We began 2020 with grim news of the COVID-19 pandemic spreading from country to country, wreaking havoc on national economies, causing countless personal tragedies, and putting additional pressure on the livelihoods of the poor and hungry.
The global crisis exposed the enormous vulnerability of our food system.
If we have learned anything from the past year, it is that we need to urgently invest in science for renewed food systems that deliver affordable, sufficient, and healthy diets produced within planetary boundaries.
During this time, the dedication and resilience of the CIMMYT community allowed us to continue making important advances toward that vision.
We hope you enjoy reading our stories and will join us in actively working towards resilience, renewal and transition in our agri-food systems, to ensure that they are strong in the face of current and future crises.
A new guidance note shines a brighter light on the role of women in wheat-based farming systems in the Indo-Gangetic Plains and provides actionable recommendations to researchers, rural advisory services, development partners, and policymakers on how to support working communities more effectively and knowledgeably. The publication, Supporting labor and managerial feminization processes in wheat in the Indo-Gangetic Plains: A guidance note, is based on a literature review, including work by researchers at and associated with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and Pandia Consulting.
âFeminization of agriculture is happening in wheat-based systems in South Asia, but these processes are under-researched and their implications are poorly understood. This guidance note, focusing on Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan, highlights some of the commonalities and differences in feminization processes in each country,â said Hom Gartaula, gender and social inclusion specialist at CIMMYT, and one of the lead authors of the study.
This eight-page publication is based on research funded by the CGIAR Collaborative Platform on Gender Research, the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and the CGIAR Research Program on Wheat (WHEAT).
How great innovations miss critical opportunities by ignoring women
Even the most well-intentioned agricultural interventions can have external costs that can hinder economic development in the long run. The guidance note cites a study that reveals, during Indiaâs Green Revolution, that the introduction of high-yielding varieties of wheat actually âled to a significant decline in womenâs paid hired labor because wheat was culturally defined as suited to male laborers. Male wages rose, and womenâs wages fell.â Importantly, most women did not find alternative sources of income.
This is not to say that the high-yielding varieties were a poor intervention themselves; these varieties helped India and Pakistan stave off famine and produce record harvests. Rather, the lack of engagement with social norms meant that the economic opportunities from this important innovation excluded women and thus disempowered them.
Wheat farmers during a field day in Odisha, India. (Photo: Wasim Iftikar/CSISA)
A closer look at labor feminization and managerial feminization processes
The guidance note points out that it is not possible to generalize across and within countries, as gender norms can vary, and intersectionalities between gender, caste and other identities have a strong impact on womenâs participation in fieldwork. Nevertheless, there seem to be some broad trends. The fundamental cross-cutting issue is that womenâs contribution to farming is unrecognized, regardless of the reality of their work, by researchers, rural advisory services and policymakers. A second cross-cutting issue is that much research is lodged in cultural norms that reflect gender biases, rather than challenge them, through careful, non-judgemental quantitative and qualitative research.
In Bangladesh, womenâs participation in agriculture is slowly increasing as off-farm opportunities decline, though it remains limited compared to women in the other countries examined. Hired agricultural work is an important income source for some women. Emerging evidence from work from CSISA and CIMMYT shows that women are becoming decision-makers alongside their husbands in providing mechanization services. Nevertheless, technical, economic and cultural barriers broadly constrain womenâs effective participation in decision-making and fieldwork.
In India, agricultural labor is broadly feminizing as men take up off-farm opportunities and women take up more responsibilities on family farms and as hired laborers. Yet information derived from CIMMYT GENNOVATE studies cited in the guidance note shows that external actors, like rural advisory services and researchers, frequently make little effort to include women in wheat information dissemination and training events despite emerging evidence of women taking managerial roles in some communities. Some researchers and most rural advisory services continue to work with outdated and damaging assumptions about âwho does the workâ and âwho decidesâ that are not necessarily representative of farmersâ realities.
Women in Nepal provide the bulk of the labor force to agriculture. With men migrating to India and the Gulf countries to pursue other opportunities, some women are becoming de-facto heads of households and are making more decisions around farming. Still, women are rarely targeted for trainings in on-farm mechanization and innovation. However, there is evidence that simple gender-equality outreach from NGOs and supportive extension agents can have a big impact on womenâs empowerment, including promoting their ability to innovate in wheat.
In Pakistan, male out-migration to cities and West Asia is a driving force in womenâs agricultural involvement. Significant regional differences in cultural norms mean that womenâs participation and decision-making varies across the country, creating differences regarding the degree to which their increased involvement is empowering. As in the other three countries, rural advisory services primarily focus on men. This weakens womenâs ability to make good farming decisions and undermines their voice in intra-household decision-making.
Women in Nepal using agricultural machinery. (Photo: Peter Lowe/CIMMYT)
Recommendations
Research should be conducted in interdisciplinary teams and mindsets, which helps design both qualitative and quantitative research free of assumptions and bias. Qualitative and quantitative researchers need to better document the reality of womenâs agricultural work, both paid and unpaid.
National agricultural research systems, rural advisory services and development partners are encouraged to work with local partners, including womenâs groups and NGOs, to develop gender-transformative approaches with farmers. Services must develop more inclusive criteria for participation in field trials and extension events to invite more women and marginalized communities.
Policymakers are invited to analyze assumptions in existing policies and to develop new policies that better reflect womenâs work and support womenâs decision-making in the agricultural sector. Researchers should provide policymakers with more appropriate and up-to-date gender data to help them make informed decisions.
These recommendations name a few of many suggestions presented in the guidance note that can ensure agricultural feminization process are positive forces for everyone involved in wheat systems of the Indo-Gangetic Plains. As a whole, acknowledging the reality of these changes well underway in South Asia â and around the world â will not just empower women, but strengthen wheat-based agri-food systems as a whole.
Cover photo: Farmer Bhima Bhandari returns home after field work carrying her 7-month-old son Sudarsan on her back in Bardiya, Nepal. (Photo: Peter Lowe/CIMMYT)
A graphic shows district-wide distribution of annual greenhouse gas mitigation potential through improved and more efficient fertilizer management in the crop sector of Bangladesh in 2030 and 2050. (Graphic: CIMMYT)
A number of readily-available farming methods could allow Bangladeshâs agriculture sector to decrease its greenhouse gas emissions while increasing productivity, according to a new study by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and partners.
The study, published in Science of the Total Environment, measured the countryâs emissions due to agriculture, and identified and analyzed potential mitigation measures in crop and livestock farming. Pursuing these tactics could be a win-win for farmers and the climate, and the countryâs government should encourage their adoption, the research suggests.
âEstimating the greenhouse gas emissions associated with agricultural production processes â complemented with identifying cost-effective abatement measures, quantifying the mitigation scope of such measures, and developing relevant policy recommendations â helps prioritize mitigation work consistent with the country’s food production and mitigation goals,â said CIMMYT climate scientist Tek Sapkota, who led this work.
To determine Bangladeshâs agricultural greenhouse gas emissions, the researchers analyzed 16,413 and 12,548 datapoints from crops and livestock, respectively, together with associated soil and climatic information. The paper also breaks down the emissions data region by region within the country. This could help Bangladesh’s government prioritize mitigation efforts in the places where they will be the most cost-effective.
âI believe that the scientific information, messages and knowledge generated from this study will be helpful in formulating and implementing the National Adaptation Plan (NAP) process in Bangladesh, the National Action Plan for Reducing Short-Lived Climate Pollutants (SLCPs) and Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC),â said Nathu Ram Sarker, director general of the Bangladesh Livestock Research Institute.
Policy implications
Agriculture in Bangladesh is heavily intensified, as the country produces up to three rice crops in a single year. Bangladesh also has the seventh highest livestock density in the world. In all, the greenhouse gas output of agriculture in Bangladesh was 76.79 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (Mt CO2e) in 2014-15, according to the research. This emission is equivalent to the emission from fossil fuel burning by 28 million cars for a year. Â At the going rate, total agricultural emission from Bangladesh are expected to reach 86.87 Mt CO2e by 2030, and 100.44 Mt CO2e by 2050.
By deploying targeted and often readily-available methods, Bangladesh could mitigate 9.51 Mt and 14.21 Mt CO2e from its agriculture sector by 2030 and 2050, respectively, according to the paper. Further, the country can reach three-fourths of these outcomes by using mitigation strategies that also cut costs, a boon for smaller agricultural operations.
Adopting these mitigation strategies can reduce the country’s carbon emissions while contributing to food security and climate resilience in the future. However, realizing the estimated potential emission reductions may require support from the countryâs government.
âAlthough Bangladesh has a primary and justified priority on climate change adaptation, mitigation is also an important national priority. This work will help governmental policy makers to identify and implement effective responses for greenhouse gas mitigation from the agricultural sector, with appropriate extension programs to aid in facilitating adoption by crop and livestock farmers,â said Timothy Krupnik, CIMMYT country representative in Bangladesh and coauthor of the paper.
Mitigation strategies
The research focused on eight crops and four livestock species that make up the vast majority of agriculture in Bangladesh. The crops â potato, wheat, jute, maize, lentils and three different types of rice â collectively cover more than 90% of cultivated land in the nation. Between 64 and 84% of total fertilizer used in Bangladesh is used to cultivate these crops. The paper also focuses on the four major kinds of livestock species in the country: cattle, buffalo, sheep and goats.
For crops, examples of mitigation strategies include alternate wetting and drying in rice (intermittently irrigating and draining rice fields, rather than having them continuously flooded) and improved nutrient use efficiency, particularly for nitrogen. The research shows that better nitrogen management could contribute 60-65% of the total mitigation potential from Bangladeshâs agricultural sector. Other options include adopting strip-tillage and using short duration rice varieties.
For livestock, mitigation strategies include using green fodder supplements, increased concentrate feeding and improved forage/diet management for ruminants. Improved manure storage, separation and aeration is another potential tool to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The mitigation options for livestock would make up 22 and 28% of the total potential emission reductions in the sector by 2030 and 2050, respectively.
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.
Scientists examine Ug99 stem rust symptoms on wheat. (Photo: Petr Kosina/CIMMYT)
The three rust diseases, yellow (stripe) rust, black (stem) rust, and brown (left) rust occur in most wheat production environments, causing substantial yield losses and under serious epidemics, can threaten the global wheat supply.
CIMMYT is one of the largest providers of elite germplasm to national partners in over 80 countries. CIMMYT nurseries, known for research in developing adaptive, high-yielding and high-quality germplasm, also carry resistance to several biotic and abiotic stresses, such as rust disease.
Through years of research and experience, CIMMYT has found that durable control of wheat rusts can be achieved by developing and deploying wheat varieties with complex adult-plant resistance (APR). A combination of both conventional and modern technologies in APR will enable breeders to address the problem of rusts and other diseases and continue progress in delivering higher genetic gains, a key goal of the Accelerating Genetic Gains in Maize and Wheat (AGG) project.
A multi-disciplinary team of agricultural researchers and development practitioners is proposing a new approach to tackle the shortcomings of global food production systems that degrade the environment, greatly contribute to climate change and fail to deliver healthy diets for a growing population.
The new methodology developed by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) in collaboration with the Alliance of Bioversity International and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) aims to transform national food systems by achieving consensus between multiple stakeholders and building on successful participatory agricultural research experiences.
According to a peer-reviewed paper published today in the journal PLOS ONE, the Integrated Agri-food System Initiative (IASI) âis designed to generate strategies, actions, and quantitative, [Sustainable Development Goals] SDGs-aligned targets that have [a significant] likelihood of supportive public and private investmentâ.
The IASI methodology is based on successful integrated development projects implemented by CIMMYT in Mexico and Colombia, the latter in partnership with the Alliance Bioversity-CIAT, which engaged multiple public, private and civil sector collaborators in local maize systems enhancement. These initiatives took advantage of sociopolitical âwindows of opportunityâ that helped build multiple stakeholder consensus around health, nutrition, food security and development aspirations in both countries.
âCIMMYTâs integrated development approach to maize systems transformation in Mexico and Colombia laid the foundations of the IASI methodology by overcoming government transitions, annual budget constraints and win-or-lose rivalry between stakeholders in favor of equity, profitability, resilience and sustainability,â said Bram Govaerts, chief operating officer and Integrated Development Program director at CIMMYT.
Ultimately, the IASI methodology offers public officials and development practitioners the possibility to transform food systems by scaling out innovative farming practices and technologies that lead to sustainably managed natural resources and improved nutrition and food security.
The main steps to implement the IASI methodology are:
Diverse experts examine the current status and the business-as-usual scenario based on analysis of the socioeconomic, political, and sectoral context and model-based projections;
Stakeholders determine a preferred future scenario based on assessment of national implications, and define drivers of change toward a desired scenario;
Defined criteria are applied to stakeholder and expert inputs to validate drivers of change and to identify strategies and actions â for example, public policies, value chain and market interventions, and biotechnology applications â that can steer toward the preferred future scenario, which are then reviewed and prioritized by high-level decision makers;
Stakeholders agree on measurable targets and tangible, time-bound actions toward the preferred future scenario;
Stakeholders build shared commitment to a tactical implementation plan among traditional, non-traditional, and new partners;
Ongoing stakeholder engagement is organized around an online dashboard that tracks actions and progress toward targets and supports course correction and coordinated investment.
Following these steps, the authors of the IASI methodology propose to build a âglobal food systems transformation networkâ to co-design and co-implement agricultural development projects that bring together multiple partners and donors for global agricultural systems transformation.
As the approach is refined and further applications are built, it is expected that this network will harness efforts to initiate a new field of research and global practice on âintegrated methodologies for food system transformation and innovationâ â analogous to the fields of business administration and organizational development.
IASI serves as the backbone of new CGIAR Regional Integrated Initiatives, which draw on capacities from regional international agricultural research centers and programs to deliver global agri-food system transformation.
It was clear to Fatima Camarillo Castillo from a young age that her future was in agriculture. She grew up on a farm in a small village in Zacatecas, Mexico, and recalls working in the fields alongside her father and siblings, helping with the harvests and milking the cows. And every year, her family ran into the same issue with their crops: droughts.
“Sometimes the harvest was okay, but sometimes we didnât have any harvest at all,” says Camarillo. “For us that meant that, if we didnât have enough harvest, then for the whole year my mother and father struggled to send us to school.”
But they did send her to school, and instead of escaping the persistent challenges that agriculture had presented her family in her young life, she was determined to solve them. “After elementary school we had to leave the farm to continue our education,” she explains. “I knew about all the challenges that small farmers face and I wanted to have an impact on them.”
To this day, Camarillo believes in the power of education. Her schooling took her all the way to the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), where she is now not only a researcher, but an educator herself. After her extensive study of plant breeding, genetics and wheat physiology, Camarillo gained a masterâs degree from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and a PhD from Texas A+M University.
She was a part of CIMMYTâs fellowship program while pursuing her doctorate, and she joined the organizationâs wheat breeding team shortly afterward. Camarillo now splits her time between wheat research and organizing the training activities for CIMMYTâs Global Wheat Program (GWP) wheat improvement course.
Fatima Camarillo analyzes durum wheat in the field at CIMMYT’s experimental research station in Ciudad ObregĂłn, Mexico. (Photo: CIMMYT)
A special legacy
CIMMYTâs wheat improvement course is an internationally recognized program where scientists from national agricultural research programs (NARS) from around the world travel to CIMMYT Headquarters in Texcoco, Mexico, and then to Ciudad ObregĂłn, for a 16-week training. Participants observe an entire breeding cycle and learn about the latest technologies and systems for breeding.
“A crucial component of having an impact on farmers is establishing good relationships with national programs, where all the germplasm that CIMMYT develops is going to go,” says Camarillo. “But at the same time, these partners need training. They need to know what is behind these varieties and the process for developing them, and we try to keep them updated with the vision, the current technologies and the breeding pipeline.”
The organization’s university-focused training programs are also special to Camarillo for many reasons, having participated in one of them herself. In fact, her first ever exposure to CIMMYT was through the annual Open Doors day which she attended during her first year of university, watching the breeders and scientists that would eventually become her colleagues give talks on germplasm development and distribution.
The courses also give students a chance to see all how their theoretical education can be applied in the real world. “When you are in graduate school you care a lot about data analysis and the most recent molecular tools,” says Camarillo. “But there is something else out there, the real problems outside. By taking the breeding program course you understand these challenges and situations.”
Camarillo remembers being struck by the thought that something that happens in a research station in Mexico can have an impact on the whole world. “CIMMYT cares about how other countries will adopt new varieties, itâs not just about developing germplasm for the sake of it,” she explains. “Weâre interested in how new varieties are going to reach the farmers who need them, and for that, training is essential.”
“At the end of the day, these researchers are the ones who will help us evaluate germplasm. If theyâre well trained, the efficiency of the whole process will increase.”
Fatima Camarillo (standing, third from the right) in Ciudad ObregĂłn, Mexico, with participants on the GWP’s 2019 training program. (Photo: CIMMYT)
Keeping an eye on the breeding pipeline
With one foot in education and the other in research, Camarillo has a unique perspective on CIMMYTâs strategy for bringing tools and findings out of the lab, and towards the next step in the impact pathway. A key part of her work involves helping to research physiological traits by developing new tools to increase phenotyping efficiency in the breeding pipeline.
In particular, she is working on a project to develop high-throughput phenotyping tools, which use hyperspectral sensors and cameras to measure several traits in plants. This can help reflect how the plant is responding to different stresses internally, and helps physiologists and breeders understand how the plant behaves within a specific environment, and then quickly integrate these traits into the breeding process.
“Overall it increases the efficiency of selection, so farmers will have better materials, better germplasm, and more reliable yield across environments in a shorter period of time,” says Camarillo. Â
Sharing the recipe for success
Camarillo’s role in both breeding and training speaks to CIMMYTâs historic and proven strategy of working with national programs to effectively deliver improved seeds to the farmers who need them. In addition to developing friendships with trainees from around the world, she is helping CIMMYT to expand its global network of research and agriculture professionals.
As a product and purveyor of a great agricultural education, Camarillo is dedicated to it passing on. “I think we have to invest in education,” she says. “It is the only path to solve the current problems we face, not only in agriculture, but in every single discipline.”
“If we donât invest and take the time for education, our future is very uncertain.”
Like many issues besetting contemporary agri-food systems, the question of nitrogen use appears to yield contradictory problems and solutions depending on where you look. Many parts of the globe are experiencing the environmental consequences of excessive and inefficient use of nitrogen fertilizers. Elsewhere nitrogen-poor soils are a hindrance to agricultural productivity.
Addressing these seemingly contradictory issues means ensuring that nitrogen is applied with maximum efficiency across the worldâs croplands. Farmers should be applying as much nitrogen as can be taken up by their crops in any given agroecology. Apply more, and the excess nitrogen leads to nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions â a potent greenhouse gas (GHG) â and other environmental degradation. Apply less, and agricultural potential goes unmet. Given the twin challenges of global climate change and the projected need to increase global food production over 70% by 2050, neither scenario is desirable.
Maize and wheat agri-food systems are at the heart of this dilemma. These staple crops are critical to ensuring the food security of a growing population. They also account for around 35% of global nitrogen fertilizer usage. Tackling the problem first requires an accurate accounting of global N20 emissions from maize and wheat fields, followed by quantification of mitigation potential disaggregated by region. This is the task undertaken by a recent study published in Science of the Total Environment and co-authored by a team of researchers including scientists at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS).
âSpatially explicit quantification of N2O emission and mitigation potential helps identify emission hotspots and priority areas for mitigation action through better nitrogen management consistent with location-specific production and environmental goals,â says Tek Sapkota, CIMMYTâs climate scientist and review editor of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)âs sixth assessment report.
A map shows global hotspots for nitrogen emissions linked to maize and wheat production. (Graphic: Tesfaye et al./CIMMYT)
A model approach
Researchers compared N20 emissions estimates produced using four statistical models (Tropical N2O model, CCAF-MOT, IPCC Tier-1 and IPCC Tier-11). They also compared the modelsâ estimates against actual emissions as recorded at 777 globally distributed points. While all four models performed relatively well vis-Ă -vis the empirical measurements, the IPCC Tier-II estimates showed a better relationship to the measured data across both maize and wheat fields and low- and high-emissions scenarios.
Researchers found that, for both maize and wheat, emissions were highest in East and South Asia, as well as parts of Europe and North America. For maize, parts of South America also appeared to be emissions hotspots. In Asia, China, India, Indonesia and the Philippines were major emitters for both crops. Researchers also observed that China, along with Egypt, Pakistan and northern India have the highest excess nitrogen application (i.e., nitrogen in excess of what can be productively taken up by crops).
Trimming the excess
Specifically identifying hotspots of excess nitrogen application is important, as they represent promising areas to target for emissions reductions. For a given region, the volume of emissions may be a factor simply of large areas under maize or wheat cultivation coupled with of high levels of nitrogen usage. However, farmers in such regions may be not have much room to reduce nitrogen application without affecting yield. And reducing the area under cultivation may not be desirable or viable. Where the rate of excess nitrogen application is high, however, reducing the rate of application and increasing the efficiency of nitrogen use is a win-win.
A farmer in Ethiopia prepares to spread UREA fertilizer by hand in his field after the sowing of wheat. (Photo: CIMMYT)
The researchers estimate that a nitrous oxide emission reduction potential of 25-75% can be achieved through various management practices, such as the 4Rs, which stand for the right source, right timing, right placement and right application rate. Not only would such a reduction drastically reduce N2O emissions and lessen other environmental impacts of maize and wheat production, it would represent a significant cost savings to farmers. Improved efficiency in nitrogen application can also have positive effects on crop yield.
âPromoting integrated nitrogen management approaches through the right policies, institutional supports and good extension systems is essential to improving the use efficiency of nitrogen in order to meet food security, climate action and other sustainable development goals,â says Sapkota.
Kindie Tesfaye, a CIMMYT scientist and one of the authors of the paper, adds, âThe policy importance of the study is that the estimated mitigation potentials from global maize and wheat fields are useful for hotspot countries to target fertilizer and crop management as one of the mitigation options in their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).â
Wheat stalks grow in a field in India. (Photo: Saad Akhtar)
For scientists, determining how best to increase wheat yields to meet food demand is a persistent challenge, particularly as the trend toward sustainably intensifying production on agricultural lands grows.
The United Nations projects that the current global population of 7.6 billion will increase to more than 9.8 billion by 2050, making higher grain yield potential vital, particularly as climate instability increases due to global warming. International efforts are also focused on meeting the Zero Hunger target detailed in the UN Sustainable Development Goals before they expire in 2030.
Now, a new landmark research survey on the grain yield potential and climate-resilience of bread wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) has brought scientists a few strides closer to meeting their ambitions.
Grain yield has traditionally been an elusive trait in genomic wheat breeding because of its quantitative genetic control, which means that it is controlled by many genomic regions with small effects.
Challenges also include a lack of good understanding about the genetic basis of grain yield, inconsistent grain yield quantitative trait loci identified in different environments, low heritability of grain yield across environments and environment interactions of grain yield.
To dissect the genetic architecture of wheat grain yield for the purposes of the research, which appeared in Scientific Reports, researchers implemented a large-scale genome-wide association study based on 100 datasets and 105,000 grain yield observations from 55,568 wheat breeding lines developed by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).
They evaluated the lines between 2003 and 2019 in different sites, years, planting systems, irrigation systems and abiotic stresses at CIMMYTâs primary yield testing site, the Norman E. Borlaug Experimental Research Station, Ciudad Obregon, Mexico, and in an additional eight countries â including Afghanistan, India and Myanmar â through partnerships with national programs.
The researchers also generated the grain-yield associated marker profiles and analyzed the grain-yield favorable allele frequencies for a large panel of 73,142 wheat lines, resulting in 44.5 million data points. The marker profiles indicated that the CIMMYT global wheat germplasm is rich in grain yield favorable alleles and is a trove for breeders to choose parents and design strategic crosses based on complementary grain yield alleles at desired loci.
âBy dissecting the genetic basis of the elusive grain-yield trait, the resources presented in our study provide great opportunities to accelerate genomic breeding for high-yielding and climate-resilient wheat varieties, which is a major objective of the Accelerating Genetic Gain in Maize and Wheat project,â said CIMMYT wheat breeder Philomin Juliana.
âThis study is unique and the largest-of-its-kind focusing on elucidating the genetic architecture of wheat grain yield,â she explained, âa highly complex and economically important trait that will have great implications on future diagnostic marker development, gene discovery, marker-assisted selection and genomic-breeding in wheat.â
Currently, crop breeding methods and agronomic management put annual productivity increases at 1.2% a year, but to ensure food security for future generations, productivity should be at 2.4% a year.
So, the extensive datasets and results presented in this study are expected to provide a framework for breeders to design effective strategies for mitigating the effects of climate change, while ensuring food-sustainability and security.
Mary Nzau enters a mock agrodealer shop set up on a field on the outskirts of Tala town in Machakos County, Kenya. On display are nine 2kg bags of hybrid maize seed. She picks one. By the look of it, her mind is made up. After a quick scan of the shelf, she has in her hand the variety that she has been purchasing for years.
Regina Mbaika Mutua is less lucky. The variety she always buys is not on display in the mock shop. As part of the experiment, the research team has removed from the shelf the variety she indicated she usually buys. The teamâs goal is to observe what factors influence her seed purchase decision in the absence of the variety she was expecting to purchase.
âAlthough I did not find the variety I was looking for, I picked an alternative as I have seen it perform well on a neighboring farm,â Mutua says, adding that she will plant it this season alongside recycled (farm-saved) seed on her one-acre farm.
Michael Mutua passes up the popular variety he has been planting for the previous two years. He picks one that has been advertised extensively on local radio. âI have heard about it severally on radio. I would like to experiment with this new seed and see how it performs on my farm. Should I like the results, I will give it a chance in ensuing seasons,â he says.
Pieter Rutsaert explains the study setup at a mock agrodealer shop. (Photo: Joshua Masinde/CIMMYT)
The big adoption conundrum
The goal of the out-of-stock study is to improve an understanding of how farmers make their maize seed choices, says Pieter Rutsaert, Markets and Value Chain Specialist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).
âWe do this by inviting farmers to a mock agrodealer store that we set up in their villages and give them a small budget to purchase a bag of seed. However, not all farmers walk into the same store: some will find their preferred variety, others wonât. Some will have access to additional trait information or see some varieties with price promotions while others donât.â
Rutsaert acknowledges that breeding programs and their partner seed companies have done a great job at giving farmers access to maize hybrids with priority traits such as drought tolerance and high yield. CIMMYT then works closely with local seed companies to get varieties into the hands of farmers. âWe want to extend that support by providing insights to companies and public breeding programs on how to get new varieties more quickly into the hands of farmers,â he says.
Pauline Muindi (left), gender research associate with CIMMYT, acts as a mock agrodealer clerk and attends a farmer. (Photo: CIMMYT)
The hybrid maize seed sector in Kenya is highly competitive. Amid intensifying competition, new varieties face a daunting task breaking into the market, independent of their quality. While farmers now have more options to pick from, a major challenge has been how to get them to adopt new varieties.
âMoving farmers from something they know to something they donât is not easy. They tend to stick with what they know and have been growing for years,â Rutsaert says.
Pauline Muindi, gender research associate with CIMMYT, acted as the stand-in clerk at the mock store. She noticed that farmers tend to spend very little time in the shop when their preferred variety is available. However, this all changes in the out-of-stock situation, pushing farmers to step out of their comfort zone and explore new options.
The first step to overcoming this challenge is to entice maize farmers to try a new seed variety, even just once, Rutsaert observes. If it is a good variety, farmers will see that and then the market will work in its favor: farmers will come back to that variety in subsequent years and tell others about it.
âThe good news is that many of the varieties we are currently seeing on the market have performed well â thatâs why theyâre popular. But there are newer varieties that are even better, especially in terms of attributes like drought tolerance. We would like to understand how farmers can be convinced to try out these newer varieties. Is it about the need for more awareness on varietal traits? Can we use price promotions? Or are there other factors?â he says.
A researcher interviews Mary Nzau (right), a farmer from Tala town in Machakos County, after her mock purchase. (Photo: Joshua Masinde/CIMMYT)
Does seed price matter?
âWith todayâs climate uncertainty, it is better to stick to a variety that is adapted to such climate rather than banking on a variety one is oblivious of. The risk is not worth it,â Nzau says. She adds that she would rather buy a higher-priced seed packet she knows and trusts than a lower-priced one that she has not used in the past. Radio promotions of new or other varieties have limited sway over her decision to make the switch.
Faith Voni, another farmer, agrees. âIt is better to purchase a higher-priced variety whose quality I can vouch for than risk purchasing a lower-priced one that I know little about. I do not wish to take such a risk.â Voni says she would also be more inclined to experiment with another variety that she had seen perform well on a neighborâs farm.
Michael Mutua holds a different view. âIf there is an option of an equally good but new variety that is lower-priced than the variety I prefer, my wallet decides,â he says.
Vivian Hoffmann, an economist at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and collaborator on the study, says price can be key for convincing consumers to try a new product. âOur previous research on maize flour choice found that a provisional 10 percent discount boosted sales tremendously,â Hoffmann says. âOf course, that only gets your foot in the door; after that, a new variety will need to win farmers over based on its merits.â
Hoffmann is interested in the extent to which drawing farmersâ attention to key varietal attributes influences their seed choice. âThis information is generally already available on seed packets, but we live in a world of information overload. Promoting certain attributes through in-store signage is an approach that is widely used to help consumers make more healthier food choices. Doing the same for new seed varieties makes a lot of sense.â
Michael Mutua (left) responds to preliminary questions from one of the research team members before proceeding to make his seed selection at the mock agrodealer shop. (Photo: Joshua Masinde/CIMMYT)
The value of drought tolerance
Situated on Kenyaâs eastern region, Machakos is characterized by persistent water stress. Climate change induced erratic rainfall has pushed traits that can tolerate the unfavorable weather conditions in the favoriteâs corner. While other traits such as high yield and disease resistance are equally important, the seed, when planted, must first withstand the effects of droughts or water stress in some seasons and germinate. This is the most crucial step in the long journey to either a decent, bare minimum or no yield. A lot of farmers still plant recycled seed alongside hybrid varieties. But these are no match to water stress conditions, which decimate fields planted with farmer-saved seed.
âIf a variety is not climate resilient, I will likely not harvest anything at all,” says Nzau. She has planted a drought-tolerant variety for ten years now. Prior to that, she had planted about three other varieties as well as recycled seed. âThe only advantage with recycled seed is that given the right amount of rainfall, they mature fast â typically within two months. This provides my family with an opportunity to eat boiled or roast maize,â she notes.
However, varieties need to do more than just survive harsh weather conditions. Breeders face a daunting task of incorporating as many traits as possible to cater to the overarching and the specific interests of multiple farmers. As Murenga Mwimali, a maize breeder at the Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization (KALRO) and collaborator in this research says, innovations in breeding technologies are making breeding more efficient.
âIt is better to have a diversity of product profiles as different market niches are captured within a particular agroecological zones. This is such that farmers may not just benefit from the minimum traits like drought tolerance, but also more specific traits they are looking for,â Mwimali says.
Smallholder farmers continue to play a central role in the seed development process. Capturing what happens at the point of purchase, for instance, at the agrodealer, and understanding how they purchase seed offers valuable insights on the traits that are deemed essential in the breeding process. This work contributes to CIMMYTâs focus on fast-tracking varietal turnover by turning the levers towards a demand-driven seed system.
Cover photo: Pauline Muindi, gender research associate with CIMMYT, at the mock agrodealer shop where she acted as a clerk. (Photo: CIMMYT)
Seeds are a cornerstone of food security. That is why the maize and wheat genebanks have always been at the heart of the work of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).
Earlier this year, as the CIMMYT community wished farewell to Denise Costich, Terence (Terry) Molnar stepped into her shoes and took over the management of the world’s largest and most diverse collection of maize.
Molnar calls himself a curator, but unlike his counterparts at libraries and museums, his job is not only about registering and showcasing the 28,000 unique seed collections of maize. He and his team make sure that the rich maize biodiversity collected throughout time and geographies stays alive, viable and accessible to others.
We sat down with Molnar to learn more about his unique role and what we can do to celebrate biodiversity on the International Day for Biological Diversity â and every other day.
Germplasm banks around the world are protectors of genetic diversity, altogether preserving roughly 700,000 samples of wheat varieties from fields far and wide. Thomas (Tom) Payne, the head of CIMMYTs Wheat Germplasm Collection, or genebank, manages the Mexico-based collection of nearly 150,000 accessions from over 100 countries. He has been affiliated with CIMMYT since 1988, and has dedicated his career to wheat improvement and conservation, working in Ethiopia, Mexico, Syria, Turkey and Zimbabwe. In addition to managing the genebank, he is the chair of the CGIAR Genebank Managers Group, has served as secretary to the CIMMYT Board of Trustees, manages the CIMMYT International Wheat Improvement Network and was awarded the Frank N. Meyer Medal for Plant Genetic Resources in 2019.
In advance of his retirement in July 2021, CIMMYT senior scientist Carolina Saint Pierre sat down with Tom Payne over Zoom to ask him a few questions from the wheat breeding team about his lifetime of experience in wheat biodiversity conservation.
What is your favorite Triticum species?
Triticum aestivum, bread wheat, is my favorite. Bread wheat feeds around 2.7 billion people worldwide. In fact, more food products are made from wheat than from any other cereal. An interesting detail about Triticum aestivum, however, is that itâs a hexaploid, meaning that it is a distinct species formed from three separate species. The inherent genetic diversity resulting from its three ancestral species and its ability to naturally incorporate genetic diversity from other species gives breeders a broad palette of genetic diversity to work with for current and future needs.
How can genebank managers of vital food crops add diversity to existing collections?
Some of the thousands of samples that make up the wheat active collection in the Wellhausen-Anderson Plant Genetic Resources Center at CIMMYT’s global headquarters in Texcoco, Mexico. (Photo: X. Fonseca/CIMMYT)
There are many vital genebanks, with community, national, regional, and international affiliations. Harmonization of these efforts into a global conservation network is needed. In wheat, for example, we do not adequately understand the diversity of the cropâs wild relatives. A recent study from Kansas State University observed that two thirds of the accessions of Aegilops tauschii held by several key collections were duplicates. This is an alarm to the global wheat community. The ex-situ collection of a critical species is less representative and more vulnerable than the sheer number of accessions would imply. We need to conduct a thorough characterization of all crop wild relatives to assess the risks to diversity, and a gap analysis of newly collected materials to ensure that their long-term conservation adds unique diversity to existing collections.
Which of the Triticum species that you store in the CIMMYT wheat genebank should, in your opinion, be explored much more?
Species that can readily cross with cultivated wheat, both bread wheat and durum wheat, should have intensified conservation and characterization efforts. Examples of these include Triticum monococcum subspecies monococcum (Einkorn) and Triticum turgidum subspecies dicoccon (Emmer).
What were the most surprising results from the genetic diversity analyses of nearly 80,000 wheat accessions from the CIMMYT genebank?
Modern, molecular genetic tools confirmed, for the most part, the centuries-old Linnaean taxonomic classification of Triticum and Aegilops species. There are generally two broad schools of taxonomists, âlumpersâ and âsplitters.â The former groups species based on a few common characteristics, and the latter defines multiple taxa based on many traits. The Seeds of Discovery work, in partnership with Michiel van Slageren from Kew Gardens, is confirming the salient taxonomy of the Triticum genus. Van Slageren previously studied and published a taxonomic monograph on the wheat ancestral Aegilops genus.
How can a genebank managers help in pre-breeding?
Maintaining native genetic diversity for use in the future is an important role that genebank managers play in pre-breeding and applied breeding processes. Furthermore, the identification of rare and odd variation plays an important role in understanding trait expression. Genebank managers are now gaining a stronger understanding of the genetic representativeness of their collections, and they can identify where gaps in the conserved genetic diversity may exist. A better understanding of the collections will enable their sustainable conservation and use.
Tom Payne at the Global Seed Vault in Svalbard, Norway, for the official opening ceremony in 2008. He holds one of the sealed boxes used to store the nearly 50,000 unique maize and wheat seed collections deposited by CIMMYT. (Photo: Thomas Lumpkin/CIMMYT)
What would you consider the biggest challenge when striving for genetic diversity in breeding wheat for the future?
CIMMYT and other CGIAR Centers are rightfully proud of their stewardship of global public goods, and the free access to and distribution of germplasm and information. Yet outside of the CGIAR, the two-way sharing of germplasm and knowledge is often still not realized by many crop communities. International agreements have attempted to bridge recognition of intellectual property rights with guaranteed access and benefit-sharing mechanisms. However, the playing field remains uneven between public and private organizations due to varied levels of investment and exclusivity, access to technology and information, and marketability.
What is one way we can ensure long-term conservation of staple crops around the world?
In the past few years, several internationally renowned germplasm collections have been destroyed due to civil conflicts, natural disasters and fires â for example in Aleppo, Cape Town and Sao Paulo. Each time, we hear what a shame it was that the destroyed heritage was lost, that it was irreplaceable and beyond value. When a genebank loses an accession, the ancestral lineage extending hundreds of generations becomes permanently extinct. Genebank managers recognize this threat, and hence duplicate samples of all accessions are now slowly being sent to the Global Seed Vault in Svalbard for long-term preservation.
Cover photo: Tom Payne, Wheat Germplasm Collections & International Wheat Improvement Network Manager. (Photo: X. Fonseca/CIMMYT)
Mexico’s Secretariat of Agriculture and Rural Development (SADER) and its counterpart in the United States reached an agreement to promote knowledge sharing and scientific collaboration on agriculture-related issues.
Maize ears of the newly released set of CIMMYT maize lines. (Photo: CIMMYT)
The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) is pleased to announce the release of a set of 12 new CIMMYT maize lines (CMLs). These lines were developed at various breeding locations of CIMMYTâs Global Maize program by a multi-disciplinary team of scientists in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. The lines are adapted to the tropical maize production environments targeted by CIMMYT and partner institutions.
CIMMYT seeks to develop improved maize inbred lines in different product profiles, with superior performance and multiple stress tolerance to improve maize productivity for smallholder farmers. CMLs are released after intensive evaluation in hybrid combinations under various abiotic and biotic stresses, besides optimum conditions. Suitability as either seed or pollen parent is also thoroughly evaluated.
To increase the utilization of the CMLs in maize breeding programs of partner institutions, all the new CMLs have been tested for their heterotic behavior and have been assigned to specific heterotic groups of CIMMYT: A and B. As a new practice, the heterotic group assignment is included in the name of each CML, after the CML number â for example, CML604A or CML605B.
Release of a CML does not guarantee high combining ability or per se performance in all environments. Rather, it indicates that the line is promising or useful as a parent for pedigree breeding or as a potential parent of hybrid combinations for specific mega-environments. The description of the lines includes heterotic group classification, along with information on their specific strengths, and their combining ability with some of the widely used CMLs or CIMMYT lines.
Plants of the newly released set of CIMMYT maize lines. (Photo: CIMMYT)
For further details regarding the released CMLs, please contact B.M. Prasanna, Director of the Global Maize Program, CIMMYT, and the CGIAR Research Program on Maize.
Last month, the CGIAR Excellence in Breeding (EiB) platform handed over digitization equipment to the Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization (KALRO) as part of ongoing efforts to modernize the public agencyâs crop breeding programs. The handover of the equipment, valued at roughly $85,000, took place at KALRO headquarters in Nairobi on March 8, 2021, with representatives from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), EiB and KALRO in attendance.
KALRO received 23 units of equipment including seed counters, label printers, handheld data collectors, tablets and package printers. These will help the organization speed up and enhance the accuracy of various breeding processes, including seed preparation, data collection and data analysis. They will also support inventory management within KALROâs maize, wheat, rice, sorghum, bean, soybean and potato breeding programs at six of its research centers in Kenya.
(L-R) CIMMYT Regional Representative for Africa and Kenya Country Representatives Moses Siambi, CGIAR EiB NARS Coordinator Biswanath Das, KALRO Director General Eliud Kireger and KALRO Deputy Director General for Crops Felister Makini at the digitization equipment handover event in Nairobi, Kenya. (Photo: Joshua Masinde/CIMMYT)
Dispensing with laborious systemsÂ
A lack of digitization equipment hampers the research efforts of many national agricultural research systems (NARS) across Africa. This adverse situation is compounded by unreliable institutional memory, which constrains NARS efforts to breed an assortment of crop varieties efficiently.
âCurrently, KALRO uses very laborious systems including manual layouts and collection, followed by manual data entry into computers. This old age process is prone to data entry errors and delays in analysis, publication and reporting,â says KALRO Director General Eliud Kireger.
âWith the equipment we are receiving, information and data can be recalled by a click of a button. The equipment will also significantly reduce research costs related to labor, thus freeing our scientists to focus on core research activities.â
The equipment will also support KALROâs ongoing efforts to digitize its historical data, especially for the maize and wheat programs using the Breeding Management System (BMS). So far, 20 years of maize historical data has been uploaded onto the BMS platform for ease of access.
Prepped for emerging challenges Â
The CGIAR EiB platform was established in 2017 to help modernize public breeding programs in the CGIAR and NARS to increase their rates of genetic gain. In recent years, there has been an upsurge in challenges including climate change, population growth, rapid urbanization, changing dietary inclinations, transboundary movement of pests and diseases. These have exerted an enormous strain on food production systems and elicited the urgency to prioritize the adoption of new plant breeding techniques and technologies to address current and emerging threats. This calls for a holistic approach to tackle the issues including better agronomy and policy, according to EiB NARS Coordinator Biswanath Das.
âModernizing our plant breeding programs to develop new, climate smart, market driven varieties will be at the heart of the solution,â says Das. âWe must ensure that public plant breeding programs are not left behind because for many crops in Africa, there is limited private sector interest. Public breeding programs must shoulder the responsibility for ensuring the development and adoption of the next generation of crop varieties.â
CGIAR EiB NARS Coordinator Biswanath Das shares remarks at the digitization handover event in Nairobi, Kenya. (Photo: Joshua Masinde/CIMMYT)
Already, KALRO breeding programs, in collaboration with international CGIAR centers, have played a leading role in supporting farmers in subâSaharan Africa to address many emerging plant threats such as wheat rust (UG99), maize lethal necrosis (MLN) and fall armyworm.
As part of its commitment to supporting NARS partners, EiB provided over 10 million Kenyan shillings ($92,000) worth of material and in-kind support to various KALRO breeding operations in 2020. This included genotyping support for maize and wheat, support to adopt the BMS digital data management system, technical support and training of KALRO breeders.  Much of the digitization work is driven by EiB’s Operations and Phenoytyping module, led by Gustavo Teixeira. âWe’ll continue to consider a whole range of devices and solutions,â says Teixeira. âIt’s a part of our culture of continuous improvement, so breeding programs can focus on what really adds value to their clients.”
EiB will continue to support NARS across Africa and beyond to digitize their operations, and is working with partners to secure more equipment, training and resources. With this digitization project, EiB has targeted 24 breeding programs in 14 African countries. These include programs run by AfricaRice, CIMMYT, the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) and the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI).
“We want to do more to support centers to improve their operations so they can achieve the most effective and cost efficient phenotypic processes â agronomic practices, seed processing and other areas,” explains Teixeira. “We aim to expand to more programs and partners.”
Read the web version of the Annual Report 2020
