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How Crops to End Hunger is transforming CGIAR crop breeding from the ground up

Written by dmedina on . Posted in Blogs.

When crop breeding succeeds, the impact is dramatic: improved varieties reach farmers, productivity increases, and resilience to climate change and disease improves. But breeding success doesn’t happen by chance. It relies on modern facilities, cutting-edge tools, and the ability to test and select for complex, evolving traits. That’s where Crops to End Hunger (CtEH) comes in. At CGIAR Science Week, the project team and beneficiaries demonstrated how.  

A project designed for exponential impact 

Launched in 2019, CtEH aimed to support the modernization of CGIAR’s crop breeding infrastructure, with support from GIZ, the Gates Foundation, the US government, DFID, and ACIAR. As it nears the end of the most recent two-year GIZ funding cycle, the project has made targeted investments in upgrading breeding station infrastructure, equipping them with advanced tools, building capacity across CGIAR and national breeding teams, and developing the foundational systems needed to accelerate the entire breeding process. 

Supporting CGIAR Centers’ core functions 

At CGIAR Science Week, Bram Govaerts, CIMMYT Director General, explained: “CtEH is crucial for implementing CIMMYT 2030 strategy. Support has increased our breeding capacity for maize, wheat, and newly added dryland crops that complement maize and wheat cropping systems.” 

One example is the Groundnut Biotic Stress Screening Network, established with CtEH support. The network has strengthened the capacity of partners in Uganda and Malawi to screen for groundnut rosette disease; a devastating disease spread by aphids can result in 100% crop loss, with annual losses of over $150 million. The screening network will enable development of resistant varieties. 

In Kenya, a $2.5 million worth infrastructure upgrade at the KALRO–CIMMYT Crop Research Facility in Kiboko, has accelerated breeding cycles. This investment is enabling the development of new varieties tailored to the needs of East African farmers. Drought-tolerant maize varieties developed through work in Kenya and Zimbabwe have expanded dramatically, from just 0.5 million hectares in 2010 to 8.5 million hectares across sub-Saharan Africa today. 

The Kiboko station is also a regional leader in pest and disease resistance. Its advanced screening capabilities for fall armyworm have led to the release of three tolerant maize hybrids, benefiting farmers in Kenya, Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe, South Sudan, and Ghana. The development of maize varieties resistant to maize lethal necrosis further demonstrates the station’s critical role in enhancing food security across the region. 

Operational improvements: more than bricks and mortar 

CtEH isn’t just about infrastructure; it’s also about operational transformation which profoundly change the breeding work. For instance, as Gustavo Teixeira explains, “The installation of reliable irrigation systems, one of CtEH’s key priorities, improves breeding efficiency in several ways. It enables off-season trials, allowing breeders to conduct multiple generations per year. It promotes plot control, ensuring uniformity across trial plots and data quality. Finally, it improves the ability to breed for drought tolerance.” 

In Ghana, Maxwell Asante of CSIR-CRI described how CtEH brought crop-neutral upgrades that have encouraged teams to strategically plan and align resources, enabled cost attribution to specific breeding programs, improving accountability, and fostered cross-location collaboration by making centralized services possible.  

These operational improvements are helping CGIAR and national systems move toward truly modern breeding programs that can operate with greater precision, speed, and coordination. 

Building for regional collaboration and innovation 

Bram Govaerts also emphasized that collaboration is central to the future of breeding, and that CtEH is helping to make that possible. 

“Strategic collaborations enhance our impact by leveraging diverse resources and expertise, especially through public-private partnerships that scale research and technology transfer for agricultural transformation.” 

Facilities and systems funded by CtEH are helping CGIAR foster cross-disciplinary innovation and strengthen ties with governments, donors, and technology companies. This makes it easier to bridge the gap between research and real-world application – exactly what’s needed to accelerate impact. 

Empowering women in breeding 

Infrastructure improvements under CtEH have considered inclusivity and gender equity. 

Aparna Das, CIMMYT Technical Lead, explained that modernized stations have been upgraded to better support women in breeding roles – such as providing restrooms and expression rooms in remote research stations, often located far from urban centers, which help attract talent. 

Why does this matter? Women breeders bring valuable perspectives, particularly in identifying gender-relevant traits, like cooking time, seed size, and ease of harvesting. Diverse, balanced breeding teams also tend to be more dynamic and innovative, leading to better science and more relevant products for farmers. 

Targeting the right traits 

Breeding for traits farmers need starts with the ability to test and measure those traits under real-world conditions. This can require specialized equipment. 

Maxwell Asante emphasized that this is where CtEH makes a difference: 

“Testing for traits is fundamental. And now, we’re not just selecting for yield – we’re breeding for disease resistance, climate resilience, cooking quality, and more. The only way to do this efficiently is through modern breeding infrastructure and processes.” 

Modern breeding enables scientists to combine multiple traits in a single variety and identify the best candidates with greater accuracy and confidence. This is made possible through CtEH investments in equipment and data analytics, such as Bioflow, the CtEH-funded breeding analytics pipeline developed for CGIAR and its partners. 

Long-term impact through smart design 

What makes CtEH unique is its sustainability-by-design approach. The project was structured to build long-lasting capacity and to leverage investments from across CGIAR Initiatives, amplifying both the quality of upgrades and their outcomes. 

Whether it’s enabling year-round trials, supporting new partnerships, or empowering a more diverse generation of breeders, CtEH is not just upgrading infrastructure, it’s also reshaping CGIAR and partners’ breeding. 

As CGIAR continues to respond to climate, nutrition, and food security challenges, projects like CtEH are making sure we have the tools, systems, and people in place to breed for tomorrow – starting today. 

To learn more about Crops to End Hunger, check out other stories here.

New Breakthrough in Wheat Blast Resistance: A Novel Non-2NS QTL Identified

Written by dmedina on . Posted in Blogs.

A newly published study has identified a significant breakthrough in the ongoing battle against wheat blast: a novel quantitative trait locus (QTL), named Qwb.cim-7D, located on the long arm of chromosome 7D and derived from Aegilops tauschii, offers stable and moderate resistance to wheat blast—independently of the widely used 2NS translocation.

Wheat blast, caused by Magnaporthe oryzae pathotype Triticum (MoT), is a rapidly spreading disease threatening wheat production, particularly in tropical and subtropical regions of the world. First detected in Brazil in 1985, the disease has since caused devastating yield losses—up to 100% in severe cases. Its transboundary spread, including recent incursions in Bangladesh and Zambia, has intensified international concerns about food security, especially among vulnerable smallholder farming communities. Control through chemical means has proven unreliable, placing even greater emphasis on the development and deployment of resistant wheat cultivars.

Fig. 1 Global incidence of wheat blast with years of its first identification indicated for the affected countries

For years, wheat breeders have relied on a single major source of genetic resistance—the 2NS/2AS translocation from Aegilops ventricosa. While initially effective, recent field observations—particularly in Brazil—suggest that wheat blast pathogens are evolving to overcome this resistance. Despite extensive efforts, previous studies have failed to identify any non-2NS QTLs with both significant and stable effects across environments in field trials.

Fig. 2 Contrasted wheat blast reactions between BWMRI Gom 3 (left, a 2NS carrier) and BARI Gom 26 (right, a non-2NS carrier)

A New Genetic Solution for Blast Resistance

In a recently published study entitled “A novel QTL on chromosome 7D derived from Aegilops tauschii confers moderate field resistance to wheat blast”, CIMMYT’s wheat pathology team and collaborators reported the identification of a novel and consistent QTL—Qwb.cim-7D—which provides significant resistance to wheat blast independent of the 2NS translocation.

The donor bread wheat line, Gladius*2/KU 2097, inherited its resistance from the resistant Ae. tauschii accession ‘KU-2097’. Field experiments were conducted at two Precision Phenotyping Platforms (PPP) in Bolivia (Quirusillas and Okinawa) and one PPP in Bangladesh (Jashore), under artificially inoculated conditions—ensuring a robust evaluation of resistance. The QTL was mapped to the long arm of chromosome 7D, where it explained between 7.7% and 50.6% of the phenotypic variation across different environments. This is a significant finding, as previous studies identified non-2NS resistance loci with typically small effects (less than 10%) and inconsistent performance. In contrast, Qwb.cim-7D is the first moderate-effect QTL to demonstrate stable resistance across multiple field conditions.

To facilitate its adoption in breeding pipelines, researchers successfully converted the flanking DArTseq markers into KASP markers—enabling more efficient marker-assisted selection.

Importantly, Qwb.cim-7D provides approximately half the resistance effect of 2NS, highlighting its value as a complementary resistance factor. When deployed through gene pyramiding strategies alongside 2NS and Rmg8, this new QTL could help breeders develop varieties with stronger and more durable resistance to the evolving wheat blast pathogen.

This breakthrough marks a turning point in global wheat blast resistance breeding. It addresses the urgent need to diversify the genetic basis of resistance and equips breeders with a viable new tool to safeguard wheat yields. As wheat blast continues to threaten food security in key regions, the introgression of Qwb.cim-7D into breeding programs offers a promising path toward enhanced crop resilience and improved farmer protection.

Double the Harvest, Double the Income: Intercropping for Yield, Income and Security

Written by dmedina on . Posted in Blogs.

In the quiet villages of eastern India, a transformation is unfolding—led by smallholder farmers and powered by the science of intercropping.

“I got a good price for the cabbages, and I’m hopeful maize will do just as well. Look at it—it’s healthy and thriving,” says Nirmala Devi with a proud smile. At 45, Nirmala tends her small farm in Butijhari village, Kishanganj, Bihar.

She is one of 20 women in her village redefining farming through knowledge-sharing, new skills, and small-scale entrepreneurship.

In her maize field, Nirmala Devi proudly displays the remaining cabbages from her intercrop harvest, now set aside for livestock fodder after sale and household consumption (Photo: Nima Chodon/CIMMYT)

“For the past two rabi (winter) seasons, we’ve been practicing intercropping with maize, Nirmala says, gesturing toward her fields. “We not only sell what we grow – cabbage, garden pea, beans, spinach, etc – but also exchange it among ourselves, depending on what we need at home.”

This approach has brought more than just additional income. It’s improving household nutrition, providing animal fodder, and increasing land productivity by growing two crops in the same plot during the rabi season.

Growing Together

Not only in villages of Kishanganj, into the villages of Coochbehar and Malda in West Bengal, farmers are seeing similar results. Now in their second year with the CIMMYT-led intercropping project, they are seeing substantial benefits—improved yields, additional income, and greater resilience against climate and or the failure of any single crop.

While intercropping isn’t new, this approach is different. CIMMYT and its partners, supported by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR), are promoting additive intercropping in wide-row staple crops like maize across India, Bangladesh and Bhutan.

Swaraj Dutta from Dr. Kalam Agriculture College under Bihar Agriculture University, working on the project, explains how this works: “We help farmers adjust the way they plant maize—either 60-60 cm spacing in single rows or a paired-row system at 30-90 cm. Between these rows, short-duration vegetables like cabbage, spinach, or legumes thrive early in the season.”

Maize and More

“The intensive cultivation of rice and maize (and previously wheat) is placing significant stress on natural resources and is becoming increasingly unsustainable in the face of growing climate change challenges. Yet, many farmers continue with these practices, even as returns diminish, due to a fear of diversifying,” explains Biplab Mitra of Uttar Banga Krishi Viswavidyalaya (UBKV), the university is supporting the intercropping project in Coochbehar and Malda districts of West Bengal.

“Traditionally, maize has been grown densely and often as a monocrop following rice in these regions. However, maize’s adaptability to both kharif and rabi seasons presents an opportunity to shift away from this unsustainable pattern”, added Mitra.  Through intercropping maize with vegetables during the rabi season farmers are now exploring more diversified and resilient farming systems that reduce pressure on resources and improve income potential.

“We used to grow only maize after rice,” says Santos Deb from Dinhata village, Coochbehar, standing proudly beside his wife Sochirani Deb. “But now, following the advice of scientists from UBKV, we intercrop. Two different crops, one cereal and one vegetable from the same field in the same season—that’s something we never attempted.”

On just 800 square meters, Barman adopted paired-row planting and added vegetables between maize rows. After covering input costs, he earned an additional â‚č15,000–17,000 (US$180–200) for the vegetables, gained fresh food for the family, and produced fodder for their livestock. “This has been very rewarding for us. I have started growing in all my plots now,” he beams. “We’ll keep intercropping every rabi season throughout our lives.”

Intercropping offers a crucial buffer against climate-related risks by providing farmers a valuable source of additional income during the rabi season. Adverse weather events such as high winds, untimely late-season rains or storms often cause maize to lodge, resulting in significant yield losses and reduced income. By adopting intercropping, farmers can cover production costs earlier in the season and minimize exposure to climate-related economic losses.

 

Farmer Santos Deb and his wife Sochirani stand on their intercropped farm, where they grew vegetables alongside maize to boost both income and household consumption (Photo: Nima Chodon/CIMMYT)

Some farmers, like Kamal Ganesh from Chapati village in Kishanganj, see intercropping as a form of security against unpredictable harvests. “I grew cabbage and cauliflower under the project. Due to unavoidable circumstances, I was delayed in applying fertilizer and irrigating my maize crop, so the maize yield may be poor this harvest. But I’ve already earned a profit from the vegetables. Having a second crop in the same field acts as a safety net—if one fails, the other can still bring returns,” he explains.

Looking Ahead

Researchers assert that the project’s introduction of vegetable intercropping with maize offers new opportunities for diversification and resilience in the agriculture sector already stressed by climate change.

For many farmers, this is just the beginning. Alison Laing, leading the intercropping project at CIMMYT, shares her optimism: “This is only our second harvest across India, Bangladesh, and Bhutan, and already we’re seeing encouraging results. More and more farmers want to try it next season.”

Intercropping with sugarcane, on-station research trial fields at the Indian Institute for Farming Systems Research (ICAR-IIFSR), Meerut, Uttar Pradesh, India (Photo: Nima Chodon /CIMMYT)

Laing noted that further adjustments, including crop selection based on management needs, market value, and nutritional benefits, as well as efficient fertilizer use and market linkages, are being explored by researchers to enhance sustainability and broader adoption. “Apart from maize, we’ve also introduced intercropping in sugarcane fields in Meerut, Uttar Pradesh, in collaboration with the Indian Institute for Farming Systems Research (ICAR-IIFSR). We will review and analyse the results from the past two years in both maize and sugarcane practices to better understand farmers’ needs and support wider adoption,” she added.

Wide Row, Additive INTERCROPPING Project, led by CIMMYT and funded by ACIAR, is a 5-year initiative (launched in 2023) bringing together research institutions and agriculture scientists from India, Bangladesh and Bhutan to help smallholder farmers boost yields, increase their resilience to climate change and improve nutrition.  

Intercropping

Written by mcallejas on . Posted in Uncategorized.

The Intercropping project aims to identify options for smallholder farmers to sustainably intensify wide-row crop production through the addition of short-duration, high-value intercrop species and to help farmers increase their productivity, profitability and nutrition security while mitigating against climate change.

The focus is on intensification of wide-row planted crops: dry (rabi) season maize in Bangladesh, eastern India (Bihar and West Bengal states) and Bhutan, and sugarcane in central north India (Uttar Pradesh state). The primary focus is to sustainably improve cropping system productivity, however, the effects of wide-row, additive intercropping at the smallholder farm level will be considered, including potential food and nutrition benefits for the household.

There are many potential benefits of wide-row, additive intercropping, beyond increased cropping system productivity and profitability: water-, labor- and energy-use efficiencies; improved nutrition and food security for rural households; empowerment for women; and (over the longer term) increased soil health.

Little research has been conducted to date into wide-row, additive intercropping (as distinct from traditional replacement intercropping) in South Asian agroecologies. To successfully and sustainably integrate wide-row, additive intercropping into farmers’ cropping systems a range of challenges must be resolved, including optimal agronomic management and crop geometry, household- and farm-scale implications, and potential off-farm bottlenecks.

This project aims to identify practical methods to overcome these challenges for farming households in Bangladesh, Bhutan and India. Focusing on existing wide-row field crop production systems, the project aims to enable farmers to increase their cropping system productivity sustainably and in a manner that requires relatively few additional inputs.

Project activities and expected outcomes:

  • Evaluating farming households’ initial perspectives on wide-row, additive intercropping.
  • Conducting on station replicated field trials into wide-row, additive intercropping, focusing on those aspects of agronomic research difficult or unethical to undertake on farms.
  • Conducting on farm replicated field trials into wide-row, additive intercropping.
  • Determining how wide-row, additive intercropping could empower women. Quantify the long-term benefits, risks and trade-offs of wide-row, additive intercropping.
  • Describing key value/supply chains for wide-row, additive intercropping. Determine pathways to scale research to maximize impact.
  • Quantifying changes in household dry season nutrition for households representative of key typologies in each agroecological zone.

Building global capacity to combat wheat blast

Written by Julian Bañuelos-Uribe on . Posted in News.

Researchers and experts from 15 countries convened in Zambia, between 4-15 March 2024, for an international training on wheat blast disease screening, surveillance, and management.

Wheat blast, caused by pathogen Magnaporthe oryzae pathotype triticum, is threatening global wheat production especially in warmer and humid regions. The disease was ïŹrst observed in Parana state of Brazil in 1985 and subsequently spread to Bolivia, Paraguay, and Argentina. Outside of South America, wheat blast incidences were recorded for the first time in Bangladesh in 2016 and in Zambian wheat fields in 2018.

To mitigate the impact of this potential plant pandemic, the Zambia Agriculture Research Institute (ZARI), in collaboration with CIMMYT and other partners, organized a comprehensive training for building research capacity and raising awareness within the local and international community, especially in at-risk countries.

“This collaborative effort, supported by various international partners and funders, underscores the importance of global cooperation in addressing agricultural challenges such as wheat blast. The objective of the training was to empower researchers with knowledge and tools for enhanced wheat production resilience in regions vulnerable to this destructive disease,” said Pawan Kumar Singh, principal scientist and project leader at CIMMYT. Singh collaborated with Batiseba Tembo, wheat breeder at ZARI-Zambia, to coordinate and lead the training program.

Thirty-eight wheat scientists, researchers, professors, policymakers, and extension agents from countries including Bangladesh, Brazil, Ethiopia, India, Kenya, Mexico, Nepal, South Africa, Sweden, Tanzania, United Kingdom, Uruguay, Zambia, and Zimbabwe convened at the Mt. Makulu Central Research Station in Chilanga, Zambia.

“Wheat blast is a devastating disease that requires concerted efforts to effectively manage it and halt further spread. The disease is new to Africa, so developing capacity amongst country partners before the disease spreads more widely is critical,” said Tembo.

Participants at the International Training on Wheat Blast Screening and Surveillance. (Photo: CIMMYT)

Highlights from the training: discussions, lab exercises, and field visits

During the training, participants engaged in lectures, laboratory exercises, and field visits. There were insightful discussions on key topics including the fundamentals of wheat blast epidemiology, disease identification, molecular detection of the wheat blast pathogen, isolation and preservation techniques for the pathogen, disease scoring methods, disease management strategies, and field surveillance and monitoring.

The course also provided practical experience in disease evaluation at the Precision Phenotyping Platform (PPP) screening nursery located in Chilanga research station. This involved characterization of a diverse range of wheat germplasm with the aim of releasing resistant varieties in countries vulnerable to wheat blast. Additionally, participants undertook field visits to farmers’ fields, conducting surveillance of wheat blast-infected areas. They collected samples and recorded survey data using electronic open data kit (ODK) capture tools.

Participants listen to a lecture by B.N. Verma, director of Zambia Seed Co., on the history of wheat production in Zambia. (Photo: CIMMYT)

“The killer disease needs to be understood and managed utilizing multi-faceted approaches to limit the expansion and damages it can cause to global wheat production. The Bangladesh Wheat and Maize Research Institute (BWMRI) is willing to share all the strategies it deployed to mitigate the effect of wheat blast,” said Golam Faruq, BWMRI’s director general.

Participants visited seed farms to gain practical insights into seed production processes and quality assurance measures. These visits provided first-hand knowledge of seed selection, breeding techniques, and management practices crucial for developing resistant wheat varieties. Participants also visited research sites and laboratories to observe advanced research methodologies and technologies related to wheat blast management. These visits exposed them to cutting-edge techniques in disease diagnosis, molecular analysis, and germplasm screening, enhancing their understanding of effective disease surveillance and control strategies.

Field visit. (Photo: CIMMYT)

“The training and knowledge sharing event was a significant first step in developing understanding and capacity to deal with wheat blast for partners from several African countries. It was wonderful to see the efforts made to ensure gender diversity among participants,” said Professor Diane Saunders from the John Innes Centre, UK.

Alison Laing

Written by mcallejas on . Posted in Uncategorized.

Alison Laing is the CIMMYT lead for CSISA India, and leads bilateral and Initiative-funded projects in South and Southeast Asia. She works with farmers and researchers in South and Southeast Asia to sustainably improve cropping and farming system productivity, profitability and resilience.

Alison firmly believes in participatory, multi-disciplinary research and in combining practical field-trial based research with robust modelling to examine likely long-term outcomes of different management approaches.

India transforms wheat for the world

Written by Mike Listman on . Posted in Features.

India can applaud a hallmark in national food production: in 2023, the harvest of wheat—India’s second most important food crop—will surpass 110 million tons for the first time.

This maintains India as the world’s number-two wheat producer after China, as has been the case since the early 2000s. It also extends the wheat productivity jumpstart that begun in the Green Revolution—the modernization of India’s agriculture during the 1960s-70s that allowed the country to put behind it the recurrent grain shortages and extreme hunger of preceding decades.

“Newer and superior wheat varieties in India continually provide higher yields and genetic resistance to the rusts and other deadly diseases,” said Distinguished Scientist Emeritus at CIMMYT, Ravi Singh. “More than 90 percent of spring bread wheat varieties released in South Asia in the last three decades carry CIMMYT breeding contributions for those or other valued traits, selected directly from the Center’s international yield trials and nurseries or developed locally using CIMMYT parents.”

Wheat grain yield in Indian farmers’ fields rose yearly by more than 1.8 percent—some 54 kilograms per hectare—in the last decade, a remarkable achievement and significantly above the global average of 1.3 percent. New and better wheat varieties also reach farmers much sooner, due to better policies and strategies that speed seed multiplication, along with greater involvement of private seed producers.

“The emergence of Ug99 stem rust disease from eastern Africa in the early 2000s and its ability to overcome the genetic resistance of older varieties drove major global and national initiatives to quickly spread the seed of newer, resistant wheat and to encourage farmers to grow it,” Singh explained. “This both protected their crops and delivered breeding gains for yield and climate resilience.”

CIMMYT has recently adopted an accelerated breeding approach that has reduced the breeding cycle to three years and is expected to fast-track genetic gains in breeding populations and hasten delivery of improvements to farmers. The scheme builds on strong field selection and testing in Mexico, integrates genomic selection, and features expanded yield assays with partner institutions. To stimulate adoption of newer varieties, the Indian Institute of Wheat and Barley Research (IIWBR, of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, ICAR) operates a seed portal that offers farmers advanced booking for seed of recently released and other wheat varieties.

Private providers constitute another key seed source. In particular, small-scale seed producers linked to the IIWBR/ICAR network have found a profitable business in multiplying and marketing new wheat seed, thus supporting the replacement of older, less productive or disease susceptible varieties.

Farm innovations for changing climates and resource scarcities

Following findings from longstanding CIMMYT and national studies, more Indian wheat farmers are sowing their crops weeks earlier so that the plants mature before the extreme high temperatures that precede the monsoon season, thus ensuring better yields.

New varieties DBW187, DBW303, DBW327, DBW332 and WH1270 can be planted as early as the last half of October, in the northwestern plain zone. Recent research by Indian and CIMMYT scientists has identified well-adapted wheat lines for use in breeding additional varieties for early sowing.

Resource-conserving practices promoted by CIMMYT and partners, such as planting wheat seed directly into the unplowed fields and residues from a preceding rice crop, shave off as much as two weeks of laborious plowing and planking.

Weeds in zero-tillage wheat in India. (Photo: Petr Kosina/CIMMYT)

“This ‘zero tillage’ and other forms of reduced tillage, as well as straw management systems, save the time, labor, irrigation water and fuel needed to plant wheat, which in traditional plowing and sowing requires many tractor passes,” said Arun Joshi, CIMMYT wheat breeder and regional representative for Asia and managing director of the Borlaug Institute for South Asia (BISA). “Also, letting rice residues decompose on the surface, rather than burning them, enriches the soil and reduces seasonal air pollution that harms human health in farm communities and cities such as New Delhi.”

Sustainable practices include precision levelling of farmland for more efficient irrigation and the precise use of nitrogen fertilizer to save money and the environment.

Science and policies ensure future wheat harvests and better nutrition

Joshi mentioned that increased use of combines has sped up wheat harvesting and cut post-harvest grain losses from untimely rains caused by climate change. “Added to this, policies such as guaranteed purchase prices for grain and subsidies for fertilizers have boosted productivity, and recent high market prices for wheat are convincing farmers to invest in their operations and adopt improved practices.”

To safeguard India’s wheat crops from the fearsome disease wheat blast, native to the Americas but which struck Bangladesh’s wheat fields in 2016, CIMMYT and partners from Bangladesh and Bolivia have quickly identified and cross-bred resistance genes into wheat and launched wheat disease monitoring and early warning systems in South Asia.

“More than a dozen wheat blast resistant varieties have been deployed in eastern India to block the disease’s entry and farmers in areas adjoining Bangladesh have temporarily stopped growing wheat,” said Pawan Singh, head of wheat pathology at CIMMYT.

Building on wheat’s use in many Indian foods, under the HarvestPlus program CIMMYT and Indian researchers applied cross-breeding and specialized selection to develop improved wheats featuring grain with enhanced levels of zinc, a micronutrient whose lack in Indian diets can stunt the growth of young children and make them more vulnerable to diarrhea and pneumonia.

“At least 10 such ‘biofortified’ wheat varieties have been released and are grown on over 2 million hectares in India,” said Velu Govindan, CIMMYT breeder who leads the Center’s wheat biofortification research. “It is now standard practice to label all new varieties for biofortified traits to raise awareness and adoption, and CIMMYT has included high grain zinc content among its primary breeding objectives, so we expect that nearly all wheat lines distributed by CIMMYT in the next 5-8 years will have this trait.”

A rigorous study published in 2018 showed that, when vulnerable young children in India ate foods prepared with such zinc-biofortified wheat, they experienced significantly fewer days of pneumonia and vomiting than would normally be the case.

Celebrating joint achievements and committing for continued success

The April-June 2018 edition of the “ICAR Reporter” newsletter called the five-decade ICAR-CIMMYT partnership in agricultural research “
one of the longest and most productive in the world
” and mentioned mutually beneficial research in the development and delivery of stress resilient and nutritionally enriched wheat, impact-oriented sustainable and climate-smart farming practices, socioeconomic analyses, and policy recommendations.

Speaking during an August 2022 visit to India by CIMMYT Director General Bram Govaerts,  Himanshu Pathak, secretary of the Department of Agricultural Research and Education (DARE) of India’s Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare and Director General of ICAR, “reaffirmed the commitment to closely work with CIMMYT and BISA to address the current challenges in the field of agricultural research, education and extension in the country.”

“The ICAR-CIMMYT collaboration is revolutionizing wheat research and technology deployment for global food security,” said Gyanendra Singh, director, ICAR-IIWBR. “This in turn advances global peace and prosperity.”

India and CIMMYT wheat transformers meet in India in February, 2023. From left to right: Two students from the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI); Arun Joshi, CIMMYT regional representative for Asia; Rajbir Yadav, former Head of Genetics, IARI; Gyanendra Singh, Director General, Indian Institute of Wheat and Barley Research (IIWBR); Bram Govaerts, CIMMYT director general; Harikrishna, Senior Scientist, IARI. (Photo: CIMMYT)

According to Govaerts, CIMMYT has concentrated on strategies that foster collaboration to deliver greater value for the communities both ICAR and the Center serve. “The way forward to the next milestone — say, harvesting 125 million tons of wheat from the same or less land area — is through our jointly developing and making available new, cost effective, sustainable technologies for smallholder farmers,” he said.

Wheat research and development results to date, challenges, and future initiatives occupied the table at the 28th All India Wheat & Barley Research Workers’ Meeting, which took place in Udaipur, state of Rajasthan, August 28-30, 2023, and which ICAR and CIMMYT wheat scientists attended.

Generous funding from various agencies, including the following, have supported the work described: The Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR), the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development of Germany (BMZ), the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office of UK’s Government (FCDO), the Foundation for Food & Agricultural Research (FFAR), HarvestPlus, ICAR, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), funders of the One CGIAR Accelerated Breeding Initiative (ABI), and the Plant Health Initiative (PHI).

ASEAN – CGIAR Innovate for Food Regional Program

Written by mcallejas on . Posted in Uncategorized.

The primary focus of this project is on regenerative agriculture practices, including circular economy principles, co-identified and digital decision-support tools co-designed for at least two priority production systems (one upland and lowland rice-fish production system and another upland system), enabled by policymakers, and used by scaling partners in at least three Association of Southeast Asian Nations member states.

The project aims to align with the Sustainable Development Goals: SDG 5 – Gender Equality; SDG 13 – Climate Action; SGD 17 – Partnerships for the Goals.

CIMMYT and BWMRI host international training program on surveillance and management strategies for wheat blast

Written by Julian Bañuelos-Uribe on . Posted in News.

The devastating disease wheat blast is a threat to crop production in many South Asian countries. In Bangladesh, it was first identified in seven southern and southwestern districts in 2016, and later spread to 27 others causing significant damage. The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) is working with the Bangladesh Wheat and Maize Research Institute (BWMRI) and other national partners to conduct research and extension activities to mitigate the ongoing threat.

From March 1-10, 2023, a group of 46 wheat researchers, government extension agents, and policy makers from ten countries — Bangladesh, Brazil, China, Ethiopia, India, Japan, Mexico, Nepal, Sweden, and Zambia — gathered in Jashore, Bangladesh to learn about and exchange experiences regarding various wheat diseases, particularly wheat blast. Following the COVID-19 pandemic, this was the first in-person international wheat blast training held in Bangladesh. It focused on the practical application of key and tricky elements of disease surveillance and management strategies, such as resistance breeding and integrated disease management.

Training participants get hands-on practice using a field microscope, Bangladesh. (Photo: Ridoy/CIMMYT)

“This is an excellent training program,” said Shaikh Mohammad Bokhtiar, executive chairman of the Bangladesh Agriculture Research Council (BARC), during the opening session.  “Participants will learn how to reduce the severity of the blast disease, develop and expand blast resistant varieties to farmers, increase production, and reduce imports.”

This sentiment was echoed by Golam Faruq, director general of BWMRI. “This program helps in the identification of blast-resistant lines from across the globe,” he said. “From this training, participants will learn to manage the devastating blast disease in their own countries and include these learnings into their national programs.”

Hands-on training

The training was divided into three sections: lectures by national and international scientists; laboratory and field experiment visits; and trips to farmers’ fields. Through the lecture series, participants learned about a variety of topics including disease identification, molecular detection, host-pathogen interaction, epidemiology and integrated disease management.

Hands-on activities were linked to working on the Precision Phenotyping Platform (PPP), which involves the characterization of more than 4,000 wheat germplasm and releasing several resistant varieties in countries vulnerable to wheat blast. Participants practiced taking heading notes, identifying field disease symptoms, tagging, and scoring disease. They conducted disease surveillance in farmers’ fields in Meherpur and Faridpur districts — both of which are extremely prone to wheat blast — observing the disease, collecting samples and GPS coordinates, and completing surveillance forms.

Muhammad Rezaul Kabir, senior wheat breeder at BWMRI, explains the Precision Phenotyping Platform, Bangladesh. (Photo: Md. Harun-Or-Rashid/CIMMYT)

Participants learned how to use cutting-edge technology to recognize blast lesions in leaves using field microscopes. They went to a pre-installed spore trapping system in a farmer’s field to learn about the equipment and steps for collecting spore samples, observing them under a compound microscope, and counting spores. They also visited the certified seed production fields of Shawdesh Seed, a local company which has played an important role in promoting wheat blast resistant varieties BARI Gom 33 and BWMRI Gom 3 regionally, and Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Agricultural University (BSMRAU) in Gazipur to see current wheat blast research in action.

Blast-resistance in Bangladesh

“I am so happy to see the excellent infrastructure and work ethics of staff that has made possible good science and impactful research come out of the PPP,” said Aakash Chawade, associate professor in Plant Breeding at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. “Rapid development of blast-resistant varieties and their dissemination will help Bangladesh mitigate the effects of wheat blast, not only inside the country but by supporting neighboring ones as well.”

Training participants scout and score disease in a blast-infected wheat field, Bangladesh. (Photo: Md. Harun-Or-Rashid/CIMMYT)

“Besides the biotic and abiotic challenges faced in wheat production, climate change and the Russia-Ukraine crisis are further creating limitations to wheat production and marketing,” said Pawan Kumar Singh, head of Wheat Pathology at CIMMYT and lead organizer of the training. “Due to the development of blast-resistant wheat varieties and its commercial production under integrated disease management practices, the domestic production of wheat in Bangladesh has increased and there is increased interest from farmers in wheat.”

Dave Hodson, a principal scientist at CIMMYT and one of the training’s resource speakers, added: “This is a remarkable success that researchers developed two blast resistant varieties in Bangladesh urgently. It was only achievable because of the correct measures taken by the researchers and support of Government policies.”

However, there are still some barriers to widespread adoption of these varieties. As such, in parallel to other activities, a team from Bangladesh Agricultural University (BAU) joined the field trip to meet local farmers and conduct research into the socio-economic factors influencing the adoption and scaling of relevant wheat varieties.

CGIAR Initiative: Crops to End Hunger (CtEH)

Written by Sarah McLaughlin on . Posted in Uncategorized.

Agriculture offers major solutions to several global challenges – most notably the tightly interlinked challenges of meeting Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) on hunger (SDG2), extreme poverty (SDG1), and climate change (SDG13). CGIAR, in concert with a wide network of partners, has a vital role to play in transforming agri-food and land systems in the face of the climate emergency – ultimately benefiting low-income producers and consumers who are most at risk.

What is Crops to End Hunger?

Crops to End Hunger (CtEH) is a CGIAR initiative to accelerate and modernize the development, delivery and widescale use of a steady stream of new crop varieties. These new varieties are developed to meet the food, nutrition and income needs of producers and consumers, respond to market demand and provide resilience to pests, diseases and new environmental challenges arising from climate change.

CGIAR’s plant breeding program has made major contributions to global food security since the mid 1960s, but there is evidence that the rate of adoption of new varieties has slowed. CtEH will support the acceleration of breeding cycles and application of modern breeding methods needed for both productivity gains and climate change adaptation. Farmers need varieties bred in and for the current climate, but are generally using varieties selected 20-30 years ago. In addition, many new varieties are insufficiently improved to induce farmers to adopt them. Prioritization of crops by specific geographies is based on projected benefits to poverty reduction and nutrition, and is an integral dimension of the modernization effort. Using market research, crop breeders gain greater awareness of the traits preferred by men and women farmers, consumers and others along the value chain, integrating them into “product profiles” that guide breeding. Delivery of varieties is done through integrated partnerships and linkages to seed systems in-country, in which national regulatory agencies take responsibility for the release of improved seeds, while public agencies, community organizations and private seed companies undertake multiplication, distribution and promotion to reach farmers’ fields.

In 2017-18, a multi-Funder group, including the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR), agreed to launch a modernization program for public plant breeding in lower-income countries. The CtEH initiative will invigorate breeding for the staple crops most important to smallholder farmers and poor consumers.

How does it work?

CtEH supports focused, science-based, well-resourced and long-term CGIAR Programs and investments in modern plant breeding on priority crops, which build on:

  1. CGIAR’s demonstrated impact on food security and poverty reduction through plant breeding;
  2. CGIAR’s comparative advantages in global public goods research on crop breeding and genetics;
  3. CGIAR’s central role and responsibility for the conservation and characterization of the world’s crop biodiversity, which is held in trust by CGIAR Research Centers for the world community.

This initiative aims to accelerate a transition in CGIAR crop breeding to address very different challenges from those faced in the Green Revolution. Twenty CGIAR crops, including cereals, legumes and root crops, have been chosen for this breeding initiative.

One part of this challenge is for breeding to modernize in terms of its objectives beyond pure yield gain – to address the expanding demand for improved varieties to meet biotic and abiotic stresses, such as climate change and environmental degradation, and to include a wider set of nutritional and market traits, as well as traits relevant to both end-users and value chains, which would increase the adoption rate of newly-bred varieties.

The first step towards modernization of breeding programs is to identify the gaps – the areas that need to be addressed or improved. The Breeding Program Assessment Tool (BPAT) has been developed for this purpose. The deployment of BPAT has been administered by the University of Queensland and has now been used to assess the breeding programs across CGIAR Research Centers. Examples of gaps include cross-CGIAR data management tools, access to low-cost genotyping, and sharing high-quality technical advice across programs and with partners.

What will result?

This process of improvement and modernization of CGIAR breeding programs will provide multiple benefits:

  1. For a given level of investment it is anticipated that each breeding program will achieve increased rates of genetic gain and scale of impact – through adoption of farmer-preferred, market-demanded, climate-resilient varieties.
  2. There will be further opportunity to integrate and support allied CGIAR crop programs, and to apply best practices across CGIAR Research Centers.
  3. A stronger partnership and closer cooperation with national breeding programs, including national research institutes, universities and small and medium-sized enterprises in the private sector in low-income countries, as well as multilateral seed companies and advanced research institutes.
  4. Adopting standardized ways of reporting needs, opportunities and progress will provide Funders with a transparent view of where and how they are getting high rates of return for their investment.

With this new initiative, CGIAR will enhance its contributions to the Sustainable Development Goals towards 2030 through high-priority staple crops tailored for the specific needs of targeted regions and their populations.

The Australian High Commission, ACIAR and BARC delegates recognizes the BWMRI-CIMMYT collaborative wheat blast research platform in Bangladesh

Written by Sarah McLaughlin on . Posted in News.

Delegates with other officials in front of the seminar room. (Photo: Biswajit/BWMRI)

Representatives from Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) and Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council (BARC) paid a visit to Bangladesh to see the valuable work of the Precision Phenotyping Platform (PPP).

PPP was established in response to the devastating wheat blast disease, which was first reported in the country in 2016.

Technical and financial support from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), the Australian Commission for International Agricultural Research and the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research, along with other funders, has contributed to the effort to combat the disease.

This is achieved by generating precise data for wheat blast resistance in germplasm in Bangladesh, as well as other wheat growing countries. This PPP has been used to screen elite lines and genetic resources from various countries.

On February 16 and 17, 2023, two groups of national and international delegations visited the BWMRI-CIMMYT collaborative research platform PPP at the BWMRI regional station in Jashore, Bangladesh.

The first group was made up of representatives from both the Australian Commission for International Agricultural Research and the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research. This included seven commissioners under the direction of Fiona Simson, along with ACIAR senior officials from Australia and India.

The other group was from BARC, which was led by Executive Chairman Shaikh Mohammad Bokhtiar, along with Golam Faruq, Director General of BWMRI, and Andrew Sharpe, Bangabandhu Research Chair, Global Institute of Food Security (GIFS), University of Saskatchewan in Canada.

Both delegations were welcomed by Muhammad Rezaul Kabir, the Senior Wheat Breeder at BWMRI. Kabir gave a brief presentation about the platform and other wheat blast collaborative research programs in the seminar room.

The delegations then went to the PPP field, where BWMRI researchers Kabir and Robiul Islam, as well as CIMMYT researcher Md. Harun-Or-Rashid, explained further information about the BWMRI-CIMMYT collaborative research. Both commissioners and delegates appreciated seeing the work being conducted in person by the national and international collaborations of BWMRI and CIMMYT on wheat blast research.

Visitors observing blast disease symptoms in wheat leaves. (Photo: Muhammad Rezaul Kabir/BWMRI)

“It is important, innovative work, that is affecting not only Bangladesh but many countries around the world that are now starting to be concerned about the impacts of wheat blast,” commissioner Simson said. “This study is very important for Australia and we are pleased to be contributing to it.”

Lindsay Falvey, another commissioner, added, “This is a wonderful experiment, using high-level science and technologies to combat wheat blast in Bangladesh. The experiment is well-planned. Overall, it is an excellent platform.”

ACIAR delegate Eric Huttner added to the praise for the project. “The platform is performing extremely well for the purpose of evaluating lines, resistance to the disease and that’s very useful for Bangladesh and rest of the world,” he said. “This is a gift that Bangladesh is giving to the neighboring countries to protect wheat.”

The delegates pledged to share their expert advice with the Minister of Foreign Affairs in Bangladesh in order to increase investments and improve facilities for agricultural research programs in the country.

Golam Faruq, Director General of BWMRI discussing the PPP with Shaikh Mohammad Bokhtiar, Executive Chairman of BARC (Photo: Md. Harun-Or-Rashid/CIMMYT)

“This is an excellent work,” Executive Chairman of BARC, Bokhtiar said. “We can get more information from screening activities by using bioinformatics tools and training people through the BARC-GIFS program.”

Pawan Kumar Singh, Head of Wheat Pathology at CIMMYT-Mexico and Project Leader, coordinated the visits virtually and expressed his thanks to the delegations for their visit to the platform. This PPP, within a short span of few years, has been highly impactful, characterizing more than 15,000 entries and releasing several resistant varieties in countries vulnerable to wheat blast.

KALRO research station at Kiboko revamped to accelerate crop breeding

Written by Susan Otieno on . Posted in News.

CIMMYT Global Maize Program Director and CGIAR Plant Health Initiative Lead, BM Prasanna cutting a ribbon at the entrance of a new shed housing, marking the commissioning of five new seed drying machines courtesy of the of the Accelerating Genetic Gains (AGG) Project. (Photo: Susan Otieno/CIMMYT)

Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization (KALRO)’s research station at Kiboko, Kenya, where several partner institutions including the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), conduct significant research activities on crop breeding and seed systems, is now equipped with five new seed drying machines along with a dedicated shed to house these units, a cold room for storing breeding materials, and an additional irrigation dam/reservoir. These infrastructural upgrades are worth approximately US $0.5 million.

During the commissioning of the new facilities on February 7, 2023, CIMMYT Global Maize Program Director, BM Prasanna thanked the donors, Crops to End Hunger (CtEH) Initiative and Accelerated Genetic Gains (AGG) project, that supported the upgrade of the research station, and recognized the strong partnership with KALRO.

“Today is a major milestone for CIMMYT, together with KALRO, hosting this center of excellence for crop breeding. This facility is one of the largest public sector crop breeding facilities in the world, with hundreds of hectares dedicated to crop breeding. These new facilities will enable CIMMYT and KALRO crop breeders to optimize their breeding and seed systems’ work and provide better varieties to the farming communities,” said Prasanna.

Kenya suffered one of its worst droughts ever in 2022, and the newly commissioned facilities will support expedited development of climate-resilient and nutritious crop varieties, including resistance to major diseases and pests.

Visitors at the KALRO research station in Kiboko, Kenya, looking at the newly commissioned cold room storage. (Photo: Susan Otieno/CIMMYT)

Improvements and enhancements

The efficiency of the seed driers capabilities to quickly reduce moisture content in seed from above 30% to 12% in two to three days, reducing the time taken for seed drying and allowing for more than two crop seasons per year in a crop like maize.

The additional water reservoir with a capacity of 16,500 cubic meters will eliminate irrigation emergencies and will also enhance the field research capacity at Kiboko. Reliable irrigation is essential for accelerating breeding cycles.

At the same time, the new cold room can preserve the seeds up to two years, preventing the loss of valuable genetic materials and saving costs associated with frequent regeneration of seeds.

KALRO Director General Eliud Kireger officiating the opening of the cold room storage facility at KALRO research station at Kiboko, Kenya. Looking on is CIMMYT Global Maize Program Director, BM Prasanna. (Photo: Susan Otieno/CIMMYT)

World-class research center

“The Kiboko Research Center is indeed growing into an elite research facility that can serve communities in entire sub-Saharan Africa through a pipeline of improved varieties, not only for maize but in other important crops. This will not only improve climate resilience and nutrition, but will contribute to enhanced food and income security for several million smallholder farmers,” said Prasanna.

KALRO Director General Eliud Kireger appreciated the establishment of the new facilities and thanked CIMMYT and its partners for their support.

“Today is a very important day for us because we are launching new and improved facilities for research to support breeding work and quality seed production. This research station is in Makueni County, a very dry area yet important place for research because there is adequate space, especially for breeding,” said Kireger. “We are significantly improving the infrastructure at Kiboko to produce and deliver better seed to our farmers.”

For more than three decades, CIMMYT has conducted research trials at the Kiboko Research Station, focusing on drought tolerance, nitrogen use efficiency, and resistance to pests and diseases, such as fall armyworm and stem borer. The maize Double Haploid (DH) facility established in 2013 at Kiboko, with the support of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, offers DH line production service for organizations throughout Africa, and is key to increasing genetic gains in maize breeding.

Five strides forward for CGIAR crop breeding resources and services

Written by Sarah McLaughlin on . Posted in News.

Sitting at the cutting edge of science, the crop breeding domain has been improving and refining tools, technologies and techniques. But adoption by public breeding programs focusing on Africa, Asia, and Latin America has often been slow. This has hindered progress on developing the new varieties needed for farmers to overcome climate impacts, build livelihoods, and feed their communities.

But One CGIAR’s new integrated approach is changing that. Building on the work of CGIAR Excellence in Breeding, the Breeding Resource Initiative can point to major progress in 2022, moving forward on an array of shared services, capacity development programs and technical support. Here are five significant milestones helping CGIAR and its national partners deliver better results:

1. Regional hubs are on their way: CGIAR’s vision is to have regional hubs coordinating and delivering services across crops. AfricaRice is set to grow into a regional service provider and coordinator for multiple crops in West Africa. After discussions, planning and site visits with BRI, AfricaRice leadership committed to working with the BRI team to start by providing regional nutritional analysis services, aimed to launch for selected partners in 2023. The plan is to then expand AfricaRice’s role as a coordinator of other competitive services like genotyping and capacity building. This is a major step toward CGIAR’s vision of not just improving breeding stations, but serving  all CGIAR/National Agricultural Research and Extension Services (NARES) partners regionally. The aim is collaboration, efficiency and results in farmers’ fields.

2. Operations teams are amping up skills and knowledge: Breeding success hinges on good operational practices leading to accurate data. To ensure the heritability of breeding trials, BRI has offered resources, trainings and on-the-ground support for operational teams. Through its Breeding Operation Network for Development (BOND), BRI/EiB, along with IITA, ran three weeklong workshops for partners across Africa (watch all 22 sessions on plotmanship, gender, seed processing, irrigation and more), regular webinars exploring private and public sector best practices, and a series focusing on continuous improvement approaches. BRI also trained dozens of operational staff across Africa on how to use and maintain new USAID-supplied equipment. And CGIAR continued its push to harmonize rice breeding processes between IRRI, AfricaRice and CIAT through a week-long rice breeding operations training at IRRI. As well, new tools such as a gender inclusion checklist are now available to support operational excellence.

3. EBS is settling in as a universal data platform: The data management platform Enterprise Breeding System has made real strides in the past year, with an updated version with new features (Milestone 5) rolling out across three Centers (CIMMYT, IITA, IRRI), with over 500 users. Other Centers, such as AfricaRice are starting to deploy the system too. On their visit to AfricaRice’s Ivory Coast station, the BRI team noted barcode deployment across the upland rice nurseries – an inspiration to spur other CGIAR Centers to accelerate their own adoption. EBS is a single, powerful, shared, multi-crop platform and its deployment will mean major time and money savings for breeders – and better breeding decisions.

4. Lab services are expanding: As breeders strive for higher-yielding, climate-resilient and nutritious crops, BRI/EiB have been improving breeding speed and accuracy through streamlined, reliable and cost-effective genotyping services. Services include Low Density SNP Genotyping Services (LDSG), Mid-density SNP Genotyping (MDSG), along with training. BRI also launched a Lab Services Process Team to connect Genetic Innovation departments and teams and ensure delivery of high quality services through standardized processes. And launching in 2023, partners will be able to access biochemical testing for nutritional traits and quality. These improved services mean CGIAR and national partners are becoming more effective and competitive as they use this data to make better decisions.

5. Regional approaches set to drive change: BRI drives change at both local and regional levels. For example, team members visited Kiboko and Njoro stations in Kenya, and ran planning sessions in Nairobi with East African breeding teams. This helped clarify challenges and priorities in the region, helping define how services could best be established. Kenya’s key outcomes included: a commitment with CIMMYT leadership to establish services in Kiboko as a pilot, an action plan to improve EBS development and adoption in the region, and endorsement by CGIAR Breeding Research Services leadership of major Crops to End Hunger grants in the region – these fill key gaps in the drive to modernization. The team plans to organize similar sessions to support CGIAR/NARES breeding networks in other regions.

These five strides forward represent but a glimpse into Breeding Resources’ progress. And these are much more than just separate achievements. They represent a shift in breeding culture across the CGIAR-NARES networks – one that will help deliver better varieties, faster. With major plans for 2023, CGIAR-NARES can look forward to the tools and services they need to deliver first-class programs.

Read the original article: Five strides forward for CGIAR crop breeding resources and services

Story and feature photo by Adam Hunt, EiB/BRI/ABI Communications Lead. We would like to thank all funders who support this research through their contributions to the CGIAR Trust Fund. And thank you to the supporters and partners of CGIAR Excellence in Breeding, particularly the funding from Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

‘Perennial’ rice saves time and money, but comes with risks

Written by Sarah McLaughlin on . Posted in In the media.

The largest real-world test of grains that grow year after year without replanting is showing promise for saving money, helping the environment, and reducing labor in China.

Initial trials with perennial rice as part of the Sustainable Agrifood Systems (SAS) program by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) suggest the crop could be a game changer for agriculture and food security.

The next phase of the research will determine whether farmers wish to adopt Perennial Rice 23 (PR23), which has been developed by breeding an Asian variety of rice with a wild, perennial relative from Nigeria.

Read the original article: ‘Perennial’ rice saves time and money, but comes with risks

The critical role of smallholder farmers of the Eastern Gangetic Plains in the global food chain

Written by Sarah McLaughlin on . Posted in Features.

The Eastern Gangetic Plains (EGP) are vulnerable to climate change and face tremendous challenges, including heat, drought, and floods. More than 400 million people in this region depend on agriculture for their livelihoods and food security; improvements to their farming systems on a wide scale can contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) has been supporting smallholder farmers to make agriculture more profitable, productive, and sustainable while also safeguarding the environment and encouraging women’s participation through a partnership with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT). On World Food Day, these projects are more important than ever, as scientists strive to leave no one behind.

The EGP have the potential to significantly improve food security in South Asia, but agricultural production is still poor, and diversification opportunities are few. This is a result of underdeveloped markets, a lack of agricultural knowledge and service networks, insufficient development of available water resources, and low adoption of sustainable farming techniques.

Current food systems in the EGP fail to provide smallholder farmers with a viable means to prosper, do not provide recommended diets, and impose undue strain on the region’s natural resources. It is therefore crucial to transform the food system with practical technological solutions for smallholders and with scaling-up initiatives.

Zero tillage wheat growing in the field in Fatehgarh Sahib district, Punjab, India. It was sown with a zero tillage seeder known as a Happy Seeder, giving an excellent and uniform wheat crop. (Photo: Petr Kosina/CIMMYT)

ACIAR: Understanding and promoting sustainable transformation of food systems

Over the past ten years, ACIAR has extensively focused research on various agricultural techniques in this region. The Sustainable and Resilient Farming Systems Intensification in the Eastern Gangetic Plains (SRFSI) project sought to understand local systems, demonstrate the efficacy of Conservation Agriculture-based Sustainable Intensification (CASI) approaches, and create an environment that would support and scale-up these technologies.

To establish a connection between research outputs and development goals, the Transforming Smallholder Food Systems in the Eastern Gangetic Plains (Rupantar) project expands on previous work and partnership networks. This is a collaborative venture with CIMMYT that demonstrates inclusive diversification pathways, defines scaling up procedures for millions of smallholder farmers in the region, and produces a better understanding of the policies that support diversification.

Building the future and inspiring communities

Men and women both contribute substantially to farming activities in the EGP of India, Bangladesh, and Nepal, but gender roles differ according to location, crops and opportunities. It is a prevalent perception supported by culture, tradition, and social biases that women cannot be head of the household.

In Coochbehar, India, the unfortunate passing of Jahanara Bibi’s husband left her as head of her household and sole guardian of her only son. Though a tragic event, Bibi never gave up hope.

Going through hardships of a rural single female farmer intensified by poverty, Bibi came to know about CASI techniques and the use of zero-till machines.

Though it seemed like a far-fetched technique at first and with no large network to rely on for advice, Bibi decided to gather all her courage and give it a try. Being lower cost, more productive, adding income, and saving her time and energy all encouraged Bibi to adopt this zero-till machine in 2013, which she uses to this day. Today, she advocates for CASI technology-based farming and has stood tall as an inspiration to men and women.

“I feel happy when people come to me for advice – the same people who once thought I was good for nothing,” said Bibi.

With no regrets from life and grateful for all the support she received, Bibi dreams of her future as a female agro-entrepreneur. Being a lead female farmer of her community and having good contact with the agriculture office and conducive connection with local service providers, she believes that her dream is completely achievable and can inspire many single rural female farmers like herself to encourage them to change perceptions about the role of women.

Cover photo: Jahanara Bibi standing by her farm, Coochbehar, India. (Photo: Manisha Shrestha/CIMMYT)