, breeders cross two distinct female and male parents. Seed growers usually break the tassels of female lines manually to avoid self-pollination. SPTA tested a male sterility gene in Kenya and South Africa, so that female parents did not produce pollen, avoiding a detasseling operation that damages the plant. It also saves labor and boosts seed yields. Initial trial data showed a 5 to 15% yield increase, improving the seed purity as well.

World-class research facilities to fight new and rapidly evolving diseases

The KALRO Naivasha research station has hosted the maize lethal necrosis (MLN) quarantine and screening facility since 2013. Implementing rigorous phytosanitary protocols in this confined site enables researchers to study the viral disease first observed in Africa 2011 in Bomet country, Kenya. Working with national research and plant health organizations across the region and the private sector, MLN has since been contained.

A bird’s eye view of the demonstration plots is the best testimony of the impact of MLN research. Green patches of MLN-resistant maize alternate with yellow, shrivelled plots. Commercial varieties are susceptible to the disease that can totally wipe out the crop, while new MLN-resistant hybrids yield five to six tons per hectare. Since the MLN outbreak in 2011, CIMMYT has released 19 MLN-tolerant hybrids with drought-tolerance and high-yielding traits as well.

Maize Lethal Necrosis (MLN) sensitive and resistant hybrid demo plots in Naivasha’s quarantine & screening facility (Photo: KIPENZ/CIMMYT)

A major challenge to achieving food security is to accelerate the varietal replacement on the market. CIMMYT scientists and partners have identified the lengthy and costly seed certification process as a major hurdle, especially in Kenya. The Principal Secretary of the State Department for Research in the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, and Fisheries, Hamadi Boga, pledged to take up this issue with the Kenya Plant and Health Inspectorate Service (KEPHIS).

“Such rapid impact is remarkable, but we cannot rest. We need more seed companies to pick up these new improved seeds, so that our research reaches the maximum number of smallholders,’’ concluded Prasanna.

Ethiopian maize breeders will directly apply knowledge gained from training

Written by Leslie DomĂ­nguez on . Posted in News.

Training attendees outside the Rift Valley Hotel in Adama, Ethiopia. (Photo: CIMMYT)

From July 22–26, the Stress Tolerant Maize for Africa (STMA) project organized a training in Adama, Ethiopia to update maize technicians on recent developments in maize research, data collection and seed production. The training was designed to stimulate good breeding programs, good data collection in trial and nurseries, production of better quality seed and development of improved varieties. Around 25 trainees attended, mainly from maize breeding research centers. Similar trainings were conducted in all STMA project countries over the last three and a half years.

CIMMYT staff from Ethiopia, Kenya and Zimbabwe and staff from the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR) Bako Research Center delivered training on methodologies and gave practical demonstrations on tablets. Presentations focused on the origin and botany of the maize plant, constraints to maize production in Ethiopia, data collection, breeding for abiotic stresses, new tools for phenotyping, maize lethal necrosis (MLN), and seed quality control.

Mandefro Nigussie, Director General of EIAR, said that the training was important because it addressed data collection. “If we are missing the data, we are missing the investment of the country,” he noted. He recognized CIMMYT’s culture in empowering research centers through trainings. The role of EIAR is to generate, test, disseminate and scale technologies. Therefore, having technicians who are aware of the recent developments in their areas is crucial.

Cosmos Magorokosho, maize breeder and STMA project leader, said that the core components of the training were to give technicians a strong understanding of the basics of maize and the physiology of maize plant. The knowledge they gained from this training will support them during data collection and when breeding for resistance to diseases and pests and improved seed production.

Upon completing five days training, all trainees received certificates along with the presentations and other relevant documents for future reference. CIMMYT maize breeder Dagne Wegary said he appreciated the active participation and dedication of the trainees and the interest they showed to improve their knowledge and skills. He reminded them that this is the start of a long journey and they will have to use the knowledge and skills gained to help farmers produce more and ensure food security. Trainees reflected that the training increased their existing knowledge in maize breeding and helped them to understand the current developments in the area. They said they would directly apply what they have learned and transfer the knowledge to other colleagues working in maize breeding.