General view of the experimental field in Lempira, Honduras. (Photo: Nele Verhulst/CIMMYT)
Populations in Central America are rising rapidly, but staple crop production seems unable to keep up with increasing food demands.
Maize yields are particularly low compared to other regions. Cumulatively, farmers in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua produce maize on nearly 2.5 million hectares, with a large proportion of these maize systems also including beans, either through relay cropping or intercropping. Though potential yields are estimated to be as high as 10 metric tons per hectare, average production remains low at around 2.28.
There is clearly immense opportunity for improvement, but it is not always obvious which issues need tackling.
Yield gap analysis — which measures the difference between potential and actual yield — is a useful starting point for addressing the issue and identifying intensification prospects. It is not a new concept in applied agronomy, but it has not been adequately applied in many regions. For example, Analyses of Central America tend to be grouped with the rest of Latin America, making it difficult to provide recommendations tailored to local contexts.
I see a more comprehensive understanding of the region’s specific crop production limitations as the first step towards improving food security.
Along with fellow researchers from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and other institutions, we set out to identify the main factors limiting production in these areas. We established field trials in six maize and bean producing regions in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, which represent about three-quarters of the maize producing area. We assessed factors such as water stress, nutrient deficiency, pressure from pests and diseases, and inter-plant competition, hypothesizing that optimized fertilization and supplementary irrigation would have the greatest effects on yields.
A maize cob in La Libertad, El Salvador, shows kernels affected by tar spot complex which have not filled completely (Photo: Nele Verhulst/CIMMYT)
We found that while improved fertilization improved maize yields by 11% on average, it did not have a significant effect on bean production. Irrigation had no effect, though this was mainly due to good rainfall distribution throughout the growing season in the study year. On average, optimized planting arrangements increased maize yields by 18%, making it the most promising factor we evaluated.
It was interesting though perhaps unsurprising to note that the contribution of each limiting factor to yield gaps carried across all sites and no single treatment effectively increased yields consistently across all sites. The trial results confirmed that production constraints are highly dependent on local management practices and agroecological location.
With this in mind, we recommend that development actors aiming to increase crop production begin by conducting multi-year, participatory experiments to understand the primary causes of yield gaps and identify the limitations specific to the areas in question, as this will allow for more effective research and policy efforts.
The Frank N. Meyer Medal for Plant Genetic Resources. (Photo: Kevin Pixley/CIMMYT)
Thomas Payne, head of the Wheat Germplasm Bank at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), was awarded the Frank N. Meyer Medal for Plant Genetic Resources this morning at the annual meeting of the American Society of Agronomy, the Crop Science Society of America, and the Soil Science Society of America, held in San Antonio, Texas.
The Frank N. Meyer Medal recognizes contributions to plant germplasm collection and use, as well as dedication and service to humanity through the collection, evaluation or conservation of earth’s genetic resources. The award was presented by Clare Clarice Coyne, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) research geneticist.
As an award recipient, Payne delivered a lecture that touched on the philosophy, history and culture surrounding plant genetic diversity and its collectors, and CIMMYT’s important role in conserving and sharing crop diversity.
The scientist has focused his career on wheat improvement and conservation. In addition to leading CIMMYT’s Wellhausen-Anderson Wheat Genetic Resources Collection, one of the world’s largest collection of wheat and maize germplasm, he manages the CIMMYT International Wheat Improvement Network. He is the current Chair of the Article 15 Group of CGIAR Genebank Managers, and has served as Secretary to the CIMMYT Board of Trustees. His association with CIMMYT began immediately after obtaining a PhD at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln in 1988, and he has held positions for CIMMYT in Ethiopia, Mexico, Syria, Turkey and Zimbabwe.
Thomas Payne delivers a presentation at the Crop Science Society of America’s annual Genetic Resources breakfast, where he received the award. (Photo: Kevin Pixley/CIMMYT)
“CIMMYT is the largest distributor of maize and wheat germplasm worldwide, with materials emanating from its research and breeding programs, as well as held in-trust in the germplasm bank. The Meyer Medal is a reflection of the impact CIMMYT makes in the international research community — and in farmers’ fields throughout the developing world,” Payne said.
Located at CIMMYT headquarters outside Mexico City, the CIMMYT Wheat Germplasm Bank contains nearly 150,000 collections of seed of wheat and related species from more than 100 countries. Collections preserve the diversity of unique native varieties and wild relatives of wheat and are held under long-term storage for the benefit of humanity, in accordance with the 2007 International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture. The collections are also studied and used as a source of diversity to breed for crucial traits such as heat and drought tolerance, resistance to crop diseases and pests, grain yield productivity, and grain quality. Seed is freely shared on request to researchers, students, and academic and development institutions worldwide.
In his remarks, Payne also highlighted the story of Frank N. Meyer, after whom the award is named. Meyer, an agricultural explorer for the USDA in the 1900s, spent a decade traveling under harsh conditions through China to collect new plant species suitable for production on the United States’s expanding farmland. Among more than 2,500 plants that he introduced to the U.S. — including varieties of soybeans, oats, wild pears, and asparagus — the Meyer lemon was named in his honor. As he pointed out, Meyer worked during a historical period of great scientific discoveries, including those by his contemporaries Marie Curie and the Wright brothers.
Among those attending the ceremony were Payne’s sister, Susan Payne, and CIMMYT colleagues Kevin Pixley, director of Genetic Resources; Denise Costich, head of the CIMMYT Maize Germplasm Bank; and Alexey Morgunov, head of the Turkey-based International Winter Wheat Improvement Program.
The head of CIMMYT’s Global Wheat Program Hans-Joachim Braun and CIMMYT scientist Alexey Morgunov are also receiving honors or awards this week at the annual meeting of the American Society of Agronomy, the Crop Science Society of America, and the Soil Science Society of America. The meeting convenes around 4,000 scientists, professionals, educators, and students to share knowledge and recognition of achievements in the field.
Thomas Payne (right) celebrates the award with his sister Susan Payne (center) and CIMMYT scientist Alexey Morgunov. (Photo: Kevin Pixley/CIMMYT)
Thomas Payne (left) stands for a photo with CIMMYT’s Director of Genetic Resources Kevin Pixley.
Thomas Payne (left) with Head of CIMMYT’s Maize Germplasm Bank Denise Costich. (Photo: Kevin Pixley/CIMMYT)
One of the researchers behind the study, Yoseph Alemayehu, carries out a field survey in Ethiopia by mobile phone. (Photo Dave Hodson/CIMMYT)
TEXCOCO, Mexico — Using field and mobile phone surveillance data together with forecasts for spore dispersal and environmental suitability for disease, an international team of scientists has developed an early warning system which can predict wheat rust diseases in Ethiopia. The cross-disciplinary project draws on expertise from biology, meteorology, agronomy, computer science and telecommunications.
Reported this week in Environmental Research Letters, the new early warning system, the first of its kind to be implemented in a developing country, will allow policy makers and farmers all over Ethiopia to gauge the current situation and forecast wheat rust up to a week in advance.
The system was developed by the University of Cambridge, the UK Met Office, the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR), the Ethiopian Agricultural Transformation Agency (ATA) and the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT). It works by taking near real-time information from wheat rust surveys carried out by EIAR, regional research centers and CIMMYT using a smartphone app called Open Data Kit (ODK).
This is complemented by crowd-sourced information from the ATA-managed Farmers’ Hotline. The University of Cambridge and the UK Met Office then provide automated 7-day advance forecast models for wheat rust spore dispersal and environmental suitability based on disease presence.
All of this information is fed into an early warning unit that receives updates automatically on a daily basis. An advisory report is sent out every week to development agents and national authorities. The information also gets passed on to researchers and farmers.
Example of weekly stripe rust spore deposition based on dispersal forecasts. Darker colors represent higher predicted number of spores deposited. (Graphic: University of Cambridge/UK Met Office)
Timely alerts
“If there’s a high risk of wheat rust developing, farmers will get a targeted SMS text alert from the Farmers’ Hotline. This gives the farmer about three weeks to take action,” explained Dave Hodson, principal scientist with CIMMYT and co-author of the research study. The Farmers’ Hotline now has over four million registered farmers and extension agents, enabling rapid information dissemination throughout Ethiopia.
Ethiopia is the largest wheat producer in sub-Saharan Africa but the country still spends in excess of $600 million annually on wheat imports. More can be grown at home and the Ethiopian government has targeted to achieve wheat self-sufficiency by 2023.
“Rust diseases are a grave threat to wheat production in Ethiopia. The timely information from this new system will help us protect farmers’ yields, and reach our goal of wheat self-sufficiency,” said EIAR Director Mandefro Nigussie.
Wheat rusts are fungal diseases that can be dispersed by wind over long distances, quickly causing devastating epidemics which can dramatically reduce wheat yields. Just one outbreak in 2010 affected 30% of Ethiopia’s wheat growing area and reduced production by 15-20%.
The pathogens that cause rust diseases are continually evolving and changing over time, making them difficult to control. “New strains of wheat rust are appearing all the time — a bit like the flu virus,” explained Hodson.
In the absence of resistant varieties, one solution to wheat rust is to apply fungicide, but the Ethiopian government has limited supplies. The early warning system will help to prioritize areas at highest risk of the disease, so that the allocation of fungicides can be optimized.
Example of weekly stripe rust environmental suitability forecast. Yellow to Brown show the areas predicted to be most suitable for stripe rust infection. (Graphic: University of Cambridge/UK Met Office)
The cream of the crop
The early warning system puts Ethiopia at the forefront of early warning systems for wheat rust. “Nowhere else in the world really has this type of system. It’s fantastic that Ethiopia is leading the way on this,” said Hodson. “It’s world-class science from the UK being applied to real-world problems.”
“This is an ideal example of how it is possible to integrate fundamental research in modelling from epidemiology and meteorology with field-based observation of disease to produce an early warning system for a major crop,” said Christopher Gilligan, head of the Epidemiology and Modelling Group at the University of Cambridge and a co-author of the paper, adding that the approach could be adopted in other countries and for other crops.
“The development of the early warning system was successful because of the great collaborative spirit between all the project partners,” said article co-author Clare Sader-Allen, currently a regional climate modeller at the British Antarctic Survey.
“Clear communication was vital for bringing together the expertise from a diversity of subjects to deliver a common goal: to produce a wheat rust forecast relevant for both policy makers and farmers alike.”
This study was made possible through the support provided by the BBSRC GCRF Foundation Awards for Global Agriculture and Food Systems Research, which brings top class UK science to developing countries, the Delivering Genetic Gains in Wheat (DGGW) Project managed by Cornell University and funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the UK Department for International Development (DFID). The Government of Ethiopia also provided direct support into the early warning system. This research is supported by CGIAR Fund Donors.
ABOUT CIMMYT:
The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) is the global leader in publicly-funded maize and wheat research and related farming systems. Headquartered near Mexico City, CIMMYT works with hundreds of partners throughout the developing world to sustainably increase the productivity of maize and wheat cropping systems, thus improving global food security and reducing poverty. CIMMYT is a member of the CGIAR System and leads the CGIAR Research Programs on Maize and Wheat and the Excellence in Breeding Platform. The Center receives support from national governments, foundations, development banks and other public and private agencies. For more information, visit staging.cimmyt.org.
ABOUT THE ETHIOPIAN INSTITUTE OF AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH (EIAR):
The Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR) is one of the oldest and largest agricultural research institutes in Africa, with roots in the Ethiopian Agricultural Research System (EARS), founded in the late 1940s. EIAR’s objectives are: (1) to generate, develop and adapt agricultural technologies that focus on the needs of the overall agricultural development and its beneficiaries; (2) to coordinate technically the research activities of Ethiopian Agricultural Research System; (3) build up a research capacity and establish a system that will make agricultural research efficient, effective and based on development needs; and (4) popularize agricultural research results. EIAR’s vision is to see improved livelihood of all Ethiopians engaged in agriculture, agro-pastoralism and pastoralism through market competitive agricultural technologies.
When the destructive fall armyworm arrived in Asia in the summer of 2018, scientists were not taken by surprise. They had been anticipating its arrival on the continent as the next stage of its aggressive eastward journey, driven by changing climatic conditions and international trade routes. The pest, native to North and South America, had invaded and spread throughout most of sub-Saharan Africa within two years, severely damaging billions of dollars of maize crops and threatening food security for millions of people. Asian countries would have to mobilize quickly to cope with this new threat.
After reaching India in 2018, the pest spread to other parts of Asia, including Bangladesh, mainland China, Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar, Nepal, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam.
Fall armyworm is a major threat to Asia’s maize farmers, many of whom derive a crucial source of household income by selling maize as feed grain for the growing poultry sector. What is not sold is paramount for subsistence and daily nutrition in communities in the hills of Nepal, in the tribal regions of India, in the mountainous provinces of southern China, and in parts of Indonesia and the Philippines.
The pest is here to stay
Fall armyworm cannot be eradicated — once it has arrived in an agro-ecosystem, farmers must learn how to cope with it. Farmers in the Americas have lived with this pest for the last two hundred years, but their tools and management techniques cannot be simply applied in Africa or Asia. Solutions need to be tailored to specific countries and local contexts, to account for the vast differences in local ecologies, practices, policies and other conditions.
Timothy J. Krupnik and B.M. Prasanna are two of the scientists responding to fall armyworm in Asia. Both are with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT). As a long-established organization with global presence, CIMMYT had decades of experience managing fall armyworm in its native lands before the global spread started. These scientists see the enormous threat to maize crops in Asia, and the negative impact it could have on the income and wellbeing of smallholders and their families, but they also point to opportunities to develop, validate and deploy effective solutions.
In South Asia, farmers have developed intensive agricultural techniques to produce food for rapidly growing populations, meaning agricultural inputs such as seeds, fertilizer and pesticides are more readily available than in much of Africa. The private sector is generally good at getting solutions to farmers, who are often willing and able to adopt new ways of farming. “The private sector in South Asia is in a good position to exchange and transfer technologies across the region,” explains Prasanna, who leads CIMMYT’s Global Maize Program and the CGIAR Research Program on Maize.
The accessibility of pesticides also has its risks, says Krupnik, a senior scientist based in Bangladesh. “If used incorrectly, pesticides can be unsafe, environmentally damaging and even ineffective,” he says. Krupnik’s team is currently engaging with pesticide companies in Bangladesh, helping them develop an evidence-based response to fall armyworm. “We want to encourage effective, environmentally safer solutions such as integrated pest management that cause least harm to people and ecosystems,” he explained.
A fall armyworm curls up among the debris of the maize plant it has just eaten at CIMMYT’s screenhouse in Kiboko, Kenya. (Photo: Jennifer Johnson/CIMMYT)
A global effort
The global nature of the challenge may have a silver lining. “Over the last three years, we have learned important lessons on fall armyworm management in Africa, including what technologies work and why,” says Prasanna. “With the pest now a global problem, there is great potential for cooperation among affected countries, especially between Africa and Asia.”
Researchers emphasize that a collective effort is needed to respond to the fall armyworm in Asia. CIMMYT is working with partners around the world to help leverage and share expertise and technologies across borders.
China has as much acreage of maize as the whole African continent, and has tremendous institutional expertise and capacity to deal with new challenges, explains Prasanna. His team is in discussions with Chinese researchers to share knowledge and solutions across Asia.
Bangladesh and Nepal are among the countries seeking linkages with international experts and researchers in other countries.
In Africa, CIMMYT was part of a global coalition of scientists and governments who joined forces in 2017 to tackle the fall armyworm threat and develop scientific solutions. The researchers want to see this approach expand into Asia, supported by the donor community.
As the pest continues its relentless expansion in the region, extensive work is ahead for both research and development institutions. Researchers need to identify and promote best management practices. Technologies will have to be environmentally sustainable, durable and inclusive, says Prasanna.
Joining hands
“To achieve this, we need a multidisciplinary team including breeders, pest management experts, seed specialists, agronomists and socioeconomists, who can share science-based evidence with development partners, governments and farmers,” Prasanna says.
CIMMYT researchers are on the path towards developing improved maize varieties with native genetic resistance to fall armyworm. They are also engaging with farming communities to make sure other integrated pest management solutions are available.
In addition to developing agronomic practices and technologies, scientists are reaching out to farming communities with the right messages, Krupnik explains. “As well as being technical experts, our scientists are embedded in the countries where we work. We’ve lived here for a long time, and understand how to engage with local partners,” he says.
Cross-border collaboration and knowledge transfer is already happening. Partners in Laos enthusiastically adapted fall armyworm informational materials from Bangladesh for local dissemination. Krupnik and his team have also collaborated on a video with guidance on how to identify and scout for fall armyworm in a field, developed by Scientific Animations without Borders.
Fall armyworm will continue its spread across Asia, and researchers will have many questions to answer, such as how fall armyworm interacts with very diverse Asian agro-ecosystems, the pest population dynamics, and measuring the economic impacts of interventions. Solutions need to be developed, validated and deployed for the short, medium and long term. Krupnik and Prasanna hope that international cooperation can support these crucial research-for-development activities.
“Fall armyworm is here to stay. We are running a marathon and not a 100-meter sprint,” proclaimed Prasanna. “Let’s work collectively and strategically so that the farmer is the ultimate winner.”
Researchers visit maize fields in Ethiopia’s Wondo Genet Agricultural Research Center. (Photo: Peter Lowe/CIMMYT)
One major reason why maize productivity in sub-Saharan Africa is very low is poor soil health. Soil acidity is often mentioned because of its impact on crop yields and the extent of acid soils in the region. A recent soil mapping exercise, conducted by the Ethiopian Soil Information System (EthioSIS) under the administration of the Ethiopian Agricultural Transformation Agency (ATA), estimated that 43% of arable lands were affected by acid soils and that 3.6 million people, about 10% of the total rural population, live in areas with acidic soils.
Very acid soils — those with a pH below 5.5, roughly one hundred times more acidic than neutral soils — are associated with certain toxicities, like aluminum and iron excess, and some nutrient deficiencies. Soil acidity pushes soil nutrients out of reach of the plant, leading to stunting of root system and plant. As a result, the plant becomes also less tolerant to drought.
Soil acidification depends on soil nature, agroecology and farming systems. It happens through natural leaching of CO2 after rainfall and excess application of nitrogenous fertilizer or organic matter, for instance.
As a result, soil acidity significantly affects maize yields. In Ethiopia, studies have revealed substantial impacts on crop productivity related to acid soils and the importance of acid soil management for Ethiopia’s food security. The Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR) estimated that soil acidity on wheat production alone costed the country over 9 billion Ethiopian Birr, about $300 million per year.
Acidic soils in the limelight
Preliminary analysis led by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) suggests that yields of major cereal crops, such as wheat and barley, could increase by 20 to 40% with the application of lime in acidic areas of the country.
While these preliminary results are significant, we need to know more about local farmers’ experience with acidic soil and their mitigation strategies. Such impact assessments are however typically determined at either the national or experimental plot level and do not map where mitigating against acid soils would be the most profitable.
To improve acid soils, farmers may apply lime on their fields to raise the pH, a practice known as liming. How much lime to apply will depend on the crop, soil type but also on the quality of lime available. Liming has multiple beneficial effects like improving nitrogen fixation of legume nodules, boosting yields of legume crops.
But liming has a cost. It can quickly become a very bulky affair as we need to apply 3 to 4 tons per hectare for sandy soils and up to 8 tons per hectare for clay and humifere soils.
Furthermore, existing lime markets are quite limited or even non-existent in many areas, even those where acidic soils are prevalent. Developing supply chains from scratch is difficult and costly. Understanding the costs and potential returns to such investments is important. There are many questions to ask at different levels, from the farm and farming system to the lime supply chain. What are the available lime sources — calcitic, dolomite or blend — and lime quality? Where are the lime processing units and how could you assess the transport cost to the farms? What could be the crop yield response depending on the lime application?
User-friendly and scalable dashboard
IFPRI, in collaboration with EIAR, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and the German aid agency GIZ, developed a pilot in Ethiopia’s Amhara region to help better target lime interventions for a greater impact. Amhara region was chosen because of the importance of acid soils, and access to extensive soil data.
Combination of several spatial datasets on soil quality, agroecological, weather, long-term agronomic trials and crop modelling tools enabled to generate at scale, georeferenced estimates of crop yield responses for different lime applications. Calibration of this spatial model for wheat estimated a yield increase of approximately 30% increasing the pH from 5.5 to 6.5, which is relatively consistent with general research data and expert opinion.
Mapped estimates of the grain prices and the delivered costs of lime, based on the location of the lime crushers in the region and transport costs, enables then to map out the spatial profitability of lime operations.
Initial calculations revealed a great variability of lime costs at the farmgate, with transportation representing at least half of total lime costs. It showed also that farmers often do not use the most cost-effective combination of inputs to tackle soil acidity.
Another possible application is to determine maize growing areas where lime benefits outweigh the costs, which would be ideal sites for demonstrating to farmers the positive impact lime applications could have to their livelihoods.
This Amhara lime dashboard prototype demonstrated its scalability. A national dashboard is currently being developed, which includes lime sources GPS location, grain prices and district-level soil quality mapping. This approach is tested also in Tanzania.
CIMMYT and its partners plan to package such tool in a user-friendly open-access web version that can be rapidly updated and customized depending on the area of intervention, for instance integrating a new lime source, and applied for different crops, and across the Eastern African region. Such dashboards will help development organizations and government make better informed decisions regarding lime investments.
Global wheat production is currently facing great challenges, from increasing climate variation to occurrence of various pests and diseases. These factors continue to limit wheat production in a number of countries, including China, where in 2018 unseasonably cold temperatures resulted in yield reduction of more than 10% in major wheat growing regions. Around the same time, Fusarium head blight spread from the Yangtze region to the Yellow and Huai Valleys, and northern China experienced a shortage of irrigated water.
In light of these ongoing challenges, international collaboration, as well as the development of new technologies and their integration with existing ones, has a key role to play in supporting sustainable wheat improvement, especially in developing countries. The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) has been collaborating with China on wheat improvement for over 40 years, driving significant progress in a number of areas.
Notably, a standardized protocol for testing Chinese noodle quality has been established, as has a methodology for breeding adult-plant resistance to yellow rust, leaf rust and powdery mildew. More than 330 cultivars derived from CIMMYT germplasm have been released in the country and are currently grown over 9% of the Chinese wheat production area, while physiological approaches have been used to characterize yield potential and develop high-efficiency phenotyping platforms. The development of climate-resilient cultivars using new technology will be a priority area for future collaboration.
In a special issue of Frontiers of Agricultural Science and Engineering focused on wheat genetics and breeding, CIMMYT researchers present highlights from global progress in wheat genomics, breeding for disease resistance, as well as quality improvement, in a collection of nine review articles and one research article. They emphasize the significance of using new technology for genotyping and phenotyping when developing new cultivars, as well as the importance of global collaboration in responding to ongoing challenges.
In a paper on wheat stem rust, CIMMYT scientists Sridhar Bhavani, David Hodson, Julio Huerta-Espino, Mandeep Randawa and Ravi Singh discuss progress in breeding for resistance to Ug99 and other races of stem rust fungus, complex virulence combinations of which continue to pose a significant threat to global wheat production. The authors detail how effective gene stewardship and new generation breeding materials, complemented by active surveillance and monitoring, have helped to limit major epidemics and increase grain yield potential in key target environments.
In the same issue, an article by Caiyun Lui et al. discusses the application of spectral reflectance indices (SRIs) as proxies to screen for yield potential and heat stress, which is emerging in crop breeding programs. The results of a recent study, which evaluated 287 elite lines, highlight the utility of SRIs as proxies for grain yield. High heritability estimates and the identification of marker-trait associations indicate that SRIs are useful tools for understanding the genetic basis of agronomic and physiological traits.
Modeling Genotype × Environment Interaction Using a Factor Analytic Model of On-Farm Wheat Trials in the Yaqui Valley of Mexico. 2019. Vargas-Hernández, M., Ortiz-Monasterio, I., Perez-Rodriguez, P., Montesinos-Lopez, O.A., Montesinos-Lopez, A., Burgueño, J., Crossa, J. In: Agronomy Journal v. 111, no. 1, p. 1-11.
“Can we sustainably feed the nine to ten billion people in our planet in 30 years?” asked Kenneth M. Quinn, president of the World Food Prize Foundation. “This question becomes even more challenging with two current game changers: conflict and climate change.”
Food and agriculture experts met in Des Moines, Iowa, to discuss these issues at the Borlaug Dialogue and awarding of the 2019 World Food Prize.
The focus has shifted over the last few years from food to food systems, now including health and nutrition. “We need an integrated agri-food systems approach for food security, nutrition, nature conservation and human security,” said Bram Govaerts, director of the Integrated Development program at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).
Speakers agreed that to meet the current challenges of nutrition and climate change, we need a transformation of the global food system. “We have something very positive — this narrative of food system transformation,” said Ruben Echeverría, Director General of the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT).
In the discussions, speakers highlighted several areas that must be taken into consideration in this transformation.
Hale Ann Tufan, recipient of the 2019 Norman E. Borlaug Award for Field Research and Application, speaks at the award ceremony. (Photo: Mary Donovan/CIMMYT)
Food security for peace and development
The theme of this year’s Borlaug Dialogue was “Pax Agricultura: Peace through agriculture.” Panels addressed the interconnected issues of food security, conflict and development.
In the keynote address, USAID Administrator Mark Green issued a call to action and challenged participants “to take on the food and economic insecurity issues that are emerging from this era’s unprecedented levels of displacement and forced migration.” Ambassadors, ministers and development experts gave examples of the interdependence of agriculture and peace, how droughts and floods could create conflict in a country, and how peace can be rebuilt through agriculture.
“Agriculture could root out the insurgency better than anything we did,” said Quinn about the Khmer Rouge surrender in Cambodia, where he served as an ambassador.
In the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, more than 1 million people died in 100 days. Geraldine Mukeshimana, Rwanda’s minister of Agriculture and Animal Resources, explained that in the country’s rebuilding process, all policies centered on agriculture.
“Almost no country has come out of poverty without an agricultural transformation,” said Rodger Voorhies, president of Global Growth and Opportunity at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, in a fireside chat with 2009 World Food Prize Laureate Gebisa Ejera.
Agriculture is vital because without food, we cannot build institutions, processes or economies. “You cannot talk about human rights if you don’t have any food in your stomach,” said Chanthol Sun, Cambodia’s minister of Public Works and Transportation.
Josette Sheeran, president and CEO of Asia Society, echoed this thought, “Nothing is more important to human stability than access to food.”
CGIAR had a booth at the 2019 World Food Prize and Borlaug Dialogue, and participated in several events and panels. (Photo: World Food Prize)
How to make technological innovations work
Innovations and technology can support a global food system transformation and help to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.
In a panel on food security in the next decade, speakers shared the agricultural technologies they are excited about: data, gene editing, synthetic biology, data science and precision farming.
Josephine Okot, managing director of Victoria Seeds Ltd said, “We must have mechanization.” She described the fact that Ugandan women farmers still rely on hand tools as a “disgrace to humanity.”
The CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) organized a session where panelists discussed how to realize a transformation in food systems through next generation technologies, highlighting the role regulatory frameworks and policies play in the adoption of new technologies.
Making innovations work is about more than developing the product. “It takes a lot more than just a good seed to get a farmer to use it,” said 2019 World Food Prize Laureate Simon Groot. “It includes good distribution, good marketing, good training, etcetera.”
Technology adoption requires a human emphasis and cultural element in addition to technology development.
The Executive Director of CGIAR, Elwyn Grainger-Jones (left), 2019 World Food Prize Laureate, Simon Groot (second from left) and other speakers present CGIAR’s Crops to End Hunger initiative. (Photo: Mary Donovan/CIMMYT)
Breeding demand-driven crops for all
“The real enemy of farmers is lousy seeds,” said Simon Groot in his speech after receiving the World Food Prize.
CGIAR took the occasion of the World Food Prize to launch a new initiative, Crops to End Hunger. “We are looking for big solutions at CGIAR. Crops to End Hunger is one of them,” said CIMMYT Director General Martin Kropff. This program aims to meet the food, nutrition and income needs of producers and consumers, respond to market demands and increase resilience to challenges of the climate crisis.
“CGIAR released 417 new varieties last year. However, we can do more. Crops to End Hunger will rapidly excel breeding cycles,” said Elwyn Grainger-Jones, CGIAR Executive Director.
Felister Makini, deputy director general for Crops at Kenya Agricultural & Livestock Research Organization (KALRO), explained that focusing on the end users is what will have real impact. “It is important to develop technologies that are demand-driven so that farmers want to grow them and consumers want to buy and eat them.”
In a session to unpack the Crops to End Hunger initiative hosted by Corteva Agriscience and CGIAR, Marco Ferroni, Chair of the CGIAR System Management Board, said that CGIAR is shifting toward a more demand-driven agenda for plant breeding, where markets dictate what the research priorities should be.
“We must consider the human aspect in breeding,” said Michael Quinn, Director of the CGIAR Excellence in Breeding Platform (EiB). “This is where success will really come.”
Panelists discussed gender-conscious breeding, or taking both women and men’s desired traits into account.
The theme of gender was also emphasized by 2019 Norman Borlaug Field Award winner Hale Ann Tufan. She asked the Dialogue attendees to question gender biases and “not only to ‘take it to the farmer’ but take it to all farmers.”
CIMMYT’s Director General, Martin Kropff (right), speaks at a session to share the details of CGIAR’s Crops to End Hunger initiative. (Photo: Mary Donovan/CIMMYT)
Cover photo: Plenary session of the 2019 Borlaug Dialogue. (Photo: World Food Prize)
Society faces enormous challenges in the transition to sustainable rural development. We are unlikely to make this transition unless we move away from the 20th-century paradigm that sees the world as a logical, linear system focused on “scaling up” the use of technologies to reach hundreds of millions of smallholders.
In a new article published this week on NextBillion, Lennart Woltering of CIMMYT contends that “farming communities are unlikely to continue using a new practice or technology if the surrounding system remains unchanged, since it is this very system that shaped their conventional way of farming.”
Woltering calls on the research for development community to work towards producing deeper system change and offers some key considerations for moving in the right direction.
Pioneering research on our three most important cereal grains — maize, rice, and wheat — has contributed enormously to global food security over the last half century, chiefly by boosting the yields of these crops and by making them more resilient in the face of drought, flood, pests and diseases. But with more than 800 million people still living in chronic hunger and many more suffering from inadequate diets, much remains to be done. The challenges are complicated by climate change, rampant degradation of the ecosystems that sustain food production, rapid population growth and unequal access to resources that are vital for improved livelihoods.
In recent years, a consensus has emerged among agricultural researchers and development experts around the need to transform global food systems, so they can provide healthy diets while drastically reducing negative environmental impacts. Certainly, this is a central aim of CGIAR — the world’s largest global agricultural research network — which views enhanced nutrition and sustainability as essential for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. CGIAR scientists and their many partners contribute by developing technological and social innovations for the world’s key crop production systems, with a sharp focus on reducing hunger and poverty in low- and middle-income countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America.
The importance of transforming food systems is also the message of the influential EAT-Lancet Commission report, launched in early 2019. Based on the views of 37 leading experts from diverse research disciplines, the report defines specific actions to achieve a “planetary health diet,” which enhances human nutrition and keeps the resource use of food systems within planetary boundaries. While including all food groups — grains, roots and tubers, pulses, vegetables, fruits, tree nuts, meat, fish, and dairy products — this diet reflects important shifts in their consumption. The major cereals, for example, would supply about one-third of the required calories but with increased emphasis on whole grains to curb the negative health effects of cheap and abundant supplies of refined cereals.
This proportion of calories corresponds roughly to the proportion of its funding that CGIAR currently invests in the major cereals. These crops are already vital in diets, cultures, and economies across the developing world, and the way they are produced, processed and consumed must be a central focus of global efforts to transform food systems. There are four main reasons for this imperative.
Aneli Zárate Vásquez (left), in Mexico’s state of Oaxaca, sells maize tortillas for a living. (Photo: P. Lowe/CIMMYT)
1. Scale and economic importance
The sheer extent of major cereal production and its enormous value, especially for the poor, account in large part for the critical importance of these crops in global food systems. According to 2017 figures, maize is grown on 197 million hectares and rice on more than 167 million hectares, mainly in Asia and Africa. Wheat covers 218 million hectares, an area larger than France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK combined. The total annual harvest of these crops amounts to about 2.5 billion tons of grain.
Worldwide production had an estimated annual value averaging more than $500 billion in 2014-2016. The prices of the major cereals are especially important for poor consumers. In recent years, the rising cost of bread in North Africa and tortillas in Mexico, as well as the rice price crisis in Southeast Asia, imposed great hardship on urban populations in particular, triggering major demonstrations and social unrest. To avoid such troubles by reducing dependence on cereal imports, many countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America have made staple crop self-sufficiency a central element of national agriculture policy.
Women make roti, an unleavened flatbread made with wheat flour and eaten as a staple food, at their home in the Dinajpur district, Bangladesh. (Photo: S. Mojumder/Drik/CIMMYT)
2. Critical role in human diets
Cereals have a significant role to play in food system transformation because of their vital importance in human diets. In developing countries, maize, rice, and wheat together provide 48% of the total calories and 42% of the total protein. In every developing region except Latin America, cereals provide people with more protein than meat, fish, milk and eggs combined, making them an important protein source for over half the world’s population.
Yellow maize, a key source of livestock feed, also contributes indirectly to more protein-rich diets, as does animal fodder derived from cereal crop residues. As consumption of meat, fish and dairy products continues to expand in the developing world, demand for cereals for food and feed must rise, increasing the pressure to optimize cereal production.
In addition to supplying starch and protein, the cereals serve as a rich source of dietary fiber and nutrients. CGIAR research has documented the important contribution of wheat to healthy diets, linking the crop to reduced risk of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and colorectal cancer. The nutritional value of brown rice compared to white rice is also well known. Moreover, the recent discovery of certain genetic traits in milled rice has created the opportunity to breed varieties that show a low glycemic index without compromising grain quality.
Golden Rice grain (left) compared to white rice grain. Golden Rice is unique because it contains beta carotene, giving it a golden color. (Photo: IRRI)
The major cereals have undergone further improvement in nutritional quality during recent years through a crop breeding approach called “biofortification,” which boosts the content of essential vitamins or micronutrients. Dietary deficiencies of this kind harm children’s physical and cognitive development, and leave them more vulnerable to disease. Sometimes called “hidden hunger,” this condition is believed to cause about one-third of the 3.1 million annual child deaths attributed to malnutrition. Diverse diets are the preferred remedy, but the world’s poorest consumers often cannot afford more nutritious foods. The problem is especially acute for women and adolescent girls, who have unequal access to food, healthcare and resources.
It will take many years of focused effort before diverse diets become a reality in the lives of the people who need them most. Diversified farming systems such as rice-fish rotations that improve nutritional value, livelihoods and resilience are a step in that direction. In the meantime, “biofortified” cereal and other crop varieties developed by CGIAR help address hidden hunger by providing higher levels of zinc, iron and provitamin A carotenoids as well as better protein quality. Farmers in many developing countries are already growing these varieties.
A 2018 study in India found that young children who ate zinc-biofortified wheat in flatbread or porridge became ill less frequently. Other studies have shown that consumption of provitamin A maize improves the body’s total stores of this vitamin as effectively as vitamin supplementation. Biofortified crop varieties are not a substitute for food fortification (adding micronutrients and vitamins during industrial food processing). But these varieties can offer an immediate solution to hidden hunger for the many subsistence farmers and other rural consumers who depend on locally produced foods and lack access to fortified products.
Ruth Andrea (left) and Maliamu Joni harvest cobs of drought-tolerant maize in Idakumbi, Mbeya, Tanzania. (Photo: Peter Lowe/CIMMYT)
4. Wide scope for more sustainable production
Cereal crops show much potential not only for enhancing human heath but that of the environment as well. Compared to other crops, the production of cereals has relatively low environmental impact, as noted in the EAT-Lancet report. Still, it is both necessary and feasible to further enhance the sustainability of cereal cropping systems. Many new practices have a proven ability to conserve water as well as soil and land, and to use purchased inputs (pesticides and fertilizers) far more efficiently. With innovations already available, the amount of water used in current rice cultivation techniques, for example, can be significantly reduced from its present high level.
Irrigation scheduling, laser land leveling, drip irrigation, conservation tillage, precision nitrogen fertilization, and cereal varieties tolerant to drought, flooding and heat are among the most promising options. In northwest India, scientists recently determined that optimal practices can reduce water use by 40%, while maintaining yields in rice-wheat rotations. There and in many other places, the adoption of new practices to improve cereal production in the wet season not only leads to more efficient resource use but also creates opportunities to diversify crop production in the dry season. Improvements to increase cereal crop yields also reduces their environmental footprint; using less land, enhancing carbon sequestration and biodiversity and, for rice, reducing methane emissions per kilo of rice produced. Given the enormous extent of cereals cultivation, any improvement in resource use efficiency will have major impact, while also freeing up vast amounts of land for other crops or natural vegetation.
A major challenge now is to improve access to the knowledge and inputs that will enable millions of farmers to adopt new techniques, making it possible both to diversify production and grow more with less. Another key requirement consists of clear signals from policymakers, especially where land and water are limited, about the priority use of these resources — for example, irrigating low-value cereals to bolster food security versus applying the water to higher value crops and importing staple cereals.
Morning dew on a wheat spike. (Photo: Vadim Ganeyev/CIMMYT)
Toward a sustainable dietary revolution
Future-proofing the global food system requires bold steps. Policy and research need to support a double transformation, centered on nutrition and sustainability.
CGIAR works toward nutritional transformation of our food system through numerous global partnerships. We give high priority to improving cereal crop systems and food products, because of their crucial importance for a growing world population. Recognizing that this alone will not suffice for healthy diets, we also strongly promote greater dietary diversity through our research on various staple crops and production systems and by raising public awareness of more balanced and nutritious diets.
To help achieve a sustainability transformation, CGIAR researchers and partners have developed a wide array of techniques that use resources more efficiently, enhance the resilience of food production in the face of climate change and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, while achieving sustainable increases in crop yields. At the same time, we are generating new evidence on which techniques work best under what conditions to target the implementation of these solutions more effectively.
The ultimate impact of our work depends crucially on the growing resolve of developing countries to promote better diets and more sustainable food production through strong policies and programs. CGIAR is well prepared to help strengthen these measures through research for development, and we are confident that our work on cereals, with continued donor support, will have high relevance, generating a wealth of innovations that help drive the transformation of global food systems.
Martin Kropff is the Director General of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).
Matthew Morell is the Director General of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI).
Guillermo Garcia Barrios, a co-author of the study and student at Colegio de Postgraduados in Montecillo, Mexico, with a PHERAstar machine used to validate genetic markers. (Photo: Marcia MacNeil/CIMMYT)
To meet the demand for wheat from a rising and quickly urbanizing population, wheat yields in farmers’ fields must increase by an estimated 1.5% each year through 2030.
Of all the factors that influence yield, grain weight is the trait that is most stable and heritable for use in breeding improved wheat varieties. Breeders measure this by thousand grain weight (TGW).
Over the years, molecular scientists have made efforts to identify genes related to increased TGW, in order to speed up breeding through marker-assisted selection (MAS). Using MAS, breeders can select parents that contain genes related to the traits they are looking for, increasing the likelihood they will be passed on and incorporated in a new variety.
There have been some limited successes in these efforts: in the past years, a few genes related to increased TGW have been cloned, and a set of genetic markers have been determined to be used for MAS. However, the effects of most of these candidate genes have not yet been validated in diverse sets of wheat germplasm throughout the world that represent the full range of global wheat growing environments.
A group of wheat geneticists and molecular breeders from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) has recently conducted a thorough study to confirm the effects of the favorable alleles reported for these genes on TGW in CIMMYT wheat, and to identify new genetic determinants of this desired trait.
They found some good news and some bad news.
First, the good news: focusing on more than 4,000 lines of CIMMYT wheat germplasm they found 15 haplotype blocks significantly associated with TGW. Four haplotype blocks associated with TGW were also associated with grain yield — a grand prize for breeders, because in general the positive association of grain yield with TGW is less profound and sometimes even negative. However, of the 14 genes that had been previously reported to increase TGW, only one in CIMMYT’s 2015-2016 Elite Yield Trial and two in Wheat Associative Mapping Initiative panel were shown to have significant TGW associations.
Wheat grains prepared for placement in a Thousand Grain Weight machine. (Photo: Marcia MacNeil/CIMMYT)
The scientists also found that the alleles — pairs of genes on a chromosome that determine heredity — that were supposedly favorable to TGW actually decreased it. These candidate genes also appear to vary in their TGW effects with genetic background and/or environment.
Thus, these findings also provide a foundation for more detailed investigations, opening the door for more studies on the genetic background dependence and environment sensitivity of the known candidate genes for TGW.
“Our findings indicate that it will be challenging to use MAS based on these existing markers across individual breeding programs,” said Deepmala Sehgal, CIMMYT wheat geneticist and the primary author of the study.
However, efforts to identify new genetic determinants of TGW were promising. The authors’ study of CIMMYT germplasm found one locus on chromosome 6A that showed increases of up to 2.60 grams in TGW and up to 258 kilograms per hectare in grain yield.
Thousand Grain Weight is measured in this machine at CIMMYT’s global headquarters in Texcoco, Mexico. (Photo: Marcia MacNeil/CIMMYT)
This discovery expands opportunities for developing diagnostic markers to assist in multi-gene pyramiding — a process that can derive new and complementary allele combinations for enhanced wheat TGW and grain yield.
Most of all, the study highlights the strong need for better and more validation of the genes related to this and other traits, so that breeders can be sure they are using material that is confirmed to increase wheat grain weight and genetic yield.
“Our findings are very promising for future efforts to efficiently develop more productive wheat in both grain weight and grain yield,” said Sehgal. “This ultimately means more bread on household tables throughout the world.”
“Validation of Candidate Gene-Based Markers and Identification of Novel Loci for Thousand-Grain Weight in Spring Bread Wheat” in Frontiers in Plant Science by Deepmala Sehgal, Suchismita Mondal, Carlos Guzman, Guillermo Garcia Barrios, Carolina Franco, Ravi Singh and Susanne Dreisigacker was supported by funding from the CGIAR Research Program on Wheat (WHEAT), the Delivering Genetic Gain in Wheat (DGGW) project funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the UK Department for International Development (DFID), and the US Agency for International Development (USAID) Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Applied Wheat Genomics.
Droughts affect crop production across the world. A central challenge for researchers and policymakers is to devise technologies that lend greater resilience to agricultural production under this particular environmental stress.
Interdrought 2020 aims to facilitate the development of concepts, methods and technologies associated with plant production in water-limited environments.
The congress will take place from March 9 to 13, 2020, in Mexico City. Early-bird registration is open until October 31, 2019 and abstract submissions will be accepted until November 15, 2019.
The conference will focus on:
Optimizing dryland crop production – crop design
Water capture, transpiration, transpiration efficiency
Vegetative and reproductive growth
Breeding for water-limited environments
Managing cropping systems for adaptation to water-limited environments
This will be the 6th edition of Interdrought, which builds on the successful series of conferences in Montpellier (1995), Rome (2005), Shanghai (2009), Perth (2013) and Hyderabad (2017).
It will continue the philosophy of presenting, discussing and integrating results of both applied and basic research towards the development of solutions for improving crop production under drought-prone conditions.
If you encounter any difficulties in registration, or are interested in sponsoring the conference, please send an email to cimmyt-interdrought2020@cgiar.org.
The CGIAR Research Program on Maize (MAIZE) is pleased to announce the winners of the 2019 MAIZE Youth Innovators Awards – Latin America. These awards recognize the contributions of young women and men under 35 who are implementing innovations in Latin American maize-based agri-food systems, including research for development, seed systems, agribusiness, and sustainable intensification.
The winners will attend the 23rd Latin American Maize Reunion (XXIII Reunión Latinoamericana del Maíz) in Monteria, Colombia, where they will receive their awards and present their work. Award recipients may also get the opportunity to collaborate with MAIZE and its partner scientists in Latin America on implementing or furthering their innovations.
This is the third instalment of the awards, following Asia in October 2018 and Africa in May 2019.
Congratulations to this year’s winners, seven exceptional young people working in Latin American maize-based systems:
Eduardo Cruz Rojo.
Eduardo Cruz Rojo (Mexico) – Farmer category
Eduardo Cruz Rojo is a young agricultural entrepreneur, worried about rural out-migration in his region and about the poor agricultural practices that have led farming to cease to be profitable. He has a degree in logistics, and is originally from Alfajayucan, in Mexico’s state of Hidalgo. For the past four years he has been working on maize research and production, with a focus on improved agronomic practices that help farmers increase their yields. This includes soil improvement, organic fertilizers, earthworm compost and biological pest control. Through research and testing, he has shown smallholder farmers the cost-benefit of improved agricultural practices. This has been reflected in local farmers achieving improved soils and yields in an environmentally friendly manner.
Yésica Chazarreta has a degree in genetics and is currently a doctoral fellow at the Scientific and Technologic Fund, working with the Crop Ecophysiology group at the National Agricultural Technology Institute (INTA) Pergamino in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Her work centers on understanding the genetic and environmental control of the physiological determinants of filling, drying and quality of maize grains in genotypes destined for grain or silage. The objective is to generate knowledge to continue advancing in maize production improvement and to open the possibility of establishing improvement programs differentiated by planting times for her region, as well as to provide valuable information for the creation of mechanistic models to predict the evolution of humidity in maize grains. This information can help farmers make more informed decisions about the best time to harvest. In addition, Chazarreta hopes to deepen understanding of maize biomass quality for animal feed, a practice that has increased in her native country, Argentina, due to changes in crop management practices related to delays in planting dates.
Omar Garcilazo Rahme is a postgraduate student researching sustainable management of agro-ecosystems at the Meritorious Autonomous University of Puebla (BUAP).
A food engineer by training, he has a profound interest in Mexico’s bio-cultural heritage and maize as a staple food in his native country, as well as the various methods to produce and conserve the crop. His research project seeks to improve the economic, nutritious and sociocultural benefits associated with the production of maize.
He is currently collaborating in a technology transfer and innovation agency on the topics of nutritional labeling, big data and applied technology solutions for the agri-food industry.
Lucio Reinoso.
Lucio Reinoso (Argentina) – Researcher category
Lucio Reinoso is an agronomist with a master’s degree in agricultural sciences from the National Southern University, Argentina. He has worked as a professor at the National University of Rio Negro since 2019. Reinoso was a fellow and researcher for 12 years at the National Institute for Agricultural Technology (INTA).
He works on sustainable models of maize production under irrigation in the irrigated valleys of Northern Patagonia, Argentina. Reinoso is specifically investigating the adaptation of maize to the soil and climatic conditions of the region, highlighting the water and nutritional needs to maximize production while also caring for the environment.
He works with local farmers to adapt no-till farming to scale and adjust irrigation management to improve water use efficiency while preserving the physical, chemical and biological characteristics of soil, increasing resilience.
Viviana López Ramírez is a biological engineer with a master’s degree in environmental studies from the National University of Colombia in Medellin.
She is currently a doctoral student in biological sciences at the National University in Río Cuarto, Argentina, studying the application of bacteriocins for the biological control of phytopathogens.
This work on bacteriosis in maize is conducted by a multidisciplinary team and focuses on the identification of pathogenic bacteria isolated from a diverse maize population.
José Esteban Sotelo Mariche.
José Esteban Sotelo Mariche (Mexico) – Change Agent category
José Esteban Sotelo Mariche is an agronomist from the coastal region of Oaxaca, Mexico. He studied at Chapingo Autonomous University and is certified in rural development and food security.
Since 2012 he has offered capacity building to smallholder maize farmers in his region. In 2014 he formed Integradora Agroempresarial del Rio Verde to promote the production and commercialization of agricultural products. The group now has 80 members, including indigenous and Afro-Mexican farmers. In 2016 he began working with tortilla company Masienda to help local farmers export native maize to gourmet restaurants in the United States.
Most recently he has worked on the integration of the Center for Rural Technology Transfer and Validation (Centro de Validación y Transferencia de Tecnología Rural) to evaluate conservation agriculture systems, efficient water use and agroforestry. This space also serves to provide training activities and technical assistance to local farmers.
Carlos Barragan.
Carlos Barragan (Mexico) – Change Agent category
Carlos Barragan has a degree in agroecological engineering from Chapingo Autonomous University.
He collaborates with the MasAgro project in Mexico’s state of Oaxaca, helping to adapt small-scale production systems to climate change.
He also contributes to work on soil fertility as well as inclusive business models for smallholder farmers working in agri-food value chains.
The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) organized its first ever Maize Product Profile-based Breeding and Varietal Turnover workshop for eastern Africa in Nairobi, on August 29 and 30, 2019. The workshop, funded by USAID, was attended by maize breeders from national research institutes in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Ethiopia and South Sudan, and by several partner seed companies including Seedco, Kenya Seeds, Western Seeds, Naseco and Meru Agro.
Participants from CIMMYT, EiB, NARs and seed companies attending the Product Profile workshop held in Nairobi on August 29-30, 2019. (Photo: CIMMYT/Joshua Masinde)
A product profile is defined as a list of “must-have” maize characteristics or traits that are the unique selling points for the target beneficiaries who are looking for these qualities. The breeders also consider additional traits in their breeding strategy, “value-added” or desirable traits that could be future unique selling points.
“A product profile is not a secret sauce” nor a checkbox to tick, explained Georges Kotch, a renowned expert in the seed industry and lead for Module 1 of the Excellence in Breeding (EiB) platform on product profiling. A product profile is a blueprint to help maize breeding programs ensure their new varieties released respond to a true need with a clear comparative advantage for seed companies and ultimately for maize farmers. This demand-driven process “starts with the end in mind” by understanding what the customers want. The end goal is to replace leading old varieties on the market with better ones that will improve farmers’ livelihoods, for example, with greater climate resilience and productivity.
Steering the breeding program through “healthy tensions”
Breeders may have had the tendency to focus on optimum yield for a certain agroecology, yet their priority traits may not reflect exactly the market or what farmers want. In addition to good yield, drought or disease resistance, grain color, taste, nutritional value, and appearance of plants and cobs are important in farmers’ choice of seed. Socio-economic research tools like participatory varietal selection (PVS) or willingness-to-pay experiments help us weigh the importance of each trait to trigger adoption.
Boiled and roasted maize tasting during a farmer participatory varietal selection exercise in Embu, Kenya in August 2019. Flavors of varieties are very distinct and could explain why some old varieties are still preferably grown by farmers. (Photo: CIMMYT/S. PALMAS)
There may be tensions between farmers’ needs, what suits seed companies like the seed reproducibility ratio, and what is possible and cost-effective from a breeder’s perspective. CIMMYT does not only look through the lens of economic return. The social impact new varieties could have is also considered, for example developing provitamin A or quality protein maize (QPM) as a solution to combat malnutrition even if there is not a major demand from private seed companies in Africa for nutritious maize.
Qualities valued by some actors may be overlooked by others. For example, some maize varieties have leafy ears with deceptively small cobs, which may protect the grain against pests but could be rejected by farmers.
It is important to have a wide array of expertise from breeding, market research and socio-economic analysis so that the different trait choices are weighed according to different lenses and a clear strategy for varietal turnover is defined.
High performing hybrids may not be enough for large-scale adoption
In southern Africa, climate experts warn that farmers could face drought every three years. CIMMYT has rightly prioritized drought tolerance (DT) over the last decade under the Stress Tolerant Maize for Africa initiative. Recently developed DT maize hybrids often outperform the popular varieties on the market, yet the varietal turnover has been slow in some regions. Farmers’ perceptions of what is a good maize may influence the success or rejection of a new variety. The risk for farmers and seed companies to try out a new variety is an important factor in adoption as well.
An appropriate seed marketing strategy is key, often seen only as the responsibility of private seed companies, but should be considered by public research as well.
CIMMYT has been selecting maize that can withstand drought during the critical phase just before and during the flowering stage, when the silks of the future cobs form. Even if rains stop at this stage, farmers growing DT maize will harvest some decent grain. If a long dry spell occurs just after planting, the crop will fail regardless of drought-tolerant breeding efforts. Farmers may then reject DT maize after such failure if the messaging is not clear.
Product profiling is a collaborative process, not an imposing one
Redefining the breeding strategy through product profiling is not set in stone. Kotch recommends annual review as a vehicle for constant improvement. B.M. Prasanna, director of CIMMYT’s Global Maize Program and the CGIAR Research Program on Maize (MAIZE) explained that the product profiles could vary among various partners, as each partner looks at their own comparative advantage to reach success.
It is important to have everyone from the maize seed value chain on board to succeed. Regina Tende, maize breeder and entomologist at the Kenya Agricultural & Livestock Research Organization (KALRO), warned that regulatory bodies who review and authorize new varieties to reach the market must be integrated in the discussion “as their interest, primarily yield, may not be the final requirement for the target market.”
Seed systems specialists are also crucial to operationalize a successful breeding and delivery strategy, to address the different scaling bottlenecks and identify “the market changer.”
According to Kotch, CGIAR and national research organizations should avoid developing products too similar to the popular varieties on the market. Adoption occurs when something very different, for example new resistance to the devastating maize lethal necrosis, gives an innovation edge to seed companies. In Ethiopia, the replacement of an old popular variety BH660 by climate resilient BH661 was successful for various reasons including superior hybrid seed production with grey leaf spot resistance built in the seed parent population.
This demand-driven, multi-lens approach of product profiling including breeding, gender, socio-economic and policy dimensions will help to ensure that new varieties are more likely to be picked by farmers and partner seed companies, and increase the impact of CIMMYT’s Global Maize Program.
A new study published in the Canadian Journal of Development Studies shows how some of Bangladesh’s indigenous women are overcoming social norms and institutional biases to gain direct access to maize and wheat agricultural innovations through developing women-led agricultural organizations, which benefit low-income Muslim women members as well.
Agriculture is important to Bangladesh’s economy and employs a large percentage of the male and female population as farmers, hired labor, and decision-makers. Bangladesh also has a positive policy commitment to gender equality. The UN Sustainable Development Goals are embedded into the country’s national growth plans, including a strong commitment to Goal 5, Gender Equality, and Goal 10, Reduced Inequalities.
However, this new study shows that agricultural innovation programs are primarily directed at middle-income male farmers. Institutional biases in agricultural partners — extension officers, research organizations, policymakers, private sector partners and others — can hamper indigenous peoples and women from participating in wheat–maize innovation processes, as they rarely meet the requisite criteria: sufficient land and social capital. In addition, their participation in markets varies according to their socioeconomic location in society.
Drawing on GENNOVATE case studies, the authors provide insights into how overlapping layers of disadvantage are being challenged in one community in northern Bangladesh.
Indigenous Santal women in the community are active in agriculture, both in the field and in decision-making, but are often marginalized by agricultural partners. Through mobilizing themselves organizationally into a woman-led agricultural organization, they have provided a forum for the delivery of technical training. This process has encouraged low-income Muslim women — who work in the field but are also marginalized by agricultural partners — to join the organization and benefit from training as well.
The findings provide insights into how agricultural research partners can work to strengthen the contribution and voices of the women who have long experienced differing forms of marginalization and to support their efforts to secure technical training.
The data used in this article is derived from GENNOVATE (Enabling Gender Equality in Agricultural and Environmental Innovation), a global research initiative supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. This is a cross-CGIAR initiative examining how interactions between gender norms, agency and other contextual factors shape access to, adoption of and benefits from agricultural innovations in rural communities worldwide.
Trends in regional and chronological diversity of maize (zea mays l.) germplasm in Pakistan. 2019. Maqbool, M.A.| Aslam, M. | Issa, A.B. | Babar Manzoor Atta. In: Pakistan Journal of Botany v. 51, no. 2, p. 1-13.
