Mary Sikirwayi of Murewa District in Zimbabwe showing her orange maize cobs in the field. Photo: R. Lunduka/CIMMYT.
HARARE, Zimbabwe (CIMMYT) â More farmers in Zimbabwe are demanding high-yielding, highly nutritious and drought tolerant provitamin A maize.
In Zimbabwe, nearly one in every five children under the age of five years are vitamin A deficient. These deficiencies can lead to lower IQ, stunting and blindness in children, and increased susceptibility to disease across all ages. While vitamin A is available from a variety of sources, such as fruit, green leafy vegetables and animal products, these are often too expensive or unavailable to the more than 10 million people living in Zimbabweâs rural areas.
Zimbabweâs ZS242 â an orange provitamin A maize variety released on the market by the government in October 2015 â is particularly popular with farmers due to its nice aroma and good taste. Â Consuming foods made from orange maize, which is rich in beta-carotene, can provide maize-dependent populations with up to half their daily vitamin A needs, according to HarvestPlus.
Orange vitamin A maize has been conventionally bred to provide higher levels of provitamin A carotenoids, a naturally occurring plant pigment also found in many orange foods such as mangoes, carrots and pumpkins, that the body then converts into vitamin A.
These varieties are also high-yielding, disease resistant and drought tolerant, presenting an opportunity for farmers to not only increase yields but also enhance the availability of vitamins and minerals for people whose diets are dominated by micronutrient-poor staple food crops.
Mary Sikirwayi, a farmer from Murewa District, Zimbabwe, bought provitamin orange maize seed during a seed fair organized by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), in collaboration with the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation.
The maize grew and matured so fast that by the time her family wanted to try the fresh cobs for cooking and roasting, they had already started to dry. After harvesting the grain, she decided to make sadza, a porridge-like staple food consumed in Zimbabwe. When her family ate the sadza, everyone was so excited about the good taste and flavor of the food.
In addition to the good taste of the sadza from the provitamin A maize, Sikirwayi said the yield from the orange maize is more than five times higher than the national maize average yield. In the coming year, she plans to double the planted area of orange maize, due to its high demand both on the market and in her household.
CIMMYT and HarvestPlus have been working with Zimbabweâs Department of Research and Specialist Services, Ministry of Health and Child Care, universities, seed companies, processors, retailers and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, to demonstrate the benefits of orange maize since 2012. The Zimbabwe government has expressed strong support for enriching the micronutrient content of plants and other crops, including maize.
CIMMYT Director General, Martin Kropff delivers keynote address on âClimate smart resilient systems for Africa.â Photo: J. Siamachira/CIMMYT.
HARARE, Zimbabwe (CIMMYT) â Delegates at a conference in June called for a new focus and increase in investment to ensure eastern and southern Africaâs farming systems can withstand the impacts of climate change.
Africa is likely to be the continent most vulnerable to climate change, according to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. Smallholders produce around 80 percent of all food in sub-Saharan Africa, and rely primarily on rainfall for irrigation â a source that is becoming scarcer and unpredictable under climate change. Farming is also often practiced in marginal areas like flood plains or hillsides, where increasing and more intense weather shocks cause severe damage to soil and crops.
Tanzaniaâs Minister for Agriculture, Food Security and Cooperatives Charles Tizeba said during a conference on the future of the Sustainable Intensification of Maize-Legume Based Cropping Systems for Food Security in Eastern and Southern Africa (SIMLESA) project, an initiative led by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and funded by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR), that a paradigm shift in agricultural development is needed to enable smallholder farmers, especially those in rural areas, to produce enough to feed themselves and to sell.
Sustainable agricultural practices, improved seed varieties, use of fertilizers and better infrastructure are all technologies and practices that have been successfully tested by SIMLESA and have the potential to be expanded across the region, said Tizeba. He also called on governments in eastern and southern Africa to develop agricultural agendas based on farmer needs and opportunities SIMLESA identified through the projectâs research efforts.
Over 100 people representing different governments, research institutions, development agencies and the private sector gathered in Tanzania to participate in the taking stock on sustainable intensification research for impact in eastern and southern Africa conference. Since 2010, SIMLESA has successfully tested locally-adapted sustainable farming systems throughout eastern and southern Africa. The project began its second phase in July 2014 and will focus on expanding climate-resilient technologies and practices throughout the region.
Delegates of the SIMLESA Sustainable Intensification Conference in Arusha, Tanzania. Photo: J. Siamachira/CIMMYT
To date, a total of 268 and 378 maize and legume on-farm participatory variety selections were conducted by SIMLESA, where best performing maize and legume varieties that met farmer preferences were selected and scaled up by partner seed companies. The project has influenced over 235,000 farmers who adopted at least one sustainable intensification technology or practice.
CIMMYT Director General Martin Kropff called for the adoption of âclimate-smart agricultureâ that will make crops more resilient to continuing extreme weather events.
âFor our farmers to be productive and ensure food security, we need to build resilience to climate changeâŠwe need to invest in new agricultural innovation now,â said Kropff.
Andrew Campbell, ACIAR chief executive officer, said climate change has already had a powerful negative effect on agriculture and food security for the worldâs most vulnerable, and that these effects will become even worse in the future.
âItâs critical to integrate research into development initiatives,â said Campbell. âIn this regard, SIMLESAâs work, in partnership with national agricultural research systems, becomes even more critical.â
At the project level, SIMLESA will aim to scale its sustainable intensification technologies to 650,000 farm households by 2023 in eight target countries through different partnership arrangements.
Many of the speakers at last weekâs event said smallholder farmers must be part of discussions on climate change and food security as they are often among those most touched by the impacts of climate change, and they play an integral role in global agriculture systems.
To achieve the best results, SIMLESA will channel its experiences and lessons learned since its inception in 2010 and scale out its work through shared analysis, common research questions and learning through the monitoring, evaluation and learning portfolio, communications and knowledge sharing and a lean project management structure.
SIMLESAâs positive assessment of conservation agriculture-based sustainable intensification in the region suggests that policies that strengthen national and local institutions, build infrastructure for sustainable farming, improve financial investment in agriculture and increase access for innovative private investors, play a key role in alleviating poverty and food insecurity in the region.
The Sustainable Intensification of Maize-Legume Based Cropping Systems for Food Security in Eastern and Southern Africa (SIMLESA) project was launched in 2010. Funded by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR), SIMLESA aims to improve the livelihoods of smallholder farming communities in Africa through productive and sustainable maizeâlegume systems and risk management strategies that conserve natural resources. It is managed by CIMMYT and implemented by partners in Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania.Â
Muli Mutiso, one of the trial host farmers based in Wote, Kenya, doubled his harvest of maize and beans by intercropping. Photo: K. Kaimenyi/CIMMYT
NAIROBI (CIMMYT) â Climate changeâs impact in eastern and southern Africa has driven many farmers to seek new planting techniques that maintain or increase crop production, despite fewer resources.
The World Bank forecasts show that climate change will push Africa to surpass Asia as the most food insecure region in the world, inhabiting up to 50 percent of undernourished people globally in 2080. Variations in temperature and precipitation, coupled with prolonged droughts and floods during El Nino events is predicted to have a devastating impact in the region where 95 percent of all agriculture is dependent on rainfall.
Farmers in eastern and southern Africa are already feeling the impacts of climate change, and changing the way they make a living because of it through new agricultural adaptation strategies.
Sustainable practices like growing two or more crops among each other, or intercropping, have become popular with smallholder farmers in Africa who often plant multiple crops. When used in combination with improved seeds with traits like drought or disease resistance, these farmers are able to have successful harvests despite challenges imposed by climate change.
Knowing how to manage an intercropping system is vital to its success. Cereals and legumes in an intercrop system must have different growth habits and rooting patterns to reduce competition for nutrients, light and water.
According to Leonard Rusinamhodzi, an agronomist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), farmers also need to reduce herbicide use in intercropping systems.
âItâs difficult to apply selective herbicides in systems with both narrow and broad leaf crops,â said Rusinamhodzi, who is working with farmers to apply the best fertilizer practices to their intercropped plots. âMaize will require mostly nitrogen, phosphate and potassium basal fertilizer, while legumes will require mostly phosphate and potassium, and micronutrients such as zinc and boron. Proper rates and proportions for all fertilizers and nutrients is crucial to ensure both crops are properly nourished.â
Another major consideration of intercropping is arrangement of crops in the field. A common approach is to alternate one row of maize with one row of a legume, but in Kenya, two rows of a legume alternating with two rows of maize is preferred. This arrangement, known as the MBILI system (mbili meaning âtwoâ in Kiswahili) in Kenya, reduces competition between the maize and legumes, which leads to higher yield for both crops.
Arrangements of intercrops: Left, the MBILI system characterized by two rows of a legume alternating with two rows of maize. On the right is the commonly used intercropping arrangement with alternating rows of component crops, that is, one row of maize followed by one row of the legume.
CIMMYT promotes the adoption of intercropping and other sustainable agriculture techniques through participatory farmer evaluations (PFEs) eastern and southern Africa. PFEs allow farmers to assess crops at demonstration plots and compare a range of improved seed products against local and traditional seed.
Participatory farmer evaluations allow farmers themselves to assess crops at demonstration plots, to compare a range of improved seed products against local/ traditional seed. Photo: K. Kaimenyi/CIMMYT
In Makueni County, Kenya, where most farmers grow cereals and legumes together, on-station intercropping trials comprising five drought tolerant maize varieties, six bean varieties and six pigeonpea varieties were set up in 2016 and replicated on several smallholder farmersâ plots. In 2017, the Participatory Evaluation and Application of Climate Smart Agriculture â PEACSA â project invited farmers to score and rate the performance of the crop varieties planted right before harvest time through a PFE.
By comparing crop performance, smallholder farmers are able to see first-hand that when used in combination with improved seed, sustainable techniques like intercropping are key to successful yields and quality seed. Because of this PFEs also create awareness of new products while simultaneously delivering detailed technical knowledge in a more convincing, hands-on manner.
About PEACSA:
Participatory Evaluation and Application of Climate Smart Agriculture (PEACSA) is a flagship project of the Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS), in collaboration with different agricultural research organizations, including CIMMYT. Through the PEACSA project a variety of best-bet CSA practices are applied at both on station and on farm levels, in an effort to test and evaluate appropriate technologies to increase agricultural productivity and enhance food security. With participatory evaluation, uptake and adoption of new technologies, especially improved seed varieties, is greatly increased because farmers take stock of the traits that matter to them. Cob size, kernel type, and length of maturity are just some of the characteristics farmers can rate in a participatory evaluation exercise.
About DTMASS:
Led by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa Seed Scaling (DTMASS) project works in six countries in eastern and southern Africa to produce and deploy affordable drought tolerant, stress resilient, and high-yielding maize varieties for smallholder farmers. In 2016, DTMASS conducted PFEs in Mozambique and Zambia in collaboration with partners, and aims to conduct dozens more in 2017, across all project target countries.
The sixth International Winter Wheat Travelling Seminar was recently held in Krasnodar, Russia, to improve wheat breeding across West and Central Asia. Photo: CIMMYT
KRASNODAR, Russia (CIMMYT) â The sixth International Winter Wheat Travelling Seminar was recently held in Krasnodar, Russia, to improve wheat breeding across West and Central Asia.
Wheat is a staple in Central and West Asia and is critical to food security in the region. The biannual traveling seminar allows breeders from across the region to tackle challenges like climate changeâs impact on wheat production, the spread of rust disease and improving grain quality.
The seminar was first launched in 2007 by the International Winter Wheat Improvement Program (IWWIP), a partnership between Turkeyâs Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center and the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas to bringing together IWWIP members from Central and West Asia to share the results, discuss challenges and develop future plans for cooperation. Previous seminars were held in Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Georgia, Romania, Turkey, Ukraine and Uzbekistan.
Through IWWIP, improved wheat varieties are annually distributed from the Facultative and Winter Wheat Observation Nursery in Turkey to more than 100 partners in 50 countries. To date, more than 70 varieties have been released in Central and West Asia by IWWIP, covering up to 20 percent of all wheat grown in the region.
The seminar was held at the Krasnodar Agricultural Research Institute and Agricultural Research Center, attracting 74 participants from 17 countries in Central and West Asia, as well as Eastern and Western Europe.
Participants were shown wheat breeding and research plots, as well as multiplication of new barley and wheat varieties. The group was highly impressed by the level of breeding and research activities, the diversity of the germplasm and its yield potential. Varieties from the Krasnodar Institute are grown on several million hectares in Russia and other countries, contributing to regional and global food security. In the afternoon, several presentations were made from hosts and guests reviewing the current status of winter wheat improvement and regional collaboration. Participants also focused on breeding and agronomy activities.
Sixth International Winter Wheat Travelling Seminar participants. Photo: CIMMYT
The group also traveled to a farm in Rostov, Russia, that was demonstrating different winter wheat varieties and saw two seed production state farms that multiply the varieties from the Krasnodar Institute. All the fields visited were very well maintained, clean and with yield expectations exceeding 7-8 tons per hectare. More than two million hectares of wheat is grown in Rostov, providing about 8 percent of Russiaâs total wheat.
Winter wheat varieties from Russian public breeding programs dominate about 95 percent of the countryâs production area, though local and multinational private companies are increasingly emerging as key players in the sector.
A wrap up meeting was held with several presentations by the participants and the IWWIP strategy was presented and endorsed. Participants also stated their appreciation for the organizers, Krasnodar Agricultural Research Institute, and for IWWIPâs activities in developing and distributing germplasm. The event was supported by the Turkish government, the CGIAR Research Program on WHEAT and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
Breaking Ground is a regular series featuring staff at CIMMYT
EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) â Social inequality, including gender discrimination, hinders the potential for economic development, a key focus of the agriculture for development community.
Women in developing countries make up more than 40 percent of waged farmworkers, a percentage that is even higher if unwaged farm work is included, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization. Despite their significant representation in the sector, women often experience acute poverty due to unequal access to seeds, fertilizer, land and other agricultural necessities.
The challenges are great, but the aim of achieving gender equality and empowering all women and girls everywhere by 2030 is entrenched in the international development framework by the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Spurred on by the SDGs, gender has become a key agricultural research and policy focus for the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and the CGIAR system research programs in recent years.
âDespite improvement, there are still several opportunities which could significantly decrease inequality between men and women,â said CIMMYT gender researcher Anya Umantseva. âLittle data exists on gender roles in rural communities and most importantly, a systematic integration of social components like gender into scientific, data-based research could really help expand outcomes and impacts to more women as well as men.
âWomen in rural communities often face very strict gender norms,â said Umantseva, referring to local womenâs and menâs expected roles and behaviors. âWhat weâre trying to do is see how these norms influence the way men and women adopt agricultural innovations, and how adoption of different innovations affects gender norms across different communities.â
Umantseva is one of many researchers working on GENNOVATE â a global comparative research initiative, which addresses the question of how gender norms influence men, women and youth to adopt innovation in agriculture and natural resource management.
Gender norms include restricted access to land and financial resources, or even the social taboo of walking alone as a woman, can make it difficult to have equal access to agricultural trainings and other farming inputs, she explained.
Umantseva grew up in Yurga, Russia during the countryâs economic transition to capitalism after the fall of the Soviet Union. âWitnessing the abrupt change of political-economic regimes, and the impact it had on society, shaped my interest in social sciences and anthropology,â she said. âI decided that I wanted to study how social norms and culture are historically constructed.â
âGender in agricultural research for development is not an isolated topic; it is deeply intertwined with social inclusion of disadvantaged groups in general,â Umantseva said. âGender is not just about men and women, but who these men and women are. Through GENNOVATE we want to go deep into their stories, their socio-economic status, religion, position in the family and more.â
Around 8,000 rural study participants of different ages and socioeconomic backgrounds reflected on gender norms and how these social rules affect their ability to access, adapt and benefit from innovations in agricultural and natural resource management.
âGENNOVATE is the first attempt of this scale  providing this type of gender-based data for agricultural research for development initiatives,â said Umantseva. âBut most importantly, we want to convince the research for development community  of the important opportunities, that insights from this kind of data, can bring. It might not always be easy to integrate gender into research, and may require us to do certain things a little differently, but it is necessary if we want to have inclusive development impact.â
Along with other researchers, Umantseva is analyzing GENNOVATE data to produce a series of reports, journal articles and other products so researchers and project managers can begin incorporating GENNOVATEâs findings into their work.
âRight now weâre looking at men and women who have successfully adopted agricultural innovations and what factors their success might have in common, and how men and women differ in adoption. We hope to produce a paper on these findings sometime this year,â said Umantseva.
Umantseva received her bachelorâs degree in linguistics and translation from Russiaâs Tomsk State University. She then went on to pursue a masterâs at the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium, where she studied minority policies, ethnic relations and gender norms.
Before she joined CIMMYT in 2016, she worked at the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, focusing on human trafficking and migration. She currently lives in Mexico City and is based at CIMMYTâs Headquarters in El Batan, outside Mexico City.
Farmers are beginning to transform agriculture in Mexicoâs YucatĂĄn peninsula through techniques that allow them to grow more on less land, reducing deforestation and greenhouse gas emissions. Above, slash and burn agriculture (right) compared to a non-burn strategy in a milpa system. Photo: J. Van Loon/CIMMYT
TEXCOCO, Mexico (CIMMYT) â  Farmers in Mexicoâs ecologically-fragile YucatĂĄn Peninsula are beginning to adopt innovative practices to manage traditional mixed-cropping systems called âmilpasâ that can slow or even stop deforestation and soil degradation.
Agriculture is the second largest emitter of global greenhouse gas emissions and largest driver of deforestation, making the sector one of the top contributors to climate change and biodiversity loss.
Fifteen percent of global emissions is due mostly to agricultural expansion into tropical forests. Rising populations and changes in dietary preferences for more energy intense foods, like beef and soy bean, are expected to boost agricultural emissions a further 15 percent by 2030.
Agricultural expansion and resulting deforestation of tropical areas also threatens more than half of all the worldâs plant and animal species, contributing significantly to what many scientists say is Earthâs sixth mass extinction.
âSustainable agriculture can bring large benefits to tropical areas by optimizing land use while improving farm management and techniques for farmers,â said Jelle Van Loon, a mechanization expert at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) who is working with farming communities in Mexicoâs YucatĂĄn Peninsula â an area compromising much of the largest remaining tropical rainforest in the Americas after the Amazon.
Nearly 80 percent of vegetation has been deforested or degraded in the peninsula, with more than 80,000 hectares being cut down annually.
âAgriculture in the YucatĂĄn Peninsula is extremely diverse â thereâs everything from industrial farms that operate around forest areas to small community farmers practicing the traditional milpa system in the interior,â said Van Loon.
Milpa farming â a traditional mixed-cropping system in which maize, beans and squash are grown â contributes to about 16 percent of deforestation in the region, and is typically practiced by subsistence farmers through slash and burn agriculture.
âMilpa systems vary across communities in the region,â said Van Loon. âSometimes plots are burned, farmed and left within two to three years for a new plot, and others are more permanent.â
A technician learns how to operate a two-wheeled tractor. Technicians working with CIMMYT will perform field trials evaluating the efficiency of equipment like this in their work areas. Photo: J. Van Loon/CIMMYT
Van Loon is working with a team of CIMMYT scientists and other partners in the region to see how farmers can apply sustainable technologies and practices across the peninsulaâs milpa systems, as well as larger-scale mechanized farms that operate in the area.
âItâs extremely important that the unique circumstances of each community are taken into account when new technologies are being promoted,â said Van Loon, citing that many programs exist to support local communities, but is often challenging to organize support in an integrated fashion thatâs adjusted to local conditions.
âMilpa provides more than crops for food â the slash and burn system also provides game and timber for these communities, so there are many factors that need to be taken into account when we try and promote sustainable practices.â
Decades of soil degradation had forced farmers to convert rainforest areas into growing fields to continue farming, but when the farmers adopted sustainable intensification methods such as minimal soil movement, surface cover of crop residues and crop rotations, they were able to achieve higher yields even after two months of drought.
âIn order to get adoption right, we are really taking a system-wide approach,â said Van Loon. âWe want to integrate mechanization, soil quality, planting density and other approaches like inter-planting with trees to improve biodiversity to get the most efficient system possible.â Van Loon will specifically work with communities to explore mechanization opportunities, from improved hand tools to light weight motorized equipment like two-wheel tractors.
âThe goal is to optimize the benefits from the land that farmers are working, find ways to reduce pressure on opening new land and as such slow the rate of deforestation, preserve biodiversity and provide farmers with techniques for improved and more sustainable practices,â said Van Loon. âUltimately, weâd like to see these practices adopted across the peninsula.â
CIMMYT is leading sustainable intensification efforts in the Yucatan through the Sustainable Modernization of Traditional Agriculture (MasAgro) program, along with CitiBanamex, FundaciĂłn Haciendas del Mundo Maya, local partners, non-governmental organizations and the Mexican government. Â
The recent appearance of the fall armyworm, an insect-pest that causes damage to more than 80 crop species in 14 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, poses a serious challenge and significant risk to the regionâs food security.
In a recent interview, B.M. Prasanna, director of the Global Maize Program at International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and the CGIAR Research Program on MAIZE, who is working at the forefront of CGIARâs response, highlights the potential impact of the pest and how CGIAR researchers are contributing to a quick and coordinated response across the region.
Q: What is the fall armyworm and why is it so destructive? Â
The fall armyworm (Spodoptera frugiperda) is an insect-pest which causes major damage to more than 80 crop species, including economically important crops, such as maize, rice, sorghum, wheat, sugarcane, several other vegetable crops and cotton.
It was first officially reported in Nigeria in early 2016 and has been officially confirmed in 11 and suspected in at least 14 other African countries, as of April 2017.
Q: What are the potential impacts of the pest in sub-Saharan Africa?
The fall armyworm poses a serious challenge and a significant, ongoing risk to Africaâs food security.
The pestâs ability to feed on a range of crop species means that smallholder farming systems in Africa, which are based on intercropping, are particularly vulnerable. Also, the rapid damage and migratory capacity of the pest, combined with its capacity to reproduce quickly in the right environmental conditions and its ability to rapidly evolve resistance to synthetic pesticides increase the regionâs vulnerability.
In sub-Saharan Africa, where fall armyworm is currently devastating maize crops, estimates indicate 13.5 million tons of maize valued at $3 billion are at risk in 2017-2018, which is equivalent to over 20 percent of total production for the region (based on data from CABI, April 2017).
Q: What are the key challenges that countries in sub-Saharan Africa will face?
There is no doubt that smallholder farmers, particularly maize farmers, in sub-Saharan Africa will face a significant and ongoing risk from the fall armyworm. In particular, resource-poor smallholders will be severely affected due to their inability to control the pest using synthetic pesticides, currently the only way to effectively respond, which are very costly.
Q: What are three ways that countries in sub-Saharan African can strengthen resilience of food and agricultural systems to the potential effects of Fall Armyworm?
Working groups need to be established quickly to develop and implement strategies to respond to the issue. Â In particular, we need to develop a comprehensive, regional response centered on: Monitoring and early warning; Social and economic assessments of impacts, and forecasting; Integrated Pest Management (IPM); Development and dissemination of low-cost, effective and sustainable solutions and development of appropriate regulatory tools and policies to support the response.
As this process unfolds, gaps, challenges and successes will need to be documented to inform capacity-building needs with a focus on understanding the capacity of individual countries to respond. While fall armyworm outbreaks across Africa is an emergency situation, it should also be an opportunity to review and understand regional food production and food security issues and as an opportunity to improve on systematic approaches to build capacity to prevent and respond to future threats of transboundary pests and pathogens in Africa.
Strong coordination across different levels of government is required: âpolitical coordinationâ (among the local governments, NPPOs, and sub-regional organizations), and âtechnical coordinationâ (fast-tracked testing and deployment of relevant technologies).
Q: What role do CIMMYT and CGIAR have in building capacity in the regionâs ability to respond to Fall Armyworm?
CGIAR institutions, including CIMMYT and the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), have significant strengths in building the regionâs ability to respond to trans-boundary pathogens (e.g., previous examples include Maize Lethal Necrosis, wheat rust and insect-pests, such as fall armyworm.
Specific examples of CGIAR/CIMMYT expertise that will be important in the fall armyworm response include:
Development and dissemination of crowd-source based tools and digital surveillance systems and analysis of the data collected across countries for a strong monitoring and early warning system.
Systematic and large-scale assessment of the present and potential socio-economic impact of fall armyworm in Africa, and the development of forecasting tools to understand potential losses
Review of the efficacy of different fall armyworm management options (learning from experiences of the United States, Brazil and Mexico), and adapting this information to the African context
Determining the efficacy of cultural control options against fall armyworm, including early versus late planting of crops like maize, handpicking, soil and habitat management, crop hygiene, etc.
Evaluating the impacts on-going integrated pest management (IPM) initiatives and the impacts of the fall armyworm invasion on the effectiveness of these interventions
Developing and implementing appropriate insect resistance monitoring and management strategy in fall armyworm affected countries
Analysis of the effects of conservation agriculture on fall armyworm management and the influence of fall armyworm incidence on diverse cropping systems
Testing and introgression of conventionally-derived resistance (from identified CIMMYT and U.S. Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service [USDA-ARS] germplasm sources) into Africa-adapted maize germplasm, followed by fast-tracked varietal release, seed scale-up and delivery of improved maize hybrids/varieties through public-private partnerships (e.g., MLN is a great example of this).
Developing a âFall Armyworm Information Portalâ, similar to the MLN Information Portal and Wheat Rust Tracker (led by CIMMYT), as a one-stop portal for relevant information.
Q: CIMMYT recently co-hosted an emergency meeting on the strategy for effective management of fall armyworm in Africa. What were the key outcomes and next steps for the response to this issue?
The emergency meeting was an opportunity to assess the present and potential damage due to fall armyworm and to devise a holistic control strategy.
CIMMYT, Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) and the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) jointly hosted a Stakeholders Consultation Meeting in Nairobi, Kenya (April 27-28, 2017). About 150 experts and stakeholders from 24 countries in Africa, and five outside Africa (Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Britain and the United States) participated, with participants from government, national plant protection agency, national agricultural research systems in Africa, as well as scientists from international agricultural research organizations, and representatives of service providers, non-governmental organizations, development partners, donor agencies and the media.
Discussions covered the present status of the pest in Africa as well as contingency plans to manage the pest, assessment of current control options being used. Experts from the U.S. and U.K. provided expertise and insight on the response to fall armyworm in the U.S. and Brazil.
Action points and recommendations on four key areas were developed to ensure an effective, coordinated response:
Contingency planning and awareness generation;
Fall armyworm monitoring and early warning;
Socio-economic impact assessments and modeling of potential losses;
Development and Dissemination of fall armyworm management options;
Coordination of Institutional Interventions for fall armyworm management in Africa.
FAO is expected to convene a regional workshop in early June to engage and coordinate with relevant regional organizations who will be involved in the response.
As climate change threatens to increase the incidence of plant pests and diseases, action must be taken to protect smallholder farmers and global food security.
At this yearâs 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.
Inside Ayla Traders, an agricultural input dealer who now advises farmers on integrated weed management. Photo: CIMMYT
DHAKA, Bangladesh (CIMMYT) â A delegation of USAID representatives recently visited southern Bangladesh to learn about sustainable agriculture activities in the area and emerging challenges to wheat production.
Agriculture employs nearly two-thirds of Bangladeshâs population, with a majority of farmers owning land of less than half an acre, putting intense pressure on farmland while having to adapt to various environmental challenges from flooding and rising temperatures due to climate change, to increasing labor scarcity and production costs.
Despite these challenges, Bangladesh has successfully adopted sustainable technologies that conserve natural resources, improve productivity and increase profits, particularly with the two-wheeled tractor that is used by around 80 percent of farmers due to its versatility and ability to be fitted with a variety of additional equipment for planting, threshing and irrigation.
Challenges to widespread adoption of these innovations, however, remain a challenge.
USAID delegation learns about the symptoms and effect of wheat blast disease. Photo: CIMMYT
âMuch of this innovation has not reached farmers at scale because commercialization has been impeded by the lack of standardization,â according to Andrew McDonald, cropping systems agronomist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and project leader of the CIMMYT-led Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA). âMost workshops create a unique machine every time a new piece is fabricated, which drives up costs to both manufacture and repair the machinery. Quality control is also an issue.â
From March 16-19, the USAID delegation visited farmers and agricultural machinery service providers in the Barisal, Jessore and Jhenaidah districts of Bangladesh, seeing firsthand how CIMMYT is working with NGOs, public and private sector partners to ensure that machinery is scaled, available and affordable to the most marginalized farmers.
The delegation, comprising USAID Senior Program Analyst Charisse Adamson, Water and Irrigation Advisor Biniam Iyob and Food Security Advisor Christopher Chibwana, also learned about various sustainable technologies from axial flow pumps that irrigate crops at reduced cost, to two-wheeled tractors developed by Janata Engineering; a small-scale but rapidly growing agricultural machinery manufacturer, importer and dealer that has been working closely with CSISA over the past seven years.
CIMMYT through CSISA partners with local manufacturing companies to ensure more farmers have access to sustainable machinery. Photo: CIMMYT
The visitors also observed how farmers are growing healthy rice seedlings for higher yields in community based seedbeds. Farmer-friendly learning videos are jointly produced by the project with the Bangladesh Rice Research Institute and shown by the Agricultural Advisory Society, with over 35,000 farmers learning about healthy rice seedlings between November 2016 and January this year.
The USAID team then visited the Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute in Jessore to learn about wheat blast mitigation efforts in the region, which emerged in early 2016. The spread of wheat blast could be devastating to South Asia, which is home to 300 million undernourished people and whose inhabitants consume over 100 million tons of wheat each year.
âI have learned so much…I think you are doing a great job in making research outputs sustainable through strategic value chain pathways,â said Iyob at the end of the visit.
CIMMYT launched the CSISA in 2009 to promote durable change at scale in South Asiaâs cereal-based cropping systems. CIMMYT operates rural âinnovation hubsâ in Bangladesh, India and Nepal to increase the adoption of various resource-conserving and climate-resilient technologies, and to improve farmer access to market information and enterprise development. Learn more about CSISAâs impact here.
EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) â Tending her own crops gives Carolina Camacho insights into the challenges farmers face that she could never have learned in a classroom.
Growing up in the metropolis of Mexico City, the historical and political importance of agriculture was never lost on Camacho, who works as a principal researcher at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).
âAs a teenager, I would debate my sister over the most pressing issue that faced our country, Mexico. For me it was always in agriculture,â Camacho said. âI strongly believe if we are to improve our country, we must improve the lives of our campesinos (smallholder farmers).â
With no knowledge of farming, but with a passion to bring about change, she took to the field, studying crop science at Chapingo University, on the outskirts of the city in the State of Mexico. Having to brave early morning starts, she learned the basics of agriculture, and a love for the genetic diversity of maize.
Mexico, considered the birthplace of maize, is home to a rich diversity of varieties that has evolved over years of domestication by farmers. Camacho was introduced to this diversity firsthand, interning at CIMMYTâs maize germplasm bank as an undergraduate.
Interested in discovering how conserving maize diversity played out in farmersâ fields she gravitated towards an on-farm conservation project in rural Mexico. Working with indigenous farmers, Camacho learned how traditional knowledge and practices relate to environmental management, agricultural production and the diversity of native maize varieties.
After earning a masterâs degree in the conservation and utilization of genetic resources, Camacho felt that crop science was isolated from the daily life of farmers. Thus, in a move to study the relationship between humans and plants, she embarked on a multidisciplinary doctoral in the sociology of rural development at Wageningen University in the Netherlands.
While conducting her research, Camacho lived with indigenous farmers in Mexicoâs Lacandon rainforest in the state of Chiapas. Alongside local Mayan farmers she cultivated her own milpa â a farming system used by indigenous farmers in Latin America, which typically involves intercropping maize, beans and squash. Her hands-on fieldwork allowed her to study cultivation practices outside the scope of purely agronomic activities, but also as political, social and cultural actions.
âFarming alongside the Tzeltal people, I saw how my own cultivation practices were interwoven with everyday life,â said Camacho. âFarming was influenced by religious ceremonies, health and family affairs as well as political struggles for land. It had to cope, adapt and overcome these challenges.â
Today, these lessons learned guide Camacho as she investigates how agricultural innovations, including drought-tolerant crops, fertilizer and land management approaches can be farmer inclusive and tailored to local contexts as part of CIMMYTâs sustainable intensification strategy for Latin America.
Sustainable intensification aims to enhance the productivity of labor, land and capital. They offer the potential to simultaneously address a number of pressing development objectives, including unlocking the agricultural potential to adapt production systems to climate change, sustainably manage land, soil, nutrient and water resources, improved food and nutrition security, and ultimately reduce rural poverty.
CIMMYT principal researcher Carolina Camacho studies how agricultural innovations are promoted and adopted in different regions to aid their smooth delivery to farmers and community members from different genders, ethnicities and ages. Photo: CIMMYT/ Courtesy of Carolina Camacho
Smallholder farmers, who manage small plots of land and handle limited amounts of productive resources, produce 80 percent of the worldâs food. The United Nations calls on these farmers to adopt agricultural innovations in order to sustainably increase food production and help achieve the âZero Hungerâ U.N. Sustainable Development Goal. However, these farmers seldom benefit from new techniques to shore up efforts to meet the goal.
“An agricultural scientist can tell a farmer when and how to plant for optimal results, but they do not farm in a bubble, their practice is affected by the ups and downs of daily life â not only by climate and agronomy but also by social and cultural complexities,â Camacho said.
âOne of the biggest challenge is to recognize the heterogeneity of farmers and leave behind the idea of one size solution to their diverse problems and needs,â said Camacho. By understanding a farmerâs lifestyle, including access to resources and information, levels of decision making in the community and the role of agriculture in their livelihood strategy, researchers can best identify complementary farming practices and techniques that not only boost productivity but also improve livelihoods.
âItâs important to think about agricultural innovations as social processes for change in which technologies, like improved seeds or agronomic practices, are only one element,â said Camacho. âIt is key that we recognize that changes will not only occur in the farmerâs field but also in the behavior of other actors in the value chain, such as input suppliers, traders, government officials and even researchers.â
Camacho studies how innovations are promoted and adopted in different regions to aid their smooth delivery to farmers and community members from different genders, ethnicities and ages.
When working with indigenous communities, she ensures cultural values of the milpa system are taken into account, thus promoting the agricultural tools and techniques that do not detract from the importance of the traditions associated with the milpa practice.
âThe milpa system is a clear example of how agriculture in general and maize in particular contribute to the construction of the cultural identities of indigenous people. We should be aware of the consequences that innovations will have not only for environmental sustainability but also for the sustainability of the Mayan Culture,â she said.
âLetâs not forget, we canât separate culture from agriculture,â Camacho finished.
Camacho studies the process in which researchers promote agricultural innovations and how farmers adopt them through the Sustainable Modernization of Traditional Agriculture (MasAgro) project, supported by Mexicoâs Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Rural Development, Fisheries and Food (SAGARPA). Together with other researchers, Camacho has documented how MasAgro is promoting innovations in different regions of Mexico by responding to specific regional challenges and opportunities. Currently she is supporting scaling efforts for these innovations by ensuring that they will be sustainable and inclusive.
In the same line of inclusiveness, Camacho is working with two projects in the milpa system. The first one is the Buena Milpa project funded by U.S. Agency for International DevelopmentâsFeed the Future program and in collaboration with the Guatemala Agricultural Science and Technology Institute. The second one is the Milpa de Yucatan project sponsored by a private Mexican foundation in Yucatan Peninsula. Both projects promote sustainable intensification innovations in the milpa systems.
Farmers in Lushoto, in the Tanga region of Tanzania, are working with researchers to test different forage varieties like Brachiaria for yield and drought resilience. (Photo: Georgina Smith/CIAT)
The facts are startling. More than 2 billion people worldwide suffer from micronutrient deficiency â 795 million of whom are undernourished. The challenge to nutritiously and securely feed the growing population is further exacerbated by climate change which has led to extreme weather patterns and decreasing crop yields. With more than 10% of the worldâs population living on less than $1.90 per day, the imperative to transform food systems in a way that simultaneously improves lives, livelihoods and the condition of natural resources is clear.
Climate change presents a formidable challenge as one of the biggest constraints to improving food systems, food security and poverty alleviation around the world, especially for the worldâs most vulnerable people. The impacts of climate change and poverty are closely interconnected as climate change impacts land  availability, rainfall, and disease. With poor people disproportionately dependent on rainfed agriculture for their livelihoods, these communities are thus especially vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. The increasing frequency and intensity of climatic shocks impinges on their ability to sell an agricultural surplus, meaning less reinvestment in their farms and other livelihood activities, and less ability to purchase a nourishing diet.
The breakthrough Paris Climate Agreement of 2015, while far from perfect, represented an historic and ambitious new phase for climate action, and opened a door for the agricultural sector to take a leading role. âWe recognize that the agricultural sector has a key role to play in increasing resilience to climate shocks. Food security, food production, human rights, gender, ecosystems and biodiversity were all explicitly recognized in the Paris agreement and these are issues at the core of our work,â according to Elwyn Grainger-Jones, Executive Director of the CGIAR System Organization.
Across Africa, Asia and Latin America, CGIAR and its partners are developing climate-smart technologies to help farmers adapt to climate change as well as mitigate agricultureâs contribution to climate change. The CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) brings together the expertise in agricultural, environmental and social sciences to identify and address this nexus between agriculture and climate change. Innovations such as drought tolerant crops, agricultural insurance schemes and management practices for reducing greenhouse gas emissions are just a few of the technologies being developed by CGIAR.
In Africa, researchers from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) are working on drought tolerant maize which offers African farmers significant benefits, producing up to 30 percent more grain than conventional varieties under drought. Through beneficial partnerships with governments, private sector and local NGOâs, researchers have fast-tracked varietal releases and fostered competitive seed markets, allowing for widespread access to quality seed at an affordable price.
âA large percentage of resource-poor farmers and consumers live in tropical environments, which are most vulnerable to climate change. By providing research-based knowledge and tools, CGIAR helps farmers adapt, bringing food security and prosperity to these areas,â said Martin Kropff, CIMMYT’s director general and CGIAR System Organization Board Chair. âCGIAR-led research on drought tolerant maize has helped more than 5 million households in 13 countries become more resilient to climate change.â
Ruth Kamula, a community-based seed producer in Kiboko, Kenya, planted KDV-1, a drought tolerant (DT) seed maize variety developed with the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI) as part of CIMMYT’s Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa (DTMA) project. “I am trying my hand at DT maize seed production because it will lift me and my family out of poverty. It is our lifeline during this time of drought,” she says. (Photo: Anne Wangalachi/CIMMYT)
In Vietnam, Bangladesh and the Philippines, researchers from the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) are developing rice management techniques, known as alternate wetting and drying, in irrigated lowland areas which could save water and reduce greenhouse gas emissions while maintaining yields.
To ensure that agricultural innovation is developed where needed, CGIAR is prioritizing responsive, farmer driven technologies, particularly in relation to climate-smart solutions.
In Senegal, CGIAR-led research on digital advisory and climate information services are reaching farmers with improved seasonal forecasts via radio and SMS â information that is helping farmers adapt to climate change and improve resilience to climate shocks.
In India, researchers from CCAFS are establishing well-designed agricultural insurance schemes which will enhance resilience to climatic shocks and help protect farmers during bad harvests. CCAFS is also working in partnership with the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) to help major agribusiness companies improve their ability to trace, measure and monitor climate-smart agriculture progress, among others, by developing science-based indicators.
âThe challenge we now have is how to take these innovations to scale, reaching millions rather than thousands of farmers. This requires a transformation in the way we partner and deliver our science, as well as targeting and bundling together climate-smart agriculture innovations,â outlined Kropff.
âWe recognize that responding effectively to the challenges of climate change hinges on dramatic changes in the way we work,â continued Grainger-Jones. âWe have a responsibility to foster paradigm shifts which can prepare us for the challenges we face.
At its core, CGIAR is committed to transforming agriculture and food systems that will enable the most vulnerable to better nourish their families and improve productivity and resilience.
âAs the worldâs largest agricultural research for development partnership, CGIAR is in a unique position to respond to the worldâs most complex development challenges. We are committed to leading world class climate change science to increase resilience to sustain the planetâs fragile ecosystem,â reflected Grainger-Jones.
Elwyn Grainger-Jones, CGIAR System Organization Executive Director and Martin Kropff, Director General of CIMMYT and Board Chair of CGIAR System Organization recently participated in the: âClimate change research and partnerships for impact on food and nutritional securityâ event during the opening of the new CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change and Food Security (CCAFS) office at Wageningen University in the Netherlands.
Examining Ug99 stem rust symptoms on wheat. Photo: Petr Kosina/CIMMYT
EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) â Stem rusts have proven to be a challenge to wheat farmers in Kazakhstan and Russia, particularly with higher rainfall in recent years.
Western Siberia in Russia and northern Kazakhstan grow more than 15 million hectares (ha) of wheat, and is expected to have an important impact on global food security as part of the âEurasian wheat beltâ â the only region in the world with a significant amount of uncultivated arable land that is at the same time experiencing rising agricultural productivity.
Wheat stem rust disease is highly mobile and has the capacity to turn a healthy looking crop, only weeks away from harvest, into nothing more than a tangle of black stems and shriveled grains at harvest. Stem rust was not considered a threat until 2015, when a local epidemic occurred in Russia and neighboring areas of Kazakhstan, affecting more than 1 million ha. It occurred again in 2016 though the spread, severity and losses were less.
In response, scientists at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) with partners characterized a set of 146 spring wheat varieties and breeding lines identified as stem rust resistant in Kenya and the KazakhstanâSiberia region for the presence of major genes. Over nine genes with resistance were identified, and adult plant resistance to stem rust was observed in 26 genotypes.
Bio-energy, water-use efficiency and economics of maize-wheat-mungbean system under precision-conservation agriculture in semi-arid agro-ecosystem. 2017. Parihar, C.M.; Jat, S.L.; Singh, A.K.; Majumdar, K.; Jat, M.L.; Saharawat, Y.S.; Pradhan, S.; Kuri, B.R. Energy 119 : 245-256.
From stakeholdersâ narratives to modelling plausible future agricultural systems. Integrated assessment of scenarios for Camargue, Southern France. 2017. Delmotte, S.; Couderc, V.; Mouret, J.C.; Lopez-Ridaura, S.; Barbier, J.M.; Hossard, L. European Journal of Agronomy 82 : 292-307.
Is production intensification likely to make farm households food-adequate? A simple food availability analysis across smallholder farming systems from East and West Africa. 2017. Ritzema, R.S.; Frelat, R.; Douxchamps, S.; Silvestri, S.; Rufino, M.C.; Herrero, M.; Giller, K.E.; Lopez-Ridaura, S.; Teufel, N.; Paul, B. ; Wijk, M.T. van. Food Security 9 (1) : 115â131.
Planting date and yield benefits from conservation agriculture practices across Southern Africa. 2017. Nyagumbo, I.; Mkuhlani, S.; Mupangwa, W.; Rodriguez, D. Agricultural Systems 150 : 21-33.
Sustainable crop intensification through surface water irrigation in Bangladesh? A geospatial assessment of landscape-scale production potential. 2017. Krupnik, T.J.; Schulthess, U.; Zia Ahmed; McDonald, A. Land Use Policy 60 : 206-222.
Adult plant resistance to Puccinia triticina in a geographically diverse collection of Aegilops tauschii. 2016. Kalia, B.; Wilson, D.L.; Bowden, R.L.; Singh, R.P.; Gill, B. Genetic Resources and Crop Evolution. Online First.
Detection of wheat stem rust races TTHSK and PTKTK in the Ug99 race group in Kenya in 2014. 2016. Fetch, T.G.; Zegeye, T.; Park, R.F.; Hodson, D.P.; Wanyera, R. Plant Disease 100 (7) : 1495.
Disease impact on wheat yield potential and prospects of genetic control. 2016. Singh, R.P.; Singh, P.K.; Rutkoski, J.; Hodson, D.P.; Xinyao He; Jorgensen, L.N.; Hovmoller, M.S.; Huerta-Espino, J. Annual Review of Phytopathology 54 : 303-322.
Genetic diversity of spring wheat from Kazakhstan and Russia for resistance to stem rust Ug99. 2016. Shamanin, V.; Salina, E.; Wanyera, R.; Zelenskiy, Y.; Olivera, P.; Morgounov, A.I. Euphytica 212 (2) 287-296.
Genome-wide association study in wheat identifies resistance to the cereal cyst nematode Heterodera Filipjevi. 2016. Pariyar, S.R.; Dababat, A.A.; Sannemann, W.; Erginbas-Orakci, G.; Elashry, A.; Siddique, S.; Morgounov, A.I.; Leon, J.; Grundler, F. Phytopathology 106 (10) : 1128-1138.
CIMMYT is set to implement a series of training courses to sharpen skills in gender and agricultural research for development. Photo: CIMMYT/P. Lowe
EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) â In a move to bolster gender equity in agriculture, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) will launch a series of training courses promoting the integration of gender awareness and analysis in research for development.
âGender is a defining factor in farming and influences many areas, for example, resource ownership and adoption of new technologies,â said Marion BĂŒttner, a gender specialist at CIMMYT. âThese courses will help researchers understand the importance of gender roles, relations and norms in agriculture and integrate gender analysis into their work, strengthening agricultural research for development outcomes.â
Although women account for 43 percent of the agricultural labor force in developing countries, they are 30 percent less productive than men, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). This is due mainly to unequal access to extension services and resources, such as land and improved seed.
Despite such trends, agricultural research often fails to include gender analysis in projects, opting instead for a gender-unaware approach that neglects womenâs and menâs important roles and their different needs and opportunities in agriculture, BĂŒttner said. âThe trainings are an important step to address this gap,â she said.
The Gender Capacity Strengthening Program was developed in partnership with the Royal Tropical Institute (KIT in its Dutch acronym) gender training team and Cultural Practice, LLC. The sessions will be rolled out from April for researchers and support staff at CIMMYT offices in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
The main focus of agriculture for development is to research the biophysical aspects of introducing new agriculture technologies and management practices. This often diverts attention from the social analysis that reveals the human context in which new technologies and practices are introduced, said Franz Wong, a senior gender advisor at KIT who will be one of the training facilitators.
Failing to understand gender issues in a specific local context may cause contrary results to what researchers set out to accomplish, BĂŒttner said. For example, the mechanization of an agricultural activity may lead to reduced drudgery for women. However, the same process may also result in men taking over these now successful activities, which could shift power dynamics between men and women and potentially increase already existing inequalities between genders.
âTo gain the most knowledge and impact from agriculture for development initiatives, researchers should consider what impact interventions will have on both men and women,â BĂŒttner said. âThe concept of gender is often confused with simply adding women to strategy development, but itâs not that straightforward. Itâs about addressing the needs and constraints of both men and women and changing relations to improve the situation for all.â
BĂŒttner refers to gender-responsive research, which is designed to ensure that both women and men benefit from research interventions. It analyzes and takes into account how gender relations influence men and womenâs ability to access and adopt improved agricultural technologies, including new knowledge and practices, as well as how policies and other interventions affect women and men differently.
The program aims to position gender analysis as a routine process at all stages of the research cycle. Different training modules offer insight into gender-responsive research, including developing and implementing projects with gender integration and setting indicators to measure gender outcomes.
âRaising awareness of the benefits gender analysis has on the impact of agriculture for development projects is the best promoter of its inclusion in research,â said Maitrayee Mukhopadhyay, a senior gender advisor at KIT who aided in the development of the program.
âMany agriculture for development researchers do not see the relevance of gender for their work because they lack adequate training and exposure to gender analysis and knowledge,â she added.
Pilot workshops of the program were delivered last October at CIMMYTâs headquarters and gained strong reviews, with participants reporting increased gender awareness and knowledge of practical methods to integrate gender into projects.
Researchers are keen to integrate gender once they become aware of how gender-responsive research helps to make an assessment of how agriculture is organized in a community, and how it aids the design and delivery of relevant agricultural technologies that complement gender roles or transform them to increase equality, Wong added.
Both BĂŒttner and Wong said the gender training was purposely designed to be practical and interactive so that participants could apply methods to their areas of expertise.
The program will begin in April in Ethiopia, followed by sessions in other CIMMYT offices in Kenya, Zimbabwe, Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Mexico.
BĂŒttner is one of five experts working at CIMMYT as part of the GIZ sponsored CIM Integrated Experts program. The CIM program aims to strategically place managers and technical experts in public and private organizations in the developing world to pass on their professional knowledge and contribute to capacity building.
Farmer Sunita Baineya checking her maize as it comes out of a shelling machine powered by 4WT in Sirkohiya, Bardiya. Photo: P. Lowe/CIMMYT
EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) â Small-scale mechanization is becoming more important on smallholder farms in Nepal as young people, particularly men, migrate away from rural areas in large numbers, leaving women to take on even bigger responsibilities.
Some 13 million people â about 50 percent of Nepalâs population â live in the hills and mountains where most subsistence farming takes place. Women traditionally contribute more agricultural labor than men in these rural areas, typically undertaking time-consuming tasks such as weeding, harvesting, threshing and milling in addition to household chores. Two-thirds of women in Nepal are self-employed or engaged in unpaid family labor.
Nepal has the lowest ratio of men to women in all of South Asia and the proportion of rural households headed by women jumped from 15 to 25 percent between 2001 and 2011. As a result, rural women face many challenges, their potential curtailed in part due to the difficulty accessing credit. Despite a 2002 amendment to the countryâs Land Act, the practice of male succession means that women only own property in a fifth of rural households.
âAlmost everywhere there are changes, but maybe particularly so in the mountains,â said Scott Justice, a rural mechanization specialist with the Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia project in Nepal (CSISA-NP), who works with smallholders as part of efforts to help improve livelihoods. âTasks like the upkeep of terraces, plowing or service hiring are getting delayed or passed on to women, at the same time as the prices of hiring are going up.â
Following the April 2015 earthquake in Nepal, CSISA-NP was contracted by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to help affected farming communities recover by providing grain storage tools, farm machinery and training, reaching 33,150 earthquake-affected households.
CSISA-NP, a project led by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) with the International Rice Research Institute and the International Food Policy Research Institute and funded by USAID, aims to address the gender imbalance by increasing access to affordable machinery options to increase farm income while reducing drudgery for women.
An as yet unpublished study on the spread of mini-tillers has shown approximately 7,000 mini-tillers sold in hill districts, Justice said.
âA key priority for the government and projects like ours is getting owners to use the [mini-tiller] engine to power other machinery like wheat and rice threshers, mini-maize shellers, pumps and maybe even reapers and planter-seeder attachments,â said Justice.
âA small cadre of machinery importers who, along with CIMMYTâs market development efforts, are increasingly attuned to small farmersâ needs, bringing in a new generation of small and inexpensive machinery ideas and products emerging from China,â he said. âThese qualities make it easier for women and their households to access and use such technologies.â
One of the technologies identified by CSISA-NP is a small, lightweight, precision hand cranked fertilizer spreader, which is growing in popularity because it can increase rice and wheat yields by 5 to 10 percent while cutting labor by half or more. CSISA has trained 150 service providers to use the fertilizer spreader, while cooperating private sector partners have imported over 500 of these spreaders in advance of the 2016-2017 wheat season.
CSISA focuses on the creation of a sustainable private machinery and service sector that serves farmersâ needs. A core group of approximately 15 to 20 (mostly) small businesses are constantly traveling and scouring the markets in China for new machinery and new ideas. One challenge is to encourage them to look more broadly in Asia for innovative scale appropriate technologies that meet the needs of both women and men in Nepal.
âOur activities are based on more than two decades of CIMMYT experience of small-scale mechanization in Nepalâs Terai area â rather than joining farmersâ experiments, we join in small and mid-sized machinery importersâ marketing experiments,â explained Justice.
CSISA is led by CIMMYT with the International Rice Research Institute and the International Food Policy Research Institute and funded by USAID. It was established in 2009 to promote durable change at scale in South Asiaâs cereal-based cropping systems.Â
Breaking Ground is a regular series featuring staff at CIMMYT
EL BATAN (CIMMYT) — Xuecai Zhang wants to merge traditional maize breeding methods with new software and other tools to help improve farmersâ yields faster than ever.
âIn the next three decades we need to increase agricultural production by 70 percent to meet projected food demand,” said Zhang, a maize genomic selection breeder at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT). “However, crop yields, while improving, are not increasing quickly enough to meet this challenge. We must explore new methods and technologies that can speed up our crop breeding processes if we hope to feed a world with over 2.3 billion more people by 2050.â
Growing up in Henan province, China, Zhangâs mother was a teacher who instilled a love of science in him from a young age.
âI loved exploring outside and seeing how plants grew — I always wanted to know how they worked,â said Zhang. âMaize was naturally interesting to me because itâs the second most grown crop in Henan, and is becoming a very important crop in China overall.â
Zhang first arrived at CIMMYT in 2009 while completing a doctorate in applied quantitative genetics. He subsequently returned as a postdoctoral fellow in 2011 to undertake molecular breeding and coordinate CIMMYTâs maize genomic selection program.
Since his return, he has focused mainly on helping breeders and statisticians work together to create new tools that can help accelerate the breeding process through genomic selection.
âItâs crucial that as breeders, weâre able to use genomic selection in our work,â Zhang said. âNot only does it speed up the breeding process to deliver better, faster results to farmers in the field, applied well itâs also a more cost-effective option.â
Conventional plant breeding is dependent on a researcher going into the field, observing the characteristics of a plant based on how its genotype interacts with the environment, then painstakingly selecting and combining those materials that show such favorable traits such as high yield or drought resistance. This process is repeated again and again to develop new varieties.
Genomic selection adds DNA markers to the breeder’s toolkit. After initial field evaluation breeders are able to use DNA markers and advanced computing applications to select the best plants and predict the best combinations of plants without having to wait to evaluate every generation in the field. This speeds up the development of new varieties as more cycles of selection and recombination can be conducted in a year compared with field selection alone.
The cost of hiring a human to go and collect phenotypic data for conventional breeding is increasing, while conversely the costs associated with genomic selection are getting lower as genotyping and computing technology becomes more affordable, according to Zhang.
âBreeders need to think about where the technology is pushing our field,â he said. âThey will increasingly have to be versed statisticians and computer scientists to effectively apply genomic selection to their work, and I want to help ensure they have the skills and tools to make the most of the technology.â
Zhang has helped demonstrate to breeders in Latin America, Africa and Asia of the value of genomic selection by showing that the technique can improve the prediction accuracy of successful varieties in comparison to conventional breeding. He also credits joint efforts like the GOBII project, a large-scale public-sector effort supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, to apply genomic selection techniques to crop breeding programs across the developing world, as key towards curating the necessary data for genomic breeding programs.
âIn the future, I hope to continue to help build better tools for breeders to move towards genomic selection,â Zhang said. âI chose to breed maize because of the potential impact it has to help smallholder farmers globally. Compared with other crops the yield potential of maize is very high, so I want to ensure we are using the best resources available that will help maize reach its full potential.â
Velu Govindan, a wheat breeder who has advanced the development of nutrient-rich millet and wheat varieties with higher yield potential, disease resistance and improved agronomic traits, has won the 2016 Young Scientist Award for Agriculture presented by Indiaâs Society for Plant Research. (Photo: Xochiquetzal Fonseca/CIMMYT)
EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) â A scientist who has advanced the development of nutrient-rich millet and wheat varieties with higher yield potential, disease resistance and improved agronomic traits has won the 2016 Young Scientist Award for Agriculture presented by Indiaâs Society for Plant Research.
Velu Govindan, a wheat breeder from India working with the HarvestPlus project at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), received the award last week for high-yielding, nutritious wheat varieties tolerant to rust diseases and climate change-induced heat and drought stress.
âIâm so honored,â said Govindan. âItâs a terrific vote of confidence for the work weâre doing at CIMMYT and through HarvestPlus to develop nutritious staple crops that significantly reduce hidden hunger and help millions of people lead better, more productive lives in the global south.â
CIMMYT scientists tackle micronutrient deficiency or âhidden hungerâ by biofortifying crops to boost nutrition in poor communities where nutritional options are unavailable, limited or unaffordable. About 2 billion people worldwide suffer from hidden hunger, which is characterized by iron-deficiency anemia, vitamin A and zinc deficiency.
The wheat component of HarvestPlus, which is part of the Agriculture for Nutrition and Health program managed by the CGIAR global agricultural research project, involves developing and distributing wheat varieties with high zinc levels.
Govindan has been actively involved in the recently released wheat variety Zinc Shakthi â meaning âmore powerâ â which has been adopted by some 50,000 smallholder farmers in India. In addition, two new varieties are projected soon to be widely adopted throughout the fertile northwestern Indo-Gangetic Plains of India.
âWeâve released âbest betâ varieties in India and Pakistan to ensure fast-track adoption of high zinc wheat,â Govindan said. âFarmers are adopting it, not only for its nutritional benefit, but also for its superior agronomic features like competitive yield, rust resistance and other farmer preferred traits.â
Before joining CIMMYT eight years ago, Govindan worked at the International Crops Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), where he initiated the development of an iron-rich pearl millet called Dhanashakti â meaning âprosperity and strengthâ â which was commercialized in 2012 in the Indian state of Maharashtra, where it is now used by more than 100,000 smallholder farmers.
In addition to his primary responsibility of breeding nutrient-rich wheat varieties, Govindan works with the Global Wheat Programâs spring wheat breeding team at CIMMYT. The spring bread wheat program develops high yielding and climate resilient varieties, which are distributed to more than 80 countries in the wheat growing regions of the developing world.
Through its annual awards ceremony, the Society for Plant Research, which has also produced the international journal Vegetos since 1988, recognizes individual contributions from across a broad spectrum of plant-based research, including agriculture, biotechnology, industrial botany and basic plant sciences.
