GENNOVATE is 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.
Carried out in conjunction with 11 CGIAR research programs worldwide and across 125 rural communities in 26 countries, this qualitative comparative study aims to provide authoritative research to advance gender-transformative approaches and catalyze change in international agricultural and natural resource management research for development.
In discussion groups and individual interviews, roughly 6,000 rural study participants of different socioeconomic backgrounds and age groups are reflecting on and comparing local women’s and men’s expected roles and behaviors — or gender norms— and how these social rules affect their ability to access, adopt, adapt and benefit from innovations in agricultural and natural resource management.
The initiative’s research process strives to give rural women and men a voice by providing authoritative, contextually grounded evidence on how gender interacts with agricultural innovations. It also aims to strengthen CGIAR research program capacities to know the target beneficiaries, design for them, and be accountable to them.
Central to the qualitative field study is an exploration of women’s and men’s agency at the core of which is the capacity to make important decisions pertaining to one’s life. For rural women and men, these decisions relate to agriculture and natural resource management, as well as to other significant events in the private (household) and public (community) spheres.
OBJECTIVES
What are the most important new agricultural practices and technologies for the men and for the women in a given village?
What qualities make a woman or a man a good farmer?
Do young people in this village follow local customs of women doing certain agricultural activities and men others?
Are there differences between a woman who is innovative and a man who is innovative?
The Stress Tolerant Maize for Africa (STMA) project aims to diminish devastating constraints in maize production across sub-Saharan Africa. The project develops improved maize varieties with resistance and tolerance to drought, low soil fertility, heat, diseases such as Maize Lethal Necrosis and pests affecting maize production areas in the region.
STMA operates in eastern (Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda), southern (Malawi, South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe) and West Africa (Benin, Ghana, Mali, Nigeria). These countries account for nearly 72 percent of all maize area in sub-Saharan Africa and include more than 176 million people who depend on maize-based agriculture for their food security and economic well-being. Climate change effects like drought, a lack of access to resources like fertilizer and other stresses increase the risk of crop failure that negatively affects income, food security and nutrition of millions of smallholder farmers and their families.
The project will develop 70 new stress-tolerant varieties using innovative modern breeding technologies, and promote improved stress-tolerant varieties expected to increase maize productivity up to 50 percent. The project aims to produce estimated 54,000 tons of certified seed to put into the hands of more than 5.4 million smallholder farmer households by the end of 2019.
Objectives
Use innovative breeding tools and techniques applied for increasing the rate of genetic gain in the maize breeding pipeline.
Increase commercialization of improved multiple-stress-tolerant maize varieties with gender-preferred traits by the sub-Saharan African seed sector.
Increase seed availability and farmer uptake of stress-tolerant maize varieties in target countries.
Optimize investment impact through effective project oversight, monitoring, evaluation and communication.
The Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa project aims to mitigate drought and other constraints to maize production in sub-Saharan Africa, increasing maize yields by at least one ton per hectare under moderate drought and with a 20 to 30 percent increase over farmers’ current yields, benefiting up to 40 million people in 13 African countries. The project brings together farmers, research institutions, extension specialists, seed producers, farmer community organizations and non-governmental organizations. It is jointly implemented by CIMMYT and the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture, in close collaboration with national agricultural research systems in participating nations. Millions of farmers in the region are already benefiting from the outputs of this partnership, which includes support and training for African seed producers and promoting vibrant, competitive seed markets.
Achievements:
Between 2007 and 12, participants marketed or otherwise made available 60 drought tolerant hybrids and 57 open-pollinated varieties to smallholder farmers
In addition to drought tolerance, the new varieties and hybrids also possess such desirable traits as resistance to major diseases
Engage government officials in policy dialogue to help fast-track varietal releases and fosters competitive seed markets and more
widespread access to quality seed at affordable prices
Help ensure farmers’ access to the best possible products and services, coordinate various capacity-building events and
activities for maize breeders, technicians, seed producers, extension workers, non-government organizations and farmer groups
Provide technical and advisory support to 50 African undergraduate and 28 African graduate students
Expand smallholder farmers’ use of drought and other stress tolerant maize seed to benefit 30 to 40 million people and provide added grain worth $160-200 million each year in drought-affected areas of sub-Saharan Africa
Tabitha Kamau checks the maize at her family’s farm in Machakos County, Kenya. (Photo: Joshua Masinde/CIMMYT)
How do young rural Africans engage in the rural economy? How important is farming relative to non-farm activities for the income of young rural Africans? What social, spatial and policy factors explain different patterns of engagement? These questions are at the heart of an interdisciplinary research project, funded by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), that seeks to provide stronger evidence for policy and for the growing number of programs in Africa that want to “invest in youth.”
One component of the Challenges and Opportunities for Rural Youth Employment in Sub-Saharan Africa project, led by the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), draws on data from the World Bank’s Living Standard Measurement Study – Integrated Surveys on Agriculture (LSMS-ISA) to develop a more detailed picture of young people’s economic activities. These surveys, covering eight countries in sub-Saharan Africa, were conducted at regular intervals and in most cases followed the same households and individuals through time. While the LSMS-ISA are not specialized youth surveys and therefore may not cover all facets of youth livelihoods and wellbeing in detail, they provide valuable knowledge about the evolving patterns of social and economic characteristics of rural African youth and their households.
“LSMS-ISA data are open access, aiming to help national governments and academics analyze the linkages between poverty and agricultural productivity in developing countries,” said Sydney Gourlay, Survey Specialist in the Development Data Group of the World Bank. She explained that LSMS-ISA datasets cover rural and urban livelihoods — including asset ownership, education, farm and non-farm incomes — and contain detailed information on farming practices and productivity. “LSMS-ISA data have untapped potential for valuable youth analyses that could lead to evidence-based youth policy reform,” Gourlay said.
To stimulate greater use of LSMS-ISA data for research on these issues, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), IDS, and the LSMS team of the World Bank organized a workshop for young African social scientists, hosted by CIMMYT in Nairobi from February 4 to February 8, 2019.
Early-career social scientists from Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Uganda, and Zimbabwe explored the potential of LSMS-ISA data, identified research issues, and developed strategies to create new analyses. The workshop was also a chance to uncover potential areas for increased data collection on youth, as part of the LSMS team’s IFAD-funded initiative “Improving Data on Women and Youth.”
What does that data point represent?
The workshop stressed the importance of getting to know the data before analyzing them. As explained by World Bank senior economist Talip Kilic in The Crowd and the Cloud, “Every data point has a human story.” It is important to decipher what the data points represent and the limits within which they can be interpreted. For instance, the definition of youth differs by country, so comparative studies across countries must harmonize data from different sources.
“Because LSMS-ISA survey locations are georeferenced, it is possible to integrate spatial information from multiple sources and gain new insights about patterns of interest, as well as the drivers associated with such patterns,” said Jordan Chamberlin, spatial economics expert at CIMMYT. “For example, in all countries we’ve examined, the degree of non-farm economic engagement is strongly associated with distance from urban centers.”
Chamberlin noted that georeferencing also has limitations. For instance, to ensure privacy, LSMS-ISA coordinates for households are randomly offset by as much as 5 km. Nonetheless, diverse geospatial data from the datasets — distance to the nearest tarmac road or population density, among other information — may be integrated via the location coordinates.
A young farmer holding a baby participates in a varietal assessment exercise on a maize trial plot in Machakos County, Kenya. (Photo: Joshua Masinde/CIMMYT)
One key variable to assess farm productivity is harvested area. The LSMS team’s research has revealed high, systematic discrepancies between farmers’ self-assessments of area, GPS measurements, and compass and rope, which is considered the most accurate method. Methodological validation data from Ethiopia, Nigeria, and Tanzania show that on average farmers overestimate the area of plots smaller than 200 m2 by more than 370 percent and underestimate the size of plots larger than 2 hectares by 13 percent, relative to compass and rope measurements. Such errors can skew yield analyses and the accuracy of assessments of national agricultural research programs’ impact.
Several workshop participants expressed interest in using the LSMS dataset for studies on migration, given that it contains information about this variable. In the case of internal migrants — that is, persons who have moved to another area in the same country — LSMS enumerators will find and interview them and these migrants will continue to be included in future rounds of the panel survey. In Malawi, for example, about 93 percent of individuals were tracked between the 2010/11 and the 2013 Integrated Household Surveys. Plot characteristics — such as type of soil, input use, and crop production — include information on the person who manages the plot, allowing for identification and analysis of male and female managed plots.
Following the training, the participants have better articulated their research ideas on youth. Prospective youth studies from the group include how land productivity affects youth opportunities and whether migration induces greater involvement of women in agriculture or raises the cost of rural labor. Better studies will generate more accurate knowledge to help design more effective youth policies.
Farmer Gudeye Leta harvests his local variety maize in Dalecho village, Gudeya Bila district, Ethiopia. (Photo: Peter Lowe/CIMMYT)
Ethiopia is Africa’s third largest producer of maize, after Nigeria and South Africa. Although the country produces around 6.5 million tons annually, the national average maize yield is relatively low at 3.5 tons compared to the attainable yield of 8.5 tons. This high yield gap — the difference between attainable and actual yields — can be attributed to a number of factors, including crop varieties used, farm management practices, and plant density.
The Taking Maize Agronomy to Scale (TAMASA) project aims to narrow maize yield gaps in Ethiopia, Nigeria and Tanzania through the development and scaling out of decision-support tools, which provide site-specific recommendations based on information held in crop and soil databases collected from each country. These help farmers to make decisions based on more accurate variety and fertilizer recommendations, and can contribute to improving maize production and productivity.
One such tool is Nutrient Expert, a free, interactive computer-based application. It can rapidly provide nutrient recommendations for individual farmers’ fields in the absence of soil-testing data. The tool was developed by the International Plant Nutrition Institute in collaboration with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), and research and extension service providers.
Nutrient Expert user interface.
In Ethiopia, regional fertilizer recommendations are widely used, but soil fertility management practices can vary greatly from village to village and even between individual farmers. This can make it difficult for farmers or extension agents to receive accurate information tailored specifically to their needs. Nutrient Expert fills this gap by incorporating information on available fertilizer blends and giving customized recommendations for individual fields or larger areas, using information on current farmer practices, field history and local conditions. It can also provide advice on improved crop management practices such as planting density and weeding, thereby helping farmers to maximize net returns on their investment in fertilizer.
Data calibration was based on the results of 700 multi-location nutrient omission trials conducted in major maize production areas in Ethiopia, Nigeria and Tanzania. These trials were designed as a diagnostic tool to establish which macro-nutrients are limiting maize growth and yield, and determine other possible constraints.
In Ethiopia, CIMMYT scientists working for the TAMASA project conducted nutrient omission trials on 88 farmer fields in Jimma, Bako and the Central Rift Valley in 2015 to produce a version of Nutrient Expert suitable for the country. Researchers trialed the app on six maize-belt districts in Oromia the following year, in which Nutrient Expert recommendations were compared with soil-test based and regional ones.
Researchers found that though the app recommended lower amounts of phosphorus and potassium fertilizer, overall maize yields were comparable to those in other test sites. In Ethiopia, this reduction in the use of NPK fertilizer resulted in an investment saving of roughly 80 dollars per hectare.
Results from Nutrient Expert trials in Ethiopia, Nigeria and Tanzania showed improved yields, fertilizer-use efficiency and increased profits, and the app has since been successfully adapted for use in developing fertilizer recommendations that address a wide variety of soil and climatic conditions in each of the target countries.
The World Bank’s 2016 Digital Dividends report states that we are currently “in the midst of the greatest information and communications revolution in human history.” This shifting digital landscape has significant implications for the ways in which stakeholders in the agricultural sector generate, access and use data. Amidst Africa’s burgeoning technology scene, CIMMYT’s TAMASA project demonstrates the transformative power of harnessing ICTs for agricultural development.
Learn more about different versions of Nutrient Expert and download the free software here.
TAMASA is a five-year project (2014-2019) funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, seeking to improve productivity and profitability for small-scale maize farmers in Ethiopia, Nigeria and Tanzania. Read more about the project here.
Big Data is transforming the way scientists conduct agricultural research and helping smallholder farmers receive useful information in real time. Experts and partners of the CGIAR Platform for Big Data in Agriculture are meeting on October 3-5, 2018, in Nairobi, Kenya, to share their views on how to harness this data revolution for greater food and nutrition security.
NAIROBI (Kenya) — Agronomic researchers face several challenges and limitations related to data. To provide accurate predictions and useful advice to smallholder farmers, scientists need to collect many types of on-farm data; for example, field size, area devoted to each crop, inputs used, agronomic practices followed, incidence of pests and diseases, and yield.
These pieces of data are expensive to obtain by traditional survey methods, such as sending out enumerators to ask farmers a long list of questions. Available data is often restricted to a particular geographical area and may not capture key factors of production variability, like local soil characteristics, fertilizer timing or crop rotations.
As a result, such datasets cannot deliver yield predictions at scale, one of the main expectations of Big Data. Digital advisory apps may be part of the solution, as they use crowdsourcing to routinize data collection on key agronomic variables.
The Taking Maize Agronomy to Scale in Africa (TAMASA) project has been researching the use of mobile apps to provide site-specific agronomic advice to farmers through agro-dealers, extension workers and other service providers.
At CIMMYT, one of the research questions we were interested in was “Why are plant population densities in farmers fields usually well below recommended rates?” From surveys and yield estimates based on crop-cut samples at harvest in Ethiopia, Nigeria and Tanzania, we observed that yields were correlated with plant density.
What was making some farmers not use enough seeds for their fields? One possible reason could be that farmers may not know the size of their maize field. In other cases, farmers and agro-dealers may not know how many seeds are in one packet, as companies rarely indicate it and the weight of each seed variety is different. Or perhaps farmers may not know what plant population density is best to use. Seed packets sometimes suggest a sowing rate but this advice is rather generic and assumes that farmers apply recommended fertilizer rates. However, farmers’ field conditions differ, as does their capacity to invest in expensive fertilizers.
To help farmers overcome these challenges, we developed a simple app, Maize-Seed-Area. It enables farmers, agro-dealers and extension workers to measure the size of a maize field and to identify its key characteristics. Then, using that data, the app can generate advice on plant spacing and density, calculate how much seed to buy, and provide information on seed varieties available at markets nearby.
View of the interface of the Maize-Seed-Area app on mobile phones and tablets. (Photo: CIMMYT)
Maize-Seed-Area is developed using the Open Data Kit (ODK) format, which allows to collect data offline and to submit it when internet connection becomes available. In this case, the app is also used to deliver information to the end users.
Advisory apps usually require some input data from farmers, so advice can be tailored to their particular circumstances. For example, they might need to provide data on the slope of their field, previous crops or fertilizer use. Some additional information may be collected through the app, such as previous seed variety use. All this data entered by the user, which should be kept to a minimum, is routinely captured by the app and retrieved later.
Hello, Big Data!
As the app user community grows, datasets on farmer practices and outcomes grow as well. In this case, we can observe trends in real time, for instance on the popularity of different maize varieties.
In a pilot in western Kenya, in collaboration with Precision Agriculture for Development (PAD), some 100 agro-dealers and extension workers used the app to give advice to about 2,900 farmers. Most of the advice was on the amount of seed to buy for a given area and on the characteristics of different varieties.
Data showed that the previous year farmers grew a wide range of varieties, but that three of them were dominant: DK8031, Duma43 and WH505.
Preferred variety of maize for sample farmers in western Kenya (Bungoma, Busia, Kakamega and Siaya counties), February-March 2018.
A phone survey among some 300 of the farmers who received advice found that most of them anticipated to do things differently in the future, ranging from asking for advice again (37 percent), growing a different maize variety (31 percent), buying a different quantity of seed (19 percent), using different plant spacing (18 percent) or using more fertilizer (16 percent).
Most of the agro-dealers and extension workers have kept the app for future use.
The dataset was collected in a short period of time, just two months, and was available as soon as app users got online.
The Maize-Seed-Area pilot shows that advisory apps, when used widely, are a major source of new Big Data on agronomic practices and farmer preferences. They also help to make data collection easier and cheaper.
TAMASA is supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and is implemented by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), the International Plant Nutrition Institute (IPNI) and Africa Soil Information Service (AfSIS).
Speakers on panel “How Can CRISPR-Cas Technology Assist Small Holder Farmers Around the World?” at 2017 Borlaug Dialogue in Des Moines Iowa. L-R: Kevin Pixley, leader of Seeds of Discovery and the Genetic Resources Program at CIMMYT; Feng Zhang, core member of Broad Institute; Neal Gutterson, member of CIMMYT’s board of trustees and vice president of research and development at DuPont Pioneer, in DowDuPont agriculture division; Nigel Taylor, interim director, Institute for International Crop Improvement, Donald Danforth Plant Science Center. Picture credit: World Food Prize
DES MOINES, Iowa (CIMMYT) – Gene editing technology could revolutionize the way scientists breed high-yielding drought, disease and pest resistant, quality plant seeds, greatly reducing the time it currently takes to develop new varieties, said a panel of expert scientists at the Borlaug Dialogue conference in Des Moines, Iowa.
Using CRISPR-Cas9 to select or suppress desired traits in a genome is almost as simple as editing a Microsoft Word document on a computer, said Feng Zhang, the originator of the technology who is a core member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard.
To edit genes, a protein called Cas9 is programmed to create an RNA search string, which can search and edit paired DNA to alter a genome to achieve desired effects in plants, Zheng said.
“There’s a lot of exciting opportunity to apply this technology in both human health and in agriculture,” he said.
Although the gene editing process itself is extremely fast, it will likely be several years before the benefits of the process for smallholder farmers begin to be realized, said Kevin Pixley, who leads the Seeds of Discovery project and the Genetic Resources Program at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).
CIMMYT scientists aim to use the breakthrough technology to help smallholder farmers in the developing world address food security, nutrition shortcomings and economic threats to their livelihoods caused by climate change, pests and disease. Additionally, they see the potential to reduce the use of pesticides, and to boost nutrition through bio-fortification of crops.
“We want sustainable agriculture that provides food and nutrition security for all, while enabling biodiversity conservation,” Pixley said. “CRISPR-Cas9 is an affordable technology that can help us close the technology gap between the resource rich and resource poor farmers of the world.”
CRISPR-Cas9 improved varieties could also reduce the risk of investing in fertilizers, grain storage or other technologies, thereby contributing to “double benefits” for smallholder farmers, Pixley said.
Poverty alleviation and improved livelihoods for farmers are part of the shared vision for CIMMYT and our research partners, and we see CRISPR-Cas9 as a technology that can make a significant contribution to achieving this aim, he added.
DELIVERING BENEFITS
“We think about this as being about bringing abundant potential to agriculture through this technology,” said Neal Gutterson, a member of CIMMYT’s board of trustees and vice president of research and development at DuPont Pioneer, part of the agriculture division at DowDuPont.
“For us, it’s part of the evolution of breeding systems, it’s targeted breeding that’s enabled by CRISPR-Cas9 technology,” he said, describing joint research projects with CIMMYT and the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center.
Currently, CIMMYT and DuPont Pioneer are researching the benefits of using CRISPR-Cas9 to combat maize lethal necrosis (MLN) disease in East Africa. MLN is caused by a combination of two viruses, which can only be treated by developing genetic resistance in the plant.
“We can ultimately accelerate the delivery of improved products that are really highly performing, high yielding, and also resistant to that viral disease,” Gutterson said, explaining how the technology would benefit smallholders. “Should the disease spread outside of Africa we’ll be poised to deliver solutions even faster.”
DuPont Pioneer and the Broad Institute have signed an agreement to allow universities and non-profit organizations to use the technology for agricultural research and product development.
The joint licensing relationship opens up democratic access to CRISPR-Cas9 for agriculture, Gutterson said, adding that research collaborations with CIMMYT and Donald Danforth Plant Science Center will facilitate access to the technology in the developing world, enriching the livelihoods of farmers.
The technology will also benefit non-commodity crops, known as “orphan crops,” said Nigel Taylor, interim director of the Institute for International Crop Improvement at Donald Danforth Plant Science Center.
“The exciting thing about them is that they have huge potential because they have not undergone the improvement maize or rice have gone through,” Taylor said.
Donald Danforth and DuPont Pioneer are conducting joint research using CRISPR Cas9 into cassava brown streak virus disease, which is projected to spread from East Africa to Nigeria, the largest producer of cassava in the world.
“We edited two of the genes, which means the virus cannot replicate properly in the plant,” Taylor said. “We’re seeing the viral load is completely reduced.”
Taylor also said he would like to develop improved varieties of teff, which is widely grown in Ethiopia and Eritrea, where the seeds are used to make the food staple “injera,” a sourdough flatbread.
REGULATORY FRAMEWORK
To ensure access to the technology, consumers, farmers and scientists in Africa must be involved, and questions about how new crops are regulated must be addressed, the scientists agreed.
“We must engage in regulatory work with stakeholders,” Taylor said. “African research centers and others around the world must be part of this conversation right now – communication and education about new technologies are essential.”
If scientists use CRISPR-Cas9 to rapidly convert popular varieties from, for example, MLN-susceptible to MLN-resistant, they will make a lasting contribution to farmer livelihoods in Africa, Pixley said.
“However, we can’t yet assume that the benefits of these technologies will reach smallholder farmers,” he said.
“Public opinion is largely unformed because few people know about CRISPR-Cas9, and since the regulatory framework is largely undefined, we have a great opportunity to help form it in a way to make the benefits of these technologies available to smallholder farmers.”
We need to begin by recognizing and respecting the sovereignty of every country to decide if, when and how they are going to use this technology, he added.
I think we have a great responsibility to provide accurate, complete and trustworthy information to the public as we bring this technology into the public domain and to the regulatory process, he said.
“We know that it’s not going to be a magic bullet because no technology is, but we also think that it’s unethical to dismiss any technology without responsibly considering its possible contributions,” Pixley said.
The Borlaug Dialogue conference is held each year in Des Moines to coincide with World Food Prize celebrations. This year delegates feted the 2017 laureate Akinwumi Adesina, president of the African Development Bank, thematically focused on “The Road out of Poverty.”
HARARE — Several African nation ambassadors to Zimbabwe pledged to step up support for improved agriculture technologies during a visit to The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center’s (CIMMYT) Southern Africa Regional Office (CIMMYT-SARO) in Harare, Zimbabwe, in April.
The special field day and meeting, held as part of CIMMYT 50 celebrations, gave ambassadors from 12 African countries (Algeria, Botswana, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Namibia, Nigeria, Sudan, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, South Africa and Zambia) the opportunity to learn about CIMMYT projects that are helping to strengthen food systems in sub-Saharan Africa and discuss future initiatives.
During the visit, the need to develop policies that promote smallholder farmers’ access to technologies that enable them to increase yields and improve crop resilience in the face of challenges such as droughts, as well as policies to address poverty, food security and economic growth surfaced as main priorities for the countries represented.
African ambassadors learned about CIMMYT-promoted agricultural technologies while visiting the CIMMYT-Southern Africa Regional Office (CIMMYT-SARO) in Harare, Zimbabwe. Photo: Johnson Siamachira/CIMMYT
In his welcome address, Mulugetta Mekuria, CIMMYT-SARO regional representative, pointed out, “Sub-Saharan Africa’s food security faces numerous challenges, but drought is the most devastating because our farmers rely on rainfed agriculture. As you will see, CIMMYT’s work has created high-level impacts. But a host of challenges still hamper socioeconomic growth, such as reduced funding of agricultural research.”
According to Mekuria, CIMMYT’s work in sub-Saharan Africa aims to ensure farmers can access improved maize seed with drought tolerance and other relevant traits that contribute to higher, more stable yields, as well as technologies such as optimal fertilizer application. He noted that farmers in sub-Saharan African countries lag behind other regions in fertilizer application, applying, on average, less than 10 kg per hectare, which is 10 percent of the world average.
Another issue brought up was the lack of funding of agricultural research for development by most bilateral agencies on which African governments depend. The diplomats pledged to advise their governments of the need to increase support for improved agricultural technologies. They agreed that funding agricultural research work in line with the 2006 Abuja Declaration to allocate at least 1 percent of the donor country’s gross domestic product to agricultural research is of the utmost importance. Enhancing access to markets, extension services and inputs and supporting women and youth in agriculture were also identified as fundamental policy issues that need to be urgently addressed. Strong partnerships and collaborative efforts between various African governments, CIMMYT and the private sector were also called for.
The ambassadors were briefed on CIMMYT’s achievements in the region, and how, in partnership with national agricultural research systems and private seed companies, they have released more than 200 drought-tolerant maize varieties that perform significantly better under moderate drought conditions than varieties already on the market, while yielding the same – or better – in a normal season. More than 6 million farmers in sub-Saharan Africa grow improved drought tolerant maize varieties developed by CIMMYT and partners.
A wide range of CIMMYT-SARO technologies were also showcased, including sustainable intensification strategies based on the principles of conservation agriculture. Compared to conventional cropping practices, conservation agriculture increases yields after two to five cropping seasons due to the combined benefits of minimum soil disturbance, crop residue retention and crop rotation. Conservation agriculture has been successfully promoted in Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia and Zimbabwe for the past 10 years. For example, yield increases of 20-60 percent were recorded in trials in farmers’ fields in Malawi, while in Zambia and Zimbabwe, yields increased by almost 60% using animal traction innovation agriculture technologies.
Other technologies demonstrated were pro-vitamin A maize and quality protein maize. The diplomats learned that CIMMYT had released eight pro-vitamin A hybrids with 28% more vitamin A content in Zambia (4), Malawi (3) and Zimbabwe (1). On improved varieties, CIMMYT sent 823 seed shipments (1.3 million envelopes) to 835 institutions worldwide over the last four years.
“The success of our projects goes beyond the breeding work. Through the value chain approach, our work now is to ensure that seed companies and, ultimately, maize farmers benefit from the seed that is developed with their needs in mind. Getting drought-tolerant maize and other improved seeds to the markets and farmers is a critical next step,” said James Gethi, CIMMYT seed systems specialist.
HARARE (CIMMYT) — As CIMMYT joins the world in celebrating the International Day for Biological Diversity on 22 May, it can take pride in the diverse maize varieties it develops which have improved the livelihoods and health of smallholder farmers globally.
These varieties have brought tremendous benefits to smallholders in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Over 90 percent of agricultural production in SSA is rainfed, which puts farmers at risk for drought and heat in addition to the poor soil fertility, pests and diseases they face. Drought alone damages about 40 percent of all maize crops in SSA, endangering the livelihoods and food security of millions of smallholder farmers.
Stress tolerant maize not only reduces risks for farmers in the face of unpredictable environmental and biological conditions, it also allows more stable crop production. The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) breeds high-yielding, locally-adapted maize varieties with farmer-preferred traits such as drought tolerance, nitrogen use efficiency, and disease and insect pest resistance. Many of these varieties also have increased nutritional traits such as high protein quality and increased provitamin A content, which help increase children’s weight and height growth rates and reduce childhood blindness.
“Since working with CIMMYT, we have unlocked our production potential,” says Sylvia Horemans, marketing director of Zambia-based Kamano Seeds. Since 2012 Kamano Seeds has benefitted from CIMMYT to strengthen its work in maize breeding, seed production and marketing. Photo: CIMMYT
“Increasing adoption of these stress tolerant maize varieties is helping African farmers cope with drought and climate change, improve yields at household level and thereby enhance the livelihoods and food security of tens of millions of farmers,” said Cosmos Magorokosho, CIMMYT-Southern Africa maize breeder.
These drought-tolerant varieties have proven resistant despite harsh conditions brought on in southern Africa by an intense El Niño, according to Magorokosho. “Significant impacts have been observed in plots of smallholder farmers who grow these varieties.”
In 2014, over 54,000 metric tons of certified seed of the stress tolerant maize varieties were produced and delivered by partner seed companies for planting by smallholders. By the end of that year, more than five million smallholders had planted the improved drought tolerant varieties on over two million hectares, benefiting more than 40 million people in 13 countries in SSA.
Today, there are more than 200 stress tolerant maize varieties that yield the same or more than commercial varieties under average rainfall, and more importantly, produce up to 30 percent more than commercial varieties under moderate drought conditions. Armed with these improved varieties, CIMMYT is assuming a greater role to ensure stress tolerant maize reaches nearly five and a half million smallholder households in SSA by the end of 2019.
“Even with a little rain, this seed does well,” says a smallholder farmer Philip Ngolania, in south-central Kenya, referring to a drought-tolerant maize variety he planted during the 2015 crop season. “Without this seed, I would have nothing. Nothing, like my neighbours who did not use the variety.” Photo: Johnson Siamachira/CIMMYT
“In close collaboration with our partners, we were able to create excitement about what can be achieved with drought tolerant maize in Africa,” said Tsedeke Abate, leader of CIMMYT’s Stress Tolerant Maize for Africa project. CIMMYT is working with national agricultural research systems, international research centers, and other development programs to disseminate improved maize seed to smallholder farmers in SSA through small-and medium-sized seed companies.
“The work we have undertaken on drought tolerant maize has created significant impacts. However, several challenges still remain,” cautioned B.M. Prasanna, Director of CIMMYT’s Global Maize Program and the CGIAR Research Program MAIZE. One of these challenges is maize lethal necrosis (MLN), which emerged in Kenya in 2011 and has since devastated maize crops across East Africa. CIMMYT is working to generate improved stress tolerant maize varieties with resistance to MLN and other major diseases.
Maize production in Africa is growing rapidly, making maize the most widely cultivated crop on the continent, and the staple food of more than 300 million people. Providing farmers with diverse, improved seed choices will thus strengthen food security, health and livelihoods in SSA.
Traditional maize storage in Tete province in Mozambique, April 27, 2015. CIMMYT/Tsedeke Abate
NAIROBI, Kenya (CIMMYT) – At least 40 million smallholder farmers throughout sub-Saharan Africa are profiting from more than 200 new drought-tolerant varieties of maize produced as part of the Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa (DTMA) Project, according to scientists at the Center for International Maize and Wheat Improvement (CIMMYT).
The project, underway between 2007 and 2015, led to the development of varieties with traits preferred by farmers that have successfully made smallholders in 13 countries more resilient to the erratic effects of climate change on growing conditions.
“Smallholder farmers in this region plant maize varieties that are obsolete and end up getting poor harvests, but that’s changing now thanks to the gallant efforts of the DTMA team that has released and commercialized a large number of modern varieties,” said Tsedeke Abate, the CIMMYT scientist who led the project. “Thanks to the new drought-tolerant varieties, many families have managed to overcome harsh growing conditions and boost yields substantially.”
“The adoption of the improved drought tolerant seed varied from one country to another and each county had unique challenges that made it difficult for some farmers to take up the new varieties. Some farmers were not aware of the availability of the seed in their markets, for some the seed was not available or the price was high,” Abate said. “We worked with national seed companies in these countries to increase production of certified seed so that many more farmers can buy the seed at an affordable price as well as demonstrating the benefits of the new varieties.”
Anthony Mwega, a farmer and leader in Olkalili village, in Hai district a semi-arid area in northern Tanzania about 600 kilometers (370 miles) from the capital Dar es Salaam, beat the price constraint by mobilizing 66 farmers from his village and neighboring villages Makiwaru and Ngaikati to pool resources and buy 5 metric tons of HB513 – a drought-tolerant and nitrogen-use efficient variety – at a very affordable price from Meru Agro Tours and Consultant Seed Company.
“The overall purchasing price we bought the seed for was about 50 percent less than the market price because we bought it in bulk,” said Mwega. “I saw how good the maize performed in demonstrations organized by Meru Agro during the 2014 planting season with extremely low rains, and knew this is a variety that my people would definitely benefit from.”
Scientists project that millions more farmers will gain access to and plant the new varieties due to collaborations with more than 100 national seed companies, which continue to make a significant contribution to the improvement of seed systems in Angola, Benin, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe.
“Collaboration with CIMMYT through the DTMA project has been extremely instrumental in facilitating me to release my own varieties,” said Zubeda Mduruma of Aminata Seed Company in Tanga, Tanzania who has collaborated with CIMMYT both in maize breeding and production work since 1976.
“I was able to get some of the best germplasm, evaluate them through on-farm and on-station trials, and successfully released three of the best drought tolerant varieties in the market, including one quality protein DT variety that is very popular among women because of its nutritional value. With the quality of maize we get from CIMMYT, it’s very possible to release new improved varieties every year with much better yield compared to popular commercial varieties in our shops.”
The story of this success is told through a series of pictures and profiles of DTMA target countries. Each country profile illustrates the context of national maize production and the changes underway thanks to released drought-tolerant varieties.
The DTMA project will continue, first as the Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa Seed Scaling (DTMASS) initiative. Under the project, which is funded by USAID, CIMMYT scientists aim to facilitate the production of close to 12,000 metric tons of certified seed for use by about 2.5 million people, in Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.
In partnership with the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture who partnered with CIMMYT in DTMA work, the new Stress Tolerant Maize for Africa project will also carry forward the success and invaluable lessons from DTMA and CIMMYT’s Improved Maize for Africa Soils project, to develop new stress tolerant varieties to help farmers mitigate multiple stresses that occur concurrently in farmers’ fields.
A member of CIMMYT’s Board of Trustees received the 2013 Yara Prize, an award that honors people who have significantly contributed to African agriculture. Dr. Lindiwe Majele Sibanda, CEO of the Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network (FANRPAN), was honored for her work with African farmers. The prize this year focused on agricultural innovators and entrepreneurs. Award winners are chosen by a committee considering their work improving sustainable agriculture and food security.
Nnaemeka Ikegwuonu, founder and CEO of the Smallholders Foundation in Nigeria, also received the Yara Prize. The two were honored this month at a ceremony in Oslo by Jørgen Ole Haslestad, President, CEO and Chairman of Yara and the Yara Prize Committee. Both Sibanda and Ikegwuonu are entrepreneurs, spread knowledge to smallholder farmers and youth and are “true examples of the can-do spirit and drive that plays a vital role in transforming agriculture in Africa,” according to a Yara Prize report on the award ceremony.
Sibanda, a trained animal scientist and practicing commercial beef farmer from Zimbabwe, became CEO of FANRPAN in 2004 and has been a researcher and advocate in southern Africa for years. FANRPAN focuses on food and agricultural policies to reduce poverty, improve food security and foster sustainable development in Africa. Sibanda developed the organization’s current strategy and has helped FANRPAN grow as a policy research and advocacy organization with a global voice, focusing especially on female farmers and youth.
In addition to being a member of CIMMYT’s Board of Trustees, she chairs the International Livestock Research Institute Board of Trustees. “Advocacy is something that is close to my heart and I’m passionate about it,” Sibanda told the publication Africa Green Media after winning the award. “I am an animal scientist by training, but this passion for policy advocacy developed when I realized that we were failing to put research into use.”
“All the maize for my home consumption comes from my aflasafe™-treated field,” says farmer Alhaji Al-Hassan from Nigeria’s Kaduna State. “When I take my maize to the market, buyers rush for it because the quality looks better. The grains look clean.”
First developed by the USDA and adapted for use in Nigeria by the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA) and the African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF), aflasafe™ is fast gaining ground across Africa as a non-toxic and affordable solution to one of the continent’s most serious food safety issues.
Aflatoxins are invisible, tasteless poisons produced by Aspergillus flavus, a mould commonly found infecting crops such as maize and groundnut, both in the field and in storage. While acute exposure to aflatoxins can kill, prolonged exposure leads to impeded growth, liver disease, immune suppression and cancer with women, children and the poor and most vulnerable. Aflatoxins also impact international trade, with African economies losing US$450 million every year from barred exports.
Competitive exclusion
Aflasafe™ works by ‘pushing out’ harmful, toxin-producing strains of A. flavus from the field through the deliberate introduction of indigenous but non-toxic, harmless strains – a process known as ‘competitive exclusion’. Heat-killed sorghum grains are coated with the non-toxic fungal strains and scattered by hand in the field prior to crop flowering. Field tests in Nigeria between 2009 and 2012 showed that use of aflasafe™ consistently reduced aflatoxin contamination in maize and groundnut crops by 80-90%.
In 2012, these findings led to the adoption of the biocontrol product by several extension agencies in Nigeria. IITA is currently constructing a low-cost manufacturing facility at its Ibadan campus in order to optimize the production process for aflasafe™ so that it can be taken up by other developing countries. The facility, which will be able to produce up to five tons of aflasafe™ per hour will also test commercialization models. Market linkages between aflasafe™ users and quality conscious food processors are also being developed, in collaboration with the private sector. With aflatoxin-contaminated maize in poultry feed being a major risk to animal health, links are also being developed with poultry producers.
Spreading the science
The success of aflasafe™ has led to an expansion in biocontrol research in Burkina Faso, Ghana, Kenya, Mali, Senegal, Tanzania, and Zambia. In Kenya, IITA has identified four non-toxic strains of A. flavus in locally grown maize, which are now being used to make a Kenya-specific product called aflasafe™-KE01. Researchers from the Institute are currently gathering efficacy data to determine where the product will be deployed. “We are happy with the innovative scientific solution which has done well in Nigeria,” says Wilson Songa, Kenya’s agriculture secretary. “The ball is now in our court, and we shall move fast… We needed the technology yesterday!”
Senegal is also developing its own version – aflasafe™-SE01, and IITA is optimistic that both Kenya and Senegal will have their own fully registered versions of aflasafe™ in two years, with Burkina Faso reaching the same point in three years and Zambia in four. Meanwhile, at the 2012 G20 meeting in Mexico, G20 leaders announced that aflasafe™ will be one of three initial pilot projects to be supported under the ‘AgResults’ initiative which aims to incentivize the adoption of agricultural technologies by the poor.
Affordable technology
IITA’s experience in Nigeria suggests that the cost of aflasafe™ – at US$1.5 per kg, with a recommended usage of 10 kg per hectare – is affordable for most farmers in the country. The Institute calculates that adoption of biocontrol with other management practices will reduce aflatoxin contamination by more than 70% in maize and groundnut and increase crop value by at least 25%, as well as improving the health of women and children.
With mass production and commercialization of the technology now imminent in Nigeria, the country’s Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Hon. Akinwumi Adesina, has been enthusiastic in his support. “For too many years we have neglected to regulate aflatoxin in the production of food,” Adesina says. “IITA has worked tirelessly to control aflatoxin and educate farmers on the harmful effects of this toxin. When we consider the potential benefits of aflasafe™, it is ultimately smallholders who stand to gain the most,” he concludes.
The CRP MAIZE will be discussing the role of maize in Africa at the Africa Agriculture Science Week (15-20 July) on 16 July in Accra, Ghana. Join us if you can and follow the AASW Blog and #AASW6 on Twitter.
Thirty-six senior maize breeders from fifteen African countries participated in a course in Nairobi, Kenya, from 1 to 4 October 2012. The course attracted participants from national agricultural research systems, private seed companies, and universities collaborating within the Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa (DTMA) Initiative, Improved Maize for African Soils (IMAS) Project, Sustainable Intensification of Maize- Legume Systems for Food Security in Eastern and Southern Africa (SIMLESA) initiative, Sustainable Intensification of Maize-Legume Systems for the Eastern Province of Zambia (SIMLEZA), Water Efficient Maize for Africa (WEMA), and a USAID-funded project on heat stress in maize.
Throughout the course, breeders were introduced to new germplasm, recent advances in maize breeding for biotic and abiotic stresses, breeding informatics tools (e.g. IMIS-Fieldbook and IB-Fieldbook developed by the Generation Challenge Program), approaches to improving quality of phenotyping, molecular breeding tools, and the use of doubled haploid technologies in maize breeding. They also visited fields in Kiboko to assess breeding nurseries and yield trials and to interact with CIMMYT breeders.
The course participants had the opportunity to attend presentations by a private-sector representative. Walter Trevisan from WEMA/ Monsanto covered the origin of maize and importance of the heterotic pools in maize breeding around the world. “We learn from the partnership that we can work as a team and, most of the time, reach goals ahead of time,” said Trevisan, stating that he is looking forward to the future projects such as WEMA II. “We really enjoy working with CIMMYT and the national agricultural research systems,” he added.
According to Ntji Coulibaly from Mali, training for breeders helps to build capacity within African countries. “Mali has only five seed companies serving the country, thus it is imperative to build the skill base in breeding,” he explained. Coulibaly then praised CIMMYT for its leadership role in breeding in Africa: “It has raised the bar for private institutions to improve and develop better products in the region.” Bhola Verma from ZAMSEED, a private seed company operating in Zambia, also appreciated the training initiative. “We need to train more people,” he said, reiterating the importance of training the next generation of breeders to ensure the continent does not lag behind. Zubeda Mduruma, Tanzanian maize breeder from Aminata Quality Seed, was excited about -her newly gained knowledge on doubled haploid breeding technology. “It is very handy and will shorten our time for breeding,” said Mduruma. Doubled haploid technology enables breeders to save time and labor costs associated with conventional breeding, while allowing them to get varieties benefiting farmers within a shorter period of time.
Simon Gichuki, Kenya Agriculture Research Institute (KARI) Biotechnology Program coordinator, urged participants to explore and use the technological tools, and to train breeders working with them. Gichuki said that the key challenges facing African agriculture include diseases, pests, and climate change. “We feel that we can contribute to mitigating these [challenges] by engaging in science,” said Gichuki, adding that this could be achieved by ensuring that breeders regularly update their knowledge. “In crop science things move very fast,” he explained. Sylvester Oikeh, WEMA project manager at the African Agricultural Technology Foundation, urged participants to embrace mentorship and share their knowledge and skills with young breeders. Oikeh also appreciated the opportunity to see what DTMA is doing in relation to WEMA’s breeding work.
Shehu Ado from the Institute for Agricultural Research, Samaru, Nigeria, said the training would benefit his students. “I will encourage my students to apply it in their own work,” said Ado about Fieldbook, “my students are going to gain a lot as analysis will be simplified.” Thokozile Ndlela, Zimbabwean Ministry of Agriculture, expressed her excitement about the developments made in Fieldbook, as well as the new advancements in maize breeding.
The course facilitators were drawn from CIMMYT, Generation Challenge Program, and Monsanto. The course was coordinated by Cosmos Magorokosho and Stephen Mugo, CIMMYT maize breeders from Zimbabwe and Kenya, respectively.
The Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa (DTMA) Initiative held its first annual meeting of phase 3 during 24- 28 September 2012 at the Nairobi Safari Club Hotel in Kenya. The meeting was attended by 83 participants representing national programs, training institutions from DTMA partner countries (Angola, Benin, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe), project’s advisory board members, and seed companies. The participants reviewed and discussed the progress made during the first year of the project, and visited the Western Seed company production fields in Rongai, Nakuru County.
DTMA has produced 105 maize varieties, 48 hybrids, and 57 open-pollinated varieties between 2007 and 2012. In addition, the project has trained technicians, breeders, and seed companies in seed business management in Eastern, Western, and Southern Africa. The meeting highlighted the varieties developed by DTMA for drought-prone areas, whose performance also matches or exceeds that of commercial varieties under optimum conditions. In Southern Africa, on-farm trials of drought-tolerant (DT) hybrids produced 20-30 % more yield than the common check variety. In Western Africa, DT open-pollinated varieties produced up to 40 % more yield than farmer varieties during on-farm trials.
There is a surge in new DT varieties, particularly hybrids, being registered and coming into production in all DTMA countries. In addition, uptake of DT lines by companies holding important market shares (e.g. Seed Co and Kenya Seed Company) is increasing. The total production of DT varieties in the 13 DTMA countries reached more than 25,000 MT in 2012, with the largest amount being produced in Kenya, Zimbabwe, Zambia, and Malawi. Seed policy workshops have created conditions for national governments to address maize seed sector development.
During 27 August – 1 September 2012, the Drought Tolerant Maize in Africa (DTMA) project held a training course on management of field trials and nurseries and seed production of open pollinated and hybrid maize varieties. The course took place at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) in Ibadan, Nigeria, and was attended by 30 participants from Ghana and Nigeria, including CIMMYT scientists Peter Setimela and John MacRobert. The resource persons were drawn from Nigerian universities, the National Agriculture Research System, IITA, and CIMMYT.
The training session was opened by Nteranya Sanginga, IITA director general, who commended the collaboration between IITA and CIMMYT in implementing DTMA and working towards its vision of producing more than 70,000 tons of drought tolerant maize seed. Sanginga also spoke of the importance of training to empower maize technicians from the national maize programs and seed companies to manage field trials and produce quality seed needed by smallholder farmers in Ghana and Nigeria.
The training course emphasized the importance of good trial management, advanced experimental designs, management of maize nurseries and variety trials, and key aspects of seed production. Training included practical field sessions during which participants applied appropriate experimental designs for various fields and learnt how to lay out a field trial. They also tried various pollinating techniques used in maize breeding and variety maintenance.
“All the maize for my home consumption comes from my aflasafe™-treated field,” says farmer Alhaji Al-Hassan from Nigeria’s Kaduna State. “When I take my maize to the market, buyers rush for it because the quality looks better. The grains look clean.”
Thirty-six senior maize breeders from fifteen African countries participated in a course in Nairobi, Kenya, from 1 to 4 October 2012. The course attracted participants from national agricultural research systems, private seed companies, and universities collaborating within the Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa (
During 27 August – 1 September 2012, the 