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Surveillance training to control wheat blast in Bangladesh

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Bleached spikes infected with wheat blast hold shriveled grain, if any. Photo: E. Duveiller/CIMMYT

DINAJPUR, Bangladesh (CIMMYT) — Responding to a 2016 outbreak of the deadly and little-understood crop disease “wheat blast” in Bangladesh, 40 wheat pathologists, breeders and agronomists from Bangladesh, India and Nepal have gathered to hone their skills through surveillance exercises in farmers’ fields and molecular analysis of the causal fungus in laboratories of the Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI) at Gazipur.

Entitled “Taking action to mitigate the threat of wheat blast in South Asia: Disease surveillance and monitoring skills training,” the 13-day program was launched on 4 February at BARI’s Wheat Research Center (WRC), Bangladesh Agriculture Research Institute (BARI), Dinajpur, in collaboration with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), the CGIAR research program on wheat, the Delivering Genetic Gain in Wheat (DGGW) project led by Cornell University, and Kansas State University (KSU).

The 2016 Bangladesh outbreak was the first time wheat blast has appeared in South Asia. The disease struck 15,000 hectares in 7 southwestern and southern districts of Bangladesh, with crop losses averaging 25-30 percent and reaching 100 percent in some cases.

In response the Bangladesh Ministry of Agriculture formed a task force through the Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council (BARC) to help develop and distribute resistant cultivars and pursue integrated agronomic control measures. A factsheet distributed to wheat farmers is raising awareness about the disease and particularly its identification and management.

Caused by the fungus Magnaporthe oryzae pathotype Triticum (MoT) and first discovered in Paraná State, Brazil, in the mid-1980s, wheat blast constitutes a major constraint to wheat production in South America. The sudden appearance of a highly virulent MoT strain in Bangladesh presents a serious threat for food and income security in South Asia, home to 300 million undernourished people and whose inhabitants consume over 100 million tons of wheat each year.

Experts from CIMMYT, Cornell University and Kansas State University, along with scientists from BARI and Bangladesh Agricultural University (BAU), are serving as instructors and facilitators.

“This training will increase the capacity of Bangladesh and neighboring country scientists, thereby strengthening research on wheat blast and monitoring disease through intensive surveillance,” said the Additional Secretary (Research), Ministry of Agriculture Md. Fazle Wahid Khondaker, chief guest in the inaugural session. Arun K. Joshi, CIMMYT-India country representative, T.P. Tiwari, CIMMYT-Bangladesh country representative, Prof. Dr. Bahadur Meah from BAU, Mymensingh, and Additional Director, Department of Agricultural Extension, and Md. Julfikar Haider were present as special guests. Dr. N.C.D. Barma, WRC, BARI chaired the session, and BARI Director General Dr. Abul Kalam Azad took part.

The training program is funded by BARI, CIMMYT, DGGW, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation through the CIMMYT-led Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA) and CSISA- Mechanization projects, as well as the Australian Center for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR). The DGGW project is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development (DFID) through UK Aid.

Participants with guests during training inauguration. Photo: S. Khan/CIMMYT

CIMMYT scientist cautions against new threats from wheat rust diseases

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David Hodson, senior scientist with CIMMYT, trains South Asian wheat scientists on the use of handheld surveillance and monitoring devices. Hodson directs the rusttracker.org global wheat rust monitoring system for the Delivering Genetic Gain in Wheat (DGGW) project. Credit: CORNELL/Linda McCandless

EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) – Scientists are concerned over the proliferation of highly virulent fungal wheat diseases, including two new races of yellow rust – one in Europe and North Africa, the other taking hold in East Africa and Central Asia – and a new race of stem rust emerging in Europe.

The collaborative Global Rust Reference Center (GRRC) hosted by Aarhus University in Denmark and including the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), was instrumental in identifying the new races of yellow and stem rust.

A strategic tool developed by David Hodson, a senior scientist with CIMMYT plays a key role in monitoring the movement of wheat-rust pathogens, helping farmers combat the disease in time to save crops and prevent food insecurity.

“We see an alarming increase in severe disease, more disease diversity and rapid spread,” said Hodson, who invented the Rust Tracker field surveillance tool.

Last year, the Italian island of Sicily was badly hit by a strain of wheat stem rust – an event not seen in Europe since the 1950s, following concerted efforts by wheat breeders to eliminate it.

Stem rust appears as a reddish-brown fungal build-up on wheat stems or leaves, stunting and weakening plants, preventing kernels from forming, leading to shriveled grain and potential crop losses of 50 to 100 percent.

Dispersal modeling, undertaken by the University of Cambridge and the UK Met Office, which forecasts weather and climate change, indicates that spores from the Sicilian outbreak could potentially have spread within the Mediterranean wheat growing region, but scientists are unsure whether they will successfully over-winter, surviving and proliferating, according to a recent story in the journal Nature.

EARLY WARNING

“Several factors may be influencing the changes and rapid spread: increased travel and trade; increasing pathogen populations; more uniform cropping systems and also climate change, but the rapid changes we are observing highlight the need for an enhanced early-warning system,” said Hodson, a member of an international team of scientists collaborating under the Delivering Genetic Gain in Wheat (DGGW) project administered by Cornell University through the Borlaug Global Rust Initiative (BGRI).

Scientists engaged with the major four-year international project – which has a budget of $34.5 million due to grants equalling $24 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and a recent $10.5 million grant from UK Aid (Britain’s Department for International Development, or DFID) – use comparative genomics and big data to develop new wheat varieties. The aim is to help governments provide smallholder farmers in the developing world with seeds incorporating resilience to environmental stresses and diseases through local entrepreneurial distributors.

“The sooner farmers are notified of a potential rust outbreak, the better chance they have to save their crops through fungicides or by planting resilient wheat varieties,” Hodson said.

“It’s a constant challenge. We’re always on the lookout for new diseases and variants on old diseases to put the wheels in motion to aid governments who can distribute seeds bred specifically to outsmart rusts.”

However, the long-term sustainability of these vital disease-monitoring systems is uncertain. Despite the significant investments, challenges remain, Hodson said.

“It’s worrying that just as stem rust is re-appearing in Europe we’re at risk of losing the only stem rust pathotyping capacity in Europe at GRRC, due to a funding shortfall. Given the threats and changes we are observing, there really is a critical need for a long-term strategy to address major crop diseases.”

TRACKER ORIGINS

The online Rust Tracker was originally conceived as a tool to battle stem rust, including the lethal Ug99 race, which since its discovery in 1998 has spread from Uganda into the Middle East and is now found in 13 countries. If Ug99 takes hold in a field it can completely wipe out a farmer’s crop. In developing countries, farmers have more difficulty accessing and affording fungicides, which can potentially save a crop.

Under the Durable Rust Resistance in Wheat project, the predecessor to the DGGW project, BGRI-affiliated scientists aimed to prevent the spread of Ug99 into the major global breadbaskets of China and India. So far, they have succeeded in keeping it in check and raising awareness among governments and farmers of its potentially devastating impact.

“Researchers and farmers are connected in the global village,” Hodson said. “Plant pathogens know no borders. We must leave no stone unturned in our efforts to understand the dynamics of wheat rusts, how they’re changing, where they’re spreading and why. If wheat scientists can help prevent a food crisis, we’re doing our job to help maintain political and economic stability in the world.”

Wheat rust poses food security risk for global poor, says DFID’s Priti Patel

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David Hodson, CIMMYT senior scientist (L), describes the challenges posed by wheat rust to Priti Patel, Britain's international development secretary, during the Grand Challenges Annual Meeting in London. Handout/DFID
David Hodson, CIMMYT senior scientist (L), describes the challenges posed by wheat rust to Priti Patel, Britain’s international development secretary, during the Grand Challenges Annual Meeting in London. DFID/handout

LONDON (CIMMYT) – International wheat rust monitoring efforts are not only keeping the fast-spreading disease in check, but are now being deployed to manage risks posed by other crop diseases, said a scientist attending a major scientific event in London.

Although initially focused on highly virulent Ug99 stem rust, the rust tracking system – developed as part of the Borlaug Global Rust Initiative, an international collaboration involving Cornell University and national agricultural research programs – is also used to monitor other fungal rusts and develop prediction models with the aim of helping to curtail their spread.

“We appear to be looking at some shifts in stem rust populations with the Digalu race and new variants increasing and spreading,” said David Hodson, a senior scientist with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), who showcased the latest research findings at the recent Grand Challenges meeting in London hosted by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

“Our data reinforce the fact that we face threats from rusts per se and not just from the Ug99 race group – we are fortunate that international efforts laid the groundwork to establish a comprehensive monitoring system,” said Hodson, one of more than 1,200 international scientists at the gathering.

“The research investments are having additional benefits,” he told Priti Patel, Britain’s secretary of state for international development, explaining that the wheat rust surveillance system is now also being applied to the deadly Maize Lethal Necrosis disease in Africa.

“The learning from stem rust and investments in data management systems and other components of the tracking system have allowed us to fast-track a similar surveillance system for another crop and pathosystem.”

In a keynote address, echoed by an opinion piece published in London’s Evening Standard newspaper authored by Patel and billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates, Patel described the risks posed by wheat rust to global food security and some of the efforts funded by Britain’s Department for International Development (DFID) to thwart it.

“Researchers at the University of Cambridge are working with the UK Met Office and international scientists to track and prevent deadly outbreaks of wheat rust which can decimate this important food crop for many of the world’s poorest people,” Patel said, referring to collaborative projects involving CIMMYT, funded by the Gates Foundation and DFID

Patel also launched a DFID research review at the meeting, committing the international development agency to continued research support and detailing how the UK intends to deploy development research and innovation funding of £390 million ($485 million) a year over the next four years.

Wheat improvement work by the CGIAR consortium of agricultural researchers was highlighted in the research review as an example of high impact DFID research. Wheat improvement has resulted in economic benefits of $2.2 to $3.1 billion per year and almost half of all the wheat planted in developing countries.

Drought tolerant maize: Long-run science, investments, and partnerships pay off in Africa

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New hybrid helps farmers beat drought in Tanzania. With seed of a maize hybrid developed by the Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa (DTMA) project and marketed by the company Meru Agro Tours and Consultant Limited, Valeria Pantaleo, a 47-year-old farmer and mother of four from Olkalili village, northern Tanzania, harvested enough grain from a 0.5-hectare plot in 2015 to feed her family and, with the surplus, to purchase an ox calf for plowing, despite the very poor rains that season. “I got so much harvest and yet I planted this seed very late and with no fertilizer,” said Pantaleo, who was happy and surprised. “I finally managed to buy a calf to replace my two oxen that died at the beginning of the year due to a strange disease.” In 2015 Meru Agro sold 427 tons of seed of the hybrid, HB513, known locally as “ngamia,” Kiswahili for “camel,” in recognition of its resilience under dry conditions. The company plans to put more than 1,000 tons of seed on the market in 2016. Photo: Brenda Wawa/CIMMYT
New hybrid helps farmers beat drought in Tanzania. With seed of a maize hybrid developed by the Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa (DTMA) project and marketed by the company Meru Agro Tours and Consultant Limited, Valeria Pantaleo, a 47-year-old farmer and mother of four from Olkalili village, northern Tanzania, harvested enough grain from a 0.5-hectare plot in 2015 to feed her family and, with the surplus, to purchase an ox calf for plowing, despite the very poor rains that season. “I got so much harvest and yet I planted this seed very late and with no fertilizer,” said Pantaleo, who was happy and surprised. “I finally managed to buy a calf to replace my two oxen that died at the beginning of the year due to a strange disease.” In 2015 Meru Agro sold 427 tons of seed of the hybrid, HB513, known locally as “ngamia,” Kiswahili for “camel,” in recognition of its resilience under dry conditions. The company plans to put more than 1,000 tons of seed on the market in 2016. Photo: Brenda Wawa/CIMMYT

This story is one of a series of features written during CIMMYT’s 50th anniversary year to highlight significant advancements in maize and wheat research between 1966 and 2016.

EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) — In the early 1990s, before climate change caught popular attention, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) provided funding for an international team of scientists in Mexico to find a better way to breed resilient maize for farmers in drought-prone tropical areas.

Fast forward several decades and that scientific concept is now reality. By early 2016 more than 2 million farmers were acquiring and growing drought-tolerant varieties from that early research in 13 countries of sub-Saharan Africa, a region where maize, the number-one food crop, frequently fails under erratic rainfall and lethal droughts.

Survival of the fittest

The core methodology, developed at CIMMYT, was to genetically select maize lines that survive and yield grain under controlled drought or low soil nitrogen on experimental plots. This imparts tolerance in maize to both dry conditions during flowering and grain-filling, when the plant is particularly sensitive to stress, and to the nitrogen-depleted soils typical of small-scale farms in the tropics.

Maize plants are designed with male flowers, called tassels, at the top, and female flowers, known as silks, which emerge later from young ears and catch pollen. Research in the 1970s had shown that, under drought, maize plants whose silks appear soonest after tassels also produce more grain, according to Greg Edmeades, a retired maize physiologist who led development of CIMMYT’s drought breeding system in the 1980s-90s.

“We used that trait, known as anthesis-silking interval, as a key yardstick to select maize lines and populations that did well under drought,” he explained, citing important contributions from his post-doctoral fellows Marianne Bänziger, Jorge Bolaños, Scott Chapman, Anne Elings, Renee Lafitte, and Stephen Mugo. “We discovered that earlier silking meant plants were sending more carbohydrates to the ear.”

Ground-truthing the science

In their studies, Edmeades and his team subjected many thousands of maize lines to stress testing on desert and mid-altitude fields in Mexico, dosing out water drop by drop. Reported in a series of journal papers and at two international conferences on maize stress breeding, their results outlined a new approach to create climate-resilient maize.

“The idea was to replicate the two most common and challenging nemeses of resource-poor farming systems, drought and low nitrogen stress, in a controlled way on breeding stations, and to use this to select tolerant varieties,” said Bänziger, now Deputy Director General for Research and Partnerships at CIMMYT. “After eight cycles of selection for reduced anthesis-silking interval under controlled drought stress, Greg’s model maize population gave 30 percent more grain than conventional varieties, in moderate-to-severe drought conditions.”

But could the approach be implemented in developing country breeding programs, where researchers typically tested and showcased high-yielding, optimally-watered maize?

Capitalizing on several years’ experience in Edmeades’ team, in 1996 Bänziger aimed to find out, moving to CIMMYT’s office in Zimbabwe and beginning work with breeders in the region to develop Africa-adapted, stress tolerant maize.

“African farmers grow maize by choice,” she explained. “If you give them access to varieties that better withstand their harsh conditions and reduce their risk, they may invest in inputs like fertilizer or diversify crop production, improving their incomes and food security.”

The efforts started by Bänziger and several other CIMMYT scientists in sub-Saharan Africa involved large, long-running projects in the region’s major maize-growing areas, with co-leadership of the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), extensive and generous donor support, and the critical participation of regional associations, national research programs, private seed companies, and non-governmental organizations. Partners also pioneered innovative ways for farmers to take part in testing and selecting varieties and worked to foster high-quality, competitive seed markets.

The most recent initiative, Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa (DTMA), has been responsible for the development and release of more than 200 drought tolerant varieties. A new phase aims by 2019 to attain an annual production of as much as 68,000 tons of certified seed of resilient maize, for use by approximately 5.8 million households and benefitting more than 30 million people in the region. 

Maize stress breeding goes global

Selecting for tolerance under controlled moisture stress has proven so successful that it is now a standard component of maize breeding programmes in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, according to Edmeades.

“The long pursuit of drought tolerance in maize shows how successful research-for-development demands doggedness and enduring donor support,” said Edmeades, who credits former CIMMYT scientists P.R. Goldsworthy, Ken Fischer, and Elmer Johnson with laying the groundwork for his studies. “And, as can be seen, many donors and partners have helped greatly to amplify the impact of UNDP’s initial investment.”

Over the years, generous funding for this work has also been provided by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, Germany (GTZ); the Howard G. Buffett Foundation; the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD); the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA); the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC); the UK Department for International Development (DFID); and the US Agency for International Development (USAID).

This short history of drought tolerance breeding for tropical maize was developed in collaboration with UNDP, as part of CIMMYT and UNDP’s 50th anniversary celebrations, which coincide in 2016. To read the version published by UNDP, click here.

See also these stories about farmers’ circumstances and advances on drought tolerant maize in Africa:
* Peter’s resolve to grow maize amidst poor yields due to harsh climate and poor seeds.
* A 2011 post in Roger Thurow’s “Outrage and Inspire” blog.

 

 

Kingbird released in Ethiopia to combat new stem rust threat

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Kingbird released in Ethiopia to combat new stem rust threat. Credit: Linda McCandless

Farmers in Ethiopia are banking on Kingbird, the latest variety of wheat to be released by the Ethiopian Institute for Agricultural Research (EIAR). Kingbird is resistant to Ug99, the devastating race of stem rust first identified and subsequently race-typed as TTKSK in 1999, and TKTTF, a new stem rust race identified in 2012 that raged through so many Ethiopian farmers’ fields in 2013 and 2014.

The scourge of wheat farmers the world over, stem rust can quickly turn a wheat field into black stalks empty of grain when environmental conditions are optimal.

The new variety was evaluated at multiple locations in Ethiopia during the 2014 season and approved for release in 2015. “Kingbird offers new hope for resource-poor farmers in stem rust prone areas of Ethiopia,” said Fentahun Mengistu, EIAR Director General. “It is expected to replace the varieties Hawi and Pavon-76 in lowland areas, and complement Kakaba, Ogolcho, Shorima and a few other mid-altitude varieties.”

As Ronnie Coffman, vice-chair of the Borlaug Global Rust Initiative (BGRI), the international network of scientists, breeders and national wheat improvement programs that cooperated on the release of Kingbird, pointed out, crop diseases do not respect international boundaries. “Wheat farmers the world over are threatened by outbreaks of new races of yellow and stem rust of wheat on an almost yearly basis. It takes persistent and continually evolving international efforts to protect staple crops like wheat on a global scale.”

“Kingbird’s multi-disease resistance attributes combined with good bread-making quality and good yield performance led to its release in South Africa and Kenya a few years back,” said Ravi Singh, senior wheat scientist at CIMMYT, whose team is instrumental in making the initial crosses for most new wheat introductions in the developing world.

The pipeline for developing varieties such as Kingbird has been directed by the Durable Rust Resistance in Wheat (DRRW) project at Cornell University, acting as BGRI secretariat, since 2008. CIMMYT, the international Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), national agricultural research systems, and 22 other institutions assist in the effort. Generous support is provided by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the UK Department of International Development (DFID).

To read more on Kingbird’s development and spread and the efforts to protect world wheat production, check out the BGRI blog, “How Kingbird moved across East Africa.” A poster abstract by Zerihun Tadesse, wheat breeder at the EIAR, may be found here.

Rust-resistant wheat varieties, new rust races, surveillance, monitoring, and gene stewardship will be topics at the 2015 BGRI Technical Workshop, 17-20 September, and the International Wheat Congress, 20-25 September, both in Sydney, Australia. Follow the conversations at #BGRI2015 and #IWC9.

CIMMYT wheat breeder Sridhar Bhavani talks about the recently discovered virulence of TKTTF on Robin in Kenya, and Digelu in Ethiopia, and the new Kingbird release here.

Replacing gender myths and assumptions with knowledge

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CIMMYT Director General Martin Kropff speaks on the topic of ‘Wheat and the role of gender in the developing world’ prior to the 2015 Women in Triticum Awards at the Borlaug Global Rust Initiative Workshop in Sydney on 19 September.

If we are to be truly successful in improving the lives of farmers and consumers in the developing world, we need to base our interventions on the best evidence available. If we act based only on our assumptions, we may not be as effective as we could be or, even worse, actively cause harm.

One example is the common perception that women are not involved in the important wheat farming systems of North Africa and South Asia. By recognizing and engaging with these myths, we are beginning to build a more sophisticated understanding of how agriculture works as a social practice.

Currently, there are only a few published studies that take a closer examination of the roles played by women in wheat-based farming systems. These studies have found that, in some cases, men are responsible for land preparation and planting, and women for weeding and post-harvest activities, with harvest and transport duties being shared. Between different districts in India, huge variations may be found in the amount of time that women are actively involved in wheat agriculture. This shows that some careful study into the complexities of gender and agricultural labor may hold important lessons when intervening in any particular situation.

We must also never assume that, just because women are not as involved in agriculture in a particular context, they can not benefit from more information. In a survey carried out by CIMMYT researcher Surabhi Mittal in parts of rural India, it was found that women used a local cellphone agricultural advisory service just as much as men, and that this knowledge helped them get more involved in farming-related decision-making.

Gender is not just about women

For all that it is important to include women, along with other identity groups in project planning, implementation and data collection, it is important not to get into the trap of thinking that gender-integrated approaches are just about targeting women.

For example, the World Health Organization estimates that micronutrient deficiency affects at least two billion people around the world, causing poor health and development problems in the young. The effects of micronutrient deficiency start in the womb, and are most severe from then through to the first two years of life. Therefore it would make sense to target women of childbearing age and mothers with staple varieties that have been bio-fortified to contain high levels of important micronutrients such as zinc, iron or vitamin A.

However, to do so risks ignoring the process in which the decision to change the crop grown or the food eaten in the household is taken. Both men and women will be involved in that decision, and any intervention must therefore take the influence of gender norms and relations, involving both women and men, into account.

The way ahead

To move forward, each component of the strategy for research into wheat farming systems at CIMMYT also has a gender dimension, whether focused on improving the evidence base, responding to the fact that both women and men can be end users or beneficiaries of new seeds and other technologies, or ensuring that gender is considered as a part of capacity-building efforts.

Already, 20 of our largest projects are actively integrating gender into their work, helping to ensure that women are included in agricultural interventions and share in the benefits they bring, supplying a constant stream of data for future improvement.

We have also experienced great success in targeting marginalized groups. For instance, the Hill Maize Research Project in Nepal, funded by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) alongside the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), focused on food-insecure people facing discrimination due to their gender or social group. By supporting them to produce improved maize varieties in community groups, the project managed not only to greatly increase their incomes, but also to improve their self-confidence and recognition in society.

CIMMYT researchers are also among the leaders of a global push to encode gender into agricultural research together with other international research partnerships. In over 125 agricultural communities in 26 countries, a field study of gender norms, agency and agricultural innovation, known as GENNOVATE, is now underway. The huge evidence base generated will help spur the necessary transformation in how gender is included in agricultural research for development.

Further information:

The Borlaug Global Rust Initiative, chaired by Jeanie Borlaug Laube, has the overarching objective of systematically reducing the world’s vulnerability to stem, yellow, and leaf rusts of wheat and advocating/facilitating the evolution of a sustainable international system to contain the threat of wheat rusts and continue the enhancements in productivity required to withstand future global threats to wheat. This international network of scientists, breeders and national wheat improvement programs came together in 2005, at Norman Borlaug’s insistence, to combat Ug99. The Durable Rust Resistance in Wheat (DRRW) project at Cornell University serves as the secretariat for the BGRI. The DRRW, CIMMYT, the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) and the FAO helped establish the BGRI a decade ago. Funding is provided by the UK Department for International Development (DFID) and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. For more information, please visit www.globalrust.org.

CIMMYT is the global leader in research for development in wheat and maize and related farming systems. CIMMYT works throughout the developing world with hundreds of partners to sustainably increase the productivity of maize and wheat to improve food security and livelihoods. CIMMYT belongs to the 15-member CGIAR Consortium and leads the Consortium Research Programs on wheat and maize. CIMMYT receives support from national governments, foundations, development banks and other public and private agencies.

Follow the #BGRI2015 hashtag on social media

Twitter: @CIMMYT, @KropffMartin and @GlobalRust

Ethiopia’s seed co-ops benefit entrepreneurs and smallholder farmers

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ethiopia-seed
Farmer and social entrepreneur Amaha Abraham in a wheat field in Bishoftu, Ethiopia. CIMMYT/Julie Mollins

BISHOFTU, Ethiopia (CMMYT) — Farmer and social entrepreneur Amaha Abraham sets his sights high.

The 45-year-old aims to become as wealthy as Saudi Arabian-Ethiopian Mohammed Al Amoudi, who in March 2014 was estimated by Forbes magazine to have a net worth of $15.3 billion.

In an effort to achieve that goal Abraham is backing big reforms in Ethiopia’s agriculture sector.

He is at the forefront of a new grassroots seed marketing and distribution program supported by the Ethiopian Agricultural Transformation Agency (ATA) and the Ministry of Agriculture to improve the country’s wheat crop through the marketing of improved seed by multiple producers and agents.

Under the program, government-subsidized farmer-run cooperatives produce high-yielding, disease-resistant wheat seed, accelerating distribution and helping smallholder farmers grow healthy crops to bolster national food security.

About 50 farmers belong to each cooperative, planting about 100 hectares (250 acres) of government-certified seed, which produce improved wheat varieties they then multiply and sell to smallholder farmers. Seed sales garner a 15 to 20 percent price premium over wheat-grain sales, providing a significant financial incentive.

“I’ve reached so many farmers, so that their land will be covered by proper improved seeds,” Abraham said.

“When I take the seeds to them I give training and advice, which attracts more farmers to get involved. The government visits and organizes training on my land – they recognize my efforts and they’re pushing other farmers to do the same thing.”

STREAMLINED SYSTEMS

The Direct Seed Marketing (DSM) program is part of Ethiopia’s “Wheat Productivity Increase Initiative,” which aims to end the country’s reliance on wheat imports – equal to 1.1 million metric tons (1.2 million tons) or about 24 percent of domestic demand, which is 4.6 million metric tons in 2014, according to the Wheat Atlas, citing statistics from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Previously, the process of getting new wheat seed varieties to farmers was allocation based, with limited producers and agents and a limited choice of varieties, said Sinshaw Alemu, wheat and barley chain program analyst at ATA.

“It was a seed distribution system, not a seed marketing system,” Alemu explained. “DSM is based on the concept that the producers of the seed should be able to market and then sell it at the primary level and farmers will have their choice of seed.”

Farmers can now collect seeds from a certified agent – either a primary cooperative or a private outlet where a direct channel is established with seed producers, leading to timely deliveries and better estimates of potential demand. They can buy government-allocated seed as they did under the other system or the agent can now contact the seed enterprise and purchase additional wheat varieties at a farmer’s request with no fixed allocations in DSM.

“One of the issues in the previous system was that due to delays on demand estimations from woredas (district councils), the unions and primary cooperatives had little or no control over the kind and quality of seed allocated to them,” Alemu said.

“Primary cooperatives had to take it and seed remained unsold at the end of the planting season because either the variety or quality wasn’t what they were looking for – the primary cooperative was left with hundreds of quintals of seed and they had no use for it.”

“We tried the DSM in five woredas in 2014, and it was very successful – 97 percent of the seed delivered was sold and the remainder taken away – we’ve seen some very encouraging results in this area,” he added.

DISEASE THREAT

In recent years, Ethiopia’s wheat crop has been hit hard by stem and yellow rust epidemics, which at their worst can destroy entire crops. Rust infestation can lead to shriveled grain, yield losses and financial troubles for farmers, who must avoid susceptible wheat varieties.

The revamped seed marketing system can help get the new disease-resilient wheat varieties to farmers more efficiently, said David Hodson, a senior scientist based in Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) who manages RustTracker.org, a global wheat rust monitoring system supported by the Borlaug Global Rust Initiative.

Rust Tracker generates surveillance and monitoring information for emerging rust threats. The information provides an early warning system for disease and can help farmers prepare for epidemics, which could otherwise wipe out their crops.

The Rust Tracker is funded by the Durable Rust Resistance in Wheat project, which is managed by Cornell University and supported by the UK Department for International Development (DFID) and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

GENERATING GERMPLASM

CIMMYT, a non-profit research institute which works with partners worldwide to reduce poverty and hunger by increasing the sustainable productivity of maize and wheat cropping systems, plays a key role in providing germplasm to be tested and improved by government-run national agricultural research systems before it is potentially released to farmers.

Additionally, CIMMYT provides smallholder farmer training and skills development on such topics as crop management and agricultural practices. In Ethiopia, these activities, along with seed multiplication and delivery are being supported by a new $5.75 million grant from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

“CIMMYT supports Ethiopia’s agriculture research in a variety of ways including by training researchers, development agents and farmers skills on modern sciences and filling technical gaps by providing field and laboratory equipment, farm machinery, installing irrigation systems, modernizing breeding programs, improving quality of data, providing germplasm and project funds,” said Bekele Abeyo, a CIMMYT senior scientist and wheat breeder based in Addis Ababa.

“The government is now putting an emphasis on agriculture and the situation is far better and improving,” he said. “The structure and extension systems are there to help farmers – Direct Seed Marketing is making it easier to increase the availability of seeds and complements more traditional public seed.”

Adopting improved wheat varieties increases the number of food secure households by 2.7 percent and reduces the number of chronic and transitory food insecure households by 10 and 2 percent respectively, according to CIMMYT scientist Menale Kassie, one of the authors of “Adoption of improved wheat varieties and impacts on household food security in Ethiopia.”

Ethiopia’s wheat-growing area in 2013 was equivalent to 1.6 million hectares (4 million acres), and the country produced 2.45 metric tons of wheat per hectare, according to the country’s Central Statistical Agency.

VENTURE EVOLVES

In 2013, Abraham harvested about 250 quintals (25 metric tons) of the Digalu wheat seed variety near Bishoftu, a town formerly known as Debre Zeyit in the Oromia Region situated at an altitude of 1,900 meters (6,230 feet) 40 kilometers (25 miles) southeast of Addis Ababa.

Abraham is optimistic. He expects he will soon be able to hire many employees, as he plans to expand his agricultural interests to include beekeeping, dairy cattle, poultry and livestock, he said.

“My main aim is not only to earn more money, but also to teach and share with others – that’s what I value most,” he said. “Regardless of money, there are certain people who have a far-sighted view and I want them to be involved. That’s what I value – I’m opening an opportunity for others and envisioning a far-sighted development plan.”

He still has a way to go before he catches up with Al Amoudi, ranked by Forbes as the 61st wealthiest person in the world.

RECOMMENDED READING:

Adoption of improved wheat varieties and impacts on household food security in Ethiopia

Partnerships lead to measurable impacts for Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa

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The Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa (DTMA) project is an outgrowth of more than a decade of maize physiology research. It builds on more than 10 years of promoting the inclusion of selection for drought tolerance in maize breeding programs in Sub-Saharan Africa and the widespread development and regional testing of stress-tolerant varieties. DTMA is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation with past support from the Howard G. Buffett Foundation, USAID, the UK Department for International Development (DFID), the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the Eiselen Foundation. This blog post was originally published by CGIAR.

By Philippe Ellul/CGIAR

Smallholder farmer prepares maize plot for planting with CIMMYT improved varieties, Embu, Kenya. Photo: CIMMYT
Smallholder farmer prepares maize plot for planting with CIMMYT improved varieties, Embu, Kenya. Photo: CIMMYT

Currently, maize production supports the livelihoods of approximately 300 million people in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Climate change variability and the prevalence of extreme events, especially droughts, are a harsh reality for smallholder farmers in Africa who depend on rainfed agriculture. Maize production in Africa is almost completely rainfed and droughts plague approximately a quarter of the maize crop, resulting in losses as high as half the harvest. Extended periods of droughts therefore, adversely affect not only crop yields but also the livelihoods of African farmers. Economic analyses suggest that, if widely adopted, drought-tolerant maize seed can help African farmers cope with such impediments.

On a recent visit to the annual meeting of the Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa (DTMA) initiative held in Nairobi, I was privy to some evidence of research impact in this area, which I found to be quite significant. The Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa (DTMA) project (launched in 2006) seeks to mitigate drought and other barriers to production in the region.

Tanzanian farmer on drought tolerant maize demonstration plot. Photo: Anne Wangalachi/CIMMYT.
Tanzanian farmer on drought tolerant maize demonstration plot. Photo: Anne Wangalachi/CIMMYT.

Here are some highlights of key data on the measurable impacts of the DTMA project and a snapshot of some lessons learned during my time there. Not only will this information be useful for future partnerships but it can also be used to inform our processes during the 2nd call for proposals for the CGIAR Research Programs.
The DTMA project started in 2006. Here are the targets that the project has achieved thus far (in 2013) in terms of measurable impact:
◦140 new DTMA varieties released,
◦30,000 tons of seed (17,000 T from new varieties) produced last year in 13 African countries (Angola, Benin, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe)
◦An impact efficiency study (presented during the meeting) which indicated that several countries were able to reach their objectives in terms of seed production; Zimbabwe and Kenya were able to double their previous expected figures
◦ 110 African seed companies (72 small-national, 18 regional, 12 small and medium enterprises (SMEs), and 8 international enterprises) have adopted, produced and spread the new DTM varieties to local farmers,
◦ 1,230, 000 hectares planted with these new varieties, and
◦3 million households and 20 million people in total benefited and reached.

DTMA partners made certain that complete accountability was applied to the partnership network in order to ensure that the impact of research outcomes could be quantified. Thanks to this well-designed management model, researchers involved in the DTMA initiative were able to not only produce high quality research outputs but also ensure that research outcomes were adopted and scaled up. In addition, local facilities for Doubled Haploid (DH) production from tropical and sub-tropical maize germplasm have also been set up at the KARI (Kenyan Agriculture Research Institute) Kiboko Station.

Read the full post on CGIAR’s website here.

Smallholder maize farmers in Zimbabwe lack knowledge of open-pollinated varieties

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CIMMYT E-News, vol 4 no. 5, May 2007

OPVs perform as well as hybrids or better under the low-input conditions of many smallholder farmers in Zimbabwe, but farmers need information and training about how properly to use them.

A new study to assess the effectiveness of a large-scale maize seed relief effort in Zimbabwe during 2003-07 shows that, even among vulnerable, small-scale farmers living on the edge of survival under the most difficult conditions, a livelihood-saving technology like quality seed of open-pollinated maize varieties (OPVs) is not enough, without knowledge about how best to use it.

Farmers can save grain of OPVs from their harvest and sow it the following year without the yield or other qualities of the variety diminishing substantially. Hybrids normally yield more than OPVs under favorable conditions, but “recycling” the seed in subsequent seasons will result in a significant loss of that yield and of other advantages; farmers must purchase fresh seed each season to retain them. “Zimbabwe farmers have historically favored hybrids, and they have limited knowledge about OPVs,” says Augustine Langyintuo, CIMMYT socioeconomist and lead author of the study. “Changing economic circumstances in the country have meant that many farmers can no longer purchase fertilizer to take best advantage of hybrid yield potential. We interviewed 597 households in 6 districts of Zimbabwe where a major seed-relief effort had, among other aims, promoted the broader diffusion of OPVs over hybrids, thereby giving smallholder farmers the possibility to save and re-use their own seed without sacrificing their meager yields.”

The seed aid effort, which was funded by British Department for International Development (DfID) and coordinated by the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) regional office in Harare, enlisted the assistance of 16 non-government organizations (NGOs) to distribute improved maize seed to more than 25,000 needy farmers. “The average household size in our survey group was 6.5 members, supported by a cultivated farm size of just 1.7 hectares, over 60% of which is planted to maize,” says Langyintuo. “Nearly a third of the households were headed by widowed females, a factor highly correlated with poverty.”

Under the relief program, the NGOs were expected to inform farmers of the types of seed being distributed and the need to select, store, and re-use the seed properly in subsequent seasons. Less than half the beneficiaries in the first year of the program were informed of the type of seeds to be provided, although the proportion increased to more than 60% over time. Information on OPVs was limited to the fact that they can be recycled. Less than half were ever taught how to select or store their seed.

According to Langyintuo, many farmers continue to recycle hybrids, or improperly select OPV grain for future use as seed, or—in the worst cases—eat all their grain and hope for another aid shipment to sow next year. “The relatively well-endowed farmers were more willing to recycle OPV seed. In future efforts, NGOs should perhaps target them to ensure larger-scale spillovers,” he says. “In general, whoever distributes seed of improved OPVs should provide information on proper seed selection and follow up with field-level training. Farmers should also be involved in the choice of the varieties.”

Another key issue to grapple with is the unavailability of OPV seed on the market. This stems from the unwillingness of seed companies to develop and promote OPVs, given the perception that farmers will simply recycle them and never buy fresh seed. “Zimbabwe farmers recycle both OPVs and hybrids, but if given a choice, they will purchase fresh seed whenever they can,” says Langyintuo. “OPVs perform as well as hybrids or better under the low-input conditions of many smallholder farmers in Zimbabwe, so they constitute a good option for such farmers.”

You can view or download the study “Assessment of the effectiveness of maize seed assistance to vulnerable farm households in Zimbabwe.”

For more information: Augustine Langyintuo, socioeconomist (a.langyintuo@cgiar.org)

Bachelors Take Note: Reduce Your Tillage

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February, 2005

bachelorsThis is the story of Anil Singh, a farmer from the remote, relatively poor area of Uttar Pradesh, India, who found fortune with help from CIMMYT-South Asia Regional Program and the Rice Wheat Consortium for the Indo-Gangetic Plains (RWC). His eye-catching success has been based on reduced tillage and direct seeding of wheat.

Arun Joshi, researcher at Banaras Hindu University and CIMMYT-South Asia/RWC partner, smiles when he tells the story of farmer Anil Singh, from Karhat Village in Mirzapur District. Singh was the first in the village to try zero-tillage for sowing wheat when it was introduced in 1997. “When Anil’s father-in-law first saw Karhat, he began telling everyone that women shouldn’t marry its men, because they wouldn’t be able to support a family,” says Joshi. “When Anil had success with zero-tillage and other farmers adopted the practice, his father-in-law changed his tune completely, and now says that all young ladies should marry men from Karhat!”

Singh, his brother, and the 11 other family members formerly scraped by growing only a rice-wheat rotation on some six hectares of land. Adoption of direct seeding without tillage for wheat has increased harvests and brought savings in seed, labor, diesel, farm equipment, and irrigation water. The practice allows earlier sowing of wheat, so the brothers have introduced okra, tomato, gourd, potato, mungbean, and other crops, and are growing “green-manure” legumes to enrich the soil. Through a participatory varietal selection program, supported by DFID-UK and coordinated by Joshi with CIMMYT input, farmers in the village have gained access to the latest, high-yielding wheat varieties. Singh used the added income from all of the above to sink a new well, put an upper story on his home, purchase a used car, and launch a rice and wheat seed company.

“Previously we had no linkages with agencies or persons to obtain knowledge or information,” he says. “We used to grow only the old varieties—we sowed the same seed for ten years! Now we are looking to diversify and intensify farming to get more cash.” Singh says that farmers come from far and wide on tractor trolleys, bikes, motorcycles, and other transport to purchase his company’s seed. “This is because they trust us and because we were the first in the region to sell seed. I want to make our company big, involve several villages, with each growing only a single variety to maintain purity and include many farmers.”

The village had no telephone or refrigerator when Joshi and his associates first came, and now it has plenty of both. According to Joshi, the credit for farmers’ improved fortunes goes to the Directorate of Wheat Research of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, Karnal, the RWC, the Centre for Arid Zone Studies-UK, and CIMMYT-South Asia. “It was the idea of CIMMYT regional wheat breeder Guillermo Ortiz-Ferrara to test varieties and zero-tillage with farmers, and we joined hands,” he says.

The RWC does much more than simply promote direct seeding for wheat crops. To learn more about the Consortium, its partners, and its supporters, read the recently published report RWC Highlights 2005 (in PDF version 88kb).

The RWC includes the national agricultural research systems of Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan, as well as international centers like CIMMYT and advanced research institutes. It promotes resource-conserving practices and more diverse cropping in the rice-wheat farming systems that cover 13.5 million hectares in the region, and provides food and livelihoods for over 300 million people.

Pernicious Weed Meets its Match

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CIMMYT E-News, vol 2 no. 7, July 2005

striga1In a country where each person consumes at least 100 kilograms of maize a year, a new, easy-to-use, affordable practice that could raise the crop’s production by 200,000 tons is, naturally, greeted with much celebration in Kenya.

Such was the mood at Kisumu, Kenya, during the 5 July launch of the Clearfield® technology for Striga weed control. “This is good news for farmers, and good news for the government,” stated the chief guest, Romano Kiome, director of the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI). If widely adopted, according to Kiome, the technology could “…lift poor farmers from subsistence to income generation, poverty to wealth, and food insecurity to security.”

A highly invasive parasite, Striga infests 400,000 hectares of Kenya’s farmland. Striga sprouts fasten directly to roots of maize seedlings, sucking away nutrients and 50 to 100% of yields by harvest time. The weed overruns 40% of the arable land in Africa’s savannahs, threatening the livelihoods of more than 100 million people who depend on cereal crops for food and income. Kenyan maize farmers lose at least US$ 50 million annually in grain to Striga.

Taking advantage of a natural variation in maize, for nine years CIMMYT and partners have conventionally bred varieties that yield well under tropical conditions and withstand imidazolinone, an active ingredient in several herbicides and the BASF product, Strigaway®. This imidazolinone-resistant (IR) maize is the starting point for an elegant control method, as CIMMYT agronomist Fred Kanampiu explains: “The IR maize seed is coated with a low dose of the herbicide, which kills Striga as it germinates, allowing the maize to grow clear of the weed.” Besides producing healthy maize plants, over several years the practice helps clear fields of residual Striga seed—a boon to farmers, given that a single Striga plant produces up to 50,000 tiny seeds that can remain viable for 20 years or more.

striga

Four new maize hybrids have been released for marketing in Kenya under the common name Ua Kayongo (literally “kill Striga”) H1–4, and farmers are enthusiastic, as their statements in the Nairobi Daily Nation show: “I have already seen major changes in my farm compared to my neighbors’, whose parcels remain covered with the purple flowers of the parasitic weed,” says Zedekiah Onyango of Baridi farm in Nyahera. “My maize yield is many times higher since I started using IR maize, and I look forward to even higher yields.” Farmers are also urging the government to promote the technology to arrest the perennial food shortages caused by Striga. “I believe it would be much cheaper for the government to invest money in the technology, so that this menace is cleared once and for all, and the production of various cereals is restored,” says Beatrice Ayoo, another small-scale farmer who is interested in the new Clearfield® practice.

The technology was developed through global cooperation involving CIMMYT; KARI; the Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel; BASF; private seed companies; and the Rockefeller Foundation; among others. Peter Matlon, director for the Africa Regional Program, the Rockefeller Foundation, was at the launch, and called the cross-sectoral collaboration “a classic example of partnership.” The Clearfield® control package will be released soon in Tanzania, Uganda and, eventually, 16 other countries of sub-Saharan Africa, in a process spearheaded by the African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF) with DFID support.

For more information, contact Fred Kanampiu (f.kanampiu@cgiar.org).

South Asian Partners Host Trustees for Extended Field Visits

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April, 2004
South Asian Partners Host Trustees for Extended Field Visits

Much of CIMMYT’s research focuses on improving the livelihoods and food security of poor households in South Asia, which is home to more of the world’s poor–43 percent–than any other region. To observe the impact of CIMMYT’s efforts there and to assess opportunities to help farmers, CIMMYT’s Board of Trustees and senior management visited India and Nepal in March. Officials of both countries hosted the visiting delegation.

India and Nepal are two key partners for CIMMYT. India’s relationship with CIMMYT began before the Green Revolution, and the world has benefited from the research products of this collaboration. CIMMYT also has maintained a long partnership with Nepal, where the National Agricultural Research Center (NARC) has hosted CIMMYT’s South Asia Regional Office for 18 years.

Field Visits in India

visitingNepalOn the first day of the field visits, about 200 farmers from nearby villages greeted the delegation and expressed appreciation for new practices that were helping them to diversity agricultural production and conserve resources such as water and soil. The delegation was welcomed in Kapriwas, Gurgaon by senior officials of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), including Director General Mangala Rai, Deputy Director of Crops and Horticulture G. Kalloo, and M.K. Miglani, Vice Chancellor of Haryana Agricultural University. They explained how new tillage and planting practices helped Indian farmers by saving labor, fuel, and irrigation, while maintaining or increasing yields.

Many farmers were extremely enthusiastic about the visit. One farmer was sprinkle irrigating wheat that was close to maturity, which is something that is not typically done. When one of the visitors asked why he was doing this, the farmer replied that he was overjoyed by their visit and wanted to show off his sprinkle irrigation system. (The technical explanation was that he wanted to lower the heat stress and improve grain filling.)

The visitors saw research to identify salt-tolerant wheat and other crops and to study the long-term effects of saline water use at Bawal Research Station. They also saw an experiment showing how paired-row wheat planting on beds produced high yields, large spikes, and large grains, which help wheat fetch a higher market price. Although all the farmers who joined the delegation agreed that wheat planted on beds in paired rows gives higher yields with less labor and fewer inputs, they said there is a shortage of bed planters for Indian farmers. CIMMYT, ICAR, and the private sector are working to improve the situation.

Another experiment they observed evaluated the potential for growing maize in Haryana, where limited production and high demand compel people to buy maize in Delhi or Rajasthan.

On the second day the delegation visited Durgapura Research Station of Rajasthan Agricultural University. They learned about a wide spectrum of research, including breeding for resistance to rust and to cereal cyst nematode and for tolerance to saline conditions. They heard about issues related to the use of brackish and saline water in crop production in arid regions. Some participants expressed concern about the long-term health effects of this practice, especially in the production of green vegetables.

On the third day the delegation was received by farmers of Kallogarhi-Matiala Village, as well as PP Singh (Vice Chancellor, Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel University of Agriculture and Technology, Meerut) and Larry Paulson (USAID-India). Board members were very interested in locally developed, low-cost equipment for promoting conservation agriculture. They saw the comparative performance of wheat planted using zero-tillage drills with “inverted T” and double disc openers. Farmers at this site are developing a permanent “double no-till” system of conservation agriculture to grow rice and wheat.

During dinner, representatives of Raja Balwant Singh College Trust thanked CIMMYT for more than 50 years of partnership in Indian agricultural development, dating back to before the Green Revolution. They suggested that CIMMYT and RBS, the largest and one of the oldest agricultural colleges in India, could benefit from a joint visiting scientist program.

Field Visits in Nepal

In 2003, Nepal’s national average wheat yield surpassed 2 t/ha for the first time, an achievement that gives some idea of the constraints that farmers there have overcome. The National Wheat Research Program Coordinator, Mr. M.R. Bhatta, described the impact of disease and yield nurseries that CIMMYT and NARC distribute throughout South Asia, and observed that more than 20 wheat varieties have been released in Nepal in the past 15 years.

At Khumaltar Research Station, NARC researchers highlighted studies in areas such as pathology, breeding, agronomy, soil sciences, mechanization, and biotechnology.

The visitors also heard researchers from the Hill Maize Research Project describe how communities have become self-sufficient in maize, their staple food, for the first time. Nearly 80% of Nepal’s maize is grown in the mid-hills, where more than 10 million people depend on the crop for food, income, and animal feed. Shortages are chronic. The Hill Maize Research Project provides the farmers with source seed, plus training in seed production techniques, storage, and marketing. It also ensures that there is sufficient seed of new maize varieties for farmers to replace old improved or local varieties, which yield very little.

Through their efforts, communities have produced more than 150 tons of maize seed. Community-based seed production accelerates seed replacement, disseminates new technologies, improves household food security, and raises incomes. This work, supported by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), is having an enormous impact in isolated hill sites.

A visit to farmers’ fields in Thecho Village in the Kathmandu Valley showed how farmers’ access to better wheat varieties and growing practices was increasing through participatory research. The farmers partner with NARC, CIMMYT, the University of Bangore, the Agricultural Development Organization (ADO), and others in a project funded by the UK Department for International Development. Farmers enthusiastically shared their experiences with participatory variety selection and seed production. Some groups are earning enough additional income from growing wheat to purchase new equipment or make other investments.

NARC and ADO have extended participatory variety selection to rice, legumes, vegetables, and other crops throughout Nepal after seeing the success with wheat. (In India, similar exciting work is being done in collaboration with Banaras Hindu University.)

Thanks to Our Hosts

board_memberCIMMYT’s Board and staff are grateful to P.P. Manandhar, Nepal’s Secretary of Agriculture, and officials at the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives for their constant support for CIMMYT’s South Asia Regional Office, and to NARC Executive Director R.P. Sapkota and his colleagues for support and field visits. They are also most grateful to ICAR Director General Mangla Rai, Deputy Director of Crops and Horticulture G. Kalloo, and the many representatives of experiment stations, colleges, and universities in India who made the visit a success. The opportunity to meet and visit the field with representatives of DFID, FAO, the Japan International Cooperation Agency, SDC, USAID, and the World Bank, among others, was also greatly appreciated.

We also thank the farmers who so kindly shared their experiences and hospitality with us.

Drought tolerant maize wins UK climate prize

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The United Kingdom’s Department for International Development (DFID) has won Best Technological Breakthrough at the 2012 UK Climate Week Awards for its support to the Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa (DTMA) project. The awards were held in London on 12 March 2012 to celebrate the UK’s most effective and ambitious organizations, communities, and individuals and their efforts to combat climate change.

Climate-Week-award-picDTMA has been responsible for the development and dissemination of 34 new drought-tolerant maize varieties to farmers in 13 project countries—Angola, Benin, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe—between 2007 and 2011. An estimated two million smallholder farmers are already using the drought-tolerant maize varieties and have obtained higher yields, improved food security, and increased incomes.

Drought-tolerant varieties are invaluable on a continent where maize is the staple crop for over 300 million people, and nearly always relies on rainwater alone. The DTMA varieties, produced by conventional breeding, provide farmers with better yields than leading commercial varieties under moderate drought conditions, while also giving outstanding harvests when rains are good. DTMA works with a diverse network of partners to develop, market, and distribute seed, including private companies, publicly funded agricultural research and extension systems, ministries of agriculture, nongovernmental organizations, and community-based seed producers.

Jointly implemented by CIMMYT and the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA), the DTMA project is presently funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) and is also receiving complementary grants from the Howard G. Buffett Foundation (HGBF) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

“DFID has been a highly-valued and reliable, top-ten core contributor to CIMMYT’s work,” said DTMA project leader Wilfred Mwangi. In addition, the efforts of DTMA build on long-term support from the Swiss Agency for Development Cooperation (SDC), the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the Rockefeller Foundation, USAID, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), and the Eiselen-Foundation.