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.

Starwheel planter in Zimbabwe. (Photo: Jérôme Bossuet/CIMMYT)

Small is beautiful

Written by Alison Doody on July 9, 2020. Posted in Features.

Can Africa’s smallholder farmers adopt and reap the benefits of farm mechanization? The Farm Mechanization and Conservation Agriculture for Sustainable Intensification (FACASI) team set out in 2013 to test this proposition. With the project nearing closure, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) project leader Frédéric Baudron believes the answer is yes.

“We have demonstrated that small-scale mechanization is a pathway to sustainable intensification and rural transformation, and can have positive gender outcomes as well,” he explained.

Here are some of the key lessons learned along the way, according to the people involved.

1. Appropriate mechanization is essential

With many farms in Africa measuring no more than two hectares, FACASI focused on bringing two-wheel tractors to regions where smallholdings dominate, especially in Zimbabwe and Ethiopia. For most small farmers, conventional farm machinery is out of reach due to its size, costs, and the skills needed to operate it. The typical path to mechanization would be for farmers to consolidate their farms, which could lead to social and environmental upheaval. Instead, the FACASI team scaled-down the equipment to suit the local context.

FACASI has obtained evidence to dispel commonly held myths about farm power in smallholder farming systems,” said Eric Huttner, research program manager for crops at the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR).

2. Test, develop and adapt technologies… together

From start to finish, the project tested and developed technologies in collaboration with farmers, local manufacturers, engineers, extension agents. Together, they adapted and refined small-scale machinery used in other parts of the world to accommodate the uneven fields and hard soils of African smallholder farms. This co-construction of technologies helped cultivate a stronger sense of local ownership and buy-in.

“We gained many valuable insights by continuously refining technologies in the context of efficiency, farmer preference and needs,” said Bisrat Getnet, FACASI national project coordinator in Ethiopia, and director of the Agricultural Engineering Research Department in the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR).

Jane Mautsa and her husband operating the sheller. (Photo: Shiela Chikulo/CIMMYT)

3. Make it useful

The basic two-wheel tractor is a highly flexible and adaptable technology, which can be used to mechanize a range of on-farm tasks throughout the seasons. With the right attachments, the tractor makes short work of sowing, weeding, harvesting, shelling, water pumping, threshing and transportation.

“This multi-functional feature helps to ensure the tractor is useful at all stages of the annual farming cycle, and helps make it profitable, offsetting costs,” said Raymond Nazare, FACASI national project coordinator in Zimbabwe and lecturer at the Soil and Engineering Department of the University of Zimbabwe.

4. Less pain, more profit

Reducing the unnecessary drudgery of smallholder farming can be financially rewarding and open new doors. Mechanization can save farmers the costs of hiring additional labor, and vastly reduce the time and effort of many post-harvest tasks — often done by women — such as transport, shelling and grinding. FACASI researchers demonstrated the potential for mechanization to reduce this onerous labor, allowing women to channel their time and energy into other activities.

5. New, inclusive rural business models

New technologies need reliable supply chains and affordable support services. The FACASI team supported leasing and equipment-sharing schemes, trained people to operate and maintain machinery, and encouraged individuals and groups to become service providers. These efforts often focused on giving youth and women new business opportunities.

“The project demonstrated that small mechanization can create profitable employment,” said Tirivangani Koza, of Zimbabwe’s Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Water and Rural Resettlement.

“Women and youth are using small mechanization to grow profitable businesses,” said Alice Woodhead in Australia.

“They have advanced from dependent family members to financially independent entrepreneurs. Their new skills, such as servicing the tractors, marketing and shelling, have increased their family’s income. FACASI has also inspired community members to launch aligned businesses such as shelling services, inventing new two-wheel tractor implements for the growing customer base, or becoming artisan mechanics. In some districts, the two-wheel tractors are starting to create a cycle of innovation, business development, food diversification and sustainable economic growth,” she said.

6. Respond to farmer demands

Although the FACASI team set out to promote mechanization as a way to help farmers take up conservation agriculture techniques such as direct seeding, they opened the Pandora’s box for other beneficial uses. By the project’s end, it was clear that transport and mechanization of post-harvest tasks like shelling and threshing, had become far more popular among farmers than mechanization of crop production. This result is a sign of the team’s success in demonstrating the value of small-scale mechanization, and adapting technologies to respond to farmers’ needs.

7. Embrace new research models

Agricultural research for development has long forgotten about labour and mechanization issues; the FACASI team helped put these front and center by involving engineers, business enterprises, agriculturalists, and partners from across the supply chain.

“FACASI demonstrates an important change in how to do agricultural research to achieve meaningful impacts,” Woodhead said.

“Rather than focus only on the farm environment and on extension services, they worked from the outset with partners across the food, agriculture and manufacturing sectors, as well as with the public institutions that can sustain long-term change. The project’s results are exciting because they indicate that sustainable growth can be achieved by aligning conservation agriculture goals, institutions and a community’s business value propositions,” she explained.

What’s next?

Demonstration of a minitiller, Naivasha, Kenya. (Photo: Matt O' Leary/CIMMYT) — Demonstration of a minitiller, Naivasha, Kenya. (Photo: Matt O’ Leary/CIMMYT)

Although the project has ended, its insights and lessons will carry on.

“We have built a solid proof of concept. We know what piece of machinery works in a particular context, and have tested different delivery models to understand what works where,” explained Frédéric Baudron.

“We now need to move from piloting to scaling. This does not mean leaving all the work to development partners; research still has a big role to play in generating evidence and making sure this knowledge can be used by local manufacturers, engineers, local dealers and financial institutions,” he said.

As an international research organization, CIMMYT is strategically placed to provide critical answers to farming communities and the diversity of actors in the mechanization value chain.

A number of other organizations have taken up the mantle of change, supporting mechanization as part of their agricultural investments. This includes an initiative supported by the German Development Agency (GIZ) in Ethiopia, an IFAD-supported project to boost local wheat production in Rwanda and Zambia, and an intervention in Zimbabwe supported by the Zimbabwe Resilience Building Fund.

“ACIAR provided us generous and visionary support, at a time when very few resources were going to mechanization research in Africa,” Baudron acknowledged. “This allowed CIMMYT and its partners from the national research system and the private sector to develop unique expertise on scale-appropriate mechanization. The legacy of FACASI will be long-lived in the region,” he concluded.

Cover photo: Starwheel planter in Zimbabwe. (Photo: Jérôme Bossuet/CIMMYT)

Kiyasi Gwalale walking through her baby trial in Chebvute, Masvingo. Photo: C. Thierfelder/CIMMYT

When mothers learn from babies

Written by Alison Doody on July 8, 2020. Posted in Blogs.

It was an early morning on March 12, 2020, when we entered Kiyasi Gwalale’s field in the Chebvute area of Masvingo, southern Zimbabwe. Gwalale participates in the Zambuko Livelihoods Initiative, funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

The Zambuko initiative aims to increase rural resilience against the negative effects of climate change. More than 70% of smallholders in Zimbabwe farm on sandy soils that are low in soil fertility and are increasingly affected by the vagaries of climate. The Gwalale family is an example of one of the millions affected.

In Chebvute, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) has established trials to test the effectiveness and productivity of conservation agriculture and climate resilient crop species since 2018. This has been in the form of “mother and baby” trials.

A traditional tool of breeders, “mother trials” show different technologies to farmers to allow them to select the best option. In Chebvute, these trials were amplified to demonstrate farmers’ crop management practices such as conservation agriculture, crop rotation with legumes and different drought-resilient crop varieties.

A baby trial with DT maize, cowpea and white sorghum in Chebvute. Photo: C. Thierfelder/CIMMYT

Baby trial farmers taking after their ‘mothers’

Since 2019, the best options have been taken on by follower farmers in so called “baby trials”, where they use a subset from the mother trials to gain first-hand experience with the technology. Learning by doing is a central concept of this approach.

Gwalale as a “baby trial farmer” learned from the mother trials that drought-tolerant maize varieties out-yield traditional varieties under conservation agriculture, but need to be rotated with legumes to also improve the soil and the nutrition of the farm household. In addition, she realized that planting white sorghum is a drought-resilient strategy in this area as small grains are less affected by in-season dry-spells.

Gwalale and her family have been resident in Chebvute for 15 years but farm only on 0.4 ha of land. With her husband and three children, she grows maize, sorghum, groundnuts and Bambara nuts. What she gets from these fields is barely enough to survive.

In the 2019/20 cropping season, a devastating drought lasting from mid-December to mid-January destroyed all her hopes that this year would be a better season. Instead, she went on an educational journey to find out how improved farming practices can make a difference in her own life.

“We planted this baby trial for the first time in December 2019, as we had seen from the nearby mother trials that these varieties planted under no-tillage seem to grow better than our own. We planted the baby at the same times as our own crops, but instead of tilling the soil and clearing the land, which we are used to, we just planted in riplines without tillage and covered the soil with mulch,” explains Gwalale.

“When the drought came, all my other crops in the tilled fields started to wilt and die — some did not even germinate. We could not believe what was happening in this baby trial”.

CIMMYT scientist Christian Thierfielder pleased with the results in another baby trial plot in Chebvute. Photo: C. Thierfelder/CIMMYT

Resounding results in the baby trial

All crops in the baby trial survived the dry-spell and when the rains started to fall again in January, they continued to grow very well. Gwalale replanted the crops in the affected fields but they never caught up with the baby trial. Even after using the ripper to make more riplines, it was too late to experience the same wonder seen in the baby trial. “For now, we are yet to see how much we will get from this small field, but we learned a big lesson and want to expand our land area with this way of planting next year,” she says.

More than 200 baby trial farmers in Chebvute, the majority of which are women, have experienced the same in their own baby trials and realized that it does not take much effort to achieve food security.

Timely planting, conserving the soil and the moisture with conservation agriculture, effective weeding and application of adequate plant nutrients are the key ingredients of success. This can be learned effectively in a small plot such as a baby trial. Farmers have realized that it is possible to make a difference when they apply the principles of sustainable agriculture in their farming systems. The interventions introduced will help them to become more climate-resilient and ultimately more food secure.

Demonstration of a minitiller, Naivasha, Kenya. (Photo: CIMMYT)

African small-scale mechanization project winds down after strong results

Written by Mary Donovan on June 24, 2020. Posted in Features.

Smallholder farmers in Zimbabwe and Ethiopia have embraced small-scale mechanization thanks to an innovative CIMMYT-led project, which is now drawing to a close. Since 2013, the Farm Mechanization and Conservation Agriculture for Sustainable Intensification (FACASI) project has helped farmers access and use two-wheel tractors that significantly reduce the time and labor needed to grow, harvest and process their crops. To ensure long-term sustainability, the project and its partners helped support and develop local enterprises which could supply, service and operate the machines, and encouraged the development of supportive government policies. The project was funded by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR), as well as the CGIAR Research Programs on Maize and Wheat.

“Mechanization is a system not a technology”

From its inception, FACASI went beyond simply providing machinery to farmers, and instead envisioned mechanization as a way out of poverty. “Mechanization is a system, not only a technology,” said Bisrat Getnet, the project’s national coordinator in Ethiopia and director of the Agricultural Engineering Research Department at the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research. “Mechanization needs infrastructure such as roads, fuel stations, spare part dealerships, maintenance centers, training centers and appropriate policies. This project assessed which measures are needed to sustain a new technology and addressed these with direct interventions,” he explained.

The FACASI project worked to introduce and develop new small-scale machines, including two-wheel tractors, small shellers and threshers, and small pumps, in African rural settings, collaborating with local engineers, farmers and manufacturers. This included adapting a range of attachments that could be used to mechanize on-farm tasks such as planting, harvesting, transporting and shelling. In parallel, the project developed local business opportunities around the supply, maintenance and use of the machines, to ensure that users could access affordable services and equipment in their communities.

The project initially worked in four countries: Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania and Zimbabwe. Researchers saw significant potential for mechanization to reduce the labor intensity associated with smallholder farming, while encouraging application of conservation agriculture techniques and developing rural service provision businesses. In its second phase, which began in 2017, the project focused on strengthening its efforts in Zimbabwe and Ethiopia.

“In my view the most innovative aspect enabling FACASI’s success was the concept of combining engineering and business modelling, with an understanding of the political, legislative and policy situations in the four countries,” said Professor John Blackwell, an Adjunct Professor at Charles Sturt University who reviewed FACASI and also invented and helped commercialize several successful machines in South Asia, including the famous Happy Seeder.

“FACASI has proven that small mechanization is viable in smallholder settings,” said CIMMYT scientist and project coordinator Frédéric Baudron. “It has shown smallholders that they don’t have to consolidate their farms to benefit from conventional machines, but that machines can instead be adapted to their farm conditions. This, to me, defines the concept of ‘appropriate mechanization’,” he said.

Conservation agriculture planter manufacturing in Arusha, Tanzania. (Photo: CIMMYT)

Benefits to local communities

During its course, the project improved the efficiency and productivity of smallholder farming, reducing labor requirements and creating new pathways for rural women and youth.

The reduction in the labor and drudgery of farming tasks has opened many doors. Farmers can save the costs of hiring additional labor and reinvest that money into their enterprises or households. With a small double-cob sheller producing one ton of kernels in an hour compared to up to 12 days by hand, women can do something else valuable with their time and energy. Entrepreneurs offering mechanization services — often young people who embrace new technologies — can earn a good income while boosting the productivity of local farms.

Mechanization has shown to sustainably improve yields. In Ethiopia, farmers using two-wheel tractors were able to reduce the time needed to establish a wheat crop from about 100 hours per hectare to fewer than 10 hours. In trials, maize and wheat respectively yielded 29% and 22% more on average, compared with using conventional crop establishment methods.

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

Impacts now and into the future

According to its national partners, FACASI has laid the groundwork for cheap and practical two-wheel tractors to proliferate. In Ethiopia, there are currently 88 service providers whose skills has been directly developed through FACASI project interventions. “This has been a flagship project,” said Ethiopia national coordinator Bisrat Getnet. “It tested and validated the potential for small-scale mechanization and conservation agriculture, it proved that new business models could be profitable, and it opened new pathways for Ethiopian agriculture policy,” he said.

In Zimbabwe, the project has also set the wheels of change in motion. “FACASI demonstrated an opportunity for creating employment and business opportunities through small-scale mechanization,” said Tirivangani Koza, of Zimbabwe’s Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Water and Rural Resettlement. “With the right funding and policies, there is a very wide and promising scope to scale-up this initiative,” he said.

Read more:
Explore the FACASI Hello Tractor knowledge platform to learn more about conservation agriculture and small-scale mechanization

Cover photo: Demonstration of a minitiller, Naivasha, Kenya. (Photo: CIMMYT)

A farmer in Hetosa district, Ethiopia, harvests his wheat crop manually, a time- and labor-intensive approach. (Photo: Peter Lowe/CIMMYT)

Reaping the benefits of innovation

Written by Emma Orchardson on June 17, 2020. Posted in Features.

Post-harvest losses — which can range between 10-20% in major cereals — cause not only the loss of economic value of the food produced, but also the waste of scarce resources such as labor, land, and water, as well as non-renewable resources such as fertilizer and energy.

“High postharvest losses imply reduced grain yield, but with the same total greenhouse gas emission,” says Rabé Yahaya, a CIM/GIZ Integrated Expert working at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT). “Reducing these losses reduces the yield-scaled global warming potential — total greenhouse gas emission per kilogram of grain — and contributes to climate change mitigation, as well as food security.”

A significant proportion of these losses are caused by late harvest due to labor shortages, with crops languishing in the field before farmers can retrieve them. Small and medium-sized machinery may seem like the answer, but many one or two-axe machines are often unable to reach the inner sections of rice and wheat fields because of limited road access, or the fact that they are simply too heavy to carry.

“As mechanized land preparation works outwards, inner fields get ready for harvest first, but without any applicated technical solution,” he explains.

Could motorized scythes be the answer? Yahaya thinks so.

The other scythe

Motorized scythes are hand-operated tools used for mowing grass or reaping crops. Though largely replaced by horse-drawn and tractor-mounted implements, they are still commonly used in some areas of Asia and Europe.

Models specifically adapted for harvesting rice and wheat have been commercially available in Africa for over two decades and currently sell for $150-350, presenting the lowest initial investment cost of all engine-driven solutions on the market. The motor scythe also boasts the lowest harvest cost per hectare and is portable enough to reach inner fields.

Despite its relative affordability, uptake in much of West Africa has been slow, as many farmers have found the 10kg machinery too heavy for sustained use.

“Studies carried out in Benin, Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire and Mali show that this rapid fatigue is caused by incorrect handling of the machinery, including flawed posture,” Yahaya explains. “This is simply because most operators have never undertaken official training for operating the tool.”

In a bid to address this challenge, Yahaya has been collaborating with Elliott Dossou, Sali Atanga Ndindeng and Ernst Zippel — all scientists at AfricaRice — to design and test potential solutions. Their proposal for the development of a Service Provider Harvest (SPH) model has been shortlisted for the GIZ Innovation Fund 2020 award, from a GIZ/BMZ-supported Innovation Fund.

Ernst Zippel, CIM/GIZ Integrated Expert at AfricaRice, presents on the reduction of postharvest losses through correct usage of motor scythes. (Video: AfricaRice)

Cut for service

The approach focuses heavily on capacity development, with an initial nucleus group of trainers taking the lead on activities such as recruiting and contracting service providers, providing training on harvesting and threshing, supporting aftersales services such as machine maintenance and repair, and helping to determine the optimum harvest time.

Under the proposed model, each trainer will be responsible for a group of around 50 service providers, who will receive guidance on understanding their role, finance, creating a network of client farmers, machine maintenance and use.

In addition to the financial rewards and aftersales services, the training opportunities will make this technology accessible to young entrepreneurs in rural areas. Earning up to $18 a day for harvesting and weeding services, those using the tool can expect to see a return on their initial investment in one to two months.

“Young people are the main prospective clients for this initiative,” says Yahaya. “With the motor scythe and related training, they can start earning serious money.” He stresses, however, that all farmers – regardless of age or gender – will be able to benefit from the job creation opportunities this initiative provides.

The initiative has been shortlisted for the GIZ Innovation Fund 2020. If selected, funding from the accelerator program would support testing, the integration of GPS sensors into the tools, creation of a platform for bank security and Carbon Credit earning, other technical activities.

Temam Mama’s family eats healthy and nutritious food produced through irrigation. (Photo: Simret Yasabu/CIMMYT)

Farmers diversify crops in their fields and food on their plates

Written by Rodrigo Ordóñez on June 17, 2020. Posted in Features.

Farmers in the Bale area, in Ethiopia’s Oromia region, mainly produce wheat and barley. Temam Mama was no different — but some six years ago, the introduction of the two-wheel tractor offered him additional opportunities. This was part of an initiative of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and the Africa RISING project.

Selected as one of the two farmers in the region to test the technology, Temam took a five-day training course to understand the technology and the basics behind operating calibrating and maintaining the equipment.

The two-wheel tractor is multipurpose. By attaching various implements to a single engine, farmers can use it for ploughing, planting, water pumping, transportation, harvesting and threshing. For Temam, who had always relied on a rainfed agricultural system, the technology has high importance — he will be able to use the nearby river as a source of water for irrigation purposes.

To start off, Temam allocated 0.25 hectare from his four hectares of land for irrigation and planted potatoes for the first time. He was delighted with his harvest and the income he collected afterwards.

“From the first harvest, I was able to collect 112 quintals of potato and made roughly $1,529 in total,” said Temam.

Temam Mama checks his crops. (Photo: Simret Yasabu/CIMMYT)

Eternal returns

His productive journey had just started. This income allowed Temam to keep growing his business. He bought a horse and cart for $550 and taking the advice from the project team, he constructed a Diffused Light Storage (DLS) system to store his potatoes for longer.

To diversify his income, Temam occasionally provides transport services to other farmers. Over time, Temam’s financial capital has continued to grow, bringing new ideas and a desire to change. He went from a wooden fence to a corrugated iron sheet, to an additional three rooms by the side of his house for rentals.

He is fortunate for having access to the river and the road, he explains. He also sees new opportunities emerging as the demand for potato in the market continues to grow. The price for one quintal of potato sometimes reaches $76 and matching the demand is unthinkable without the two-wheel tractor, he says.

In addition to the two-wheel tractor, he has also bought a water pump to enable him to increase the area that he can grow irrigated potato, garlic and pepper on. His target is to have two hectares irrigated soon.

Temam Mama drives a two-wheel tractor to the irrigation area. (Photo: Simret Yasabu/CIMMYT)

The future is bright

With his wife and four children, Temam is now living a well-deserved, healthy and exemplary life. Tomato, chilli and onion now grow on his farm ensuring a healthy diet, as well as diversified and nutritious food for the family. His economic status is also enabling him to support his community in times of need. “As part of my social responsibility, I have contributed around $152 for road and school constructions in our area,” noted Temam.

Under the Africa RISING project, Temam has proven that irrigation of high-value crops using two-wheel tractor pumping really works, and that it increases production and the profitability of farming. He has now stepped into a new journey with a bright future ahead of him.

“I plan to sell my indigenous cows to buy improved breeds and, in two to three years’ time, if I am called for refreshment training in Addis Ababa, I will arrive driving my own car,” concluded Temam.

Cover photo: Temam Mama’s family eats healthy and nutritious food produced through irrigation. (Photo: Simret Yasabu/CIMMYT)

Kiyasi Gwalale stands on her baby trial plot.

Conservation agriculture feeds people and protects the environment

Written by Shiela Chikulo on June 4, 2020. Posted in Features.

On June 5, 2020, the world celebrates World Environment Day as COVID-19 continues to cause challenges and restrictions. Existing threats of climate change with the new challenges of a global pandemic adversely affect the agricultural sector, a mainstay of most sub-Saharan African economies. This situation calls for increased attention to how agriculture is practiced and natural resources — such as soil and water — are cared for.

Smallholder farmers in Zimbabwe are custodians of these natural resources, yet climate variability of shifting rainfall seasons, El Niño and droughts threaten successful rain-fed farming. Coupled with conventional farming practices such as tillage and deforestation, the soil structure and chemical quality are gradually degrading. Each passing year has resulted in declining yields, food insecurity and increased household vulnerabilities, particularly in drought-prone, low rainfall areas of southern Zimbabwe.

With support from the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), the R4 Rural Resilience Initiative, led by the World Food Programme (WFP), aims to enable vulnerable, smallholder farmers to increase their food security, income and resilience by managing climate-related risks. Building on R4, WFP has just launched the Zambuko Livelihoods Initiative, focusing on social cohesion of communities, improved crop and livestock production and improved access to finance, with support from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) is a partner to implement the project component on appropriate seeds and agricultural practices.

We discuss the R4 Rural Resilience Initiative with Christian Thierfelder, the Principal Cropping Systems Agronomist and a Strategic Leader for Africa at CIMMYT, and Munaye Makonnen, the Project Lead from WFP in Zimbabwe.

Promising high yields of white sorghum on a field in the mother trials in Mwenezi, Zimbabwe.

How is the R4 Rural Resilience Initiative responding to climate change challenges in the sites of intervention – Chebvute and Mwenezi?

Thierfelder: The R4 and Zambuko initiatives pursue an integrated approach to increase resilience of smallholder farming communities. Different partner organizations have come together in these projects to pursue different interventions such as building dams and vegetable gardens as community assets, financial education, promotion of improved climate-smart technologies such as drought-tolerant seed in combination with conservation agriculture, insurance, and linking farmers to markets. The combined actions address all needs and shortfalls in the target communities. We see a transformational change from mere subsistence farming to a more commercially oriented farming by targeted smallholders.

Makonnen: Recognizing the need to address livelihoods holistically, R4 offers farmers a set of integrated tools so that communities can better manage climate risks. Farmers participate in activities that enhance the natural resource base at watershed level, helping them adapt to climate change. They also benefit from a weather index insurance cover that protects them against drought and incentivizes them to engage in high-risk high-return investments. In the case of minor shocks, farmers have their savings groups to draw up on and can access small credit for income generating activities. With the aim of increasing productivity and income, conservation agriculture practices are promoted. For their surplus production, participants are also supported in accessing markets. The project also plans to include a component on climate services that will allow communities to mitigate the impacts of disaster risk, increase production and enhance adaptation to climate change.

Since inception, how have the farming communities responded to the technologies and practices introduced in their respective sites?

Thierfelder: Farming communities were very skeptical initially about this new approach. However, the varieties and cropping systems displayed in our 10 mother trials showed dramatically higher yields than farmers observed in their own fields, so it was not difficult to get 200 baby trial farmers to experiment with the technology. During the 2019/2020 cropping season, farmers got even more excited to see maize and legume yields thrive in their baby trials while crops planted under conventional agriculture failed. In the next cropping season, we hope to reach the tipping point of farmers trying and experimenting with these climate-smart agriculture technologies to achieve a transformational change towards more resilience.

Makonnen: Looking at the performance of the trials, farmers can see for themselves that the agricultural practices promoted by the project result in higher yields. They also get practical experience by trying these out on their own fields. Such an approach has worked well in terms of getting farmers to become interested in and eventually adopt conservation agriculture principles because it is not just based on theory — farmers can actually see and experience the change for themselves.

Even in times of COVID-19, the work must continue, observing social distancing and using facemasks. Christian Thierfelder outlines trials with farmers in Mwenezi, Zimbabwe.

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and disturbance to agri-food systems, how is the R4 Rural Resilience Initiative addressing the emerging challenges?

Thierfelder: We have created the base of more resilient farming systems that should positively respond to all external shocks – droughts, floods and maybe a virus as well. In our technology package we do promote self-pollinating legumes such as cowpea and groundnuts which can be grown even when farmers are cut off from supply chains for seed and fertilizer. We therefore hope that this can be a contribution to reducing the negative impact of the COVID-19 crisis.

Makonnen: As COVID-19 is compromising food security, it is now more important than ever to ensure that agricultural production continues to function smoothly. R4 continues to provide all the services in its integrated risk management package despite the pandemic. As farmers face challenges in production, including limited access to labor, we hope that high yielding and less labor-intensive conservation agriculture practices promoted by R4 really come into their own. Ensuring the safety of our beneficiaries, staff and partners is a priority for WFP so we have developed guidelines for R4 implementation in the context of COVID-19. For instance, trainings are taking place in smaller groups, social distancing is observed in all activities, messages on COVID-19 prevention are shared with beneficiaries and we are also looking into digital solutions to continue implementation during these unprecedented times.

Looking ahead, how will the adoption of appropriate agricultural practices and seed varieties strengthen the resilience of the farming communities?

Thierfelder: Our approach has been multi-faceted addressing different areas of concern to the farmers: income generation, credit, improved productivity, insurance and marketing. We believe that with this mix of interventions farming can more effectively withstand external stresses. However, we also realize that adoption does not happen overnight and requires a significant experimentation and learning process with farmers. WFP has seen the need for longer term investments, and this is now beginning to pay off.

Makonnen: Adoption of appropriate agricultural practices and seeds is just one of the components of R4. We know resilience requires a holistic approach which is why we have a set of interventions within R4 involving multiple partners. R4 will continue to work across the entire value chain bringing together natural resource management, access to financial services, access to inputs and markets and promotion of appropriate agricultural practices so that the farmers we work with are well equipped to manage risks and become resilient to the changing climate and risks to their food security.

Sign Phiri from CIMMYT inspects maize crops.

Cover photo: Kiyasi Gwalale stands on her baby trial plot.

Researcher says COVID-19 to affect Africa’s food situation

Written by Mary Donovan on June 4, 2020. Posted in In the media.

Boddupalli Prasanna, director of the global maize program at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), a global research body, called on scientists to help countries in finding faster solutions to the effects of COVID-19 on food security.

“I am particularly worried about farmers, especially smallholder farmers, who are quite vulnerable to the ongoing challenge,” Prasanna said in a statement.

Stephen Mugo (left) shows grain filling to Felister Makini of KALRO and Oscar Magenya, from Kenya's Ministry of Agriculture. (Photo: Joshua Masinde/CIMMYT)

Two decades of illustrious service

Written by Rodrigo Ordóñez on June 3, 2020. Posted in News.

After a long and distinguished service as a maize breeder and senior manager at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), Stephen Mugo has retired from the organization. A Principal Scientist and Maize Breeder at CIMMYT’s Global Maize Program, Mugo also served as CIMMYT’s Country Representative for Kenya and CIMMYT’s Regional Representative for Africa.

He joined CIMMYT in 1998 as a post-doctoral fellow and his last day of work was on May 31, 2020. His colleagues honored him with memorable tributes at an online meeting held on May 21, 2020.

“Mugo has always demonstrated his commitment and determination, even in the most challenging times, for the benefit of CIMMYT and its staff. He has been a very productive scientist, maize breeder and project leader of several projects that have had great impact in the past. We are proud of what he has been doing and still does for CIMMYT,” said Director General Martin Kropff.

In his illustrious career, Mugo led the Stress Tolerant Maize for Africa Supplement Project (STMA-SUP) and the TELA Maize Project, both of which aimed at improving maize for drought tolerance and insect pest resistance in five countries in eastern and southern Africa. He was also the CIMMYT leader for the Water Efficient Maize for Africa (WEMA) project (2008-2018), Insect Resistant Maize for Africa (IRMA) project (1999-2004) and the Strengthening Seed Systems project in Kenya and Uganda (2001-2003).

“I leave CIMMYT with fond memories and with my head held high. I sincerely wish to thank my colleagues for being a wonderful team that continues to work hard to ensure that we get the right seed to the farmer,” Mugo said. “I have enjoyed every bit of my time at the organization. What I would request is that for us to continue working well together, we need to respect and treat one another the way you would like to be treated. This way, the organization would move from strength to strength,” he expressed.

Stephen Mugo (right) at the MLN research station in Naivasha, Kenya, in September 2018. (Photo: Joshua Masinde/CIMMYT)

Mugo holds a PhD in Plant Breeding and Genetics from Cornell University and has published extensively in peer reviewed journals, with several book chapters to his name.

B.M. Prasanna, Director of the Global Maize Program at CIMMYT and the CGIAR Research Program on Maize (MAIZE) acknowledged the tremendous contribution that Mugo has made over the years in the projects he led.

“His work on the Insect Resistant Maize for Africa (IRMA) project has been phenomenally important, especially some of the germplasm that we are now finding as native genetic resistant to the fall armyworm,” Prasanna remarked. “He is a great champion and tremendous ambassador for CIMMYT’s work in Africa. I am sure he will continue to contribute to CIMMYT for years to come.”

Even though he leaves the stage, Mugo will provide consultancy support to CIMMYT, particularly on the MLN Gene Editing and TELA Maize projects.

What can be done to prevent the outbreak of coronavirus from affecting agriculture?

Written by Mary Donovan on June 3, 2020. Posted in In the media.

Watch here (in Amharic): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVsVsxAKybI&feature=youtu.be

Establishment of demo trial in Nyanga, Zimbabwe. (Photo: CIMMYT)

Farm mechanization under COVID-19

Written by Emma Orchardson on June 2, 2020. Posted in Features.

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to transform the way the world operates, and agricultural production systems are not exempt.

Even in countries that have identified the agricultural sector as an essential one, ongoing restrictions on transport and freedom of movement are causing disruptions across the value chain — with potentially devastating impact on already fragile food systems in Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.

With this in mind, systems agronomists and mechanization specialists at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), discuss the impact of restrictions on agricultural labor and production, and the role farm mechanization can play in addressing new challenges.

What are the implications of the agricultural labor shortages that are emerging in Africa and Latin America as a result of COVID-19 restrictions?

A woman demonstrates the use of a mini-tiller in Naivasha, Kenya. (Photo: Matt O’Leary/CIMMYT)

Frédéric Baudron: The pandemic has demonstrated that food production systems around the world — even in countries where agriculture is thought to be highly mechanized — are highly dependent on farm labor.

Africa is often presented as being dominated by farms which rely mainly on the labor of family members. Therefore, one could expect that Africa would be spared from the consequences of unavailability and/or unaffordability of hired labor. However, a recent CIMMYT study shows that farming systems in Africa are far more dependent on hired labor than commonly thought, and that the quasi total dependence of smallholder farming on family labor is a myth. Depending on the farming system, a complete loss of hired labor could lead to a productivity decrease of up to 20% in Eastern and Southern Africa. Hired labor is also likely to be replaced by child labor.

Because most production on the continent is rainfed during a single season, most farmers only plant and harvest once per year, making the timing of each task critical. A delay in planting because of labor shortages — as will soon occur Ethiopia — could lead to dramatically reduced yields. A delay in harvesting — as is currently experienced in Zimbabwe — means a large fraction of the crop is likely to be spoilt in the field.

Jelle Van Loon: The situation is similar for Mexico and the general Central American corridor, although the main production cycle is only just starting. Proper land preparation and timely sowing are critical, not only in terms of food production and achieving proper yields, but also to ensure that farmers have a stable income at the end of the year. This is especially important now, as financial and food reserves are shrinking at a faster pace due to COVID-19 restrictions that heavily affect demand on informal markets.

An operator demonstrates the use of a reaper in Bangladesh. (Photo: CIMMYT)

Are you seeing a similar situation in South Asia?

Timothy Krupnik: Depending on the country, we’ve seen either abrupt interruptions in the movement of agricultural laborers — for example in India where millions of migrant laborers have not been able to travel home during lockdown — or an influx of people from urban areas who fled to their villages when lockdown began.

In the latter case, one might expect this to increase labor availability for farming, but we tended to observe the reverse. People remain largely frightened of coming out of their homes, so even in rural areas which saw an influx of people, labor availability has not necessarily increased. Where laborers are willing to work, our initial scan of the evidence indicates that daily wage labor costs have also increased considerably due to risks of infection spreading. In either situation, smallholder farmers who need to hire labor to assure crucial crop management activities like planting or harvesting are suffering. There are reports emerging also of increased child labor in the region as schools are closed and resource-poor farmers are allocating family members and children to work where they can’t afford to hire labor.

M.L. Jat: I would like to cite the specific example of intensive rice-wheat rotation in India’s breadbasket and the Green Revolution corridors in the western Indo-Gangetic plains, which provide the bulk of cereals to the national food basket. An ex-ante analysis on the consequences of the reverse migration of the agricultural workforce and social distancing due to COVID-19 revealed that a delay in the transplanting of rice seedlings by two weeks is likely, which will delay rice harvesting and consequently delay the planting of wheat. This will potentially lead to rice and wheat production losses of 10-25%, worth up to $1.5 billion.

In addition, the shorter turn around between harvesting rice and planting wheat may further increase the incidence of rice residue burning. This is a major problem which creates significant health issues and may exacerbate the threat of COVID-19 by increasing both infection rates and disease severity.

Krupnik: The situation has increased interest and policy to support use of scale-appropriate machinery for operations like harvesting. In Bangladesh, for example, there was a recent and very serious risk of losing much of the rice harvest as the monsoon has started early and flash flooding has been a concern. Without manual laborers to harvest the crop, CIMMYT-led projects like the Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia – Mechanization and Extension Activity (CSISA-MEA) have played a key role in assisting the movement of combine harvesters and crop reapers to areas at risk of crop losses and helping to assure the rice crop is harvested on time.

An operator demonstrates the use of a starwheel planter in Zimbabwe. (Photo: Frederic Baudron/CIMMYT)

It sounds like these machines were instrumental in avoiding crop losses. Does this mean that mechanization has a key role to play in lessening the impact of these labor shortages?

Krupnik: During the COVID-19 crisis, scale-appropriate machinery has become even more important for mitigating labor shortages. We work to facilitate the availability of scale-appropriate machinery not only so that farmers can buy and use equipment, but also by encouraging those who own machineries to become entrepreneurial service providers who offer efficient and mechanized land preparation, planting, irrigation, harvesting and post-harvesting to other farmers on an affordable fee-for-service basis.

This is a win-win situation for farmers who can’t access or afford the escalating costs of labor. In the COVID-19 crisis, these arrangements assist in responding to the labor crunch in locations where resource-poor farmers are most in need, and also allow farmers to get crucial work done while maintaining and encouraging social distancing.

Baudron: Over the past seven years, CIMMYT and its partners have fine-tuned technologies and developed delivery models — based on rural service providers supported by private sector companies — to scale the use of small machines in East and Southern Africa. These are profitable for both farmers and service providers and reduce labor requirements tremendously.

In Zimbabwe, we found that labor requirements were 15 times lower when establishing a maize field with a direct seeder pulled by a two-wheel tractor, and 23 times lower using a similar technology for establishing wheat in Rwanda, compared to the conventional method based on labor and draft power. A ton of maize that would take 12 people a full day to shell manually, can be shelled in one hour using a small double-cob sheller that costs about $300.

Jat: Rapid policy decisions by sub-national and national governments on facilitating more mechanized operations in labor intensive rice-wheat production regions will address labor availability issues while contributing to productivity enhancement of succeeding wheat crop in rotation, as well as overall system sustainability. Our ex-ante analysis on the implications of labor shortages in rice-wheat rotation in the western Indo-Gangetic plains due to COVID-19 indicates that adoption of scale-appropriate farm mechanization has the potential to stabilize the food production as well as reducing the income losses and air pollution surges in northwest India.

Harvesting maize in Mexico. (Photo: CIMMYT)

The situation in the regions each of you have mentioned is unique, but are there any global trends that you’ve noticed? And if so, can other regions learn from these localized experiences?

Krupnik: A huge part of what we do as a research and training institute is facilitate exchanges of information across continents and countries. Different types and designs of machinery that can be used in similar circumstances can be shared, as can business models supporting service providers.

Importantly, part of the concept of ‘scale-appropriate mechanization’ is also learning when and where machinery makes sense — where labor is not scarce and rural communities are highly dependent on income from labor to sustain their communities, some forms of mechanization may not be appropriate. We work to understand these dynamics and target the right machines in the right time and right places.

Van Loon: In addition to reducing pressure on available labor and alleviating drudgery, modern farm equipment tailored to the needs of smallholders can also increase competitiveness, as it allows for higher precision and efficiency.

In this sense, scale-appropriate mechanization can stimulate rural transformation incentivizing short and efficient value chains while ensuring stable food provision — aspects that have become essential to navigating the present crisis.

Has the current pandemic brought up any new perspectives in terms of how you consider labor and mechanization?

Baudron: We often look at yield and area planted in staple crops to assess the food security situation of a country during a particular year. This pandemic has shown us that we need to pay more attention to labor productivity. In many countries, policy-makers and development agents fear that mechanization will displace labor, but the dependency of staple crops on labor is a threat to food security, as we currently see in Africa and South Asia.

If the production of fruit, vegetables, cash crops, and so on will continue to depend on manual labor, it is essential in my view for critical tasks in the production of staples to be mechanized — particularly planting and harvesting. This will ensure the resilience of national food systems in the case of a future disruption similar to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Cover photo: Establishment of demo trial in Nyanga, Zimbabwe. (Photo: CIMMYT/ZRBF)

Fidelis Namatsi Owino

Written by Emma Orchardson on June 1, 2020. Posted in Uncategorized.

Fidelis Namatsi Owino is a Research Assistant with CIMMYT’s Global Maize Program, based in Kenya.

Fight against viruses, also in defense of maize and our food

Written by Mary Donovan on May 31, 2020. Posted in In the media.

A first outbreak of maize lethal necrosis was found in Kenya in 2011 and researchers immediately became active because they knew that timely action was needed to prevent irreparable damage. This viral disease was decimating maize fields and spreading rapidly in east Africa through contaminated insects and seeds.

Breaking Ground: Yoseph Beyene breeds desirable maize varieties for smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa

Written by Rodrigo Ordóñez on May 28, 2020. Posted in Features.

About 25 years ago, Yoseph Beyene first heard about the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) from one of his professors, back when he was pursuing his undergraduate degree in Plant Science at Haramaya University in Ethiopia. “The professor, whom I regard as a great mentor, (…) always told me that if I ever got an opportunity to work at CIMMYT, I should not hesitate to take it up, as it was a great place to conduct maize breeding,” recollects Beyene, now a maize breeder at CIMMYT. He grew up in Alem Ketema, a village located 190 km north of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital.

In retrospect, he did not know this would change his perspective on how he viewed crops, especially maize, on smallholder farms. Like many other families in Alem Ketema, his family attended to their small farm to meet their food and nutritional needs. Most people practiced subsistence farming, intertwined with livestock keeping, on small plots that were typically less than 2 hectares. At the backyard of his family’s farm, different crops such as maize, sorghum and teff were grown. As a child, he never quite registered in his mind that farmers grew mainly recycled seed. “In hindsight, I can say that the yield of a crop such as maize was just about 1.5 tons per hectare at the time,” he reckons.

Such low yield potential meant feeding relatively large family sizes of about seven people was a tall order. It did not help that crops such as maize and wheat were frequently affected by diseases and pests and erratic rains, which diminished yields. It was not until his high school days when he had firsthand experience with high-yielding improved crop varieties. As part of the farm management class, he actively participated in the school’s farm management unit. He got to appreciate the yield variation between improved and local varieties, grown on the school plots. These improved seed, he quickly realized, were the ideal antidote to the low yield farmers obtained.

Struck by an epiphany

“This was like a eureka moment for me. When I realized that it was possible to improve and deliver desirable seed varieties that could double farmers’ yields, I decided to study plant breeding at the university. If only the farmers back in my village knew about the improved seed and adopted them at the time, it could not only have helped solve the problems of food insecurity but also bettered their livelihoods,” he ponders.

When he enrolled for a PhD in Plant Breeding and Genetics at the University of Pretoria, he did his research in highland maize in collaboration with CIMMYT in Ethiopia. Upon completion, he was appointed as a senior cotton breeder at South Africa’s Agricultural Research Council (ARC), where he worked for one and a half years.

“One day, I saw an advertisement in which CIMMYT was looking for a maize breeder. I applied, went for the interview and was happy to get the position. That was in 2008,” he says.

The right tool for the right variety

Biotic and abiotic stresses are becoming more frequent and vicious because of climate change and there is growing urgency to tackle them to avert future potential food crises.

Beyene’s current research focuses on developing high-yielding and climate-resilient maize inbred lines and hybrids for sub-Saharan Africa. He uses conventional and molecular breeding, including integration of novel tools and techniques, such as doubled haploid, and marker-assisted recurrent section and genomic selection. Over the years, he has developed at least 25 new drought-tolerant maize hybrids recommended for commercialization in Kenya, Mozambique, Uganda, South Africa and Tanzania. Currently, 23 seed companies have been engaged to produce and market the released hybrids through sub-licensing.

Presently, as the Regional Breeding Coordinator for Africa, he is responsible for assessing the progress of implementing product profile-based breeding, appropriate germplasm exchange within and across regional breeding hubs, and ascertaining the progress on new initiatives by regional breeding teams.

A long-term endeavor

Breeding is a costly, time consuming and complex exercise. “It takes at least 10 years from crossing to release using pedigree breeding because the hybrids should be evaluated in multiple years and tested in multiple locations, which increases costs and time of the breeding cycle. You have to appreciate the fact that you are not breeding for now but for the future,” he says.

“As a breeder, you have to keep testing new tools and techniques to make breeding more efficient. Yet, resources are not always constant but inadequate. Stresses are becoming more urgent and vicious, despite increased urgency in tackling them to avert a potential food crises,” he says.

To reduce the time and accelerate genetic gains, Beyene and his colleagues at CIMMYT are currently applying the genomic selection technique for maize breeding, using it to predict the performance of un-phenotyped genotypes at early stage of testing. He and his colleagues recently published their research comparing genomic selection with phenotypic selection, as used by CIMMYT’s maize breeding program in sub-Saharan Africa. They found that the use of genomic selection for yield under optimum and drought conditions in tropical maize can produce selection candidates with similar performance as those generated from conventional phenotypic selection, but at a lower cost. They concluded that this strategy should be effectively incorporated into maize breeding pipelines to enhance breeding program efficiency.

Breeding challenges notwithstanding, Beyene feels fulfilled whenever he sees a farmer has planted a variety that he helped breed. “The epitome of my inspiration is when there is a smile on their face because of the variety’s good performance on their farm,” he says.

Interacting with the farmers and seed companies provides an opportunity for him to learn, understand their varietal preferences as well as appreciate the impact that his work has on their operations. He is also actively engaged in building the capcity of public and private partners, and supervising master’s and doctoral students from various countries. He has published more than 50 articles in journals.

The life of a breeder is not as lonely and boring as some would think. Beyene creates time to be with his three children, playing with them and helping with their homework, taking them out for social events. He also dedicates time to watch football, reality television, comedy and drama with his family.

A worker at the Naivasha MLN research station conducts a mock inoculation (Photo: Joshua Masinde/CIMMYT)

Battling devastating viral diseases, also in plants

Written by Jennifer Johnson on May 28, 2020. Posted in Features.

When a maize lethal necrosis (MLN) outbreak happened in Kenya in 2011, scientists knew they needed to act fast. This viral disease, new to Kenya, was decimating maize fields. Within a few years, the viral disease spread rapidly in eastern Africa, through both insect vectors and contaminated seeds. If the virus were to spread into southern or West Africa, it would spell disaster for the smallholder farmers across the continent who depended on maize as a staple crop and for their family’s income and livelihoods.

The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and its partners immediately took action to impose a strict seed quarantine and restrict the movement of seed between eastern Africa and other regions in Africa. In addition, they worked intensively on developing and disseminating improved maize cultivars with tolerance or resistance to MLN, undertook extensive surveillance efforts, and sensitized partners on the importance of producing and commercializing MLN-free seed.

Due to these efforts, in the last nine years MLN has not been reported in sub-Saharan Africa outside of eastern Africa.

On the occasion of a recent publication on Virus Research about how MLN was contained, 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.

B.M. Prasanna, Director of the Global Maize Program at CIMMYT and the CGIAR Research Program on Maize (MAIZE). (Photo: Alfonso Cortés/CIMMYT)

What were some of the extreme measures CIMMYT had to take to stop the spread of MLN?

The first step that we had to take in the fight against MLN was to rigorously analyze seed for any possible contamination with MLN-causing viruses and restrict movement of seed from eastern Africa to southern Africa.

The second most important step was to sensitize the national partners and the commercial seed sector about the danger of seed contamination with MLN-causing viruses, and how seed contamination can lead to the proliferation or spread of the disease.

The third important step was to build a new MLN quarantine facility in Zimbabwe, in partnership with the National Plant Quarantine Institute. Only when that quarantine facility was functional in 2017, we reinitiated transfer of research material from CIMMYT’s breeding hub in Kenya to CIMMYT in Zimbabwe. Only when the materials were certified to be MLN-free both in Kenya and Zimbabwe, through plant-by-plant analysis using immunodiagnostic kits, the seed was multiplied and further distributed to partners. So, the principle of containment and effective management is extremely important, whether it is a plant viral disease or a human viral disease.

We must note here that in terms of scale and intensity, as well as global effects and implications, any plant disease, including MLN, cannot be compared with a pandemic like COVID-19, which has affected every aspect of our lives.

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

How do you think the COVID-19 pandemic is going to impact our food systems?

We are indeed in a grim situation. The pandemic will undoubtedly have a serious effect on food security.

Many countries which do not have enough food reserves or those where the food systems are vulnerable to shocks like this are suffering. The people’s capacity to procure inputs for agriculture, including seed, is going to be affected too, as the markets are affected. This is really a serious situation that we all should be concerned about. The CGIAR has an important role to play, in terms of working closely with national partners and mitigating the impact of COVID-19 on agriculture.

We should be particularly worried about farmers, especially smallholder farmers, who are quite vulnerable to the ongoing challenge. Even without COVID-19, agriculture in many developing countries worldwide has been already under distress. Small and marginal farmers were often unable to find a market for their produce and earn sufficient income to support their families. Their livelihoods are fragile, and vulnerable to climate change and volatile market prices. The ongoing COVID-19 crisis is unfortunately compounding the crisis.

L.M. Suresh (center-right), Maize Pathologist at CIMMYT and Head of the MLN Screening Facility, facilitates a training on MLN with national partners. (Photo: CIMMYT)

What lessons can agricultural research learn from this pandemic?

What do these pandemics or epidemics teach us? They remind us that systems need to be in place to prevent the proliferation of such diseases, whether it is plant diseases or animal diseases or human diseases. No country can be considered completely safe, and such diseases do not discriminate between a developed and a developing country, or the rich and the poor.

The second most important lesson is emergency preparedness. Whenever such devastating transboundary viral diseases show up, how quickly the country can respond — containing that infected area and not allowing the disease to spread, and then mitigating the damage systematically and quickly — is key. This is not the first time that a disease like MLN has emerged. There could be more serious viral or fungal diseases that could emerge in the future due to various reasons, including changing climates, international trade, movement of human beings, air currents, etc. There are multiple ways that diseases can go across continents, across countries within a continent, and within countries. Therefore, the key is how well we can capacitate the national systems to be able to proactively prevent, detect, and intervene very fast.

Another big lesson here for agricultural systems is that a problem that happens in some other continent cannot be ignored because you work in a different continent. What COVID-19 shows is that the world is far more connected than we think.

CIMMYT team members check for traces of the maize chlorotic mottle virus (MCMV) in maize plants during a visit to the MLN screening facility in Naivasha, Kenya. (Photo: Joshua Masinde/CIMMYT)

For you, what is the biggest takeaway from the MLN success story?

I won’t say it is still a complete success. Through intensive partnerships and efforts, we were able to prevent the disease from devastating maize production in millions of smallholder farmers’ fields in sub-Saharan Africa. Since 2014, there has been no new country in Africa — outside eastern Africa — that has reported an outbreak of MLN. That, to me, is a tremendous success.

The work is still not over. The journey has to continue. And we still need to make sure that countries are continuously protected from devastating diseases like MLN. MLN is still not eradicated from eastern Africa. It may not be even possible to completely eradicate this disease, as the two viruses that together cause it can survive not just on maize but on multiple grasses. We can however contain the disease and limit its impact through continued efforts, like what we have done for the past 7 or 8 years. But if we lower our guard, there is a very high likelihood that the disease can still spread to other countries in sub-Saharan Africa, especially the major maize-growing countries in southern Africa or West Africa. Efforts need to continue. So, let us continue to maintain a high vigil to protect the smallholders in Africa from transboundary diseases like MLN.

Read the full article on Virus Research:
Maize lethal necrosis (MLN): Efforts toward containing the spread and impact of a devastating transboundary disease in sub-Saharan Africa

Africa’s smallholders to bear the brunt of COVID-19

Written by Mary Donovan on May 25, 2020. Posted in In the media.

“COVID-19 will make African governments identify agriculture as an essential sector that deserves maximum support and protection,” explains Stephen Mugo, Africa regional representative at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center, Kenya. “Urgent action is needed to ensure that adequate credit and other support are available when and where needed to strengthen farmers’ ability to deliver.”