Skip to main content

funder_partner: CGIAR

https://www.cgiar.org/

John R. Porter, noted crop and climate scientist, becomes chairperson of the Independent Steering Committee for global wheat research

Written by Mike Listman on . Posted in Press releases.

EL BATAN, Mexico (8 November 2017) – Professor Dr. John R. Porter, from the Agropolis/Montpellier SupJohnPorteragro/INRA/CIRAD conglomeration in Montpellier, France, has been elected as Chair of the Independent Steering Committee that advises the CGIAR Research Program on Wheat (known as WHEAT) on research strategy, priorities and program management. In this appointment, Porter succeeds Dr Tony Fischer, Honorary Research Fellow, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Australia.

An internationally recognized researcher and teacher in crop ecology and physiology, biological modelling, and agricultural ecology, Porter’s contributions have focused on climate change, agronomy, and ecosystem services.

“I am very proud and pleased to be elected as chair of the WHEAT Steering Committee. This CGIAR research program connects over 300 partners into a global alliance for climate-resilient and profitable wheat agri-food systems,” Porter said.

“Accounting for a fifth of the world’s food, wheat is the main source of protein in the developing world and is second only to rice as a source of calories for consumers there,” Porter explained. “The challenge for WHEAT is no less than to raise the crop’s productivity and keep wheat affordable for today’s 2.5 billion resource-poor consumers in 89 countries and for a world population that will surpass 9 billion around mid-century.”

Porter observed that this must be done while cutting greenhouse gas emissions and improving soil health, in wheat-based cropping systems. “As WHEAT moves into its 2nd Phase,” he said, “I would like the Independent Steering Committee to continue the work pioneered by my predecessor Tony Fischer and look at some new areas, such as human capacity development and innovation in wheat-based food production systems.”

Meeting wheat demand, protecting food and farming from worsening climate impacts
According to Porter, WHEAT is actively catalyzing the efforts of CGIAR and partner institution scientists, farmers, governments and private companies in lower and middle-income countries, to develop and share climate-smart innovations that increase farm resilience and productivity, while reducing the climate footprint.

Technology such as high-yielding wheat varieties that tolerate drought and high temperatures, as well as resisting new or modified strains of deadly crop diseases spawned in rapidly warming environments, are the outputs from WHEAT research that lead to positive outcomes for farmers and consumers.

Developing such technologies requires that WHEAT also invest in human capacity development. “Varieties derived from WHEAT breeding lines are already sown on nearly half of the world’s wheat lands and which bring economic benefits of about $3.1 billion each year,” Porter said, citing a 2016 analysis of WHEAT impacts.

Resource-conserving cropping practices from WHEAT, such as more targeted use of nitrogen fertilizers or sowing wheat into untilled soils and crop residues, can raise wheat farmers’ incomes while curbing greenhouse gas emissions, if widely adopted, he added. “Zero tillage is already being used to sow wheat on 1.8 million hectares in South Asia’s extensive rice-wheat rotations, and state government officials in India are implementing policies to support more widespread adoption.”

Perfect experience for the job
A member of the WHEAT Independent Steering Committee since 2014, Porter has published more than 140 papers in reviewed journals, won four international prizes for research and teaching, and served as president of the European Society for Agronomy and was Chief Editor of the European Journal of Agronomy for many years. He led the writing of the chapter on food production and security for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 5th Assessment. Porter was elected as both a Fellow of the Royal Swedish Academy for Agriculture and Forestry and the European Academy of Sciences in 2014 and was knighted by the French government via the Order of Agriculture Merit in March 2016. Porter is an emeritus professor at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark and the Natural Resources Institute at the University of Greenwich UK and an honorary professor at Lincoln University, New Zealand. He is a member of the Scientific Council of the Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA) and currently consulting professor at Montpellier SupAgro, France on a project for Capacity Building in Crop Modelling financed by the Agropolis Foundation and Labex Agro.

For more information or interviews:
Mike Listman | Communications officer
CGIAR Research Program on Wheat (http://wheat.org)
tel: +52 (55) 5804 7537

Climate insurance for farmers: a shield that boosts innovation

Written by on . Posted in Features.

Index insurance is one of the top 10 innovations for climate-proof farming. Photo: P. Lowe/ CIMMYT
Index insurance is one of the top 10 innovations for climate-proof farming. Photo: P. Lowe/ CIMMYT

What stands between a smallholder farmer and a bag of climate-adapted seeds? In many cases, it’s the hesitation to take a risk. Farmers may want to use improved varieties, invest in new tools, or diversify what they grow, but they need reassurance that their investments and hard work will not be squandered.

Climate change already threatens crops and livestock; one unfortunately-timed dry spell or flash flood can mean losing everything. Today, innovative insurance products are tipping the balance in farmers’ favor. That’s why insurance is featured as one of 10 innovations for climate action in agriculture, in a new report released ahead of next week’s UN Climate Talks. These innovations are drawn from decades of agricultural research for development by CGIAR and its partners and showcase an array of integrated solutions that can transform the food system.

Index insurance is making a difference to farmers at the frontlines of climate change. It is an essential building block for adapting our global food system and helping farmers thrive in a changing climate. Taken together with other innovations like stress-tolerant crop varieties, climate-informed advisories for farmers, and creative business and financial models, index insurance shows tremendous promise.

The concept is simple. To start with, farmers who are covered can recoup their losses if (for example) rainfall or average yield falls above or below a pre-specified threshold or ‘index’. This is a leap forward compared to the costly and slow process of manually verifying the damage and loss in each farmer’s field. In India, scientists from the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) and the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), have worked out the water level thresholds that could spell disaster for rice farmers if exceeded. Combining 35 years of observed rainfall and other data, with high-resolution satellite images of actual flooding, scientists and insurers can accurately gauge the extent of flooding and crop loss to quickly determine who gets payouts.

The core feature of index insurance is to offer a lifeline to farmers, so they can shield themselves from the very worst effects of climate change. But that’s not all. Together with my team, we’re investigating how insurance can help farmers adopt new and improved varieties. Scientists are very good at developing technologies but farmers are not always willing to make the leap. This is one of the most important challenges that we grapple with. What we’ve found has amazed us: buying insurance can help farmers overcome uncertainty and give them the confidence to invest in new innovations and approaches. This is critical for climate change adaptation. We’re also finding that creditors are more willing to lend to insured farmers and that insurance can stimulate entrepreneurship and innovation. Ultimately, insurance can help break poverty traps, by encouraging a transformation in farming.

Insurers at the cutting edge are making it easy for farmers to get coverage. In Kenya, insurance is being bundled into bags of maize seeds, in a scheme led by ACRE Africa. Farmers pay a small premium when buying the seeds and each bag contains a scratch card with a code, which farmers text to ACRE at the time of planting. This initiates coverage against drought for the next 21 days; participating farms are monitored using satellite imagery. If there are enough days without rain, a farmer gets paid instantly via their mobile phone.

ACRE makes it easy for Kenyan farmers to get insurance. Source
ACRE makes it easy for Kenyan farmers to get insurance. Source

Farmers everywhere are businesspeople who seek to increase yields and profits while minimizing risk and losses. As such, insurance has widespread appeal. We’ve seen successful initiatives grow rapidly in India, China, Zambia, Kenya and Mexico, which points to significant potential in other countries and contexts. The farmers most likely to benefit from index insurance are emergent and commercial farmers, as they are more likely than subsistence smallholder farmers to purchase insurance on a continual basis.

It’s time for more investment in index insurance and other innovations that can help farmers adapt to climate change. Countries have overwhelmingly prioritized climate actions in the agriculture sector, and sustained support is now needed to help them meet the goals set out in the Paris Climate Agreement.

Jon Hellin leads the project on weather index-based agricultural insurance as part of the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS). This work is done in collaboration with the International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI) at Columbia University, and the CGIAR Research Programs on MAIZE and WHEAT.

Find out more 

Report: 10 innovations for climate action in agriculture

Video: Jon Hellin on crop-index insurance for smallholder farmers

Info note: Prospects for scaling up the contribution of index insurance to smallholder adaptation to climate risk

Report: Scaling up index insurance for smallholder farmers: Recent evidence and insights.

Website: Weather-related agricultural insurance products and programs – CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS)

New study uncovers climate footprint of India’s favorite foods

Written by on . Posted in Features.

Farmer weeding maize field in Bihar, India. Photo: M. DeFreese/CIMMYT.
Farmer weeding maize field in Bihar, India. Photo: M. DeFreese/CIMMYT.

India needs to tackle greenhouse gas emissions from its rice and livestock sectors according to a study by CIMMYT and partners. Researchers say this can and must be done in ways that improve yields, and sustain food and nutrition security.

India faces serious challenges when it comes to feeding its growing population. Hunger is prevalent, with over 190 million undernourished people – almost a quarter of the global hunger burden, affecting 4 out of 10 children. Although the productivity of major crops is increasing after the green revolution, yield increases have slowed down recently, and many of the country’s poorest and most vulnerable people have been left behind. Feeding an ever-growing population is a mammoth task, further complicated as climate change unleashes its effects, bringing droughts, pests, extreme heat and floods.

Paradoxically, India is also the world’s second largest food producer, and agriculture is a vital part of the country’s economy. Indian agriculture also accounts for about 18% of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions, making agriculture a key sector for climate action. In fact, India’s government has already indicated willingness to reduce emissions from agriculture as part the Paris Climate Agreement, in an effort to keep global warming below the 2-degree target. To take action, the country’s leaders need to know where to focus their efforts, and find ways to reduce emissions without compromising food and nutrition security.

Indian agriculture’s climate ‘hotspots’

A new study uncovers some answers to this question, and offers insights into how dietary shifts might influence future emissions. The study, Greenhouse gas emissions from agricultural food production to supply Indian diets: Implications for climate change mitigation, was done by researchers from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and partners at the University of Aberdeen and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. Using the empirical model Cool Farm Tool, researchers analyzed the farm-level greenhouse gas emissions of 20 major food commodities in India, and two types of food products emerged as the worst culprits: rice and animal products such as meat, milk and eggs.

When looking at the level of emission per unit of area and unit of product, rice was the top source of emissions in agriculture. Continuously flooded paddies release huge amounts of methane, especially compared to intermittently flooded or irrigated rice land. The scientists found that the total global warming potential of rice on a per hectare basis was even higher than what was being reported in existing literature and at the national level.

Meat, eggs and milk were also found to have high emissions per unit of production. The authors warn that animal products will contribute an increasing share to overall emissions as India’s middle class grows, traditions evolve, and diets shift towards consumption of more animal products. That said, it will probably not match the rapid trajectory towards meat consumption of other large countries like China, due to India’s cultural preference for a lacto-ovo-vegetarian diet.

No tradeoff between mitigation and food security

The revelation of India’s agricultural emission ‘hotspots’ are a crucial step towards action. “These findings can help farmers, researchers and policy makers to understand and manage these emissions, and identify mitigation responses that are consistent with India’s food security and economic development priorities,” according to CIMMYT scientist Tek Sapkota, who co-authored the paper. “Agriculture is an important sector of the economy,” he said. “If India is to reduce its total emissions then agriculture has to play its part,” he explained, mentioning that emissions from agriculture must decline worldwide in order to meet the 2°C warming target.

In the UN climate discussions on agriculture, there has been ongoing resistance among some countries about promoting mitigation in agriculture, due to fears that this could compromise food security and nutrition. This is a “misconception” according to Dr. Sapkota. “Many agricultural practices advocated to increase production and increase the capacity of a system to cope with climate change also happen to reduce emissions,” he explained. The paper’s authors emphasize that mitigation must be a co-benefit of improved and more efficient agronomic practices, and interventions will need to consider the nutritional and health implications. Negotiators at the upcoming UN climate talks in Bonn should take note as they mull a decision on agriculture.

Sustainable solutions

There are many approaches and technologies in agriculture that can contribute to food and nutrition security and at the same time deliver climate change adaptation and mitigation services. Dr. Sapkota is part of a team undertaking a detailed analysis of mitigation options, their national level mitigation potential and associated cost of their adoption to come up with total technical mitigation potential sector of Indian agriculture. This study is coming out very soon, and will help build a more complete picture of the solutions available.

A new study finds sustainable agriculture can cut emissions in India. Photo: M. DeFreese/CIMMYT.
A new study finds sustainable agriculture can cut emissions in India. Photo: M. DeFreese/CIMMYT.

As an example, Dr. Sapkota points to conservation agriculture, which is based on the principles of minimum soil disturbance, continuous soil cover and diversified crop rotation. Conservation agriculture techniques can increase production in a sustainable way, by improving water use efficiency, reducing fertilizer consumption and reducing machinery use and fuel consumption. Through this approach, “you can reduce production costs, without compromising yield. In some instances you can increase yields. It’s a win-win from every perspective,” he says. Farmers are already getting more precise at managing nutrients, using several tools like the GreenSeeker and the , and techniques such as drilling fertilizer into the soil instead of broadcasting it. They are also using decision support systems like Nutrient expert and the Crop Manager, to help them determine how much fertilizer to apply, at the right time and in the right place. These approaches have been shown to reduce the amount of fertilizer needed while maintaining and even increasing yields.

In a similar vein, Alternative Wetting and Drying of rice fields, which otherwise remain continuously flooded, can reduce methane emissions substantially. In Vietnam and the Philippines, farmers have successfully used this method and reduced methane emissions by 48% without reducing yield.


In the livestock sector, there several ways to address emissions, including improved manure management, changing feed rations, growing feed crops in a more sustainable way, and feeding animals crop residues that would otherwise be burned.

Although the study points out food products with a particularly high climate footprint, it’s important not to think about solutions on a commodity-by-commodity or crop-by-crop basis, according to Dr. Sapkota. “Farmers grow crops in a system and we need system-based solutions,” he says. “For example, in the rice-wheat system in Indo-Gangetic Plains, if you want to go for conservation agriculture you cannot just focus on one crop. The way you manage water, energy,nutrients and other resources for one crop will have repercussions on other crops,” he explains.

The results of this study are an important starting point. “India is moving in the right direction,” says Dr. Sapkota. “Now there needs to be more research to show the effectiveness of technical mitigation options which can reduce emissions without compromising yield and profit,” he says. The government must also work closely with people on the ground: “There must be more awareness among extension workers and farming communities that they are part of this movement to tackle climate change,” he adds.

At this year’s UN Climate Talks, CIMMYT is highlighting innovations that can help farmers overcome climate change. Read more stories in this series and follow @CIMMYT for the latest updates.

Download the paper:

Vetter SH, Sapkota TB, Hillier J, Stirling CM, Macdiarmid JI, Aleksandrowicz L, Green R, Joy EJM, Dangour PD, Smith P. 2017. Greenhouse gas emissions from agricultural food production to supply Indian diets: Implications for climate change mitigation. Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment 237: 234–241.

Acknowledgments

The study is part of the Sustainable and Healthy Diets in India (SAHDI) project funded by the Wellcome Trust under the ‘Our Planet, Our Health’ programme (Grant number 103932) and the India Greenhouse Gas Mitigation Study led by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and part of the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agricultural and Food Security (CCAFS).

 CIMMYTNEWSlayer1

Borlaug Dialogue delegates widen net to curb threat from fall armyworm

Written by on . Posted in Features.

2002 World Food Prize laureate, Pedro Sanchez, a professor at the University of Florida and Akinwumi Adesina, 2017 World Food Prize laureate and president of the African Development Bank speak about fall armyworm at a press conference on the sidelines of the 2017 Borlaug Dialogue conference in Des Moines, Iowa. Credit: World Food Prize
The 2002 World Food Prize laureate, Pedro Sanchez, a professor at the University of Florida and Akinwumi Adesina, 2017 World Food Prize laureate and president of the African Development Bank speak about the fall armyworm at a press conference on the sidelines of the 2017 Borlaug Dialogue conference in Des Moines, Iowa. Credit: World Food Prize

DES MOINES, Iowa (CIMMYT) – World Food Prize laureates have joined forces with an international alliance battling the fall armyworm (Spodoptera frugiperda), an aggressive pest indigenous to the Americas with a voracious appetite, now widespread throughout Africa.

The 2002 World Food Prize laureate, Pedro Sanchez, currently a research professor at the University of Florida, addressed delegates at the Borlaug Dialogue conference in Des Moines, Iowa, which is timed each year to coincide with annual World Food Prize celebrations.

Sanchez described the severity of the challenge posed by the pest, which has a host range of more than 80 plant species, including maize, a staple food on which millions of people throughout sub-Saharan Africa depend for their food and income security.

Fall armyworm activities not only put food security, livelihoods and national economies at risk, but also threaten to undo recent hard-earned crop production gains on the continent, Sanchez said.

“Hopefully, it will be controlled; it will never be eradicated,” Sanchez said. “I think the fate of African food security really hinges now on this clear and present danger. It threatens to reverse the gains achieved in the last 10 years. It’s the epitome of an invasive species.”

The pest, which has no known natural predators, can cause total crop losses, and at advanced larval development stages can be difficult to control even with synthetic pesticides. The female fall armyworm can lay up to a thousand eggs at a time and can produce multiple generations very quickly without pause in tropical environments. The moth can fly 100 km (62 miles) a night, and some moth populations have even been reported to fly distances of up to 1,600 kilometers in 30 hours, according to experts.

Sanchez said that Akinwumi Adesina, 2017 World Food Prize laureate and president of the African Development Bank, and Rob Fraley, 2013 World Food Prize laureate and chief technology officer at Monsanto, had united with him to urgently “raise the alarm” about the threat from the pest.

By joining forces as laureates, we aim to really bring attention to this issue to avoid a food crisis, Adesina said. Mobile phones should be effectively used in the fight against the pest, he said.

“There’s just no better way in which farmers can detect, recognize and send information very fast to extension agents or universities that can allow them to identify it and get the information they need to deal with it,” he said, adding that the new African Development Bank initiative Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation (TAAT), will play a key role in fighting the fall armyworm.

Projections by the Centre for Agriculture and Biosciences International, (CABI), indicate that if left unchecked, the fall armyworm could lead to maize yield losses of around $2.5 to $6.2 billion a year in just 12 of the 28 African countries where the pest has been confirmed.

Joint force

In April, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) hosted an international joint stakeholders meeting in Nairobi, committing to an integrated pest management strategy to tackle the pest.

CIMMYT, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and experts from several national and international research organizations, are currently developing a detailed field manual on Fall Armyworm management in Africa, said B.M. Prasanna, director of the Global Maize Program at CIMMYT and the CGIAR Research Program on Maize, who spoke at a Borlaug Dialogue side event with a panel of scientific experts.

Scientist B.M. Prasanna, director of the Global Maize Program at CIMMYT and the CGIAR Research Program on Maize, speaks at a Borlaug Dialogue side event about the fall armyworm with a panel of scientific experts. CIMMYT/Julie Mollins
Scientist B.M. Prasanna, director of the Global Maize Program at CIMMYT and the CGIAR Research Program on Maize, speaks at a Borlaug Dialogue side event about the fall armyworm with a panel of scientific experts. CIMMYT/Julie Mollins

“The manual will offer protocols and best management practices related to fall armyworm scouting, monitoring and surveillance; biological control; pesticides and pesticide risk management; host plant resistance; pheromones and sustainable agro-ecological management of fall armyworm, especially in the African context,” Prasanna said, adding that the pest has so far devastated at least 1.5 million hectares of maize in just six countries.

A Southern Africa Regional Training-of-Trainers and Awareness Raising Workshop on Fall Armyworm management was conducted in Harare, Zimbabwe, from Oct. 30 to Nov. 1, while a similar workshop for Eastern Africa is scheduled for Nov. 13 to 15 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and for West Africa in early 2018.

The workshops are aimed at supporting pest control and extension actors to effectively scout, determine the need for intervention, and apply specific practices to control the pest in maize and other crops, Prasanna said.

Fall armyworm toolbox

Prasanna announced that the CIMMYT team in Africa is intensively evaluating maize germplasm for resistance to fall armyworm. Initial experiments have indicated some promising breeding materials, which need to be validated further and utilized in product development and deployment pipelines, he said.

“The crisis is quickly escalating due to the loss of quality maize seed in production fields, and the extensive and indiscriminate use of low cost highly toxic pesticides,” Prasanna said.

“We need to quickly bring awareness among the farming communities in Africa about environmentally safer approaches of Fall Armyworm management,”  he said, adding that the international community can learn from the experiences of Brazil and the United States, where the pest has been endemic for  several decades.

“Sustainable agro-ecological management at the field and landscape levels is key,” Prasanna said. “We must make our solutions affordable to smallholder farmers.”

Panelist Mark Edge, director of collaborations for developing countries at agrochemical and biotechnology company Monsanto, said that integrated pest management, collaboration and public-private sector partnerships would be key to fighting the pest.

“First and foremost, it really is about an integrated pest management system – we’re not trying to propose that biotechnology is a silver bullet for this,” he said. “We need to continue to use many different technologies and biotechnology is one very powerful tool that we have in the toolbox.”

Over the past 10 years, the Water Efficient Maize for Africa (WEMA) a Monsanto-CIMMYT partnership project funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and USAID has led to the development of almost 100 hybrid varieties effective against drought and a Bt – or biological pesticide – trait effective against the maize stem borers (Chilo partellus and Busseola fusca). The varieties will be available royalty-free to smallholder farmers.

“Insect resistance together with drought is our target; we’ve made tremendous progress over the past 10 years,” Edge said. “In the Americas, we still have challenges with fall armyworm, but we’re certainly able to control it to where farmers are actually able to get very good yields and manage the pests very effectively.”

Smallholder farmers need access to these varieties as soon as possible, so the focus should be on getting regulatory approvals in place by encouraging governments to support the technology, Edge said. The Bt trait varieties will need to be managed carefully so they do not develop resistance to the pest, he added.

“Scientists alone are not going to carry the day on this,” Edge said. “We need to bring together the science on this, but we also need the political will to help make that happen.”

Panelist Segenet Kelemu, director general of the International Institute of Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE), said that techniques used to fight the stem borer have proven effective against the fall armyworm, although experiments are ongoing to craft an integrated pest management strategy to control various stages of the pest from egg to moth. The continent will face deepening challenges from insects due to climate change, she said.

“If there were capacity on the ground, fall armyworm would have been identified sooner,” Kelemu said. “We need a more comprehensive way and a global partnership to tackle this.”

Panelist Gregg Nuessly, a pest management researcher and the director of the Everglades Research and Education Center at the University of Florida, said that the fall armyworm could be effectively controlled through an integrated pest management approach.

“Success in control is not only possible, it’s quite common in the Western Hemisphere,” Nuessly said.

Related stories:

Borlaug Dialogue delegates to discuss strategy for tackling fall armyworm in Africa

Multi-pronged approach key for effectively defeating fall armyworm in Africa

Zimbabwe enacts new strategy in fall armyworm fight

Global experts meet to develop fall armyworm emergency plan for Africa

Fall armyworm in Africa: quick and coordinated regional response required

Scientists tackle deadly fall armyworm infestation devastating Africa

CIMMYTNEWSlayer1

 

New Publications: Addressing conflict through community resource management

Written by on . Posted in Publications.

In Nepal, collective action helps improve farmers’ incomes. Photo: CIMMYT.
In Nepal, collective action helps improve farmers’ incomes. Photo: CIMMYT.

EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) – A new study examines the role of collective resource management in conflict.

Climate-induced migration can spur competition for resources such as cropland and freshwater, and stress or undermine existing social institutions according to the authors of the new study. The food security crisis and international ‘land grabs’ have drawn renewed attention to the role of natural resource competition in the livelihoods of the rural poor.

The study focuses on how collective action in natural resource competition can strengthen social-ecological resilience and mitigate conflict.

The scientists identified three action recommendations: using policy interventions to promote collectively managed natural resources, support natural resource management institutions to expand their ability to support collective action in response to competition and increase measures to affect the action arena by shifting incentives toward cooperative resolutions of resource conflicts and enhancing conflict resolution processes.

The authors note that stakeholders cannot write collective action into existence, but that collective natural resource management under effective guidance has been an effective peacebuilding mechanism.

Read the full study “Addressing conflict through collective action in natural resource management” and check out other recent publication by CIMMYT staff below:

  • Addressing conflict through collective action in natural resource management. Ratner, B.D.; Meinzen-Dick, R.; Hellin, Jon; Mapedza, E.; Unruh, E.; Veening, W.; Haglund, E.; May, C.; Bruch, C.. International Journal of the Commons 11 (2): 877-906. DOI: http://doi.org/10.18352/ijc.768Netherlands. Uopen Journals.
  • Land use and agricultural change dynamics in SAT watersheds of southern India. Ahmed, I.M., Murali Krishna Gumma, Shalander Kumar, Craufurd, P., Rafi, I.M., Amare Haileslassie, In: Current Science, vol. 110, no. 9, p. 1704-1709.
  • Linkages and interactions analysis of major effect drought grain yield QTLs in rice. Vikram, P., Mallikarjuna Swamy, B.P., Dixit, S., Trinidad, J., Sta Cruz, T., Maturan, P.C., Amante, M., Arvind Kumar, In: PLoS One, vol. 11, no. 3: e0151532.
  • Long term effect of conservation agriculture in maize rotations on total organic carbon, physical and biological properties of a sandy loam soil in north-western Indo-Gangetic Plains. Parihar, C.M., Yadav, M.R., Jat, S.L., Singh, A.K., Kumar, B., Pradhan, S., Chakraborty, D., Jat, M.L., Jat, R.K., Saharawat, Y.S., Yadav, O.P. In: Soil and Tillage Research, vol.161, p.116-128.
  • Maize maintains growth in response to decreased nitrate supply through a highly dynamic and developmental stage-specific transcriptional response. Plett, D., Baumann, U., Schreiber, A.W., Holtham, L., Kalashyan, E., Toubia, J., Nau, J., Beatty, M., Rafalski, A., Dhugga, K., Tester, M,. Garnett, T., Kaiser, B.N. In: Plant biotechnology journal, vol.14, no.1, p.342-353.
  • Mapping of spot blotch disease resistance using NDVI as a substitute to visual observation in wheat (Triticum aestivum L.). Suneel Kumar, Roder, M.S., Singh, R.P., Kumar, S., Ramesh Chand, Joshi, A.K., Kumar, U. In: Molecular Breeding, vol.36, no.95, p.1-11.
  • Independent introductions and admixtures have contributed to adaptation of European maize and its American counterparts. Brandenburg, J.T., Tristan Mary-Huard, Rigaill, G., Hearne, S., Corti, H., Joets, J., Vitte, C., Charcosset, A., Nicolas, S.D., Tenaillon, M.I. In: PLoS Genetics, v.13, no.3: e1006666.
  • Maximizing maize quality, productivity and profitability through a combined use of compost and nitrogen fertilizer in a semi-arid environment in Pakistan. Iqbal, S., Thierfelder, C., Zaman Khan, H., Hafiz Muhammad Rashad Javeed, Muhammad Arif, Muhammad Shehzad. In: Nutrient Cycling in Agroecosystems, v. 107, p. 197-213.
  • Modeling preference and willingness to pay for Drought Tolerance (DT) in maize in rural Zimbabwe. Kassie, G., Awudu Abdulai, Greene, W.H., Shiferaw, B., Tsedeke Abate, Amsal Tesfaye, Tarekegne Sutcliffe, C. In: World Development, v. 94, p. 465-477.
  • Nitrogen transformations in modern agriculture and the role of biological nitrification inhibition. Coskun, D., Britto, D.T., Weiming Shi, Kronzucker, H.J. In: Nature Scientific reports, v. 3, no. 17074, p. 1-10.
  • Occurrence of wheat blast in Bangladesh and its implications for South Asian wheat production. Chowdhury, A.K., Mahender Singh Saharan, Aggrawal, R., Malaker, P.K., Barma, N.C.D., Tiwari, T.P., Duveiller, E., Singh, P.K., Srivastava, A., Sonder, K., Singh, R.P., Braun, H.J., Joshi, A.K. In: Indian Journal of Genetics and Plant Breeding, vol. 77, no. 1, p. 1-9.

First blast resistant, biofortified wheat variety released in Bangladesh

Written by on . Posted in News.

Members of National Technical Committee of NSB evaluating BAW 1260 in the field. Photo: CIMMYT
Members of National Technical Committee of NSB evaluating BAW 1260, the breeding line used to develop BARI Gom 33. Photo: CIMMYT

DHAKA, Bangladesh (CIMMYT) — As wheat farmers in Bangladesh struggle to recover from a 2016 outbreak of a mysterious disease called “wheat blast,” the country’s National Seed Board (NSB) released a new, high-yielding, blast-resistant wheat variety, according to a communication from the Wheat Research Centre (WRC) in Bangladesh.

Called “BARI Gom 33,” the variety was developed by WRC using a breeding line from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), a Mexico-based organization that has collaborated with Bangladeshi research organizations for decades, according to Naresh C. Deb Barma, Director of WRC, who said the variety had passed extensive field and laboratory testing. “Gom” means “wheat grain” in Bangla, the Bengali language used in Bangladesh.

“This represents an incredibly rapid response to blast, which struck in a surprise outbreak on 15,000 hectares of wheat in southwestern Bangladesh just last year, devastating the crop and greatly affecting farmers’ food security and livelihoods, not to mention their confidence in sowing wheat,” Barma said.

Caused by the fungus Magnaporthe oryzae pathotype triticum, wheat blast was first identified in Brazil in 1985 and has constrained wheat farming in South America for decades. Little is known about the genetics or interactions of the fungus with wheat or other hosts. Few resistant varieties have been released in Brazil, Bolivia and Paraguay, the countries most affected by wheat blast.

The Bangladesh outbreak was its first appearance in South Asia, a region where rice-wheat cropping rotations cover 13 million hectares and over a billion inhabitants eat wheat as main staple.

Many blast fungal strains are impervious to fungicides, according to Pawan Singh, a CIMMYT wheat pathologist. “The Bangladesh variant is still sensitive to fungicides, but this may not last forever, so we’re rushing to develop and spread new, blast-resistant wheat varieties for South Asia,” Singh explained.

The urgent global response to blast received a big boost in June from the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR), which funded an initial four-year research project to breed blast resistant wheat varieties and the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), which also provided grant to kick-start the work in South Asia. Led by CIMMYT, the initiative involves researchers from nearly a dozen institutions worldwide.

Chemical controls are costly and potentially harmful to human and environmental health, so protecting crops like wheat with inherent resistance is the smart alternative, but resistance must be genetically complex, combining several genes, to withstand new mutations of the pathogen over time.

Key partners in the new project are the agricultural research organizations of Bangladesh, including the Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI), and the Instituto Nacional de Innovación Agropecuaria y Forestal in Bolivia, which will assist with large-scale field experiments to select wheat lines under artificial and natural infections of wheat blast.

Other partners include national and provincial research organizations in India, Nepal and Pakistan, as well as Kansas State University (KSU) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Services (USDA-ARS). The U.S. Agency for International Agricultural Development (USAID) has also supported efforts to kick-start blast control measures, partnerships and upscaling the breeding, testing and seed multiplication of new, high-yielding, disease resistant varieties through its Feed the Future project.

BARI Gom 33 was tested for resistance to wheat blast in field trials in Bolivia and Bangladesh and in greenhouse tests by the USDA-ARS laboratory at Fort Detrick, Maryland. International partnerships are critical for a fast response to wheat blast, according to Hans-Joachim Braun, director of CIMMYT’s Global Wheat Program.

“Worldwide, we’re in the middle of efforts that include blast surveillance and forecasting, studies on the pathogen’s genetics and biology, integrated disease management and seed systems, as well as raising awareness about the disease and training for researchers, extension workers, and farmers,” said Braun.

With over 160 million people, Bangladesh is among the world’s most densely populated countries. Wheat is Bangladesh’s second most important staple food, after rice. The country grows more than 1.3 million tons each year but consumes 4.5 million tons, meaning that imports whose costs exceed $0.7 billion each year comprise more than two-thirds of domestic wheat grain use.

WRC will produce tons of breeder’s seed of BARI Gom 33 each year. This will be used by the Bangladesh Agricultural Development Corporation (BADC) and diverse non-governmental organizations and private companies to produce certified seed for farmers.

“This year WRC will provide seed to BADC for multiplication and the Department of Agricultural Extension will establish on-farm demonstrations of the new variety in blast prone districts during 2017-18,” said Barma.

As an added benefit for the nutrition of wheat consuming households, BARI Gom 33 grain features 30 percent higher levels of zinc than conventional wheat. Zinc is a critical micronutrient missing in the diets of many of the poor throughout South Asia and whose lack particularly harms the health of pregnant women and children under 5 years old.

With funding from HarvestPlus and the CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition, CIMMYT is leading global efforts to breed biofortified wheat with better agronomic and nutritional quality traits. The wheat line used in BARI Gom 33 was developed at CIMMYT, Mexico, through traditional cross-breeding and shared with Bangladesh and other cooperators in South Asia through the Center’s International Wheat Improvement Network, which celebrates 50 years in 2018.

Stable window 1 and 2 (W1W2) funding from CGIAR enabled CIMMYT and partners to react quickly and screen breeding lines in Bolivia, as well as working with KSU to identify sources of wheat blast resistance. The following W1 funders have made wheat blast resistance breeding possible: Australia, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Canada, France, India, Japan, Korea, New Zeland, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the World Bank. The following funders also contributed vital W2 funding: Australia, China, the United Kingdom (DFID) and USAID.

Borlaug Dialogue delegates to discuss strategy for tackling Fall Armyworm menace in Africa

Written by on . Posted in News.

BODDUPALLI-Maruthi-PrasannaDES MOINES, Iowa (CIMMYT) – Without proper control methods, the Fall Armyworm (FAW) menace could lead to maize yield losses estimated at $2.5 to $6.2 billion a year in just 12 of the 28 African countries where the pest has been confirmed, scientists from the Centre for Agriculture and Biosciences International, (CABI) reported recently.

The devastating insect-pest, which originated in the Americas, is capable of causing damage to more than 80 different plant species, although the pest prefers maize, a major food staple in sub-Saharan Africa on which millions of people depend.

Scientists estimate that Africa will need an investment of at least $150 to $200 million annually over at least the next five years to mitigate potential Fall Armyworm damage through the use of effective management options, and to undertake research on strategic areas for devising and deploying an integrated pest management strategy.

“Fall Armyworm is one of the world’s most deadly crop pests, effectively managing this insect-pest requires an urgent multi-disciplinary and multi-stakeholder response,” said B.M Prasanna, director of the Global Maize Program at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and the CGIAR Research Program on Maize.

ArmywormImagePrasanna will be participating in the 2017 Borlaug Dialogue in Des Moines, Iowa, and will part of a panel discussion, on October 19, titled “Fall Armyworm: A clear and present danger to African Food Security” to discuss the strategic approach for managing the pest in Africa. This will follow a short presentation on October 18, by Pedro Sanchez, the  2002 World Food Prize laureate, on the status and impact of Fall Armyworm in Africa.

As part of an internationally coordinated strategic integrated pest management approach to tackle the FAW in Africa, CIMMYT and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), together with experts from several national and international research organizations, are currently developing a comprehensive field manual. The manual will provide protocols and best management practices related to Fall Armyworm scouting, monitoring and surveillance; biological control; pesticides and pesticide risk management; host plant resistance; and sustainable agro-ecological management of Fall Armyworm, especially in the African context.

Regional training-of-trainers and awareness generation workshops are also being planned for November 2017 in southern and eastern Africa, and in West Africa in the first quarter of 2018. The training workshops are aimed at supporting pest control and extension actors to effectively scout, determine the need for intervention, and appropriately apply specific practices to control the pest in maize and other important crops in Africa.

For further information or to arrange interviews on-site or remotely, please contact Julie Mollins, CIMMYT communications: j.mollins (at) cgiar (dot) org

EVENT DETAILS

WHAT: B.M. Prasanna will be part of a panel discussion titled “Fall Armyworm: A clear and present danger to African Food Security” at the Borlaug Dialogue symposium to discuss the strategic approach for managing the pest in Africa.

WHEN: October 19, 2017, 7 a.m. to 8:30 a.m.

WHERE: Downtown Des Moines Marriott Hotel, 700 Grand Ave., Des Moines, Iowa.

WHO: B.M. Prasanna has been director of CIMMYT’s Global Maize Program since 2010 and the CGIAR Research Program on MAIZE since June 2015. Based in Nairobi, Kenya, Prasanna leads a multi-disciplinary CIMMYT-Global Maize Program team of 45 scientists located in sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and Asia. Prior to joining CIMMYT, Prasanna served as a faculty member and maize geneticist at the Division of Genetics, Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), New Delhi, under the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), for nearly two decades. Since 2012, Prasanna has led intensive multi-institutional efforts to effectively tackle Maize Lethal Necrosis (MLN) in eastern Africa. He oversaw the establishment of a state-of-the-art Maize Doubled Haploid (DH) Facility in Kiboko, Kenya in 2013. He has also led the development of several successful public-private partnership projects and recognized with several awards and honors in India for his contributions to maize research, post-graduate teaching and human resource development.

ABOUT BORLAUG DIALOGUE: An annual three-day conference that attracts more than 1,200 delegates from around the world to discuss global food security and nutrition. The Borlaug Dialogue, which features scientists, policymakers, business executives and farmers, coincides with World Food Day and the awarding of the World Food Prize.

ABOUT CIMMYT: The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center – 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. CIMMYT website: http://staging.cimmyt.org

Delegates gather in Morocco to combat nematodes in agriculture

Written by on . Posted in News.

Participants of the 6th International Cereal Nematode Symposium in Agadir, Morocco. Photo: Abdelfattah Dababat/ CIMMYT
Participants of the 6th International Cereal Nematode Symposium in Agadir, Morocco. Photo: Abdelfattah Dababat/ CIMMYT

AGADIR, Morocco (CIMMYT) – Eighty delegates from across the globe recently gathered at the 6th International Cereal Nematode Symposium in Agadir, Morocco to discuss the spread of nematodes, what strategies can be used to lessen their impact on crops and boost international collaboration on research.

Plant–parasitic nematodes pose an enormous threat to global food security, destroying about 15 percent of global food production annually, a loss of more than $157 billion worldwide.

“Nematodes are the unseen enemy of our crops,” said Ricard Sikora, a professor at the University of Bonn in Germany who spoke at the symposium. “[They] attack the root of the crop…they are little worms that most people don’t even know exist, but they are having a devastating effect on our ability to feed ourselves properly now and in the future.”

During the opening speech of the symposium, which was held from September 11-16, the Director of Morocco’s National Institute for Agricultural Research’s (INRA) regional center in Agadir Abdelaziz Mimouni gave a general presentation about the different centers of INRA-Morocco as well as its research programs on cereals.

Turkish delegates at the 6th International Cereal Nematode Symposium. Photo: Abdelfattah Dababat/ CIMMYT
Turkish delegates at the 6th International Cereal Nematode Symposium. Photo: Abdelfattah Dababat/ CIMMYT

Fatih Ozdemir, director of the Bahri Dağdaş International Agricultural Research Institute and coordinator for the International Winter Wheat Improvement Program in Turkey, spoke about the importance of the soil borne diseases in Turkey and the region. Tadesse Wuletaw, wheat breeder at the International Center for Agricultural Research in Dry Areas (ICARDA), welcomed participants and spoke about the role of breeding programs to control diseases.

“We have so many common problems in each of our nations,” said Richard Smiley, a professor from Oregon State University who presented on cereal nematodes in the Pacific Northwest. “Our goal is to understand and describe the biology of those nematodes, but also to determine how they can best be managed economically by our farmers.”

Abdelfattah Dababat, leader of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center’s (CIMMYT) Soil Borne Pathogens Program, thanked CIMMYT and donors for supporting the Symposium as well as INRA for hosting this symposium. The conference was coordinated and organized by Dababat as part of the ICARDA-CIMMYT Wheat Improvement Program (ICWIP), and funded by CIMMYT, INRA, DuPont, Bisab, Labomine, Agrifuture, GRDC and Syngenta.

The 7th International Cereal Nematode Symposium will be held in India in 2019. For more information, please contact Abdelfattah A. Dababat at a.dababat@cgiar.org or the local organizer for the 7th Symposium in India Umarao at umanema@gmail.com.

Watch a video summary of the 6th International Cereal Nematode Symposium in Agadir, Morocco below:

Researchers set new climate services strategy in Bangladesh

Written by on . Posted in News.

CSRD workshop participants. Photo: M. Asaduzzaman/CIMMYT
CSRD workshop participants. Photo: M. Asaduzzaman/CIMMYT

DHAKA, Bangladesh (CIMMYT) – Scientists from across South and Southeast Asia launched a new agenda earlier this week to boost community involvement in developing climate information and extension messaging services across the region.

“Key to climate services is emphasis on the service,” said Timothy Krupnik, a systems agronomist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and South Asia project leader for Climate Services for Resilient Development (CSRD).

Researchers know how the region’s farmers will be affected by climate change thanks to the development of climate models and other analyses, but there still is a lack of a strong support system that allows farmers to practically use this information.

“We must be able to rapidly extend information to farmers and others who require climate information to inform their decision making, and to assure that research outputs are translated in an easy to understand way that communicates to farmers, extension workers and policy makers,” said Krupnik. “Equally important is feedback from farmers on the quality of climate services so they can be adapted and improved over time.”

The researchers, who gathered in Dhaka, Bangladesh for a three-day workshop from September 17-19, 2017, evaluated how climate and agricultural extension advisories are currently produced and conveyed, and identified opportunities on how to improve these services for farming communities across Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Myanmar, Nepal, Philippines, Sri Lanka and Vietnam.

“CSRD’s activities are relevant to the U.S. government’s commitment to building resilience of smallholder farmers and to ensure increased production, as well bolster country resilience,” said David Westerling, acting economic growth office director and Feed the Future team leader for the United States Agency for International Development’s mission in Bangladesh. “That is why we are behind this effort.”

During the workshop, delegates assessed different ways to incorporate seasonal climate forecasts into farmer decision making, using several African countries as examples.  For example, participants learned how to simply but effectively depict probabilistic forecasts in graphs to farmers during a group work discussion.

There were also experience sharing sessions on information and communication technology (ICT) in agricultural climate services. Giriraj Amarnath, researcher at the International Water Management Institute, Ishwor Malla, service director for ICT at Agri Private Limited and Md. Nadirruzzaman, assistant professor at the Independent University, Bangladesh indicated that ICT can be a cost-effective approach to transfer information to farmers who can, in turn, improve crop productivity using climate information shared their observation and experiences.

While ICT can serve as an important tool, participants emphasized the need for more face-to-face extension and interaction with farming communities to build trust in forecasts that would otherwise not be fully understood by downloading a mobile application or receiving an SMS message.

An analysis to identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats for climate services in each country and across countries was completed to examine how participants can collaborate in south-south exchanges to support ongoing work in agricultural climate services.

On the last day of the workshop, climate index-based agricultural insurance was also discussed, after which participants proposed new institutional arrangements to improve agricultural climate information flow to farmers in each of their countries.

Elisabeth Simelton, climate change scientist at the World Agroforestry Centre in Vietnam and project manager at the Consortium Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture, and Food Security (CCAFS), said the workshop provided an interesting platform where scientists and climate service providers from different countries were able to meet and exchange their experiences and ideas through interactive formats, so that everybody can take something new and useful back to their respective countries.

The Climate Services for Resilient Development (CSRD) is a global partnership that connects climate science, data streams, decision support tools, and training to decision-makers in developing countries.The workshop was sponsored by the United States Agency for International Development on behalf of CSRD and is collaboratively organized by CIMMYT and CSRD through the SERVIR Support Team. This work was also implemented as part of the CGIAR Research Program on CCAFS. Read more about the workshop, participants and sponsors here. 

At this year’s UN Climate Talks, CIMMYT is highlighting innovations in wheat and maize that can help farmers overcome climate change. Follow @CIMMYT on Twitter and Facebook for the latest updates.

Leading nutritionist Julie Miller Jones promotes the benefits of whole grains. (Photo: CIMMYT)

Leading nutritionist cites whole grains as critical for better nutrition and health

Written by Mike Listman on . Posted in News.

Leading nutritionist Julie Miller Jones promotes the benefits of whole grains. (Photo: CIMMYT)
Leading nutritionist Julie Miller Jones promotes the benefits of whole grains. (Photo: CIMMYT)

People who eat the most whole grain foods have a lower risk of almost all chronic diseases and are less likely to gain weight as they age, according to Julie Miller Jones, Distinguished Scholar and Professor Emerita at St. Catherine University, U.S.A.

“All kinds of epidemiological research shows that whole grain intake reduces obesity and the risk of diabetes, coronary heart and cardiovascular diseases, stroke, cancers, and death from all causes,” said Miller Jones, speaking to representatives of food processing companies and associations and scientists at the first “Maize and Wheat Quality and Nutrition Day” held near Mexico City on September 14.

Miller Jones emphasized that relatively modest amounts of grain in diets can deliver important health impacts. “We’re talking about eating around three slices of bread, or a bowl of oatmeal with a sandwich, or oatmeal in the morning, with pasta at lunch and rice at night,” she explained.

Hosted by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), a publicly-funded organization that works with hundreds of partners throughout the developing world to increase the productivity and quality of maize and wheat cropping systems, the event highlighted the critical connections between farmers, crop breeding and the quality of maize (corn) and wheat food products.

“It’s great that CIMMYT hosted this meeting,” said one participant, noting the complementary roles of the food industry and CIMMYT. “Companies like ours are only beginning to realize that improving our bottom line and sustainability doesn’t start with the flour we receive, but rather ten steps before that, with breeding, quality analyses, agronomy and even extension work in the field.”

In addition to packaged commercial breads, small individual loaves prepared daily in neighborhood bakeries are standard fare in Mexico. Photo: Mike Listman/ CIMMYT
In addition to packaged commercial breads, small individual loaves prepared daily in neighborhood bakeries are standard fare in Mexico. Photo: Mike Listman/ CIMMYT

The participants were impressed with Miller Jones’ presentation and the potential for partnering with CIMMYT, which conducts grain quality and nutritional analyses, development, selection and characterization of wheat and maize varieties for industrial and nutritional quality, as well as fostering the responsible sourcing of grain and linking farmers with markets.

“This is the first time we’ve brought together numerous essential actors in Mexico’s maize and wheat quality and nutrition value chains, and we expect that it will give dividends in better quality, more nutritious cereal grains and food for better diets,” said Natalia Palacios, CIMMYT maize nutrition and quality specialist.

In addition to using more than 35 million tons of maize each year as human food and animal feed, Mexico’s food processors annually handle more than 8 million tons of wheat grain.

“CIMMYT can serve as a shared platform for joint research with the food industry, outside of the competitive arena, and for messaging on healthy nutrition and diets,” suggested Carlos Guzmán, head of CIMMYT’s wheat chemistry and quality lab.

Together with the International Association for Cereal Science and Technology (ICC), Guzmán is organizing the 4th ICC Latin American Cereals Conference and the 13th International Gluten Workshop, both to be held in Mexico City from 11 to 17 March 2018.

Humans and food grain crops: Shared history and future

Miller Jones said that DNA of cooked grain has been found in the dental remains of Paleolithic humans, showing that people have been eating grain for more than 100,000 years. She also emphasized the need for balanced diets that feature all food groups in healthy amounts.

“We need to change our diets to healthy patterns that we can maintain for our entire lifetime, not something that you go on to go off,” she said, speaking recently in an online interview hosted by CIMMYT. “Just as nutrition experts have always recommended, unless you’re allergic to a particular food, a healthy diet should include products from all food groups, in the right amounts.”

AbduRahman Beshir (L), Muhammad Aslam (M) and Amir Maqbool (R), CIMMYT’s Ph.D. student who completed his study on provitamin A (PVA) enriched maize during field evaluation of PVA hybrids at UAF. (Photo: M. Waheed/CIMMYT)

Maize biofortification fights malnutrition in Pakistan

Written by on . Posted in News.

AbduRahman Beshir (L), Muhammad Aslam (M) and Amir Maqbool (R), CIMMYT’s Ph.D. student who completed his study on provitamin A (PVA) enriched maize during field evaluation of PVA hybrids at UAF. (Photo: M. Waheed/CIMMYT)
AbduRahman Beshir (L), Muhammad Aslam (M) and Amir Maqbool (R), CIMMYT’s Ph.D. student who completed his study on provitamin A (PVA) enriched maize during field evaluation of PVA hybrids at UAF. (Photo: M. Waheed/CIMMYT)

ISLAMABAD (CIMMYT) – In Pakistan, malnutrition is endemic. Children, in particular, are severely affected, with nearly half of all children in Pakistan being chronically undernourished.

Chronic malnutrition commonly leads to a condition called stunting, which can permanently limit growth and development. Pakistan ranks among the highest countries in the world for vitamin A and zinc deficiencies, which affect cognition and can lead to otherwise preventable blindness.

A new initiative hopes to combat malnutrition in Pakistan using biofortified maize, a tactic already in use in several areas around the world.

The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) has been improving yield, increasing total protein and micronutrient levels (like vitamin A and zinc) in maize for over 50 years. This work has continued in Pakistan through the United States Agency for International Development – funded Agricultural Innovation Program (AIP) in partnership with the Pakistan Agricultural Research Council and other stakeholders in public and private sector

Since 2014, AIP has been testing CIMMYT-biofortified maize varieties in Pakistan to ensure the maize will grow in local conditions. In some cases, improved maize outperformed even local commercial checks in terms of yield. Earlier this year, CIMMYT allocated three pro vitamin A (PVA) enriched maize hybrids to the University of Agriculture Faisalabad (UAF), making Pakistan the first South Asian country to receive these products. The seed increase of the parental lines as well as the hybrids is in progress currently to expedite the process of hybrid registration and large scale seed production. Apart from the higher carotenoid content, the grain yields of these hybrids are remarkably high with a record of up to 12 tons per hectare from the various testing stations in Pakistan. The average maize yield in Pakistan is 4 tons per hectare. In addition to the support from AIP, UAF is also contributing its own resources to harness the benefits of these hybrids and eventually reduce vitamin A deficiency.

“We will engage the private sector and other value chain actors to fast track the deployment of these hybrids in the target areas,” says Muhammad Aslam, assistant professor at UAF.

Each biofortified maize variety offers different benefits to consumers. Quality protein maize includes all the essential amino acids required by the human body, enhanced zinc maize makes zinc more available for human digestion and provitamin A maize contains natural pigments, called carotenoids, which are converted to vitamin A in the body. Biofortified maize has proven to effectively combat vitamin A and zinc deficiencies, and is already being used around the world to combat malnutrition.

Maize demand in Pakistan has more than tripled since the 1990s. Maize is now being utilized by farmers and consumers in Pakistan in various forms and it is the most important cereal crop in terms of productivity, with among the highest yields in South Asia.

A number of public and private partners have expressed interest in the commercialization of provitamin A and zinc enhanced maize products. Earlier this year, Pakistan released two quality maize protein hybrids for the first time, indicating the potential for biofortified maize products to grow in the country.

“What is important now is to enhance synergies among stakeholders and mobilize resources and required expertise to scale up the seed production and dissemination of these biofortified maize products to curb the deplorable trend of Pakistan’s hidden hunger,” says AbduRahman Beshir, CIMMYT’s seed systems specialist.

For more information on this work:

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID)-funded Agricultural Innovation Program (AIP) for Pakistan works to increase agricultural productivity and incomes in the agriculture sector through the development and dissemination of new agriculture technologies. The project is managed by a group of CGIAR Centers and the Pakistan Agricultural Research Council (PARC), led by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).

Study reveals new opportunities to cut greenhouse gas emissions in India

Written by on . Posted in News.

India is one of the world’s largest contributors to global warming, but simple changes in farm management can drastically cut emissions while meeting food demand.
India is one of the world’s largest contributors to global warming, but simple changes in farm management can drastically cut emissions while meeting food demand.

More than 122 million people could be thrown into extreme poverty by 2030 from climate change induced by global warming, mostly in Africa and Asia.

Agriculture is one of the largest contributors to global warming, with greenhouse gas emissions predicted to rise 30 percent over the next three decades due to rising populations and changing consumer preferences to high-emission foods like dairy and meat in these two regions.

India alone is the third largest emitter of greenhouse gasses in the world, with agriculture contributing the most greenhouse gas emissions in the country after electricity. With a population of more than 1.3 billion and increasing, ensuring sustainable agricultural development is critical to achieve the country’s 2015 climate plan to reduce emissions intensity 35 percent by 2030 and food security for the region.

In a recent study, we analyzed how cereal farmers in India’s Indo-Gangetic Plain – an area that feeds 40 percent of the country’s population – manage their crops and the impact different practices have on yield and emissions.

Reducing nitrogen fertilizer can cut emissions without compromising yield

Nitrogen fertilizer is a huge greenhouse gas emitter. Creating it involves burning a lot of fossil fuel, and is produced primarily using natural gas. When farmers apply it to their fields, rain washes much of it into surrounding bodies of water, while bacteria in the soil feed on what’s left, releasing a powerful greenhouse gas called nitrous oxide.

16 million tons of nitrogen fertilizer are currently being applied by Indian farmers to their fields. Our research shows that farmers in India can reduce emissions and increase yields through better nitrogen management. 

Culture and economics have a huge impact on emissions and yields

We also found various cultural, economic, household and other social factors significantly determined whether farmers adopted low-emission technologies.

For example, households with high levels of education, large land holdings and access to agricultural advisory, as well as farmers who received training on climate change, were likely to adopt zero tillage, a practice that retains soil moisture, builds up nutrients and decreases greenhouse gas emissions.

Other farmers who received training on climate change along with crop, soil, water and seed management, and those having access to agricultural credit tend to adopt low-emission technologies such as split application of nitrogen and use of farm yard manure.

Overall, capacity building that increases farmers’ awareness and skills in agriculture and climate change contributes to increased production and reduced emission intensity for all households. Farmers’ societies, farm cooperatives and local non-governmental organizations can therefore play a vital role in encouraging farmers to adopt appropriate low-emissions practices and technologies.

Government action needed for low-emission agriculture in India

Knowing the impact of various social drivers and low-emission strategies, particularly the decrease of nitrogen fertilizer use, on agricultural development can help increase production and reduce emissions nationwide.

State and local governments must integrate policies and technology that enhance farmer access to new innovations like zero tillage and irrigation, and provide more information on efficient residue, farm manure and nitrogen fertilizer management. The government must also adopt multiple approaches that include targeted subsidies for sustainable technologies like zero tillage machinery and precision land levelers, mobilize local civil society organizations to increase knowledge about low-emission practices and use information communication technology to increase awareness and access to information about sustainable agricultural practices.

Most importantly, all mitigation-related interventions require investment decisions at the household level. Family and farm size, the gender of household head and many other factors rare critical to take into account in each intervention to successfully scale out low-emission practices and technologies.

Read the full study “Identifying high-yield low-emission pathways for the cereal production in South Asia” here.

Read the CCAFS blog “Report identifies high-yield, low-emission options for cereal systems in South Asia”

Read the 2016 CIMMYT Annual Report story “India farmers put aside the plow, save straw and fight pollution”

Artificial inoculation of maize germplasm at the Naivasha MLN screening site, Kenya. (Photo: B.Wawa/CIMMYT)

New online portal offers information to curb maize lethal necrosis in Africa

Written by on . Posted in News.

Artificial inoculation of maize germplasm at the Naivasha MLN screening site, Kenya. (Photo: B.Wawa/CIMMYT)
Artificial inoculation of maize germplasm at the Naivasha MLN screening site, Kenya. (Photo: B.Wawa/CIMMYT)

The new maize lethal necrosis (MLN) online portal provides up-to-date information and surveillance tools to help researchers control and stop the spread of the deadly disease.

MLN was first reported in Kenya in 2011 and has since then been reported in several countries in eastern Africa, especially the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda. The disease kills plants before they can grow, and the pathogens are transmitted by insects or contaminated seed. Serious damage to the region’s maize production from MLN has impacted household food security.

The online portal, found at mln.cimmyt.org, details the spread of MLN, where the disease has been managed and controlled, and how to identify it in the field. It also provides key MLN publications, surveillance software, MLN incidence maps, information on the MLN Screening Facility, and MLN-tolerant hybrids that are either released or in pipeline.

One tool on the portal is the MLN surveillance and monitoring system that provides real-time data to identify the presence and spread of the disease across five endemic countries in eastern Africa, and three selected non-endemic countries in southern Africa. The system was developed by scientists collaborating with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), with support from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

In 2016, MLN surveillance was successfully conducted in Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe – three major seed producing countries in Africa – and the data is presented in the portal, detailing MLN’s status across 652 surveyed maize fields. Future data gathered in other affected countries will also be uploaded to the portal as surveillance teams conduct fieldwork using Global Positioning System online survey tools, to assess the spread and severity of the disease in these countries. Ongoing surveillance in endemic countries allows stakeholders to see real-time updates on the spread of MLN.

MLN susceptible hybrids compared to a CIMMYT-derived MLN-tolerant hybrid. Photo: CIMMYT
MLN susceptible hybrids compared to a CIMMYT-derived MLN-tolerant hybrid. Photo: CIMMYT

Since the disease was first reported, collaborative efforts have resulted in the establishment of a MLN Screening Facility at the Kenya Agricultural & Livestock Research Organization (KALRO) center at Naivasha in 2013. The facility, managed by CIMMYT, has so far screened nearly 100,000 maize germplasm entries — 56 percent from CIMMYT — against MLN under artificial inoculation over the last four years.

Nine CIMMYT-derived MLN-tolerant hybrids have been already released in three countries – seven in Kenya, one in Uganda and one in Tanzania. Eleven second generation hybrids are currently in national performance trials in these countries. Intensive efforts are currently being made by seed companies in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda to expand the delivery of MLN-tolerant maize seed to the smallholders.

The MLN portal enables researchers to comprehensively assess the situation with regard to MLN, helps strengthen the national disease monitoring and diagnostic systems by providing faster and accurate data, and offers access to CIMMYT-offered MLN phenotyping services.

Zero till climate-smart wheat-rice-bean crop rotations in India curb emissions

Written by on . Posted in News.

A farmer walks through his rice field in Taraori village in Karnal, Haryana, India. CIMMYT/M.L. Jat
A farmer walks through his rice field in Taraori village in Karnal, Haryana, India. Photo: M.L. Jat/ CIMMYT

EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) — Conservation agriculture techniques can help boost yields and profits for smallholder farmers in an intensively cultivated region of India while helping reduce the impact of agriculture on global warming, according to a new research report.

Hardy, high-yielding crop varieties can be resilient to erratic weather patterns caused by climate change, but agricultural intensification must be balanced with sustainable techniques to offset the effects of emissions caused by greenhouse gases.

As part of efforts to achieve agriculture-climate equilibrium, researchers at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) studied basmati (scented) rice-wheat crop rotation systems in India’s Northwestern Indo-Gangetic Plains, seeking an optimal planting strategy to lower impact on global warming while increasing farm profits.

Overall, they evaluated six different combinations of tillage, residue management and green gram (mung bean) integration into rice-wheat rotations, comparing conventional tillage techniques with conservation agriculture techniques in a village in the northern state of Haryana, known as the basmati rice heartland of India.

Green gram (mung beans) growing in Taraori village in Karnal, Haryana in India. CIMMYT/M.L. Jat
Green gram (mung beans) growing in Taraori village in Karnal, Haryana in India. Photo: M.L. Jat/ CIMMYT

“Through research we aimed to identify cropping systems in which greater yields could be achieved at lower production costs leading to higher profitability while minimizing soil and environmental trade-offs,” said M.L. Jat, a systems agronomist based in New Delhi with CIMMYT who worked on the project for more than five years.

“Our study concludes that two ways of managing crop rotation systems: zero tillage rice and zero tillage wheat planted in residue; and zero tillage rice, zero tillage wheat and green gram planted in residue in the rice-wheat systems of this region of India are agronomically productive, economically viable and beneficial for the environment in terms of soil health and greenhouse emissions,” Jat added, referring to the research paper in “Sustainability Journal” titled “Reducing Global Warming Potential through Sustainable Intensification of Basmati Rice-Wheat Systems in India.”

Specifically, scientists examined the best way to sustainably intensify crop production rotation systems to limit greenhouse gas emissions from soil, which include methane, nitrous oxide and carbon dioxide, while adding a third crop to the rotation.

Scientists wanted to help increase production by making use of a normally fallow season from May to July, which marks a pause between growing rice (July to November) and wheat (November to April). Rather than extending the rice and wheat growing seasons, to keep the soil healthy in such a continuous cereal-cereal rotation, they added green gram (mung beans).

By planting basmati rice using a direct seeding method instead of the conventional tillage (puddling) and transplanted method, methane emissions can be reduced by as much as 50 percent, scientists learned. However, reducing methane emissions in a conservation agriculture rice-wheat system is counterbalanced by increased nitrous oxide emissions. Their research concluded that by combining zero tillage and residue retention in the crop growing system, carbon is sequestered in the soil, helping to prevent greenhouse gas emissions.

“Given the dynamics and interdependence of the three greenhouse gases under different management systems, it’s important that all three are measured to determine overall global warming potential of the production system to quantify the mitigation co-benefits of conservation agriculture-based sustainable intensification in basmati rice-wheat systems,” Jat said.

Sowing seeds without tilling or removing residue from the fields contrasted with general practice in the region where farmers typically use conventional agriculture techniques by tilling the soil and removing crop residue from field surfaces before planting.

Scientists determined that using zero tillage with residue retention techniques resulted in the lowest global warming potential. The percentage of Greenhouse gases (CO2-equivalent) released into the atmosphere (on a life cycle analysis basis that includes global warming potential from inputs, operations, emissions and soil organic carbon) was lower by approximately 8 tonnes per hectare per year.

Additional environmental benefits included improved soil health, eliminating residue burning and more efficient water use in fields planted with rice-wheat rotations where conservation agriculture techniques were used. The water use footprint was reduced by almost 30 percent in comparison with farms using conventional tillage systems.

Agriculture and climate change pose complex challenges for scientists trying to improve crop yields on smallholder farms in developing countries. Sustainable intensification based on conservation agriculture principles, including minimal soil disturbance, permanent soil cover, economical and diversified crop rotations, is an important strategy to combat the negative impact of agriculture on the climate and other natural resources while improving the income of smallholder farmers.

Agriculture is the second biggest emitter of greenhouse gases after the energy sector. About 65 percent of farm-related emissions come from methane caused by cattle belching and soil treated with natural or synthetic nitrogen fertilizers, according to the World Resources Institute.

International development targets established by the U.N. climate change agreement aim to curb warming by keeping global temperature increases well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

“If sustainable intensification practices are deployed on 26 million hectares of rice-wheat rotations in Asia, we have the opportunity to make a significant contribution to reducing global warming potential and mitigating the impact on the environment,” Jat said.

The study was co-funded by the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change (CCAFS) and Bayer CropScience.

Farmers in Pakistan benefit from new zinc-enriched high-yielding wheat

Written by Mike Listman on . Posted in News.

Hans-Joachim Braun (left, white shirt), director of the global wheat program at CIMMYT, Maqsood Qamar (center), wheat breeder at Pakistan’s National Agricultural Research Center, Islamabad, and Muhammad Imtiaz (right), CIMMYT wheat improvement specialist and Pakistan country representative, discuss seed production of Zincol. Photo: Kashif Syed/CIMMYT.
Hans-Joachim Braun (left, white shirt), director of the global wheat program at CIMMYT, Maqsood Qamar (center), wheat breeder at Pakistan’s National Agricultural Research Center, Islamabad, and Muhammad Imtiaz (right), CIMMYT wheat improvement specialist and Pakistan country representative, discussing seed production of Zincol. Photo: Kashif Syed/CIMMYT.

ISLAMABAD (CIMMYT) – Farmers in Pakistan are eagerly adopting a nutrient-enhanced wheat variety offering improved food security, higher incomes, health benefits and a delicious taste.

Known as Zincol and released to farmers in 2016, the variety provides harvests as abundant as those for other widely grown wheat varieties, but its grain contains 20 percent more zinc, a critical micronutrient missing in the diets of many poor people in South Asia.

Due to these benefits and its delicious taste, Zincol was one of the top choices among farmers testing 12 new wheat varieties in 2016.

“I would eat twice as many chappatis of Zincol as of other wheat varieties,” said Munib Khan, a farmer in Gujar Khan, Rawalpindi District, Punjab Province, Pakistan, referring to its delicious flavor.

Khan has been growing Zincol since its release. In 2017, he planted a large portion of his wheat fields with the seed, as did members of the Gujar Khan Seed Producer Group to which he belongs.

The group is one of 21 seed producer associations established to grow quality seed of new wheat varieties with assistance from the country’s National Rural Support Program (NRSP) in remote areas of Pakistan. The support program is a key partner in the Pakistan Agricultural Innovation Program (AIP), led by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

“Over the 2016 and 2017 cropping seasons, 400 tons of seed of Zincol has been shared with farmers, seed companies and promotional partners,” said Imtiaz Muhammad, CIMMYT country representative in Pakistan and a wheat improvement specialist.

Zincol resulted from the CIMMYT’s “biofortification” breeding research, focused on enhancing nutrient levels in the grain of key food crops. Scientists develop biofortified crops using diverse genetic resources, including wheat landraces and wild relatives with the genetic potential to accumulate zinc in the grain.

Genes for enhanced grain zinc content from those sources are crossed into adapted, high-yielding varieties, over repeated cycles of selection involving many thousands of plants.

“One year after the release of Zincol, wheat farmers on more than 320 hectares are sowing the variety,” Imtiaz said.

He also noted that 15 tons of Zincol seed was shared free of charge for testing with 600 farm families in Sukkar District, Sindh Province, through an initiative of World Vision-Canada and HarvestPlus, a CGIAR research program dedicated to the study and delivery of biofortified foods.

Zincol harvests as high as other widely grown wheat varieties, but its grain contains 20 percent more zinc, a critical micronutrient missing in the diets of many poor people in South Asia. Photo: Kashif Syed/CIMMYT
Zincol yields as much other widely grown wheat varieties, but its grain contains 20 percent more zinc, a critical micronutrient missing in the diets of many poor people in South Asia. Photo: Kashif Syed/CIMMYT

Wheat: Vehicle for enhanced nutrition

Pakistan produces more than 25 million tons of wheat a year. The country has an annual per capita consumption averaging around 124 kilograms — among the highest in the world and providing over 60 percent of inhabitants’ daily caloric intake. The staple wheat-based foods are chappatis or a flat bread baked on the walls of large, cylindrical clay ovens.

Particularly in remote areas of Pakistan, human diets too often lack essential micronutrients such as zinc. According to a 2011 nutrition survey, 39 percent of children in Pakistan and 48 percent of pregnant women suffer from zinc deficiency, leading to child stunting rates of more than 40 percent and high infant mortality.

Zinc deficiency is also known to cause diarrheal disease, lower respiratory tract infections, malaria, hypogonadism, impaired immune function, skin disorders, cognitive dysfunction and anorexia, according to the World Health Organization.

“Given its role as a key food staple, wheat with enhanced levels of zinc and other micronutrients can contribute to better nutrition,” said Velu Govindan, a CIMMYT wheat breeder who specializes in biofortification and helped develop Zincol.

“Zincol also carries the genetic background of NARC 2011, a popular, high-yielding Pakistan wheat variety that resists wheat stem rust, a deadly disease that threatens wheat worldwide,” Govindan added.

As part of AIP and HarvestPlus, as well as with numerous public and private partners and farmer seed production groups in Pakistan, CIMMYT is leading the extensive evaluation, distribution and seed production of Zincol, said Krishna Dev Joshi, a former CIMMYT wheat improvement specialist who worked on the project.

“With modest resources and limited amounts of seed, we tested and promoted Zincol over the last two years in Balochistan, Punjab, and Sindh, covering 15 districts and engaging nearly 700 farmers,” Joshi explained.

Joshi said farmer seed producers and private seed companies were able to provide another 100 tons of seed in 2016, enough to sow more than 2,500 hectares in 2017 and over half a million hectares in 2018.

“Zincol reached farmers nine years after the initial breeding cross in 2007, several years more quickly than is the norm in Pakistan, partly because it was tested simultaneously in national and provincial trials,” Joshi added. “Zincol is part of a suite of new, micronutrient-enhanced wheat varieties bred by CIMMYT and partners for use in South Asia, a region whose inhabitants consume 100 million tons of wheat each year.”

For India, Govindan and partners created a new biofortified wheat variety using synthetic parents crossed onto WH1105, a CIMMYT-derived high-yielding variety grown in India’s Northwestern Plain Zone. The new variety out-yields other popular varieties by as much as 8 percent and has a 20 percent higher zinc content, as well as good resistance to yellow rust disease. Another new Indian variety, Zinc Shakti, has a 40 percent greater grain zinc content and is being marketed by the private sector and spread via farmer-to-farmer seed sharing.