The CGIAR is one of the biggest suppliers and conservers of crop genetic diversity. CIMMYT’s genebank contains around 28,000 unique samples of maize seed—including more than 24,000 landraces; traditional, locally-adapted varieties that are rich in diversity—and 150,000 of wheat, including related species for both crops. Photo: X. Fonseca/CIMMYT.
NEW DELHI — Conserving and using agricultural biodiversity to create better crops can help meet several sustainable development goals and stave off further species extinctions, according to scientists at the first International Agrobiodiversity Congress.
About 75 percent of plant genetic diversity worldwide has been lost since the beginning of the 20th century and 30 percent of livestock breeds are at risk of extinction, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization. Meanwhile, humans only consume about 1.5 percent of edible plants and only three of these – rice, maize and wheat – contribute nearly 60 percent of calories and proteins obtained by humans from plants. This huge loss in biodiversity due to environmental degradation caused by humans – what many scientists refer to as earth’s “sixth extinction”– is detrimental to global food security and the environment.
“Just a 7-10 percent loss of any major food crop would result in prices quadrupling,” says Howarth Bouis, founder of HarvestPlus and 2016 World Food Prize winner. “Non-staple food prices in India have [already] risen by 50 percent over the past 30 years.” A lack of agricultural diversity puts the world’s entire food chain at risk if a shock – such as increased instances of drought or crop diseases due to rising temperatures from climate change – were to destroy a particular type of crop.
As part of a global response to these challenges, researchers in collaboration with farmers are gathering seed to conserve and protect in genebanks across the world for future generations. These banks are the foundation of agriculture, food security and dietary diversity.
“We don’t know what scientists will need in 30 years,” says Marie Haga, executive director of the Crop Trust. “We need to conserve the entire spectrum [of seeds]. If it’s not being used right now, that does not mean it won’t be critically important in the future.”
New advancements in DNA-sequencing and phenotyping technologies have also created an opportunity to actively use the genetic information of these seeds that did not exist just a few years ago. Crop breeders can now more rapidly and effectively identify seeds that have traits like enhanced nutritional qualities, drought or heat tolerance, or disease resistances to create better crops that withstand challenges related to malnutrition, climate change, disease and more.
For example, in 2012 approximately 23 percent of Kenya’s maize production was lost due to an outbreak of the disease Maize Lethal Necrosis (MLN). Thanks to the efforts of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and other partners, there are now 13 hybrid varieties with tolerance to MLN – created in just four years.
Delegates to the congress also tackled issues regarding the effective and efficient management of genebanks, biosafety and biosecurity, intellectual property rights, access to germplasm, benefit sharing from use of germplasm, and farmers’ role in conservation of genetic resources and other related themes.
The Congress culminated with the adoption of “The Delhi Declaration on Agrobiodiversity Management” that recommended harmonizing multiple legal systems across countries to facilitate the safe transfer of genetic resources, developing and implementing an Agrobiodiversity Index to help monitor the conservation and use of agrobiodiversity in breeding programs, promoting conservation strategies for crop wild relatives and other strategies to strengthen agricultural biodiversity’s role in agricultural development.
Appollonia Marutsvaka (left) and Alice Chipato of Zaka District in Zimbabwe. If widely adopted, drought- and heat-tolerant maize varieties could help farmers cope with drought and heat stresses. Photo: J. Siamachira/CIMMYT
HARARE (CIMMYT) — “We are no longer sure when to prepare the land for planting or when to start planting. It’s pretty much gambling with nature,” complains 62-year old Appollonia Marutsvaka of Zaka district, Masvingo province, Zimbabwe. “Most of the time the rains are not enough for crop production. If the situation persists, then most of us who have small farms will sink deeper into poverty, because we depend on agriculture for our livelihoods.”
Most farmers in Zaka argue that they only get one good harvest every five to six years. Changes in weather patterns have turned agriculture into a gamble with nature for smallholder farmers.
It is estimated that maize yields in Zimbabwe and South Africa’s Limpopo Province will decrease by approximately 20-50 percent between now and 2045. This predicted decline will pose a major problem, as maize is the region’s main staple food. Low yields in this region are largely associated with drought stress, low soil fertility, weeds, pests, diseases, low input availability, low input use, and inappropriate seeds.
“Given the accumulating evidence of climate change in sub-Saharan Africa, there is an urgent need to develop more climate resilient maize systems. Adaptation strategies to climate change in maize systems in sub-Saharan Africa are likely to include improved seeds with tolerance to drought and heat stress and improved management practices,” says Jill Cairns, CIMMYT senior maize physiologist.
Cosmos Magorokosho, CIMMYT senior maize breeder, with new experimental hybrid maize on display at the Chiredzi Research Station, Zimbabwe. Scientists here have developed new heat- and drought-tolerant maize varieties. Photo: J. Siamachira/CIMMYT
CIMMYT, together with partners under the CGIAR Research Program on Maize (MAIZE), developed drought- and heat-tolerant maize varieties through its breeding program in sub-Saharan Africa.
Heat tolerance was not previously a trait in African breeding programs. CGIAR Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS)’s work highlighted the importance of heat tolerance in future climates, and in 2011 CIMMYT started breeding for this trait. During the past year, the El Niño induced drought has demonstrated the need for maize which is also heat-tolerant. If CIMMYT had not started working on these varieties in 2011, it would have taken until 2021 to have a drought and heat tolerant maize variety.
A recent media tour of Zaka and Chiredzi districts in Zimbabwe, where CIMMYT conducted regional on-farm variety trials for the new climate-proof seed varieties, revealed that the new drought- and heat-tolerant maize is an important way of combating climate-change induced food shortages. Research carried out by CIMMYT revealed that under experimental conditions, the new varieties doubled maize yields when compared to the yields of commercial varieties.
Smallholder farmer Marutsvaka, who participated in the on-farm variety trials, says: “In the past, I harvested nothing as my crops were literally burnt by the scorching heat. During the 2015-2016 growing season, I realized almost 200 kilograms of white grain.” One of the challenges of these new maize varieties is the time taken between testing and seed availability on the market. For example, some of these new maize varieties would only be on the market during the 2018-2019 agricultural season.
The 2014 African Agriculture Status Report states that the vital food producers face a risk of being overwhelmed by the pace and severity of climate change. The authors called for the adoption of climate-smart agriculture that will help make crops more resilient to future extreme weather events.
Appollonia Marutsvaka shows off her drought- and heat-tolerant maize cobs harvested through a CIMMYT project. Photo: J. Siamachira/CIMMYT
“For our farmers to be productive and ensure food security, we need to build resilience to help them mitigate the onset of climate change,” observed Cosmos Magorokosho, CIMMYT senior maize breeder. “We are talking about a situation when the rain does not come at the right time or the length of the [growing] season is shortened as a result of drought and other stresses, such as heat.”
He added that helping small-scale farmers adopt climate-smart farming techniques would “prepare them for even more serious challenges in the future… this means we need both to adapt agriculture to climate change and to mitigate climate change itself.’’
However, getting a new strain of maize out of the research station is not the same as getting it to the fields. Creating a distribution chain in Africa has been a bigger challenge than inventing the product itself.
Gabriel Chiduku, a sales and marketing representative for Klein Karoo, a private seed company which introduced the CIMMYT developed seed of drought-tolerant varieties to Zaka farmers, told the farmers that the seed is readily available.
With the drought- and heat-tolerant maize varieties, Zaka farmers are producing three tons per hectare of maize, up from less than a ton.
L-R: Judith Rodin, president of the Rockefeller Foundation; Bram Govaerts, CIMMYT Latin America Regional Representative at the World Food Prize. CIMMYT/Ricardo Curiel
DES MOINES, Iowa (CIMMYT) – Transforming subsistence agriculture and unsustainable farming systems into productive and sustainable operations has been the key focus of scientist Bram Govaerts, 2014 recipient of the Norman Borlaug Award for Field Research and Application at the World Food Prize
Govaerts manages the Sustainable Modernization of Traditional Agriculture (MasAgro) program at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), which aims to enable farmers to produce high quality staple grains in sufficient quantities to meet the needs of the Mexican market.
“Starting five years ago, MasAgro and, in particular, its work on technological innovation in farmers’ fields, have been acting upon the infamous instructions of Dr. Norman Borlaug, founder of CIMMYT and of the World Food Prize,” said Govaerts, Latin America Regional Representative of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) while participating in the Borlaug Dialogue panel “Borlaug–Rockefeller: Inspiring a new generation,” coordinated by the World Food Prize Foundation.
“Borlaug told his acolytes to ‘take it to the farmer,’ which is exactly what we have been doing through MasAgro,” Govaerts said.
On the panel hosted by Rockefeller Foundation President Judith Rodin, which included three other young researchers who are also Norman Borlaug Award for Field Research and Application laureates, Govaerts added that MasAgro has produced successful results because its applied field research and capacity building activities transfer technologies to the farm sector through decision-making processes based on reliable and objective data.
“We demand scientific excellence of ourselves because agriculture can only be transformed through innovation networks, mechanisms and smart tools that enable farmers to realize their full potential,” Govaerts said.
Each year, more than 1,000 private and public sector leaders from the international community meet in Des Moines, the state capital of Iowa in the United States, to participate in the Borlaug Dialogue. The conference precedes the presentation of the World Food Prize, which was established by Borlaug, who reached the pinnacle of his career when he was awarded the 1970 Nobel Peace Prize, in recognition of exceptional leaders who have contributed to the fight against world hunger.
Previously, three CIMMYT researchers—Evangelina Villegas, Surinder Vasal and Sanjaya Rajaram—have been awarded this important prize. This year, the World Food Prize Foundation recognized Maria Andrade from Cape Verde, Robert Mwanga from Uganda, and Jan Low and Howarth Bouis, both from the United States, for their work developing and disseminating micronutrient-rich crops, including the biofortified, vitamin A-enriched orange-fleshed sweet potato.
Andrew Mude received the 2016 Norman Borlaug Award for Field Research and Application for developing an insurance program for previously uninsured communities whose livelihoods depend on herding cattle, goats, sheep and camels in the remote, arid and drought-prone lowlands of the Horn of Africa. The field award is sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation.
CIMMYT Director General Martin Kropff (L) and Bram Govaerts, strategy lead for sustainable intensification in Latin America and Latin America Regional Representative, in the Iowa State Capitol in Des Moines attending the 2016 World Food Prize ceremony. CIMMYT/Julie Mollins
DES MOINES, Iowa (CIMMYT) – Africa must develop a strong educational infrastructure to address the challenges of poverty, malnutrition and food insecurity, said experts at the World Food Prize Borlaug Dialogue in Des Moines, Iowa, recommending reforms at both the institutional and individual level to help smallholder farmers.
Almost 220 million people of the 1.2 billion people who live in Africa are undernourished. In sub-Saharan Africa, which lags behind regional and global trends, hunger affects about one out of every four people, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization.
“African countries must become more self-reliant when it comes to education, building on historical achievements to establish a strong infrastructure – not focused only on academic research, but with a practical ‘science for impact’ component as well,” said Martin Kropff, director general of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).
“Many people think education and capacity building are just about training or earning a doctoral degree, but it’s more extensive than that. It’s important to develop a proper framework for training individuals and institutions to ensure countries can achieve development goals.”
CIMMYT trains scientists throughout the developing world to become maize and wheat breeders. In Africa, where CIMMYT conducts 40 percent of its work, a screening facility for maize lethal necrosis disease and a center for double haploid breeding are also used as training facilities for capacity building, also helping to bolster national agricultural systems.
Kropff, who served as rector of Wageningen University and Research Center in the Netherlands before joining CIMMYT in 2015, is laying the groundwork for a “CIMMYT Academy.” The academy will pull together a range of existing training programs, uniting them into a coherent set of activities affiliated with universities throughout Africa to help breeders learn a variety of skills that can broaden their knowledge base.
“The key is to take a unified approach, sometimes a maize or wheat breeder needs also to learn technological and socioeconomic aspects of the work — we need integration – a more well-rounded approach – to really have impact,” Kropff said, adding that each innovation has a socioeconomic component and technological component.
“If we want to help countries in Africa struggling to establish a functional seed distribution system, we have to involve the private sector, so we also need to train people to become entrepreneurs,” he added.
FOUNDATION AND GROWTH
In the 1960s and 1970s, the international community helped set up the first educational development programs throughout Africa creating leadership candidates who subsequently trained many people, said Gebisa Ejeta, the 2009 World Food Prize laureate whose drought-resistant sorghum hybrids have increased food supply for millions of people throughout sub-Saharan Africa. Over time, these programs have provided the necessary foundation upon which to build institutions, he said.
“Nothing is more foundational for development than having native capacity at the human level as well as at the institutional level to really take more experiential learning forward and that way also to benefit greatly from development assistance,” Ejeta added. “Otherwise, it becomes an activity of external programs coming in and out.”
Africa has benefited over the past 10 years from being part of a new global landscape, Ejeta said, pointing to the expansion of infrastructure resulting from assistance from China, the World Bank and the African Development Bank. Simultaneously, Africa is also beginning to invest directly internally.
“Africa needs to benefit from valuable lessons from China, India and Brazil,” Ejeta said. “Each one of them is different, but the common denominator is that they all invested systematically in human and institutional capacity building in their countries to really drive involvement processes taking place to bring about transformative change.”
We need to shift the center of gravity to African governments and scientists, said Joyce Banda, who served as president of Malawi from 2012 to 2014, adding that a major challenge is a lack of extension – many people don’t know how to properly grow crops, use technology or about improved seeds due to a lack of farmer education.
Good agricultural production goes side-by-side with good governance, Banda said. “We need to fight and make sure that our resources are safe for the benefit of agriculture and food security across Africa. Africa needs to educate for change because men are eating first, best and most, but women are growing the food, storing the food, processing the food, cooking the food and eating last and less.”
The average age of an African farmer is 60, but 65 percent of Africans are young people, Banda said, adding that it is a lost opportunity if young people aren’t introduced to agriculture and trained.
CONFRONTING RISKS
Comprehensive individual and institutional capacity building can demonstrate modern agricultural techniques to inspire younger people to embrace farming, said Bram Govaerts, strategy lead for sustainable intensification in Latin America and Latin America Regional Representative at CIMMYT.
“Farmers must be made aware of new farm technology, taught how to apply scientific research to agricultural practices and get opportunities to innovate – education can facilitate the creative process, said Govaerts who won the 2014 Borlaug Award for Field Research and Application endowed by the Rockefeller Foundation and presented by the World Food Prize foundation.
“We need to first make sure partners can produce enough nutritious food for their families and then connect them to networks that can track data and crops all the way from farm to consumer,” he said. “We need to take a holistic approach to innovative post-harvest processes.”
For example, a small sensor placed in a post-harvest storage silo could measure temperature and humidity to protect the crop, but can also connect to a market network, allowing farmers to easily find buyers and prevent food waste.
“Millions of farmers in African countries are suffering from poverty, malnutrition and food insecurity, and a lack of technology prevents them from maximizing their potential contributions to their families and communities,” Govaerts said.
“I’m more and more convinced that change is going to come from innovation networks and the enabling tools that will generate them.”
Roy Cantrell, Jeanie Borlaug Laube, Perry Gustafson, Jessie Dubin, Manel Othmeni , Amor Yahyaoui (L to R), panelists from the global wheat community on the “Training for the Future” session at World Food Prize Borlaug Dialogue.
DES MOINES, Iowa (CIMMYT) — In her youth, Tunisian Manel Othmeni developed an interest in interacting with plants, a fascination that later grew into a passion for wheat research.
“If not for the training funds, I wouldn’t be here today,” said Othmeni on the sidelines of the World Food Prize Borlaug Dialogue conference in Des Moines, Iowa.
“Nowadays a Ph.D. costs a lot of money – the training gives more chances to people from developing countries.”
The Borlaug Training Foundation is an independent, non-profit foundation educating scientists from developing countries to improve food production in vulnerable areas. In the short term, the foundation aims to raise $800,000 to support global training at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT). In the long term, the goal is to raise a $30 million endowment to expand training opportunities to other crops.
“We need to provide hope for eliminating poverty – no child should ever have to go to bed hungry,” said Jeanie Borlaug-Laube, vice president of the foundation and the daughter of the late wheat breeder and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Norman Borlaug.
Scientist Borlaug, who died in 2009 at age 95, led efforts in the mid-20th century to develop high-yielding, disease resistant, semi-dwarf wheat varieties that helped save more than 1 billion lives in Pakistan, India and other areas of the developing world.
“You are the ones who must continue my father’s legacy,” Borlaug-Laube said in an address to conference delegates. “Harness biotechnology, but don’t abandon traditional techniques.”
The foundation also aims to boost training for women scientists, develop partnerships between research institutions and universities in developed nations, provide mentorship opportunities. Wheat studies will focus on plant breeding, genetics, biotechnology, plant pathology, plant physiology and statistics.
“Going out in the field and sweating is one of the best things you can do,” said Jesse Dubin, a plant pathologist who was hired by Borlaug and retired from CIMMYT in 1999 after almost 25 years working with the wheat program.
“This kind of training is critical today and there is no funding for it. The important thing is that we’re working with the whole plant and people, not just the genome.”
Over eight years, Monsanto’s Beachell-Borlaug International Scholars Program has awarded 89 students with rice or wheat breeding fellowships, 52 of them in wheat breeding. The award is named in honor of Borlaug and rice breeder Henry Beachell.
An Earthquake Recovery Support Program beneficiary operates the lightweight and versatile mini-tiller, which is easier and more cost-effective than using bullocks to plough fields. Photo: P. Lowe/CIMMYT
Since the program’s beginning in June 2015 a suite of agricultural assets including mini-tillers and other farm machines, seed and grain storage facilities, agricultural hand tools, technical training and agronomy support have been implemented through its completion this September. Beneficiaries came from across eight of the most risk-prone affected districts in Nepal.
Last year’s earthquake seriously undermined Nepal’s food security with losses estimated at more than $280 million in the agriculture sector alone. Nearly two-thirds of the country’s population relies on agriculture for their livelihood, which has made it even tougher for farmers affected by the earthquake. The quakes destroyed grain and seed stockpiles, killed and injured livestock, wrecked tools and implements and collapsed regional irrigation and agricultural markets’ infrastructure.
While the program’s monitoring and evaluation activities are still underway, initial estimated impacts show the storage bags and cocoons distributed are expected to save about 2,700 tons of grain and seed. In addition, agricultural hand tools have helped sustainable agriculture take hold, and agronomy guides have provided information on new production technologies and management practices. Distributed mini-tillers can also cover 700 hectares of land, reducing drudgery for women in particular due to their light weight. Mechanics trained by the program also ensure mini-tillers will be repaired and available locally, which encourages continued demand for the machines.
CIMMYT Director General Martin Kropff, observes a mini-tiller in operation during his visit in March this year to Nuwakot, one of the districts benefiting from the Earthquake Recovery Support Program in Nepal. Photo: A. Rai/CIMMYT
Subarna Bhandari, one of the recipients from Sindhupalchowk district, operated his mini-tiller for a total of 120 hours, earning approximately $540 within 3 months. The combined 8 machines that were distributed in his area would therefore help the recipients earn over $4,000. Another beneficiary previously needed three pairs of bullocks for two rounds of plowing at a cost of roughly $60. Thanks to the mini-tiller, the same activity now only costs $14.
“Keeping cattle for farm labor is costly and tedious because they need feed and fodder throughout the year, even when they are not in use,” says Mitra Shrestha, a farmer from Nuwakot district. “However, the mini-tiller needs fuel only when it is being used. In one hour the machine can cultivate an area that would require a pair of cattle to work an entire day,” she adds.
Shrestha uses the surplus time she can now spare for vegetable farming and other household chores. “In fact, I now also use the mini-tiller for land preparation of potatoes, since it can till deeper and make ridges.”
Beyond the earthquake program, CSISA is moving some of its activities into these districts so that it can build upon the momentum created around scale-appropriate mechanization over the last year. The Nepal Seed and Fertilizer project, led by CIMMYT, also works in the earthquake zone.
Neal Gutterson, vice president of research at DuPont Pioneer, delivers a presentation on Crispr-Cas at CIMMYT’s 50th anniversary conference. CIMMYT/Sam Storr
MEXICO CITY (CIMMYT) — From the field to the laboratory, new technology plays a major part in the international effort to develop seeds and cropping systems that will help achieve food security, but scientific innovations should be advanced in tandem with nutritional goals, training and public opinion, said delegates attending a 50th anniversary conference in Mexico City hosted by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).
The challenges are enormous. Already at least 900 million people do not get enough food to eat, global population is expected to increase by 2 billion by 2050 and scientists are battling the threat of climate change, which causes erratic weather patterns and global warming, projecting that for each 1 degree Celsius increase in global mean temperature, wheat yields may decline by 6 percent.
Even brief periods of high temperature stress could negatively affect healthy seed development and ultimately cereal yields, said CIMMYT wheat physiologist Matthew Reynolds, speaking on the sidelines of the conference.
“Some models estimate that by the end of the 21st Century, a current 1-in-20 year hottest day will become a 1-in-10 year event, or even occur annually or biannually in many regions,” said Reynolds whose work involves exploring wheat genetic resources for new sources of heat and drought tolerance. “Cereal production is increasing worldwide but current rates of yield growth are not sufficient to satisfy future demand, even without climate change factored in, so we have to expect the worst to avoid the risk of widespread famine.”
Reynolds is working with wheat physiologist Gemma Molero to develop high yield potential, heat and drought resistant plant ideotypes. Molero has designed a tool to assess wheat spike photosynthesis and its impact on grain filling, until now an overlooked aspect of how yields can be increased. She is working with Bayer Crop Science to identify new possibilities for wheat breeding.
Global demand for cereals is expected to reach 3 billion tons by 2050, an increase of 940 million tons from yields produced between 2005 and 2007, with the greatest demand coming from developing countries. The demand shift will lead to significant price increases of more than 50 percent for maize and 25 to 50 percent for other crops even without climate change. If climate change is factored into the equation prices could increase 60 to 97 percent by 2050.
Although controversial, genetically modified (GM) crops constitute one option for increasing yields and have not been proven to be dangerous to eat, said Matin Qaim, professor of international food economics and rural development at the University of Gottingen in Germany, during a presentation. In the developing world, they help farmers to gain yields 20 percent higher than conventionally bred crops and earn almost 70 percent more income, according to Qaim.
“Farmers in developing countries benefit more from genetically modified crops than farmers elsewhere because they suffer more from pests and diseases,” Qaim said. “They also benefit more because most GM technologies are not patented, which means the seeds are cheaper than in developed countries.”
Neal Gutterson, vice president of research and development at DuPont Pioneer and a member of CIMMYT’s board of trustees, described the aims of a new collaboration the company has agreed with CIMMYT to develop crops capable of fighting devastating Maize Lethal Necrosis disease in Africa using CRISPR-Cas, an approach that allows precise “editing” of genes.
“CRISPR-Cas advanced plant breeding technology is a more efficient and targeted plant-breeding technology,” Gutterson said. “It enables the development of customized agriculture solutions to the real challenges farmers around the world face in growing healthy plants.”
Jose Falck-Zepeda, senior research fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute, said that while innovative technology is vital, success will be attained by tackling development initiatives from a broad “whole systems” approach. Currently, science in the food system is built around narrow principles and objectives, he said. Focusing on gender and other equity issues are the starting point for technological change.
CIMMYT’s Water Efficient Maize for Africa (WEMA) project serves as an example of the whole systems approach, said Denis Kyetere, executive director of the African Agricultural Technology Foundation. Through WEMA, maize varieties are being developed using conventional breeding and biotechnology by CIMMYT, Monsanto and national research programs in Africa.
Seed from the program will ultimately be marketed royalty-free to smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa through African seed companies, making the benefits of the technology available to everyone, Kyetere said, adding that public-private partnerships are key. A new, knowledge-based global food system focused on ensuring equity is a must, he said.
“The use of the public-private-partnership model in technology development and deployment along the entire product value chain is a game-changer in enhancing food security and for poverty reduction in Africa,” Kyetere said, adding that partners must share both responsibilities and risks to achieve a common goal.
Julie Miller Jones, professor emeritus of nutrition at St. Catherine University in St. Paul, Minnesota, criticized authors and media personalities advocating wheat-free diets for the majority of population who do not suffer from celiac disease or wheat allergies. She also emphasized the essential role of grains in a healthy diet, and the health benefits of whole grain in particular.
“We have to stop picking on diets, the problem is us. We are eating too many calories,” she urged delegates.
Going “gluten-free” has become a big money maker for the food industry. Sales have soared 63 percent since 2012, with almost 4,600 “gluten-free” products introduced in 2014, according to the January 2015 issue of Consumer Reports magazine.
Catherine Bertini, 2003 World Food Prize laureate and former head of the U.N. World Food Programme, strongly advocated that nutrition should be given a leading role in the breeding process. “Let food be medicine,” said Bertini, who is currently a professor at Syracuse University.
Farmer Andrés H. Vinicio Montiel Ibarra, leader of a farmers association who works Mexico’s Sustainable Modernization of Traditional Agriculture (MasAgro) project, received the Cargill-CIMMYT Food Security and Sustainability Award on behalf of the association.
“Agricultural producers have to be change-makers,” Montiel Ibarra said. “We need to break with resistance to change.”
Achieving change requires effective communication, including coverage of complex scientific concepts, but fact-based arguments are seldom enough, said Tamar Haspel, a food columnist for the Washington Post newspaper.
“We seek sources of information that share our values and confirm our views,” Haspel said. “We find innovative ways to reject ‘facts’ we disagree with — if facts are not persuasive, how do we communicate about science?”
Reporting by Bianca Beks, Jennifer Johnson, Mike Listman, Katie Lutz, Matthew O’Leary, Katelyn Roett and Sam Storr.
EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) – Effective partnerships involving research, public and private sector institutions are key to unlocking the potential of smallholder agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa, said Shamie Zingore, a director at the International Plant Nutrition Institute (IPNI), who oversees the region.
Cross-sector partnerships that deliver the results of agricultural research to smallholder farmers, who produce 80 percent of food consumed in the developing world, improve productivity and are essential to providing food security in Africa, said Zingore who will speak at a conference to mark the 50th anniversary of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) in September.
IPNI is a non-for-profit, science-based organization dedicated to the responsible management of plant nutrition.
Zingore said partnerships that bring together national governments, agricultural research institutes and industry underpin his organizations’ work to support sustainable crop production intensification in the region.
IPNI’s cross-sector efforts to encourage fertilizer use within integrated soil fertility management (ISFM), which involves the use of locally adapted agricultural practices that can maximize the efficiency of nutrient and water use and improve agricultural productivity, shows the power of partnership combined with the development and dissemination of technologies that have increased yields and protected soil fertility, he said. The role of the private sector in addressing challenges that smallholder farmers face in accessing inputs at affordable prices and the knowledge for their appropriate use must be encouraged, he added.
Zingore will participate in a panel discussion during a session titled “Technical Innovations into Context to Achieve Greater Impact” at the CIMMYT 50th anniversary conference which will be held from Sept. 27 to Sept. 29 in Mexico City.
He shared some views on the future of agriculture in the following interview.
Q: What do you hope to contribute to the CIMMYT conference?
The theme of the conference is relevant and timely in the context of the increasingly urgent need to translate agricultural science into practice to support agricultural development and poverty alleviation in the developing world. I’m honored to participate at the conference to share knowledge and insights on the critical role of soil fertility management research in sustainable crop production intensification in sub-Saharan Africa — as well as the processes to achieve impact by adapting agronomic technologies to highly variable and complex conditions on smallholder farms. Effective partnerships between research, public and private sector institutions will be the key to unlock the potential of smallholder agriculture. Representing IPNI, as a fertilizer industry science-based research organization, I also hope to highlight the role of the private sector in addressing the challenges that smallholder farmers face in accessing inputs at affordable prices and the knowledge for their appropriate use.
Q: What is significant about CIMMYT? What role has CIMMYT played in your area of work?
CIMMYT has for many decades conducted innovative and transformational research to improve maize and wheat productivity through the plant breeding, agronomy, farming systems and conservation agriculture and socioeconomic programs. My institution has effectively collaborated with CIMMYT in several initiatives including the CGIAR program on MAIZE and Taking Maize Agronomy to Scale (TAMASA) initiative that have supported wide-scale dissemination of site-specific nutrient management in both conventional and conservation agriculture maize production systems. CIMMYT has played a key role in building effective research and extension partnerships and capacity for delivering agronomic solutions to smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Q: What are the key challenges the world faces into the future?
The overarching challenge is the question of how agricultural productivity can be increased to meet the food requirements by a rapidly increasing world population that will reach over 7 billion by 2050. Developing countries that are food insecure, including those in sub-Saharan Africa, will contribute most to the increasing population. Technological innovations will need to be increasingly robust to sustainably increase crop productivity and nutrient quality of food produced in the face of land degradation and climate change challenges.
Q: How does your area of specialization address these challenges?
Poor soil fertility, low fertilizer use and inappropriate fertilizer management practices are some of the key factors limiting crop productivity in sub-Saharan Africa. Yields have remained low despite advances made in developing high yielding crop varieties adapted to growing conditions in the region. Strong partnerships on developing ISFM are focusing on the development and dissemination of technologies that contribute not only to increased yields but also pay attention to maintenance of soil organic matter and soil fertility in the long-term. Our research results have shown that appropriate ISFM technologies enhance nutrient and water use efficiency, increasing crop productivity and resilience to moisture stress. We are addressing the issue of balanced nutrient management, with a focus on micronutrient fertilization, to increase productivity in vast agricultural soils that are deficient in micronutrients. Balanced fertilizer, focusing on the applying the right types of fertilizer at the right rate, time and place will be the basis of increasing yield in an economically viable manner and improving the nutrient contents of food produced by smallholder farmers.
Any views expressed in this article are those of the author and not of CIMMYT
EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) – Sustainable agriculture must be adopted globally if natural ecosystems are to be protected as food production increases to feed a projected population of 9.7 billion by 2050, said author and environmentalist Mark Lynas.
An immediate move to transform overall agricultural practices is needed to overcome the challenges of climate change and biodiversity loss, said Lynas who will speak at a conference to mark the 50th anniversary of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) in September.
A former critic of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) Lynas changed his mind when he said it became clearer to him that there was a scientific consensus that genetic engineering was safe. In his current role at Cornell University, he now advises on public sector biotechnology in developing countries.
Lynas will deliver a presentation during a session entitled “Future Landscapes” at the CIMMYT 50th anniversary conference on Sept. 29, 2016.
He shared some views on the future of agriculture in the following interview.
Q: What are the key challenges the world faces?
Well, it’s become something of a cliche now to talk about how we need to double world food supply by 2050 in order to feed the growing human population. I’m keen to add an environmental perspective to this statement. We need to double world food production but at the same time to shrink the area of cultivated land in order to protect natural ecosystems. With the ongoing crises in climate change and biodiversity loss, we cannot afford to plow up the rain forests or other ecologically valuable areas, so the only viable option is to sustainably intensify existing cultivated areas, hopefully with “rewilding” of spared lands. Obviously, this is a broad-brush assertion, and there is a lot of geographical complexity and nuance underlying this, that we should not forget.
Q: How does your area of specialization address these challenges? What innovation do you see improving agriculture?
I’m particularly focused on biotechnology in agriculture, which can help improve sustainability in many ways. Basically, if you can move from chemistry to biology in addressing challenges, from water use to yield to pest control, so much the better for the environment. An example would be the use of the Bt gene, which produces a protein in the plant that is toxic only to the pest itself and harmless to everything else, including us. That’s a much more sustainable option than indiscriminate insecticide sprays that have serious environmental and health impacts. However, because of their total opposition to genetic engineering, anti-GMO campaigners end up defending continued pesticide use, which is a very strange place for supposedly green activists to be. I’ve seen this at first hand in Bangladesh with the campaign against Bt brinjal. Anti-science superstition of this sort can end up being very environmentally damaging.
Q: What outcomes would you like to see from the CIMMYT conference?
CIMMYT experts were co-authors on a recent paper, “Reducing emissions from agriculture to meet the 2 °C target” in Global Change Biology, that challenged the agriculture sector to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions significantly — by 1 billion tons a year — in order to contribute to meeting the 2 degrees C international climate change target. I thought this was a great initiative and I would love to see more attention given to it by other stakeholders at the CIMMYT conference. I really hope it becomes a talked about target that ends up being matched with real commitments and actions in the field.
EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) – Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation CEO Sue Desmond-Hellmann visited the
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation CEO Sue Desmond-Hellmann toured CIMMYT headquarters in Mexico. Photo: Alfonso Cortes/ CIMMYT
International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) this week to learn more about how research reaches smallholder farmers.
During her visit, Desmond-Hellmann spoke with scientists and researchers on how CIMMYT is working to develop new and innovative solutions to end poverty through agriculture. Through a hands-on tour of CIMMYT’s germplasm bank, Desmond-Hellmann saw how the world’s most diverse collections of maize and wheat are providing genetic diversity to breeding programs worldwide to tackle food security and climate change. The science was then put into practice in the field, where the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation CEO pollinated maize and learned about the complexity of breeding for tolerance to heat and drought and resilience to diseases.
Remote sensing technologies, that make it possible to observe the dynamics of anything from single plants to entire landscapes as they change over time, were also showcased during the visit as an effective and adaptable tool for breeding and crop management including nutrient use efficiency, climate resilience and irrigation systems.
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation CEO Sue Desmond-Hellmann pollinates maize. Photo: Alfonso Cortes/ CIMMYT
Nutrition and quality were also emphasized as keystones of CIMMYT’s work. Desmond-Hellmann tasted different types of bread, and learned how CIMMYT wheat varieties meet market demands for flour and wheat products globally. A demonstration on how CIMMYT is improving the nutritional quality of crops by enhancing the pro-vitamin A, iron and zinc concentrations of maize and wheat grains showed how agricultural and nutritional sciences are working together to fight “hidden hunger.”
Also joining the visit were Rodger Voorhies, the organization’s managing director of global development, Tony Cavalieri, senior program officer of agricultural development, and Casey Hanewall, the director of the CEO and chief staff office. The Bill & Melinda Gates foundation is one of CIMMYT’s major donors with funding for key projects including Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA) and Stress Tolerant Maize for Africa (STMA). CIMMYT also receives funding for important work like that of developing and deploying maize that resists the deadly Maize Lethal Necrosis disease and projects to develop micronutrient rich maize and wheat varieties.
NAIROBI, Kenya (CIMMYT) – The recent inauguration of a new seed storage cold room at the Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization (KALRO) research center at Kiboko in Makueni County, about 155 kilometers from the capital, adds to the top notch research establishments managed by the national partners in Africa together with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT). This successful partnership continues to help farmers overcome crippling challenges in farming and to realize the yield potential of improved varieties.
Since its establishment in Africa, over 40 years ago, CIMMYT has prioritized high quality research work in state-of-the-art research facilities developed through long-standing partnerships with national research organizations, such as KALRO.
“If CIMMYT were to be established today, it would be headquartered in Africa because this is where smallholder farmers face the biggest challenges. At the same time, this is the place where outstanding work is being done to help the farmers rise above the challenges, and with great success,” said Martin Kropff, CIMMYT Director General during his recent visit to Kenya.
The cold room jointly inaugurated by Kropff, and KALRO Director General, Eliud Kireger will help store high value maize seeds with an array of traits including resilience to diseases, insect-pests and climatic stresses as drought and heat, for up to 10 years, without the need for seed regeneration every year, thereby avoiding risk of contamination and use of scarce resources. It will also help make seed readily available for distribution to national partners and seed companies to reach the farmers much faster.
Kireger conveyed his appreciation for the cold room and other research facilities established on KALRO sites, terming these achievements as “rewarding not just to KALRO and to the seed companies, but to many smallholders in Africa, who continue to be the inspiration behind every effort put into maize research and development work by KALRO and partners like CIMMYT.”
In addition to the seed storage cold room, Africa hosts the maize lethal necrosis (MLN) disease screening facility in sub-Saharan Africa. The MLN screening facility was established in 2013 at KALRO Naivasha Center in Kenya in response to the outbreak of the devastating MLN disease in eastern Africa. The facility since then has supported both the private and public institutions to screen maize germplasm for MLN under artificial inoculation and in identifying MLN tolerant/resistant lines and hybrids.
Combating MLN: • Over 60,000 entries have been tested at the MLN screening site in Naivasha, Kenya since 2013. • 16 private and public institutions including seed companies and national research organizations have screened their germplasm for MLN. Photo: K. Kaimenyi/CIMMYT
“The MLN screening facility (also a quarantine site) has been supporting the national partners in sub-Saharan Africa, key multinational, local and regional seed companies and CGIAR centers. This facility has become a major resource in the fight against MLN regionally,” added B.M. Prasanna, Director of CIMMYT’s Global Maize Program as well as the CGIAR Research Program MAIZE. “Tremendous progress has been made through this facility in the last three years. Several promising maize lines with tolerance and resistance to MLN have been identified, and used in breeding programs to develop improved maize hybrids. Already five MLN-tolerant hybrids have been released and now being scaled-up by seed companies for reaching the MLN-affected farmers in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. As many as 22 MLN-tolerant and resistant hybrids are presently undergoing national performance trials in east Africa,” remarked Prasanna.
Another major focus of CIMMYT and partners in the region is to prevent the spread of MLN from the endemic to non-endemic countries in Africa. “This is a strong message to convey that we not only work hard to develop MLN resistant maize varieties for the farmers, but we are also very keen to control the spread of the disease” remarked Kropff during a visit to the site.
In Zimbabwe, an MLN quarantine facility has been established in 2016, in collaboration with the government. This facility is key for safe transfer of research materials, including those with MLN resistance into the currently MLN non-endemic countries in southern Africa, before they get to the partners.
In order to keep up with the emerging stresses and to accelerate development of improved maize varieties, the maize Doubled-Haploid (DH) facility was established in 2013 by CIMMYT and KALRO at the KALRO research center in Kiboko. This facility helps the breeders to significantly shorten the process of developing maize parental lines from 7–8 seasons (using conventional breeding) to just 2–3 seasons.
Over 92,000 Doubled-Haploid (DH) maize lines have been developed from CIMMYT bi-parental crosses. Photo: B. Wawa/CIMMYT
“Through the facility at Kiboko, we have been able to develop over 60,000 DH lines in 2015 from diverse genetic backgrounds. The DH facility also supports the national agricultural research organisations and small and medium enterprise partners in sub-Saharan Africa to fast-track their breeding work through DH lines,” said Prasanna.
For wheat research-for-development work in Africa, the largest stem rust phenotyping platform in the world sits at KALRO research center in Njoro, Kenya. The facility screens at least 50,000 wheat accessions annually from 20-25 countries. Following the emergence of the Ug99 wheat rust disease pathogen strain in Uganda, the disease spread to 13 countries in Africa. Close to 65 wheat varieties that are resistant to Ug99 stem rust disease have been released globally as a result of the shuttle breeding that includes selection from the screening site at KALRO Njoro.
“CIMMYT’s yearly investment of USD 37 million in Africa through various projects has translated into a success story because of the strong collaboration with our partners across Africa,” said Stephen Mugo, CIMMYT’s Regional Representative for Africa. He further added that “research work in Africa is not yet done. No institution, including CIMMYT, cannot do this important work alone. We need to, and will, keep on working together with partners to improve the livelihoods of the African smallholders.”
CIMMYT DG Martin Kropff studying an MLN affected plant. Photo: K. Kaimenyi/CIMMYT
Key funders of CIMMYT work in Africa include, the USAID, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Sygenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture, Australian Centre for International Research, CGIAR Research Program on Maize, Foreign Affairs Trade and Development Canada.
ADDIS ABABA — As Ethiopia struggles with its worst drought in 50 years, farmers pin their hopes on seed delivered through emergency seed projects.
“The situation last year was so bad that we could only laugh or cry,” said Rameto Tefo, a smallholder farmer from Tsiaroa district in central Ethiopia. “We were highly affected by the drought and we are now reliant on the assistance of the government and organizations such as CIMMYT. Without the seed provided to us from CIMMYT through the emergency seed project, I would have had to beg from my neighbors or just plant grain and hope that it germinated.”
Rameto Tefo lost his entire harvest to drought last year. Without the maize seed provided through the emergency seed project, he said he would have had to beg his neighbors to provide food for his two wives and eight children. Photo: E.Quilligan/CIMMYT
Tefo would have had a difficult time begging for seed from his neighbors; the drought in this district was so severe that most farmers lost all their harvest. Furthermore, the effects of the strongest El Niño on record continued from 2015 into 2016 and the short belg rains that normally fall during March and April were erratic and scarce. By late April, the ground was once again dry and cracked, but the day before we visited Tsiaroa in early May, torrential rain had washed away roads and flooded houses and fields. No one knew whether this was late belg rains, or the start of the main rainy season, which would normally not occur until June.
In this district alone, 67 villages were affected by drought last year and produced little or no harvest. This meant that farmers were unable to save seed for planting this season, and also lacked the income to purchase seed. According to Bekele Abeyo, CIMMYT (International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center) senior wheat breeder/pathologist for sub-Saharan Africa, immediate large-scale support is critical to ensure that the food shortages encountered during 2016 do not balloon into a future crisis for Ethiopia. Abeyo is currently leading the emergency seed project being implemented by CIMMYT in collaboration with the Ethiopian government with support from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). The project’s primary partner, Ethiopia’s Agricultural Transformation Agency (ATA), is supported by a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Under this project, 50 tons of maize seed are being supplied to Tsiaroa district – enough for each of 4,000 farmers to plant 0.5 ha with improved, drought resistant maize.
In contrast to normal rain patterns, heavy rainfall fell in central Ethiopia in early May, between the usual short (March-April) and main (June-September) rainy seasons. Photo: E.Quilligan/CIMMYT
“We are optimistic that the high quality maize varieties provided through the emergency seed project will help ensure the future food security of this region,” said Dagne Wegary, CIMMYT maize breeder and maize seed coordinator for the emergency seed project. “Thanks to the long-established network of CIMMYT experts, government development agents, and district focal people, we are able to provide a complete package of improved seed and agronomy advice.”
Boti Decheso helps Demetu Edao carry maize seed received through the emergency seed project back to their farms. Photo: E.Quilligan/CIMMYT
Nearby Zewai Dugda district was also severely affected by the drought, and now has more than 20,000 farmers in need of emergency seed assistance. CIMMYT is working alongside the government and other organizations to provide seed to 4,400 farmers under the emergency seed project.
It’s a complex logistical task to ensure that the correct farmers receive the right amount of seed, but storekeeper Embete Habesha in Zewai Dugda has everything under control. Farmers may request one of four varieties of drought-tolerant maize (three hybrids and one open-pollinated variety). Habesha is responsible for collecting information and fingerprint signatures from the farmers who receive seed. They are optimistic that – with normal growing conditions – they will be able to achieve yields of up to 4.4 tons/hectare.
Demetu Edao was one of the farmers scheduled to receive seed on the day we visited. She has a 1-ha plot in the village of Ubobracha where she grows teff and wheat, in addition to maize, and she uses the income to pay the school fees for her six children. Edao said she is grateful not only for the seed, but also for the assistance and agronomy advice she receives from government development agents and agriculture experts. Her neighbor and fellow farmer, Boti Decheso, joked that while he looks young, he feels old with the pressure of providing for a wife and two young children. Decheso hopes to use this seed to produce a successful harvest and save some seed for next year, while also ensuring his family has enough to eat. Any surplus maize will be sold so that the family can purchase some livestock and diversify its livelihood as a buffer against future financial and environmental shocks.
Through the emergency seed project implemented by CIMMYT, more than 226,000 households will benefit from the provision of maize, wheat, and sorghum seed. “We hope that this provision of emergency seed will enable Ethiopian smallholder farmers to quickly recover from the devastating drought of 2015,” said Abeyo. “Our unique and strong links with the Ethiopian government, the formal seed sector, farmers’ cooperatives, and partners such as ATA have allowed CIMMYT to quickly respond to farmers’ needs and provide more than 2,700 tons of seed to help ensure Ethiopia’s future food security.”
In Zewai Dugda, storekeeper Embete Habesha discusses her store records with Tadele Asfaw, CIMMYT-Ethiopia program management officer and member of the Seed Procurement Committee for the emergency seed project funded by USAID. Photo: E.Quilligan/CIMMYT
Listen to a podcast of CIMMYT maize breeder Biswanath Das discussing the importance of adapting maize breeding and seed systems to climate change here.
Investment in accelerating the adaptation of maize breeding and seed systems to climate change is needed a new report finds. Photo: Peter Lowe/ CIMMYT
EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) – Breeding and seed systems must be adapted to survive projected climate change if major loss of maize yields is to be avoided, a new report shows.
Tools that forecast the response of crops to different weather and climate conditions, coupled with crop yield modeling have enabled agricultural scientists to predict and formulate plans for potential future climate change.
“Responding better to changes in climate by improving efficiency of the breeding cycle and reducing the amount of time it takes to get improved maize into the hands of farmers is key to ensuring a food secure future,” said International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) maize breeder and co-author of the study Biswanath Das.
Projections for Africa demonstrate climate-change related increases in temperature will negatively impact on-farm yields as heat and drought stress shorten crop production time, the length of time between maize planting and harvesting, Das said.
Shorter and hotter growing seasons are expected to become a reality over the next 15 years, which could mean that maize varieties currently being developed may struggle to adapt, particularly since current breeding and commercialization cycles to improve maize in Africa can take several decades.
The report published in Nature Climate Change, led by Andy Challinor from the University of Leeds in collaboration with the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) and CIMMYT, calls for an acceleration of breeding, delivery and adoption processes. The authors suggest that all stages could be sped up using a variety of techniques, requiring elaborate planning and coordination involving numerous actors and interest groups.
“Current warming will reduce yields unless maize breeding and seed systems adapt immediately,” Das said. “Increased collaboration among different breeding institutes and public-private collaborations are needed so that we share information, technologies and germplasm to make the best germplasm and technology available to the widest number of scientists as possible.”
“Seed systems could be working with regulators to reduce the amount of time it takes for varieties to become available to farmers and developing new ways of producing seed more cheaply and efficiently while maintaining quality.”
Public seed systems should continue working closely with the private sector to encourage the latest genetic advances to become available to farmers in the shortest time possible, Das added.
CIMMYT has undertaken other work in this area. An intensive breeding effort through the Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa (DTMA) project developed a large phenotyping network and breeding pipeline to produce new maize varieties with heat and drought tolerance. In collaboration with over 100 national seed companies, the project supported the production of 54,000 tons of drought-tolerant maize in 2014 alone, benefiting an estimated 5.4 million households – or 43 million people – across 13 countries in Africa.
In 2015, a new project was started to expand the success of DTMA so that more smallholder farmers in Africa would have access to affordable improved maize varieties through a network of national seed companies.
Despite the considerable efforts being made to adapt maize farming to changing climates, Das warned that they must be sustained and encouraged on a larger scale in order for breeding programs to produce climate-ready maize varieties for the future.
This research is carried out with support from CGIAR Fund Donors, CCAFS Donors, MAIZE CRP Donors and through bilateral funding agreements. Funding for this project came from: Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research; Ireland Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade; Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs; New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs & Trade; Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation; Thailand; UK Department of International Development; The United States Agency for International Development and the European Union. The Program is carried out with technical support from The International Fund for Agricultural Development.
Stocks of maize seed have been certified for quality and are now ready to be distributed to farmers in drought-affected districts. Photo: Tadele Asfaw/CIMMYT
As the Rio 2016 Olympics draw near, team managers are rushing to recruit their best sportspeople from all over the country, put them through fitness tests, and get them to various stadiums before the starter’s gun goes off.
The team working on the Emergency Seed Support for Drought Affected Maize and Wheat Growing Areas of Ethiopia initiative is facing a similar challenge. But instead of recruiting long jumpers and marathon runners, they are tasked with procuring quality seeds of elite maize, wheat, and sorghum varieties and distributing them to farmers before the start of the main planting season to increase food security in regions devastated by recent droughts.
Dry conditions are not uncommon in Ethiopia, but the 2015-2016 El Niño – the strongest on record – has led to the worst drought in a decade. Harvests across Ethiopia were affected, leaving 10.2 million people – more than 1 in 10 Ethiopians – in need of emergency food assistance.
Food security status across Ethiopia. Source: Fews.Net
Planning for a food-secure future
The government of Ethiopia and international organizations are working to provide food aid for people facing immediate shortages, but Bekele Abeyo, senior wheat breeder and pathologist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) for sub-Saharan Africa and leader of the emergency seed project, is focusing on a more sustainable future.
“Relief efforts will provide sustenance today, but we need to ensure there is also food on plates tomorrow,” says Abeyo. “With the large crop losses experienced in 2015, farmers were not able to save seed for planting in 2016 and did not have sufficient income to purchase more. Unless these farmers are able to access seed, we may face further shortages in 2017.”
CIMMYT, with support from the U.S. Agency for International Development, is working with partners to supply over 2,700 tons of seed to more than 226,000 households across 71 woredas (districts) in four regions of Ethiopia. CIMMYT will work with both the formal seed sector and farmers’ cooperatives to source quality seed from within Ethiopia and make sure it reaches the farmers who need it the most. These high-yielding, drought resistant varieties are being supplied along with agronomic advice to further increase farmers’ resilience.
Together with Ethiopia’s Agricultural Transformation Agency (ATA), a primary partner in the project, CIMMYT organized workshops in each of the target regions –Amara, Oromia, Southern Nations, Nationalities, and People’s Region (SNNPR), and Tigray – to engage stakeholders and collectively finalize the workplan. Based on participant feedback, some sorghum will now also be supplied to selected regions, in addition to maize and wheat.
“It is important to consider the needs of the individual communities and regions,” says Yitbarek Semeane, director of ATA’s Seed Systems. “ATA has very strong links with the regions and government institutions so is able to provide feedback on farmers’ needs and preferences. As weather patterns in Ethiopia are becoming increasingly unpredictable, many farmers are changing their farming practices, or even switching crops.”
Seed is being distributed to 240 drought-affected farmers in the kebele of Ubobracha. Photo: E. Quilligan/CIMMYT
A race against time
With the main planting season rapidly approaching, the team is racing to source, procure, certify, transport and distribute seeds.
“The success of this project will depend on us procuring enough quality seed and distributing it to farmers before the main planting season,” says Tadele Asfaw, CIMMYT-Ethiopia program management officer and member of the project’s Seed Procurement Committee.
By mid-April, the team had successfully procured almost all the required maize and sorghum seeds and were navigating the complex logistics to get the requested varieties to each woreda. Agreements are also being signed with farmers’ cooperatives to ensure that wheat seed can be purchased without disrupting the normal seed system.
According to Ayele Badebo, CIMMYT scientist and wheat seed coordinator for the project, CIMMYT does not have the capacity to collect seed from individual farmers within each woreda, but this is something the cooperatives are ideally placed to do. They have the trust of both CIMMYT and farmers, and through the previous seed scaling project, they know which farmers were given seed to multiply and will now have it available for sale.
At the end of March, the seed procurement team traveled to eastern Oromia – one of the areas most affected by the 2015 drought – to meet with Chercher oda bultum, a farmers’ cooperative and seed supplier. The team was very satisfied to see that the supplier had sufficient stock of Melkassa2 and Melkassa4, locally-adapted drought resistant maize varieties that had already been certified for germination and moisture by another collaborator, Haramaya University. This same process is now underway for wheat seed.
Ethiopia’s Bureaus of Agriculture and Natural Resources are also working with woreda representatives to ensure that the seed will be distributed to those farmers who need it most, and who have sufficient land and agronomic tools to benefit from this initiative.
“Working with local enterprises and partners enables us to procure and deliver seed to drought-affected farmers as quickly as possible,” says Abeyo. “In combination with CIMMYT’s longer-term efforts in the region, we hope that we can foster a more robust seed system and increase food security for 2016 and beyond.”
The meeting room at ATA was a hive of activity as farmers’ unions met to negotiate transport of emergency seed. Photo: Emma Quilligan/CIMMYT
Partnering for success
While CIMMYT has the knowledge, networks and experience in Ethiopia to spring into action, the cooperation of partners such as the Agricultural Transformation Agency (ATA), farmers’ unions and Ethiopia’s Bureaus of Agriculture and Natural Resources is vital.
Established in 2010, the ATA is acting as a catalyst to spur the growth and transformation of Ethiopia’s agriculture sector. With funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, ATA is working with the Ministry and Regional Bureaus of Agriculture and Natural Resources to coordinate the collection, cleaning, packing, labeling and distribution of quality seed to drought-affected farmers, as well as help train development agents and raise farmer awareness.
This story appeared originally on the Borlaug Global Rust Initiative website to mark Earth Day on April 22, 2016. Linda McCandless is associate director for communications, International Programs, College of Agricultural and Life Sciences at Cornell University. She also oversees communications for the Delivering Genetic Gain in Wheat project.
SINDHULPALCHOWK, Nepal (BGRI) — Farming the terraced hillsides above the Indrawati River Valley of Nepal, Nabaraj Sapkota and his wife Muthu Dei experience the impacts of climate change on an almost daily basis. Erratic rains make planting difficult. Warm, misty conditions and prolonged winter temperatures increase the incidence of wheat rusts that reduce yield. Unpredictable hailstorms flatten wheat and rice before they can be harvested.
“When we need rain, there is no rain. And when we don’t need rain, there is plenty of rain,” says Nabaraj. “We used to only have rain from May through July, now we have rain and mist from November.”
Khim lal Bastola grows wheat, maize and rice in rotation and sustains four generations in his 12-person household near Pokhara. “The change is obvious: man produces something with his hard labor but strong winds and hailstorms destroy it,” he said.
“The climate change scenario for Nepal — where temperature are likely to increase and precipitation is likely to be more erratic — will disproportionally affect smallholder farmers,” said Dhruba Thapa, a senior scientist with the Nepal Agricultural Research Council. “For Nepal, the cost of not adapting to climate change will be high.”
Like many farmers in Nepal, Bastola and the Sapkotas need technical assistance to help them adapt to climate change. They eagerly soak up the education offered by people like Thapa, Sarala Sharma, and Sunita Adhibari, NARC scientists who distribute disease resistant varieties of wheat and help farmers learn to identify diseases.
Scientists and farmers also soak up training from the Borlaug Global Rust Initiative (BGRI), and specialists like Dave Hodson, a wheat surveillance specialist with CIMMYT, who shows them how to scout for wheat rust and upload data into the global RustTracker monitoring system.
FARMING PERVASIVE BUT DIFFICULT IN NEPAL
Farming in Nepal is hard, backbreaking labor predominantly done by hand in fields rarely more than one-quarter of an acre in size. Men plow the small plots on the terraced hillsides with oxen. Women break up the clods with heavy adzes. Although rarely above subsistence level, small farms are of vital importance in sustaining the multi-generational communities scattered throughout the Himalayas in the high hills to the north, the temperate mid-hills, and the subtropical terai to the south.
The livelihoods of more than 75 percent of the people in Nepal are based on agriculture and forestry, and almost 65 percent of the agriculture is rainfed, Nepal is among the 25 nations in the world with the lowest GDP per person and also ranks among the 25 with the greatest decrease in forested land. Rural populations are heavily clustered in river basins whose annual monsoon-fed flood cycles are likely to be exacerbated by warming. Deforestation adds to the problem, intensifying flooding and contributing to the likelihood of landslides.
HELPING FARMERS ADAPT TO CLIMATE CHANGE
Using disease resistant and improved seeds, and adopting different planting and harvesting calendars helps farmers adapt to climate change.
In Chhampi, north of Kathmandu, Krishna Bahadur Ghimire and the local farmers’ cooperative of which he is president, are now producing improved rice, wheat and maize on 140 ropanis of land. Ghimere supplies beans, rice, eggplant, soybeans, wheat and vegetable seeds to his neighbors. He started farming on one ropani of land (~ 500 sq.m) in 1997 but switched to the seed business when he found himself having to drive two hours to Kathmandu to get the improved varieties he needed.
“Our local varieties were not climate smart. We went to Kathmandu to get improved seeds from the Nepalese Agricultural Research Center because their seeds are more disease resistant, higher yielding, and higher quality,” said Ghimire, who has worked with Thapa for 11 years. “New varieties are less lodging and scattering during storms and high winds than the local ones.”
“Farmers need climate smart crops that have been improved for yield and disease resistance, but they also need seeds adapted for variable weather conditions whether we have drought or excess rainfall,” said Thapa. “NARC screens many lines and then provides seeds of promising lines to farmers for participatory variety selection trials, like with Ghimire’s group.”
Naparaj, the Sindhulpalchowk farmer, initially received 300 grams of seven varieties of improved wheat from Thapa. “I was thinking how I could uplift them (my neighbors),” said Naparaj. “I thought to myself, the lives of these people must be uplifted through improved seeds which would give them good production. We used to get one muri (~3.5 liters or 70 kg) of wheat per one ropani (~ 500 sq.m.). Now we are threshing three or four times more. It is a huge profit.”
Ghimere’s 25-year-old nephew Saroj Kumar Bista, speaks of another problem affecting farmers that requires gender-sensitive initiatves. “Many young men are going to the Middle East to work and not moving into the farming sector,” he said.
Nowhere is this more evident than in Godhavari, where Manju Khavas, Radha Basnet and Janaki Silwal’s sons have gone to the Middle East or Japan to work. Their husbands work off the farm, leaving them in charge. “At first we were overwhelmed,” said the 52-year-old Khavas. “We could not find someone to dig the fields. Now it is easier because of the handheld tractor.”
Thapa introduced improved eight or nine varieties of wheat to their community as well as agronomic practices like planting in rows, incorporating manure for fertilizer, and using handheld tractors (similar to heavy duty rototillers).
How does Khavas count improvement? “When we were 7 or 8 members in the family, the produce of this land was not enough. Now the produce is enough for 13 to 14 people,” she said. Wheat yields are so improved that she and her friends want a wheat threshing machine so they don’t have to thresh the greater quantities by hand.
Although the women said they have yet to “evaluate” climate change, they noted the “environment has been spoilt.”
“During the harvesting season of the wheat, we suffer from the fear of rain,” said Khavas. “Hailstorms also scare us. The moment the wheat becomes yellow, we begin to feel afraid whether we will be able to harvest it or not. And then when the wheat is harvested amid the fear of rain, in the paddy rice planting time, there is no rain.”
MORE TRAINING FOR CLIMATE CHANGE ADAPTATION
Dave Hodson, a surveillance expert with CIMMYT and the BGRI, travels to countries like Nepal to train scientists on using handheld tablets to scout for disease and input data into global disease tracking and monitoring systems that can help to predict disease outbreaks.
Since 2008, the BGRI has held five 2-week training sessions on the “Art and Science of Rust Pathology and Wheat Breeding” in Asia for scientists in the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), including scientists from Nepal, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Bhutan. The course is slated to be on-line this summer.
Nepalese farmers lack understanding of meteorological data and how to reduce risks in agriculture and farming. Sushila Pyakurel, who works with ICDO Lalitpur, has helped initiate Climate Field Schools in Nepal where farmers learn the effects of climate change, identifying crops most suitable to grow, seed selection, scheduling farm operations/farm management practices, and adaptation strategies/methodologies.
One of the new areas of expansion for the BGRI is the new Delivering Genetic Gain in Wheat project, a $24M effort funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to make wheat for smallholder farmers around the world more heat tolerant and disease resistant in the face of climate change. It builds on the successes of the 2008-2015 Durable Rust Resistance in Wheat project, which initiated and funded the SAARC training courses.
DEDICATION: April 25, 2016: For smallholder farmers in Nepal, the challenges of climate change are disastrous enough. A 7.8 magnitude earthquake devastated Nepal on 25 April 2015, less than one month after the Borlaug Global Rust Initiative team visited. More than 9,000 people died and almost 900,000 homes were destroyed. Some of the hardest hit areas were Sindhulpalchowk and Chhampi. This Earth Day blog is dedicated to the resilient farmers of Nepal. It is the BGRI’s sincerest hope that their families are well on their way to recovery.
