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.

Farmer Roba Shubisha harvests an improved maize variety in Yubo village, Wondo Genet, Ethiopia. (Photo: Peter Lowe/CIMMYT)

Shining a brighter light on adoption and diffusion

Written by Emma Orchardson on December 15, 2020. Posted in News.

With almost all CGIAR centers represented in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia is considered to be a hub for CGIAR research, and the organization has been a long-term partner to the Ethiopian government when it comes to agriculture. The partnership between CGIAR and the national partners is said to be an exemplary one, with CGIAR serving as the source of new technologies and innovations and national partners contextualizing these products within their own country context. This is believed to have brought impacts that serve the people on the ground.

A new report by CGIAR’s Standing Panel on Impact Assessment (SPIA) indicates that CGIAR innovations have reached between 4.1 and 11 million Ethiopian households. The report — which assesses 52 agricultural innovations and 26 claims of policy influence — documents the reach of CGIAR-related agricultural innovations across the core domains of CGIAR research activity: animal agriculture; crop germplasm improvement; natural resource management; and policy research.

The study compiles comprehensive information on the past two decades of CGIAR research activities in Ethiopia. Using information from interviews with CGIAR research leaders, scientists, government officials, published studies and project documents, this ‘stocktaking’ exercise was used to identify the innovations which are potentially disseminated at scale. The study also employs novel data collection protocols and methods like visual aid protocols for identification of natural resource management innovations or DNA fingerprinting for crop variety identification for barley, maize and sorghum.

The study results show that although many innovations are being adopted by some farmers, only a few are reaching large numbers of households. The three innovations with the largest reach are soil and water conservation practices, improved maize varieties and crossbred poultry. The study also found out that there are synergies between innovations where households adopt two or more. For instance, a household which adopts CGIAR maize varieties is likely to also adopt recommended natural resource management practices.

This, according to the study, is the result of different categories of CGIAR research efforts — natural resource management and policy, crop breeding and livestock research, respectively. The scaling of these innovations can also be linked to supportive government policies, which in turn have been influenced by policy research, as indicated in the report.

A farmer walks through a maize field in Toga village, Hawassa, Ethiopia. (Photo: Peter Lowe/CIMMYT)

CIMMYT’s footprint

The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) has maintained a presence in Ethiopia for over 30 years and is committed to supporting long-term agricultural development in the country. As part of this effort, CIMMYT has contributed to an increase in maize and wheat production in Ethiopia, working with national partners to test and release improved varieties.

The maize breeding program started in 1988 through CIMMYT and EIAR collaboration and in 1993 BH-660 was released — the first hybrid maize variety derived from CIMMYT germplasm. According to the report, specific maize traits were researched through the Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa (DTMA) and Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa Seed Scaling (DTMASS) projects, and since 2012 the Nutritious Maize for Ethiopia (NuME) project has aimed to develop varieties with higher protein content. Overall, 54 maize varieties have been released in Ethiopia since 1990, and 34 of these are thought to contain CIMMYT-related germplasm. It is also noted that, in the past 20 years ten drought-tolerant varieties and eight quality protein maize (QPM) varieties have been released.

In terms of geographical spread, the study highlights that improved maize varieties derived from CGIAR germplasm were highly adopted in the regions of Harar and Dire Dawa, which account for 81% of adopters overall. Adoption rates were also high in Tigray (79.3% of households), Amhara and the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples’ Region (63% of households), and Oromia (58.4% of households).

The other important crop in Ethiopia is wheat, which is grown by up to 4.8 million farmers in the country, according to the 2019 Central Statistics Authority (CSA) report. The SPIA document indicates that CGIAR innovations have played great role in the release and uptake of improved wheat varieties. The work of the CGIAR Research Program on Wheat (WHEAT), for instance, has resulted in the release of eight rust-resistant varieties derived from CIMMYT germplasm that are still under production. Of the 133 varieties released since 1974, CIMMYT and the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) played a role in developing at least 80.

The report concludes that agricultural research carried out by CGIAR scientists and their national partners generates many new ideas for innovations that might help address pressing policy concerns. CGIAR’s contribution to Ethiopia’s agricultural development is complex and wide-ranging, and while some aspects cannot be accurately captured by survey data, this new source of adoption and diffusion data helps identify the scale and scope of CGIAR’s reach in Ethiopia.

Read the full report: Shining a brighter light: Comprehensive evidence on adoption and diffusion of CGIAR-related innovations in Ethiopia

About the Standing Panel on Impact Assessment

The Standing Panel on Impact Assessment (SPIA) is an external, impartial panel of experts in impact assessment appointed by the System Council and accountable to it. SPIA is responsible for providing rigorous, evidence-based, and independent strategic advice to the broader CGIAR System on efficient and effective impact assessment methods and practices, including those measuring impacts beyond contributions to science and economic performance, and on innovative ways to improve knowledge and capacity on how research contributes to development outcomes

Maize germinates inside a greenhouse in Mexico. (Photo: Alfonso Cortés/CIMMYT)

Improved metrics for better decisions

Written by Emma Orchardson on December 14, 2020. Posted in News.

By adopting best practices and established modern tools, national agricultural research systems (NARS) are making data-driven decisions to boost genetic improvement. And they are measuring this progress through tracking and setting goals around “genetic gain.”

Genetic gain means improving seed varieties so that they have a better combination of genes that contribute to desired traits such as higher yields, drought resistance or improved nutrition. Or, more technically, genetic gain measures, “the expected or realized change in average breeding value of a population over at least one cycle of selection for a particular trait of index of traits,” according to the CGIAR Excellence in Breeding (EiB)’s breeding process assessment manual.

CGIAR breeders and their national partners are committed to increasing this rate of improvement to at least 1.5% per year. So, it has become a vital and universal high-level key performance indicator (KPI) for breeding programs.

“We are moving towards a more data-driven culture where decisions are not taken any more based on gut feeling,” EiB’s Eduardo Covarrubias told nearly 200 NARS breeders in a recent webinar on Enhancing and Measuring Genetic Gain. “Decisions that can affect the sustainability and the development of organization need to be based on facts and data.”

Improved metrics. Better decisions. More and better food. But how are NARS positioned to better measure and boost the metric?

EiB researchers have been working with both CGIAR breeding programs and NARS to broaden the understanding of genetic gain and to supply partners with methods and tools to measure it.

The recent webinar, co-sponsored by EiB and the CIMMYT-led Accelerating Genetic Gains in Maize and Wheat (AGG) project, highlighted tools and services that NARS are accessing, such as genotyping, data analysis and mechanization.

Through program assessments, customized expert advice, training and provision of services and resources, EiB researchers are helping national partners arrive at the best processes for driving and measuring genetic gains in their programs.

For example, the EiB team, through Crops to End Hunger (CtEH), is providing guidelines to breeders to help them maximize the accuracy and precision, while reducing the cost of calculating genetic gains. The guidelines make recommendations such as better design of trials and implementing an appropriate check strategy that permits regular and accurate calculation of genetic gain.

A comprehensive example at the project level is EiB’s High-Impact Rice Breeding in East and West Africa (Hi-Rice), which is supporting the modernization of national rice programs in eight key rice-producing countries in Africa. Hi-Rice delivers training and support to modernize programs through tools such as the use of formalized, validated product profiles to better define market needs, genotyping tools for quality control, and digitizing experiment data to better track and improve breeding results. This is helping partners replace old varieties of rice with new ones that have higher yields and protect against elements that attack rice production, such as drought and disease. Over the coming years, EiB researchers expect to see significant improvements in genetic gain from the eight NARS program partners.

And in the domain of wheat and maize, AGG is working in 13 target countries to help breeders adopt best practices and technologies to boost genetic gain. Here, the EiB team is contributing its expertise in helping programs develop their improvement plans — to map out where, when and how programs will invest in making changes.

NARS and CGIAR breeding programs also have access to tools and expertise on adopting a continuous improvement process — one that leads to cultural change and buy-in from leadership so that programs can identify problems and solve them as they come up. Nearly 150 national breeding partners attended another EiB/AGG webinar highlighting continuous improvement key concepts and case studies.

National programs are starting to see the results of these partnerships. The Kenya Agricultural & Livestock Research Organization (KALRO)’s highland maize breeding program has undertaken significant changes to its pipelines. KALRO carried out its first-ever full program costing, and based on this are modifying their pipeline to expand early stage testing. They are also switching to a double haploid breeding scheme with support from the CGIAR Research Program on Maize (MAIZE), in addition to ring fencing their elite germplasm for future crosses.

KALRO has also adopted EiB-supported data management tools, and are working with the team to calculate past rates of genetic gains for their previous 20 years of breeding. These actions — and the resulting data — will help them decide on which tools and methods to adopt in order to improve the rate of genetic gain for highland maize.

“By analyzing historical genetic gain over the last 20 years, it would be interesting to determine if we are still making gains or have reached a plateau,” said KALRO’s Dickson LIgeyo, who presented a Story of Excellence at EiB’s Virtual Meeting 2020. “The assessment will help us select the right breeding methods and tools to improve the program.”

Other NARS programs are on a similar path to effectively measure and increase genetic gain. In Ghana, the rice breeding program at Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) have developed product profiles, identified their target market segments, costed out their program, digitized their operations, and have even deployed molecular markers for selection.

With this increased expertise and access to tools and services, national breeding programs are set to make great strides on achieving genetic gain goals.

“NARS in Africa and beyond have been aggressively adopting new ideas and tools,” says EiB’s NARS engagement lead Bish Das. “It will pay a lot of dividends, first through the development of state-of-the-art, and ultimately through improving genetic gains in farmers’ fields. And that’s what it’s all about.”

A member of a women farmers group serves a platter of mung bean dishes in Suklaphanta, Nepal. (Photo: Merit Maharajan/Amuse Communication)

Best of 2020: Editors’ picks

Written by Rodrigo Ordóñez on December 14, 2020. Posted in Features.

COVID-19 didn’t slow us down! In 2020, our editors continued to cover exciting news and events related to maize and wheat science around the world. Altogether, we published more than 250 stories.

It is impossible to capture all of the places and topics we reported on, but here are some highlights and our favorite stories of the year.

Thank you for being a loyal reader of CIMMYT’s news and features. We are already working on new stories and campaigns for 2021. Sign up for our newsletter and be the first to know!

The cereals imperative of future food systems

The 2019 EAT-Lancet Commission report defines specific actions to achieve a “planetary health diet” enhancing human nutrition and keeping resource use of food systems within planetary boundaries. With major cereals still supplying about one-third of calories required in the proposed diet, the way they are produced, processed, and consumed must be a central focus of global efforts to transform food systems. This article from our annual report argues three main reasons for this imperative.

Cereals matter. (Photo: Alfonso Cortés/CIMMYT)

Explainer: What is conservation agriculture?

Farmers are increasingly adopting conservation agriculture practices. This sustainable farming method is based on three principles: crop diversification, minimal soil movement and permanent soil cover.

Field worker Lain Ochoa Hernandez harvests a plot of maize grown with conservation agriculture techniques in Nuevo México, Chiapas, Mexico. (Photo: P. Lowe/CIMMYT)

Massive-scale genomic study reveals wheat diversity for crop improvement

A team of scientists has completed one of the largest genetic analyses ever done of any agricultural crop to find desirable traits in wheat’s extensive and unexplored diversity.

A new study analyzing the diversity of almost 80,000 wheat accessions reveals consequences and opportunities of selection footprints. (Photo: Eleusis Llanderal/CIMMYT)

Reaching women with improved maize and wheat

The new AGG project aims to respond to the climate emergency and gender nexus through gender-intentional product profiles for its improved seed varieties and gender-intentional seed delivery pathways.

Farmer Agnes Sendeza harvests maize cobs in Malawi. (Photo: Peter Lowe/CIMMYT)

Safeguarding biodiversity is essential to prevent the next COVID-19

Experts share their insights on the link between biodiversity loss and emerging infectious diseases.

Forests in the land of the Ese'eja Native Community of Infierno, in Peru's Madre de Dios department. (Photo: Yoly Gutierrez/CIFOR) — Forests in the land of the Ese’eja Native Community of Infierno, in Peru’s Madre de Dios department. (Photo: Yoly Gutierrez/CIFOR)

Seeing is believing

At demonstration farms, Kenyan farmers discover the stress-tolerant maize varieties they were looking for.

A seed company representative explains to farmers the merits of the variety on this plot. (Photo: Joshua Masinde/CIMMYT)

Battling devastating viral diseases, also in plants

Maize lethal necrosis (MLN) has taught us that intensive efforts to keep human and plant diseases at bay need to continue beyond the COVID-19 crisis. We interviewed B.M. Prasanna, director of the Global Maize Program at CIMMYT and the CGIAR Research Program on Maize (MAIZE), to discuss the MLN success story, the global COVID-19 crisis, and the similarities in the challenge to tackle plant and human viral diseases.

We had a similar conversation with Hans Braun, Director of the Global Wheat Program and the CGIAR Research Program on Wheat, who taled to us about the need for increased investment in crop disease research as the world risks a food security crisis related to COVID-19.

Maize Lethal Necrosis (MLN) sensitive and resistant hybrid demo plots in Naivasha’s quarantine & screening facility (Photo: KIPENZ/CIMMYT)

The many colors of maize, the material of life

The use of corn husk as veneer has helped a town to preserve maize biodiversity, protect the environment and reduce migration.

Denise Costich (center, pink hat) stands with members of the Totomoxtle project in Tonahuixtla. (Photo: Provided by Denise Costich/CIMMYT)

COVID-19 induced economic loss and ensuring food security for vulnerable groups

Study quantifies the economic losses from Bangladesh’s COVID-19 lockdowns and outlines policy implications for the country.

CIMMYT also published a similar study gauging the impact of COVID-19 lockdowns in Nepal.

A rice farmer in central Bangladesh tends to his crop. (Photo: Scott Wallace/World Bank)

Small is beautiful

Seven ways to make small-scale mechanization work for African farmers.

Local female artisan, Hawassa, Ethiopia. (Photo: CIMMYT)

Cover photo: A member of a women farmers group serves a platter of mung bean dishes in Suklaphanta, Nepal. (Photo: Merit Maharajan/Amuse Communication)

A farmer empties a metal silo filled with maize grain in Embu, Kenya. (Photo: CIMMYT)

Who benefits?

Written by Emma Orchardson on December 11, 2020. Posted in Publications.

Maize post-harvest losses in smallholder farming systems in sub-Saharan Africa have been shown to result in significant costs at household and national level, making it difficult to move towards achievement of SDG2 – Zero Hunger.

Within smallholder farming systems, new grain storage technologies such as metal silos can help reduce these losses during storage. However, technologies are often introduced into systems with complex sets of relationships, which may differentially affect the ability of women and men to secure the expected benefits. This, in turn, can have a knock-on effect on adoption rates and expected outcomes.

A recent study by an international team of researchers investigated whether modern storage structures such as metal silos provide equal benefits to women and men farmers in sub-Saharan Africa, using a mixed methods approach to explore the relationships governing maize production and storage in Kenya, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe, where 1717 metal silos have been introduced through the Effective Grain Storage Project (EGSP).

The authors used random sampling to carry out quantitative surveys on metal silo owners in Kenya (124 respondents) and Malawi (100 respondents). Qualitative surveys using purposive sampling were also conducted in all four countries covering 14 ethnic groups using focus group discussions (360 respondents), key informant interviews (62 respondents), and household case studies (62 respondents). “Our aim was to understand gendered post-harvest management and storage strategies in traditional systems and to map changes when metal silos were introduced,” explain the authors.

“We hypothesized that existing gender norms might differentially influence women’s ability to benefit from the introduction of metal silos and our findings seem to indicate that this is correct. In most instances when metal silos are introduced, ownership of the grain storage facility and any benefits attached to that ownership typically switch from women to men, or men’s existing control over stored maize is deepened.”

A farmer from Embu, Kenya, demonstrates how to load maize grain into a metal silo for storage. (Photo: CIMMYT)

Their findings highlight that roles and responsibilities regarding the ownership and management of storage structures are strongly gendered. Though there are differences between ethnic groups and countries, overall men benefit more than women from the introduction of metal silos. Ownership of a grain storage facility and the benefits attached to this ownership can switch from women to men, with women having less scope for bargaining over their rights to use the stores for their own needs and the benefit of all household members.

Many of the women interviewed suggested that this compromised their ability to access sufficient maize because men might insist on taking any grain set aside to meet their personal needs. “We did not measure how much grain is taken and whether food security is indeed negatively affected, but our research registers that women are concerned about this issue.”

The qualitative research explored whether ownership over the granary — and control over the maize stored within — changed when metal silos were purchased. In all four countries, cultural norms tend to result in men typically owning all large household assets such as land, water pumps, ox-ploughs and carts, etc. They generally make key decisions about how these assets are to be used as well. Furthermore, the income differential between women and men in male-headed households means that it is considerably more difficult for women than men to make a large purchase like a metal silo. “As a consequence of these factors, we found men were more likely to own metal silos in each country.”

There is some differentiation between ethnic groups. In Zimbabwe, for example, Zezuru women who had previously owned and managed a dura — a traditional granary — lost control over maize grain reserves when metal silos were introduced. But for Korekore women nothing changed: men had always controlled traditional storage technologies and the maize within, and they continued to do so when metal silos were introduced. These examples highlight the fact that despite the cultural differences between ethnic groups, Zimbabwean women lost out across the board when metal silos were introduced, either through losing control over storage structures, or because male ownership was not challenged.

In light of these findings, the authors argue that understanding social context is key to designing and disseminating post-harvest technologies that meet the needs and preferences of both men and women farmers in various cultural contexts.

Their results make a strong case for ensuring that agricultural policy-makers prioritize the provision of equal access to improved technologies, as this is crucial not only for supporting women to meet their individual production goals, but also for ensuring that household-level food security needs are met.

Read the full study “Do metal grain silos benefit women in Kenya, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe?” in the Journal of Stored Products Research.

National Wheat Coordinator Ruth Wanyera (third from right) gives a lesson to pathology interns in the field of a fungicide efficiency trial at KALRO Njoro Research Station, Nakuru, Kenya.

“Let there be food to eat”

Written by Madeline Dahm on December 9, 2020. Posted in News.

“We want to feed the people, we don’t want them to go hungry. We have to do something to make sure there is food on the table. That is where my motivation is… Let there be food to eat.”

— Ruth Wanyera, 2019

The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) has long attributed its widespread impact and reach to strong collaborations with national agricultural research systems (NARS) around the world. Today, CIMMYT — and especially the Global Wheat Program and the CGIAR Research Program on Wheat — wish to honor one long-term collaborator whose work and dedication to wheat research has had abiding positive effects beyond her home region of sub-Saharan Africa.

Ruth Wanyera, national wheat research program coordinator at the Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization (KALRO), has spent her more than 30-year career dedicated to plant protection research, fueled by her motivation to “feed the people.” She was one of the first scientists to recognize stem rust in east Africa and has been one of CIMMYT’s strongest allies in fighting the devastating wheat disease, stem rust Ug99.

Wanyera recently won both the Norman Borlaug Lifetime Achievement Award from the Borlaug Global Rust Initiative and the Kenya Agricultural Research (KARA) Award at the High Panel Conference on Agricultural Research in Kenya. Wanyera’s team at KALRO has also been recognized with the prestigious Borlaug Global Rust Initiative (BGRI) Gene Stewardship Award.

A long-term relationship with CIMMYT

Sridhar Bhavani, senior scientist and head of Rust Pathology and Molecular Genetics at CIMMYT has worked closely with Wanyera and her team since the mid-2000s.

“Ruth is a passionate researcher who has tirelessly dedicated her entire career to cereal pathology, and as a team, we coordinated the stem rust phenotyping platform for over a decade and had great successes on multiple international projects,” he said.

CIMMYT’s relationship with Wanyera’s team strengthened when Nobel Prize Laureate Norman Borlaug visited the Kenyan research facility to observe the emerging threat of stem rust. Upon witnessing how serious the outbreak had become, Borlaug organized an emergency summit in Nairobi in 2005, famously “sounding the alarm” for swift and concerted action on stem rust, and ultimately leading to the establishment of the BGRI.

“Ruth and her team of dedicated scientists from KALRO have not only made Kenya proud but have also made a remarkable contribution to the global wheat community in mitigating the threat of stem rust Ug99,” says Bhavani. “Ruth has mentored master’s and PhD students who are now leading researchers at KALRO. She has elevated the research capacity of KALRO to international repute.”

Two recent wheat breeding projects helped extend the CIMMYT-KALRO partnership beyond Kenya. The Durable Rust Resistance in Wheat (DRRW) and Delivering Genetic Gain in Wheat (DGGW) projects brought in a partnership with the Ethiopia Institute for Agricultural Research (EIAR) to establish and operate stem rust phenotyping platforms that addressed the global threat of Ug99 and other serious stem rust races, and helped provide solutions for the region. Thanks to KALRO’s screening efforts at the CIMMYT-KALRO Stem Rust Screening Platform in Njoro, Kenya, CIMMYT-derived rust-resistant varieties now cover more than 90% of the wheat farming area in Kenya and Ethiopia.

Ruth Wanyera receives the Kenya Agricultural Research Award (KARA), during the High Panel Conference on Agricultural Research in Kenya. (Photo: CIMMYT)

The partnership continues to grow

Continued collaboration with Ruth’s team at KALRO will be essential in the new Accelerating Genetic Gains in Maize and Wheat for Improved Livelihoods (AGG) project. AGG — which aims to accelerate the development and delivery of more productive, climate-resilient, gender-responsive, market-demanded, and nutritious wheat varieties in in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia — has a particular focus on enhanced collaboration with national partners such as KALRO.

Its success is also closely tied to the Njoro Stem Rust Screening Platform — which, since its establishment in 2008, has conducted crucial screening for over 600,000 wheat lines, varieties, varietal candidates, germplasm bank accessions and mapping populations. Wanyera’s leadership in the Platform, alongside that of CIMMYT wheat scientist Mandeep Randhawa, plays a major role in screening, monitoring, and clearing seed in time for sowing.

As Hans Braun, former director of the CIMMYT Global Wheat Program said, “Without our national agriculture research system partnerships, CIMMYT would become obsolete.”

Indeed, the unparalleled wealth of knowledge, skills, and research facilities of the CGIAR as a whole would not be so uniquely impactful if it weren’t for the 3000+ partnerships with national governments, academic institutions, enthusiastic farmers, private companies and NGOs that help carry out this work.

CIMMYT’s historic and continued impact depends on close international partnerships with scientists and leaders like Ruth Wanyera, and we congratulate her on her numerous awards, thank her for her collaboration, and wish her a pleasant retirement.

Best of 2020: Our favorite videos

Written by Rodrigo Ordóñez on December 8, 2020. Posted in Videos.

The Multimedia team at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and our producers around the world kept busy in 2020. They uploaded 50 videos to our YouTube channel and countless more to our social media, intranet and training platforms!

Here are some of our favorites. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to stay tuned!

Preserving the legacy of biodiversity

We shot much of this video on location in Svalbard, north of the Arctic Circle, where freezing temperatures put our cameras to the test — but the most challenging part of production was yet to come. After a global pandemic was declared, we had to shoot our first-ever socially distanced interviews, guide people to record themselves and coordinate editing remotely.

Travel with us to the Global Seed Vault, where maize and wheat seeds from CIMMYT’s genebank are are safely backed up.

Bringing landraces back home, 50 years later

Half a century ago, scientists collected and preserved samples of maize landraces in Morelos, Mexico. Now, descendants of those farmers were able to get back their ancestral maize seeds and, with them, a piece of their family history.

Jamal conquered his dreams through maize farming

It is not very often that we are able to use soap opera-style drama to convey science. In this video, actors dramatize the human stakes of the battle against fall armyworm.

At the end of the video, graphics and images show techniques developed by CIMMYT and partners to help real farmers beat this pest.

One-minute science: Carolina Rivera explains wheat physiology

Growing the right wheat varieties is necessary to nutritiously feed a growing population in the context of environmental stress.

How do I become a zero-till farmer?

An online training takes farmers and service providers though a visual journey on the use of conservation agriculture-based sustainable intensification methods.

A series of videos — available in Bengali, Hindi and English — demonstrates the process to become a zero-till farmer or service provider: from learning how to prepare a field for zero tillage to the safe use of herbicides.

The Cereal Serial: What are whole grains and why do they matter?

In the first installment of this video series for social media, CIMMYT’s maize and wheat quality experts Natalia Palacios and Itria Ibba explain what whole grains are and why they are an important part of healthy diets.

Douglas Mungai holds up soil on his farm in Murang’a county, Kenya. (Photo: Robert Neptune/TNC)

Crop breeding and soil management must go hand in hand

Written by Emma Orchardson on December 8, 2020. Posted in Blogs.

There is a growing crisis beneath our feet. Scientists, soil specialists and policy-makers around the world are sounding the alarm about degrading soil conditions. And it is particularly stark in developing countries. In fact, about 40 per cent of soils in sub-Saharan Africa are already of poor quality.

Declining soil health causes poor crop yields, leading to further pressure on the soils as farmers struggle to meet food demands and eke out a living. Many farmers lack access to information or technologies to get out of this vicious cycle. If you are a farmer with the need to increase your yield in the face of these challenges, crop breeding and soil management offers a range of solutions as part of an Integrated Soil Fertility Management (ISFM) approach.

For instance, breeding programs which partner with CGIAR Excellence in Breeding (EiB) are working to deliver the best seed varieties for farmers to help them withstand harsh conditions and increase yields. Alongside this work, researchers are supporting farmers to adopt better agronomic practices, such as minimum tillage farming, crop rotation, proper spacing and planting date practices, the use of terracing or intercropping, or techniques to reduce water use.

Of course, breeding cannot happen in a vacuum. To protect soils and produce quality yields, these cropping measures should be closely matched to the best, context-appropriate soil management practices available to farmers, for instance around the type and timing of mineral fertilizer, along with organic sources like crop residues, compost or manure.

Indeed, a combination will bring the best results. But most of the time accessing either improved variety or best agronomic practice represent a challenge for farmers in low income countries.

Here are three ways crop breeders can ensure they deliver the best seeds and create the best conditions for long-term crop production.

Include farmers, agronomic experts and extension services when defining product requirements

Strong connections among public breeding programs and extension and agronomic groups are vital. There is growing discussion regarding how to broaden our work to better consider all the factors that contribute to a successful breeding scheme: genotyping, environment and management (GxExM). However, defining the management component is not easy. Do we breed for conditions that farmers are actually working with, or breed for conditions that they should adopt?

A key to answer this question is a strong breeding team defining the traits needed and wanted by farmers. To design the best product profile, it is imperative to involve extension teams and other groups that work on the development of sustainable agronomic practices.

A farmer inspects a drought-tolerant bean plant on a trial site in Malawi. (Photo: Neil Palmer/CIAT) — A man inspects a drought-tolerant bean plant on a trial site in Malawi. (Photo: Neil Palmer/CIAT)

Properly manage research stations

Attention also needs to focus on the sustainability practices within research stations. It is all too easy to find degraded soil in public research stations. There are many reasons for this: inadequate long-term planning, lack of organized management structures, insufficient connections between breeding and agronomic teams, and lack of resources, to name a few.

Public research stations must serve as an example for the farmers in that specific region. Thus, it is not only what products we develop that matters, but also how we develop them. If we develop a good variety at the research station, but do so without adopting good agronomic practice, what example has been set for farmers and future generations? We need to ensure we invest in the best soil management practices along every step of the research phase.

Breed for specific soil characteristics

Once the breeding target is known, breeding for specific soil conditions is critical. This means developing varieties for soil conditions such as nutrient deficiencies or high salinity levels. CGIAR breeding programs have put in tremendous efforts with great impact here.

For example, AfricaRice and partners developed rice varieties branded ARICA (Advanced Rice Varieties for Africa) to be salt or iron toxicity tolerant, among other traits. This is helping farmers who farm under predominantly rainfed conditions, in which soils and yields are threatened by floods, droughts and toxicity.

Another standout product is Stress Tolerant Maize for Africa (STMA), led by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA). Breeders have developed varieties that can thrive in low soil fertility conditions, along with resistance to other stresses such as pests and drought. The project has seen the adoption of new maize varieties by more than six million households across 13 countries, with some farms increasing yields by over 150 per cent.

Our soils depend on breeding for the future. Breeding is showing real results for improving yields, delivering better food, and increasing smallholder incomes. But its impact on ecosystems could go either way. With the right investments in relationships, good research practices, and delivering varieties matched to particular soil conditions, we can breed for the present and for the future.

It is time to invest in both crop breeding and soil management — as one vital package of innovations.

Godfrey Asea (R) and Daniel Bomet (L) from Uganda’s National Agricultural Research Organization (NARO) admire maize cobs on a farm in Uganda. (Photo: Joshua Masinde/CIMMYT)

Building networks and capacity

Written by Shiela Chikulo on November 30, 2020. Posted in News.

The active involvement of partners in the co-design of project and capacity building activities is key to the success of the Accelerating Genetic Gains in Maize and Wheat for Improved Livelihoods (AGG) project, led by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT). To that end, the AGG Regional Collaborative Breeding and Testing Networks launched with virtual meetings on September 14 and 15 for southern African partners, and October 28 and November 2 for eastern African partners.

In addition, the AGG team collaborated with researchers from the Excellence in Breeding (EiB) Platform on a number of capacity development webinars in October and November, on topics including Continuous Improvement for breeding processes, programs and products, enhancing and measuring genetic gain in crop breeding, and a three-webinar series on statistical analysis for plant breeders with CIMMYT’s Biometrics and Statistics Unit.

These training events and regional meetings provided opportunities for well over 100 breeders from CIMMYT, national agricultural research systems (NARS) and seed companies to refresh their capacities to improve genetic gains, and to collectively review and discuss upcoming project activities, current issues of interest, and broader project objectives within their current regional context.

Several themes of importance to partners emerged during the network virtual meetings, for attention in future AGG activities and capacity development work.

Gender inclusion and the impact of COVID-19

Ugandan partners, including Godfrey Asea, director of the National Crops Resources Research Institute at Uganda’s National Agricultural Research Organization, and Josephine Okot, founder and managing director of Victoria Seeds, applauded the project’s emphasis on inclusion of women’s knowledge and preferences in breeding programs.

“We notice that this time there is a lot of focus on gender-inclusiveness,” remarked Asea. “I can tell you there is need for enhanced capacity building for both the private sector and research in proper gender inclusion.”

They also noted the importance of building local capacity, not just for food security but also for other value chain items like raw materials. “COVID-19 has demonstrated to all policy-makers that we cannot depend on the global supply chains,” said Okot. “How can we leverage this project if, for instance, some private sector actors want to [know] the appropriate protein-content maize for, say, animal feed?”

Demand for knowledge

NARS members in Tanzania requested increased support on how to measure or assess genetic gains, especially at the national level, to allow them to establish a baseline upon which genetic gains would be pegged for the project lifecycle.

With statistics an essential element to plant breeding — from analyzing yield trials to ranking varieties — the webinar series in Statistical Analysis for Plant Breeders was a first step towards meeting these capacity development needs.

“The idea of this webinar series was to share insights on how we can improve the breeding plans using statistical methods in an effective way,” said Juan Burgueño, the head of CIMMYT’s Biometrics and Statistics Unit. “The training offered both theory and hands-on experience using open-access software.”

Reaching farmers

Looking beyond breeding, meeting participants also discussed how to improve access and adoption of improved varieties among farmers.

“For a large country such as Tanzania, it is at times very hard to reach the farmers,” said Zabron Mbwaga, managing director of the Tanzania-based Beula Seed Company and Consultancy Limited. “We may have a lot of seed in the store, but how to get the farmers to adopt the newer varieties is quite difficult. This is more so when farmers tend to stick to varieties which they know well and are always reluctant to adopt the new varieties,” he explained.

“We need to put in a lot of effort to set up demonstration farms and enhance other awareness-raising activities such as radio programs so that farmers can know about the new varieties.”

This interest in working with smallholder farmers along the entire value chain was echoed by partners in southern Africa.

“Through this project, we would like to explore ways of collaborating along the whole value chain — as the Agriculture Research Council, other partners and small to medium enterprises — to make it an effective chain,” said Kingstone Mashingaidze, senior research manager at the South Africa Agricultural Research Council. “By planning together, we can identify best-fits for all activities in the value chain and ultimately benefit the smallholder farmers.”

About the AGG Regional Collaborative Breeding and Testing Networks

The AGG Regional Collaborative Breeding and Testing Networks aim to improve breeding efficiencies among partners by enabling the use of modern tools and approaches and enriching the existing network of research organizations, public and private seed companies, farmers’ organizations, non-governmental organizations and community-based organizations. It is expected that these networks will lead to increased efficiency and communications across the partnership network and within countries, improved sharing of best practices and protocols, and increased collective ownership of products for accelerated variety development and turnover.

The virtual meetings for the Regional Collaborative Breeding and Testing Network for southern Africa convened participants from Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe, while meetings for eastern Africa had participants from Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda.

AGG communications staff Joshua Masinde and Shiela Chikulo contributed to this story.

An extension officer from Masvingo district drives a two-wheel tractor during a training for service providers and extension officers at Gwebi Agricultural College, Zimbabwe. (Photo: Shiela Chikulo/CIMMYT)

Money-making machines

Written by Shiela Chikulo on November 27, 2020. Posted in Features.

A new small-mechanization pilot initiative launched in July is equipping farmers with the business and technical skills they need to provide mechanization services to communities in six wards of Masvingo district, Zimbabwe.

With funding from the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) managed by the United Nations World Food Program (WFP), the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) is leading implementation of the pilot in collaboration with Kurima Machinery and the Zimbabwe Agriculture Development Trust (ZADT), who are supporting the technical training and financial management, respectively.

Anchored on a strong business model, 15 farmers have signed up to become service providers and invested an initial deposit of $500 to access the mechanization package comprising a two-wheel tractor and trailer, a direct planter and a maize cob sheller. Through a “lease-to-own” credit facility, eligible service providers will have 24 months to pay the remaining balance for the set of equipment.

“This approach addresses re-payment challenges in past interventions, where equipment was distributed without a firm commitment from the service providers and without putting in enough effort to establish a viable business,” says Christian Thierfelder, a cropping systems agronomist at CIMMYT. “An advantage of this new form of financial commitment by the service providers is that it guarantees full participation and a change in their perception towards farming as a business.”

Since 2013, smallholder farmers in Zimbabwe have been exposed to the benefits of combining small-mechanization with conservation farming systems to improve productivity — land preparation, planting and harvesting to achieve higher yields while reducing production costs. Besides making farming tasks more efficient for individuals, this set of equipment can be used to provide critical services to other farmers in their wards.

The two-wheel tractor can have various implements attached to it for services such as planting, transportation and shelling. It can also be used to run other important implements such as water pumps, mills or threshers.

This mechanization pilot therefore presents an additional pathway out of poverty and into sustainable production and income generation at household level, while boosting the local economy and rural employment in Masvingo district.

Service providers, extension officers and CIMMYT staff pose for a group photo after completing a training course at Gwebi Agricultural College, Zimbabwe. (Photo: Shiela Chikulo/CIMMYT)

Training for local service provision

Eligible service providers were recently invited to attend a one-week specialized business and technical training course at Gwebi Agricultural College, just outside of Harare. The training package consisted of two main components: business management; and two-wheel tractor operation, maintenance and repair.

Elliot Zvovovo, a participating service provider, explains how the balanced training approach equipped him fully with all the knowledge and skills he needs to run his business. “I learned different ways of record keeping, managing income and treating my clients professionally,” he says.

“On the machinery side, I learned about of all the parts of a two-wheel tractor and practiced assembling the engine so that maintenance and repair will be easy for me.”

Julius Shava, another participating service provider, agrees, adding that knowing how to maintain the two-wheel tractor and troubleshooting will also minimize costs of hiring external mechanics to attend to faults. “I realized the importance of routine checks for oil and water levels, how to crank-start the tractor and hitch the planter all by myself.”

Supporting agricultural extension in line with service providers is critical to mainstreaming transformational change in rural areas. As such, seven local extension officers — key partners in the implementation of small-mechanization activities — were also invited to participate in the training.

“The training proved to be very effective, particularly the emphasis on mastering business principles and on the technical side, integrating service providers’ existing knowledge of conservation farming with small-mechanization,” says Canaan Zhakata, an extension officer for Ward 15.

Through the practical sessions, all service providers have now learned how to operate a two-wheel tractor, calibrate the direct planter for seed and fertilizer rates and use the sheller — giving them full technical skills and knowledge,” explains Dorcas Matangi, a research associate at CIMMYT.

The certification they have received will increase farmers’ confidence as they return to Masvingo to commence service delivery, with continued on-site support from their local extension officers. “Once we return to Masvingo, we can assist the new service providers by monitoring their service delivery to ensure full compliance with the technical requirements for operating the machinery,” says Tsvakai Dumbu, an extension officer for Ward 17.

A service provider starts a two-wheel tractor while other participants look on at a training at Gwebi Agricultural College, Zimbabwe. (Photo: Shiela Chikulo/CIMMYT)

A profitable business for the local economy

This mechanization pilot is poised for success as it draws on existing positive results gained by the women and youth service providers in western Zimbabwe, who are running successful mechanized enterprises following the recently completed Farm Mechanization and Conservation Agriculture for Sustainable Intensification (FACASI) project.

“During a recent seed fair, we heard of a youth group in Makonde that is making up to $7,000 just from maize shelling services,” says Zvovovo. “Knowing that it takes just one day to shell up to three tons of maize with the sheller, I now know that reaching such an income is achievable.”

This pilot will prove that there is scope for small-mechanization to expand on productivity through the two-wheel tractor, trailer and sheller, as shown in other parts of eastern and southern Africa. It will explore leverages on the opportunities and demand for services in Masvingo.

Cover image: An extension officer from Masvingo district drives a two-wheel tractor during a training for service providers and extension officers at Gwebi Agricultural College, Zimbabwe. (Photo: Shiela Chikulo/CIMMYT)

A farmer in Tanzania holds a handful of drought-tolerant maize seed. (Photo: Anne Wangalachi/CIMMYT)

Molecular breeding speeds development of better seeds

Written by Emma Orchardson on November 27, 2020. Posted in Features.

To adequately confront rapidly changing plant pests and diseases and safeguard food security for a growing population, breeders — in collaboration with their partners — have to keep testing and applying new breeding methods to deliver resilient seed varieties at a much faster rate using minimal resources. Molecular markers are essential in this regard and are helping to accelerate genetic gains and deliver better seed to smallholders across sub-Saharan Africa in a much shorter timeframe.

Progress made so far in molecular plant breeding, genetics, genomic selection and genome editing has contributed to a deeper understanding on the role of molecular markers and greatly complemented breeding strategies. However, phenotyping remains the single most costly process in plant breeding, thus limiting options to increase the size of breeding programs.

Application of molecular markers increases the ability to predict and select the best performing lines and hybrids, prior to selection in the field. “This enables breeders to expand the size of a breeding program or the populations they work on using the same amount of resources,” says Manje Gowda, a maize molecular breeder at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).

“There are three stages in the use of molecular markers: discovery, validation and deployment,” he explains. “At the discovery phase, the objective is to find molecular markers associated or tightly linked with the trait of interest, while also assessing whether the trait is more complex or easier to handle with few markers for selection.”

The molecular markers identified at the discovery stage are validated in independent bi-parental or backcross populations, and the marker trait associations — which are consistent across different genetic backgrounds and diverse environments — are then moved to the deployment stage. Here, they are considered for use in breeding either as part of marker assisted selection or forward breeding, marker assisted back crossing and marker assisted recurrent selection.

Screening for resistance markers

CIMMYT scientists have discovered several marker trait associations for crop diseases including maize lethal necrosis (MLN), maize streak virus (MSV), corn rust and turcicum leaf blight. All these trait-associated markers have been validated in biparental populations.

For MLN, after screening several thousands of lines, researchers identified a few with resistance against the viral disease, namely KS23-5 and KS23-6. These lines were obtained from synthetic populations developed by Kasetsart University in Thailand and serve as trait donors. Researchers were able to use these as part of forward breeding, producing doubled haploid (DH) lines by using KS23-6 as one parent and screening for the presence of MLN resistance genes.

“This screening helps eliminate the lines that may carry susceptible genes, without having to phenotype them under artificial inoculation,” says Gowda. “These markers are also available to all partners to screen for MLN resistance, thereby saving on costs related to phenotyping.”

Scientists also used these MLN resistance markers to introgress the MLN resistance into several elite lines that are highly susceptible to the disease but have other desirable traits such as high grain yield and drought tolerance. The marker-assisted backcrossing technique was used to obtain MLN resistance from the KS23-5 and KS23-6 donor lines. This process involves crossing an elite, commercial line — as a recurrent parent in the case of CIMMYT elite lines — with a donor parent line (KS23) with MLN resistance. These were then backcrossed over two to three cycles to improve the elite line carrying MLN resistance genes. In the past three years, more than 50 lines have been introgressed with the MLN resistance gene from KS23-6 donor line.

Aida Zewdu Kebede, a PhD student at the University of Hohenheim, sits next to an experimental plot for doubled haploid maize in Agua Fría, Mexico. (Photo: Thomas Lumpkin/CIMMYT)

An impetus to breeding programs

“The work Manje Gowda has been carrying out is particularly important in that it has successfully moved from discovery of valuable markers and proof-of-concept experiments to scalable breeding methods which are being used effectively,” says CIMMYT Trait Pipeline and Upstream Research Coordinator Mike Olsen. “Enabling routine implementation of molecular markers to increase selection efficiency of breeding programs in the context of African maize improvement is quite impactful.”

At CIMMYT, Gowda’s team applied genomic selection at the early stage of testing the breeding pipeline for different product profiles. “The objective was to testcross and phenotype 50% of the Stage One hybrids and predict the performance of remaining 50% of the hybrids using molecular markers,” Gowda explains.

The team have applied this strategy successfully each year since 2017, and the results of this experiment show that selection efficiency is the same as when using phenotypic selection, but using only 32% of the resources. From 2021 onwards, the aim is to use the previous year’s Stage One phenotypic and genotypic data to predict 100% of the lines. This will not only save the time but improve efficiency and resource use. The previous three-year Stage One historical data is helping to reduce the phenotyping of lines from 50% to 15%, with an increase in saving resources of up to 50%.

For the commercial seed sector, integrating molecular marker-based quality control measures can help deploy high-quality seeds, an important factor for increasing crop yields. In sub-Saharan Africa, awareness on marker-based quality has improved due to increased scientist and breeder trainings at national agricultural research systems (NARS), seed companies and national plant protection organizations, as well as regulators and policymakers.

Currently, many NARS and private sector partners are making it mandatory to apply marker-based quality control to maintain high-quality seeds. Since NARS and small- and medium-sized seed companies’ breeding programs are smaller, CIMMYT is coordinating the collection of samples from different partners for submission to service providers for quality control purposes. CIMMYT staff are also helping to analyze quality control data and interpret results to sharing with partners for decision-making. For the sustainability of this process, CIMMYT is training NARS partners on quality control, from sample collection to data analyses and interpretation, and this will support them to work independently and produce high-quality seed.

Such breeding improvements have become indispensable in supporting maize breeding programs in the public and private sectors to develop and deliver improved maize varieties to smallholder farmers across sub-Saharan Africa.

A farmer in Tanzania stands in front of her maize plot where she grows improved, drought tolerant maize variety TAN 250. (Photo: Anne Wangalachi/CIMMYT)

Breaking Ground: Rahel Assefa thrives off witnessing impact

Written by Emma Orchardson on November 26, 2020. Posted in Features.

Ethiopia-born Rahel Assefa began her career as a software engineer in a children’s hospital in Washington DC, USA. Although she enjoyed this work for the first few years, she found that it was not as fulfilling as she had initially hoped.

Rahel slowly started shifting gears towards a new career, initially pursuing an MSc in Project Management. “I knew that I was meant to work in an area where I would have direct interaction and impact, so I really thrived in that environment,” she explains.

Her work was highly appreciated by senior managers and she quickly progressed in this new career path. “I was soon recruited to help build a project management office from scratch and that solidified my interest in the field.”

A return to Africa

Rahel remained in health care for the next few years, taking on roles in portfolio and business relationship management but ultimately, she knew her next step would be to return to Africa and work in a field that contributes to supporting people’s livelihoods.

In 2015, Rahel learned of a job opening at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) which was suitable to her skillset and would also serve her desire of moving to Africa. She applied and joined the organization in February 2016, moving to Addis Ababa with her young family in tow. “We had always discussed returning to Africa, and preferably to Ethiopia, so this was a welcome move. But it was also a big leap into the unknown because both my husband and I had left Ethiopia during our formative years,” she says.

Rahel had also never worked in the agricultural sector before joining CIMMYT, so there was a steep learning curve to contend with, as well as the cultural shifts she had to make to adjust to her new work environment. “I remember spending my first few days on the job taking the time to just observe, listen actively and ask questions.”

Rahel Assefa (center) meets colleagues at a CIMMYT event in Texcoco, Mexico. (Photo: Alfonso Cortés)

Witnessing impact first-hand

Rahel now works as a project manager and as the regional program manager for CIMMYT’s Sustainable Intensification Program in Africa. “Working at CIMMYT is interesting because I get to collaborate with such a diverse group of people, and we can see that our work has a direct impact on the day-to-day lives of farmers,” she says. “It’s always rewarding to see first-hand how the life of a farmer, woman or young person is transformed because of the work we do.”

“I also find working at CIMMYT’s Ethiopia office enjoyable simply because everyone gets along well,” she explains. Rahel particularly appreciates the Thursday morning coffee gatherings for staff hosted at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) campus, and her frequent interactions with colleagues in Kenya and Zimbabwe, where she travels regularly. “I love having the opportunity to see the work colleagues do on the ground across Africa and I’m always in awe of their dedication to the work they do.”

When she’s not visiting projects in Nairobi or Harare, Rahel cherishes the time she spends with her family and young son, Adam, who seems to be developing a keen interest in agriculture himself. “He loves visiting ‘mommy’s office’ from time to time,” she explains, “and as a result he has recently even attempted to plant maize and wheat in our back garden.”

Rahel Assefa

Written by Emma Orchardson on November 24, 2020. Posted in Uncategorized.

Rahel Assefa works with CIMMYT’s Sustainable Agrifood Systems (SAS) program, serving as regional project manager for Africa and project manager for various projects across East and Southern Africa.

Rahel works closely with project leaders and head office units to develop operational plans, and manages budgets, contracts and subgrants. She supports donor reporting and proposal development, serves as a liaison with donors and implementing partners, and more.

A smallholder farmer displays the products she purchased at a seed fair in Masvingo, Zimbabwe. (Photo: Shiela Chikulo/CIMMYT)

An instant seed market

Written by Shiela Chikulo on November 20, 2020. Posted in Features.

How do you create the largest market for stress-tolerant seed away from a major business center and attract over 1000 smallholder farmers in two days? Organize a seed fair to strengthen knowledge and information sharing.

The availability, access and use of climate-resilient seed by smallholder farmers in Zimbabwe is often hampered by transport costs, the distance between farming areas and viable seed markets, lack of public transport to business centers, and the inflated prices of seed and inputs by local agro-dealers. As a result, resource-poor farmers who cannot afford to purchase inputs resort to exchanging local seed retained or recycled from informal markets. This has devastating effects on farmers’ productivity, food and nutrition security.

Under the Zambuko/R4 Rural Resilience Initiative, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) is promoting climate-smart technologies and appropriate seed varieties alongside conservation agriculture (CA) systems in Masvingo district, Zimbabwe. Since 2018, mother and baby trials have successfully yielded results for smallholders in Ward 17 and additional mother trials have been introduced in Ward 13.

To overcome the challenges of seed access, CIMMYT partnered with eight seed companies — including Agriseeds, Mukushi and SeedCo — to host two seed fairs in October, targeting farmers in Wards 13 and 17. The intervention sought to address seed insecurity while reducing the knowledge gap on available stress-tolerant seed varieties by smallholder farmers.

Groundwork preparations led by the Department of Agriculture and Extension Services (AGRITEX) mobilized farmers from the host wards as well as farmers from neighboring wards 15, 19 and 25. In light of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, regulations relating to social distancing, the use of masks and sanitization were adhered to throughout the events.

Climate-smart seed choices

A key message delivered to the more than 1000 farmers who attended the seed fairs was the importance of their preference when selecting the right seed for their field. “Farmers must be critical when selecting seed and ensure that their preferred seed will perform well under the prevailing climatic conditions to give a good harvest,” said CIMMYT seed systems specialist Peter Setimela.

Seed company representatives were offered a platform to market their varieties and explain the benefits of each product on the market while leaving it to the farmers to decide on the most suitable variety for their own needs. “Farmers came early for the seed fairs and showed interest in our products,” said Norman Chihumo, a regional agronomist at Syngenta Distributors. “We recorded fairly good sales of seed and chemicals through cash purchases and vouchers.”

Later in the day, farmers toured the seed company stands to see the diverse maize varieties and small grains on offer — including millet and sorghum, cowpeas and groundnuts — and heard testimonials from participants in the mother and baby trials. “Listening to a success story from a farmer I know gives me the confidence to follow suit and buy seed that works in this harsh climate of ours,” said Joice Magadza, a farmer from Ward 17.

Local farmer Happison Chitono agreed. “I never used to grow cowpeas on my plot,” he explained, “but after learning about the ability it has to fix nitrogen into my soil and possibility of rotating the legume with maize, I am now gladly adding it to my seed input package.”

Muza Vutete, a baby-trial farmer shares the advantages of adopting conservation farming principles at a seed fair in Masvingo, Zimbabwe. (Photo: Shiela Chikulo/CIMMYT)

A seed fair is also a knowledge market

A key highlight of the seed fair was the learning platform promoting CIMMYT’s ongoing activities under the Zambuko/R4 Rural Resilience Initiative. Here, cropping systems agronomist Christian Thierfelder shared the objectives of this initiative with participating farmers.

“We know how good this seed is, but we also have to grow it in a sustainable way, so we make best use of the limited rainfall we receive in this area while we improve our soils,” he explained to farmers. “Cropping systems such as conservation agriculture combine no-tillage, mulching and crop rotation in a climate-smart agriculture way which enables farmers to harvest enough, even under heat and drought stress.”

Thierfelder also demonstrated the use of farm equipment promoted by CIMMYT in collaboration with Kurima Machinery, explaining how these can help reduce drudgery and save time on planting, transport and shelling.

Representatives from Kurima machinery conduct a demonstration of the two-wheel tractor during the seed fair in Masvingo, Zimbabwe. (Photo: Shiela Chikulo/CIMMYT)

Vouchers for transparent seed access

The seed fairs culminated in the distribution of seed and input vouchers. One hundred farmers were selected through a transparent raffle and redeemed their vouchers at their preferred seed company stands. They then also had the option to purchase additional seed, fertilizer and chemicals using their own cash.

Particularly high sales were recorded for Provitamin A orange maize, which sold out on both seed fair days. Stress-tolerant varieties such as ZM 309 and ZM 523 from Zimbabwe Super Seeds, ZM521 from Champion Seeds, and MRI 514 from Syngenta were also favorites among the farmers, while white sorghum and cowpea varieties such as CBC2 also sold well. Most of these varieties were already known to farmers as they had seen them growing for two years in CIMMYT’s mother trials of Ward 17.

The seed fairs ended on a high note with a total of 1.2 tons of seed sold to farmers on both days and agro-dealers hailed the fairs as a timely business venture for creating linkages and bringing seed suppliers on-site to assess their shops. A post-seed fair monitoring exercise will soon follow up on farmers’ use of the seed and the performance of demo packs and purchased varieties.

The Zambuko/R4 Rural Resilience Initiative supported by the United States Agency for International Aid (USAID), Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and the World Food Programme (WFP) aims to increase farmer resilience and capacity to withstand climatic shocks and stresses in rural communities of Masvingo, Mwenezi and Rushinga in Zimbabwe.

Maize and wheat fields at the El Batán experimental station. (Photo: CIMMYT/Alfonso Cortés)

Scientific opportunities and challenges

Written by Emma Orchardson on November 20, 2020. Posted in Blogs.

The first meetings of the Accelerating Genetic Gains in Maize and Wheat for Improved Livelihoods (AGG) wheat and maize science and technical steering committees — WSC and MSC, respectively — took place virtually on 25^th and 28^th September.

Researchers from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) sit on both committees. In the WSC they are joined by wheat experts from national agricultural research systems (NARS) in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Kenya, India, and Nepal; and from Angus Wheat Consultants, the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO), HarvestPlus, Kansas State University and the Roslin Institute.

Similarly, the MSC includes maize experts from NARS in Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya and Zambia; and from Corteva, the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research (FFAR), the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA), SeedCo, Syngenta, the University of Queensland, and the US Agency for International Development (USAID).

During the meetings, attendees discussed scientific challenges and opportunities for AGG, and developed specific recommendations pertaining to key topics including breeding and testing scheme optimization, effective engagement with partners and capacity development in the time of COVID-19, and seed systems and gender intentionality.

Discussion groups noted, for example, the need to address family structure in yield trials, to strengthen collaboration with national partners, and to develop effective regional on-farm testing strategies. Interestingly, most of the recommendations are applicable and valuable for both crop teams, and this is a clear example of the synergies we expect from combining maize and wheat within the AGG project.

All the recommendations will be further analyzed by the AGG teams during coming months, and project activities will be adjusted or implemented as appropriate. A brief report will be submitted to the respective STSCs prior to the second meetings of these committees, likely in late March 2021.

A farmer assesses soil on his plot in Ethiopia. (Photo: Simret Yasabu/CIMMYT)

Taking stock of the national toolbox

Written by Emma Orchardson on November 19, 2020. Posted in Features.

The Government of Ethiopia has consistently prioritized agriculture and sees it as a core component of the country’s growth. However, despite considerable efforts to improve productivity, poor management of soil health and fertility has been an ongoing constraint. This is mainly due to a lack of comprehensive site-and context-specific soil health and fertility management recommendations and dissemination approaches targeted to specific needs.

The government envisions a balanced soil health and fertility system that helps farmers cultivate and maintain high-quality and fertile soils through the promotion of appropriate soil-management techniques, provision of required inputs, and facilitation of appropriate enablers, including knowledge and finance.

So far, a plethora of different research-for-development activities have been carried out in support of this effort, including the introduction of tools which provide location-specific fertilizer recommendations. For example, researchers on the Taking Maize Agronomy to Scale in Africa (TAMASA) project, led by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), have created locally calibrated versions of Nutrient Expert® (NE) — a tool for generating fertilizer recommendations — for maize farmers in Ethiopia, Nigeria and Tanzania.

Nutrient Expert® is only one of the many fertilizer recommendation tools which have been developed in recent years covering different levels of applicability and accuracy across spatial scales and users, including smallholder farmers, extension agents and national researchers. However, in order to make efficient use of all the resources available in Ethiopia, there is a need to systematically evaluate the merits of each tool for different scales and use cases. To jump start this process, researchers from the TAMASA project commissioned an assessment of the tools and frameworks that have been developed, adapted and promoted in the country, and how they compare with one another for different use-cases. Seven tools were assessed, including Nutrient Expert®, the Ethiopian Soil Information System (EthioSIS) and RiceAdvice.

For each of these, the research team asked determined how the tool is currently being implemented — for example, as an app or as a generic set of steps for recommendation generation — and its data requirements, how robust the estimates are, how complicated the interface is, how easy it is to use, the conditions under which it performs well, and the spatial scale at which it works best.

Farmer Gudeye Leta harvests his local variety maize in Dalecho village, Gudeya Bila district, Ethiopia. (Photo: Peter Lowe/CIMMYT)

Combining efforts and information

The results of this initial assessment indicate that the type of main user and the scale at which decisions are made varied from tool to tool. In addition, most of the tools considered have interactive interfaces and several — including Nutrient Expert® and RiceAdvice — have IT based platforms to automate the optimization of fertilizer recommendations and/or analyze profit. However, the source codes for all the IT based platforms and tools are inaccessible to end-users. This means that if further evaluation and improvements are to be made, there should be a means of collaborating with developers to share the back-end information, such as site-specific response curves and source codes.

Because most of the tools take different approaches to making fertilizer application site-specific, each of them renders unique strengths and trade-offs. For example, Nutrient Expert® may be considered strong in its approach of downscaling regionally calibrated responses to field level recommendations based on a few site-specific responses from farmers. By contrast, its calibration requires intensive data from nutrient omission trials and advice provision is time consuming.

Overall, the use of all the Site-Specific Decision-Support Tools (SSDST) has resulted in improved grain yields compared to when farmers use traditional practices, and this is consistent across all crops. On average, use of Nutrient Expert® improved maize, rice and wheat yields by 5.9%, 8.1% and 4.9%, respectively. Similarly, the use of RiceAdvice resulted in a 21.8% yield advantage.

The assessment shows that some of the tools are useful because of their applicability at local level by development agents, while others are good because of the data used to develop and validate them. However, in order to benefit the agricultural system in Ethiopia from the perspective of reliable fertilizer-use advisory, there is a need to develop a platform that combines the merits of all available tools. To achieve this, it has been suggested that the institutions who developed the individual tools join forces to combine efforts and information, including background data and source codes for IT based tools.

While the COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted efforts to convene discussions around this work, CIMMYT has and will continue to play an active advocacy role in supporting collaborative efforts to inform evidence-based reforms to fertilizer recommendations and other agronomic advice in Ethiopia and the wider region. CIMMYT is currently undertaking a more rigorous evaluation of these tools and frameworks as a follow up on the initial stocktaking activity.