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Natalia Palacios, CIMMYT maize quality specialist, spearheads the center's work to raise the nutritional value of maize-based foods.

CIMMYT has key role to address global nutrition challenges, says maize quality specialist

Written by Emma Orchardson on . Posted in News.

Natalia Palacios, CIMMYT maize quality specialist, spearheads the center's work to raise the nutritional value of maize-based foods.
Natalia Palacios, CIMMYT maize quality specialist, spearheads the center’s work to raise the nutritional value of maize-based foods.

Exposure to more frequent and intense climate extremes is threatening to reverse progress towards ending hunger and malnutrition. New evidence points to rising world hunger. A recent FAO report estimated the number of undernourished people worldwide at over 800 million. Severe food insecurity and undernourishment are increasing in almost all sub-regions of Africa, as well as across South America.

“It’s very important to ensure food security,” says CIMMYT maize quality specialist Natalia Palacios. “But we also have to focus on food nutrition, because increasing yields doesn’t always mean that we’re improving food quality.” Food quality, she explained, is affected not only by genetics, but also by crop and postharvest management practices. As head of CIMMYT’s maize nutritional quality laboratory, Palacios’ work combines research on all three.

As she prepares to attend the World Food Prize in Des Moines, Iowa – which this year recognizes the contributions of those working to combat malnutrition and ensure food and nutrition security – Palacios discusses ways in which she and CIMMYT colleagues work to address health and nutrition challenges.

What role can CIMMYT play in addressing global nutrition challenges?

Nutrition is an interdisciplinary issue, so there are several ways for CIMMYT to engage. In breeding, there’s a lot we can do in biofortification—which means to increase grain nutrient content. The CIMMYT germplasm bank, with its more than 175,000 unique collections of maize and wheat seed, is an invaluable source of genetic traits to develop new nutritious and competitive crops.

CIMMYT also addresses household nutrition challenges, including food availability, proper storage, and consumer behavior and choice. In cropping systems, the Center studies and promotes diversification, agroforestry, and improved soil health and farming practices, and at the landscape level it examines the role of agricultural practices. Gender research and foresight allow us to identify our role in the evolving setting of agri-food systems and rural transformation. We are prioritizing areas where CIMMYT can play a key role to address global nutrition challenges and partner effectively with leading nutrition groups worldwide.

How does the biofortification of staple crops like maize and wheat help to improve nutrition?

CIMMYT biofortification research has focused on micronutrients such as provitamin A in maize and zinc in both maize and wheat, to benefit consumers whose diets depend on those crops and may lack diversity. Biofortification must be complemented by enhanced dietary diversification and education for better nutrition.

How important are processing and post-harvest storage in terms of ensuring high-nutritional quality?

Research on post-harvest processing and storage is key to our work. A critical topic in maize is monitoring, understanding, and controlling aflatoxins—poisonous toxins produced by molds on the grain. CIMMYT has worked mainly to develop aflatoxin-tolerant maize, but recent funding from the Mexican food industry has enabled us to launch a small, more broadly-focused study.

In the past, aflatoxins showed up every three or four years in Mexico, and even then at fairly low levels. Aflatoxin incidence has lately become more frequent, appearing almost every year or two, as climate changes expose crops to higher temperatures and fungi are more likely to develop in the field or storage, especially when storage conditions are poor.

What are the implications of high aflatoxin incidence for health and nutrition?

The implications for health and nutrition are huge. High consumption can affect the immune system and lead to pancreatic and liver cancers, among other grave illnesses.

How easy is it to tell if a kernel is contaminated?

It’s impossible to tell whether grain is contaminated without doing tests. The chemical structure of the toxin includes a lactone ring that fluoresces under UV-light, but this method only tells you whether or not the toxin is present, and results depend contamination levels and kernel placement under the lamp.

We’re spreading the lamp method among farmers so they can detect contamination in their crops, as well as making other of our other methods more accessible and less expensive, for use by farmers and food processors.

See our coverage of the 2018 Borlaug Dialogue and the World Food Prize.
See our coverage of the 2018 Borlaug Dialogue and the World Food Prize.

New publications: Exploring the gendered rules shaping agricultural innovation

Written by Emma Orchardson on . Posted in Publications.

How do gender norms, agency and agricultural innovation interlink? How can we research this question comparatively to better understand patterns without overlooking the specificities of different contexts and the people who occupy them? These questions set the stage for the new special issue in the Journal of Gender, Agriculture and Food Security (Agri-Gender) on the GENNOVATE research initiative.

Ahead of the International Day of Rural Women (October 15), researchers from across CGIAR drew on the voices of over 7,000 rural women and men across diverse regional contexts to demonstrate why understanding and addressing gender norms is critical for achieving sustainable and equitable development.

Gender norms comprise the social rules that differentiate what a society considers a man and a woman should be in their lives. The papers published in the GENNOVATE special issue provide new empirical and methodological contributions to the literature on gender, agricultural innovation and rural transformation. The testimonies gathered across 137 communities in 26 countries illuminate how agricultural innovation processes are regularly constrained by gender norms. These norms prescribe women’s deference to men’s authority and in turn assign women with heavy household and care work burdens. They also limit their access to resources, physical mobility and social interactions.

Challenging the norms

Women in Nepal participate in a focus group discussion as part of GENNOVATE's field research (Photo: Anuprita Shukla)
Women in Nepal participate in a focus group discussion as part of GENNOVATE’s field research (Photo: Anuprita Shukla)

Nevertheless, women and men find ways to challenge and redefine these norms, and village practices are often different from normative expectations. In a large majority of GENNOVATE research communities, women influence important household decisions and innovate in their rural livelihood activities, albeit often close to their homesteads and on a smaller scale than rural men. Some gender norms are beginning to relax to accommodate women’s and men’s changing lives, but these processes vary greatly across the types of norms, the groups of people concerned — young or unmarried women, widows, resource-constrained women, etc. — and the places where they live. By and large, women continue to face a myriad of barriers trying to expand their economic initiatives.

Two of the papers in the special issue explore gender norms in circumstances where farmer innovation and community development are particularly prevalent. CIMMYT researcher Lone Badstue and co-authors present findings from 336 semi-structured interviews with rural women and men from 19 countries who are known in their villages for agricultural innovation. While finance and physical assets emerge as important enablers of innovation, the testimonies stress that factors related to personality and agency are key drivers for both women’s and men’s capacity to innovate. Compared to men, women innovators are far more likely to detail how supportive spouses, parents, siblings, in-laws or children can help them learn about and adopt new farming techniques or otherwise actively innovate in their rural livelihoods.

Men in Kenya participate in a focus group discussion as part of GENNOVATE's field research (Photo: Renee Bullock/IITA)
Men in Kenya participate in a focus group discussion as part of GENNOVATE’s field research (Photo: Renee Bullock/IITA)

In another paper focused on 79 community case studies, Patti Petesch and co-authors focus on a small set of “transforming” villages, where participants in the GENNOVATE study widely reported accelerated processes of empowerment and poverty reduction in their communities. Case studies and comparative evidence are able to show that more equitable gender norms play a crucial role in catalyzing inclusive agricultural innovation and development processes.

Other papers in the issue emphasize concerns over innovation processes that reinforce gender inequality and marginalize specific social groups. For example, Marlène Elias and co-authors focus on rural youth in seven countries to demonstrate how norms that discriminate against women in agriculture are key for understanding young women’s limited aspirations in agricultural work. Petesch and co-authors also introduce the concept of local normative climate to shed light on the contextual and fluid ways in which norms operate, such as why in one community only men perceive their village to be an enabling climate for their agency and agricultural innovation, while in another community only women perceive this.

Women in Ethiopia participate in a focus group discussion as part of GENNOVATE's field research (Photo: Mahelet Hailemariam)
Women in Ethiopia participate in a focus group discussion as part of GENNOVATE’s field research (Photo: Mahelet Hailemariam)

A large-scale endeavor

Two papers describe GENNOVATE’s methodology and conceptual framework. The authors reflect on the challenges and opportunities faced in carrying out the large-scale qualitative study. They highlight the need to be attentive to the complexities of various local social contexts and women’s and men’s own understanding of their lives, while looking for patterns to make broader claims that can contribute to agricultural research and development. They also discuss GENNOVATE’s research protocols for sampling, data collection and analysis, and reflect on challenges that correspond with their application.

The GENNOVATE papers make evident that gender norms set the stage for agricultural innovation and that some people and places find pathways to forge ahead far faster than others. The special issue makes an important contribution to the development of strategies that are meaningfully informed by social realities while also allowing for comparisons across various contexts. This insight is relevant to research and development beyond the field of agriculture and natural resource management.

The GENNOVATE special issue in the Journal of Gender, Agriculture and Food Security (Agri-Gender) was published on September 2018, Volume 3, Issue 1.

The GENNOVATE research initiative is a collaboration of 11 CGIAR research programs.

The feminizing face of wheat farming in South Asia

Written by Courtney Brantley on . Posted in Features.

In wheat systems throughout South Asia, the gender myth that “wheat is a man’s crop” is still pervasive. To debunk this myth, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) is combatting stereotypical norms of women in agriculture through GENNOVATE, a project carried out by 11 CGIAR Research Programs. Led by CIMMYT, this global comparative research initiative strives to address the questions of how gender norms influence men, women and youth to adopt innovative practices and technologies in agriculture and natural resource management.

Surprisingly, there was little knowledge and little literature on the intersection of wheat farming and gender before 2013. What was peculiar about the narrative of women wheat farmers in South Asia was that they were described — by rural advisory services, research organizations and even farmers themselves — as if they had never set foot in a field. On the ground, however, the local reality has long been different. Women, typically from particular castes and income groups, are involved in field operations.

South Asia is experiencing a rise in innovative undertakings by women in agriculture. This change, fueled by strong male outmigration in some locations, has been promoted by equality narratives created through social and women’s movements, NGOs and education. They have all contributed to strengthen women’s desire to have a voice in decision-making. “The face of agriculture in South Asia, particularly wheat farming, is feminizing,” says Cathy Rozel Farnworth. She is a social inclusion, gender and agriculture expert working with CIMMYT’s Gender Research Unit to analyze interactions between changing gender norms and agricultural innovation.

This shift was one of the findings in a series of comparative studies conducted through GENNOVATE in three research hotspots in South Asia: Bangladesh, India and Nepal. Farnworth and co-authors from the region, CIMMYT and Glasgow Caledonian University analyzed the similarities and distinctions in each country.

In the village of Nalma, Lamjung District, Nepal, most of the adult male population has gone abroad for work, leaving only children, women and the elderly. (Photo: Mokhamad Edliadi/CIFOR)
In the village of Nalma, Lamjung District, Nepal, most of the adult male population has gone abroad for work. (Photo: Mokhamad Edliadi/CIFOR)

Shifting rules

In Nepal, women are traditionally seen as destitute and far from equals in the farming community. However, migration of men to urban areas and to other countries has given way to more opportunities in agriculture for women in rural communities. “This translates to a fundamental change in the social structure of communities and the roles of men and women, due to the absence of men,” says Farnworth. Women in the community are increasingly taking on the challenging managerial roles that men once occupied. While women in Nepal support themselves and their families, they rarely have institutional support from rural advisory services, for example, training on new wheat technologies. On occasion, support comes from individual male extension workers, and women report that NGOs have been critical to building their sense of empowerment and entitlement. Learning networks between women farmers are also important. Overall, the gender myth that “wheat is a man’s crop” is shifting in Nepal, but extension services, researchers, the private sector and others need to catch up quickly with this new reality to help provide women with adequate support.

Wheat is also increasingly becoming a women’s crop in India, despite limited institutional support and neglect. In some locations, women are responding to male outmigration not only by increasing their work in the field, but also taking key decisions, for example on hiring labor and machinery. Some women are also driving machinery themselves. In other locations, women, though not involved in fieldwork, are trying to strengthen their participation in decision-making around wheat technologies. They have an understandable interest in what happens on the farm and in how investments will impact family income. Overall, the GENNOVATE data shows that, “Women are limited by, working with and increasingly renegotiating gender and caste identities,” says Farnworth.

In Bangladesh, a women-only agricultural organization dominated by the Santal indigenous community is strongly innovating in wheat. Interestingly, the organization is drawing in and supporting low-income Muslim women innovators as well. This case study is particularly valuable in relation to achieving Sustainable Development Goals because it shows that even though Santal women are truly “left behind” in Bangladesh, very small institutional modifications have enabled them to take charge of the organization and inspire a whole community.

Taking decisions and innovating

Women use a mini-tiller for direct seeding in Ramghat, Surkhet, Nepal. (Photo: P. Lowe/CIMMYT)
Women use a mini-tiller for direct seeding in Ramghat, Surkhet, Nepal. (Photo: P. Lowe/CIMMYT)

The driving force surrounding these cases in South Asia is the gender equality narrative. The narrative is not driven by men or external partners; rather, it is being transformed by women from within. Women have been long working in the fields; they have always been part of the wheat story. Now many women are demonstrably taking more decisions about wheat, giving them more control over their own lives and households.

GENNOVATE researchers are now looking for ways to work with women themselves, with their partners, with rural advisory sectors, the private sector, community leaders and others to address the demand for technological advances to improve their wheat harvest, including machinery. The starting point is that women need to be seen as capable farmers. Partners need to get on board and start working the new realities of “who does what,” “who decides” and “who benefits,” rather than continue subscribing to old myths. Rural women farmers have critical interests in wheat, whether they farm in the field or not. Women want and are seeking inclusion. Women are collectively expressing, “We have the right to be interested, and participate in innovating around wheat,” Farnworth states.

The comparative studies are available for download:

CHALLENGING GENDER MYTHS: Promoting inclusive wheat and maize research for development in Nepal

LEAVING NO ONE BEHIND: Supporting women, poor people, and indigenous people in wheat-maize innovations in Bangladesh

STRENGTHENING WOMEN IN WHEAT FARMING IN INDIA: Old challenges, new realities, new opportunities

Cathy Rozel Farnworth is a social inclusion, gender and agriculture expert. She holds a PhD in Rural Development Studies from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and an MA in Gender Analysis. Farnworth collaborates with CIMMYT on the CGIAR GENNOVATE global research project, among others. Farnworth trained and mentored the Ethiopian GENNOVATE research teams and has also supported CIMMYT’s gender research under the CGIAR research program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS).

Avoiding the next Aral Sea: Scaling responsibly

Written by on . Posted in Features.

The Aral Sea was once the world’s fourth largest inland body of water. But in 1959, Soviet premier Nikita Khruschev unfurled a plan for industrialized agriculture across Central Asia. The government constructed irrigation canals to divert water from the Amu Syr and Amu Darya rivers, the two primary feeders for the Aral Sea, to thirsty cotton fields in Uzbekistan. Today, only about two-fifths of the sea remain. Evaporation exasperated by climate change and pesticide runoff have left the remaining body of water salty and polluted.

MSI's founder and president Larry Cooley presents at the Purdue Scale Up Conference 2018. (Photo: Rachel Cramer/CIMMYT)
MSI’s founder and president Larry Cooley presents at the Purdue Scale Up Conference 2018. (Photo: Rachel Cramer/CIMMYT)

The disappearance of the Aral Sea is a tragic story about scaling gone wrong. Larry Cooley, one of the top scaling experts in the world, describes scaling as the attempt to overcome a gap between the need for something and the extent to which that need is being met. In the case of the Aral Sea, the Soviet Union saw a need for more robust cotton production and decided to overcome the gap through large-scale irrigation.

They were successful in reaching their scaling ambition but at a high and unsustainable cost. Would Kruschev still go ahead with his development scheme if he knew it would cause irreversible ecological damage in the future? Would he still prioritize high cotton yields if he knew it would decimate the local fishing industry and leave thousands unemployed?

At the recent Scale Up Conference at Purdue University, over 200 researchers and practitioners gathered to discuss effective approaches to scaling up agricultural technologies and innovations in the developing world. The tagline read “Innovations in agriculture: Scaling up to reach millions.” Several of the presenters, however, argued development organizations should think about potential tradeoffs before trying to reach the biggest impact.

Finding the optimal scale

CIMMYT’s scaling advisor Lennart Woltering (left) and mechanization specialist Jelle van Loon led a session. (Photo: Rachel Cramer/CIMMYT)
CIMMYT’s scaling advisor Lennart Woltering (left) and mechanization specialist Jelle van Loon led a session. (Photo: Rachel Cramer/CIMMYT)

CIMMYT’s scaling advisor Lennart Woltering and mechanization specialist Jelle van Loon led a session on the opportunities and challenges to scaling two-wheeled tractors in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Van Loon explained how mechanization can decrease labor costs, improve livelihoods and help farmers stay locally and internationally competitive, but he acknowledged a few potential downsides. Small tractors of this kind require fossil fuels and maintenance, and introducing mechanization to a rural community has the potential to displace jobs and shift gender roles.

Woltering explained a new tool can help researchers and development organizations think through these tradeoffs in a systematic way. The Scaling Scan, which he developed in a collaboration with The PPPLab, guides users through a series of questions and prompts them to reflect on what scaling means, what it takes to take a project to scale and what the unintended consequences could be in a particular context.

Lennart Woltering (second from left) presents the "ingredients" of the Scaling Scan tools during one of the sessions of the Purdue Scale Up Conference. (Photo: Rachel Cramer/CIMMYT)
Lennart Woltering (second from left) presents the “ingredients” of the Scaling Scan tools during one of the sessions of the Purdue Scale Up Conference. (Photo: Rachel Cramer/CIMMYT)

The first step of the Scaling Scan is “Defining a realistic scaling ambition.” It contains a responsibility check, prompting users to consider how an intervention could affect power equity and natural resources if that scaling ambition is indeed reached. “We tried to make this check as simple as possible, but still have people anticipate what unintended consequences their scaling effort might have ten years down the line,” said Woltering.

The responsibility check includes questions like: Who are the winners and who are the losers when the innovation is adopted at a large scale? Will the scaling of the innovation affect the availability of important natural resources, such as water and land?

Woltering emphasized that development organizations should try to identify the scale that optimizes tradeoffs. “We want people to be aware that bigger is not always better,” he said.

“You might think you’re benefitting the irrigation farmers, but at the same time, the fishermen or other people might be paying the price for that,” Woltering explained. “If you’re only focused on those irrigation farmers and not the whole system, it’s easy to think, ‘Oh, we’re doing a fantastic job,’ when you’re not.”

The reasons to scale up responsibly

At the conference, Tricia Wind and Robert McLean of the International Development Research Center (IDRC) presented some of their lessons learned about responsible scaling.

“If you’re working on the problem at different scales, you need to think about the problem differently and think about the solutions differently,” said Wind. “The first principle is thinking about what scale you are starting with and what the optimal scale would be for the problems that you’re focused on solving.”

The second principle is the justification for scaling. “So stepping back from the how and thinking about the why,” she explained. “What difference would this make?” Similar to the responsibility check in the Scaling Scan, the second principle explores the issue of equity. Who would be reached by this solution, and who would be left out or even negatively affected by it?

The third principle is about coordination. McLean said, “This is about accepting that all scaling happens in a system. Are the alternative solutions? How do you displace solutions that might already exist if you try to scale something? What about the cultural norms and the institutions that exist in the area where you’re scaling, and how do you coordinate to scale responsibly?”

The fourth principle is dynamic evaluation. Maclean said an organization should learn as it scales. “It’s never going to be a 1-2-3 step process that’s going to get you from innovation to impact at scale,” he explained. “Scaling itself is also an intervention. So you have your intervention you’re trying to scale, and as you scale, systems change.”

Participants and panelists of the Scale Up Conference pose for a group photograph. (Photo: Courtesy of Purdue University)
Participants and panelists of the Scale Up Conference pose for a group photograph. (Photo: Courtesy of Purdue University)

Johannes Linn, Nonresident Senior Fellow with the Brookings Institute and another one of the world’s top scaling experts, emphasized, “Scaling is not a linear process. It is iterative with feedback loops to learn and adapt.”

During the opening reception, Woltering and van Loon congratulated Seerp Wigboldus, a senior advisor and researcher with Wageningen University, on his recently completed PhD thesis, published as a book: To scale, or not to scale – that is not the only question.

Someone asked, “What do you do if 40 people are going to be harmed by an intervention while 50 people benefit?” Wigboldus replied, “Well, unfortunately, there’s no formula for this kind of thing. There will always be tradeoffs, but hopefully we can get people to slow down a bit. We need to be transparent and justify our decisions.”

Nearly all of humanity’s greatest challenges originate from the scaling of innovations. The depletion of the Aral Sea in order to scale cotton production is just one example. Climate change and industrialization is another. By adopting a responsible scaling approach, the agricultural development sector can minimize negative impacts and side effects and seek optimal solutions.

The full version of the Scaling Scan contains detailed practical information on how and when to use this tool. A condensed, two-page version is also available. We also recommend the companion Excel sheet, which generates average scores and results automatically.

This work is supported by the German Development Cooperation (GIZ) and led by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).

In your seeds I trust: African seed companies test the SeedAssure application

Written by Jérôme Bossuet on . Posted in Features.

NAIROBI (Kenya) — More than 20 representatives of eastern and southern African seed companies and regulatory agencies recently took part in the demonstration of a new seed certification application that can help get quality seed to market more quickly and curb sales of counterfeit seed.

As part of an event organized by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Program (CIMMYT) at the Kiboko research station of the Kenya Agricultural & Livestock Research Organization (KALRO) on September 17, 2018, participants field-tested a beta version of SeedAssure, a digital platform that gives automatic feedback on compliance and seed production management, along with remedy options.

SeedAssure was developed by Cellsoft, a supply chain management software company, with input from the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), the Qualibasic Seed Company, the Kenya Plant Health Inspectorate Service (KEPHIS) and CIMMYT.

“This is very useful for companies like ours, spread as we are over different countries, to manage at a distance our seed growers,” said Andy Watt of QualiBasic Seed Company, who has been testing SeedAssure on the company’s farms. “The application’s dashboard will point out which farms to visit quickly for corrections.”

Mobile innovations enhance quality and speed

For over a decade, the region’s seed sector has sought fast, cost-effective and transparent seed quality control and certification approaches for use across the value chain and the region. Seed companies often rely on under-staffed national certification agencies that may miss critical inspections or give inaccurate reports. Registration of new varieties can take many years, discouraging investment in improved seed and impeding regional trade.

Worse, by some estimates as much as 40 percent of the seed sold in eastern and southern Africa is falsely labelled or not what farmers are told they are buying. KEPHIS recently confiscated over 13 tons of “fake” seeds.

The seed sector has sought mobile innovations such as tablet-based field inspections whose data load to centralized, cloud-based dashboards.

With SeedAssure’s “traffic light” system, field inspection results for factors such as plant population will score green (complied – good quality), amber (needs improvement) or red (reject) and be readily visible to key actors in the seed certification and supply chain, according to David Laurence-Brown, SeedAssure co-developer.

“This quality assurance system can help seed companies get licenses faster, speeding product to market and greatly reducing the financial risk of getting new varieties to farmers,” said Laurence-Brown. “The vision is that all actors have access to timely and accurate data on products, licensing and trade movements, with quality control checks along the value chain.”

He said that SeedAssure features 260 critical questions in 13 seed production checklists. “Putting the right questions in the right order is crucial to determine how sustainable your seed production is,” Laurence-Brown explained.

Partners test the SeedAssure app on a tablet during a field visit in Kiboko, Kenya. (Photo: Jerome Bossuet/CIMMYT)
Partners test the SeedAssure app on a tablet during a field visit in Kiboko, Kenya. (Photo: Jerome Bossuet/CIMMYT)

Fixing the bugs

Participants emphasized that national and regional regulatory bodies needed to be on board.

“Advocacy has to be done at different levels, from COMESA, national plant protection organizations, big and small seed companies, and research institutes and donors,” said Kinyua Mbijjewe, a well-known figure in the African seed industry and co-creator of SeedAssure, adding that this has been underway for a year now with a positive response, and public engagement is now ramping up with partners like AGRA and USAID.

Participants also suggested simplifying SeedAssure by reducing the number of questions and the subjectivity of certain data fields. For example, they observed that a more objective method was needed for scoring pest infestations, rather than SeedAssure’s current approach of rating infestations as low, moderate or intense via visual estimation.

“This will not be adopted if it’s too complex,” said Nicolai Rodeyns, NASECO seed company, Uganda.

Developers are addressing these issues, as well as comments that the application should not mix compliance and seed production management features.

CIMMYT announced that it would offer members of the International Maize Improvement Consortium (IMIC) a one-year trial subscription to SeedAssure.

Finally, AFSTA, AGRA, CIMMYT, COMESA, USAID, and other partners are forming a SeedAssure Alliance to support testing and rollout with companies and public organizations in eastern and southern Africa.

CIMMYT shows partners in Kenya new breakthroughs in maize and wheat research

Written by Jérôme Bossuet on . Posted in News.

NAIROBI (Kenya) — Members of the International Maize Improvement Consortium (IMIC) and other partners had a chance to go on a field visit to the Kiboko and Naivasha research stations in Kenya on September 18 and 19, 2018. The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and the Kenya Agriculture & Livestock Research Organization (KALRO) held their annual partner field days to share the latest developments in maize and wheat research.

On the first day, CIMMYT invited IMIC researchers to evaluate Material Under Development at the Kiboko site. These maize lines are not publicly released yet but are available to IMIC partners, so they can select the most promising ones for their research and crop improvement work.

Each seed company was looking for certain traits to develop new hybrid varieties. For instance, Samit Fayek, from Fine Seeds Egypt was looking for ‘erect type’ maize, as he wants higher crop density and grains that look big. Christopher Volbrecht, from Lake Agriculture in South Africa, was looking for “cobs that stick out as this is what farmers want.” Josephine Okot, from Victoria Seeds in Uganda, said that “seed companies often look at drought tolerance only, but we need now to integrate resistance to Maize Lethal Necrosis.”

Using Doubled Haploid breeding in Kiboko

Some of the workers at Kiboko station sorting out maize seed varieties. (Photo: Joshua Masinde/CIMMYT)
Some of the workers at Kiboko station sorting out maize seed varieties. (Photo: Joshua Masinde/CIMMYT)

Next on the tour to Kiboko, partners visited various stress-tolerant breeding materials, sustainable intensification cropping demonstrations and the Doubled Haploid facility. Vijaya Chaikam, Maize Doubled Haploid Scientist, explained how CIMMYT uses this methodology to cut down breeding time from six to two cycles, which drastically reduces costs.

According to B.M. Prasanna, director of CIMMYT’s Global Maize Program and the CGIAR Research Program MAIZE, doubled haploid breeding is possibly the biggest innovation to speed up genetic gain since the inception of hybrid technology a century ago. “In the next 4 or 5 years, CIMMYT aims at 80 percent use of double haploid lines for new hybrid development; breeding will be faster and much cheaper that way,” Prasanna said. “For now, breeders and seed companies need to know how to use double haploid lines to cost-efficiently crossbreed with their varieties for high-quality hybrids.”

At the end of the visit to Kiboko, CIMMYT officially opened a new maize seed storage cold room. This facility will serve to keep seeds in good condition and to better manage inventory. At the opening were the director of KALRO’s Food Crops Research Institute, Joyce Malinga, CIMMYT’s Africa Regional Representative, Stephen Mugo, and CIMMYT’s Technical Lead for the Global Maize Program, Aparna Das.

Fighting Maize Lethal Necrosis and rust in Naivasha

A worker at the Naivasha MLN research station conducts a mock inoculation (Photo: Joshua Masinde/CIMMYT)
A worker at the Naivasha MLN research station conducts a mock inoculation (Photo: Joshua Masinde/CIMMYT)

On the second day, partners visited the Naivasha research station. There, CIMMYT presented the latest efforts to contain Maize Lethal Necrosis (MLN), a devastating maize viral disease first reported in Kenya in 2011 which caused severe crop losses across Eastern Africa, causing severe crop losses. The Naivasha research station is home to a world-class facility to screen for Maize Lethal Necrosis, jointly managed by CIMMYT and KALRO.

At the facility, maize lines are evaluated for MLN resistance. The best lines and varieties are nominated for further development and shared with partners. National Agriculture Research partners can request MLN screening at no cost, while private seed companies are charged for the service. In the last four years, more than 150,000 germplasm have been screened.

CIMMYT wheat scientist Mandeep Randhawa explained how to recognize the different types of wheat rust diseases: stem, stripe and leaf rusts. He emphasized the Ug99 black stem rust strain, which appeared in Uganda in 1998 and has since severely impacted wheat production in the region and globally. Randhawa explained how CIMMYT develops varieties resistant to stem rust using a phenotyping platform and marker-assisted selection.

These two field days were a great opportunity to showcase progress in developing more resilient maize varieties in a fast and cost-effective way. This responsiveness is crucial as pests and diseases continue to threaten the livelihoods of African smallholders. Such impact could not happen without the strong collaboration between CIMMYT and KALRO.

The director of KALRO's Food Crops Research Institute, Joyce Malinga (left), the director of CIMMYT Global Maize Program, B.M. Prasanna (center), and CIMMYT's Regional Representative, Stephen Mugo, open the maize seed cold room in Kiboko (Photo: Joshua Masinde/CIMMYT)
The director of KALRO’s Food Crops Research Institute, Joyce Malinga (left), the director of CIMMYT Global Maize Program, B.M. Prasanna (center), and CIMMYT’s Regional Representative, Stephen Mugo, open the maize seed cold room in Kiboko (Photo: Joshua Masinde/CIMMYT)

The Doubled Haploid Facility in Kiboko and the Maize Lethal Necrosis screening facilty in Naivasha were opened in 2013 with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Syngenta Foundation.

The International Maize Improvement Consortium (IMIC) is a public-private partnership initiative launched in May 2018 as part of CIMMYT’s mission to ramp up seed breeding and production innovations.

Linear Selection Indices in Modern Plant Breeding

New publications: Book on linear selection indices, first on the subject in thirty years

Written by Courtney Brantley on . Posted in Publications.

Linear Selection Indices in Modern Plant BreedingAfter two years of meticulous work, the book Linear Selection Indices in Modern Plant Breeding has been released by Springer International Publishing for use by plant and animal breeders worldwide. The authors of the book, J. Jesus Céron-Rojas and José Crossa, are scientists with the Biometrics and Statistics Unit of the Genetic Resources Program at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT). The authors saw a window of opportunity to better explain how various types of linear selection indices can be constructed, interpreted, optimized and applied in breeding through the research presented in this book.

As the first book released on the subject in over thirty years, the publisher describes it as “essential reading for plant quantitative geneticists” and “a valuable resource for animal breeders.” Its high-profile scientific contributions are expected to generate an extensive impact in the international community of theoretical and practical plant and animal breeders.

To examine classification more closely, breeders use indices to categorize traits of interest to make complete representations of desired qualities in plants and animals. Focused on the linear selection index theory and its statistical properties, breeders will be able to use phenotypic and genotypic information to assess the genetic merits of the candidates to selection.

The book is published as open access and available online.

This book is the result of financial support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), the CGIAR Research Program on Maize (MAIZE)and the CGIAR Research Program on Wheat (WHEAT).

Check out other recent publications by CIMMYT researchers below:

1. Soil organic matter underlies crop nutritional quality and productivity in smallholder agriculture. Wood, S.A., Baudron, F. In: Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment v. 266, p. 100-108.
2. Wheat−the cereal abandoned by GM: genetic modification of wheat for disease resistance could help stabilize food production. Wulff, B.B.H., Dhugga, K. In: Science v. 361, no. 6401, p. 451-452.
3. Breeding for provitamin A biofortification of maize (Zea mays L.). Maqbool, M. A., Aslam, M., Issa, A.B., Khan, M. S. In: Plant Breeding v. 137, no. 4, p. 451-469.
4. Occurrence of the root-knot nematode species in vegetable crops in Souss region of Morocco. Janati, S., Abdellah Houari, Ahmed Wifaya, Adil Essarioui, Abdelaziz Mimouni, Abderrahim Hormatallah, Mohamed Sbaghi, Dababat, A.A., Mokrini, F. In: Plant Pathology Journal v. 34, no. 4, p. 308-315.
5. High N fertilizer application to irrigated wheat in Northern Mexico for conventionally tilled and permanent raised beds : effects on N balance and short term N dynamics. Grahmann, K., Verhulst, N., Dittert, K., Govaerts, B., Buerkert, A. In: Journal of Plant Nutrition and Soil Science vol. 181, no. 4, p. 606-620.
6. Correction to: bayesian functional regression as an alternative statistical analysis of high-throughput phenotyping data of modern agriculture. Montesinos-López, A., Montesinos-Lopez, O.A., De los Campos, G., Crossa, J., Burgueño, J., Luna-Vazquez, F.J. In: Plant Methods v. 14, art. 57.
7. β-cryptoxanthin–biofortified hen eggs enhance vitamin a status when fed to male Mongolian gerbils. Heying, E.K., Leary Ziemer, K., Tanumihardjo, J.P., Palacios-Rojas, N., Tanumihardjo, S. A. In: The Journal of Nutrition v.148, no. 8, p. 1236-1243.
8. Urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts (SDG 13) : transforming agriculture and food systems. Campbell, B.M., Hansen, J.W., Rioux, J., Stirling, C., Twomlow, S., Wollenberg, E. In: Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability v. 34, p. 13-20.
9. Factors affecting the adoption of multiple climate-smart agricultural practices in the Indo-Gangetic plains of India. Aryal, J.P., Rahut, D.B., Maharjan, S., Erenstein, O. In: Natural Resources Forum v. 42, no. 3, p. 141-158.

13th Asian Maize Conference launched in Ludhiana, India

Written by on . Posted in Press releases.

LUDHIANA (India) — International experts on maize have gathered in Ludhiana, in the Indian state of Punjab, for the 13th Asian Maize Conference and Expert Consultation on Maize for Food, Feed, Nutrition and Environmental Security. The conference, held on October 8-10, 2018, has attracted over 280 participants from 20 countries. The delegates come from a broad range of stakeholders, including researchers, policy makers, seed companies, service providers, innovative farmers, and representatives of development organizations and funding agencies.

In the opening ceremony on October 8, the Director of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) Global Maize Program and the CGIAR Research Program on Maize (MAIZE), B.M. Prasanna, discussed the current situation of maize in Asia as well as the themes of the conference. A diverse range of relevant topics will be covered, from breeding for climate resilience in maize based systems and climate-smart agriculture to socioeconomics for greater impact. “Gender and social inclusion is an important issue not only for Asia, but for the entire world. Women play a very important role in our farming systems, but women’s access to improved inputs such as seed is very low. All communities, regardless of caste or creed, need access to these inputs,” he said. The need for scale-appropriate mechanization and the importance of public-private partnerships will also be discussed.

Another topic of interest is fall armyworm, an invasive insect pest that has spread through 44 countries in Africa and was recently reported in India for the first time. “This pest can migrate very quickly, and doesn’t require visas and passports like we do. It will travel, so Asian nations need to be prepared,” said Prasanna. “However, there is no need for alarm; we will be looking at lessons learned from other regions and will work together to control this pest.”

Maize in Asia has high productivity and high demand, with maize productivity in the region growing by 5.2 percent annually, compared to a global average of 3.5 percent. However, this is not enough. “Asia produces nearly 80 million tons of maize annually, but demand will be double by the year 2050,” said the Director General of International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), Martin Kropff. “We need to produce two times more maize in Asia, using two times less inputs, and it needs to be two times more nutritious. Climate change will make this more difficult. Continued funding for maize research is crucial. We need to work together to ensure that this research and innovation gets to farmers,” he explained.

In his welcome remarks, the director of research at Punjab Agricultural University, N.S. Bains, expressed his pleasure that the conference would be held in India for the second time, after 24 years. “What brings us together today is maize, a crop with an evolution bordering on the magical, that belongs even more to the future than to the past. Now maize leads the way in crop genomics. We are looking to use maize to solve many current challenges, which will be the theme of this conference,” he said.

The director general of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), Trilochan Mohapatra, discussed in detail the situation of maize in India. The country produces 25-27 million metric tons of maize per year, yet low productivity for kharif, or rainfed season, remains a challenge. “We have continuously enhanced maize productivity in India since the times of great food insecurity in the 1950s, and have tremendous scope to improve using new technologies, such as marker-assisted selection for quality in maize,” he said.

The director of the ICAR-Indian Institute of Maize Research, Sujay Rakshit, gave a vote of thanks to the conference organizers and particularly the funders that made the event possible.

B.S. Dhillon, center, receives the MAIZE Champion Award for his pioneering work in maize breeding. Left to right: N.S. Bains, B.M. Prasanna, Martin Kropff, B.S. Dhillon, Trilochan Mohapatra, Sujay Rakshit. Photo: Manjit Singh/Punjab Agricultural University.
B.S. Dhillon (center) receives the MAIZE Champion Award for his pioneering work in maize breeding. Left to right: N.S. Bains, B.M. Prasanna, Martin Kropff, B.S. Dhillon, Trilochan Mohapatra, Sujay Rakshit. (Photo: Manjit Singh/Punjab Agricultural University)

At the conclusion of the opening remarks, the organizers presented the vice-chancellor of Punjab Agricultural University, B.S. Dhillon, with the MAIZE Champion for Asia Award for his pioneering work in maize breeding throughout his career. “We are so lucky to work with a crop that has contributed so much to humanity. No other crop can compare,” Dhillon said in his address to participants. He also discussed the importance of climate-resilient maize varieties to help smallholder farmers suffering from the effects of climate variability.

The remainder of the conference will address the main opportunities and challenges for maize in Asia through technical sessions covering diverse topics such as novel tools and strategies for increasing genetic gains, specialty maize, processing and value addition, and nutritionally enriched maize for Asia.

On October 10, conference participants will go on a field trip to the BISA farm in Ladhowal, Ludhiana. Nearly 100 improved maize varieties developed by CIMMYT, ICAR and public and private sector partners will be on display, in addition to scale-appropriate mechanization options, precision nutrient and water management techniques, decision tools, sensors and automation-based management systems.

At the closing of the conference, the 2018 MAIZE-Asia Youth Innovators Awards will be presented, and winners will present their research. The awards were launched in collaboration between the CGIAR Research Program on Maize (MAIZE) and YPARD (Young Professionals for Agricultural Development) to recognize the contributions of innovative young women and men who can inspire fellow young people to get involved with maize-based agri-food systems.

The conference program and details are available at www.maize.org.

For further information, contact:

Jennifer Johnson
Communications Officer
CGIAR Research Program on Maize (MAIZE)
CIMMYT, Mexico
Telephone: +52 (55) 5804 2004 ext. 1036
Email: j.a.johnson@cgiar.org

CIMMYT

CIMMYT – The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center – is the global leader in publicly-funded maize and wheat research and related farming systems. Headquartered near Mexico City, CIMMYT works with hundreds of partners throughout the developing world to sustainably increase the productivity of maize and wheat cropping systems, thus improving global food security and reducing poverty. CIMMYT is a member of the CGIAR System and leads the CGIAR Research Programs on Maize and Wheat, and the Excellence in Breeding Platform. The Center receives support from national governments, foundations, development banks and other public and private agencies.

MAIZE

The CGIAR Research Program on MAIZE (MAIZE) is an international collaboration between more than 300 partners that seeks to mobilize global resources in maize research and development to achieve a greater strategic impact on maize-based farming systems in Africa, South Asia and Latin America.

Led by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), with the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) as its main CGIAR partner, MAIZE focuses on increasing maize production for the 900 million poor consumers for whom maize is a staple food in Africa, South Asia and Latin America. MAIZE’s overarching goal is to double maize productivity and increase incomes and livelihood opportunities from sustainable maize-based farming systems.

CIMMYT releases 26 new maize lines

Written by Jennifer Johnson on . Posted in News.

The new lines are specifically adapted  to tropical/subtropical maize production environments in Africa, Asia and Latin America,  and are freely available to both public and private sector breeders worldwide.  

CML582, one of the 26 new CIMMYT maize lines released by the Center. Photo: CIMMYT.
CML582, one of the 26 new CIMMYT maize lines released by the Center. (Photo: CIMMYT)

CIMMYT is pleased to announce the release of a set of 26 new CIMMYT maize lines (CMLs). These CMLs were developed by the CIMMYT Global Maize Program’s multi-disciplinary teams of scientists at breeding locations in sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and Asia. These lines are adapted to the tropical/subtropical maize production environments targeted by CIMMYT and partner institutions. CMLs are freely available to both public and private sector breeders worldwide under the standard material transfer agreement (SMTA).

CIMMYT seeks to develop improved maize inbred lines with superior performance and multiple stress tolerance to improve maize productivity for resource-constrained smallholder farmers.  To achieve this aim, CMLs are released after intensive evaluation in hybrid combinations under various abiotic and biotic stresses.  Suitability as either seed or pollen parent is also thoroughly evaluated.

Release of a CML does not guarantee high combining ability or per se performance in all environments; rather, it indicates that the line is promising or useful as a hybrid component or parent for pedigree breeding for one or more target mega-environments. The descriptions of the lines include heterotic group classification, along with information on their specific combining ability with widely-used CIMMYT lines.

For a summary of the 26 new CMLs, please click here.

Further details on all CMLs, including the pedigrees, are available here.

A limited quantity of seed of the CMLs can be obtained from the CIMMYT Germplasm Bank. To send a request, please contact Denise Costich, Head of the Maize Genetic Resources Center: d.costich@cgiar.org.

For further details, please contact B.M. Prasanna, Director of the CGIAR Research Program MAIZE and Director of CIMMYT’s Global Maize Program: b.m.prasanna@cgiar.org.

Women farmers in Nepal use a mini tiller for direct seeding. (Photo: P.Lowe/CIMMYT)

New publications: What drives capacity to innovate?

Written by Emma Orchardson on . Posted in Publications.

Involving diverse segments of a target population in agricultural innovation interventions allows for more inclusive and equitable processes while stimulating local innovation and development outcomes. But what are the key characteristics of rural innovators? And how are their experiences similar for women and men, and how are they different?

To examine these questions, a team of researchers from CIMMYT, collaborating CGIAR centers, and Wageningen University and Research conducted individual interviews with 336 rural women and men known in their communities for trying out new things in agriculture. The results of this study are collected in 84 GENNOVATE community case studies from 19 countries across Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

Building on study participants’ own reflections and experiences with innovation in their agricultural livelihoods, the research team combined variable-oriented analysis with analysis of specific individuals’ lived experience. The study provides in-depth knowledge on how the characteristics and experiences of individual innovators interlink with the social setting to facilitate or impede innovation.

Results indicate that factors related to personality and agency are what most drive capacity to innovate. Access to resources is not a prerequisite but an important enabling aspect. Women have great potential for local innovation, but structural inequalities mean that men are often better positioned to access resources and leverage support – as a result when women challenge the status quo, men’s support is important.

Read the full article in the Journal of Gender, Agriculture and Food Security: “What drives capacity to innovate? Insights from women and men small-scale farmers in Africa, Asia, and Latin America”

This paper draws on data collected as part of GENNOVATE case studies funded by the CGIAR Research Programs on Wheat, Maize, Grain Legumes, Humid Tropics and Rice, as well as RTB (Roots, Tubers and Bananas), A4NH (Agriculture for Nutrition and Health) and FTA (Forests, Trees and Agroforestry).

Development of research design and field methodology was supported by the CGIAR Gender & Agricultural Research Network, the World Bank, the governments of Mexico and Germany, and the CGIAR Research Programs on Wheat and Maize. Data analysis was supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Women farmers in Nepal use a mini tiller for direct seeding. Photo: CIMMYT/P. Lowe
Women farmers in Nepal use a mini tiller for direct seeding. (Photo: P.Lowe/CIMMYT)

Check out other recent publications by CIMMYT researchers below:

  1. Facilitating change for climate-smart agriculture through science-policy engagement. Dinesh, D., Zougmore, R., Vervoort, J., Totin, E., Thornton, P.K., Solomon, D., Shirsath, P.B., Pede, V.O., Lopez-Noriega, I., Läderach, P., Korner, J., Hegger, D., Girvetz, E.H,. Friis, A.E., Driessen, P.P.J., Campbell, B.M. In: Sustainability v. 10, no. 8, art. 2616.
  2. Assessment of management options on striga infestation and maize grain yield in Kenya. Kanampiu, F., Makumbi, D., Mageto, E.K., Omanya, G., Waruingi, S., Musyoka, P., Ransom, J. K. In: Weed Science v. 66, no. 4, p. 516-524.
  3. Maize combined insect resistance genomic regions and their co-localization with cell wall constituents revealed by tissue-specific QTL meta-analyses. Badji, A., Otim, M., Machida, L., Odong, T., Kwemoi, D.B., Okii, D., Agbahoungba, S., Mwila, N., Kumi, F., Ibanda, A., Mugo, S.N., Kyamanywa, S., Rubaihayo, P. In: Frontiers in Plant Science v. 9, art. 895.
  4. Gender and equitable benefit-sharing mechanisms through agricultural innovation platforms in Rwanda. Adam, R.I., Misiko, M.T., Dusengemungu, L., Rushemuka, P.N., Mukakalisa, Z. In:  Community Development vol. 49, no. 4, p. 380-397
  5. Genomic-enabled prediction models using multi-environment trials to estimate the effect of genotype × environment interaction on prediction accuracy in chickpea. Roorkiwal, M., Jarquín, D., Muneendra K. Singh., Pooran M. Gaur., Chellapilla Bharadwaj., Abhishek Rathore., Howard, R., Samineni Srinivasan., Ankit Jain., Vanika Garg., Sandip Kale., Annapurna Chitikineni., Shailesh Tripathi., Jones, E., Robbins, K., Crossa, J., Varshney, R. K. In: Scientific Reports v. 8, art. 11701.
A fall armyworm on a damaged leaf in Nigeria, 2017. (Photo: G. Goergen/IITA)

New global research alliance joins fight against fall armyworm

Written by on . Posted in Press releases.

NAIROBI (Kenya) — As the invasion of the voracious fall armyworm threatens to cause US$3-6 billion in annual damage to maize and other African food staples, 35 organizations announced today the formation of a global coalition of research for development (R4D) partners, focused on developing technical solutions and a shared vision of how farmers should fight against this pest. After causing extensive crop damage in Africa, the presence of the fall armyworm was recently confirmed in India.

The new Fall Armyworm R4D International Consortium will serve to develop and implement a unified plan to fight this plant pest on the ground. Focusing on applied research, the consortium joins other global efforts and coordinates with international bodies working against this pest. The Fall Armyworm R4D International Consortium will be co-led by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA).

“This pest caught us all by surprise and it continues eating away at maize and other crops that are important for the food security and livelihoods of African farmers. We can no longer afford to work in isolation,” said the Director General of CIMMYT, Martin Kropff. “Many organizations in the public and private sector are working intensively on different approaches,” he added, “but farmers are not interested in half solutions. They want to have integrated solutions, supported by strong science, which work effectively and sustainably.”

Consortium members will coordinate efforts to pursue a wide range of options for fighting fall armyworm, with a strong emphasis on integrated pest management, which includes host plant resistance, environmentally safer chemical pesticides, biological and cultural control methods, and agronomic management.

The Deputy Director General for Partnerships for Delivery at IITA, Kenton Dashiell, said that efforts are underway to identify and validate biopesticides, or “very safe products that don’t harm the environment or people but kill the pest.” In some areas, Dashiell explained, farmers may need to consider temporarily switching to a food crop that is not susceptible to armyworm.

A fall armyworm on a damaged leaf in Nigeria, 2017. (Photo: G. Goergen/IITA)
A fall armyworm on a damaged leaf in Nigeria, 2017. (Photo: G. Goergen/IITA)

The Vice President of Program Development and Innovation at the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), Joe DeVries, said his organization is serving as a bridge between scientists and farmers. AGRA is developing a network of “village-based advisers” across 15 countries who will be connected to farmers via a “private sector-led” extension system to help farmers deal with fall armyworm infestations. AGRA and its partners already have trained more than 1,000 advisers and expect to add several thousand more who can “quickly bring to farmers the latest knowledge about the best methods of control.”

The Chief Scientist at the Bureau of Food Security of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Rob Bertram, expressed his excitement about the formation of the consortium, both for its immediate relevance for fighting fall armyworm and as a forerunner of “more resilient” agriculture systems in Africa, which is likely to see similar threats in the future. CIMMYT and USAID, together with global experts, developed an integrated pest management guide to fight fall armyworm, available in English, French and Portuguese.

The Director General of Development at the Center for Agriculture and Biosciences (CABI), Dennis Rangi, noted that the ability for people to more rapidly travel around the world is also making it easier for plant pests to hop from continent to continent. “Today we are focusing on the fall armyworm, tomorrow it could be something different,” he said.

The members of the Fall Armyworm R4D International Consortium will hold their first face-to-face meeting on October 29-31, 2018, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. This international conference will be organized by CIMMYT, IITA, AGRA, CABI, FAO, icipe, FAO, USAID and the African Union Commission.

The technical coordinators of the consortium are B.M. Prasanna, Director of the CGIAR Research Program MAIZE and Global Maize Program at CIMMYT, and May-Guri Saethre, Deputy Director General of Research for Development at IITA.

PARTNERS OF THE FALL ARMYWORM R4D INTERNATIONAL CONSORTIUM

Leads:

  • International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT)
  • International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA)

Members:

  • African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF)
  • Agricultural Research Service (ARS) of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)
  • Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA)
  • Bayer
  • Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
  • Biorisk Management Facility (BIMAF)
  • Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa)
  • Center for Agriculture and Biosciences (CABI)
  • Corteva
  • CropLife International
  • Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ)
  • Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)
  • Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA)
  • International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (icipe)
  • International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT)
  • Lancaster University
  • Leibniz Institute DSMZ (German Collection of Microorganisms and Cell Cultures)
  • Michigan State University (MSU)
  • Mississippi State University (MSU)
  • North-West University (NWU)
  • Norwegian Institute of Bioeconomy Research (NIBIO)
  • Oregon State University (OSU)
  • Rothamsted Research
  • Syngenta
  • UK Department for International Development (DFID)
  • United States Agency for International Development (USAID)
  • University of Bonn
  • University of Florida (UFL)
  • University of Greenwich
  • Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech)
  • Wageningen University and Research (WUR)
  • West and Central African Council for Agricultural Research (CORAF/WECARD)
  • World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF)

MEDIA CONTACTS

For more information, please contact:

Geneviève Renard, Head of Communication, CIMMYT
g.renard@cgiar.org, +52 (55) 5804 2004, ext. 2019.

Katherine Lopez, Head of Communication, IITA
k.lopez@cgiar.org, +234 0700800, ext. 2770

MULTIMEDIA

Photos of the fall armyworm are available here:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/cimmyt/sets/72157677988561403

Winners of the 2018 MAIZE Youth Innovators Awards – Asia announced

Written by Jennifer Johnson on . Posted in News.

The 2018 MAIZE Youth Innovators Awards – Asia recognize the contributions of young women and men who can inspire fellow young people to get involved in maize-based research, social change and farming. The awards are sponsored by the CGIAR Research Program on Maize (MAIZE) in collaboration with Young Professionals for Agricultural Development (YPARD).

The awardees have been invited to attend the 13th Asian Maize Conference in Ludhiana, India, where they will present their work and receive their awards.

The winners in the two categories are:

RESEARCHER

Dinesh Panday, Nepal

Focus: Soil fertility and nutrient management

Dinesh Panday.

Dinesh Panday’s family has a long history in agriculture, which strongly rooted his passions in the field of soil science. He is a Doctorate Graduate Research Assistant in Soil Fertility and Nutrient Management at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln under the supervision of Bijesh Maharjan and Richard Ferguson.

His research aims to determine the effectiveness of high carbon char in reducing environmental nitrogen loss and improving nitrogen fertilizer use efficiency in fertilized soils in semi-arid regions. Using active and passive sensors to detect maize nitrogen stress, predict grain yield and determine in-season and additional side-dress applications of nitrogen fertilizer it is possible to reduce environmental impacts.

Jie Xu, China

Focus: Drought stress in maize root systems

Jie Xu.

An associate researcher at Sichuan Agricultural University, China, Jie Xu is interested in how maize roots influence performance under drought stress. By studying maize inbred lines that exhibit different drought tolerance, her research explores their genome and transcriptome variations to understand the genetic basis of plant adaptation to drought. The findings can then be used in breeding drought-tolerant maize.

Jie Xu and her team have developed methods to dissect the genetic and epigenetic mechanisms underlying maize drought stress response. This work involves the identification of non-synonymous SNPs and corresponding candidate genes for drought tolerance using analyses such as common variant and clustering techniques. Her team also revealed the impact smRNAs and histone modifications have in the regulation of maize drought stress response.

Vignesh Muthusamy, India

Focus: Development of biofortified provitamin-A rich QPM maize hybrids

Vignesh Muthusamy.

Vignesh Muthusamy is from a farming community in the Namakkal district in Tamil Nadu. A Senior Scientist at the Division of Genetics, ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi, he specializes in maize genetics and breeding. His research demonstrates the use of modern biotechnological tools in crop improvement. He was associated with the development of India’s first provitamin A enriched maize hybrid ‘Pusa Vivek QPM 9 Improved’ and with the development of three quality protein maize hybrids that possess high lysine and tryptophan in protein. These biofortified maize hybrids offer tremendous scope to address widespread human malnutrition. Further research work includes the development of a high-yielding sweet corn hybrid and several novel maize genetic resources for nutritional quality traits.

Muthusamy has received many prestigious awards from different societies and scientific organizations, including Jawaharlal Nehru Award for Outstanding Doctoral Thesis Research in Agricultural and Allied Sciences from Indian Council of Agricultural Research. As Principal Investigator, he is handling projects funded by Department of Biotechnology and Department of Science & Technology, Government of India for development of nutritionally rich maize and specialty corn genotypes. Besides research, he is also actively involved in teaching and guidance of post graduate students of the institute.

CHANGE AGENT

Samjhana Khanal, Nepal

Focus: Social inclusion of young people and site-specific nutrient management (SSNM) using Nutrient Expert®

Samjhana Khanal.

Samjhana Khanal, an agricultural graduate, has founded and co-founded various social organizations at a local level in Nepal to involve young minds in the development of innovative strategies to work towards sustainable agriculture and zero hunger.

Besides taking part in agricultural trainings, workshops and conferences during her undergraduate degree, Samjhana worked as a R&D Research Assistant at the Eastern Regional Agricultural Directorate in Nepal and has published a number of research papers. Her most recent research involves the productivity and profitability of hybrid maize using the Nutrient Expert® Maize model in eastern Terai, Nepal. Using Nutrient Expert®, a dynamic nutrient management tool based on site-specific nutrient management (SSNM) principles, farm-specific fertilizer recommendations for maize are possible, resulting in higher grain yield and improved productivity and profits for farmers.

International experts to convene for 13th Asian Maize Conference

Written by on . Posted in Press releases.

International experts to convene in Ludhiana, India, to discuss the way forward to increase climate resilience and productivity of maize, and to strengthen maize-based cropping systems in Asia.

A farmer checks her maize as it comes out of a shelling machine powered by a four-wheel tractor, Nepal. (Photo: P.Lowe/CIMMYT)
A farmer checks her maize as it comes out of a shelling machine powered by a four-wheel tractor, Nepal. (Photo: P. Lowe/CIMMYT)

Ludhiana, India (CIMMYT) — Maize is one of the most important crops in Asia, alongside rice and wheat, and provides important economic opportunities to smallholder farmers. The 13th Asian Maize Conference will take place in Ludhiana, India, on October 8-10, 2018. It will bring together key Asian maize partners and global experts to discuss the present status, challenges, and future opportunities for enhancing maize for food, feed, nutrition and environmental security in Asia.

The conference is jointly organized by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), the ICAR-Indian Institute of Maize Research (ICAR-IIMR), Punjab Agricultural University (PAU), the CGIAR Research Program on Maize (MAIZE) and the Borlaug Institute for South Asia (BISA).

The importance of maize in Asian cropping systems has grown rapidly in recent years, with several countries registering impressive growth rates in maize production and productivity. China ranks first in the world in terms of area under maize, with nearly 36 million hectares. In South and South East Asia, maize is cultivated on more than 22 million hectares, where farmers produce nearly 80 million metric tons of maize (FAOSTAT, 2018).

Despite the achievement of increased maize production in Asia, there is a need to keep up with ever-increasing and competing demands for food, feed and industry needs. The demand for maize in Asia is expected to double by 2050. However, the magnitude and dynamics of abiotic and biotic stresses are rapidly increasing due to changing climates, placing constraints on maize production. Existing constraints to maize production and productivity in several Asian countries exacerbates the pressure to meet demand, further emphasizing the need for improved technologies and management practices. Therefore, continued investment in maize research for development (R4D) is required to ensure future maize production can meet demand.

Farm workers harvest maize. (Photo: P. Lowe/CIMMYT)
Farm workers harvest maize. (Photo: P. Lowe/CIMMYT)

Tremendous opportunities exist for innovations in maize breeding, precision agriculture, seed systems, and value chains, offering exciting prospects for future growth and development of maize in the region. The 13th Asian Maize Conference will focus on ways and means to enhance Asian farmers’ access to high-yielding, climate-resilient and quality seeds, along with climate-smart agronomic management practices. Further topics of discussion include institutional innovations and enabling policies for sustainable intensification of maize-based cropping systems in Asia, and increasing engagement of women and young farmers and entrepreneurs in maize value chains.

The 2018 Maize-Asia Youth Innovators Awards were launched in collaboration between the CGIAR Research Program on Maize (MAIZE) and YPARD (Young Professionals for Agricultural Development) during the run-up to the conference. The awards recognize the contributions of innovative young women and men who can inspire fellow young people to get involved with maize-based agri-food systems. Winners from different categories (researchers and change agents) have been invited to attend the 13th Asian Maize Conference, where they will make brief presentations of their work and receive their awards.

The Conference is expected to draw around 275 participants from several maize-growing countries in Asia, besides experts outside the continent. The delegates come from a broad range of stakeholders, including researchers, policy makers, seed companies, service providers, innovative farmers, and representatives of several development organizations and funding agencies.

The conference program and details will be available on http://maize.org/.

For further information, contact:

Jennifer Johnson
Communications Officer
CGIAR Research Program on Maize (MAIZE)
CIMMYT, Mexico
Telephone: +52 (55) 5804 2004 ext. 1036
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Innovation, partnerships and knowledge for African farmers meet at AGRF 2018

Written by Jérôme Bossuet on . Posted in Features.

KIGALI, Rwanda (CIMMYT) — The African Green Revolution Forum (AGRF) is the place to be for organizations interested in Africa’s agricultural development. Research institutions, development agencies, funders, farmers’ organizations, large agribusinesses and green start-ups came together for the latest edition of this event in Kigali, Rwanda, on September 4-8. Organized by the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) since 2010, this year’s theme was “Lead. Measure. Grow.”

The President of Rwanda, Paul Kagame, recalled a sentence stuck in his memory since childhood: “Everything is agriculture, the rest is good luck”. All the top leaders present at AGRF 2018 agreed that investing in smallholder agriculture is a top development priority, since the growth of the primary sector “drives down poverty, two to four times faster than other sectors” and provides livelihoods for three quarters of the African population.

Transforming policy declarations into impact on the ground

Even though African governments agreed on a roadmap towards inclusive agricultural growth — the Comprehensive African Agriculture Development Programme, or CAADP — in 2003, the agriculture sector has remained stagnant since the 1980s. A majority of African countries continue to be net food importers despite their bountiful natural resources, as highlighted in the Africa Agriculture Status Report 2018.

Some African food ventures are quite successful exporting beans, roses or avocados to Europe. However, most African farmers still live on less than one dollar a day, on small rain-fed plots of less than two hectares, having to cope with high climate variability and damages from numerous pests and diseases. They often plant low quality seeds, on acid and degraded soils, with little fertilizer. Rapid ageing of the farming population, 60 years old on average, is a particular concern at a time when many young people are underemployed.

“African agriculture is at a defining moment” was a message hammered home by several keynote speakers of AGRF 2018. So what makes this moment different?

In recent years, some countries have seen a significant rise in farm productivity. Ethiopia, for instance, exceeded the CAADP target of 6 percent annual agricultural growth in the last 25 years, halving its poverty rates over the same period.

African agriculture is facing new threats, from climate change to devastating pests like the fall armyworm, but researchers can be fast to respond, particularly if they are properly funded and listened to.

“The challenge is to design the right partnerships or business models between research, government, civil society and the private sector, to reach impact at scale”, explained CIMMYT’s director general, Martin Kropff.  One example would be the Fall Armyworm Research for Development (R4D) International Consortium, officially launched at AGRF 2018.

CIMMYT has also partnered with public and private organizations to implement a very successful breeding program to fight maize lethal necrosis and to develop detailed guidelines for integrated pest management of the fall armyworm.

Research has to anticipate and respond to the needs of smallholder farmers in diverse ecological and socioeconomic contexts. The agenda has to become demand-driven and researchers have to look at new collaborations if they want to reach the farmers.

The director general of CIMMYT, Martin Kropff, was the keynote speaker of the AGRF 2018 round-table discussion "Quality Means Quantity – Seed Processing Technology and Production Approaches for Agricultural Benefit." (Photo: CIMMYT)
The director general of CIMMYT, Martin Kropff, was the keynote speaker of the AGRF 2018 round-table discussion “Quality Means Quantity – Seed Processing Technology and Production Approaches for Agricultural Benefit.” (Photo: CIMMYT)

Make agriculture resilient and attractive to youth

Leaders discussed the ways to build viable, fair and sustainable food systems that will provide good opportunities for African farmers, especially the next generation, and affordable, nutritious food for the whole population.

In their view, the roadmap for the coming years includes several key actions: investing in infrastructure, investing in youth and education, investing in value addition and food processing and removing trade barriers.

Speakers also flagged irrigation as a top priority. “African farmers do not need rain; they need water,” summed up John Mellor, who coordinated the African State of Agriculture Report 2018. He explained that top-down irrigation schemes are difficult to manage and maintain, so the focus should rather be on farmer-led irrigation.

The conference highlighted how digital agriculture, big data and other innovations offer the opportunity to leapfrog agriculture growth and make farming attractive to youth. For instance, Hello Tractor, a CIMMYT partner, is an Uber-like service linking tractor owners and machinery service providers with farmers. CIMMYT research shows that appropriate rural mechanization adapted to smallholders, like two-wheel tractors, will ease labor problems and enable adoption of more sustainable practices, like direct sowing. This can make farming more attractive for young people and create opportunities for them to become service providers.

Taking knowledge to farmers

Many innovations are out there to help African farmers grow more and better food; from climate resilient new varieties and customized agronomic advice to new e- or m-business models.

Mobile finance solution Tulaa brings together farmers, agro-dealers and credit providers on a virtual marketplace. Through Tulaa, farmers can borrow money to purchase the right fertilizers or seeds at the right time. Another platform, Precision Agriculture for Development, is providing more than 120,000 Kenyan farmers with agronomic advice via SMS, so they can better identify and manage fall armyworm. Other new digital platforms are linking smallholder farmers with quality inputs, extension services, finance, food processing and market opportunities.

All these operators will need to use accurate, science-based data. That is where CIMMYT’s expertise could play a big role, for instance providing customized fertilization recommendations to individual farmers, as planned in the Taking Maize Agronomy to Scale in Africa (TAMASA) project.

B.M. Prasanna, director of CIMMYT’s Global Maize Program, concluded that “AGRF is an excellent platform to network, debate issues relevant to African agriculture, form alliances and think forward.” Providing more resources in agricultural research for development will generate a stream of new technologies and solutions that will drive agricultural growth. Something African countries urgently need with their fast-growing population (2-3 percent annually) and one additional billion people to feed by 2050.

Researchers find “hotspot” regions in the wheat genome for high zinc content, new study shows

Written by Courtney Brantley on . Posted in News.

The reported work by wheat scientists paves the way for expanded use of wild grass species, such as Aegilops tauschii (also known as goat grass; pictured here) as sources of new genes for higher grain zinc in wheat. (Photo: CIMMYT)
The reported work by wheat scientists paves the way for expanded use of wild grass species, such as Aegilops tauschii (also known as goat grass; pictured here) as sources of new genes for higher grain zinc in wheat. (Photo: CIMMYT)

An international team of scientists applied genome-wide association analysis for the first time to study the genetics that underlie grain zinc concentrations in wheat, according to a report published in Nature Scientific Reports on September 10.

Analyzing zinc concentrations in the grain of 330 bread wheat lines across diverse environments in India and Mexico, the researchers uncovered 39 new molecular markers associated with the trait, as well as two wheat genome segments that carry important genes for zinc uptake, translocation, and storage in wheat.

The findings promise greatly to ease development of wheat varieties with enhanced levels of zinc, a critical micronutrient lacking in the diets of many poor who depend on wheat-based food, according to Velu Govindan, wheat breeder at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and first author of the new report.

“A collaboration among research centers in India, Australia, the USA and Mexico, this work will expedite breeding for higher zinc through use of ‘hotspot’ genome regions and molecular markers,” said Govindan. “It also advances efforts to make selection for grain zinc a standard feature of CIMMYT wheat breeding. Because varieties derived from CIMMYT breeding are grown on nearly half the world’s wheat lands, ‘mainstreaming’ high zinc in breeding programs could improve the micronutrient nutrition of millions.”

More than 17 percent of humans, largely across Africa and Asia, lack zinc in their diets, a factor responsible for the deaths of more than 400,000 young children each year.

Often used in human disease research, the genome-wide association approach was applied in this study to zero in on genome segments — known as quantitative trait loci (QTLs) — that carry genes of interest for wheat grain zinc content, according to Govindan.

“The advantages of the genome-wide association method over traditional QTL mapping include better coverage of alleles and the ability to include landraces, elite cultivars, and advanced breeding lines in the analysis,” he explained. “Our study fully opens the door for the expanded use of wheat progenitor species as sources of alleles for high grain zinc, and the outcomes helped us to identify other candidate genes from wheat, barley, Brachypodium grasses and rice.”

Farmers in South Asia are growing six zinc-enhanced wheat varieties developed using CIMMYT breeding lines and released in recent years, according to Ravi Singh, head of the CIMMYT Bread Wheat Improvement Program.

Financial support for this study was provided by HarvestPlus (www.HarvestPlus.org), 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. It was also supported by CGIAR Funders, through the Research Program on Wheat and the Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health. Research partners in India and Pakistan greatly contributed to this study by conducting high-quality field trials.

This article was originally published on the website of the CGIAR Research Program on Wheat.