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.
Written by Bea Ciordia on . Posted in Uncategorized.
Berhanu is a product development breeder for Eastern Africa based in Nairobi, Kenya. He is responsible for identifying competitive hybrids through formation of coded by coded hybrids and testing across multiple optimum and stress environment.
Berhanu organizes and leads the product advancement process for eastern Africa to advance products using the stage gate advancement process.
Prior to joining CIMMYT, Berhanu worked for the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research, where he was the national coordinator for maize research.
CIMMYT distinguished scientist Ravi Singh conducts research on a wheat field while. (Photo: BGRI)
World-renowned plant breeder Ravi Singh, whose elite wheat varieties reduced the risk of a global pandemic and now feed hundreds of millions of people around the world, has been announced as the 2021 Borlaug Global Rust Initiative (BGRI) Lifetime Achievement Award recipient.
Singh, distinguished scientist and head of Global Wheat Improvement at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), endowed hundreds of modern wheat varieties with durable resistance to fungal pathogens that cause leaf rust, stem rust, stripe rust and other diseases during his career. His scientific efforts protect wheat from new races of some of agriculture’s oldest and most devastating diseases, safeguard the livelihoods of smallholder farmers in the most vulnerable areas in the world, and enhance food security for the billions of people whose daily nutrition depends on wheat consumption.
“Ravi’s innovations as a scientific leader not only made the Cornell University-led Borlaug Global Rust Initiative possible, but his breeding innovations are chiefly responsible for the BGRI’s great success,” said Ronnie Coffman, vice chair of the BGRI and international professor of global development at Cornell’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. “Perhaps more than any other individual, Ravi has furthered Norman Borlaug’s and the BGRI’s goal that we maintain the global wheat scientific community and continue the crucial task of working together across international borders for wheat security.”
In the early 2000s, when a highly virulent rust race discovered in East Africa threatened most of the world’s wheat, Singh took a key leadership role in the formation of a global scientific coalition to combat the threat. Along with Borlaug, Coffman and other scientists, he served as a panel member on the pivotal report alerting the international community to the Ug99 outbreak and its potential impacts to global food security. That sounding of the alarm spurred the creation of the BGRI and the collaborative international effort to stop Ug99 before it could take hold on a global scale.
As a scientific objective leader for the BGRI’s Durable Rust Resistance in Wheat and Delivering Genetic Gain in Wheat projects, Singh led efforts to generate and share a series of elite wheat lines featuring durable resistance to all three rusts. The results since 2008 include resistance to the 12 races of the Ug99 lineage and new, high-temperature-tolerant races of stripe rust fungus that had been evolving and spreading worldwide since the beginning of the 21st century.
“Thanks to Ravi Singh’s vision and applied science, the dire global threat of Ug99 and other rusts has been averted, fulfilling Dr. Borlaug’s fervent wishes to sustain wheat productivity growth, and contributing to the economic and environmental benefits from reduced fungicide use,” Coffman said. “Ravi’s innovative research team at CIMMYT offered crucial global resources to stop the spread of Ug99 and the avert the human catastrophe that would have resulted.”
An innovative wheat breeder known for his inexhaustible knowledge and attention to genetic detail, Singh helped establish the practice of “pyramiding” multiple rust-resistance genes into a single variety to confer immunity. This practice of adding complex resistance in a way that makes it difficult for evolving pathogens to overcome new varieties of wheat now forms the backbone of rust resistance breeding at CIMMYT and other national programs.
Ravi Singh (center) with Norman Borlaug (left) and Hans Braun in the wheat fields at CIMMYT’s experimental station in Ciudad Obregón, in Mexico’s Sonora state. (Photo: CIMMYT)
The global champion for durable resistance
Ravi joined CIMMYT in 1983 and was tasked by his supervisor, mentor and friend, the late World Food Prize Winner Sanjaya Rajaram, to develop wheat lines with durable resistance, said Hans Braun, former director of CIMMYT’s Global Wheat Program.
“Ravi did this painstaking work — to combine recessive resistance genes — for two decades as a rust geneticist and, as leader of CIMMYT’s Global Spring Wheat Program, he transferred them at large scale into elite lines that are now grown worldwide,” Braun said. “Thanks to Ravi and his colleagues, there has been no major rust epidemic in the Global South for years, a cornerstone for global wheat security.”
Alison Bentley, Director of CIMMYT’s Global Wheat Program, said that “Building on Ravi’s exceptional work throughout his career, deployment of durable rust resistance in widely adapted wheat germplasm continues to be a foundation of CIMMYT’s wheat breeding strategy.”
Revered for his determination and work ethic throughout his career, Singh has contributed to the development of 649 wheat varieties released in 48 countries, working closely with scientists at national wheat programs in the Global South. Those varieties today are sown on approximately 30 million hectares annually in nearly all wheat growing countries of southern and West Asia, Africa and Latin America. Of these varieties, 224 were developed directly under his leadership and are grown on an estimated 10 million hectares each year.
In his career Singh has authored 328 refereed journal articles and reviews, 32 book chapters and extension publications, and more than 80 symposia presentations. He is regularly ranked in the top 1% of cited researchers. The CIMMYT team that Singh leads identified and designated 22 genes in wheat for resistance or tolerance to stem rust, leaf rust, stripe rust, powdery mildew, barley yellow dwarf virus, spot blotch, and wheat blast, as well as characterizing various other important wheat genome locations contributing to durable resistance in wheat.
Singh’s impact as a plant breeder and steward of genetic resources over the past four decades has been extraordinary, according to Braun: “Ravi Singh can definitely be called the global champion for durable resistance.”
The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) is offering a new set of elite, improved maize hybrids to partners for commercialization in southern Africa and similar agro-ecological zones. National agricultural research systems (NARS) and seed companies are invited to apply for licenses to register and commercialize these new hybrids, in order to bring the benefits of the improved seed to farming communities.
The deadline to submit applications to be considered during the first round of allocations is October, 24 2021. Applications received after that deadline will be considered during the following round of product allocations.
Information about the newly available CIMMYT maize hybrids from the Latin America breeding program, application instructions and other relevant material is available in the CIMMYT Maize Product Catalog and in the links provided below.
Specific questions or issues faced with regard to the application process may be addressed to GMP-CIMMYT@cgiar.org with attention to Nicholas Davis, Program Manager, Global Maize Program, CIMMYT.
Nigeria’s National Biosafety Management Agency (NBMA) has approved the commercialization of TELA Maize seeds—a drought-tolerant and insect-protected variety aimed at enhancing food security in sub-Saharan Africa.
The TELA Maize Project in Nigeria is part of an international consortium coordinated by the African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF), the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT), and the National Agricultural Research Systems of seven countries, including Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, and Uganda.
With ten years of experience as a crop scientist, Vimbayi Grace Petrova Chimonyo’s research focuses on integrated crop management to address food and nutrition security issues, climate change and rural development. She works primarily with crop simulation modelling as a tool for adapting to climate change and variability and improving food security, especially for smallholder farmers.
She has a good understanding of resource use (water, soil nutrients and solar radiation) within the agricultural sector, Water-Food-Nutrition-Health nexus, the Water-Energy-Food nexus within food system landscapes, and the need for transformative strategies for inclusive food security.
Her main research interests are developing resilient cropping systems with an emphasis on sustainable intensification under climate variability and change.
Hambulo Ngoma is a Development Economist with research interests spanning the development-environment nexus. He leads or co-leads socio-economic components of several projects in Southern Africa, mainly in Malawi, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. His current research is focused on adoption, scaling, and impact assessment, with special interest in nudging agricultural technology adoption.
He is formerly a Postdoctoral Associate of the Department of Agricultural, Food and Resources Economics of Michigan State University and a Research Fellow and Lead of the Climate Change and Natural Resource Management thematic area at the Indaba Agricultural Policy Research Institute (IAPRI) in Lusaka, Zambia.
He holds a PhD in Applied Economics from the School of Economics and Business, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, an MSc in Applied and Agricultural Economics from the University of Malawi and a BSc in Agricultural Economics from the University of Zambia.
Together with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and Feed the Future, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and the CGIAR Research Program on Maize (MAIZE) are pleased to announce the release of “Fall Armyworm in Asia: A Guide for Integrated Pest Management.”
The publication builds on intensive, science-based responses to fall armyworm in Africa and Asia.
“I have encountered few pests as alarming as the fall armyworm,” wrote USAID Chief Scientist Rob Bertram in the guide’s Foreword. “This publication … offers to a broad range of public and private stakeholders — including national plant protection, research and extension professionals — evidence-based approaches to sustainably manage fall armyworm,” Bertram adds.
“Partners from a wide array of national and international institutions have contributed to the mammoth task of formulating various chapters in the guide,” said B.M. Prasanna, director of CIMMYT’s Global Maize Program and of MAIZE. “While the publication is focused on Asia, it provides an updated understanding of various components of fall armyworm integrated pest management that could also benefit stakeholders in Africa.”
In January 2018, CIMMYT and USAID published a similar guide on integrated pest management of fall armyworm in Africa, which reached a large number of stakeholders globally and is widely cited. Prasanna spearheaded the development and publication of both guides.
In a small workshop in Ethiopia’s Oromia region, mechanic Beyene Chufamo and his technician work on tractor repairs surrounded by engines and spare machinery parts.
Established in Meki in 2019, Beyene’s workshop provides maintenance, repair and overhaul services for two-wheel tractors and their accessories, and it acts as a point of sale for spare parts and implements such as planters, threshers and water pumps. Beyene also works as a tractor operation instructor, providing trainings on driving, planter calibration and how to use threshers and shellers.
The city already had a well-established mechanics and spare parts industry based around four-wheel tractors and combine harvester hire services, as well as motorcycle and tricycle transportation services. But now, as market demand for two-wheel tractor hire services rises among smallholder farming communities and entrepreneurial youth race to become local service providers, business is booming.
A two-wheel tractor with an improved driver seat and hydraulic tipping trailer system sits in from of Beyene Chufamo’s workshop in Meki, Ethiopia. (Photo: CIMMYT)
Building a business
Beyene’s business has benefitted from support from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and the German development agency GIZ since its formation. Beyene was initially trained as a mechanic through the Innovative Financing for Sustainable Mechanization in Ethiopia (IFFSMIE) project, which promotes small-scale mechanization in the area through demand creation, innovative financing mechanisms and the development of private sector-driven business. He went on to receive additional technical and business skills development training to enable him to run his own enterprise.
His ongoing association with the project and its new leasing scheme has helped Beyene establish connections with local service providers, while also improving his own skills portfolio. Currently, he helps maintain the smooth operation of machinery and equipment at CIMMYT project sites in Amhara, Oromia and Tigray. This involves everything from training other local mechanics and troubleshooting for service providers, to facilitating the delivery of aftersales services in project areas.
In addition to this, Beyene receives orders for maintenance, repair and overhaul services for two-wheel tractors and implements. He sources replacement parts himself, though the cost of purchase is covered by his clients. In some cases — and depending on the distance travelled — CIMMYT covers the transport and accommodation costs while Beyene services equipment from service providers and sources equipment from local distributors. When individual parts are not readily available, he often purchases whole two-wheel tractors from the Metals and Engineering Corporation (METEC) and breaks them down into individual parts.
Tools and spare machinery parts lie on the ground during at Beyene Chufamo’s workshop in Meki, Ethiopia. (Photo: CIMMYT)
The way forward for sustainable mechanization
“Mechanization take-off relies heavily on skilled staff and appropriate infrastructure to perform machinery diagnostics, repair and maintenance,” said Rabe Yahaya, a CIMMYT agricultural mechanization expert based in Ethiopia.
“Agricultural machinery should be available and functional any time a famer wants to use it — and a workshop can support this. Beyene’s work in Meki reflects the way forward for sustainable mechanization success in Ethiopia.”
Creating an agricultural machinery workshop from scratch was a challenging task, Rabe explained, but support and guidance from partners like CIMMYT and GIZ helped to make it happen. “Also, Beyene’s commitment and flexibility to travel to CIMMYT project sites anywhere and at any time — even on bad roads in difficult weather conditions — really helped him achieve his goal.”
A sign hangs on the entrance of Beyene Chufamo’s agricultural machinery workshop in Meki, Ethiopia. (Photo: CIMMYT)
Beyene is excited about how quickly the local two-wheel tractor market has grown in the past few years. He currently has 91 service providers as regular clients at CIMMYT project sites — up from just 19 in 2016.
Trends show that — with support from local microfinance schemes and the removal of domestic taxes on imported machinery — aftersales services will continue to evolve, and the number of service providers will rise alongside increased market demand for mechanization services, both at farm level and beyond.
With this in mind, Beyene aims to remain competitive by diversifying the services offered at his workshop and expanding his business beyond CIMMYT project sites. As a starting point he plans to hire more staff, altering his organizational structure so that each mechanic or technician is dedicated to working with a specific type of machinery. Longer term, he hopes to transform his workshop into one that can also service four-wheel tractors and combine harvesters, and establish a mobile dispatch service team that can reach more locations in rural Ethiopia.
For now, however, he simply remains grateful for CIMMYT’s support and investment in his business. “I am happy that I have been able to secure an income for myself, my family and my staff through this workshop, which has changed our lives in such a positive way.”
Cover photo: Workshop owner Beyene Chufamo (left) speaks to CIMMYT researcher Abrham Kassa during a visit to Meki, Ethiopia. (Photo: CIMMYT)
Given the very heterogeneous conditions in smallholder agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa, there is a growing policy interest in site-specific extension advice and the use of related digital tools. However, empirical ex ante studies on the design of this type of tools are scant and little is known about their impact on site-specific extension advice.
In partnership with Oyakhilomen Oyinbo and colleagues at KU Leuven, scientists at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) have carried out research to clarify user preferences for tailored nutrient management advice and decision-support tools. The studies also evaluated the impact of targeted fertilizer recommendations enabled by such tools.
Understanding farmers’ adoption
A better understanding of farmers’ and extension agents’ preferences may help to optimize the design of digital decision-support tools.
Oyinbo and co-authors conducted a study among 792 farming households in northern Nigeria, to examine farmers’ preferences for maize intensification in the context of site-specific extension advice using digital tools.
Overall, farmers were favorably disposed to switch from general fertilizer use recommendations to targeted nutrient management recommendations for maize intensification enabled by decision-support tools. This lends credence to the inclusion of digital tools in agricultural extension. The study also showed that farmers have heterogeneous preferences for targeted fertilizer recommendations, depending on their resources, sensitivity to risk and access to services.
The authors identified two groups of farmers with different preference patterns: a first group described as “strong potential adopters of site-specific extension recommendations for more intensified maize production” and a second group as “weak potential adopters.” While the two groups of farmers are willing to accept some yield variability for a higher average yield, the trade-off is on average larger for the first group, who have more resources and are less sensitive to risk.
The author recommended that decision-support tools include information on the riskiness of expected investment returns and flexibility in switching between low- and high-risk recommendations. This design improvement will help farmers to make better informed decisions.
Community leaders talk to researchers in one of the villages in norther Nigeria which took part in the study. (Photo: Oyakhilomen Oyinbo)
Members of the survey team participate in a training session at Bayero University Kano, Nigeria. (Photo: Oyakhilomen Oyinbo)
One of the sites of nutrient omission trials, used during the development phase of the Nutrient Expert tool in Nigeria. (Photo: Oyakhilomen Oyinbo)
Using data from a discrete choice experiment, the study showed that extension agents were generally willing to accept the use of digital decision-support tools for site‐specific fertilizer recommendations. While extension agents in the sample preferred tools with a more user‐friendly interface that required less time to generate an output, the authors also found substantial preference heterogeneity for other design features. Some extension agents cared more about the outputs, such as information accuracy and level of detail, while others prioritized practical features such as the tool’s platform, language or interface.
According to the authors, accounting for such variety of preferences into the design of decision-support tools may facilitate their adoption by extension agents and, in turn, enhance their impact in farmars’ agricultural production decisions.
Interface of the Nutrient Expert mobile app, locally calibrated for maize farmers in Nigeria.
Impact of digital tools
Traditional extension systems in sub-Saharan African countries, including Nigeria, often provide general fertilizer use recommendations which do not account for the substantial variation in production conditions. Such blanket recommendations are typically accompanied by point estimates of expected agronomic responses and associated economic returns, but they do not provide any information on the variability of the expected returns associated with output price risk.
Policymakers need a better understanding of how new digital agronomy tools for tailored recommendations affect the performance of smallholder farms in developing countries.
To contribute to the nascent empirical literature on this topic, Oyinbo and colleagues evaluated the impact of a nutrient management decision-support tool for maize – Nutrient Expert — on fertilizer use, management practices, yields and net revenues. The authors also evaluated the impacts of providing information about variability in expected investment returns.
To provide rigorous evidence, the authors conducted a three-year randomized controlled trial among 792 maize-producing households in northern Nigeria. The trial included two treatment groups who are exposed to site-specific fertilizer recommendations through decision-support tools — one with and another one without additional information on variability in expected returns — and a control group who received general fertilizer use recommendations.
Overall, the use of nutrient management decision-support tools resulted in greater fertilizer investments and better grain yields compared with controls. Maize grain yield increased by 19% and net revenue increased by 14% after two years of the interventions. Fertilizer investments only increased significantly among the farmers who received additional information on the variability in expected investment returns.
The findings suggest including site-specific decision support tools into extension programming and related policy interventions has potential benefits on maize yields and food security, particularly when such tools also supply information on the distribution of expected returns to given investment recommendations.
The research-for-development community has tried different approaches to optimize fertilizer recommendations. In Nigeria, there are several tools available to generate location-specific fertilizer recommendations, including Nutrient Expert. As part of the Taking Maize Agronomy to Scale in Africa (TAMASA) project, CIMMYT has been working on locally calibrated versions of this tool for maize farmers in Ethiopia, Nigeria and Tanzania. The development was led by a project team incorporating scientists from the African Plant Nutrition Institute (APNI), CIMMYT and local development partners in each country.
Next steps
Some studies have shown that dis-adoption of seemingly profitable technologies — such as fertilizer in sub-Saharan Africa — is quite common, especially when initial returns fall short of expectations or net utility is negative, producing a disappointment effect.
In the context of emerging digital decision-support tools for well-targeted fertilizer use recommendations, it remains unclear whether farmers’ initial input use responses and the associated economic returns affect their subsequent responses — and whether the disappointment effect can be attenuated through provision of information about uncertainty in expected returns.
Using our three-year randomized controlled trial and the associated panel dataset, researchers are now working on documenting the third-year responses of farmers to site-specific agronomic advice conditional on the second-year responses. Specifically, they seek to better document whether providing farmers with information about seasonal variability in expected investment returns can reduce possible disappointment effects associated with their initial uptake of site-specific agronomic advice and, in a way, limit dis-adoption of fertilizer.
Cover photo: A farmer shows maize growing in his field, in one of the communities in northern Nigeria where research took place. (Photo: Oyakhilomen Oyinbo)
Uganda is one of the fastest economically growing nations in sub-Saharan Africa and is in the midst of socio-economic transition. Over the past two decades the country’s GDP has expanded, on average, by more than 6% each year, with per capita GDP reaching $710 in 2019. Researchers project that this will continue to rise at a rate of 5.6% each year for the next decade, reaching approximately $984 by the year 2031.
This growth is mirrored by a rising population and rapid urbanization within the country. In 2019, 24.4% of the Uganda’s 44.3 million citizens were living in urban areas. By 2030, population is projected to rise to 58-61 million, 31% of whom are expected to live in towns and cities.
“Changes in population, urbanization and GDP growth rate all affect the dietary intake pattern of a country,” says Khondoker Mottaleb, an economist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT). “Economic and demographic changes will have significant impacts on the agricultural sector, which will be challenged to produce and supply more and better food at affordable prices.”
This could leave Uganda in a precarious position.
In a new study, Mottaleb and a team of collaborators project Uganda’s future food demand, and the potential implications for achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal of zero hunger by 2030.
The authors assess the future demand for major food items, using information from 8,424 households collected through three rounds of Uganda’s Living Standards Measurement Study — Integrated Surveys on Agriculture (LSMS-ISA). They focus on nationwide demand for traditional foods like matooke (cooking banana), cassava and sweet potato, as well as cereals like maize, wheat and rice — consumption of which has been rising alongside incomes and urbanization.
A conceptual framework of changing food demand in the Global South. (Graphic: CIMMYT)
The study findings confirm that with increases in income and demographic changes, the demand for these food items will increase drastically. In 2018, aggregate consumption was 3.3 million metric tons (MMT) of matooke, 4.7 MMT of cassava and sweet potato, 1.97 MMT of maize and coarse grains, and 0.94 MMT of wheat and rice. Using the Quadratic Almost Ideal Demand System (QUAIDS) estimation approach, the authors show that in 2030 demand could be as high as 8.1 MMT for matooke, 10.5 MMT for cassava and sweet potato, 9.5 MT for maize and coarse grains, and 4 MMT for wheat and rice.
Worryingly, Mottaleb and his team explain that while demand for all the items examined in the study increases, the overall yield growth rate for major crops is stagnating as a result of land degradation, climate extremes and rural out-migration. For example, the yield growth rate for matooke has reduced from +0.21% per year from 1962-1989 to -0.90% from 1990-2019.
As such, the authors call for increased investment in Uganda’s agricultural sector to enhance domestic production capacity, meet the growing demand for food outlined in the study, improve the livelihoods of resource-poor farmers, and eliminate hunger.
Farmer Florence Ochieng harvests green maize on her 105-acre family farm near Kitale, Kenya. (Photo: P. Lowe/CIMMYT)
Smallholder farmers are often torn between maize seed varieties that have multiple desirable traits. Since they cannot always have it all — there are limits on what traits breeders can integrate in any given variety — they face the dilemma of which seed to pick at the expense of an equally desirable option.
Trait preference trade-offs among maize farmers in western Kenya, published in March 2021, provides evidence of this prioritization and seeks to help breeders, seed companies and other stakeholders set priorities that account for farmers’ needs and their willingness to make preference trade-offs. The researchers evaluated responses from 1,288 male and female farmers in the mid-altitude maize growing areas of western Kenya.
The study argues that farmer-centered seed systems (including seed companies) should be guided by farmers’ priorities and reflect a greater understanding of the tradeoffs these farmers make between traits and varieties. They have two key options, according to Paswel Marenya, the study’s lead researcher and adoption and impact assessment economist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT). The first involves prioritizing the critical must-have traits in any one variety. The second option entails having multiple varieties that meet diverse farmers’ needs and then segmenting the seed markets.
While Marenya argues that prioritization is important for balancing commercial realities and farmers’ diverse interests, he is quick to add that “market segmentation has limits imposed by the commercial viability of each segment.”
“At every turn, from breeding to farmer varietal preferences to seed company considerations, there have to be trade-offs, as one cannot keep segmenting the market forever,” Marenya said. “At some point, you must stop and choose what traits to prioritize in your breeding or commercially viable market segments, based on the most pressing challenges already identified.”
CIMMYT researchers conduct interviews in Kenya to determine farmer preferences for maize traits. (Photo: CIMMYT)
Differences in tradeoffs among men and women
From a gender lens, the paper reveals an obvious difference in tradeoffs made by men and women. Whereas the two groups desire some similar traits in their varieties of choice, women seem to be willing to make slightly larger yield sacrifices in favor of tolerance to drought and Striga and good storability. Women also valued good storability over 90-day maturity, while men appeared to place a higher value on the closed tip, a sign of resistance to moisture infiltration which causes grain rotting.
“These results imply that unless the risks of storage or pre-harvest losses are reduced or eliminated, the value of high yielding varieties can be diminished if they are susceptible to production stresses or the grain characteristics make them susceptible to storage pests,” the study states.
The study indicates that farmers may adopt stress tolerant and high yielding varieties with somewhat low storability only if advanced grain storage technologies are available.
Until then, the suggestion to policy makers responsible for maize breeding is to use “multi-criteria evaluations” of new varieties to ensure that traits for stress tolerance and storability are given optimal weighting in variety release decisions.
Additionally, information about farmer preferences should be fed back to breeding programs in national and international institutes responsible for maize genetic improvement.
The fall armyworm is an invasive pest that eats more than 80 different crops, but has a particular preference for maize.
It is native to the Americas. It was first reported in Africa in 2016, and quickly spread throughout the continent. It reached India in 2018. It has since been reported in many other countries across Asia and the Pacific, and it reached Australia in 2020.
Millions of families in these regions are highly dependent on maize for their income and their livelihoods. If the fall armyworm keeps spreading, it will have disastrous consequences for them.
Scientists at CIMMYT have been working hard to find solutions to help farmers fight fall armyworm. Researchers have developed manuals for farmers, with guidelines on how to manage this pest. They have also formed an international research consortium, where experts from diverse institutions are sharing knowledge and best practices. Consortium members share updates on progress in finding new ways to tackle this global challenge. Scientists are now working on developing new maize varieties that are resistant to fall armyworm.
The fall armyworm can’t be eradicated — it is here to stay. CIMMYT and its partners worldwide will continue to work on this complex challenge, so millions of smallholder farmers can protect their crops and feed their families.
Genetic analyses show that a destructive wheat blast fungus that travelled from South America to South East Asia is now established in Zambia under rain-fed conditions, according to a new report from The Sainsbury Laboratory.
Scientists at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) have been harnessing the power of drones and other remote sensing tools to accelerate crop improvement, monitor harmful crop pests and diseases, and automate the detection of land boundaries for farmers.
A crucial step in crop improvement is phenotyping, which traditionally involves breeders walking through plots and visually assessing each plant for desired traits. However, ground-based measurements can be time-consuming and labor-intensive.
This is where remote sensing comes in. By analyzing imagery taken using tools like drones, scientists can quickly and accurately assess small crop plots from large trials, making crop improvement more scalable and cost-effective. These plant traits assessed at plot trials can also be scaled out to farmers’ fields using satellite imagery data and integrated into decision support systems for scientists, farmers and decision-makers.
Here are some of the latest developments from our team of remote sensing experts.
An aerial view of the Global Wheat Program experimental station in Ciudad Obregón, Sonora, Mexico (Photo: Francisco Pinto/CIMMYT)
Measuring plant height with high-powered drones
A recent study, published in Frontiers in Plant Science validated the use of drones to estimate the plant height of wheat crops at different growth stages.
The research team, which included scientists from CIMMYT, the Federal University of Viçosa and KWS Momont Recherche, measured and compared wheat crops at four growth stages using ground-based measurements and drone-based estimates.
The team found that plant height estimates from drones were similar in accuracy to measurements made from the ground. They also found that by using drones with real-time kinematic (RTK) systems onboard, users could eliminate the need for ground control points, increasing the drones’ mapping capability.
Recent work on maize has shown that drone-based plant height assessment is also accurate enough to be used in maize improvement and results are expected to be published next year.
A map shows drone-based plant height estimates from a maize line trial in Muzarabani, Zimbabwe. (Graphic: CIMMYT)
Advancing assessment of pests and diseases
CIMMYT scientists and their research partners have advanced the assessment of Tar Spot Complex — a major maize disease found in Central and South America — and Maize Streak Virus (MSV) disease, found in sub-Saharan Africa, using drone-based imaging approach. By analyzing drone imagery, scientists can make more objective disease severity assessments and accelerate the development of improved, disease-resistant maize varieties. Digital imaging has also shown great potential for evaluating damage to maize cobs by fall armyworm.
Scientists have had similar success with other common foliar wheat diseases, Septoria and Spot Blotch with remote sensing experiments undertaken at experimental stations across Mexico. The results of these experiments will be published later this year. Meanwhile, in collaboration with the Federal University of Technology, based in Parana, Brazil, CIMMYT scientists have been testing deep learning algorithms — computer algorithms that adjust to, or “learn” from new data and perform better over time — to automate the assessment of leaf disease severity. While still in the experimental stages, the technology is showing promising results so far.
CIMMYT researcher Gerald Blasch and EIAR research partners Tamrat Negash, Girma Mamo and Tadesse Anberbir (right to left) conduct field work in Ethiopia. (Photo: Tadesse Anberbir)
Improving forecasts for crop disease early warning systems
CIMMYT scientists, in collaboration with Université catholique de Louvain (UCLouvain), Cambridge University and the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR), are currently exploring remote sensing solutions to improve forecast models used in early warning systems for wheat rusts. Wheat rusts are fungal diseases that can destroy healthy wheat plants in just a few weeks, causing devastating losses to farmers.
Early detection is crucial to combatting disease epidemics and CIMMYT researchers and partners have been working to develop a world-leading wheat rust forecasting service for a national early warning system in Ethiopia. The forecasting service predicts the potential occurrence of the airborne disease and the environmental suitability for the disease, however the susceptibility of the host plant to the disease is currently not provided.
CIMMYT remote sensing experts are now testing the use of drones and high-resolution satellite imagery to detect wheat rusts and monitor the progression of the disease in both controlled field trial experiments and in farmers’ fields. The researchers have collaborated with the expert remote sensing lab at UCLouvain, Belgium, to explore the capability of using European Space Agency satellite data for mapping crop type distributions in Ethiopia. The results will be also published later this year.
CIMMYT and EIAR scientists collect field data in Asella, Ethiopia, using an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) data acquisition. (Photo: Matt Heaton)
Delivering expert irrigation and sowing advice to farmers phones
The project has now ended, with the team delivering a webinar to farmers last October to demonstrate the app and its features. Another webinar is planned for October 2021, aiming to engage wheat and maize farmers based in the Yaqui Valley in Mexico.
CIMMYT researcher Francelino Rodrigues collects field data in Malawi using a UAV. (Photo: Francelino Rodrigues/CIMMYT)
Detecting field boundaries using high-resolution satellite imagery
In Bangladesh, CIMMYT scientists have collaborated with the University of Buffalo, USA, to explore how high-resolution satellite imagery can be used to automatically create field boundaries.
Many low and middle-income countries around the world don’t have an official land administration or cadastre system. This makes it difficult for farmers to obtain affordable credit to buy farm supplies because they have no land titles to use as collateral. Another issue is that without knowing the exact size of their fields, farmers may not be applying to the right amount of fertilizer to their land.
Using state of the art machine learning algorithms, researchers from CIMMYT and the University of Buffalo were able to detect the boundaries of agricultural fields based on high-resolution satellite images. The study, published last year, was conducted in the delta region of Bangladesh where the average field size is only about 0.1 hectare.
A CIMMYT scientist conducts an aerial phenotyping exercise in the Global Wheat Program experimental station in Ciudad Obregón, Sonora, Mexico. (Photo: Francisco Pinto/CIMMYT)
Developing climate-resilient wheat
CIMMYT’s wheat physiology team has been evaluating, validating and implementing remote sensing platforms for high-throughput phenotyping of physiological traits ranging from canopy temperature to chlorophyll content (a plant’s greenness) for over a decade. Put simply, high-throughput phenotyping involves phenotyping a large number of genotypes or plots quickly and accurately.
Recently, the team has engaged in the Heat and Drought Wheat Improvement Consortium (HeDWIC) to implement new high-throughput phenotyping approaches that can assist in the identification and evaluation of new adaptive traits in wheat for heat and drought.
The team has also been collaborating with the Accelerating Genetic Gains in Maize and Wheat (AGG) project, providing remote sensing data to improve genomic selection models.
Cover photo: An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV drone) in flight over CIMMYT’s experimental research station in Ciudad Obregon, Mexico. (Photo: Alfredo Saenz/CIMMYT)
Mary Nzau enters a mock agrodealer shop set up on a field on the outskirts of Tala town in Machakos County, Kenya. On display are nine 2kg bags of hybrid maize seed. She picks one. By the look of it, her mind is made up. After a quick scan of the shelf, she has in her hand the variety that she has been purchasing for years.
Regina Mbaika Mutua is less lucky. The variety she always buys is not on display in the mock shop. As part of the experiment, the research team has removed from the shelf the variety she indicated she usually buys. The team’s goal is to observe what factors influence her seed purchase decision in the absence of the variety she was expecting to purchase.
“Although I did not find the variety I was looking for, I picked an alternative as I have seen it perform well on a neighboring farm,” Mutua says, adding that she will plant it this season alongside recycled (farm-saved) seed on her one-acre farm.
Michael Mutua passes up the popular variety he has been planting for the previous two years. He picks one that has been advertised extensively on local radio. “I have heard about it severally on radio. I would like to experiment with this new seed and see how it performs on my farm. Should I like the results, I will give it a chance in ensuing seasons,” he says.
Pieter Rutsaert explains the study setup at a mock agrodealer shop. (Photo: Joshua Masinde/CIMMYT)
The big adoption conundrum
The goal of the out-of-stock study is to improve an understanding of how farmers make their maize seed choices, says Pieter Rutsaert, Markets and Value Chain Specialist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).
“We do this by inviting farmers to a mock agrodealer store that we set up in their villages and give them a small budget to purchase a bag of seed. However, not all farmers walk into the same store: some will find their preferred variety, others won’t. Some will have access to additional trait information or see some varieties with price promotions while others don’t.”
Rutsaert acknowledges that breeding programs and their partner seed companies have done a great job at giving farmers access to maize hybrids with priority traits such as drought tolerance and high yield. CIMMYT then works closely with local seed companies to get varieties into the hands of farmers. “We want to extend that support by providing insights to companies and public breeding programs on how to get new varieties more quickly into the hands of farmers,” he says.
Pauline Muindi (left), gender research associate with CIMMYT, acts as a mock agrodealer clerk and attends a farmer. (Photo: CIMMYT)
The hybrid maize seed sector in Kenya is highly competitive. Amid intensifying competition, new varieties face a daunting task breaking into the market, independent of their quality. While farmers now have more options to pick from, a major challenge has been how to get them to adopt new varieties.
“Moving farmers from something they know to something they don’t is not easy. They tend to stick with what they know and have been growing for years,” Rutsaert says.
Pauline Muindi, gender research associate with CIMMYT, acted as the stand-in clerk at the mock store. She noticed that farmers tend to spend very little time in the shop when their preferred variety is available. However, this all changes in the out-of-stock situation, pushing farmers to step out of their comfort zone and explore new options.
The first step to overcoming this challenge is to entice maize farmers to try a new seed variety, even just once, Rutsaert observes. If it is a good variety, farmers will see that and then the market will work in its favor: farmers will come back to that variety in subsequent years and tell others about it.
“The good news is that many of the varieties we are currently seeing on the market have performed well — that’s why they’re popular. But there are newer varieties that are even better, especially in terms of attributes like drought tolerance. We would like to understand how farmers can be convinced to try out these newer varieties. Is it about the need for more awareness on varietal traits? Can we use price promotions? Or are there other factors?” he says.
A researcher interviews Mary Nzau (right), a farmer from Tala town in Machakos County, after her mock purchase. (Photo: Joshua Masinde/CIMMYT)
Does seed price matter?
“With today’s climate uncertainty, it is better to stick to a variety that is adapted to such climate rather than banking on a variety one is oblivious of. The risk is not worth it,” Nzau says. She adds that she would rather buy a higher-priced seed packet she knows and trusts than a lower-priced one that she has not used in the past. Radio promotions of new or other varieties have limited sway over her decision to make the switch.
Faith Voni, another farmer, agrees. “It is better to purchase a higher-priced variety whose quality I can vouch for than risk purchasing a lower-priced one that I know little about. I do not wish to take such a risk.” Voni says she would also be more inclined to experiment with another variety that she had seen perform well on a neighbor’s farm.
Michael Mutua holds a different view. “If there is an option of an equally good but new variety that is lower-priced than the variety I prefer, my wallet decides,” he says.
Vivian Hoffmann, an economist at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and collaborator on the study, says price can be key for convincing consumers to try a new product. “Our previous research on maize flour choice found that a provisional 10 percent discount boosted sales tremendously,” Hoffmann says. “Of course, that only gets your foot in the door; after that, a new variety will need to win farmers over based on its merits.”
Hoffmann is interested in the extent to which drawing farmers’ attention to key varietal attributes influences their seed choice. “This information is generally already available on seed packets, but we live in a world of information overload. Promoting certain attributes through in-store signage is an approach that is widely used to help consumers make more healthier food choices. Doing the same for new seed varieties makes a lot of sense.”
Michael Mutua (left) responds to preliminary questions from one of the research team members before proceeding to make his seed selection at the mock agrodealer shop. (Photo: Joshua Masinde/CIMMYT)
The value of drought tolerance
Situated on Kenya’s eastern region, Machakos is characterized by persistent water stress. Climate change induced erratic rainfall has pushed traits that can tolerate the unfavorable weather conditions in the favorite’s corner. While other traits such as high yield and disease resistance are equally important, the seed, when planted, must first withstand the effects of droughts or water stress in some seasons and germinate. This is the most crucial step in the long journey to either a decent, bare minimum or no yield. A lot of farmers still plant recycled seed alongside hybrid varieties. But these are no match to water stress conditions, which decimate fields planted with farmer-saved seed.
“If a variety is not climate resilient, I will likely not harvest anything at all,” says Nzau. She has planted a drought-tolerant variety for ten years now. Prior to that, she had planted about three other varieties as well as recycled seed. “The only advantage with recycled seed is that given the right amount of rainfall, they mature fast — typically within two months. This provides my family with an opportunity to eat boiled or roast maize,” she notes.
However, varieties need to do more than just survive harsh weather conditions. Breeders face a daunting task of incorporating as many traits as possible to cater to the overarching and the specific interests of multiple farmers. As Murenga Mwimali, a maize breeder at the Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization (KALRO) and collaborator in this research says, innovations in breeding technologies are making breeding more efficient.
“It is better to have a diversity of product profiles as different market niches are captured within a particular agroecological zones. This is such that farmers may not just benefit from the minimum traits like drought tolerance, but also more specific traits they are looking for,” Mwimali says.
Smallholder farmers continue to play a central role in the seed development process. Capturing what happens at the point of purchase, for instance, at the agrodealer, and understanding how they purchase seed offers valuable insights on the traits that are deemed essential in the breeding process. This work contributes to CIMMYT’s focus on fast-tracking varietal turnover by turning the levers towards a demand-driven seed system.
Cover photo: Pauline Muindi, gender research associate with CIMMYT, at the mock agrodealer shop where she acted as a clerk. (Photo: CIMMYT)
The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) is offering a new set of elite, improved maize hybrids to partners for commercialization in southern Africa and similar agro-ecological zones. National agricultural research systems (NARS) and seed companies are invited to apply for licenses to register and commercialize these new hybrids, in order to bring the benefits of the improved seed to farming communities.
