Nearly 65,000 farmers in Nepal, 40% of which were women, have benefited from the Agronomy and Seed Systems Scaling project, according to a comprehensive new report. This project is part of the Cereals Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA), led by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and supported by USAID.
One of the project’s most recent successes has been in accelerating the adoption of the nutritious and stress-tolerant mung bean in rice-wheat farming systems.
Farmer Chhalu Bhattarai harvests her mung bean crop in Manikapur, Surkhet, Nepal. (Photo: P. Lowe/CIMMYT)
Rice-wheat is the dominant cropping system in the lowland region of Nepal. Farmers typically harvest wheat in March and transplant rice in July, leaving land fallow for up to 100 days. A growing body of evidence shows, however, that planting mung bean during this fallow period can assist in improving farmers’ farming systems and livelihoods.
âThe mung bean has multiple benefits for farmers,â says Narayan Khanal, a researcher at CIMMYT. âThe first benefit is nutrition: mung beans are very rich in iron, protein and are easily digestible. The second benefit is income: farmers can sell mung beans on the market for a higher price than most other legumes. The third benefit is improved soil health: mung beans fix the nitrogen from the atmosphere into the soil as well as improve soil organic content.â
Commonly used in dishes like dahl, soups and sprout, mung beans are a common ingredient in Asian cuisine. However, prior to the project, most farmers in Nepal had never seen the crop before and had no idea how to eat it. Encouraging them to grow the crop was not going to be an easy task.
Thanks to dedicated efforts by CIMMYT researchers, more than 8,000 farmers in Nepal are now cultivating mung bean on land that would otherwise be left fallow, producing over $1.75 million of mung bean per year.
The newfound enthusiasm for growing mung bean could not have been achieved without the help of local womenâs farming groups, said Timothy J. Krupnik, CIMMYT senior scientist and CSISA project leader.
Employees select and clean mung beans at Poshan Foods in Butwal, Nepal. (Photo: Merit Maharajan/Amuse Communication)
An employee selects mung beans at Poshan Foods, in Butwal, Nepal. (Photo: Merit Maharajan/Amuse Communication)
After mung bean is toasted, employees at Poshan Foods select the beans. (Photo: Merit Maharajan/Amuse Communication)
Poshan Foods uses mung bean for a wide range of products but has been particularly successful with baby food, which includes important nutrition advice for parents. (Photo: Merit Maharajan/Amuse Communication)
Bringing research and innovations to farmersâ fields
Introducing the mung bean crop to farmersâ fields was just one of the successes of Agronomy and Seed Systems Scaling, which was an added investment by USAID in the wider CSISA project, which began in 2014. The project aims to move agronomic and crop varietal research into real-world impact. It has helped farmers get better access to improved seeds and machinery and strengthened partnerships with the private sector, according to Khanal.
CSISA support in business mentoring and capacity building of seed companies to popularize newly released, biofortified and stress-tolerant wheat varieties has led to seed sales volumes tripling between 2014 to 2019. The project also led to a 68% increase in the number of new improved wheat varieties since the inception of the project.
Nepalâs National Wheat Research Program was able to fast track the release of the early maturing variety BL 4341, by combining data generated by the project through seed companies and the Nepal Agricultural Research Council (NARC) research station. Other varieties, including Borlaug 100 and NL 1327, are now in the pipeline.
Empowering women and facilitating womenâs groups have been critical components of the project. Nepal has seen a mass exodus of young men farmers leaving the countryside for the city, leaving women to work the farms. CIMMYT worked with women farmer groups to expand and commercialize simple to use and affordable technologies, like precision seed and fertilizer spreaders.
Over 13,000 farmers have gained affordable access to and benefited from precision agriculture machinery such as two-wheel âhand tractorsâ and âmini tillers.â This is a major change for small and medium-scale farmers in South Asia who typically rely on low horsepower four-wheel tractors. The project also introduced an attachment for tractors for harvesting rice and wheat called the âreaper.â This equipment helps to reduce the costs and drudgery of manual harvesting. In 2019, Nepalâs Terai region had almost 3,500 reapers, versus 22 in 2014.
To ensure the long-term success of the project, CSISA researchers have trained over 2,000 individuals from the private and public sector, and over 1,000 private organizations including machinery manufacturers and agricultural input dealers.
Researchers have trained project collaborators in both the public and private sector in seed systems, resilient varieties, better farming practices and appropriate agricultural mechanization business models. These partners have in turn passed this knowledge on to farmers, with considerable impact.
âThe projectâs outcomes demonstrates the importance of multi-year and integrated agricultural development efforts that are science-based, but which are designed in such a way to move research into impact and benefit farmers, by leveraging the skills and interests of Nepalâs public and private sector in unison,â said Krupnik.
âThe outcomes from this project will continue to sustain, as the seed and market systems developed and nurtured by the project are anticipated to have long-lasting impact in Nepal,â he said.
The Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA) is led by the International Maize and Wheat Center (CIMMYT), implemented jointly with the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI). CSISA is funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Cover photo: A member of a women farmers group serves a platter of mung bean dishes in Suklaphanta, Nepal. (Photo: Merit Maharajan/Amuse Communication)
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 nationâs researchers and policymakers. CIMMYTâs first training course participant from Pakistan, Manzoor A. Bajwa, introduced the high-yielding wheat variety âMexi-Pakâ 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 Pakistanâs National Food Security Policy and with national partners, CIMMYT contributes to Pakistanâs efforts to intensify maize- and wheat-based cropping in ways that improve food security, raise farmersâ income, and reduce environmental impacts. This has helped Pakistani farmers to figure among South Asiaâs 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.
Worldâs leading food security think-tank and research centres have recommended Bangladesh to ensure transportation of food from rural to urban areas and the flow of crucial inputs to farmers through market systems so that risk to food system during Covid-19 pandemic can be averted.
Resorting to conservation agriculture would not only increase crop yield, income and reduce the use of natural resources, but would also confer climate change benefits, according to a study by Indian agricultural scientists and others published in an international journal on Thursday.
The study, published in the journal Nature Sustainability, also showed that conservation agriculture was key to meeting many of the UNâs Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) such as no poverty, zero hunger, good health and well-being, climate action and clean water. Conservation agriculture can offer positive contributions to several SDGs, said M. L. Jat, a Principal Scientist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and first author of the study.
During a conservation agriculture course, a young trainee operates a Happy Seeder mounted on a two-wheel tractor, for direct seeding of wheat in smallholder systems. (Photo: CIMMYT)
An international team of scientists has provided a sweeping new analysis of the benefits of conservation agriculture for crop performance, water use efficiency, farmersâ incomes and climate action across a variety of cropping systems and environments in South Asia.
The analysis, published today in Nature Sustainability, is the first of its kind to synthesize existing studies on conservation agriculture in South Asia and allows policy makers to prioritize where and which cropping systems to deploy conservation agriculture techniques. The study uses data from over 9,500 site-year comparisons across South Asia.
According to M.L. Jat, a principal scientist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and first author of the study, conservation agriculture also offers positive contributions to the Sustainable Development Goals of no poverty, zero hunger, good health and wellbeing, climate action and clean water.
âConservation agriculture is going to be key to meet the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals,â echoed JK Ladha, adjunct professor at the University of California, Davis, and co-author of the study.
Scientists from CIMMYT, the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), the University of California, Davis, the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) and Cornell University looked at a variety of agricultural, economic and environmental performance indicators â including crop yields, water use efficiency, economic return, greenhouse gas emissions and global warming potential â and compared how they correlated with conservation agriculture conditions in smallholder farms and field stations across South Asia.
A combine harvester equipped with the Super SMS (left) harvests rice while a tractor equipped with the Happy Seeder is used for direct seeding of wheat. (Photo: Sonalika Tractors)
Results and impact on policy
Researchers found that many conservation agriculture practices had significant benefits for agricultural, economic and environmental performance indicators, whether implemented separately or together. Zero tillage with residue retention, for example, had a mean yield advantage of around 6%, provided farmers almost 25% more income, and increased water use efficiency by about 13% compared to conventional agricultural practices. This combination of practices also was shown to cut global warming potential by up to 33%.
This comes as good news for national governments in South Asia, which have been actively promoting conservation agriculture to increase crop productivity while conserving natural resources. South Asian agriculture is known as a global âhotspotâ for climate vulnerability.
âSmallholder farmers in South Asia will be impacted most by climate change and natural resource degradation,â said Trilochan Mohapatra, Director General of ICAR and Secretary of India’s Department of Agricultural Research and Education (DARE). âProtecting our natural resources for future generations while producing enough quality food to feed everyone is our top priority.â
âICAR, in collaboration with CIMMYT and other stakeholders, has been working intensively over the past decades to develop and deploy conservation agriculture in India. The country has been very successful in addressing residue burning and air pollution issues using conservation agriculture principles,â he added.
With the regionâs population expected to rise to 2.4 billion, demand for cereals is expected to grow by about 43% between 2010 and 2050. This presents a major challenge for food producers who need to produce more while minimizing greenhouse gas emissions and damage to the environment and other natural resources.
“The collaborative effort behind this study epitomizes how researchers, policy-makers, and development practitioners can and should work together to find solutions to the many challenges facing agricultural development, not only in South Asia but worldwide,” said Jon Hellin, leader of the Sustainable Impact Platform at IRRI.
Funders of this work include the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), the Government of India and the CGIAR Research Programs on Wheat Agri-Food Systems (CRP WHEAT) and Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS).
About CIMMYT:
The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) is the global leader in publicly-funded maize and wheat research and related farming systems. Headquartered near Mexico City, CIMMYT works with hundreds of partners throughout the developing world to sustainably increase the productivity of maize and wheat cropping systems, thus improving global food security and reducing poverty. CIMMYT is a member of the CGIAR System and leads the CGIAR Research Programs on Maize and Wheat and the Excellence in Breeding Platform. The Center receives support from national governments, foundations, development banks and other public and private agencies. For more information, visit staging.cimmyt.org.
When asked to picture a food made of whole grains, your first thought might be a loaf of brown, whole-wheat bread. But wholegrain dishes come in all forms.
Take a virtual journey around the world to see the popular or surprising ways in which whole grains are eaten from Mexico to Bangladesh.
Popcorn, a wholegrain food and source of high-quality carbohydrates eaten across the world. (Photo: Alfonso Cortes/CIMMYT)
Roasted and boiled maize ears on sale in Xochimilco, in the south of Mexico City.
(Photo: M. DeFreese/CIMMYT)
Hafiz Uddin, a farmer from Ulankhati, Tanpuna, Barisal, Bangladesh. He used seeder fertilizer drills to plant mung beans on one acre of land, which resulted in a better yield than planting manually. (Photo: Ranak Martin)
Over the last few decades, deteriorating soil fertility has been linked to decreasing agricultural yields in South Asia, a region marked by inequities in food and nutritional security.
As the demand for fertilizers grows, researchers are working with government and businesses to promote balanced nutrient management and the appropriate use of organic amendments among smallholder farmers. The Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA) has published a new policy brief outlining opportunities for innovation in the region.
Like all living organisms, crops need access to the right amount of nutrients for optimal growth. Plants get nutrients â like nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, in addition to other crucially important micronutrients â from soils and carbon, hydrogen, oxygen from the air and water. When existing soil nutrients are not sufficient to sustain good crop yields, additional nutrients must be added through fertilizers or manures, compost or crop residues. When this is not done, farmers effectively mine the soil of fertility, producing short-term gains, but undermining long-term sustainability.
Nutrient management involves using crop nutrients as efficiently as possible to improve productivity while reducing costs for farmers, and also protecting the environment by limiting greenhouse gas emissions and water quality contamination. The key behind nutrient management is appropriately balancing soil nutrient inputs â which can be enhanced when combined with appropriate soil organic matter management â with crop requirements. When the right quantities are applied at the right times, added nutrients help crops yields flourish. On the other hand, applying too little will limit yield and applying too much can harm the environment, while also compromising farmersâ ability to feed themselves or turn profits from the crops they grow.
Smallholder farmers in South Asia commonly practice poor nutrition management with a heavy reliance on nitrogenous fertilizer and a lack of balanced inputs and micronutrients. Declining soil fertility, improperly designed policy and nutrient management guidelines, and weak fertilizer marketing and distribution problems are among the reasons farmers fail to improve fertility on their farms. This is why it is imperative to support efforts to improve soil organic matter management and foster innovation in the fertilizer industry, and find innovative ways to target farmers, provide extension services and communicate messages on cost-effective and more sustainable strategies for matching high yields with appropriate nutrient management.
Cross-country learning reveals opportunities for improved nutrient management. The policy brief is based on outcomes from a cross-country dialogue facilitated by CSISA earlier this year in Kathmandu. The meeting saw researchers, government and business stakeholders from Bangladesh, India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka discuss challenges and opportunities to improving farmer knowledge and access to sufficient nutrients. Several key outcomes for policy makers and representatives of the agricultural development sector were identified during the workshop, and are included in the brief.
Extension services as an effective way to encourage a more balanced use of fertilizers among smallholder farmers. There is a need to build the capacity of extension to educate smallholders on a plantâs nutritional needs and proper fertilization. It also details how farmersâ needs assessments and human-centered design approaches need to be integrated while developing and delivering nutrient application recommendations and extension materials.
Nutrient subsidies must be reviewed to ensure they balance micro and macro-nutrients. Cross-country learning and evidence sharing on policies and subsidies to promote balanced nutrient application are discussed in the brief, as is the need to balance micro and macro-nutrient subsidies, in addition to the organization of subsidy programs in ways that assure farmers get access the right nutrients when and where they are needed the most. The brief also suggests additional research and evidence are needed to identify ways to assure that farmersâ behavior changes in response to subsidy programs.
Market, policy, and product innovations in the fertilizer industry must be encouraged. It describes the need for blended fertilizer products and programs to support them. A blend is made by mixing two or more fertilizer materials. For example, particles of nitrogen, phosphate and small amounts of secondary nutrients and micronutrients mixed together. Experience with blended products are uneven in the region, and markets for blends are nascent in Bangladesh and Nepal in particular. Cross-country technical support on how to develop blending factories and markets could be leveraged to accelerate blended fertilizer markets and to identify ways to ensure equitable access to these potentially beneficial products for smallholder farmers.
Participants of the EBS DevOps Hackathon stand for a group photo at CIMMYT’s global headquarters in Texcoco, Mexico. (Photo: Eleusis Llanderal Arango/CIMMYT)
From October 21 to November 1, 2019, software developers and administrators from several breeding software projects met at the global headquarters of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) in Mexico to work on delivering an integrated solution to crop breeders.
Efforts to improve crop breeding for lower- and middle-income countries involves delivering better varieties to farmers faster and for less cost. These efforts rely on a mastery of data and technology throughout the breeding process.
To realize this potential, the CGIAR Excellence in Breeding Platform (EiB) is developing an Enterprise Breeding System (EBS) as a single solution for breeders. EBS will integrate the disparate software projects developed by different institutions over the years. This will free breeders from the onerous task of managing their data through different apps and allow them to rapidly optimize their breeding schemes based on sound data and advanced analytics.
“None of us can do everything,” said Tom Hagen, CIMMYT-EiB breeding software product manager, “so what breeding programs are experiencing is in fact fragmented IT. How do we come together as IT experts to create a system through our collective efforts?”
For the EBS to succeed, it is essential that the system is both low-cost and easy to deploy. “The cost of the operating environment is absolutely key,” said Jens Riis-Jacobson, international systems and IT director at CIMMYT. “We are trying to serve developing country institutions that have very little hard currency to pay for breeding program operations.”
Stacked software
During the hackathon, twelve experts from software projects across CGIAR and public sector institutions used a technology called Docker to automatically stack the latest versions of their applications into a single configuration file. This file can be loaded into any operating environment in less than four minutes â whether it be a laptop, local server or in the cloud. Quickly loading the complete system into a cloud environment means EBS can eventually be available as a one-click, Software-as-a-Service solution. This means that institutions will not need sophisticated IT infrastructure or support staff to maintain the software.
Behind the scenes, different applications are replicated in a single software solution, the Enterprise Breeding System. (Photo: CIMMYT)
“If everything goes as planned, the end users won’t know that we exist,” said Peter Selby, coordinator of the Breeding API (BrAPI) project, an online collective working on a common language for breeding applications to communicate with each other. Updates to individual apps will be automatically loaded, tested and pushed out to users.
As well as the benefits to breeders, this automated deployment pipeline should also result in better software. “We have too little time for development because we spend too much time in deployment and testing,” said Riis-Jacobson.
A cross-institution DevOps culture
Though important technical obstacles were overcome, the cultural aspect was perhaps the most significant outcome of the hackathon. The participants found that they shared the same goals, language and were able to define the common operating environment for their apps to work together in.
“It’s really important to keep the collaboration open,” said Roy Petrie, DevOps engineer at the Genomic and Open-Source Breeding Informatics Initiative (GOBii) based at the Boyce Thompson Institute, Cornell University. “Having a communications platform was the first thing.”
In the future, this could mean that teams synchronize their development timeline to consistently release updates with new versions of the EBS, suggested Franjel Consolacion, systems admin at CIMMYT.
“They are the next generation,” remarked Hagen. “This is the first time that this has happened in CGIAR informatics and it validated a key aspect of our strategy: that we can work together to assemble parts of a system and then deploy it as needed to different institutions.”
By early 2020, selected CIMMYT and International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) breeding teams will have access to a “minimal viable implementation” of the EBS, in which they can conduct all basic breeding tasks through a simple user interface. More functionality, breeding programs and crops from other institutions including national agricultural research programs will be added in phases over three years.
Pioneering research on our three most important cereal grains â maize, rice, and wheat â has contributed enormously to global food security over the last half century, chiefly by boosting the yields of these crops and by making them more resilient in the face of drought, flood, pests and diseases. But with more than 800 million people still living in chronic hunger and many more suffering from inadequate diets, much remains to be done. The challenges are complicated by climate change, rampant degradation of the ecosystems that sustain food production, rapid population growth and unequal access to resources that are vital for improved livelihoods.
In recent years, a consensus has emerged among agricultural researchers and development experts around the need to transform global food systems, so they can provide healthy diets while drastically reducing negative environmental impacts. Certainly, this is a central aim of CGIAR â the world’s largest global agricultural research network â which views enhanced nutrition and sustainability as essential for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. CGIAR scientists and their many partners contribute by developing technological and social innovations for the worldâs key crop production systems, with a sharp focus on reducing hunger and poverty in low- and middle-income countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America.
The importance of transforming food systems is also the message of the influential EAT-Lancet Commission report, launched in early 2019. Based on the views of 37 leading experts from diverse research disciplines, the report defines specific actions to achieve a âplanetary health diet,â which enhances human nutrition and keeps the resource use of food systems within planetary boundaries. While including all food groups â grains, roots and tubers, pulses, vegetables, fruits, tree nuts, meat, fish, and dairy products â this diet reflects important shifts in their consumption. The major cereals, for example, would supply about one-third of the required calories but with increased emphasis on whole grains to curb the negative health effects of cheap and abundant supplies of refined cereals.
This proportion of calories corresponds roughly to the proportion of its funding that CGIAR currently invests in the major cereals. These crops are already vital in diets, cultures, and economies across the developing world, and the way they are produced, processed and consumed must be a central focus of global efforts to transform food systems. There are four main reasons for this imperative.
Aneli ZĂĄrate VĂĄsquez (left), in Mexico’s state of Oaxaca, sells maize tortillas for a living. (Photo: P. Lowe/CIMMYT)
1. Scale and economic importance
The sheer extent of major cereal production and its enormous value, especially for the poor, account in large part for the critical importance of these crops in global food systems. According to 2017 figures, maize is grown on 197 million hectares and rice on more than 167 million hectares, mainly in Asia and Africa. Wheat covers 218 million hectares, an area larger than France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK combined. The total annual harvest of these crops amounts to about 2.5âŻbillion tons of grain.
Worldwide production had an estimated annual value averaging more than $500 billion in 2014-2016. The prices of the major cereals are especially important for poor consumers. In recent years, the rising cost of bread in North Africa and tortillas in Mexico, as well as the rice price crisis in Southeast Asia, imposed great hardship on urban populations in particular, triggering major demonstrations and social unrest. To avoid such troubles by reducing dependence on cereal imports, many countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America have made staple crop self-sufficiency a central element of national agriculture policy.
Women make roti, an unleavened flatbread made with wheat flour and eaten as a staple food, at their home in the Dinajpur district, Bangladesh. (Photo: S. Mojumder/Drik/CIMMYT)
2. Critical role in human diets
Cereals have a significant role to play in food system transformation because of their vital importance in human diets. In developing countries, maize, rice, and wheat together provide 48% of the total calories and 42% of the total protein. In every developing region except Latin America, cereals provide people with more protein than meat, fish, milk and eggs combined, making them an important protein source for over half the worldâs population.
Yellow maize, a key source of livestock feed, also contributes indirectly to more protein-rich diets, as does animal fodder derived from cereal crop residues. As consumption of meat, fish and dairy products continues to expand in the developing world, demand for cereals for food and feed must rise, increasing the pressure to optimize cereal production.
In addition to supplying starch and protein, the cereals serve as a rich source of dietary fiber and nutrients. CGIAR research has documented the important contribution of wheat to healthy diets, linking the crop to reduced risk of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and colorectal cancer. The nutritional value of brown rice compared to white rice is also well known. Moreover, the recent discovery of certain genetic traits in milled rice has created the opportunity to breed varieties that show a low glycemic index without compromising grain quality.
Golden Rice grain (left) compared to white rice grain. Golden Rice is unique because it contains beta carotene, giving it a golden color. (Photo: IRRI)
The major cereals have undergone further improvement in nutritional quality during recent years through a crop breeding approach called âbiofortification,â which boosts the content of essential vitamins or micronutrients. Dietary deficiencies of this kind harm childrenâs physical and cognitive development, and leave them more vulnerable to disease. Sometimes called âhidden hunger,â this condition is believed to cause about one-third of the 3.1 million annual child deaths attributed to malnutrition. Diverse diets are the preferred remedy, but the worldâs poorest consumers often cannot afford more nutritious foods. The problem is especially acute for women and adolescent girls, who have unequal access to food, healthcare and resources.
It will take many years of focused effort before diverse diets become a reality in the lives of the people who need them most. Diversified farming systems such as rice-fish rotations that improve nutritional value, livelihoods and resilience are a step in that direction. In the meantime, âbiofortifiedâ cereal and other crop varieties developed by CGIAR help address hidden hunger by providing higher levels of zinc, iron and provitamin A carotenoids as well as better protein quality. Farmers in many developing countries are already growing these varieties.
A 2018 study in India found that young children who ate zinc-biofortified wheat in flatbread or porridge became ill less frequently. Other studies have shown that consumption of provitamin A maize improves the bodyâs total stores of this vitamin as effectively as vitamin supplementation. Biofortified crop varieties are not a substitute for food fortification (adding micronutrients and vitamins during industrial food processing). But these varieties can offer an immediate solution to hidden hunger for the many subsistence farmers and other rural consumers who depend on locally produced foods and lack access to fortified products.
Ruth Andrea (left) and Maliamu Joni harvest cobs of drought-tolerant maize in Idakumbi, Mbeya, Tanzania. (Photo: Peter Lowe/CIMMYT)
4. Wide scope for more sustainable production
Cereal crops show much potential not only for enhancing human heath but that of the environment as well. Compared to other crops, the production of cereals has relatively low environmental impact, as noted in the EAT-Lancet report. Still, it is both necessary and feasible to further enhance the sustainability of cereal cropping systems. Many new practices have a proven ability to conserve water as well as soil and land, and to use purchased inputs (pesticides and fertilizers) far more efficiently. With innovations already available, the amount of water used in current rice cultivation techniques, for example, can be significantly reduced from its present high level.
Irrigation scheduling, laser land leveling, drip irrigation, conservation tillage, precision nitrogen fertilization, and cereal varieties tolerant to drought, flooding and heat are among the most promising options. In northwest India, scientists recently determined that optimal practices can reduce water use by 40%, while maintaining yields in rice-wheat rotations. There and in many other places, the adoption of new practices to improve cereal production in the wet season not only leads to more efficient resource use but also creates opportunities to diversify crop production in the dry season. Improvements to increase cereal crop yields also reduces their environmental footprint; using less land, enhancing carbon sequestration and biodiversity and, for rice, reducing methane emissions per kilo of rice produced. Given the enormous extent of cereals cultivation, any improvement in resource use efficiency will have major impact, while also freeing up vast amounts of land for other crops or natural vegetation.
A major challenge now is to improve access to the knowledge and inputs that will enable millions of farmers to adopt new techniques, making it possible both to diversify production and grow more with less. Another key requirement consists of clear signals from policymakers, especially where land and water are limited, about the priority use of these resources â for example, irrigating low-value cereals to bolster food security versus applying the water to higher value crops and importing staple cereals.
Morning dew on a wheat spike. (Photo: Vadim Ganeyev/CIMMYT)
Toward a sustainable dietary revolution
Future-proofing the global food system requires bold steps. Policy and research need to support a double transformation, centered on nutrition and sustainability.
CGIAR works toward nutritional transformation of our food system through numerous global partnerships. We give high priority to improving cereal crop systems and food products, because of their crucial importance for a growing world population. Recognizing that this alone will not suffice for healthy diets, we also strongly promote greater dietary diversity through our research on various staple crops and production systems and by raising public awareness of more balanced and nutritious diets.
To help achieve a sustainability transformation, CGIAR researchers and partners have developed a wide array of techniques that use resources more efficiently, enhance the resilience of food production in the face of climate change and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, while achieving sustainable increases in crop yields. At the same time, we are generating new evidence on which techniques work best under what conditions to target the implementation of these solutions more effectively.
The ultimate impact of our work depends crucially on the growing resolve of developing countries to promote better diets and more sustainable food production through strong policies and programs. CGIAR is well prepared to help strengthen these measures through research for development, and we are confident that our work on cereals, with continued donor support, will have high relevance, generating a wealth of innovations that help drive the transformation of global food systems.
Martin Kropff is the Director General of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).
Matthew Morell is the Director General of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI).
Droughts affect crop production across the world. A central challenge for researchers and policymakers is to devise technologies that lend greater resilience to agricultural production under this particular environmental stress.
Interdrought 2020 aims to facilitate the development of concepts, methods and technologies associated with plant production in water-limited environments.
The congress will take place from March 9 to 13, 2020, in Mexico City. Early-bird registration is open until October 31, 2019 and abstract submissions will be accepted until November 15, 2019.
The conference will focus on:
Optimizing dryland crop production â crop design
Water capture, transpiration, transpiration efficiency
Vegetative and reproductive growth
Breeding for water-limited environments
Managing cropping systems for adaptation to water-limited environments
This will be the 6th edition of Interdrought, which builds on the successful series of conferences in Montpellier (1995), Rome (2005), Shanghai (2009), Perth (2013) and Hyderabad (2017).
It will continue the philosophy of presenting, discussing and integrating results of both applied and basic research towards the development of solutions for improving crop production under drought-prone conditions.
If you encounter any difficulties in registration, or are interested in sponsoring the conference, please send an email to cimmyt-interdrought2020@cgiar.org.
A man demonstrates the precision spreader to farmers in Bardiya, Nepal, in collaboration with the Janaekata cooperative and the local government. (Photo: Hari Prasad Acharya/CIMMYT)
Smallholder farmers in Nepal tend to apply fertilizer by hand, spreading it as they walk through the field. Under this practice, fertilizer is dispersed randomly and is therefore unevenly distributed among all the seedlings. A recently introduced method, however, helps farmers spread fertilizer in a more uniform, faster and easier way.
The precision spreader is a hand-operated device that ensures an even distribution of fertilizer and is easy to operate. This technology is endorsed by the Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA), a project led by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) which helps Nepalese farmers adapt measures that are efficient, effective and resilient to the impacts of climate change.
In addition to more consistent distribution, the precision spreader regulates the exact amount of fertilizer required and helps the farmer cover a considerable area with limited movement. This technology has been proven to require less time and effort than the traditional method of broadcasting by hand.
Considering the potential benefits, the CSISA team introduced farmers in Nepal to the precision spreader through training sessions followed by demonstrations of its use. They took place in wheat fields in Bansgadhi, Barbardiya and Duduwa, in Lumbini province, in collaboration with multipurpose cooperative Janaekata and the local governments. Through these sessions, conducted in 45 different sites, more than 650 farmers had a chance to familiarize themselves with the precision spreader, and most of them took a keen interest in incorporating the device into their cropping management practices.
Perhaps the most prominent reason why the precision spreader sparked such interest is that women can easily use it. Most men in rural areas have migrated to the city or abroad in hopes of higher income, so work in the fields has been inadvertently transferred to women. Since Nepal is a predominantly conservative patriarchal society, women have not yet become comfortable and familiarized with all farming practices, especially operating heavy agricultural machinery. However, as expressed by women themselves, the precision spreader is highly convenient to use. Its use could help ease women into the agriculture scene of Nepal and consequently reduce farming drudgery.
A woman operates a precision spreader during a demonstration for a farmer group in Guleriya MCP, Bardiya, in coordination with the Suahaara nutrition project. (Photo: Salin Acharya/CIMMYT)
Healthier crops, healthier people
Nestled between China and India, Nepal predominantly relies on agriculture for employment. With the majority of its population engaged in the agricultural sector, the country still struggles to produce an adequate food supply for its people, resulting in depressed rural economies, increased malnutrition and widespread hunger.
Sustainable intensification, therefore, is necessary to increase the overall yield and to accelerate agricultural development.
Better distribution of fertilizer in the fields results in a higher chance of healthier crops, which are the source of better nutrition.
A wider use of a seemingly small technology like the precision spreader would not only reduce hardships in farming, but it would also help farmers become more resilient towards the natural and economic adversities they face.
The Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA) is a regional project in Bangladesh, India and Nepal that was established in 2009 with the goal of benefiting more than 8 million farmers by the end of 2020. Funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, CSISA is led by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and implemented jointly with the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI).
Halima Begum wanted to increase her income by providing mechanization services to other farmers in Bangladeshâs Chuadanga district, but she was limited by the level of physical effort required. Starting the engine of her tractor was difficult and embarrassing â cranking it required a lot of strength and she had to rely on others to do it for her. She was also afraid she would get injured, like other local service providers.
Women in rural areas of Bangladesh are often hesitant to work in the fields. Social norms, limited mobility, physical exertion, lack of time and other constraints can cause aspiring female entrepreneurs to step back, despite the prospect of higher income. The few women like Halima who do step out of their comfort zone and follow their dreams often have to overcome the physical effort required to operate these machines.
Starting the tractor is a daunting task on its own and the possibility of having to do it multiple times a day adds to the reluctance of ownership.
To make manual cranking a thing of the past for Bangladeshi women entrepreneurs, and to encourage others, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), through the Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia-Mechanization and Irrigation (CSISA-MI), is supporting small businesses who manufacture and sell affordable mechanical self-starter attachments for two-wheel tractors.
The self-starter is a simple spring-loaded device mounted over the old crank handle socket, which allows users to start the engine with the flick of a lever.
Halima Begum operates her two-wheel tractor, equipped with a self-starter device. (Photo: Mostafa Kamrul Hasan/CIMMYT)
For women like Begum, manually starting a tractor was a difficult task that is now gone forever.
âI used to struggle quite a lot before, but now I can easily start the machine, thanks to this highly convenient self-starter,â Begum said.
The self-starter reduces the risk of accidents and coaxes hesitant youth and women to become entrepreneurs in the agricultural mechanization service industry.
CIMMYT is supporting businesses like Janata Engineering, which imports self-starter devices and markets them among local service providers in the district of Sorojgonj, Chuadanga district. The project team worked with the owner, Md. Ole Ullah, to organize field demonstrations for local service providers, showing how to use and maintain the self-starter device.
The Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia-Mechanization and Irrigation (CSISA-MI) is led by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The project focuses on upstream market interventions in Bangladesh, ensuring technologies are reliably available in local markets and supported by an extensive value chain.
A community health worker in Rwanda talks to people on hygiene and the importance of a balanced diet, as part of the SUSTAIN project. (Photo: CIP)
STOCKHOLM, Sweden â Millions of families in Africa and South Asia have improved their diet with a special variety of sweet potato designed to tackle vitamin A deficiency, according to a report published today.
A six-year project, launched in 2013, used a double-edged approach of providing farming families with sweet potato cuttings as well as nutritional education on the benefits of orange-fleshed sweet potato.
The Scaling Up Sweetpotato through Agriculture and Nutrition (SUSTAIN) project, led by the International Potato Center (CIP) and more than 20 partners, reached more than 2.3 million households with children under five with planting material.
The project, which was rolled out in Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique and Rwanda as well as Bangladesh and Tanzania, resulted in 1.3 million women and children regularly eating orange-fleshed sweet potato when available.
âVitamin A deficiency (VAD) is one of the most pernicious forms of undernourishment and can limit growth, weaken immunity, lead to blindness, and increase mortality in children,â said Barbara Wells, director general of CIP. âGlobally, 165 million children under five suffer from VAD, mostly in Africa and Asia.â
âThe results of the SUSTAIN project show that agriculture and nutrition interventions can reinforce each other to inspire behavior change towards healthier diets in smallholder households.â
Over the past decade, CIP and partners have developed dozens of biofortified varieties of orange-fleshed sweet potato in Africa and Asia. These varieties contain high levels of beta-carotene, which the body converts into vitamin A.
Just 125g of fresh orange-fleshed sweet potato provides the daily vitamin A needs of a pre-school child, as well as providing high levels of vitamins B6 and C, manganese and potassium.
Under the SUSTAIN project, families in target communities received nutritional education at rural health centers as well as cuttings that they could then plant and grow.
For every household directly reached with planting material, an additional 4.2 households were reached on average through farmer-to-farmer interactions or partner activities using technologies or materials developed by SUSTAIN.
The project also promoted commercial opportunities for smallholder farmers with annual sales of orange-fleshed sweet potato puree-based products estimated at more than $890,000 as a result of the project.
Two women sort orange-fleshed sweet potato in Faridpur district, Bangladesh. (Photo: Sara Quinn/CIP)
Perspectives from the Global South
The results of the initiative were published during the EAT Forum in Stockholm, where CGIAR scientists discussed the recommendations of the EAT-Lancet report from the perspective of developing countries.
âThe SUSTAIN project showed the enormous potential for achieving both healthy and sustainable diets in developing countries using improved varieties of crops that are already widely grown,â said Simon Heck, program leader, CIP.
âSweet potato should be included as the basis for a sustainable diet in many developing countries because it provides more calories per hectare and per growing month than all the major grain crops, while tackling a major nutrition-related health issue.â
At an EAT Forum side event, scientists highlighted that most food is grown by small-scale producers in low- and middle-income countries, where hunger and undernutrition are prevalent and where some of the largest opportunities exist for food system and dietary transformation.
âThere are almost 500 million small farms that comprise close to half the worldâs farmland and are home to many of the worldâs most vulnerable populations,â said Martin Kropff, director general of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).
âWithout access to appropriate technologies and support to sustainably intensify production, small farmers â the backbone of our global food system â will not be able to actively contribute a global food transformation.â
Matthew Morell, director general of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), added: âIf the EAT-Lancet planetary health diet guidelines are to be truly global, they will need to be adapted to developing-world realities â such as addressing Vitamin A deficiency through bio-fortification of a range of staple crops.
âThis creative approach is a strong example of how to address a devastating and persistent nutrition gap in South Asia and Africa.â
The International Potato Center (CIP) was founded in 1971 as a research-for-development organization with a focus on potato, sweet potato and Andean roots and tubers. It delivers innovative science-based solutions to enhance access to affordable nutritious food, foster inclusive sustainable business and employment growth, and drive the climate resilience of root and tuber agri-food systems. Headquartered in Lima, Peru, CIP has a research presence in more than 20 countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America. CIP is a CGIAR research center. www.cipotato.org
CGIAR is a global research partnership for a food-secure future. CGIAR science is dedicated to reducing poverty, enhancing food and nutrition security, and improving natural resources and ecosystem services. Its research is carried out by 15 CGIAR centers in close collaboration with hundreds of partners, including national and regional research institutes, civil society organizations, academia, development organizations and the private sector. www.cgiar.org
Pollution has become a part of our daily life: particulate matter in the air we breathe, organic pollutants and heavy metals in our food supply and drinking water. All of these pollutants affect the quality of human life and create enormous human costs.
The burning of crop residue, or stubble, across millions of hectares of cropland between planting seasons is a visible contributor to air pollution in both rural and urban areas. (Photo: Dakshinamurthy Vedachalam/CIMMYT)
For decades, CIMMYT has engaged in the development and promotion of technologies to reduce our environmental footprint and conserve natural resources to help improve farmerâs productivity.
Zero tillage reverses the loss of soil organic matter that happens in conventional tillage. (Photo: Dakshinamurthy Vedachalam/CIMMYT)
Efficient use of nitrogen fertilizers, better management of water, zero-tillage farming, and better residue management strategies offer viable solutions to beat air pollution originating from the agriculture sector. Mitigation measures have been developed, field tested, and widely adopted by farmers across Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan.
Indiaâs farmers feed billions of people, while fighting pest and weather related uncertainties. Is it too much to ask them to change their behavior and help support air quality with the food they grow? (Photo: Dakshinamurthy Vedachalam/CIMMYT)
“Multi-lateral impacts of air pollution link directly it to various sustainability issues,” explained Balwinder Singh, Cropping Systems Simulation Modeler at CIMMYT. “The major sustainability issues regarding air quality revolve around the common question: How good is good enough to be sustainable? We need to decide how to balance the sustainable agriculture productivity and hazardous pollution levels. We need to have policies on the regulation of crop burning and in addition to policies surrounding methods to help reach appropriate air quality levels.”
Researchers, policymakers and other agricultural partners participated in the workshop on fall armyworm. (Photo: Uttam/CIMMYT)
The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and the Bangladesh Wheat and Maize Research Institute (BWMRI), organized a training on fall armyworm on April 25, 2019 at the Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council (BARC). Experts discussed the present outbreak status, progress on strategic research, and effective ways to control this destructive pest.
The event featured Dan McGrath, Entomologist and Professor Emeritus at Oregon State University, and Joseph Huesing, Senior Biotechnology Advisor and Program Area Lead for Advanced Approaches to Combating Pests and Diseases at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Also attending were senior officials from Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI), Bangladesh Rice Research Institute (BRRI), Bangladesh Agricultural University (BAU), Department of Agricultural Extension, BARC, BWMRI and CIMMYT.
âFall armyworm cannot be eradicated. It is endemic and farmers have to learn to manage it,â said Huesing in his overview of the fall armyworm infestation in Africa. He also mentioned that fall armyworm is generally followed by southern armyworm, so Bangladesh will need a strategy for managing multiple pests.
âFall armyworm cannot be eradicated. It is endemic and farmers have to learn to manage it.â
— Joseph Huesing, USAID
Huesing explained that an effective approach for controlling fall armyworm and other pests is âknowledge, tools and policy.â
According to Huesing, Bangladeshi farmers have adequate knowledge about the pest and how to control it, especially compared to African farmers. The next step is securing the necessary tools to control fall armyworm, like spraying their fields with necessary insecticides by authorized personnel. Huesing emphasized the importance of appropriate policy implementation, particularly to ensure the registration of the right kind of insecticides assigned to effectively control fall armyworm.
Fall armyworm is a fast-reproducing species that can attack crops and cause devastation almost overnight. Even though the level of infestation in Bangladesh is still relatively light, more than 80 varieties of crops have already been attacked in 22 districts within just a few months.
Huesing indicated that safer options included handpicking of the pest, treating seeds, pheromone traps, flood irrigation and crop rotation. Currently, to help farmers learn more about the pest, the Department of Agricultural Extension is distributing factsheets and conducting awareness-raising workshops in different villages.
McGrath focused on the long-term management of fall armyworm and how Bangladesh can learn from the experience of Africa in order to avoid the same errors. McGrath suggested that weather forecasts were an important tool for helping determine when and where outbreaks might occur. Training relevant personnel is also a crucial aspect of reining in this plague. âTraining the trainers has to be hands on. We need to put more emphasis on the field than on the classroom,â McGrath said.
This workshop was part of the Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA).
