A new fact sheet captures the impact of CIMMYT after six decades of maize and wheat research in Pakistan.
Dating back to the 1960s, the research partnership between Pakistan and CIMMYT has played a vital role in improving food security for Pakistanis and for the global spread of improved crop varieties and farming practices.
Norman Borlaug, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and first director of CIMMYT wheat research, kept a close relationship with the nation’s researchers and policymakers. CIMMYT’s first training course participant from Pakistan, Manzoor A. Bajwa, introduced the high-yielding wheat variety “Mexi-Pak” from CIMMYT to help address the national food security crisis. Pakistan imported 50 tons of Mexi-Pak seed in 1966, the largest seed purchase of its time, and two years later became the first Asian country to achieve self-sufficiency in wheat, with a national production of 6.7 million tons.
CIMMYT researchers in Pakistan examine maize cobs. (Photo: CIMMYT)
In 2019 Pakistan harvested 26 million tons of wheat, which roughly matches its annual consumption of the crop.
In line with Pakistan’s National Food Security Policy and with national partners, CIMMYT contributes to Pakistan’s efforts to intensify maize- and wheat-based cropping in ways that improve food security, raise farmers’ income, and reduce environmental impacts. This has helped Pakistani farmers to figure among South Asia’s leaders in adopting improved maize and wheat varieties, zero tillage for sowing wheat, precision land leveling, and other innovations.
With funding from USAID, since 2013 CIMMYT has coordinated the work of a broad network of partners, both public and private, to boost the productivity and climate resilience of agri-food systems for wheat, maize, and rice, as well as livestock, vegetable, and fruit production.
The fall armyworm (Spodoptera frugiperda; FAW), an insect-pest native to the Americas, has been a persistent and serious pest of maize for over a century. Public and private sector scientists in the Americas – particularly in Brazil and the United States – have developed and deployed effective strategies to control the pest.
Incidence of fall armyworm was first reported in Nigeria in January 2016, and subsequently in over 40 countries across Africa. In Asia, the pest was first reported in India in mid-2018, and has since emerged in several countries in the Asia-Pacific. Strategies for fall armyworm management in both Africa and the Asia-Pacific can benefit immensely from those already fine-tuned in the Americas, with necessary customization to fit local agroecologies and farming systems. There is also a need to intensively work on various aspects of integrated pest management (IPM) for effective and sustainable fall armyworm management. This includes Research-for-Development (R4D) for discovering, validating and piloting best-bet technological interventions or management practices.
This project brings together the expertise of key institutions with long-standing experience in effectively dealing with transboundary insect-pests to strengthen the capacities of Africa- and Asia-based institutions in fall armyworm management. The goal is to develop and disseminate comprehensive, expert approved, IPM-based fall armyworm pest management practices that will enable various stakeholders – especially farmers, extension agents, and pest control advisors – to effectively scout, determine the need for, and appropriately apply specific interventions to control the fall armyworm in maize and other crops in Africa and Asia.
Objectives
Develop, publish and disseminate comprehensive, expert-approved, IPM-based information resources for various stakeholder groups
Integrate traits for fall armyworm resistance into the CIMMYT breeding pipeline
Establish a fall armyworm Research-for-Development (R4D) Consortium
In July 2019 ICIMOD, along with its partners and the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre in Mexico, launched a web-based Regional Drought Monitoring and Outlook System for South Asia – an integrated information platform linking weather and climate data with agriculture practices in South Asia. The system provides multiple indices for droughts and seasonal weather outlooks, besides maps and baseline. Read more here.
This year opens the Decade of Family Farming (#FamilyFarmingDecade), which aims to improve the life of family farmers around the world. In an earnest discussion, two leaders in the global agriculture community reflect on the challenges facing family farmers, the promises of high- and low-tech solutions, and their hopes for the future.
A conversation between Martin Kropff, Director General of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT) and Trevor Nicholls, CEO of CABI.
On the unique challenges facing family farms
Trevor Nicholls (CABI): Family farmers come in many shapes and sizes but for me, the words “family farmer” bring a focus on smallholders and people who are starting on a journey of making a farming business. It depends on which part of the world you’re talking about; a family farm in the UK is perhaps very different to a small family farm in Ethiopia. And family farms can grow from just a small plot to being quite large commercial enterprises.
Martin Kropff (CIMMYT): All agriculture started with family farms. Fifty years ago in my home country, the Netherlands, farms were almost all family farms. When we look globally, farms in places like India, Pakistan, and Kenya are very often small, and the whole family is involved.
KROPFF: When the whole family is involved, gender dynamics come out. In a way, family farming is very often the farming done by women. This makes women the most important players in agriculture in many developing countries. It’s crucial to recognize this and understand their decision-making. For example, our research shows that men and women value different traits in crop varieties. We need to understand this to have successful interventions.
NICHOLLS: We’ve seen something similar through our Plantwise plant clinics, where farmers come for practical plant health advice. We see a definite pattern of men bringing in cash crops for advice, and women looking more at fruits and vegetables to feed their family. But overall, mostly men come into our clinics, particularly in certain parts of the world. We’re trying to encourage more female participation by timing the clinics so that they fit into women’s routines without getting in the way of taking care of elderly relatives or getting kids off to school. Sometimes really simple things can open up access and improve the gender balance.
KROPFF: When the whole family is involved, there are also downsides. In Africa, young people do much of the weeding.
NICHOLLS: That’s right, they may be pulled out of school for weeding.
KROPFF: This really worries me. Hand weeding is such hard labor, such an intensive use of energy; it seems like it should be something of the past. Children don’t want to do it anymore. My wife is from the generation where children still did weeding in the Netherlands. She remembers standing in the fields weeding when the sun was extremely warm while her friends were out doing other things.
NICHOLLS: It starts kids off on the wrong path, doesn’t it? If their experience of farming is backbreaking weeding from the age of 8 onwards, it’s highly unlikely to attract them into farming as a career.
A farmer uses a smartphone to access market information.
On keeping young people interested in farming
NICHOLLS: We need to look at things like weed control as a social issue. It’s possible, for example, to use beneficial insects to limit the spread of certain weeds that infest farmland. Biocontrol and Integrated Pest Management should be seen as ways of reducing the spread of certain weeds, and also as ways to reduce the burden on women and youth.
KROPFF: I agree. Similarly, we’re finding that small-scale mechanization is making a difference for youth, and also women’s labor in Latin America, Africa and Asia, where CIMMYT has been introducing two-wheel tractors that can be engineered in local workshops. Suddenly, smallholders can harvest the entire wheat crop of 20 families in one day. This saves so much time, money, and effort, eliminating some of the “bad” labor that may discourage youth and unfairly burden women. Farmers can focus on the “nice” aspects of the business. It’s a real game changer for family farming.
NICHOLLS: Yes and this can also be amplified through digital technology. People refer to the “Uber-ization” of tractors, where farmers are able to hire a piece of mechanical equipment for a very short space of time, and maybe it even comes with an experienced driver or operator. We’re finding that digital tools like artificial intelligence, satellite imaging, smartphones, and other modern technologies, will intrigue youth anywhere in the world. These will hopefully have an impact on bringing more youth back into farming, as they start to see it as technologically enabled rather than straightforward muscle power.
On the transformations that need to happen
KROPFF: If we want to keep youth engaged, and improve farmers’ livelihoods, I think farming needs to become more entrepreneurial. Many family farms are only half a hectare. I think this has to grow somehow, though land rights and ownership are a challenge
NICHOLLS: As farming becomes more business-like in Africa then we’re going to see the same sort of consolidation that we saw in the United States and Europe, whereby farm sizes do get larger even if land ownership remains fragmented.
This could happen through cooperatives, which offer economies of scale and also help farmers spread the costs of things like access to inputs, advice, weather insurance and crop insurance. But we need to view cooperatives as more than a way to infuse new technologies into the farming system. They are in fact a channel for helping farmers gain stronger business skills, so they can get a better bargain for themselves.
KROPFF: In Mexico we are working with 300,000 smallholder farmers in a sustainable maize and wheat sourcing initiative. Rather than “pushing” new varieties and technologies at farmers, we help them partner with maize and wheat companies to create a local demand for high quality, sustainable products. Real scaling up, especially for wheat and maize, needs more than extension. Farmers need better links to the market.
NICHOLLS: If farms get larger and more mechanized, it means fewer people are involved in the business of farming. This shift means that people will need other rural occupations, so that they don’t just leave the land and move to the city. We need investments in other productive activities in rural areas. This could be around post-harvest processing of crops: adding value locally rather than shipping the raw materials elsewhere.
KROPFF: Exactly. We’ve been doing more work on this in the last ten years. CIMMYT works on wheat and maize, and these are products that need to be processed. Doing this locally would also help people save food in the future for more difficult times, instead of selling to someone from the city who may buy it for an unfair price. Farmers these days have access via smartphones to market information, which is empowering. We see it happening in Africa. It’s really crucial.
NICHOLLS: We’re certainly seeing the power of digital technologies, which are also helping us move beyond just responding to crop pests and diseases to being able to get better at predicting outbreaks on a micro-scale. By linking ground observations through our Plantwise clinics with satellite observation technology and data, we’ve developed a program called PRISE (Pest Risk Information SErvice), which provides farmers with alerts before a pest is likely to reach its peak point, so that they can be prepared and take preventative measures.
KROPFF: Without a doubt, smallholder farmer communities are rapidly entering the digital age, and tools on weather prediction, selection of varieties, market information are very important and transforming the way people farm.
A farmer requests weather information via SMS.
On climate change
KROPFF: Climate change is going to be the issue affecting family farmers, especially in Asia and Africa where the population will grow by 2 billion people who need food that has been produced on their own continents. Yields have to rise and climate change brings yields down. We have to help smallholder family farmers keep doing their job and ensure crop yields, which is why climate change is embedded into 70% of our work at CIMMYT. One major area is developing and testing heat- and drought-tolerant varieties that suit local climates. Last year I was in Zimbabwe, which was experiencing El Niño, and I was very impressed by the difference in maize yields from drought and heat-tolerant varieties compared to the normal varieties.
NICHOLLS: That’s very good. In addition to drought and heat, we see pests and diseases appearing in new places as a result of climate change. Pests and diseases will cause crop losses of up to 40% on average. Stemming those losses is critical. We’re seeing invasive species, such as fall armyworm, and many invasive weeds and trees that are effectively stealing arable and pastoral land from farmers, as well as water resources.
Pest-resistant crops have great long-term potential, but farmers also need short-term solutions while they wait for new varieties to become available. One of CABI’s strengths is scanning for solutions from other parts of the world. With fall armyworm, we are looking to South America, where the pest originates, for solutions and natural enemies. We’re also scanning our fungal culture collection for samples that may have properties that can form the basis for biopesticides, and therefore open up a program of biological control.
Hopes for the future
NICHOLLS: I’m very optimistic for family farmers. They are incredibly resilient and resourceful people, and they survive and thrive in pretty difficult circumstances. But the world is getting more challenging for them by the day. I think the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have framed many of the issues very well, in terms of food security and livelihoods, sustainable consumption and production, and this will help to focus attention on family farmers.
I do see some quite encouraging signs, particularly in Africa, where the CAADP (Comprehensive Africa Agricultural Development Programme) has brought much greater coordination among countries. We’re seeing more unity in the requests we receive from our member countries to help them address the issues that are in the SDGs. That makes the work of our organizations easier, because we’re addressing a broader set of demands. And in turn, that will benefit family farmers.
Technology, be it biotechnology or telecommunications and ICTs, is becoming so much more affordable over time. The rate that smartphone usage is spreading in Africa and Asia is incredible. In many areas we actually have most of the technology we need today. It’s about getting it put into practice effectively with large numbers of farmers. So I remain very optimistic about the future.
KROPFF: I’m an optimist by nature. That’s also why I’m in this job: it’s not easy, but I really believe that change is possible if we have our act together and collaborate with CABI and other international research partners, national systems and the private sector. For a long time, people said that there was no Green Revolution in Africa, where yields remained one ton per hectare. But today we see yields increasing in countries like Nigeria, and in Ethiopia, where maize yields are 3.5 tons per hectare. Good things are happening because of family farming.
I believe that to increase yields you need three components: better seeds for more resilient crop varieties; sustainable intensification to grow more nutritious food per unit of water, land and soil; and good governance, to properly manage resources. We need to invest in all of these areas.
NICHOLLS: I fully agree. We need to work on all these areas, and harness the power of modern technology to help family farmers thrive now, and in the future.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
At the African Green Revolution Forum 2019, global and African leaders come together to develop actionable plans that will move African agriculture forward. This year, the forum is taking place in Ghana on the week of September 3, 2019, under the theme “Grow digital: Leveraging digital transformation to drive sustainable food systems in Africa.” Participants will explore the practical application of the emerging elements of the digital era such as big data, blockchain, digital IDs, drones, machine learning, robotics, and sensors.
CIMMYT’s work in this area is showcased in a new leaflet entitled “Data-driven solutions for Africa: Using smart tools to combat climate change.” The leaflet highlights innovations such as crowdsourced crop disease tracking and response systems in Ethiopia, low-cost imaging tools to speed up the development of hardier varieties, and combining geospatial data with crop models to predict climate change and deliver personalized recommendations to farmers.
A new publication highlights the diverse ways in which CIMMYT’s research is propelling the digital transformation of agriculture in Africa.
Speaking at the conference attended by 2,000 delegates and high-level dignitaries, CIMMYT Director General Martin Kropff will give the keynote remarks during the session “Digital innovations to strengthen resilience for smallholders in African food systems” on September 3. This panel discussion will focus on how the data revolution can support African smallholder farmers to adapt quickly challenges like recurrent droughts or emerging pests, including the invasive fall armyworm. The Global Resilience Partnership (GRP), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), CABI, and the Minister of Agriculture of Burkina Faso will be among the other panelists in the session.
The same day, CIMMYT will also participate to an important “Agronomy at scale through data for good” panel discussion with speakers from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, research organizations and private companies. The session will highlight how digital agriculture could help deliver better targeted, site-specific agronomic advice to small farmers.
During the forum, the CIMMYT delegation will seek collaborations in other important drivers of change like gender transformation of food systems and smallholder mechanization.
They will join public sector leaders, researchers, agri-preneurs, business leaders and farmers in outlining how to leverage the growth in digital technologies to transform food systems and agricultural livelihoods in Africa.
Climate Services for Resilient Development (CSRD) is a global partnership that connects climate and environmental science with data streams to generate decision support tools and training for decision-makers in developing countries. Translating complex climate information into easy to understand actionable formats to spread awareness in the form of climate services is core to CSRD’s mission. CSRD works across South Asia (with emphasis on Bangladesh), the Horn of Africa (Ethiopia), and in South America (Colombia) to generate and provide timely and useful climate information, decision tools and services. In South Asia, CSRD focusses the development, supply and adaptation of agricultural climate services to reduce vulnerability by increasing resiliency in smallholder farming systems. These goals are strategically aligned with the Global Framework for Climate Services.
Project description
CSRD in South Asia aims to have the impact by increasing climate resilient farm management, indicated by increased use of climate services and climate information to inform farmers on how to better manage their production systems. CSRD also aims to develop and validate models for agricultural climate services that can be replicated in other regions with similar farming systems and climate risks, while also fine-tuning weather and climate advisories to be most useful to farmers’ decision-making. A series of sustained contributions to CSRD’s Action and Learning Framework Pillars 1-4, detailed below, are envisioned as major project outcomes:
Pillar 1: Create the solution space: CSRD works to establish a problem-focus, to engage key stakeholders, to create a platform for sustained communication and collaboration, and to build synergies among relevant programs.
Pillar 2: Utilize quality data, products, and tools CSRD provides access to useful and available information and technology, and to develop tailored products and services responsive to problem-specific needs.
Pillar 3: Build capacities and platforms CSRD supports the use of targeted products and services, and to promote sustainability, scalability, and replicability.
Pillar 4: Build knowledge A key goal of CSRD’s work is to identify and promote good practices among the global climate services community and to support research efforts and innovation that increase the effectiveness of climate services.
Outputs
CSRD in South Asia will ultimately generate the following broad outputs and services:
A strengthened enabling environment for the generation, uptake, and use of weather and climate services to support resilient agricultural development.
Download the report summarizing CSRD activities, achievements, and challenges during the first year (from November 2016 through December 2017).
The CSRD consortium in South Asia is led by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) in partnership with the Bangladesh Meteorological Department (BMD), Bangladesh Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE), Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council (BARC), Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI), International Center for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), International Institute for Climate and Society (IRI), University de Passo Fundo (UPF), and the University of Rhode Island (URI). This consortium provides strength and technical expertise to develop relevant climate products that can assist farmers and other stakeholders with relevant information to improve decision making, with the ultimate goal of increasing resilience to climate-related risks. The CSRD consortium also works to assure that climate information can be conveyed in ways that are decision-relevant to farmers and other agricultural stakeholders.
Farmers harvest squash in Uttarakhand, India. (Photo: Jitendra Raj Bajracharya/ICIMOD)
To mitigate the food security and economic risks of South Asia’s frequent and intense droughts, scientists and policymakers from the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) and the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) recently joined forces to launch an innovative decision support and agricultural planning system that combines remote sensing and climate data analysis for drought monitoring and early warning.
The Regional Drought Monitoring and Outlook System application was unveiled during a workshop to train experts and policymakers in its use at relevant regional and national institutes in Islamabad, Pakistan, from July 29 to August 1, 2019. The Regional Drought Monitoring and Outlook System is the product of an ICIMOD-CIMMYT partnership through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) supported SERVIR Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH) programme, in collaboration with Climate Service for Resilient Development (CSRD), led by ICIMOD and CIMMYT, respectively.
“Commonly associated with epic flooding, particularly in the enormous breadbasket region known as the Indo-Gangetic Plains that extends across Pakistan, India, southern Nepal, and Bangladesh, the region also faces droughts driven by rising temperatures and erratic rainfall and which threaten crops, food security, and livelihoods,” said Faisal Mueen Qamer, Remote Sensing Specialist of ICIMOD, which helped develop the system and organize the workshop.
“We expect the system to foster resilience in South Asian agriculture, while supporting future institutional frameworks and policies for farm compensation and adaptation, through decision makers’ access to timely and action-oriented information,” Qamar explained.
With a growing population of 1.6 billion people, South Asia hosts 40% of the world’s poor and malnourished on just 2.4% of its land. A 2010 study found a linear drop of 7.5% in rainfall in South Asia from 1900 to 2005.
“Shrinking glaciers, water scarcity, rising sea levels, shifting monsoon patterns, and heat waves place considerable stress on South Asian countries, whose primary employment sector remains agriculture,” said Mohammad Faisal, Director General for South Asia at Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, during the workshop opening.
Participants at the regional workshop on earth observation and climate data analysis for agriculture drought monitoring in South Asia. (Photo: ICIMOD)
Raising awareness about drought and its mitigation
Twenty-three participants from six South Asia countries plus five expert instructors attended the workshop, which offered presentations and hands-on training on a suite of applications and associated data analysis tools, including the South Asian Land Data Assimilation System (SALDAS), the Regional Drought Explorer, and the National Drought Early Warning System.
Muhammad Azeem Khan, Member of the Food Security & Climate Change at the Planning Commission of Pakistan, said the scale of present and future climate challenges is clearly evident.
“In Pakistan, we regularly see parts of the country in the grip of severe drought, while others have flash floods,” Khan commented during the workshop closing, while commending its organizers. “Frequent drought diminishes agricultural production and food security, especially for people in rural areas. Effectively managing the impacts of climate change requires a response that builds and sustains South Asia’s social, economic, and environmental resilience, as well as our emergency response capacity.”
Through CSRD, a global partnership that connects climate and environmental science with data streams to generate decision support tools and training for decision-makers in developing countries, CIMMYT helped extend the Regional Drought Monitoring and Outlook System to Bangladesh, from its original coverage of Afghanistan, Nepal, and Pakistan.
“Translating complex climate information into easy-to-understand and actionable formats is core to CSRD’s mission and helps spread awareness about climate challenges,” said Tim Krupnik, CIMMYT cropping systems agronomist based in Bangladesh. “This consortium provides strength and technical expertise to develop relevant climate products, including decision-support information for farmers and other stakeholders, thus fostering resilience to climate-related risks.”
Family farmers produce more than 80% of the world’s food, but often have the least amount of access to support.
As the UN Decade of Family Farming launched on May 29, 2019, I talked with Trevor Nicholls, CEO of the Centre for Agriculture and Bioscience International (CABI), on this topic.
On an article published on the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Food Sustainability Index blog, we propose six key actions that can help family farmers thrive in the coming decade:
Invest in women and youth: Make family farming work for all
Attract young farmers into tech-smart farming
Make climate-resilient crops more accessible
Share practical plant health advice with family farmers
Help family farmers diversify and grow more from less land
Translate national and global goals into practical farming support
Fall armyworm, a voracious pest now present in both Africa and Asia, has been predicted to cause up to $13 billion per year in crop losses in sub-Saharan Africa, threatening the livelihoods of millions of farmers throughout the region.
“In their haste to limit the damage caused by the pest, governments in affected regions may promote indiscriminate use of chemical pesticides,” say the authors of a recent study on fall armyworm management. “Aside from human health and environmental risks,” they explain, “these could undermine smallholder pest management strategies that depend largely on natural enemies.”
Agro-ecological approaches offer culturally appropriate, low-cost pest control strategies that can be easily integrated into existing efforts to improve smallholder incomes and resilience through sustainable intensification. Researchers suggest these should be promoted as a core component of integrated pest management programs in combination with crop breeding for pest resistance, classical biological control and selective use of safe pesticides.
However, the suitability of agro-ecological measures for reducing fall armyworm densities and impact must be carefully assessed across varied environmental and socioeconomic conditions before they can be proposed for wide-scale implementation.
To support this process, researchers at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) reviewed evidence for the efficacy of potential agro-ecological measures for controlling fall armyworm and other pests, consider the associated risks and draw attention to critical knowledge gaps. Findings from the Africa-wide study indicate that several measures can be adopted immediately, such as sustainable soil management, intercropping with appropriately selected companion plants and the diversification of farm environments through management of habitats at multiple spatial scales.
Read the full article “Agro-ecological options for fall armyworm (Spodoptera frugiperda JE Smith) management: Providing low-cost, smallholder friendly solutions to an invasive pest” in the Journal of Environmental Management, Volume 243, 1 August 2019, pages 318-330.
Intercropping options for mitigating fall armyworm damage. (Photo: C. Thierfelder/CIMMYT)
Read more recent publications by CIMMYT researchers:
The Nepal Seed and Fertilizer (NSAF) project facilitates sustainable increases in Nepal’s national crop productivity, income and household-level food and nutrition security, across 20 districts, including five earthquake-affected districts.
Nepal’s agriculture is mostly small-scale and subsistence-oriented, characterized by a mix of crop and livestock farming. The agriculture sector represents about one-third of the country’s gross domestic product and employs 75 percent of the labor force.
Over half of Nepal’s farms operate on less than half a hectare, with the majority unable to produce enough to meet their household food requirements for the whole year. Combined with an increasing urban population, it will not be possible for the country to meet future food demand without increased agricultural productivity and competitiveness of domestic production.
Major cereal crops and vegetables currently have low yields, but there are significant prospects for increases through improved seed and soil fertility management practices. A large part of this yield gap results from a lack of knowledge, inadequate access to affordable improved technologies, extension services and markets due to weak public and private sector capacity to provide support services needed by small scale farmers.
NSAF promotes the use of improved seeds and integrated soil fertility management technologies along with effective and efficient extension, including the use of digital and information and communications technologies. The project will specifically increase availability of technologies to improve productivity in cauliflower, lentils, maize, onions, rice and tomatoes. It will also build competitive seed and fertilizer systems that significantly expand seed production, marketing and distribution by enhancing the capacity of public and private sectors in seed and fertilizer value chains.
Agriculture development needs to be locally owned and led through inclusive business models involving women and disadvantaged groups and farmers institutions. There is a need to further the development of Nepal’s cereals, legumes and vegetable sector by:
Developing market systems that are agile, resilient, and adaptive
Propelling agricultural growth through evidence-based policy change and harmonization.
Food security in Ukraine
Supplemental funds released in 2022 will be used to respond to the impact of the Ukraine war at the household level. CIMMYT and its partners will develop food security and resilient agriculture market systems, to advance the delivery of improved agriculture input management knowledge and technologies, application of best crop management practices, and development of local capacity to apply improved technologies.
The objective is to build resilience of smallholder farmers in four areas:
Protecting and sustaining crop production for strengthening local food production and consumption systems.
Supporting efficient agriculture supply chain.
Strengthening local cooperatives and micro, small- and medium-sized agribusiness enterprises.
Addressing the impact of global fertilizer shortages by exploring innovative products, novel application techniques and local market development.
The community of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) joins former colleagues of John A. Mihm, CIMMYT’s maize entomologist during the 1970s-90s, in honoring his memory and valuable work. John passed away on January 25, 2019, at the age of 72.
Special maize populations developed by Mihm and his CIMMYT contemporaries are critical in today’s global quest for new maize varieties to resist the fall armyworm (Spodoptera frugiperda), according to B.M. Prasanna, director of the CIMMYT Global Maize Program and the CGIAR Research Program on Maize.
“The insect-resistant maize germplasm developed by Mihm is proving an invaluable resource in our fight against this pest, underpinning progress in the development of resistant varieties,” said Prasanna.
Crop entomologists were laboriously placing young insect larvae onto plants in greenhouses and in the field until 1976, when Mihm developed the “bazooka.” A plastic tube with a valve that quickly and easily delivered a uniform mixture of corn grits and insect larvae into individual maize plants, the innovation allowed researchers to infest hundreds of plants in a single morning.
Originally from the Americas, fall armyworm has caused major damage to maize crops in Africa since 2016. The pest is now spreading rapidly in Asia, with incidence on maize crops confirmed in India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand, and southern China.
“Without proper controls, fall armyworm could reduce maize grain harvests in Africa alone by an amount worth as much as US$4.6 billion,” Prasanna explained, citing a 2018 report from the Centre for Agriculture and Biosciences International (CABI).
With support from UNDP, Mihm greatly refined CIMMYT practices to rear larvae of maize insect pests and to apply them efficiently so that researchers could identify resistant plants and use them to breed elite, resilient varieties.
After leaving CIMMYT in 1994, Mihm worked for the U.S. company “French Agricultural Research” in studies on sources of resistance in maize to corn rootworm (Diabrotica spp). He eventually retired happily to his farm in Minnesota, according to Florentino Amasende, a former CIMMYT field assistant who was a close friend and colleague of Mihm.
“John was a friend, a mentor and even a father figure for me,” said Amasende, who with support from Mihm for his university studies rose to seed production specialist in leading seed companies. “My family and I are eternally grateful for the opportunities he gave me.”
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)
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
Suraya Parvin (left), Senior Scientific Officer of BARC, discussing with the facilitator in the training. Photo: Jitendra Raj Bajracharya/ICIMOD.
The training strengthened the remote sensing capabilities of professionals from BARC and BARI in using satellite-based remote sensing tools and crop mapping to monitor drought risks. During the training, participants were exposed to a number of remote sensing and geographic information systems tools including SPIRITS, QGIS, ArcMap, GeoCLIM as well as a foundation course to Google Earth Engine. Additionally, open source platform to perform online and offline data collection using mobile application training was provided.This learning exchange took place in order to address the risks for agricultural drought in portions of north-western Bangladesh where farmers may lack access to, or cannot afford irrigation. This leads to bottlenecks in crop productivity and can impair the livelihoods of smallholder farmers reliant on variable and unpredictable precipitation. Access to quality drought monitoring and forecasting could assist farmers in adapting to these climactic risks. Meteorological and agricultural research institutions play a crucial role in providing improved information flow and drought risks advisories to farmers.
Mir Matin, theme leader of Geospatial Solutions, ICIMOD, organized the training on behalf of CSRD and ICIMOD, alongside Rajesh Bahadur Thapa, capacity building specialist, ICIMOD. ICIMOD’s Bhoj Raj also facilitated sessions on application of these tools.
“Bangladesh, especially the northern region, is most susceptible to drought and it is difficult to grow year-round crops here,” said Suraya Parvin, senior scientific officer of BARC. “To increase the cropping intensity in this region, drought monitoring is very essential. I think this training was extremely useful to prepare us for this challenge.”
The CSRD partnership and ICIMOD are working together to establish user-oriented platforms for the provision of easily accessible, timely and decision relevant scientific information, in the form of climate services. “This training, and the applied science products that will come from it, will be a crucial part of efforts to increase the resilience of Bangladesh’s smallholder farmers to climatic risks,” said Timothy J. Krupnik, systems agronomist, CIMMYT and CSRD project leader. “Working with the graduates of the training on a day-to-day basis, we expect to deepen BARC and BARI’s contributions to applied climate services in Bangladesh.”
Nairobi, Kenya (CIMMYT) – A new comprehensive integrated pest management (IPM)-based technical guide produced by international experts will help scientists, extension agents and farmers to tackle the fall armyworm (Spodoptera frugiperda), which has rapidly spread across the African continent in the last two years, decimating maize crops in its path.
Native to North America, the fall armyworm has recently emerged as a major threat in Africa, where it has been identified in over 30 countries since it was first confirmed on the continent in January 2016. The pest can potentially feed on 80 different crop species but has a preference for maize, which poses a significant threat to the food security, income and livelihoods of over 300 million African smallholder farm families that consume maize as a staple crop.
“The potential impact of the fall armyworm as a major food security and economic risk for African nations cannot be overstated,” said Martin Kropff, director general at CIMMYT.
If proper control measures are not implemented, the fall armyworm could cause extensive maize yield losses of up to $6.2 billion per year in just 12 countries in Africa where its presence has been confirmed, according to the Centre for Agriculture and Biosciences International (CABI).
“The fall armyworm poses an enormous and wide-scale risk to the livelihoods of several million African smallholders, and requires urgent deployment of an IPM strategy and quick response from all stakeholders,” said B.M. Prasanna, director of MAIZE and the Global Maize Program at CIMMYT. “The Fall Armyworm Integrated Pest Management Guide provides comprehensive details on the best management practices to help smallholder farmers effectively and safely control the pest while simultaneously protecting people, animals and the environment.”
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