Candidate for FAO leadership Qu Dongyu visits CIMMYT’s headquarters to sign MoU and strengthen collaboration
Qu Dongyu, China’s Vice Minister of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, and candidate for the position of Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), visited the global headquarters of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) in Mexico on March 16, 2019. He had already visited CIMMYT in 2006.
Vice minister Qu was greeted by students and CIMMYT scientists from China, the director general, the deputy director general and members of the management team. Qu and his delegation learned about CIMMYT’s latest initiatives and toured the campus.
CIMMYT’s director general Martin Kropff explained the organization’s strategic focus on agri-food systems: “Our mandate is on maize and wheat but we think broadly. Our researchers use a systems approach and work on using these two crops to improve peoples’ livelihoods, which is our ultimate goal.”
Qu expressed his career-long efforts for integrating multi-disciplinary approaches to tackle global challenges and said that he was “happy to see CIMMYT combining breeding — for which CIMMYT is famous — with value-added approaches to bring together science, farmers and industry.”
With innovation and the end user playing key roles in the vice minister’s agenda, Qu enjoyed learning about the Excellence in Breeding Platform’s target product profiles work and two-way communication channels from innovation hubs in Mexico.
During the visit, Qu was also introduced to CIMMYT’s small-scale machinery, which is used around the world to sustainably intensify production. CIMMYT often sources machines, such as seed planters and harvesters, from China to provide effective and efficient solutions that add tangible value for smallholders at an appropriate price point.
Bringing together advanced technology and inexpensive tools, CIMMYT pioneered the GreenSeeker, a handheld tool to advise farmers on the appropriate amount of nitrogen fertilizer to add to their crops. This tool gives farmers the double benefit of increased profitability and reduced negative environmental impacts. The director of CIMMYT’s Sustainable Intensification program, Bruno Gérard, showed a machine-mountable version of this tool, which could connect to a two-wheel tractor and automatically add the appropriate amount of fertilizer.
Gérard also explained CIMMYT’s efforts to develop mechanization as a service, pointing to the manual on developing mechanization service providers, jointly developed by CIMMYT and FAO: “Mechanization has the potential to improve environmental sustainability, farm productivity and reduce labor drudgery. If mechanization is to be adopted at scale and sustainably, in most cases it has to be provided through service provision to smallholder farmers.”
At the end of the visit, to underline the shared commitment to collaboration that began in the 1970s, Kropff and Qu signed a memorandum of understanding for the establishment of a China-CIMMYT joint laboratory for maize and wheat improvement.
Ethiopia calls for continued collaboration to increase wheat production and meet nutritional and food security
The Ethiopian wheat sector has seen progress since the early 2000s, more than doubling the average farm yields from 1.13 tons per hectare in 1998/99 to 2.74 tons per hectare in 2017/18. Progressive farmers who plant improved wheat varieties and follow recommended agronomic practices could harvest four to six tons per hectare in high-potential wheat growing areas. However, the production is not keeping up with the growing wheat demand: imports reached over 1.5 million tons last year. The Ethiopian government has announced recently that the country should become wheat self-sufficient over the next four years.
One of the biggest wheat production challenges in Ethiopia has been the stem rust and yellow rust diseases caused by Pucccinia spp, which severely affected popular wheat varieties like Kubsa, Galema and Digalu that wiped out from production.
In response to these losses, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) started an emergency project to multiply and disseminate rust-resistant wheat varieties in the affected regions in 2014, with support from USAID.
The following year, CIMMYT launched the Seed Multiplication and Delivery of High Yielding Rust Resistant Bread and Durum Wheat Varieties to Ethiopian Farmers project. It benefitted people in 54 woredas (districts) of 4 regions: Amhara, Oromia, SNNP and Tigray. CIMMYT collaborated with the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR), regional agricultural research institutes and the regional bureaus of agriculture.
This wheat seed scaling project wrapped up with a closure workshop on March 7, 2019. Organized by CIMMYT and EIAR, it gathered representatives from USAID, policymakers, researchers and other governmental and non-governmental institutions.
State minister of agriculture Aynalem Nigussie noted that the project boosted farmers’ productivity thanks to better seeds, improved farming practices and increased knowledge to deal with wheat rust diseases. She recognized that the project aligned with national priorities, as the government is devising a new seed policy to address the current challenges of the Ethiopian wheat seed sector.
CIMMYT’s representative in Ethiopia, Bekele Abeyo, highlighted some of the project outcomes. Some of the achievements in the past four years included the release and demonstration of 23 wheat varieties — 18 bread and 5 durum types —, increased access to these improved seeds for 131,132 households and production of 39,750 tons of wheat grain. Extension agents from 54 woredas participated in training in wheat rust management, recommended agronomic packages for the new wheat varieties, and field data collection and management.
Lessons learned
Abeyo explained that the project could reach a high number of farmers thanks to effective teamwork between the various stakeholders, seed support on revolving bases and a decentralized seed production to reach even remote places. Clustering farmers’ plots favored quality seed production.
Participants flagged weak market linkages, particularly for farmers producing durum wheat, , as a bottleneck to address. Workshop participants recommended the establishment of a wheat task force involving the private sector and with continuous support from funders like USAID.
The director general of EIAR, Mandefro Nigusse, said that the issues raised are inputs for further actions, and some will have to be directed to researchers and breeders to come up with additional solutions for the challenges the wheat sector is facing.
Eyasu Abrha, Advisor to the Minister of Agriculture, officially closed the workshop. He noted that the government of Ethiopia is putting effort into ensuring nutritional and food security, and that projects such as this one are important to address critical challenges in the sector. Abrha acknowledged the support of CIMMYT, EIAR and USAID, and called for a continued collaboration with the government of Ethiopia to meet nutritional and food security goals.
Q&A with 2019 Women in Triticum awardee Carolina Rivera
As a native of Obregon, Mexico, Carolina Rivera has a unique connection to the heart of Norman Borlaug’s wheat fields. She is now carrying on Borlaug’s legacy and working with wheat as a wheat physiologist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and data coordinator with the International Wheat Yield Partnership (IWYP).
Given her talents and passion for wheat research, it is no surprise that Rivera is one of the six recipients of the 2019 Jeanie Borlaug Laube Women in Triticum (WIT) Early Career Award. As a young scientist at CIMMYT, she has already worked to identify new traits associated with the optimization of plant morphology aiming to boost grain number and yield.
The Jeanie Borlaug Laube WIT Award provides professional development opportunities for women working in wheat. The review panel responsible for the selection of the candidates at the Borlaug Global Rust Initiative (BGRI), was impressed by her commitment towards wheat research on an international level and her potential to mentor future women scientists.
Established in 2010, the award is named after Jeanie Borlaug Laube, wheat science advocate and mentor, and daughter of Nobel Laureate Dr. Norman E. Borlaug. As a winner, Rivera is invited to attend a training course at CIMMYT in Obregon, Mexico, in spring 2020 as well as the BGRI 2020 Technical Workshop, to be held in the UK in June 2020. Since the award’s founding, there are now 50 WIT award winners.
The 2019 winners were announced on March 20 during CIMMYT’s Global Wheat Program Visitors’ Week in Obregon.
In the following interview, Rivera shares her thoughts about the relevance of the award and her career as a woman in wheat science.
Q: What does receiving the Jeanie Borlaug Laube WIT Award mean to you?
I feel very honored that I was considered for the WIT award, especially after having read the inspiring biographies of former WIT awardees. Receiving this award has encouraged me even more to continue doing what I love while standing strong as a woman in science.
It will is a great honor to receive the award named for Jeanie Borlaug, who is a very active advocate for wheat research. I am also very excited to attend the BGRI Technical Workshop next year, where lead breeders and scientists will update the global wheat community on wheat rust research. I expect to see a good amount of women at the meeting!
Q: When did you first become interested in agriculture?
My first real encounter with agriculture was in 2009 when I joined CIMMYT Obregon as an undergraduate student intern. I am originally from Obregon, so I remember knowing about the presence of CIMMYT, Campo Experimental Norman E. Borlaug (CENEB) and Instituto Nacional de Investigación Forestales Agrícolas y Pecuario (Inifap) in my city but not really understanding the real importance and impact of the research coming from those institutions. After a few months working at CIMMYT, I became very engrossed in my work and visualized myself as a wheat scientist.
Q: Why is it important to you that there is a strong community of women in agriculture?
We know women play a very important role in agriculture in rural communities, but in most cases they do not get the same rights and recognition as men. Therefore, policies — such as land rights — need to be changed and both women and men need to be educated in gender equity. I think the latter factor is more likely to strengthen communities of women, both new and existing, working in agriculture.
In addition, women should participate more in science to show that agricultural research is an area where various ideas and perspectives are necessary. To achieve this in the long run, policies need to look at current social and cultural practices holding back the advancement of women in their careers.
Q: What are you currently working on with CIMMYT and IWYP?
I am a post-doctoral fellow in CIMMYT’s Global Wheat Program where I assist in collaborative projects to improve wheat yield potential funded by IWYP. I am also leading the implementation of IWYP’s international research database, helping to develop CIMMYT’s wheat databases in collaboration with the center’s Genetic Resources Program. Apart from research and data management, I am passionate about offering trainings to students and visitors on field phenotyping approaches.
Q: Where do you see yourself in the agriculture world in 10 years?
In 10 years, I see myself as an independent scientist, generating ideas that contribute to delivering wheat varieties with higher yield potential and better tolerance to heat and drought stresses. I also see myself establishing strategies to streamline capacity building for graduate students in Mexico. At that point, I would also like to be contributing to policy changes in education and funding for science in Mexico.
Innovative irrigation promises “more crop per drop” for India’s water-stressed cereals
On World Water day, researchers show how India’s farmers can beat water shortages and grow rice and wheat with 40 percent less water
India’s northwest region is the most important production area for two staple cereals: rice and wheat. But a growing population and demand for food, inefficient flood-based irrigation, and climate change are putting enormous stress on the region’s groundwater supplies. Science has now confronted this challenge: a “breakthrough” study demonstrates how rice and wheat can be grown using 40 percent less water, through an innovative combination of existing irrigation and cropping techniques. The study’s authors, from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), the Borlaug Institute for South Asia (BISA), Punjab Agricultural University and Thapar University, claim farmers can grow similar or better yields than conventional growing methods, and still make a profit.
The researchers tested a range of existing solutions to determine the optimal mix of approaches that will help farmers save water and money. They found that rice and wheat grown using a “sub-surface drip fertigation system” combined with conservation agriculture approaches used at least 40 percent less water and needed 20 percent less Nitrogen-based fertilizer, for the same amount of yields under flood irrigation, and still be cost-effective for farmers. Sub-surface drip fertigation systems involve belowground pipes that deliver precise doses of water and fertilizer directly to the plant’s root zone, avoiding evaporation from the soil. The proposed system can work for both rice and wheat crops without the need to adjust pipes between rotations, saving money and labor. But a transition to more efficient approaches will require new policies and incentives, say the authors.
Read the full story:
Innovative irrigation system could future-proof India’s major cereals. Thomsom Reuters Foundation News, 20 March 2019.
Read the study:
Sidhu HS, Jat ML, Singh Y, Sidhu RK, Gupta N, Singh P, Singh P, Jat HS, Gerard B. 2019. Sub-surface drip fertigation with conservation agriculture in a rice-wheat system: A breakthrough for addressing water and nitrogen use efficiency. Agricultural Water Management. 216:1 (273-283). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agwat.2019.02.019
The study received funding from the CGIAR Research Program on Wheat (WHEAT), the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) and the Government of Punjab. The authors acknowledge the contributions of the field staff at BISA and CIMMYT based at Ludhiana, Punjab state.
CIMMYT and UAS-Bangalore to establish a maize doubled haploid facility in Karnataka, India
KARNAKATA, India (CIMMYT) — The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and the University of Agricultural Sciences-Bangalore (UAS-Bangalore) have signed a collaboration agreement for establishing a maize doubled haploid (DH) facility at the Agricultural Research Station in Kunigal (ARS-Kunigal), Tumkur district, Karnataka state, India.
CIMMYT will establish and operate the maize DH facility, including field activities and the associated laboratory. Occupying 12 acres of land, the facility is estimated to produce at least 30,000 DH lines a year. CIMMYT hopes the facility to be operational by the last quarter of 2019.
The maize DH facility, funded by the CGIAR Research Program on Maize (MAIZE), fulfills a very important requirement of the region. It has the potential to accelerate maize breeding and hybrid development and significantly increase genetic gains through maize breeding in Asia. During the 13th Asian Maize Conference in Ludhiana, India (October 8-10, 2018), several partners — including the Indian Institute of Maize Research (ICAR-IIMR) — emphasized the urgent need for a state-of-the-art maize DH facility that could serve breeding programs across Asia.
“This is indeed a major landmark for maize breeding, especially in the public sector, not only in India, but also in Asia,” said B.M. Prasanna, Director of CIMMYT’s Global Maize Program and the CGIAR Research Program on Maize (MAIZE). “The facility will provide maize DH development services, not only for the maize breeding programs of CIMMYT and UAS-B, but also for national agricultural research system institutions and small and medium-sized seed companies engaged in maize breeding and interested to pursue DH-based advanced maize breeding strategies in Asia. DH technology, in combination with molecular marker-assisted breeding, can significantly increase genetic gains in maize breeding.”
“The maize doubled haploid facility … will be the first of its kind in the public domain in Asia,” said S. Rajendra Prasad, Vice Chancellor of UAS-Bangalore. “The work done at this facility will certainly benefit the farmers of the state, country and the Asian region, by accelerating maize breeding and improving efficiencies.”
The signing of the collaboration agreement took place on February 18, 2019 at UAS-Bangalore’s campus in Bengaluru. CIMMYT was represented by B.M. Prasanna and BS Vivek, Senior Maize Breeder. UAS-Bangalore was represented by S. Rajendra Prasad; Mahabaleshwar Hegde, Registrar, and Y.G. Shadakshari, Director of Research.
The benefits of doubled haploid technology
DH maize lines are highly uniform, genetically pure and stable, and enable significant saving of time and resources in deriving parental lines, which are building blocks of improved maize hybrids.
Over the last 12 years, CIMMYT has worked intensively on optimizing DH technology for the tropics. Researchers released first-generation tropicalized haploid inducers in 2012, and second-generation tropicalized haploid inducers in 2017, in partnership with the University of Hohenheim, Germany. In 2017, CIMMYT developed more than 93,000 maize DH lines from 455 populations, and delivered them to maize breeders in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
INTERVIEW OPPORTUNITIES:
B.M. Prasanna – Director of CIMMYT’s Global Maize Program and the CGIAR Research Program on Maize (MAIZE).
FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT THE MEDIA TEAM:
Jennifer Johnson – Maize Communication Officer, CIMMYT. J.A.JOHNSON@cgiar.org, +52 (55) 5804 2004 ext. 1036.
New publications: Biofortification of maize with provitamin A can reduce aflatoxin load
New research evidence could have significant implications for breeding approaches to combat harmful aflatoxin contamination in maize while simultaneously contributing to alleviate vitamin A deficiency. The study “Provitamin A Carotenoids in Grain Reduce Aflatoxin Contamination of Maize While Combating Vitamin A Deficiency” is the first published report to document how biofortification with provitamin A can contribute to reduce aflatoxin contamination in maize.
Aflatoxins are harmful compounds that are produced by the fungus Aspergillus flavus, which can be found in the soil, plants and grain of a variety of legumes and cereals including maize. Toxic to humans and animals, aflatoxins are associated with liver and other types of cancer, as well as with weakened immune systems that result in increased burden of disease, micronutrient deficiencies, and stunting or underweight development in children.
Efforts to breed maize varieties with resistance to aflatoxin contamination have proven difficult and elusive. Contamination of maize grain and products with aflatoxin is especially prevalent in low- and middle-income countries where monitoring and safety standards are inconsistently implemented.
Biofortification also serves to address “hidden hunger,” or micronutrient deficiency. Over two billion people are affected globally — they consume a sufficient amount of calories but lack essential micronutrients such as vitamins and minerals. Vitamin A deficiency specifically compromises the health of millions of maize consumers around the world, including large parts of sub-Saharan Africa.
Provitamin A-enriched maize is developed by increasing the concentration of carotenoids — the precursors of vitamin A — and powerful antioxidants that play important roles in reducing the production of aflatoxin by the fungus Aspergillus flavus. The relative ease of breeding for increased concentrations of carotenoids as compared to breeding for aflatoxin resistance in maize make this finding especially significant as part of a solution to aflatoxin contamination problems.
Breeding of provitamin A-enriched maize varieties is ongoing at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), with the support of HarvestPlus. Several varieties trialed in sub-Saharan Africa have demonstrated their potential to benefit vitamin-deficient maize consumers.
The researchers highlight the potential in breeding maize with enhanced levels of carotenoids to yield the dual health benefits of reduced aflatoxin concentration in maize and reduced rates of vitamin A deficiency. This result is especially significant for countries where the health burdens of exposure to aflatoxin and prevalence of vitamin A deficiency converge with high rates of maize consumption.
Read the full study here: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpls.2019.00030/full
Financial support for this study was partially provided by HarvestPlus, a global alliance of agriculture and nutrition research institutions working to increase the micronutrient density of staple food crops through biofortification. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of HarvestPlus. The CGIAR Research Program on Maize (MAIZE) also supported this research.
This research builds on the Ph.D. dissertation of Dr. Pattama Hannok at University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, United States (Hannok, 2015).
Exploring young Africans’ role and engagement in the rural economy
How do young rural Africans engage in the rural economy? How important is farming relative to non-farm activities for the income of young rural Africans? What social, spatial and policy factors explain different patterns of engagement? These questions are at the heart of an interdisciplinary research project, funded by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), that seeks to provide stronger evidence for policy and for the growing number of programs in Africa that want to “invest in youth.”
One component of the Challenges and Opportunities for Rural Youth Employment in Sub-Saharan Africa project, led by the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), draws on data from the World Bank’s Living Standard Measurement Study – Integrated Surveys on Agriculture (LSMS-ISA) to develop a more detailed picture of young people’s economic activities. These surveys, covering eight countries in sub-Saharan Africa, were conducted at regular intervals and in most cases followed the same households and individuals through time. While the LSMS-ISA are not specialized youth surveys and therefore may not cover all facets of youth livelihoods and wellbeing in detail, they provide valuable knowledge about the evolving patterns of social and economic characteristics of rural African youth and their households.
“LSMS-ISA data are open access, aiming to help national governments and academics analyze the linkages between poverty and agricultural productivity in developing countries,” said Sydney Gourlay, Survey Specialist in the Development Data Group of the World Bank. She explained that LSMS-ISA datasets cover rural and urban livelihoods — including asset ownership, education, farm and non-farm incomes — and contain detailed information on farming practices and productivity. “LSMS-ISA data have untapped potential for valuable youth analyses that could lead to evidence-based youth policy reform,” Gourlay said.
To stimulate greater use of LSMS-ISA data for research on these issues, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), IDS, and the LSMS team of the World Bank organized a workshop for young African social scientists, hosted by CIMMYT in Nairobi from February 4 to February 8, 2019.
Early-career social scientists from Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Uganda, and Zimbabwe explored the potential of LSMS-ISA data, identified research issues, and developed strategies to create new analyses. The workshop was also a chance to uncover potential areas for increased data collection on youth, as part of the LSMS team’s IFAD-funded initiative “Improving Data on Women and Youth.”
What does that data point represent?
The workshop stressed the importance of getting to know the data before analyzing them. As explained by World Bank senior economist Talip Kilic in The Crowd and the Cloud, “Every data point has a human story.” It is important to decipher what the data points represent and the limits within which they can be interpreted. For instance, the definition of youth differs by country, so comparative studies across countries must harmonize data from different sources.
“Because LSMS-ISA survey locations are georeferenced, it is possible to integrate spatial information from multiple sources and gain new insights about patterns of interest, as well as the drivers associated with such patterns,” said Jordan Chamberlin, spatial economics expert at CIMMYT. “For example, in all countries we’ve examined, the degree of non-farm economic engagement is strongly associated with distance from urban centers.”
Chamberlin noted that georeferencing also has limitations. For instance, to ensure privacy, LSMS-ISA coordinates for households are randomly offset by as much as 5 km. Nonetheless, diverse geospatial data from the datasets — distance to the nearest tarmac road or population density, among other information — may be integrated via the location coordinates.
One key variable to assess farm productivity is harvested area. The LSMS team’s research has revealed high, systematic discrepancies between farmers’ self-assessments of area, GPS measurements, and compass and rope, which is considered the most accurate method. Methodological validation data from Ethiopia, Nigeria, and Tanzania show that on average farmers overestimate the area of plots smaller than 200 m2 by more than 370 percent and underestimate the size of plots larger than 2 hectares by 13 percent, relative to compass and rope measurements. Such errors can skew yield analyses and the accuracy of assessments of national agricultural research programs’ impact.
Several workshop participants expressed interest in using the LSMS dataset for studies on migration, given that it contains information about this variable. In the case of internal migrants — that is, persons who have moved to another area in the same country — LSMS enumerators will find and interview them and these migrants will continue to be included in future rounds of the panel survey. In Malawi, for example, about 93 percent of individuals were tracked between the 2010/11 and the 2013 Integrated Household Surveys. Plot characteristics — such as type of soil, input use, and crop production — include information on the person who manages the plot, allowing for identification and analysis of male and female managed plots.
Following the training, the participants have better articulated their research ideas on youth. Prospective youth studies from the group include how land productivity affects youth opportunities and whether migration induces greater involvement of women in agriculture or raises the cost of rural labor. Better studies will generate more accurate knowledge to help design more effective youth policies.
Sustainable intensification practices build resilience in Bangladesh’s charlands
The charlands, island-like tracts of land arising from riverbeds as a result of erosion and accretion, are home to millions of Bangladesh’s most vulnerable people. The lives of these people, much like the land itself, are exposed to nature’s forces such as erosion and floods.
In Eachlirchar, an area of charland in Lakkhitari Union, Gangachara, Rangpur district, where the soil struggles to yield even rice, the fate of the marginalized char community is arbitrarily determined by the course of nature. However, mother of three Anzuma Begam is living proof of the resilience and socioeconomic development catalyzed by adopting conservation agriculture-based sustainable intensification technologies.
Promoted by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) through its Sustainable and Resilient Farming Systems Intensification (SRFSI) project, sustainable intensification technologies have been heralded as a major breakthrough in the fight against charland aridity since 2014. By reducing drudgery, irrigation and costs, conservation agriculture enables the soil of the charlands to produce rice and maize yields consecutively.
Given its eventual success, it is surprising that the first phase of CIMMYT’s work in Eachlirchar did not run according to plan, as the tobacco-producing community did not welcome new technologies. Begam’s husband, Hossain Ali, even rejected her initial proposal to participate in the SRFSI project’s introductory training on zero tillage, weed management and new seeds. However, in spite of her husband’s disapproval and defying patriarchal constraints, Begam stepped forward to accept the new agricultural technology.
After engaging with the project, Begam decided apply conservation agriculture-based sustainable intensification practices on her small plot of land. She began to produce mechanically transplanted rice and strip-till maize. Her first harvest in 2015 deepened her understanding of the benefits of comparatively low utilization of irrigation, pesticides and labor.
Begam has since yielded a bumper maize crop using strip-till technology and her socioeconomic progress is an inspiration to her charland community. Even the floods of June 2017 failed take the smiles off her family’s faces and, in 2018, she and her family moved from a shack into a well-built tin-shaded house.
The profits from Begam’s higher yielding and more reliable maize and rice harvests have ensured access to proper education and food for her children, and her husband now helps cultivate their land using conservation agriculture technologies. “Anzuma did the right thing by not listening to my wrong decision back then in 2014,” he explains. “SRFSI showed her the right way to attain self-reliance through conservation agriculture technologies. I am proud of my wife.”
The Sustainable and Resilient Farming Systems Intensification (SRFSI) project is funded by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR).
Is a world without hunger possible, asks Germany’s minister Gerd Müller during his visit to CIMMYT
On March 4, 2019, staff from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) welcomed Gerd Müller, Germany’s Federal Minister of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), for a short visit to CIMMYT’s global headquarters in Mexico. Before exploring the campus and sitting down to hear about CIMMYT’s latest innovations in maize and wheat research, Minister Müller challenged the scientists gathered there by asking: “Is a world with no hunger actually possible?”
“It is possible, but it will require a lot of research and development activities to get there,” replied CIMMYT’s director general, Martin Kropff.
With $3.5 billion generated in benefits annually, CIMMYT is well positioned for Minister Müller’s challenge. CIMMYT works throughout the developing world to improve livelihoods and foster more productive, sustainable maize and wheat farming. Its portfolio squarely targets critical challenges, including food insecurity and malnutrition, climate change and environmental degradation. In addition, over 50 percent of maize and wheat grown in the developing world is based on CIMMYT varieties.
Germany has generously supported CIMMYT’s work for decades in a quest to answer this very question, which aligns with the German government’s agenda to improving food and nutrition security, the environment and livelihoods.
“CIMMYT is working to find ways to allow developing countries to grow maize and wheat on less land so that a larger percentage of it can be freed for nutritious and higher value cash crops. This requires better seeds that are adapted to biotic and abiotic stressors, smarter agronomy and machinery, which CIMMYT develops with partners,” Kropff explained.
CIMMYT works between smallholders and small companies to create an incentive on one side to grow varieties and on the other side, to increase demand for quality grain that will ultimately become the tortillas and bread on customers’ dinner tables. These sustainable sourcing and breeding efforts depend on the breathtaking diversity of maize and wheat housed at CIMMYT’s genebank, the Wellhausen-Anderson Plant Genetic Resources Center, which is supported by German funding along with solar panels that generate clean energy for the genebank.
Through funding for the CGIAR Research Program on WHEAT and the CIM Integrated Experts Program, Germany’s GIZ and BMZ have also supported CIMMYT research into gender and innovation processes in Africa, Central and South Asia, enhancing gender awareness in both projects and rural communities and mainstreaming gender-sensitive approaches in agricultural research. As a result, CIMMYT researchers and partners have increased gender equality in wheat-based cropping systems in Ethiopia, reduced the burden of women’s wheat cleaning work in Afghanistan, and hosted a series of training courses promoting the integration of gender awareness and analysis in research for development.
In addition, the CIM Integrated Experts program has allowed CIMMYT to increase its efforts to scale up agricultural innovations and link research to specific development needs. With support from GIZ and in collaboration with the PPPLab, in 2018 CIMMYT researchers developed a trial version of the Scaling Scan, a tool which helps researchers to design and manage scaling at all project phases: at the beginning, during and after implementation.
CIMMYT is committed to improving livelihoods and helping farmers stay competitive through increasing labor productivity and reducing costs. CIMMYT’s mechanization team works to identify, develop, test and improve technologies that reduce drudgery and enable smallholders in Mexico, sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia to adopt sustainable intensification practices, which require greater farm power and precision. In Ethiopia, CIMMYT has an ongoing collaboration with the GIZ/BMZ green innovation center — established as part of the ONE WORLD – No Hunger initiative — and is working with GIZ in Namibia to provide knowledge, expertise and capacity building on conservation agriculture. This includes the organization of training courses to mechanics and service providers on everything from the use to the repair of machinery and small-scale mechanization services.
“We’re on a mission to improve livelihoods through transforming smallholder agriculture, much of which depends on empowering women, scaling, market development and pushing for policies that would create the right incentives. Partnerships with local and international stakeholders such as Germany are at the core of CIMMYT’s operations and allow for us to have global impact,” said Kropff.
More photos of the visit are available here.
