Maize and wheat fields at the El Batán experimental station. (Photo: CIMMYT/Alfonso Cortés)
The first meetings of the Accelerating Genetic Gains in Maize and Wheat for Improved Livelihoods (AGG) wheat and maize science and technical steering committees — WSC and MSC, respectively — took place virtually on 25th and 28th September.
Researchers from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) sit on both committees. In the WSC they are joined by wheat experts from national agricultural research systems (NARS) in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Kenya, India, and Nepal; and from Angus Wheat Consultants, the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO), HarvestPlus, Kansas State University and the Roslin Institute.
Similarly, the MSC includes maize experts from NARS in Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya and Zambia; and from Corteva, the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research (FFAR), the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA), SeedCo, Syngenta, the University of Queensland, and the US Agency for International Development (USAID).
During the meetings, attendees discussed scientific challenges and opportunities for AGG, and developed specific recommendations pertaining to key topics including breeding and testing scheme optimization, effective engagement with partners and capacity development in the time of COVID-19, and seed systems and gender intentionality.
Discussion groups noted, for example, the need to address family structure in yield trials, to strengthen collaboration with national partners, and to develop effective regional on-farm testing strategies. Interestingly, most of the recommendations are applicable and valuable for both crop teams, and this is a clear example of the synergies we expect from combining maize and wheat within the AGG project.
All the recommendations will be further analyzed by the AGG teams during coming months, and project activities will be adjusted or implemented as appropriate. A brief report will be submitted to the respective STSCs prior to the second meetings of these committees, likely in late March 2021.
Usman Kadir and his family de-husk maize on their farm in Ethiopia. (Photo: Apollo Habtamu/ILRI)
The current COVID-19 pandemic — and associated measures to reduce its spread — is projected to increase extreme poverty by 20%, with the largest increase in sub-Saharan Africa, where 80 million more people would join the ranks of the extreme poor. Accelerating the process of delivering high-quality, climate resilient and nutritionally enriched maize seed is now more critical than ever.However, developing these varieties is not a rapid or cheap process. Over the course of five years, researchers on the Stress Tolerant Maize for Africa (STMA) project developed a range of tools and technologies to reduce the overall cost of producing a new high yielding, stress tolerant hybrids for smallholder farmers in the region.
Maize breeding starts with crossing two parents and essentially ends after testing their great-great-great-great grandchildren in as many locations as possible. This allows plant breeders to identify the new varieties which will perform well in the conditions faced by their target beneficiaries — in the case of STMA, smallholder farmers in Africa. In other parts of the world, new tools and technologies are routinely added to breeding programs to help reduce the cost and time it takes to produce new varieties.
Scientists on the STMA project focused on testing and scaling new tools specifically for maize breeding programs in sub-Saharan Africa and began by taking a closer look at the most expensive part of the breeding process: phenotyping or collecting precise information on plant traits.
“Within a breeding program, phenotyping is the single most costly step,” explains CIMMYT molecular breeder Manje Gowda. “Molecular technologies provide opportunities to reduce this cost.” The research team tested two methods to speed up this step and make it more cost efficient: forward breeding and genomic selection.
Speeding up a long and costly process
Two important traits maize breeders look for in their plant progeny are susceptibility for two key maize diseases: maize streak virus (MSV) and maize lethal necrosis (MLN). In traditional breeding, breeders must extensively test lines in the field for their susceptibility to these diseases, and then remove them before the next round of crossing. This carries a significant cost.
Using a process called forward breeding, scientists can screen for DNA markers known to be associated with susceptibility to these diseases. This allows breeders to identify lines vulnerable to these diseases and remove them before field testing.
Scientists on the STMA project applied this approach in CIMMYT breeding programs in eastern and southern Africa over the past four years, saving an estimated $300,000 in field costs. Under the AGG project, research will now focus on applying forward breeding to identify susceptibility for another fast-spreading maize pest, fall armyworm, as well as extending use of this method in partners’ breeding programs.
A CIMMYT research associate inspects maize damaged by fall army worm at KALRO Kiboko Research Station in Kenya. (Photo: Peter Lowe/CIMMYT)
Forward breeding is ideal for “simple” traits which are controlled by a few genes. However, other desired traits, such as tolerance to drought and low nitrogen stress, are genetically complex. Many genes control these traits, with each gene only contributing a little towards overall stress tolerance.
In this case, a technology called genomic selection can be of service. Genomic selection estimates the performance, or breeding value, of a line based largely on genetic information. Genomic selection uses more than 5,000 DNA markers, without the need for precise information about what traits these markers control. The method is ideal for complicated traits such as drought and low nitrogen stress tolerance, where hundreds of small effect genes together largely control how a plant grows under these stresses.
CIMMYT scientists used this technology to select and advance lines for drought tolerance. They then tested these lines and compared their performance in the field to lines selected conventionally. They found that the two sets of resulting hybrid varieties — those advanced using genomic selection and those advanced in the field — showed the same grain yield under drought stress. However, genomic selection only required phenotyping half the lines, achieving the same outcome with half the budget.
Innovations in the field
While DNA technology is reducing the need for extensive field phenotyping, research is also underway to reduce the cost of the remaining necessary phenotyping in the field.
Typically, many traits — such as plant height or leaf drying under drought stress — are measured by hand, using the labor of large teams of people. For example, plant and ear height is traditionally measured by a team of two using a meter stick.
Mainasarra Zaman-Allah, a CIMMYT abiotic stress phenotyping specialist based in Zimbabwe, has been developing faster, more accurate ways to measure these traits. He implemented the use of a small laser sensor to measure plant and ear height which only requires one person. This simple yet cost effective tool has reduced the cost of measuring these traits by almost 60%. Similarly, using a UAV-based platform has reduced the cost of measuring a trait known as canopy senescence — leaf drying associated with drought susceptibility —by over 65%.
The identification of plants which are tolerant to key diseases has traditionally involved scoring the severity of disease in each plot visually, but walking through hundreds of plots daily can lead to errors in human judgement. To combat this, CIMMYT biotic stress phenotyping specialist LM Suresh collaborated with Jose Luis Araus and Shawn Kefauver, scientists at the University of Barcelona, Spain, to develop image analysis software that can quantify disease severity, thereby avoiding problems associated with unintentional human bias.
Plant breeders need uniform, or homozygous, lines for selection. With conventional plant breeding this is difficult: no matter how many times you cross a line, a small amount of DNA will remain heterozygous — having two different alleles of a particular gene — and reduce accuracy in line selection.
A technology called doubled haploid allows breeders to develop homozygous lines within two seasons. While this technology has been used in temperate maize breeding programs since the 1990s, it was not available for tropical environments until 10 years ago. In 2013, thanks to joint work with Kenyan partners at the CIMMYT Doubled Haploid facility in Kiboko, this technology was made available to African breeding programs. Now Vijay Chaikam, a CIMMYT doubled haploid specialist based in Kenya, is working towards reducing the cost of this technology as well.
The efforts begun by the STMA research team is now continuing under the Accelerating Genetic Gains in Maize and Wheat for Improved Livelihoods (AGG) project. As this work is carried forward, the next crucial step is ensuring that the next generation of African maize breeders have access to these technologies and tools.
“Improving national breeding programs will really drive success in raising maize yields in the stress prone environments faced by many farmers in our target countries,” says Mike Olsen, CIMMYT’s upstream trait pipeline coordinator. Under AGG, in collaboration with the CGIAR Excellence in Breeding Program, these tools will be scaled out.
The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) is proud to partner with the Whole Grain Initiative in celebrating International Whole Grain Day on November 19, 2020.
In terms of diet and nutrition, ours is an age of contradiction. While populations in wealthy countries are faced with unprecedented levels of diet-related disease, close to 2 billion people globally remain food insecure. At the same time, global agriculture has an enormous role to play in the transition towards an environmentally sustainable future.
International Whole Grain Day 2020 is a good day to step back and consider the continued role of whole grains in the healthy, sustainable diets of today and tomorrow. Explore our content to learn what whole grains are, how we’re working to make whole grain wheat and maize even more nutritious, and discover some our favorite recipes.
For a deeper dive into the subject, check out our explainer on whole grains: What they are, why they are important for your health, and how to identify them.
The grain or kernel of maize and wheat is made up of three edible parts: the bran, the germ and the endosperm. (Graphic: Nancy Valtierra/CIMMYT)
CIMMYT’s “A Grain a Day” cookbook highlights the big role maize and wheat play in diets around the world, and brings global cuisine to your own kitchen. (Note: not all recipes call for whole grains.) Learn more.
Join members of the Whole Grain Initiative, the FAO and global leaders on November 19 as they discuss the role of whole grains in meeting the “triple challenge” of ensuring global food security and improving the livelihoods of agri-food workers in an environmentally sustainable manner. Join the webinar: Building Healthy, Sustainable and Resilient Food Systems.
Interested in learning more about how CIMMYT is working to make grain-based diets healthier and more nutritious? Check out our archive of health and nutrition content.
Featured image: Little girl eating roti, Bangladesh (S. Mojumder/Drik/CIMMYT)
In the first installment of The Cereal Serial, CIMMYT’s maize and wheat quality experts Natalia Palacios and Itria Ibba explain what whole grains are and why they are an important part of a healthy diet. For a deeper dive into the subject, check out our whole grains explainer.
Share recipes and photos of your favorite whole grain foods by tagging @CIMMYT and using #choosewholegrains in your social media posts.
Where agriculture relies heavily on manual labor, small-scale mechanization can reduce labor constraints and contribute to higher yields and food security. However, demand for and adoption of labor-saving machinery remains weak in many areas. Paradoxically, this includes areas where women face a particularly high labor burden.
“How do we make sense of this?” asks Lone Badstue, a rural development sociologist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT). “What factors influence women’s articulation of demand for and use of farm power mechanization?”
To answer this question, an international team of researchers analyzed data from four analytical dimensions — gender division of labor; gender norms; gendered access to and control over resources like land and income; and intra-household decision-making — to show how interactions between these influence women’s demand for and use of mechanization.
“Overall, a combination of forces seems to work against women’s demand articulation and adoption of labor-saving technologies,” says Badstue. Firstly, women’s labor often goes unrecognized, and they are typically expected to work hard and not voice their concerns. Additionally, women generally lack access to and control over a range of resources, including land, income, and extension services.
This is exacerbated by the gendered division of labor, as women’s time poverty negatively affects their access to resources and information. Furthermore, decision-making is primarily seen as men’s domain, and women are often excluded from discussions on the allocation of labor and other aspects of farm management. Crucially, many of these factors interlink across all four dimensions of the authors’ analytical framework to shape women’s demand for and adoption of labor-saving technologies.
A diagram outlines the links between different factors influencing gender dynamics in demand articulation and adoption of laborsaving technologies. (Graphic: Nancy Valtierra/CIMMYT)
Demand articulation and adoption of labor-saving technologies in the study sites are shown to be stimulated when women have control over resources, and where more permissive or inclusive norms influence gender relations. “Women’s independent control over resources is a game changer,” explains Badstue. “Adoption of mechanized farm power is practically only observed when women have direct and sole control over land and on- or off-farm income. They rarely articulate demand or adopt mechanization through joint decision-making with male relatives.”
The study shows that independent decision-making by women on labor reduction or adoption of mechanization is often confronted with social disapproval and can come at the cost of losing social capital, both within the household and in the community. As such, the authors stress the importance of interventions which engage with these issues and call for the recognition of technological change as shaped by the complex interplay of gender norms, gendered access to and control over resources, and decision-making.
Wheat fields in the Arsi highlands, Ethiopia, 2015. (Photo: CIMMYT/ Peter Lowe)
A state-of-the-art study of plant DNA provides strong evidence that farmers in Ethiopia have widely adopted new, improved rust-resistant bread wheat varieties since 2014.
The results — published in Nature Scientific Reports — show that nearly half (47%) of the 4,000 plots sampled were growing varieties 10 years old or younger, and the majority (61%) of these were released after 2005.
Four of the top varieties sown were recently-released rust-resistant varieties developed through the breeding programs of the Ethiopian Institute for Agricultural Research (EIAR) and the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).
Adoption studies provide a fundamental measure of the success and effectiveness of agricultural research and investment. However, obtaining accurate information on the diffusion of crop varieties remains a challenging endeavor.
DNA fingerprinting enables researchers to identify the variety present in samples or plots, based on a comprehensive reference library of the genotypes of known varieties. In Ethiopia, over 94% of plots could be matched with known varieties. This provides data that is vastly more accurate than traditional farmer-recall surveys.
This is the first nationally representative, large-scale wheat DNA fingerprinting study undertaken in Ethiopia. CIMMYT scientists led the study in partnership with EIAR, the Ethiopian Central Statistical Agency (CSA) and Diversity Array Technologies (DArT).
“When we compared DNA fingerprinting results with the results from a survey of farmers’ memory of the same plots, we saw that only 28% of farmers correctly named wheat varieties grown,” explained Dave Hodson, a principal scientist at CIMMYT and lead author of the study.
The resulting data helps national breeding programs adjust their seed production to meet demand, and national extension agents focus on areas that need better access to seed. It also helps scientists, policymakers, donors and organizations such as CIMMYT track their impact and prioritize funding, support, and the direction of future research.
“These results validate years of international investment and national policies that have worked to promote, distribute and fast-track the release of wheat varieties with the traits that farmers have asked for — particularly resistance to crop-destroying wheat rust disease,” said Hodson.
Ethiopia is the largest wheat producer in sub-Saharan Africa. The Ethiopian government recently announced its goal to become self-sufficient in wheat, and increasing domestic wheat production is a national priority.
Widespread adoption of these improved varieties, demonstrated by DNA fingerprinting, has clearly had a positive impact on both economic returns and national wheat production gains. Initial estimates show that farmers gained an additional 225,500 tons of production — valued at $50 million — by using varieties released after 2005.
The study results validate investments in wheat improvement made by international donor agencies, notably the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Ethiopian government, the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO, formerly DFID), the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and the World Bank. Their success in speeding up variety release and seed multiplication in Ethiopia is considered a model for other countries.
“This is good news for Ethiopian farmers, who are seeing better incomes from higher yielding, disease-resistant wheat, and for the Ethiopian government, which has put a high national priority on increasing domestic wheat production and reducing dependence on imports,” said EIAR Deputy Director General Chilot Yirga.
The study also confirmed CGIAR’s substantial contribution to national breeding efforts, with 90% of the area sampled containing varieties released by Ethiopian wheat breeding programs and derived from CIMMYT and the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) germplasm. Varieties developed using germplasm received from CIMMYT covered 87% of the wheat area surveyed.
“This research demonstrates that DNA fingerprinting can be applied at scale and is likely to transform future crop varietal adoption studies,” said Kindie Tesfaye, a senior scientist at CIMMYT and co-author of the study. “Additional DNA fingerprinting studies are now also well advanced for maize in Ethiopia.”
This research is supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and CGIAR Fund Donors. Financial support was provided through the “Mainstreaming the use and application of DNA Fingerprinting in Ethiopia for tracking crop varieties” project funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (Grant number OPP1118996).
Dave Hodson, International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), d.hodson@cgiar.org
ABOUT CIMMYT:
The International Maize and What 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 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
In most developing countries, smallholder farmers are the main source of food production, relying heavily on animal and human power. Women play a significant role in this process — from the early days of land preparation to harvesting. However, the sector not only lacks appropriate technologies — such as storage that could reduce postharvest loss and ultimately maximize both the quality and quantity of the farm produce — but fails to include women in the design and validation of these technologies from the beginning.
“Agricultural outputs can be increased if policy makers and other stakeholders consider mechanization beyond simply more power and tractorization in the field,” says Rabe Yahaya, an agricultural mechanization expert at CIMMYT. “Increases in productivity start from planting all the way to storage and processing, and when women are empowered and included at all levels of the value chain.”
In recent years, mechanization has become a hot topic, strongly supported by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). Under the commission of BMZ, the German development agency GIZ set up the Green Innovation Centers (GIC) program, under which the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) supports mechanization projects in 16 countries — 14 in Africa and two in Asia.
As part of the GIC program, a cross-country working group on agricultural mechanization is striving to improve knowledge on mechanization, exchange best practices among country projects and programs, and foster links between members and other mechanization experts. In this context, CIMMYT has facilitated the development of a matchmaking and south-south learning matrix where each country can indicate what experience they need and what they can offer to the others in the working group. CIMMYT has also developed an expert database for GIC so country teams can reach external consultants to get the support they need.
“The Green Innovation Centers have the resources and mandate to really have an impact at scale, and it is great that CIMMYT was asked to bring the latest thinking around sustainable scaling,” says CIMMYT scaling advisor Lennart Woltering. “This is a beautiful partnership where the added value of each partner is very clear, and we hope to forge more of these partnerships with other development organizations so that CIMMYT can do the research in and for development.”
This approach strongly supports organizational capacity development and improves cooperation between the country projects, explains Joachim Stahl, a capacity development expert at CIMMYT. “This is a fantastic opportunity to support GIZ in working with a strategic approach.” Like Woltering and Yahaya, Stahl is a GIZ-CIM integrated expert, whose position at CIMMYT is directly supported through GIZ.
A catalyst for South-South learning and cooperation
Earlier this year, CIMMYT and GIZ jointly organized the mechanization working group’s annual meeting, which focused on finding storage technologies and mechanization solutions that benefit and include women. Held from July 7–10 July, the virtual event brought together around 60 experts and professionals from 20 countries, who shared their experiences and presented the most successful storage solutions that have been accepted by farmers in Africa for their adaptability, innovativeness and cost and that fit best with local realities.
CIMMYT postharvest specialist Sylvanus Odjo outlined how to reduce postharvest losses and improve food security in smallholder farming systems using inert dusts such as silica, detailing how these can be applied to large-scale agriculture and what viable business models could look like. Alongside this and the presentation of Purdue University’s improved crop storage bags, participants had the opportunity to discuss new technologies in detail, asking questions about profitability analysis and the many variables that may slow uptake in the regions where they work.
Harvested maize cobs are exposed to the elements in an open-air storage unit in Ethiopia. (Photo: Simret Yasabu/CIMMYT)
Discussions at the meeting also focused heavily on gender and mechanization – specifically, how women can benefit from mechanized farming and the frameworks available to increase their access to relevant technologies. Modernizing the agricultural sector in developing countries in ways that would benefit both men and women has remained a challenge for many professionals. Many argue that the existing technologies are not gender-sensitive or affordable for women, and in many cases, women are not well informed about the available technologies.
However, gender-sensitive and affordable technologies will support smallholder farmers produce more while saving time and energy. Speaking at a panel discussion, representatives from AfricaRice and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) highlighted the importance of involving women during the design, creation and validation of agricultural solutions to ensure that they are gender-sensitive, inclusive and can be used easily by women. Increasing their engagement with existing business models and developing tailored digital services and trainings will help foster technology adaptation and adoption, releasing women farmers from labor drudgery and postharvest losses while improving livelihoods in rural communities and supporting economic transformation in Africa.
Fostering solutions
By the end of the meeting, participants had identified and developed key work packages both for storage technologies and solutions for engaging women in mechanization. For the former, the new work packages proposed the promotion of national and regional dialogues on postharvest, cross-country testing of various postharvest packages, promotion of renewable energies for power supply in storing systems and cross-country scaling of hermetically sealed bags.
To foster solutions for women in mechanization, participants suggested the promotion and scaling of existing business models such as ‘Woman mechanized agro-service provider cooperative’, piloting and scaling gender-inclusive and climate-smart postharvest technologies for smallholder rice value chain actors in Africa, and the identification and testing of gender-sensitive mechanization technologies aimed at finding appropriate tools or approaches.
Cover image: A member of Dellet – an agricultural mechanization youth association in Ethiopia’s Tigray region – fills a two-wheel tractor with water before irrigation. (Photo: Simret Yasabu/CIMMYT)
The COVID-19 global health crisis has disrupted food and agricultural systems around the world, affecting food production, supply chains, trade and markets, as well as people’s livelihoods and nutrition. Following an initial assessment in May 2020, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) joined the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and other CGIAR centers to conduct a comprehensive assessment of the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on Bangladesh’s agri-food system.
The report shares critical reflections and lessons learned, as well as providing detailed quantitative and qualitative information on all disruption pathways and possible recovery strategies.
According to the research team, the major visible impact was the decline of food demand due to the disruption of value chain actors in the food market and income shortages, especially among low- and daily wage-earning populations. This reduced demand lead in turn to reduced prices for agricultural goods, particularly perishable food items like vegetables, livestock and fish products.
Additionally, constraints on the movement of labor led to a disruption in agricultural services, including machinery and extension services, while domestic and international trade disruptions created input shortages and lead to price volatilities which increased production costs. This increase, coupled with reductions in production and output prices, essentially wiped farmer profits.
A farmer takes maize grain to a local reserve in Bangladesh. (Photo: Fahad Kaizer/FAO)
Building back a better food system
The latest report was launched at the same time as the CGIAR COVID-19 Hub in Bangladesh, which aims to build local resilience to the effects of the pandemic and support government-led recovery initiatives. At a panel discussion presenting the results of the assessment, researchers emphasized the importance of social safety net mechanisms and food demand creation, as well as the need for strong monitoring of food systems to ensure continued availability and affordability, and early detection of any critical issues.
The discussion centered on the need for public access to trustworthy information in order to raise awareness and instill confidence in the food they consume. One key recommendation which emerged is facilitating the digitalization of farming, which looks to re-connect farmers and consumers and build the food system back better. The accelerated development of digital platforms connecting farmers to markets with contactless delivery systems can ensure the safer flow of inputs and outputs while generating a higher share of consumer money for farmers. There is also a need to explore green growth strategies for reducing food waste — the creation and distribution of improved food storage systems, for instance — and circular nutrient initiatives to better utilize food waste as feed and bio manure.
There are decades when nothing happens and weeks when decades happen. So goes the old saw. In the social sciences, these “weeks” are often referred to as critical junctures. They are moments when the old rules of the game — the long-established ways of doings things — go out the window and new patterns begin to emerge. The breadbasket states of northwestern India seem to be having one of those weeks.
After years of research and advocacy that appeared to be making little headway, researchers at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) are seeing a sudden and dramatic increase in the adoption of some of the technologies and techniques they have long argued are necessary in this region, including direct-seeding of rice, crop diversification and the adoption of Happy Seeder technology.
A case of unintended consequences
In March 2020 the Indian government decreed a national lockdown in response to the COVID-19 crisis. This triggered the largest internal migration since partition, as millions of migrant workers and day laborers scrambled to return to their home villages. Estimates suggest that up to 1 million workers left the northwestern states of Haryana and Punjab alone.
Agriculture in the region is dominated by the labor- and input-intensive production of rice and wheat in rotation. This system is the most productive per hectare in India, but it is also extremely sensitive to external shocks. The success of both the rice and wheat crop depend on the timely transplantation of rice in mid-June.
As the results of a recently published study demonstrate, delays in this schedule can have devastating downstream effects not only on rice and wheat yields, but on regional air quality too. Models of the worst-case delay scenario predicted a total economic loss of nearly $1.5 billion. Moreover, they predicted that, if no action were taken, up to 80% of rice residue would be burned later in the autumn, when cooler conditions contribute to seasonally poor air quality.
Such an exacerbation of the region’s air pollution would be dire under normal conditions. During a global pandemic of a primarily respiratory illness, it could be devastating.
Fortunately, solutions and technologies that CIMMYT researchers had been studying for decades, along with ICAR, Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) and other national partners, promised to help ward off the worst effects of the crisis. The adoption of direct-seeding technology could help reduce the labor-intensiveness of rice production, crop diversification could minimize the economic impacts of the crisis, and the use of Happy Seeder technology could alleviate the practice of residue burning.
A farmer burns rice residues after harvest to prepare the land for wheat planting around Sangrur, Punjab, India. (Photo: Neil Palmer/CIAT)
Decades of work pay off
The study, co-authored by researchers at CIMMYT, ICAR and the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), relied on a sophisticated ex ante model of four different rice-transplanting delay scenarios. It is published in the November 2020 issue of Agricultural Systems.
However, given the time-sensitivity and high-stakes of the issue, the lead researchers did not wait for the articles publication to press their case. Earlier this year they circulated their initial findings and recommendations to policymakers via their national partners. Notably, after receiving a one-pager summarizing these, the Chief Minister of Punjab released a video address echoing their points.
“Policymakers realized the need for these kinds of solutions,” says Balwinder Singh, a CIMMYT scientist and lead author of the paper. They then moved quickly to incentivize their adoption through various mechanisms, such as subsidizing direct-seeding drills and ensuring the timely availability of machines and other inputs.
Singh and Jat have been carrying out a multi-year survey to assess farmer willingness to adopt Happy Seeder technology and have documented a drastic increase in farmer interest in the technology during 2020. For Jat, this highlights the power of partnerships. “If you don’t include your partners from the beginning, they will not own what you say,” he argues.
Such changes are to be celebrated not only as an important response to the current labor shortage, but also as key to ensuring the long-term sustainability of agricultural production in the region, having important implications for the stewardship of water resources, air pollution and soil health.
“Policies encouraging farming practices that save resources and protect the environment will improve long-term productivity and sustainability of the nation,” says S. K. Chaudhari, deputy director general for Natural Resource Management at ICAR.
A farmer in India uses a tractor fitted with a Happy Seeder. (Photo: Dakshinamurthy Vedachalam/CIMMYT)
Warding off catastrophe
Although the agricultural cycle is not yet over, and early data are still partial, Singh and Jat estimate that thanks to the dramatic adoption of alternative agricultural practices this year, their worst-case estimates have been avoided. Given the rapid response from both policymakers and farmers, the real-world effects of the COVID-19 labor crisis are likely closer to the mid-range severity scenarios of their analysis. Indeed, early estimates predict no rice yield losses and minor-to-no wheat yield losses over baseline. For the researchers, the relief is palpable and the lessons couldn’t be clearer.
“These technologies were there for decades, but they were never appreciated because everything was normal,” says Jat. “This clearly indicates a need for investment in the technology and the research. You may encounter a problem at any time, but you cannot generate the technology overnight.”
A farmer in Morogoro, Tanzania, discusses differences in his maize ears caused by differences in on-farm conditions. (Photo: Anne Wangalachi/CIMMYT)
Global climate change represents an existential threat to many of the world’s most vulnerable farmers, introducing new stresses and amplifying the unpredictability and risk inherent in farming. In low- and middle-income countries that are heavily reliant on domestic production, this increased risk and unpredictability threatens disastrous consequences for the food security and wellbeing of rural and urban populations alike.
Given the stakes, substantial investments have been made towards developing climate-resilient crops. But what happens when the innovations widely considered to be beneficial don’t gain traction on the ground, among those who stand to lose the most from inaction? What can researchers, policymakers and funders do to ensure that the most vulnerable rural populations don’t lose out on the benefits?
These are the questions posed by a new scoping review co-authored by Kevin Pixley, interim deputy director general for research and partnerships and director of the Genetic Resources Program at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).
The paper relies on a descriptive analysis of 202 studies from the past 30 years which assess the determinants of climate-resilient crop adoption by small-scale producers in low- and middle-income countries. These were identified through an extensive search and screening process of multiple academic databases and grey literature sources, and selected from an initial pool of over 6,000 articles.
Taking stock
The authors identified interventions determining adoption across the literature surveyed. A key theme which emerged was the need for context-sensitive technical and financial support for climate-resilient crop adoption. Nearly 16% of the studies found that adoption depended on access to relevant extension programs. Around 12% identified access to credit and other financial instruments as key, while a further 12% identified the implementation of community programs supporting climate-resilient crops as a determining factor.
However, the study stresses that there are no one-size-fits-all solutions. Increased adoption of climate-resilient agricultural innovations will depend on interventions being highly context informed. For example, the review shows that while some studies identified older farmers as more reluctant to adopt new technologies, an equal number of studies found the opposite.
Moreover, the review identified important opportunities for further research. Gender-based approaches, for example, remain a blind spot in the literature. The majority of studies reviewed only included women if they were household heads, thus overlooking the role they may play in influencing the adoption of new agricultural technologies in male-headed households.
A community-based seed producer in Kiboko, Kenya, inspects her crop of drought-tolerant maize. (Photo: Anne Wangalachi/CIMMYT)
Driving evidence-based policymaking
The review was published as part of a collection of 10 research papers produced as part of Ceres2030: Sustainable Solutions to End Hunger. The project, a partnership between Cornell University, the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), distills decades of scientific and development research into a clear menu of policy options for funders committed to achieving the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal 2: Ending world hunger by 2030.
Speaking at a German government event on achieving Sustainable Development Goal 2, Bill Gates praised the Ceres2030 initiative, noting that “nothing on this scale has ever been done because we lacked the tools to analyze this complex information. But with the new research, solid evidence will drive better policymaking.”
He went on to highlight the CGIAR’s leadership role in these efforts, saying: “The CGIAR system is a key global institution that is investing in these approaches. It’s a critical example of how innovation can lead the way.”
A digital transformation is changing the face of international research for development and agri-food systems worldwide. This was the key takeaway from the 4th annual CGIAR Big Data in Agriculture Convention held virtually last month.
“In many countries, farmers are using data to learn about market trends and weather predictions,” said Martin Kropff, director general of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), in a video address to convention participants. “But many still do not have access to everything that big data offers, and that is where CIMMYT and partners come in.”
As a member of CGIAR, CIMMYT is committed to ensuring that farmers around the world get access to data-driven solutions and information, while at the same time ensuring that the data generated by farmers, researchers and others is used ethically.
According to CGIAR experts and partner organizations, there are four key areas with the potential to transform agriculture in the next 10 years: data, artificial intelligence (AI), digital services and sector intelligence.
Key interventions will involve enabling open data and responsible data use, developing responsible AI, enabling and validating bundled digital services for food systems, and building trust in technology and big data — many of which CIMMYT has been working on already.
Harnessing data and data analytics
Led by CIMMYT, the CGIAR Excellence in Breeding (EiB) team have been developing the Enterprise Breeding System (EBS) — a single data management software solution for global breeding programs. The software aims to provide a solution to manage data across the entire breeding data workflow — from experiment creation to analytics — all in a single user-friendly dashboard.
CIMMYT and partners have also made significant breakthroughs in crop modelling to better understand crop performance and yield gaps, optimize planting dates and irrigation systems, and improve predictions of pest outbreaks. The Community of Practice (CoP) on Crop Modeling, a CGIAR initiative led by CIMMYT Crop Physiologist Matthew Reynolds, aims to foster collaboration and improve the collection of open access, easy-to-use data available for crop modelling.
The CIMMYT-led Community of Practice (CoP) on Socio-Economic Data continues to work at the forefront of making messy socio-economic data interoperable to address urgent and pressing global development issues in agri-food systems. Data interoperability, one of the foundational components of the FAIR data standards supported by CGIAR, addresses the ability of systems and services that create, exchange and consume data to have clear, shared expectations for its content, context and meaning. In the wake of COVID-19, the world witnessed the need for better data interoperability to understand what is happening in global food systems, and the CoP actively supports that process.
The MARPLE team carries out rapid analysis using the diagnostic kit in Ethiopia. (Photo: JIC)
Improving data use and supporting digital transformation
In Ethiopia, the MARPLE (Mobile And Real-time PLant disEase) diagnostic kit — developed by CIMMYT, the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR) and the John Innes Centre (JIC) — has helped researchers, local governments and farmers to rapidly detect diseases like wheat rust in the field. The suitcase-sized kit cuts down the time it takes to detect this disease from months to just 48 hours.
In collaboration with research and meteorological organizations including Wageningen University and the European Space Agency (ESA), CIMMYT researchers have also been developing practical applications for satellite-sourced weather data. Crop scientists have been using this data to analyze maize and wheat cropping systems on a larger scale and create more precise crop models to predict the tolerance of crop varieties to stresses like drought and heatwaves. The aim is to share the climate and weather data available on an open access, user-friendly database.
Through the AgriFoodTrust platform — a new testing and learning platform for digital trust and transparency technologies – CIMMYT researchers have been experimenting with technologies like blockchain to tackle issues such as food safety, traceability, sustainability, and adulterated and counterfeit fertilizers and seeds. Findings will be used to build capacity on all aspects of the technologies and their application to ensure this they are inclusive and usable.
In Mexico, CIMMYT and partners have developed an application which offers tailored recommendations to help individual farmers deal with crop production challenges sustainably. The AgroTutor app offers farmers free information on historic yield potential, local benchmarks, recommended agricultural practices, commodity price forecasting and more.
Stepping up to the challenge
As the world becomes increasingly digital, harnessing the full potential of digital technologies is a huge area of opportunity for the agricultural research for development community, but one that is currently lacking clear leadership. As a global organization already working on global problems, it’s time for the CGIAR network to step up to the challenge. Carrying a legacy of agronomic research, agricultural extension, and research into adoption of technologies and innovations, CGIAR has an opportunity to become a leader in the digital transformation of agriculture.
Currently, the CGIAR System is coming together as One CGIAR. This transformation process is a dynamic reformulation of CGIAR’s partnerships, knowledge, assets, and global presence, aiming for greater integration and impact in the face of the interdependent challenges facing today’s world.
“One CGIAR’s role in supporting digitalization is both to improve research driven by data and data analytics, but also to foster the digitalization of agriculture in low and lower-middle income countries,” said CIMMYT Economist Gideon Kruseman at a session on Exploring CGIAR Digital Strategy at last month’s Big Data convention.
“One CGIAR — with its neutral stance and its focus on global public goods — can act as an honest broker between different stakeholders in the digital ecosystem.”
Cover photo: A researcher demonstrates the use of the AgroTutor app on a mobile phone in Mexico. (Photo: Francisco Alarcón/CIMMYT)
The Community of Practice on Crop Modeling is part of the CGIAR Platform for Big Data in Agriculture and encompasses a wide range of quantitative applications, based around the broad concept of parametrizing interactions within and among the main drivers of cropping systems. These are namely: Genotype, Environment, Management and Socioeconomic factors (GEMS) to provide information and tools for decision support. The Community of Practice was formed in 2017 and is led by Wheat Physiologist Matthew Reynolds at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) in Texcoco, Mexico.
Crop modeling has already contributed to a better understanding of crop performance and yield gaps; predictions of potential pest and disease epidemics; more efficient irrigation and fertilization systems, and optimized planting dates. These outputs help decision makers look ahead and prepare their research and extension systems to fight climate change where it is most needed. However, there is a significant opportunity — and need — to improve the global coordination of crop modeling efforts in agricultural research. This will, in turn, greatly improve the world’s ability to develop more adaptive, resilient crops and cropping systems.
Our Community of Practice aims to promote a better-coordinated and more standardized approach to crop modeling in agricultural research. With over 900 members involving CGIAR centers and a wide range of international partners, the Crop Modeling Community of Practice is already facilitating and sharing knowledge, resources, “model-ready” data, FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) data principles, and other useful information; while promoting capacity building and collaboration within the CGIAR and its community.
Andrea Gardeazábal has many titles — Monitor, Evaluation and Learning Manager, ICT for Agriculture — but the core of what she does is knowledge management. She merges monitoring, evaluation, accountability and learning (MEAL) with information communication technologies (ICT) to transform data into something meaningful.
A political scientist by training, Gardeazábal knows the power of data and statistics. As she began working on ICT-for-development projects in the field, she observed a lack of understanding of ICT and how the development sector could take advantage of these tools.
“I knew this was progressing very fast; that this was the future. Everyone was talking about ICT and the future with the internet of things, and social media was just getting started,” she said. So she asked herself, how could the development sector take advantage of these new technologies?
Gardeazábal was working on projects bringing computers to rural areas in Colombia, which did not have internet connection or electricity. The problem could not be solved simply with a machine. She wanted to understand how to use ICT for development in a meaningful way. This triggered an interest in MEAL, to understand how ICT benefits the development sector, or does not, and to reintegrate that information into project design and impact.
After working in ICT for civil participation, education and microfinance, she joined CIMMYT with the mission to understand ICT for agriculture. Now she merges ICT tools with MEAL, leading the design, development and operation of systems for data collection, data cleaning, data analysis and data visualization with the Integrated Development program’s projects in Colombia, Guatemala and Mexico.
Ensuring intended results
Monitoring, learning, accountability and evaluation is crucial to ensure CIMMYT delivers on its objectives. Monitoring means ensuring that operations in the field are happening as planned. Rather than waiting until the end of the project when the donor asks for a report, Gardeazábal’s team monitors operations in the field on a quarterly or yearly basis. The team, both in the field and at headquarters, uses this data to check that the project is achieving what was intended and make interventions or adjustments if necessary.
Evaluation looks at project results and evidence. The team collects evidence for every single data point that they have, and then evaluates that evidence for impact and results in the field. This data is not only related to yield increase, but includes sustainable production, capacity development, and adequate technology adaptation and adoption processes.
Accountability is transparency with funders, so that everyone involved in a project is accountable for the processes, decisions and impact. CIMMYT is able to show progress through a transparent relationship with funders.
Learning happens after the team collects information, produces results evaluations, and understands what was done well and where the process had to be redirected. This information can then inform design of new projects or project phases. “We use the data and analysis of each project to redesign or modify our plans for the next project or even what kinds of projects we want to conduct,” Gardeazábal said.
Andrea Gardeazábal merges ICT tools with monitoring, evaluation, accountability and learning to improve project design. (Photo: Francisco Alarcón/CIMMYT)
What ICT can offer
In the past, a MEAL team would collect data from a representative sample at the start of the project, then go back to the office and analyze that data. At the end of the project, the team would complete the same exercise, to see the difference from what they gathered at the beginning.
With ICT tools, researchers are able to gather and analyze robust data more quickly and can communicate efficiently with the beneficiaries of a project throughout its course. Artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms can help in understanding large sets of data so that this information can strengthen and streamline the MEAL process and project impact.
“We don’t need to wait until the end of the project for the results in the field or to have a sense of what the farmers are saying and achieving. We have a lot of tools, from the ICT side, that help make monitoring and evaluation more efficient,” Gardeazábal explained.
An international award recognized some of these ICT tools earlier this year. Gardeazábal formed part of the winning team with members from the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) working on groundbreaking data systems and tools that help over 150,000 farmers in Mexico.
The team tracked over 500 variables over different farming plots and analyzed them with geographic, weather and market data to help identify the best management practices for each plot. This information — including historic yield potential, local benchmarks, windows of opportunity, recommended agricultural practices and commodity price forecasting — is available to farmers through an app called AgroTutor (Android, iOS).
The importance of an enabling environment
However, Gardeazábal cautions against the idea that technology on its own is going to end poverty or increase food security.
“ICT is a vehicle for innovation in agriculture. Just having an app in the field is not enough to generate the change that we are actually looking for. You need an enabling environment, a network, engagement of the farmers and the buy-in of scientists to take advantage of ICT tools.”
From drones and satellite imagery to artificial intelligence, ICT tools can help CIMMYT carry out its mission by streamlining the data gathering and analytics processes.
However, this work is not done in isolation from the environment surrounding it. CIMMYT does not only work on increasing yields, but also manages resources and local networks in efficient ways. Teams must monitor data on air quality, water use and efficient information flows, analyze this data, and then return to the field with recommendations for the most sustainable production within integrated agri-food systems.
Building on a wealth of existing investment in UK wheat research and development, including the UK Research and Innovation BBSRC-funded Designing Future Wheat programme (DFW), the International Wheat Yield Partnership (IWYP) has formed a new European Winter Wheat Hub that will accelerate research discoveries from the UK and globally into commercial plant breeding.
A public-private partnership, the IWYP-European Winter Wheat Hub will combine novel traits discovered by collaborative international teams into a range of high performing European winter wheat genetic backgrounds for assessment and use in winter wheat breeding programs.
The global agriculture companies BASF, KWS, RAGT and Syngenta, in collaboration with the UK National Institute for Agricultural Botany (NIAB), will provide a translational pipeline supporting European winter wheat improvement. In partnership with IWYP, commercial breeders will select key genetic discoveries of potential value for the European wheat community from global IWYP research projects. NIAB will then use its expertise in pre-breeding to produce genetic material for the validation and development of selected IWYP research outputs.
Joining the wider existing IWYP Hub Network of large translational pipelines operating on spring wheat at CIMMYT (the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre) in Mexico and the recently established NIFA-IWYP Winter Wheat Breeding Innovation Hub at Kansas State University, USA, the IWYP-European Winter Wheat Hub will ensure that cutting-edge discoveries are rapidly available to both the participating wheat breeders and to the global wheat breeding community.
“This is another excellent example of how public-private partnerships (such as the DFW, the Wheat Initiative and IWYP) can work well at both the international and national level,” said Chris Tapsell from KWS, who is leading the IWYP-European Winter Wheat Hub development.
“And this hub will help ensure that the hard work of the IWYP researchers around the world will deliver impacts that address the twin challenges of increasing wheat production for food security whilst protecting the environment.”
Jeff Gwyn, who leads the IWYP program said, “The addition of this new hub further strengthens the IWYP Hub Network and enables the development of our innovations to reach a wider industry base more rapidly. It is critical for IWYP to have its research outputs taken up and utilized for the public good. Public-private partnerships such as this further demonstrate that the IWYP initiative is filling a significant gap and creating value.”
Tina Barsby, CEO of NIAB commented, “NIAB has a strong track record in pre-breeding of wheat and particularly in working closely with commercial breeders to bring new variability to the market. We are really looking forward to helping to advance IWYP project traits into breeding programs.”
The IWYP program is based on an innovative model for public funding and international scientific collaboration to address the global grand challenge of food, nutritional and economic security for the future. The model employs public-private partnerships to scale and drive its research innovations for impact. Operations require active coordination of the international research and development teams whose discovery research focuses on complementary and overlapping sets of potentially high impact novel trait targets deemed likely to underpin yield increases, such as the regulation of photosynthesis, optimal plant architecture, plant biomass distribution, and grain number and size. As the results emerge, it is possible to envisage how to combine them and therefore simultaneously remove multiple constraints affecting yields in farmers’ fields. https://iwyp.org/
NIAB is an independent plant biosciences organisation working to translate fundamental research into innovative solutions and products for the agricultural sector. The IWYP-European Winter Wheat Hub will leverage established expertise in wheat genetics and breeding at NIAB, including newly developed glasshouse and molecular laboratory facilities.
https://www.niab.com/
BASF, KWS, RAGT and Syngenta are innovation-led leaders in the wheat breeding industry, developing varieties that deliver consistent year-on-year genetics gain for the benefit of wheat growers throughout Europe and North America. All companies are active members of IWYP and launched this initiative to speed up and ensure the effective utilization of deliverables from IWYP research projects, which are funded by partners across the globe including the BBSRC in the UK.
www.kws.com
www.ragt.fr
www.basf.com
www.syngenta.com
CIMMYT field workers working on wheat crossing as part of the breeding process. (Photo: CIMMYT)
A recent webinar organized by the CGIAR Excellence in Breeding Platform (EiB) and Accelerating Genetic Gains in Maize and Wheat for Improved Livelihoods (AGG) project, invited national agricultural research systems, seed companies, other interested breeders to explore tools, techniques and transitions toward a continuous improvement culture in breeding.
Continuous improvement (CI) is an approach that is being used to modernize breeding programs, to ensure they consistently get significantly improved varieties in farmers’ fields. It helps teams create a new way of thinking and working. The goal is to ensure striving for excellence becomes part of an organizational culture. To get there, CI provides a set of clear principles and tools to help diagnose problems and then solve them.
The webinar featured a leading international CI expert —Theresa Heitman, an EiB consultant — who introduced the Lean Improvement Methodology, an approach to help breeders grow their programs and improve results without adding more resources. It examines the way breeders create value for the customer, using specific methods and tools to reduce or eliminate non-value added activities.
Other presenters included B.M. Prasanna from the CGIAR Research Program on Maize, Gustavo Teixeira and Theresa Heitman from EiB and Dan Makumbi from EiB and the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), Marcelo Almeida from Syngenta, and Sharifah Shahrul from the International Rice Research Center (IRRI).
The CI webinar is part of a series of webinars co-organized by EiB and AGG. Forthcoming sessions will cover assessing genetic gains and other topics.
