Rice-wheat cropping rotations are the major agri-food system of the Indo-Gangetic Plains of South Asia, occupying the region known as the “food basket” of India. The continuous rice-wheat farming system is deceptively productive, however, under conventional management practices.
Over-exploitation of resources leaves little doubt that this system is unsustainable, evidenced by the rapid decline in soil and water resources, and environmental quality. Furthermore, continuous cultivation of the same two crops over the last five decades has allowed certain weed species to adapt and proliferate. This adversely affects resource-use efficiency and crop productivity, and has proven to negatively influence wheat production in the Western Indo-Gangetic Plains under conventional wheat management systems.
Studies suggest weed infestations could reduce wheat yields by 50-100% across the South Asian Indo-Gangetic Plains. Globally, yield losses from weeds reach 40%, which is more than the effects of diseases, insects, and pests combined.
Herbicides are not just expensive and environmentally hazardous, but this method of chemical control is becoming less reliable as some weeds become resistant to an increasing number common herbicides. Considering the food security implications of weed overgrowth, weed management is becoming increasingly important in future cropping systems.
How can weeds be managed sustainably?
Climate-smart agriculture-based management practices are becoming a viable and sustainable alternative to conventional rice-wheat cropping systems across South Asia, leading to better resource conservation and yield stability. In addition to zero-tillage and crop residue retention, crop diversification, precise water and nutrient management, and timing of interventions are all important indicators of climate-smart agriculture.
In a recently published 8-year study, scientists observed weed density and diversity under six different management scenarios with varying conditions. Conditions ranged from conventional, tillage-based rice-wheat system with flood irrigation (scenario one), to zero-tillage-based maize-wheat-mung bean systems with subsurface drip irrigation (scenario 6). Each scenario increased in their climate-smart agriculture characteristics all the way to fully climate-smart systems.
At the end of 8 years, scenario six had the lowest weed density, saw the most abundant species decrease dramatically, and seven weed species vanish entirely. Scenario one, with conventional rice-wheat systems with tillage and flooding, experienced the highest weed density and infestation. This study highlights the potential of climate-smart agriculture as a promising solution for weed suppression in northwestern India.
On September 23, 2021, the United Nations is convening a Food Systems Summit (UNFSS) as part of the Decade of Action to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030. The Summit will launch bold new actions to deliver progress on all 17 SDGs, each of which relies in part on healthier, more sustainable and equitable food systems.
According to the UN, the term “food system” encompasses every person and every process involved in growing, raising or making food, and getting it into your stomach. The health of our food systems profoundly affects the health of our bodies, as well as the health of our environment, our economies and our cultures. When they function well, food systems have the power to bring us together as families, communities and nations.
As the world’s largest public agricultural research network, CGIAR has made invaluable contributions to global efforts to reach these 17 goals. CIMMYT plays an important role in these efforts.
Throughout September, in recognition of the historic UN Summit, we are highlighting the impact of CIMMYT research to attain the SDGs, in collaboration with the broader CGIAR and development community.
Cover photo: Across the globe, maize and wheat make up a large part of human diets and are an integral element of a healthy and sustainable food system. (Photo: A. Cortés/CIMMYT)
Together with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and Feed the Future, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and the CGIAR Research Program on Maize (MAIZE) are pleased to announce the release of “Fall Armyworm in Asia: A Guide for Integrated Pest Management.”
The publication builds on intensive, science-based responses to fall armyworm in Africa and Asia.
“I have encountered few pests as alarming as the fall armyworm,” wrote USAID Chief Scientist Rob Bertram in the guide’s Foreword. “This publication … offers to a broad range of public and private stakeholders — including national plant protection, research and extension professionals — evidence-based approaches to sustainably manage fall armyworm,” Bertram adds.
“Partners from a wide array of national and international institutions have contributed to the mammoth task of formulating various chapters in the guide,” said B.M. Prasanna, director of CIMMYT’s Global Maize Program and of MAIZE. “While the publication is focused on Asia, it provides an updated understanding of various components of fall armyworm integrated pest management that could also benefit stakeholders in Africa.”
In January 2018, CIMMYT and USAID published a similar guide on integrated pest management of fall armyworm in Africa, which reached a large number of stakeholders globally and is widely cited. Prasanna spearheaded the development and publication of both guides.
A CIMMYT researcher and a field worker lay out wheat seed for planting at the center’s headquarters in Texcoco, Mexico. In experimental trials, hundreds or thousands of wheat lines are planted for evaluation, each in small quantities, and so they are carefully laid out and sown by hand. (Photo: CIMMYT)
To help feed a growing world population, wheat scientists have turned to innovative technologies like genomic selection to hasten selection for positive traits — such as high grain yield performance and good grain quality — in varieties that are still undergoing testing. Instead of being shackled by the long duration of traditional breeding cycles, genomic selection allows scientists to make predictions regarding which traits will present when crossing two varieties; allowing breeders greater guidance and lessening potential time lost when crossing varieties that do not display potential for genetic gain. To reap the benefits of genomic selection, it is vital that the predictive models employed are as accurate as possible.
Currently, wheat breeders select characteristics like grain yield performance early in the breeding process, while selecting traits like good grain quality at a later stage in the breeding process.
In an article in the journal G3 Genes, researchers from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), and partners, led by CIMMYT scientist José Crossa along with Leonardo A. Crespo, Maria Itria Ibba and Alison R. Bentley, endeavored to determine if genomic prediction models could select for both characteristics simultaneously in the breeding process. This would improve selection accuracy in both early and later breeding stages, resulting a reduction in time and expense in delivering improved wheat varieties. They also tested the accuracy of a set of specific mathematical corrections applied to genomic predictions. These correction models identify correlations between genomic predictions and observed breeding values, such as increased yield or grain quality.
Considering two or more traits, like grain yield and good grain quality, is an example of a multi-trait model. The team examined this multi-trait model against a single trait model that improves one specific trait. Overall, the researchers found that prediction performance was highest using the multi-trait model.
However, the team also demonstrated that when breeding programs arrive at their genetic predictions, applying a specific correction method will account for differences between the predicted breeding value and the actual observed breeding value. Current correction models tend to underestimate that difference, which results in breeding programs not running as efficiently as possible.
By partnering selections from different stages in the breeding process and examining the resulting genetic predictions through a more appropriate correction model, the team has shown that breeding programs can use this to their benefit in developing and ultimately releasing improved wheat varieties that meet growing yield needs worldwide and respond to abiotic and biotic stressors.
In Nepal, agriculture contributes to a third of gross domestic product and employs about 80% of the rural labor force. The rural population is comprised mostly of smallholder farmers whose level of income from agricultural production is low by international standards and the country‘s agricultural sector has become vulnerable to erratic monsoon rains. Farmers often experience unreliable rainfall and droughts that threaten their crop yields and are not resilient to climate change and water-induced hazard. This requires a rapid update of the sustainable irrigation development in Nepal. The Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA) Nepal COVID Response and Resilience short-term project puts emphasis on identifying and prioritizing entry points to build more efficient, reliable and flexible water services to farmers by providing a fundamental irrigation development assessment and framework at local, district and provincial levels.
Digital groundwater monitoring system and assessment of water use options
Digital system of groundwater data collection, monitoring and representation will be piloted with the government of Nepal to facilitate multi-stakeholder cooperation to provide enabling environments for inclusive irrigation development and COVID-19 response. When boosting the irrigation development, monitoring is fundamental to ensure sustainability. In addition, spatially targeted, ex-ante assessments of the potential benefits of irrigation interventions provide insights by applying machine-learning analytics and constructing data-driven models for yield and profitability responses to irrigation. Furthermore, a customized set of integrated hydrological modeling and scenario analyses can further strengthen local, district and provincial level assessment of water resources and how to build resilient and sustainable water services most productively from them.
Toward a systemic framework for sustainable scaling of irrigation in Nepal
Through interview and surveys, the project further builds systemic understanding of the technical, socioeconomic and institutional challenges and opportunities in scaling water access and irrigation technologies. This will contribute to the construction of a comprehensive irrigation development framework, achieved by the collective efforts from multiple stakeholders across different line ministries, levels of government and local stakeholders and water users. Together with the technical assessments and monitoring systems, the end goal is to provide policy guidelines and engage prioritized investments that ensure and accelerate the process of sustainable intensification in irrigation in Nepal.
Have you ever considered that bread and pasta are made from different types of wheat? How about the fact that there are thousands of different wheat products consumed around the world, and each one has unique characteristics and processing requirements?
Scientists at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) understand that the quality of the final product, be it spaghetti, a loaf of sourdough bread or a tandoori naan, is highly dependent on the quality of the grain and the flour it becomes. Every year, CIMMYT analyzes thousands of wheat lines in detail at its Wheat Quality laboratory to determine the nutritional, processing and end-use quality of the grain. In this short video, CIMMYT’s Wheat Quality lab head Maria Itria Ibba explains exactly what they are looking for and how they find it.
First, CIMMYT scientists test the overall grain quality by analyzing grain weight, density, protein content, moisture content and hardness.
The grains are then milled into flour, which is again analyzed for moisture content, protein content, color and protein quality. Protein quality is especially important to determine the end-use for the type of flour, and CIMMYT conducts several tests to determine this characteristic. Bread and durum wheat flours specifically are analyzed for overall protein quality by checking SDS-sedimentation volume. Mixographs are used to assess the flour’s mixing and absorption characteristics, and alveographs are used to measure dough deformation properties.
At the end of the tests, bread wheat flours are transformed into leavened breads and scored based on the loaf’s volume and crumb quality. Durum wheat flour, used to make Italian-style pasta, is scored based on grain quality, flour yellowness, high protein content and protein quality.
CIMMYT’s work ensures that wheat-derived foods produced in developing countries are nutritious, affordable, and maximize profits for each actor in the value chain.
Cover photo: At CIMMYT’s Wheat Quality lab, researchers evaluate how different bread wheat varieties behave at the time of baking. (Photo: CIMMYT)
CGIAR turned 50 in 2021. To mark this anniversary, two independent and highly reputed experts have authored a history of CGIAR maize research from 1970 to 2020.
The authors, Derek Byerlee and Greg Edmeades, focused on four major issues running through the five decades of CGIAR maize research: the diversity of maize-growing target environments, the role of the public and private sectors in maize research in the tropics, the approaches adopted in reaching smallholder farmers in stress-prone rainfed tropical environments with improved technologies, and the need for maintaining strong financial support for international maize research efforts under the CGIAR.
The work of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) and the CGIAR Research Program on Maize (MAIZE) and its partners features prominently in this account. The authors also reviewed the history of maize policy research undertaken by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
The authors bring a unique perspective to the challenging task of tracing the evolution of maize research in CGIAR as both “insiders” and “outsiders.” While they worked as CIMMYT researchers in the 1990s, and later on as reviewers of various projects/programs, both are currently unaffiliated with CIMMYT. Byerlee is affiliated with the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, Washington DC, USA, and Edmeades is an independent scholar based in New Zealand.
“A clear-eyed and unbiased appreciation of our past — both successes and missteps — can only enrich our efforts, make better progress, and effectively meet the challenges of the present and the future,” wrote B.M. Prasanna, director of CIMMYT’s Global Maize Program and of the CGIAR Research Program MAIZE , in the foreword.
According to Prasanna, “The challenges to the maize-dependent smallholders in the tropics are far from over. Optimal, stable and long-term investment in international maize improvement efforts is critical.”
Disclaimer: The CGIAR Research Program MAIZE supported only the review, formatting, and online publication of this document. The findings and conclusions are completely of the authors, and do not necessarily represent the institutional views of CIMMYT, IITA, IFPRI or CGIAR and its partners.
An international collaboration has discovered and transferred to elite wheat varieties a wild-grass chromosome segment that causes roots to secrete natural inhibitors of nitrification, offering a way to dial back on heavy fertilizer use for wheat and to reduce the crop’s nitrogen leakage into waterways and air, while maintaining or raising its productivity and grain quality, says a new report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.
Growing wheat varieties endowed with the biological nitrification inhibition (BNI) trait could increase yields in both well-fertilized and nitrogen-poor soils, according to G.V. Subbarao, researcher at the Japan International Research Center for Agricultural Sciences (JIRCAS) and first author of the new report.
“Use of wheat varieties that feature BNI opens the possibility for a more balanced and productive mix of nitrogen nutrients for wheat fields, which are currently dominated by highly-reactive nitrogen compounds that derive in large part from synthetic fertilizers and can harm the environment,” Subbarao said.
The most widely grown food crop on the planet, wheat is consumed by over 2.5 billion people in 89 countries. Nearly a fifth of the world’s nitrogen-based fertilizer is deployed each year to grow wheat but, similar to other major cereals, vegetables, and fruits, the crop takes up less than half of the nitrogen applied.
Much of the remainder is either washed away, contaminating ground waters with nitrate and contributing to algae blooms in lakes and seas, or released into the air, often as nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas 300 times more potent than carbon dioxide.
The study team first homed in on the chromosome region associated with the strong BNI capacity in the perennial grass species Leymus racemosus and moved it from the grass, using “wide crossing” techniques, into the cultivar Chinese Spring, a wheat landrace often used in genetic studies. From there, they transferred the BNI chromosome sequence into several elite, high-yielding wheat varieties, leading to a near doubling of their BNI capacity, as measured through lab analyses of soil near their roots.
The new wheats — elite varieties from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) into which the BNI trait was cross-bred — greatly reduced the action of soil microbes that usually convert fertilizer and organic nitrogen substances into ecologically-harmful compounds such as nitrous oxide gas, according to Hannes Karwat, a CIMMYT post-doctoral fellow and study co-author.
“The altered soil nitrogen cycle was even reflected in the plants’ metabolism,” Karwat said, “resulting in several responses indicative of a more balanced nitrogen uptake in the plants.”
The scientists involved said BNI-converted wheats in this study also showed greater overall biomass and grain yield, with no negative effects on grain protein levels or breadmaking quality.
“This points the way for farmers to feed future wheat consumers using lower fertilizer dosages and lowering nitrous oxide emissions,” said Masahiro Kishii, a CIMMYT wheat cytogeneticist who contributed to the research. “If we can find new BNI sources, we can develop a second generation of elite wheat varieties that require even less fertilizer and that better deter nitrous oxide emissions.”
A recent PNAS paper by Subbarao and Princeton University scientist Timothy D. Searchinger mentions BNI as a technology that can help foster soils featuring a more even mix of nitrogen sources, including more of the less-chemically-reactive compound ammonium, a condition that can raise crop yields and reduce nitrous oxide emissions.
CIMMYT researcher Masahiro Kishii examines wheat plants in a greenhouse. (Photo: CIMMYT)
Scale out to slow global warming?
The present study comes just as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has released its Sixth Assessment Report, which among other things states that “… limiting human-induced global warming … requires limiting cumulative CO2 emissions … along with strong reductions in other greenhouse gas emissions.”
Globally, 30% of greenhouse gas emissions come from agriculture. BNI-enabled wheat cultivars can play an important role to reduce that footprint. Wheat-growing nations that have committed to the Paris Climate Accord, whose provisions include reducing greenhouse gas emissions 30% by 2050, could be early adopters of the BNI technology, together with China and India, the world’s top two wheat producers, according to Subbarao.
“This work has demonstrated the feasibility of introducing BNI-controlling chromosome segments into modern wheats, without disrupting their yields or quality,” said Subbarao. “To realize the technology’s full potential, we need to transfer the BNI feature into many elite varieties adapted to diverse wheat growing areas and to assess their yield in many farm settings and with varying levels of soil pH, fertilization and water use.”
A project to establish nitrogen-efficient wheat production systems in the Indo-Gangetic Plains using BNI has recently been approved by Japan and is under way, with the collaboration of JIRCAS, the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), and the Borlaug Institute of South Asia (BISA). Under the project, BNI-converted wheat lines developed from JIRCAS-CIMMYT partnerships will be tested in India and the BNI trait transferred to popular national wheat varieties.
“Adaptation and mitigation solutions such as BNI, which help lessen the footprint of food production systems, will play a large role in CGIAR research-for-development, as part of One CGIAR Initiatives starting in 2022,” said Bram Govaerts, CIMMYT Director General.
The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) is offering a new set of elite, improved maize hybrids to partners for commercialization in the tropical lowlands of Latin America and similar agro-ecological zones. National agricultural research systems (NARS) and seed companies are invited to apply for licenses to commercialize these new hybrids, in order to bring the benefits of the improved seed to farming communities. In some countries, depending on the applicable regulatory framework for commercial maize seed, successful applicants may first need to sponsor the products through the national registration / release process prior to commercialization.
The deadline to submit applications to be considered during the first round of allocations is September17, 2021. Applications received after that deadline will be considered during the following round of product allocations.
Information about the newly available CIMMYT maize hybrids from the Latin America breeding program, application instructions and other relevant material is available in the CIMMYT Maize Product Catalog and in the links provided below.
Applications must be accompanied by a proposed commercialization plan for each product being requested. Applications may be submitted online via the CIMMYT Maize Licensing Portal in English or Spanish.
Alternatively, applications may be submitted via email to GMP-CIMMYT@cgiar.org using the PDF forms available for download at the links below. Each applicant will need to complete one copy of Form A for their organization, then for each hybrid being requested a separate copy of Form B. (Please be sure to use these current versions of the application forms.)
As the world turns its attention to the policy-shaping discussions during this week’s Pre-Summit of the UN Food System Summit, the need for science and innovation to advance the transformation of food, land and water systems is clear.
The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), with its 50-year track record of impact, success and high return on investment, is essential to these efforts.
Our new institutional brochure, Maize and wheat science to sustainably feed the world, links CIMMYT’s mission, vision and excellence in science to the urgent needs of a world where an estimated tenth of the global population — up to 811 million people — are undernourished.
CIMMYT is also a crucial wellspring of response capacity to CGIAR — the largest global, publicly funded research organization scaling solutions for food, land and water system challenges.
Maize and wheat science to sustainably feed the world explains why we do what we do in light of these challenges.
CIMMYT leads maize and wheat research for food systems that deliver affordable, sufficient, and healthy diets produced within planetary boundaries.
Our research is focused on smallholder farmers in low- and middle-income countries and on improving the livelihoods of people who live on less than $2 a day.
CIMMYT science reaches them through innovation hubs, appropriate technologies, sustainable sourcing, and helps to address their needs and challenges through public policy guidance.
Applying high-quality science and strong partnerships, CIMMYT works for a world with healthier and more prosperous people, free from global food crises and with more resilient agri-food systems.
This story was originally published on the Inter Press Service (IPS) website.
Durum wheat field landscape at CIMMYT’s experimental station in Toluca, Mexico. (Photo: Alfonso Cortés/CIMMYT)
Back-to-back droughts followed by plagues of locusts have pushed over a million people in southern Madagascar to the brink of starvation in recent months. In the worst famine in half a century, villagers have sold their possessions and are eating the locusts, raw cactus fruits, and wild leaves to survive.
Instead of bringing relief, this year’s rains were accompanied by warm temperatures that created the ideal conditions for infestations of fall armyworm, which destroys mainly maize, one of the main food crops of sub-Saharan Africa.
Drought and famine are not strangers to southern Madagascar, and other areas of eastern Africa, but climate change bringing warmer temperatures is believed to be exacerbating this latest tragedy, according to The Deep South, a new report by the World Bank.
Up to 40% of global food output is lost each year through pests and diseases, according to FAO estimates, while up to 811 million people suffer from hunger. Climate change is one of several factors driving this threat, while trade and travel transport plant pests and pathogens around the world, and environmental degradation facilitates their establishment.
Crop pests and pathogens have threatened food supplies since agriculture began. The Irish potato famine of the late 1840s, caused by late blight disease, killed about one million people. The ancient Greeks and Romans were well familiar with wheat stem rust, which continues to destroy harvests in developing countries.
But recent research on the impact of temperature increases in the tropics caused by climate change has documented an expansion of some crop pests and diseases into more northern and southern latitudes at an average of about 2.7 km a year.
Prevention is critical to confronting such threats, as brutally demonstrated by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on humankind. It is far more cost-effective to protect plants from pests and diseases rather than tackling full-blown emergencies.
One way to protect food production is with pest- and disease-resistant crop varieties, meaning that the conservation, sharing, and use of crop biodiversity to breed resistant varieties is a key component of the global battle for food security.
CGIAR manages a network of publicly-held gene banks around the world that safeguard and share crop biodiversity and facilitate its use in breeding more resistant, climate-resilient and productive varieties. It is essential that this exchange doesn’t exacerbate the problem, so CGIAR works with international and national plant health authorities to ensure that material distributed is free of pests and pathogens, following the highest standards and protocols for sharing plant germplasm. The distribution and use of that germplasm for crop improvement is essential for cutting the estimated 540 billion US dollars of losses due to plant diseases annually.
Understanding the relationship between climate change and plant health is key to conserving biodiversity and boosting food production today and for future generations. Human-driven climate change is the challenge of our time. It poses grave threats to agriculture and is already affecting the food security and incomes of small-scale farming households across the developing world.
We need to improve the tools and innovations available to farmers. Rice production is both a driver and victim of climate change. Extreme weather events menace the livelihoods of 144 million smallholder rice farmers. Yet traditional cultivation methods such as flooded paddies contribute approximately 10% of global man-made methane, a potent greenhouse gas. By leveraging rice genetic diversity and improving cultivation techniques we can reduce greenhouse gas emissions, enhance efficiency, and help farmers adapt to future climates.
A farmer in Tanzania stands in front of her maize plot where she grows improved, drought tolerant maize variety TAN 250. (Photo: Anne Wangalachi/CIMMYT)
We also need to be cognizant that gender relationships matter in crop management. A lack of gender perspectives has hindered wider adoption of resistant varieties and practices such as integrated pest management. Collaboration between social and crop scientists to co-design inclusive innovations is essential.
Men and women often value different aspects of crops and technologies. Men may value high yielding disease-resistant varieties, whereas women prioritize traits related to food security, such as early maturity. Incorporating women’s preferences into a new variety is a question of gender equity and economic necessity. Women produce a significant proportion of the food grown globally. If they had the same access to productive resources as men, such as improved varieties, women could increase yields by 20-30%, which would generate up to a 4% increase in the total agricultural output of developing countries.
Practices to grow healthy crops also need to include environmental considerations. What is known as a One Health Approach starts from the recognition that life is not segmented. All is connected. Rooted in concerns over threats of zoonotic diseases spreading from animals, especially livestock, to humans, the concept has been broadened to encompass agriculture and the environment.
This ecosystem approach combines different strategies and practices, such as minimizing pesticide use. This helps protect pollinators, animals that eat crop pests, and other beneficial organisms.
The challenge is to produce enough food to feed a growing population without increasing agriculture’s negative impacts on the environment, particularly through greenhouse gas emissions and unsustainable farming practices that degrade vital soil and water resources, and threaten biodiversity.
Behavioral and policy change on the part of farmers, consumers, and governments will be just as important as technological innovation to achieve this.
The goal of zero hunger is unattainable without the vibrancy of healthy plants, the source of the food we eat and the air we breathe. The quest for a food secure future, enshrined in the UN Sustainable Development Goals, requires us to combine research and development with local and international cooperation so that efforts led by CGIAR to protect plant health, and increase agriculture’s benefits, reach the communities most in need.
Barbara H. Wells MSc, PhD is the Global Director of Genetic Innovation at the CGIAR and Director General of the International Potato Center. She has worked in senior-executive level in the agricultural and forestry sectors for over 30 years.
In 2020, faced with the extraordinary challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, MAIZE continued its mission to strengthen maize-based agri-food systems while improving the food security and livelihoods of the most vulnerable, especially resource-constrained smallholder farmers and their families.
MAIZE and its partners made great advances in the development of improved stress-tolerant maize varieties, the battle against fall armyworm (including the announcement of three first-generation fall armyworm-tolerant maize hybrids), testing and promoting of conservation agriculture and sustainable intensification, and in deepening our grasp of how to best empower women in the quest for gender equality and social inclusion in maize-based agri-food systems.
Led by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), with the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) as its main CGIAR Consortium partner, MAIZE focuses on increasing maize production for the 900 million poor consumers for whom maize is a staple food in Africa, South Asia and Latin America.
We are proud to present highlighted impacts from WHEAT’s research in our 2020 Annual Report, showcasing the shared accomplishments through global partnerships for the eighth year of the program.
In 2020, the COVID-19 crisis devastated communities, economies, and livelihoods, especially of the world’s most vulnerable populations. At the same time, climate change continued to threaten wheat systems around the world. Under unprecedented challenges, WHEAT scientists and partners responded swiftly, generating new research evidence, forming new partnerships, and improving access to conservation agriculture and farm mechanization technologies.
This web-based report focuses on some of the major impacts the program has had on sustainable intensification, gender and social inclusion, and technological innovations for more productive wheat-based farming. Although they are reported for 2020, these impacts reflect years of dedicated science and strong collaborative relationships with partners.
We are deeply grateful for our partners in the science, research, policymaking, and funding communities who have allowed us to continue our work in the face of urgent and powerful challenges. We hope you enjoy this year’s Annual Report as we look back upon our outcomes and achievements in 2020 and set our targets for the future.
Bram Govaerts (left), Nicole Birrell (second from left) and Martin Kropff (right) stand for a group photo with José Francisco Gutiérrez Michel (second from right), Secretary of Agri-Food and Rural Development of Mexico’s Guanajuato state.
Today the Board of Trustees of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) announced leadership changes.
The Board approved the appointment of Martin Kropff, current Director General of CIMMYT, as Global Director of Resilient Agrifood Systems of CGIAR. He will play a critical role in enabling an effective transition to the new structure of CGIAR and implementing the CGIAR 2030 Research and Innovation Strategy. In this role, Kropff will be hosted by the CGIAR System Management Organization and will be based in Montpellier, France.
“We congratulate Dr. Kropff on his new position. We are convinced that he will bring to CGIAR the same excellence in science, innovation and effective management that he brought to CIMMYT,” said Board of Trustees Outgoing Chair Nicole Birrell, who completes her term in October this year.
“Through my tenure as CIMMYT Director General, we built a strong and committed team. I am sure that — with the support of the Management Committee, the Executive Committee, the Board, and the three CGIAR Science Group directors — the work of CIMMYT will find a good place in CGIAR,” said Martin Kropff.
New Director General ad interim
Effective July 1, 2021, in accordance with CIMMYT’s Constitution, the Board of Trustees appointed Bram Govaerts as CIMMYT’s Director General ad interim.
Govaerts has been part of the CIMMYT family since 2007. He is Chief Operating Officer and Deputy Director General for Research (Sustainable Production Systems and Integrated Programs) ad interim. He is also the director of CIMMYT’s Integrated Development Program.
Govaerts is renowned for pioneering, implementing and inspiring transformational changes for farmers and consumers in meeting sustainable development challenges. He brings together multi-disciplinary science and development teams to integrate sustainable, multi-stakeholder and sector strategies that generate innovation and change in agri-food systems.
“On behalf of the full Board, we want to thank Dr. Govaerts for his leadership and willingness to ensure that the Center, our research and our operations continue to run smoothly to serve our mandate and mission, as well as the broader One CGIAR vision,” said Board of Trustees Incoming Chair Margaret Bath.
“The world needs CIMMYT and our mission now more than ever, to respond to the challenges that are ahead. We are ready to take up this role, as CIMMYT has done ever since Norman Borlaug and his talented team started their work in the service of the poorest. Let us continue celebrating his legacy by generating further impact through our science,” Govaerts said.
The fall armyworm is an invasive pest that eats more than 80 different crops, but has a particular preference for maize.
It is native to the Americas. It was first reported in Africa in 2016, and quickly spread throughout the continent. It reached India in 2018. It has since been reported in many other countries across Asia and the Pacific, and it reached Australia in 2020.
Millions of families in these regions are highly dependent on maize for their income and their livelihoods. If the fall armyworm keeps spreading, it will have disastrous consequences for them.
Scientists at CIMMYT have been working hard to find solutions to help farmers fight fall armyworm. Researchers have developed manuals for farmers, with guidelines on how to manage this pest. They have also formed an international research consortium, where experts from diverse institutions are sharing knowledge and best practices. Consortium members share updates on progress in finding new ways to tackle this global challenge. Scientists are now working on developing new maize varieties that are resistant to fall armyworm.
The fall armyworm can’t be eradicated — it is here to stay. CIMMYT and its partners worldwide will continue to work on this complex challenge, so millions of smallholder farmers can protect their crops and feed their families.
