Location: Africa

CIMMYT’s work in Africa helps farmers access new maize and wheat systems-based technologies, information and markets, raising incomes and enhancing crop resilience to drought and climate change. CIMMYT sets priorities in consultation with ministries of agriculture, seed companies, farming communities and other stakeholders in the maize and wheat value chains. Our activities in Africa are wide ranging and include: breeding maize for drought tolerance and low-fertility soils, and for resistance to insect pests, foliar diseases and parasitic weeds; sustainably intensifying production in maize- and wheat-based systems; and investigating opportunities to reduce micronutrient and protein malnutrition among women and young children.

Can digital agricultural services boost Ethiopia’s durum wheat production?

Written by Sarah McLaughlin on August 9, 2022. Posted in News.

Participants gather to discuss solutions to low levels of durum wheat cultivation in Ethiopia. (Credit: Enawgaw Shibeshi/CIMMYT)

Despite an increase in the total area used for growing wheat in Ethiopia, the share of durum wheat, the wheat used for pasta, has decreased substantially across the country. Smallholder farmers grow durum wheat on marginal lands for their own use but are not benefitting financially from cultivating the crop.

To understand factors contributing to low area coverage of durum wheat and identify opportunities for reinvigoration and improved marketing, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) hosted a workshop for stakeholders from the entire durum wheat value chain.

“New breeding technologies have great promise for expanding the area of durum wheat production,” said Moti Jaleta, agricultural economist at CIMMYT, “but this achievement remains primarily dependent on the market’s ability to purchase grains at a higher price to stimulate farmer adoption. The market in Ethiopia is not favoring durum wheat, so suppliers and extension workers must promote it very well.”

Rising consumption of durum wheat products such as pasta and macaroni is causing higher dependency on wheat imports. Reducing this reliance requires addressing the challenges facing Ethiopia’s durum wheat farmers in variety development and release, seed supply, crop management, level of productivity, market opportunities, and extension systems.

Kindie Tesfaye, scientist and crop modeler at CIMMYT, explained, “There is a need to improve the durum wheat seed system and extension service, enhance the development of new varieties with desired grain quality and create market linkages to meet the increasing durum wheat demand from the rapidly growing urban population and expanding agro-industrial parks.”

The potential of digital

As Ethiopia’s agricultural systems are highly dependent on rainfall, digital interventions can serve as key decision support tools to manage climate risk and bolster the adaptive capacity and productivity of smallholder farmers. CIMMYT collaborates with value chain-based digital agro-advisory services through the Digital Agricultural Advisory Services (DAAS) project, which runs multiple projects in Ethiopia to advance the use of digital tools in farming.

Taye Tadesse, director of crop research at the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research, emphasized that the introduction of production technology should be participatory and customer-oriented to achieve the intended outcomes. Ensuring that technology is accessible is vital for strengthening the value chain system, he said.

Agreed actions from the workshop included focusing attention on the bodies responsible for the expansion of infrastructure and raising wheat farmers’ awareness of the value-adding tools available to them through training.

“We must ensure that farmers are the biggest decision-makers,” Tasfaye said.

Novel technology to reduce the complexity of maize seed production and increase maize hybrid yields in farmer’s fields

Written by Sarah Fernandes on July 27, 2022. Posted in Publications.

A recently published study in Nature Communications Biology journal demonstrates the potential of a novel seed production technology to transform Africa’s seed production system, conferring important benefits to smallholder maize farmers and seed companies in sub-Saharan Africa.

The Seed Production Technology for Africa (SPTA) process enables production of non-pollen-producing inbred seed that can be used in a two-step multiplication process to produce commercial seed of hybrid varieties containing equal parts pollen producing and non-pollen producing plants. The pollen producing plants provide pollen for the entire field, while the non-pollen producing plants deliver additional grain since they save energy by not producing pollen. Hybrids in which fifty percent of the plants are non-pollen producing have a significant grain yield advantage compared with hybrids in which all plants produce pollen.

Farmers and researchers evaluated the performance of fifty percent non-pollen producing (FNP) hybrids in side-by-side comparisons across diverse farm sites in Kenya, South Africa, and Zimbabwe between 2016 and 2019. The results demonstrate that FNP hybrids deliver an average yield increase of 200 kg per hectare, representing a 10-20% increase at current sub-Saharan Africa yield levels where farmers face frequent drought and sub-optimal soil fertility. The FNP yield advantage was consistent in both low yielding and higher yielding conditions. Additionally, in extensive farmer surveys, farmers rated the FNP hybrids higher than the pollen producing counterparts, recognizing the grain yield advantage. Favorable rating of FNP hybrids suggests that farmers are likely to adopt them once available.

Although consistent and steady improvement is being made for grain yield potential through plant breeding, the yield benefit of FNP hybrids is the equivalent of approximately six years of breeding progress under stressful conditions. The FNP trait provided a consistent yield advantage in several genetically unique hybrids evaluated, indicating that the yield advantage from FNP will be complementary to and additive with progress from maize breeding efforts.

In sub-Saharan Africa, the challenge of delivering genetically pure, high-quality seed is substantial. Seed companies in the region contend with a complex and costly system to produce commercial seed. In addition to delivering higher grain yield to farmers through the FNP trait, the SPTA process will reduce the complexity of seed production, enabling seed producers to deliver higher purity improved hybrid seeds in sufficient quantities for smallholder farmers.

Hybrid seed production requires that one of the parents of the hybrid is prevented from producing pollen, ensuring that the seed harvested has been cross-fertilized by the pollen parent. Most hybrid seed production in sub-Saharan Africa involves physical removal of the tassels of the seed parent prior to the release of pollen, a process known as detasseling. Detasseling is important in commercial seed production to prevent self-fertilization of the seed parent plants. Nearly all detasseling in sub-Saharan Africa is done by hand, which is a labor-intensive and time-sensitive process. Poorly executed or ill-timed detasseling results in unwanted self-fertilization of the seed parent, leading to rejection of seed and incurring losses to the seed producer. Furthermore, timely detasseling typically involves removal of one or more leaves together with the tassel, reducing the photosynthetic capacity of the plant, and lowering the seed yield.

Use of the SPTA process ensures that the seed parent of the hybrid will not produce pollen, thereby eliminating the need for detasseling. This means seed producers can ensure higher integrity of hybrid seed while reducing costs and increasing seed yield. The technology is well suited for the three-way hybrid production commonly used in sub-Saharan Africa. Economic advantages to seed companies of using seed from the SPTA process is also expected to provide incentive to replace older, lower yielding varieties with more recently developed hybrids. Providing improved quality seed of better hybrids while delivering the yield advantage of the FNP trait can benefit smallholder maize farmers throughout the region. Saving costs can help the seed sector remain strong and competitive, which leads to increasingly better options for farmers in the future.

Read the full study: Incorporating male sterility increases hybrid maize yield in low input African farming systems

The research was conducted by scientists from the Seed Production Technology for Africa project, a collaborative initiative of the Agricultural Research Council of South Africa (ARC), International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), CortevaTM Agriscience, Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization (KALRO), and QualiBasic Seed Company (QBS).

Cover photo: A woman with a baby on her back evaluating maize plants farmer’s plots hosting FNP trials in Embu, Kenya. Photo: Hugo DeGroote/CIMMYT

Institutionalizing Monitoring of Crop Variety Adoption using Genotyping (IMAGE)

Written by Rodrigo Ordóñez on July 26, 2022. Posted in Uncategorized.

Institutionalizing Monitoring of Crop Variety Adoption using Genotyping (IMAGE) is a five-year program with the aim of establishing, institutionalizing, and scaling routine monitoring of improved variety adoption and turnover using genotyping.

It is led by country teams in Ethiopia, Nigeria and Tanzania, supported by Context Global Development and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Reliable monitoring: IMAGE will assess the varieties that farmers are growing of four staple crops within the three target countries and marking the rate of improved variety adoption through recurring surveys and comparative analysis.

Vision for change: IMAGE supports inclusive agricultural transformation by providing insights and evidence for seed sector actors to enhance government agency capacity, improve stakeholder coordination, and lead to better resource allocation for varietal development and commercialization.

IMAGE provides the opportunity to leverage past monitoring pilots and for cross-country learnings while advancing genetic reference libraries, establishing protocol adoption, and building towards institutionalization over five years. This is done through six objectives:

Comparable estimates of varietal adoption and turnover will be generated and made available to stakeholders
Standardization of best-practices and supporting technologies
Establishment of sustainable business cases
Pilot study results on varietal identity preservation in seed value chains for each country-crop combination
Institutionalized system of varietal monitoring for long-term, sustainable national partner implementation
Generated data used by seed sector stakeholders to make key decisions

CIMMYT researchers and staff from the East Africa Grain Council hold loaves of bread at a bakery on the outskirts of Nairobi, Kenya. (Photo: Susan Otieno/CIMMYT)

Exploring the potential for blended wheat flours in Kenya

Written by Susan Otieno on July 26, 2022. Posted in Features.

Over the years, wheat-based foods have increasingly been incorporated as part of Kenyan meals. One example is packaged bread, which has become a common feature on Kenyan breakfast tables with millions of loaves from industrial bakeries delivered to retail shops daily, countrywide. Another example is chapati — a round unleavened flat bread. Once reserved for special occasions, chapati can now be purchased from roadside venders throughout the capital Nairobi.

Millers and processors in Kenya are highly dependent on imported wheat to meet the strong demand for wheat-based food products. The conflict between Russia and Ukraine, two of the most important sources of imported wheat for Kenya, presents a major threat to millers and industrial bakeries. Prices for bread and chapati are increasing and may continue to increase. Governments and wheat-related industries are looking at short- and long-term options to reduce utilization of imported wheat. One short-term option is the blending of wheat flour with flour derived from locally available crops, such as cassava, millet or sorghum.

Record-high price of wheat

A sign at a flour mill in East Africa shows proportions of wheat from different origins (Argentina, Russia, Ukraine and local) used in that particular day’s production. (Photo: Alison Bentley/CIMMYT)

A visit to local industrial bakeries and wheat flour millers on the outskirts of Nairobi by International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) researchers confirmed the effects of record-high global prices of wheat. Global Wheat Program director Alison Bentley and senior economist Jason Donovan had conversations with leaders of industrial bakeries and millers, who gave insights into their grain demands, production processes and sales volumes.

One of the leaders of an established industrial bakery divulged that they use approximately 15,000 tons of wheat flour monthly to make baked products, with only 10% of the wheat obtained locally.

“In the last ten years, local wheat production has comprised about ten to fifteen percent of our cereal mixture for bread, and we were already paying higher prices to farmers compared to import prices. The farmers were already being paid about 30 to 40 dollars more per ton,” a manager of a large baking industry in Kenya explained to the CIMMYT team.

According to government regulations, millers and bakeries must purchase locally produced wheat at agreed prices before they can buy imported wheat. He agreed that though the quality of local wheat is good, the local production cannot compete with the higher volume of imported wheat or its lower price.

Growing wheat in East Africa

It has been more than four months since the Russia-Ukraine conflict unfolded, and since then prices of wheat-based products have been increasing significantly. The current crisis has sparked the debate on low levels of self-sufficiency in food production for many countries. And this is especially the case for wheat in Kenya, and more widely in Africa.

Bentley points out that the biophysical conditions to produce wheat in East Africa are present and favorable. However, more work is needed to strengthen local wheat production, starting with efficient seed systems. Farmers who are interested in growing wheat need access to high performing and stress-tolerant wheat varieties.

CIMMYT Global Wheat Program director, Alison Bentley, observes the bread making process at an industrial bakery on the outskirts of Nairobi, Kenya. (Photo: Susan Otieno/CIMMYT)

Practical response to the crisis

With no certainty as to how long the conflict will continue and climate change resulting in significant crop loss in key production zones, wheat shortages on international markets could become a reality. Blending of wheat flour with locally available crops could be an option as an immediate response to the current scarcity of wheat in East Africa. “Blending [flour] is when for instance five percent of wheat flour is replaced with flour from a different crop such as sorghum or cassava,” Bentley explained.

Donovan added that, though it might seem like a small number, it becomes significant in consideration to the volume of wheat that industries use to make different products, translating into thousands of metric tons. He noted that blending flour therefore has the potential to create a win-win situtation, because it can boost the demand for local crops and address uncertainty and price volatility on international wheat markets.

Consumer acceptance of new products

Different types of flour on supermarket shelves in Kenya. (Photo: Pieter Rutsaert/CIMMYT)

During a full week of engagements with universities, partners, and industry experts in Kenya, the CIMMYT team explored the current interest of the sector in blending wheat flour. Several partners agreed that this could be a potential way forward for the grain industry but all highlighted one key element: the importance of consumer acceptance. If the functionality of the flour or taste would be negatively influenced by blending wheat flour, it would represent a no-go from the industry, even if blends would have higher nutritional benefits or lower prices. “This reinforces the need to understand consumer preferences and evaluate both the functionality of the flour to produce essential food products such as chapati or bread as well as the taste of those products,” Pieter Rutsaert explained.

CIMMYT researchers Sarah Kariuki and Pieter Rutsaert, both Markets and Value Chain Specialists, and Maria Itria Ibba, Head of the Wheat Quality Lab, are therefore engaging with local millers and universities in Kenya to design bread and chapati products derived from different wheat blends, to include blends comprised of 5%, 15% and 20% of cassava or sorghum. Lab testing and preliminary consumer testing will be used to identify the most promising products. These products will be taken to the streets in urban and peri-urban Nairobi to assess consumer tastes and preferences, through sensory analysis and at-home testing.

The market intelligence gained will offer foundational support for CGIAR’s Seed Equal Initiative to accelerate the growth of a demand-driven seed system. By gathering and analyzing consumer preferences on selected crops for blending, such as from farmers and milling industries, Donovan pointed out that CGIAR breeding will continue to make informed choices and prioritize breeding for specific crops, that seek to address specific challenges, therefore having greater impact.

Donovan noted that data and information from the studies will provide much needed evidence and fill information gaps that will support governments, millers, processors and farmers to make decisions in response to the evolving wheat crisis.

Ecological farming a boon for staple crop farmers in Africa, new study finds

Written by Mike Listman on July 20, 2022. Posted in Press releases.

Elufe Chipande (left), a farmer at Songani in Zomba District, Malawi, is rotating maize (background) and pigeonpea (foreground) under conservation agriculture practices to improve soil fertility and capture and retain more water. Christian Thierfelder (center), a cropping systems agronomist working out of the Zimbabwe office of CIMMYT, advises and supports southern African farmers and researchers to refine and spread diverse yield-enhancing, resource-conserving crop management practices. Photo: Mphatso Gama/CIMMYTSRUC

An international team of scientists has found that eco-friendly practices such as growing a range of crops, including legumes such as beans or pigeonpea, and adding plant residues or manure to soils can raise food crop yields in places such as rural Africa, where small-scale farmers cannot apply much nitrogen fertilizer.

Published in the science journal Nature Sustainability and examining data from 30 long-running field experiments involving staple crops (wheat, maize, oats, barley, sugar beet, or potato) in Europe and Africa, this major study is the first to compare farm practices that work with nature to increase yields and explore how they interact with fertilizer use and tillage.

“Agriculture is a leading cause of global environmental change but is also very vulnerable to that change,” said Chloe MacLaren, a plant ecologist at Rothamsted Research, UK, and lead author of the paper. “Using cutting-edge statistical methods to distill robust conclusions from divergent field experiment data, we found combinations of farming methods that boost harvests while reducing synthetic fertilizer overuse and other environmentally damaging practices.”

Recognizing that humanity must intensify production on current arable land to feed its rising numbers, the paper advances the concept of “ecological intensification,” meaning farming methods that enhance ecosystem services and complement or substitute for human-made inputs, like chemical fertilizer, to maintain or increase yields.

Boosting crop yields and food security for far-flung smallholders

The dataset included results from six long-term field experiments in southern Africa led by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT). Africa’s farming systems receive on average only 17 kilograms of fertilizer per hectare, compared to more than 180 kilograms per hectare in Europe or close to 600 in China, according to Christian Thierfelder, a CIMMYT cropping systems agronomist and study co-author.

“In places where farmers’ access to fertilizer is limited, such as sub-Saharan Africa or the Central American Highlands, ecological intensification can complement scarce fertilizer resources to increase crop yields, boosting households’ incomes and food security,” Thierfelder explained. “We believe these practices act to increase the supply of nitrogen to crops, which explains their value in low-input agriculture.”

The CIMMYT long-term experiments were carried out under “climate-smart” conservation agriculture practices, which include reduced or no tillage, keeping some crop residues on the soil, and (again) growing a range of crops.

“These maize-based cropping systems showed considerable resilience against climate effects that increasingly threaten smallholders in the Global South,” Thierfelder added.

Benefits beyond yield

Besides boosting crop yields, ecological intensification can cut the environmental and economic costs of productive farming, according to MacLaren.

“Diversifying cropping with legumes can increase profits and decrease nitrogen pollution by reducing the fertilizer requirements of an entire crop rotation, while providing additional high-value food, such as beans,” MacLaren explained. “Crop diversity can also confer resilience to weather variability, increase biodiversity, and suppress weeds, crop pests and pathogens; it’s essential, if farmers are to improve maize production in places like Africa.”

Thierfelder cautioned that widespread adoption of ecological intensification will require strong support from policymakers and society, including establishing functional markets for legume seed and for marketing farmers’ produce, among other policy improvements.

“Dire and worsening global challenges — climate change, soil degradation and fertility declines, and scarcening fresh water — threaten the very survival of humanity,” said Thierfelder. “It is of utmost importance to renovate farming systems and bring us back into a safe operating space.”

Click here to read the paper, Long-term evidence for ecological intensification as a pathway to sustainable agriculture.

For more information or interviews:

Rodrigo Ordoñez, Communications Manager

Email: r.ordonez@cgiar.org

Tel: +52 55 5804 2004, ext. 1167

Wheat at a CIMMYT field trial. (Photo: H. Hernandez Lira/CIMMYT)

Essential actions to mitigate the food crisis, stabilize supply and transition to greater agrifood system resilience

Written by Rodrigo Ordóñez on July 19, 2022. Posted in Press releases.

As the Russia-Ukraine war continues to degrade global food security, a new analysis lays out concrete actions that governments and investors must do now to mitigate near-term food security risks and stabilize wheat supplies, while transitioning toward long-term resilience.

The guidance, published in Nature Food by scientists from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and partners, lays out short-, medium- and long-term steps to respond to the global food crisis and ultimately lead to a more resilient global agrifood system.

“The Russia-Ukraine war will impact global food security over months — if not years,” said CIMMYT Global Wheat Program Director and lead author Alison Bentley. “We now need to move beyond defining the problem to implementing practical actions to ensure stable supply, safeguard the livelihoods of millions of vulnerable people and bring resilience to our global agrifood system.”

The war in Ukraine and trade sanctions against Russia are triggering a level of volatility that could easily overwhelm existing mitigation mechanisms. More than 2.5 billion people worldwide consume wheat-based foods; those in lower- to middle-income countries dependent on imports from Russia and Ukraine are particularly affected. Some of the world’s poorest countries, such as Bangladesh, Sudan and Yemen, rely heavily on Russian and Ukrainian wheat. Given the highly interconnected nature of contemporary agrifood systems, few will remain unaffected by this new global food shock.

Mitigate the immediate crisis

The first priority, according to the authors, is to mitigate the immediate crisis by boosting wheat production in existing high- and low-productivity areas, ensuring grain access and blending wheat flour with other low-cost cereals. Bundled agronomic and breeding improvements and sustainable farming practices can reduce dependence on imported grain and fertilizer, while coordinated, multilateral policies can help conserve grain stocks for human consumption and avert trade restrictions.

Increase the resilience of wheat supply

In the medium term, the authors emphasized the need to increase the local, regional, and global resilience of the wheat supply. This can be done by expanding production within agro-ecological boundaries, supporting national wheat self-sufficiency and providing technical assistance, to increase the production of high-yielding disease-resistant wheat and to mainstream capacity for pest and disease monitoring.

Transition to system-level resilience

Finally, to reach crucially needed resilience in the world’s agrifood system, long-term measures must be taken that encompass agroecosystem diversity, address gender disparities in agriculture and rural communities and sustain increased investment in a holistic, agrifood transition.

“The current global food crisis underscores and compounds existing inequalities in our global food system,” Bentley said. “A transition to agrifood system resilience requires us to urgently balance global food supply needs with the multi-layered challenges of climate change, achieving gender equity, nutritional sufficiency and livelihood security.”

RELATED RESEARCH PUBLICATIONS:

Near- to long-term measures to stabilize global wheat supplies and food security

This research is supported by CGIAR Trust Fund Contributors.

INTERVIEW OPPORTUNITIES:

Alison Bentley – Director, Global Wheat Program, International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT)

FOR MORE INFORMATION, OR TO ARRANGE INTERVIEWS, CONTACT THE MEDIA TEAM:

Marcia MacNeil, Head of Communications, CIMMYT. m.macneil@cgiar.org, +52 5558042004 ext. 2019.

Rodrigo Ordóñez, Communications Manager, CIMMYT. r.ordonez@cgiar.org, +52 5558042004 ext. 1167.

Ricardo Curiel, Communications Manager, CIMMYT. r.curiel@cgiar.org, +52 5558042004 ext. 1144.

ABOUT CIMMYT:

The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) is an international organization focused on non-profit agricultural research and training that empowers farmers through science and innovation to nourish the world in the midst of a climate crisis.

Applying high-quality science and strong partnerships, CIMMYT works to achieve a world with healthier and more prosperous people, free from global food crises and with more resilient agrifood systems. CIMMYT’s research brings enhanced productivity and better profits to farmers, mitigates the effects of the climate crisis, and reduces the environmental impact of agriculture.

CIMMYT is a member of CGIAR, a global research partnership for a food secure future dedicated to reducing poverty, enhancing food and nutrition security, and improving natural resources.

For more information, visit staging.cimmyt.org.

Soil scientists and stakeholders reflect on progress and impacts of CIMMYT-Rwanda partnership for soil health

Written by Sarah Fernandes on July 1, 2022. Posted in Blogs.

Participants at the mid-term review and planning meeting on the Guiding Acid Soil Management Investments in Africa (GAIA) project. Photo CIMMYT

The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and the Rwanda Agriculture and Animal Resources Development Board (RAB) recently held a mid-term review and planning meeting on the Guiding Acid Soil Management Investments in Africa (GAIA) project.

The meeting aimed to track the progress made in the first year of the project’s implementation, identify challenges, document lessons learned, and develop an action plan for the following year, based on identified gaps and priorities.

In his welcoming remarks, RAB Director General Patrick Karangwa highlighted the close partnership between the two institutions.

“The workshop is not only about reviewing the progress but also about creating a strong partnership and interaction with each other to form a lasting togetherness that can later be useful for supporting each other in running the program’s activities of GAIA in the region,” he said.

Karangwa also noted the dynamism and enthusiasm of the GAIA team and partners, who made “remarkable successes” during a challenging period due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Along with plant nutrition and improved land management, healthier soils contribute to more productive and profitable smallholder enterprises. The GAIA project uses scalable innovations to provide reliable, timely and actionable data and insights on soil health and crop performance, at farm and regional levels.

The workshop brought together about 49 participant including regional program implementing partners, key stakeholders, and scientists from Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe to participate in more than 20 face-to-face and virtual presentations, breakout sessions, and team-building exercises.

“The key to project success is a strong partnership and collaboration with national and regional partners, particularly with private and public sectors ‘’ said Sieglinde Snapp, the director of the Sustainable Agrifood Systems (SAS) program at CIMMYT.

The participants addressed the work undertaken around eight work packages: spatial ex-ante analysis, adoption research on lime value chains, agronomy research for lime recommendations, support to the lime sector, policy support, coordination and advocacy, data use and management, and communication.

“We are encouraged by the progress made so far and expect to have a measurable impact in the next years. Let us feel comfortable to identify new area of research, based on the work conducted so far and national priorities” said Frédéric Baudron, GAIA project lead at CIMMYT.

GAIA is funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and implemented by CIMMYT in partnership with the Centre for Agriculture and Bioscience International; Dalberg; national agricultural research systems in Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, and Tanzania; the Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor of Tanzania; Wageningen University; and the University of California – Davis. The project aims to provide data-driven and spatially explicit recommendations to increase returns on investment for farmers, the private sector, and governments in Africa.

Galvanized leaf storage proteins serve as a nutrient lifeline for maize under drought, recent study says

Written by Mike Listman on June 20, 2022. Posted in Publications.

For the first time ever, a biotechnology team has identified vegetative storage proteins (VSP) in maize and activated them in the leaves to stockpile nitrogen reserves for release when plants are hit by drought, which also causes nutrient stress, according to a recent report in Plant Biotechnology Journal. In two years of field testing, the maize hybrids overexpressing the VSP in leaf cells significantly out-yielded the control siblings under managed drought stress applied at the flowering time, according to Kanwarpal Dhugga, a principal scientist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).

“One of the two most widely grown crops, maize increasingly suffers from erratic rainfall and scarcer groundwater for irrigation,” Dhugga said. “Under water stress, nitrogen availability to the plant is also attenuated. If excess nitrogen could be stored in the leaves during normal plant growth, it could help expedite the plant’s recovery from unpredictable drought episodes. In our experimental maize hybrids, this particular VSP accumulated to more than 4% in mesophyll cells, which is five times its normal levels, and offered an additional, dispensable source of nitrogen that buffered plants against water deficit stress.”

Dhugga noted as well that the study, whose authors include scientists from Corteva Agriscience, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), provides experimental evidence for the link between drought tolerance and adequate nitrogen fertilization of crop plants. “This mechanism could also help farmers and consumers in sub-Saharan Africa, where maize is grown on nearly 40 million hectares, accounts for almost one-third of the region’s caloric intake, and frequently faces moderate to severe drought.”

Scientists multiply and power up vegetative storage proteins in maize leaves as nutrient stockpiles for drought-stressed maize crops. Graphic adapted from: Pooja Gupta, Society for Experimental Biology (SEB).

Read the full study:
A vegetative storage protein improves drought tolerance in maize.

Remembering Ephrame Havazvidi

Written by Sarah McLaughlin on June 17, 2022. Posted in News.

Ephrame Hazvidi. (Photo: The Herald, Zimbabwe)

We report with great sadness the death of Ephrame Havazvidi, who passed away on May 14, 2022.

Havazvidi was one of the world’s pioneering wheat breeders. He served on the Independent Steering Committee of the CGIAR Research Program on Wheat (WHEAT) from 2015 to 2021. He was a renowned seed and crop scientist of the wheat industry in Zimbabwe and the wider region and a frequent expert contributor to projects of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) in the region.

WHEAT Independent Steering Committee chair John Porter said, “Ephrame will no longer be gracing us with his big beaming smile, bright eyes and gorgeous laughter. Ephrame was a unique person and did so much to promote food security in Zimbabwe. He always supported the WHEAT Independent Steering Committee and shared his pan-African perspective on wheat-based food security. It was a great pleasure to have had him on our team.”

“Ephrame was not only an outstanding partner of both CIMMYT’s maize and wheat programs, especially when it came to promoting drought-tolerant varieties, but first and foremost a lovely human being,” said Prasanna Boddupalli, director of CIMMYT’s Global Maize Program.

Born in Masvingo District on 22 September 1954, Havazvidi held Doctor of Philosophy, Master of Philosophy and Bachelor’s degrees, all obtained from the University of Zimbabwe.

Before joining the University of Zimbabwe (then University of Rhodesia) in 1974 to 1976, he was among the top academic achievers at Berejena Mission in Chibi and Goromonzi High School for his Cambridge GCE “O” and “A” level studies respectively. Havazvidi also completed a year-long Executive Development program at the University of Zimbabwe and attended several management developments programs that include SMI.

Havazvidi began his career as a cotton agronomist at the Cotton Research Institute under the Zimbabwe Department of Research and Specialist Services in the then Ministry of Agriculture in Kadoma in 1977. He then joined Seed Co Limited, then Seed Coop, as a seed production research agronomist in 1980, where he pioneered research on maize seed production. Shortly thereafter, he became Seed Co’s principal wheat breeder between 1982 and 2011; as Seed Co breeder, Ephrame released 28 high-yielding wheat varieties that improved farmer productivity in Southern African countries. The varieties for irrigated areas helped to reduce Zimbabwe’s import burden at the time.

He also developed several high high-yielding maize inbred lines for Seed Co. Havazvidi has written several journal articles and presented at several high-level symposia and conferences locally and globally including for the CIMMYT-led Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa (DTMA), Water Efficient Maize for Africa (WEMA), Improved Maize for African Soils (IMAS), and HarvestPlus Pro Vitamin A projects.

In 2020, he was recognized as one of 20 most influential plant breeders by the Southern African Plant Breeding Association (SAPBA).

Hazvidi is survived by his wife Elizabeth, four children — Charles, Happines, Kennedy and Rumbi – and grandchildren.

2022 Excellence in International Service Award

Written by Sarah McLaughlin on June 13, 2022. Posted in News.

Scientist Pablo D Olivera Firpo has been awarded the Excellence in International Service Award by Advancing the Science of Plant Pathology (APS) for outstanding contributions to plant pathology by APS members for countries other than their own.

Firpo was born in Montevideo, Uruguay, where he received a BSc degree as an agronomy engineer in 1997 from the University of the Republic, College of Agronomy. His PhD degree in 2008 was from the Department of Plant Pathology at the University of Minnesota (UMN). He began his career as a postdoctoral research associate with the Department of Plant Pathology and the USDA-ARS Cereal Disease Lab, and then became a research assistant professor in the Department of Plant Pathology at UMN in 2017.

Firpo has been a vital member in the global cereal rust pathology community and contributed substantially to the fight against Ug99 and other virulent wheat stem rust races that have re-emerged around the world and pose serious threats to food security. Firpo’s contributions are not only within the realm of research of great impact, but also include training 79 scientists and facilitating the establishment of a world-class research group in Ethiopia. He has worked to improve international germplasm screening in Ethiopia. As a postdoctoral research associate, Firpo’s first assignment was to search for new sources of resistance to Ug99 in durum wheat, used for pasta, and related tetraploid wheat lines. That project took him to Ethiopia, where an international Ug99-screening nursery for durum wheat was established at Debre Zeit Research Center. He worked closely with researchers from the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR) and the International Maize and Wheat Research Center (CIMMYT) to improve the methodologies for screening and to provide hands-on training to researchers managing the international screening nursery. During a period of 10 years (from 2009 to 2019), he traveled to Ethiopia 21 times to evaluate stem rust reactions of US and international durum wheat germplasm and completed the screening of the entire durum collection (more than 8,000 accessions) from the USDA National Small Grains Collection.

Firpo’s research on sources and genetics of stem rust resistance led to discoveries of valuable genetic resistance in durum and other relatives of wheat. These sources of resistance have provided the needed diversity to ensure the development and sustainability of durable stem rust resistance.

With frequent epidemics and severe yield losses caused by stem rust in eastern Africa, establishing a functional rust pathology laboratory to support international screening, as well as to monitor and detect new virulences in the pathogen population, became a high priority for the international wheat research community. Utilizing the onground opportunities in Ethiopia, Firpo and his colleagues at the CDL and UMN enthusiastically participated in building up the rust pathology lab at the Ambo Plant Protection Center of EIAR. Firpo traveled to Ambo 11 times to provide hands-on training to staff and to develop cereal rust protocols to suit local conditions. He worked closely with colleagues at CDL, EIAR, and CIMMYT to secure and upgrade facilities, equipment and supplies to a standard that ensures reliable rust work will be carried out. As a result, the rust pathology lab at the Ambo Center became the only laboratory in eastern Africa, and one of a handful in the world, that can conduct high-quality race analysis of wheat stem rust samples and provide vital and necessary support for breeding global wheat varieties for rust resistance. Currently, the laboratory is playing a critical role in the global surveillance of the stem rust pathogen and supports wheat breeding efforts led by EIAR, CIMMYT, and the USDA.

Firpo has been passionate in supporting capacity building of human resources in Ethiopia and elsewhere. He has been eager to share his knowledge whenever he encounters an opportunity to do so. In addition to the direct training of the staff at the Ambo Center, Firpo accepted invitations to provide training lectures and hands-on field- and greenhouse-based workshops on rust pathology at three research centers in Ethiopia. He prepared training materials, delivered a total of 12 lectures and 10 practical sessions in three Ethiopia national workshops in 2014, 2015, and 2017. These workshops enhanced human resource development and technical capacity in Ethiopia in cereal rust pathology; participants included a total of 64 junior scientists and technical staff from nationwide research centers. Beyond Ethiopia, he was responsible for developing and implementing a six-week training program in cereal rust prevention and control for international scientists. This training program, under the aegis of the Stakman-Borlaug Center for Sustainable Plant Health in the Department of Plant Pathology, University of Minnesota, provided an experiential learning opportunity for international scientists interested in acquiring knowledge and practical skills in all facets of working with cereal rusts. The program trained 15 rust pathologists and wheat scientists from Ethiopia, Kenya, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Georgia, and Kyrgyzstan, ranging from promising young scientists selected by the USDA as Borlaug Fellows to principal and senior scientists in their respective countries. Many of these trainees have become vital partners in the global surveillance network for cereal rusts.

Working in collaboration with CDL and international scientists, Firpo has been closely involved in global surveillance of the stem rust pathogen, spurred by monitoring the movements of, and detecting, new variants in the Ug99 race group. Since 2009, he and the team at the CDL have analyzed 2,500 stem rust samples from 22 countries, described over 35 new races, and identified significant virulence combinations that overcome stem rust resistance genes widely deployed in global wheat varieties. Among the most significant discoveries were the identification of active sexual populations of the stem rust pathogen in Kazakhstan, Georgia, Germany, and Spain that have unprecedented virulence and genetic diversities. More than 320 new virulent types (or races) were identified from these sexual populations. Evolution in these populations will present continued challenges to wheat breeding. Research in race analysis has provided valuable pathogen isolates that are used to evaluate breeding germplasm to select for resistant wheat varieties and to identify novel sources of stem rust resistance.

Kate Dreher, Data Manager at CIMMYT, presents to scientists, technicians, data management and support teams during the training on the Enterprise Breeding System (EBS) in Nairobi, Kenya. (Photo: Susan Umazi Otieno/CIMMYT)

Researchers in East Africa add the Enterprise Breeding System to their work tools

Written by Susan Otieno on June 8, 2022. Posted in News.

Scientists overseeing breeding, principal technicians and data management and support staff from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) learned about the Enterprise Breeding System (EBS) at a training in Nairobi, Kenya, on May 4–6, 2022. This was the first in-person training on this advanced tool held in Eastern Africa.

Kate Dreher, Data Manager at CIMMYT, was the primary trainer. Dreher sought to ensure that scientists and their teams are well equipped to confidently use the EBS for their programs, including the creation and management of trials and nurseries. During the training, participants had the opportunity to test, review and give feedback on the system.

“The EBS is an online comprehensive system that brings together different types of data, including field observations and genotypic data, to harmonize processes across all teams and enable optimized decision-making in the short term and continuous learning for the long term,” Dreher said.

She explained that the EBS is more efficient than the former approach of using the Excel-based Maize Fieldbook software, even though it managed several useful processes.

The EBS is currently available to registered breeding and support team members and data managers from CIMMYT, IITA, IRRI and AfricaRice, across all geographies where related programs are implemented. Currently, the EBS is used by programs in maize, rice and wheat crops.

A more streamlined approach

“Although teams sent germplasm and phenotypic data for centralized storage in two databases (IMIS-GMS and MaizeFinder) managed by the data management team in Mexico in the past, this required curation after the data had already been generated,” Dreher said. “The EBS will enable teams to manage their germplasm and trial nursery data directly within one system.”

The EBS stores information on germplasm and linked seed inventory items. It is also designed to house and perform analyses using phenotypic and genotypic data. Users can also capture metadata about their trials and nurseries, such as basic agronomic management information and the GPS coordinates of sites where experiments are conducted.

Yoseph Beyene, Regional Maize Breeding Coordinator for Africa and Maize Breeder for Eastern Africa at CIMMYT, observed that the training gave him firsthand information on the current capabilities and use of the live version to search germplasm and seed, and the capabilities to create nurseries and trials.

“In the AGG project, we have one primary objective which focuses on implementing improved data management, experimental designs and breeding methods to accelerate genetic gain and improved breeding efficiency. Therefore, implementing EBS is one of the top priorities for AGG project,” said Yoseph, who leads the Accelerating Genetic Gains in Maize and Wheat for Improved Livelihoods Project (AGG).

Lourine Bii, an Assistant Research Associate who recently joined CIMMYT and the only female research technician on the Global Maize program based in Kenya, also found the training useful. “The EBS is a fantastic system that enables an individual to create experiments. The system links a team, for instance a product development team, to get live updates on the various stages of creating an experiment, reducing back and forth by email.”

The system’s software development is ongoing. The development team continues to add and enhance features based on feedback from users.

Scaling Out Small Mechanization in the Ethiopian Highlands

Written by Rodrigo Ordóñez on June 2, 2022. Posted in Uncategorized.

The project goal is to provide smallholder farmers with appropriate mechanization technologies that reduce drudgery during farm operations.

The objectives of the project are:

To promote small-scale mechanization through awareness and demand creation, and service provision of appropriate technologies
To create employment along the mechanization value chain.

The project sites are located in Amhara, Oromia, SNNP (Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples) and Tigray regions of Ethiopia.

The target beneficiaries of the project include smallholder farmers who use traditional methods of farming, the youth who can be employed in service provision activities along the mechanization value chain, service providers, and private sector companies involved in equipment manufacturing and importing.

Through the project, smallholder farmers access planting, harvesting, post-harvest processing (threshing and shelling), irrigation and transport services from service providers located in their communities. The project operates under the Africa-RISING program led by ILRI in Ethiopia.

Guiding Acid Soil Management Investments in Africa (GAIA)

Written by Rodrigo Ordóñez on June 1, 2022. Posted in Uncategorized.

Healthier soils, plant nutrition and improved land management contribute to more productive and profitable smallholder enterprises. The Guiding Acid Soil Management Investments in Africa (GAIA) project will address key knowledge gaps related to soil health and improved agronomy. It will use scalable innovations to provide reliable, timely and actionable data and insights on soil health and crop performance, at farm and regional levels.

Novel diagnostic approaches, data assets, decision aids and better farm management practices are increasingly being scaled and integrated with other data, products and services. These services can be integrated with solution-focused, bundled services that support farmers in their timely management and operational decisions. They can also be integrated with input delivery systems, including digitally enabled agricultural advisory systems.

Key expected results in the next five years include:

National soil information services fully integrated with functioning agronomy research pipelines within key international and national research organizations of at least seven focus countries in sub-Saharan Africa and SA.
Soil information services solutions are integrated with agricultural advisory services into overall decision agriculture platforms at the national level.
Innovative diagnostic tools and decision aids are increasingly used at farm and regional level.
All investments routinely apply FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable, reusable) data principles and practices.

The vision of success of this project is the rehabilitation of acid soils at scale in East Africa — thanks to data-driven and spatially-explicit recommendations — leading to maximized (and inclusive) returns on investment for farmers, private companies and governments. While the analysis and outputs will be targeted to the specific needs of partner counties (Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda and Tanzania), the methodology, workflows and much of the analysis will be of relevance for other countries in the region. While the specific focus of the project is on acid soils, the frameworks will be adaptable and applicable to other soil health and geospatial agronomic challenges. The ultimate goal is sustainable intensification of African smallholder farming systems.

In line with its vision and goal, GAIA will deliver three primary outcomes:

Increase depth and utility of data and evidence related to acid soil management in the region.
Provide support to governments and the private sector to stimulate investment in acid soil management in the region.
Improve access and use of data related to acid soil management in the region.

Rapid Point-of-Care Diagnostics for Wheat Rusts (MARPLE)

Written by Bea Ciordia on May 30, 2022. Posted in Uncategorized.

MARPLE (Mobile And Real-time PLant disEase) diagnostics is a new innovative approach for fungal crop pathogen diagnostics developed by Diane Saunders’s team at the John Innes Centre.

MARPLE is the first operational system in the world using nanopore sequencing for rapid diagnostics and surveillance of complex fungal pathogens in situ. Generating results in 48 hours of field sampling, this new digital diagnostic strategy is leading revolutionary changes in plant disease diagnostics. Rapid strain level diagnostics are essential to quickly find new emergent strains and guide appropriate control measures.

Through this project, CIMMYT will:

Deploy and scale MARPLE to priority geographies and diseases as part of the Current and Emerging Threats to Crops Innovation Lab led by Penn State University / PlantVillage and funded by USAID’s Feed the Future.
Build national partner capacity for advanced disease diagnostics. We will focus geographically on Ethiopia, Kenya and Nepal for deployment of wheat stripe and stem rust diagnostics, with possible expansion to Bangladesh and Zambia (wheat blast).
Integrate this new in-country diagnostic capacity with recently developed disease forecasting models and early warning systems. Already functional for wheat stripe rust, the project plans to expand MARPLE to incorporate wheat stem rust and wheat blast.

Scaling Conservation Agriculture-Based Sustainable Intensification in Ethiopia (SCASI)

Written by Bea Ciordia on May 30, 2022. Posted in Uncategorized.

The Scaling Conservation Agriculture-Based Sustainable Intensification in Ethiopia (SCASI) project aims to improve soil health and sustainably increase the productivity of major crops through widespread adoption of proven Conservation Agriculture-Based Sustainable Intensification practices and technologies, hence increasing the income of Ethiopia’s smallholder farmers and their resilience to climate change and variability.