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funder_partner: Agrovegetal

Accord of international center and Spanish cooperative seed supplier will bolster farmers’ access to climate-resilient wheat in the Mediterranean Basin

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

Agrovegetal delegation stands with CIMMYT leaders and researchers. (Photo: CIMMYT)

A new agreement between a leading Spanish seed company, Agrovegetal, and the international research center CIMMYT will help safeguard the regional availability of high-yielding, climate-resilient varieties of wheat, the region’s vital food staple.

The agreement was signed on 21 February 2024 at the Mexico headquarters of CIMMYT, a non-profit organization whose breeding contributions are present in half the maize and wheat varieties sown in low- and middle-income countries.

It comes at a time when severe drought threatens wheat crops in Southern Europe and North African nations such as Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia and imports of wheat grain from traditional suppliers —Russia, the EU, Ukraine, and the US—are costly and constrained.

Since its formation in 1998 as a conglomerate of seed-producing cooperatives and a few industrial partners, Agrovegetal has been testing hundreds of CIMMYT breeding lines of bread and durum wheat (the latter used for pasta and couscous) and triticale (a wheat x rye hybrid) and returning high-quality data each year on the performance of this germplasm.

“The erratic rainfall, droughts, and crop disease patterns of Andalucía in southern Spain, where Agrovegetal tests the lines, are very much like those of North Africa, an important target region for CIMMYT genetics and agronomic solutions” said Bram Govaerts, director general of CIMMYT. “This new agreement, which guarantees the Agrovegetal-CIMMYT partnership through 2028, thus helps ensure CIMMYT’s capacity to offer outstanding, well adapted lines for the Mediterranean region, including North Africa’s national breeding programs, a great boon to farmers and consumers’ economies, food security, and nutrition.”

For its part, after several years of testing, Agrovegetal registers the most promising CIMMYT lines as improved varieties in Spain and markets their seed to members of its cooperatives.

“For us, the contributions of CIMMYT are invaluable,” said Ignacio Solis Martell, the company’s technical director. “Thanks to CIMMYT’s exceptional genetic material, Agrovegetal has become synonymous with resilience in Andalusia. Our varieties are renowned for their performance in the face of adversity, whether it be disease, drought, or other challenges.”

According to Govaerts, Agrovegetal offers an excellent model for burgeoning private seed enterprises in North Africa and elsewhere. “It shows how farmers, seed producers, and industry can join forces, skills, and resources to control seed, a critical factor in food production.”

Singh recognized for wheat crop improvement

Written by Sarah McLaughlin on . Posted in News.

Ravi Singh delivers a lecture during the 61st All India Wheat and Barley Research Workers’ Meet celebrating the fruitful partnership of CIMMYT and ICAR. (Credit: SAWBAR)

Ravi Singh, head of wheat improvement and rust research at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), received the Sh. VS Mathur Memorial Award 2022 for outstanding contribution in the field of wheat crop improvement from the Society for Advancement of Wheat and Barley Research (SAWBAR).

Singh received the award from T. R. Sharma, Deputy Director General of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) and G. P. Singh, Director of the Indian Institute for Wheat and Barley Research (IIWBR) at ICAR.

As recipient of the award, Singh delivered a lecture during the 61st All India Wheat and Barley Research Workers’ Meet in Gwalior, India, on August 29. He highlighted and praised the partnership between India and CIMMYT as essential for accelerating gains in wheat yield despite the stresses of climate change thanks to improved resilience in new varieties and earlier sowing.

“The ICAR-CIMMYT wheat improvement partnership remains crucial for delivering new varieties with higher rates of genetic gain in farmers’ fields to enhance productivity, climate resilience, disease resistance and nutrition while meeting market needs,” he said.

Successes of the partnership include integrated breeding with a common agenda, commercialized varieties that are adapted to flexible sowing dates including early sowing, diverse and durable resistance to rust diseases, adoption of wheat blast resistant varieties in large areas, biofortified and high-quality varieties, and the move towards mainstreaming of zinc (Zn) biofortification.

Singh also paid homage to the award’s namesake, as VS Mathur’s “wheat varieties once occupied fields of many millions of farmers and provided food and nutrition to many more millions throughout India and beyond”.

Singh, a CIMMYT scientist, receives the Sh. VS Mathur Memorial Award for his outstanding contribution in the field of wheat crop improvement. (Credit: SAWBAR)

About SAWBAR:

SAWBAR was founded in 2007 and is housed at ICAR-Indian Institute of Wheat and Barley Research Karnal (Haryana) India. The Society presently has 300 life members and more than 320 annual and student members. SAWBAR is playing a significant role in bringing wheat and barley researchers on one platform for the exchange of innovative research and dissemination of knowledge related to the latest research happenings in the area of wheat and barley improvement. Annually, SAWBAR gives awards to pioneer cereal workers in various award categories. 

About the Sh. VS Mathur Mathur Memorial Award:

The Sh. VS Mathur Memorial Award was constituted in year 2018 in the memory of eminent wheat worker Sh. VS Mathur. Mathur was one of the pioneer wheat workers who worked tirelessly with MS Swaminathan and HK Jain and developed a large number of high-yielding wheat varieties viz. Heera, Moti, Janak (HD 1982), Arjun (HD 2009), HD 2177, HD 2182, HD 2204, HD 2236, HD 2278, HD 2281, HD 2285, HD 2329, HD 2307 and HD 2327 for various regions of India.

Agrovegetal and CIMMYT renew alliance

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AgrovegetalOn 12 April 2013, CIMMYT director general Thomas Lumpkin and José Ortega Cabello, chairman of the Campo de Tejada cooperative in Spain, signed a five-year extension of a collaborative agreement between Agrovegetal S.A. and CIMMYT dating back to 1998. The objective of the agreement is to develop improved durum wheat, bread wheat, and triticale varieties.

Agrovegetal is an association of several farmer cooperatives and other entities, whose objective is to offer quality seed to farmers in the AndalucĂ­a region of Spain. To that end, it channels resources and efforts towards strategic research and development priorities and activities aimed at developing improved varieties.

Ortega Cabello, Ignacio Solís Martel, Agrovegetal’s technical director, and Rafael Sánchez de Puerta Díaz from the Andalucian Federation of Agricultural Cooperatives, met with Hans Braun, CIMMYT’s Global Wheat Program director, to define the specific durum wheat, bread wheat, and triticale research activities that will be conducted to develop high-yielding, highquality, drought-tolerant, and disease-resistant varieties.

Among the alliance’s successes to date is the development of materials with high yield stability and resistance to downy mildew and leaf rust, as well as durums with high pasta-making quality and bread wheats with good baking quality and yellow rust resistance. It has also produced triticales with high protein content, high specific grain weight, and resistance to foliar diseases (downy mildew, rusts, and septoria).