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.
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.
Read more here: https://www.ledonnedelfood.it/lotta-ai-virus-anche-in-difesa-del-mais-e-del-nostro-cibo/
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
“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.”
Read more here.
It’s not always easy to produce and sell new maize varieties in Malawi.
Seed companies often serve as the link between breeders and farmers, but numerous challenges — from lack of infrastructure to inconvenient finance systems — mean that the journey from the laboratory to the field is not always a smooth one.
In spite of this, the sector continues to grow, with established and up-and-coming seed companies all vying to carve their own niche in the country’s competitive maize seed market. To help bolster the industry, CIMMYT is working with around 15 seed companies in Malawi, providing them with early generation seed for CIMMYT-derived maize varieties, technical production training and marketing advice.
In a series of interviews, representatives from three of these companies share how they chose their flagship varieties and got them onto the market, and the CIMMYT support that helped them along the way.
The company started primarily because we wanted to help farmers — the issue of profits came later. The founders of Demeter Seeds saw a gap in the market for open-pollinated varieties (OPVs) and thought they could fill it. We’ve now migrated halfway into hybrids, but we still feel that we should serve both communities.
At the beginning we used to multiply and sell OPVs from CIMMYT, and we started doing our own multiplication here a few years ago. What I like about CIMMYT is they have been continuing to give us technical support. The breeding teams are our regular visitors. When they give us materials they come here, work with us, we go to the fields together. We’re so proud of this collaboration. Our whole company is based on CIMMYT germplasm since we don’t have our own breeding program to develop our own varieties.
How do you decide which varieties to work with?
When we were starting out, the decision of which varieties to work with was based on what CIMMYT recommended based on the data from on-farm trials. Most Malawian farmers use local maize varieties so it’s a good step for them to start using improved varieties – not necessarily hybrids.
Apart from the yields, what else do Malawian farmers look for? It has to be white and it has to be poundable or flint varieties with a hard endosperm. Of course, there are other attributes you have to worry about as well such as yield and drought tolerance. The seasons are changing, the rainfall period is becoming shorter so we’re looking for short-maturing materials in particular. If you have a variety that takes 90-100 days to mature, you’re OK, but if you choose one that takes 140-150, the farmer can be at risk of losing out because it doesn’t fit well into the growing season.
Having looked at those particular parameters we can decide on the variety we’re going to go for because this feeds into what our regular farmers want.
Is it easy to get farmers to buy those varieties, given that you know exactly what they’re looking for?
We’re not the only ones dealing with maize hybrids, so if you’re not aggressive enough in marketing you’ll not be able to survive.
You can’t just see that the demand is there and then put the product out. We have a marketing team within the company whose role is to market and advise the farmers. We try to listen to what’s happening on the ground, see how our varieties are performing and share results with the breeders. If you sell your seed you have to get feedback – whether it’s doing well or not.
But it can be difficult with the lack of infrastructure in Malawi. There are some places which are not accessible, so there are farmers who want your seed but you can’t reach them. Those farmers end up planting some local seed, which they might not have planted if they had access to improved varieties.
CIMMYT equals maize, so there’s very little we’d be doing without them. There has been collaboration and partnership since we started the seed business.
We got all the parent materials, expertise and production training from CIMMYT. We now even have our own CIMMYT-trained internal inspectors, who ensure that the seed that we produce meet quality standards that are required. When they were giving us the lines, they also helped us with production of the basic seed to start our maize production. Without CIMMYT, we wouldn’t be here.
You’re one of the few seed companies in Malawi producing vitamin A biofortified maize, which CIMMYT develops in partnership with HarvestPlus. How did you decide to work on that variety?
We selected the orange vitamin A maize firstly because of corporate social responsibility reasons. There is a developmental aspect to what we do, and we’re not just here for money. I think whatever we’re doing should also help the people that are buying from us. We knew that micronutrient deficiency is an issue in Malawi, so we hoped that the vitamin A biofortified maize could address some of the country’s malnutrition problems.
When the Government said it was looking at alternative ways of combating malnutrition, this was one of the proposed solutions and we thought we should be the first to do it. As of now, I think that of the 20-something lead seed businesses in Malawi, we’re one of only three producing this maize.
How challenging has it been to promote that variety?
Very, because the orange maize was not popular to begin with. In the first year, we had about 25 metric tons of seed and we didn’t even sell 10.
Yellow maize was brought in to feed people during a famine in the early 90s, so I think when people see orange maize now they are reminded of that hunger. There are still those negative associations. So we had to do some convincing, visiting farmers with HarvestPlus and telling them about the benefits.
But this is our third year and we don’t have any seed left — it’s all gone. Combined, the three companies involved in orange maize production had about 65 metric tons. But this year the demand has been around 1,050 metric tons. What we produced is not even one tenth of what is required.
Now that the orange maize has been popularized, we see demand increasing in the next five years as well. Apart from farmers, we’ve also had inquiries from people that want to use it for industrial purposes and are looking for very large quantities. Now we know, if people are looking for orange maize, we’ll be among the first to provide it.
I studied agribusiness management for my first degree and went into farming immediately after. Later I completed a Masters in Agronomy, but the moment I started talking to CIMMYT I knew that I was lacking knowledge on the technical side. Over the years I’ve attended a number of courses — maize technician courses and programs to help people in the seed industry learn about hybrids — thanks to CIMMYT. A large part of my knowledge has come from those trainings, visiting the research station in Harare and attending field days.
Global Seeds is known for its flagship product, MH34. Why did you decide to focus on that specific variety?
One of the main driving factors for us to go for MH34 was that it was not being produced by anyone else. This was a new variety that no other company had branded as their own yet, so it was a good opportunity for us to own it.
At the same time, I liked this variety because it had two lines from CIMMYT and one line that’s bred locally. It’s kind of a mix. I really liked that because it meant that it would be a bit of a challenge for anyone outside the country to produce it because they would not get that extra 25% from the Malawian line.
Did that also make it difficult for Global Seeds to produce?
It was not easy for us to get it on the market. It’s one of the stories I’m most proud of — to say we’re one of the few companies producing this variety — especially when I look back at the last three years and the work it took to get it to where we are.
We got the lines we needed from CIMMYT, but when we went to the local program to get that one last ingredient, we got less than 1.4 kilograms. Normally we would need at least 5 kilograms.
We knew we had to produce quickly to commercialize the variety, so we took 900 grams and started trying to increase the line under irrigation. Then the water supply ran out and we had to hire a water bowser. It was quite a journey but in the end we produced a handful of seed, and now the story is that this variety is flying off the shelves.
Aparna Das of CIMMYT, Arun Baral of Harvest Plus and Bill Rustrick of the Clinton Development Initiative discuss a project in Malawi strengthening the resilience of smallholder farming communities.
Read more here: https://www.devex.com/news/opinion-covid-19-highlights-need-to-boost-resilience-of-africa-s-rural-poor-97122
The outbreak of maize lethal necrosis (MLN) disease in east Africa in 2011 (first reported in Kenya’s South Rift Valley) was a major concern, given that maize is the region’s most important staple crop. This disease is caused by co-infection of plants with two viruses – maize chlorotic mottle virus (MCMV) and sugarcane mosaic virus (SCMV) – and can cause yield losses of up to 90%. It spread rapidly across east Africa, compromising food and economic security for several million smallholder farmers.
MLN is a complex challenge that must be addressed through a multipronged approach. While significant advances have been made through intensive efforts by CIMMYT and other partners in terms of identifying and developing MLN tolerant or resistant hybrids, the rapid spread of the epidemic over the last few years remains a concern for farming communities, policy makers, national plant protection organization and the commercial seed sector, as well as the international scientific community.
There is also increasing suspicion that commercial seed flows may have been the initial source of the dissemination of the MLN-causing viruses over large distances, and it is thought that transmission of MCMV through contaminated maize seed continues to be a major risk factor in the spread of MLN across east Africa and beyond. However, there is a lack of reliable information on various aspects of MLN epidemiology, including the rate of MCMV transmission through seed.
The project on ‘Preventing Seed Transmission of Maize Lethal Necrosis in Africa’ aims to generate a better understanding of these epidemiological issues to allow for more effective control of MCMV transmission through commercial seed, support the development of effective, evidence-based phytosanitary regulations, reduce MLN disease pressure in eastern Africa, and curb the spread to non-endemic countries in other parts of the continent.
Objectives
High-yielding, disease-resistant wheat varieties used by Ethiopian wheat farmers between 2015 and 2018 gave them at least 20% more grain than conventional varieties, profits of nearly $1,000 per hectare when they grew and sold seed, and generally improved food security in participating rural households.
These are the result of a project to rapidly multiply and disperse high-quality seed of new improved varieties, and the work of leading Ethiopian and international research organizations. The outcomes of this project have benefitted nearly 1.6 million people, according to a comprehensive new publication.
“Grown chiefly by smallholders in Ethiopia, wheat supports the livelihoods of 5 million farmers and their families, both as a household food crop and a source of income,” said Bekele Abeyo, wheat scientist of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), leader of the project, and chief author of the new report. “Improving wheat productivity and production can generate significant income for farmers, as well as helping to reduce poverty and improve the country’s food and nutrition security.”
Wheat production in Ethiopia is continually threatened by virulent and rapidly evolving fungal pathogens that cause “wheat rusts,” age-old and devastating diseases of the crop. Periodic, unpredictable outbreaks of stem and stripe rust have overcome the resistance of popular wheat varieties in recent years, rendering the varieties obsolete and in urgent need of replacement, according to Abeyo.
“The eastern African highlands are a hot spot for rusts’ spread and evolution,” Abeyo explained. “A country-wide stripe rust epidemic in 2010 completely ruined some susceptible wheat crops in Oromia and Amhara regions, leaving small-scale, resource-poor farmers without food or income.”
The Wheat Seed Scaling project identified and developed new rust-resistant wheat varieties, championed the speedy multiplication of their seed, and used field demonstrations and strategic marketing to reach thousands of farmers in 54 districts of Ethiopia’s major wheat growing regions, according to Abeyo. The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) funded the project and the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR) was a key partner.
Using parental seed produced by 8 research centers, a total of 27 private farms, farmer cooperative unions, model farmers and farmer seed producer associations — including several women farmer associations — grew 1,728 tons of seed of the new varieties for sale or distribution to farmers. As part of the work, 10 national research centers took part in fast-track variety testing, seed multiplication, demonstrations and training. The USDA Cereal Disease Lab at the University of Minnesota conducted seedling tests, molecular studies and rust race analyses.
A critical innovation has been to link farmer seed producers directly to state and federal researchers who supply the parental seed — known as “early-generation seed”— according to Ayele Badebo, a CIMMYT wheat pathologist and co-author of the new publication. “The project has also involved laboratories that monitor seed production and that test harvested seed, certifying it for marketing,” Badebo said, citing those accomplishments as lasting legacies of the project.
Abeyo said the project built on prior USAID-funded efforts, as well as the Durable Rust Resistance in Wheat (DRRW) and Delivering Genetic Gain in Wheat (DGGW) initiatives, led by Cornell University and supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the UK Department for International Development (DFID).
Protecting crops of wheat, a vital food in eastern Africa, requires the collaboration of farmers, governments and researchers, according to Mandefro Nigussie, Director General of EIAR.
“More than 131,000 rural households directly benefited from this work,” he said. “The project points up the need to identify new resistance genes, develop wheat varieties with durable, polygenic resistance, promote farmers’ use of a genetically diverse mix of varieties, and link farmers to better and profitable markets.”
RELATED RESEARCH PUBLICATIONS:
INTERVIEW OPPORTUNITIES:
Bekele Abeyo, Senior Scientist, CIMMYT.
FOR MORE INFORMATION, OR TO ARRANGE INTERVIEWS, CONTACT THE MEDIA TEAM:
Simret Yasabu, Communications officer, CIMMYT. s.yasabu@cgiar.org, +251 911662511 (cell).
PHOTOS AVAILABLE:
ABOUT CIMMYT:
The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) is the global leader in publicly-funded maize and wheat research and related farming systems. Headquartered near Mexico City, CIMMYT works with hundreds of partners throughout the developing world to sustainably increase the productivity of maize and wheat cropping systems, thus improving global food security and reducing poverty. CIMMYT is a member of the CGIAR System and leads the CGIAR Research Programs on Maize and Wheat and the Excellence in Breeding Platform. The Center receives support from national governments, foundations, development banks and other public and private agencies. For more information, visit staging.cimmyt.org.
The pursuit for higher and more stable yields, alongside better stress tolerance, has dominated maize breeding in Africa for a long time. Such attributes have been, and still are, essential in safeguarding the food security and livelihoods of smallholder farmers. However, other essential traits have not been the main priority of breeding strategies: how a variety tastes when cooked, its smell, its texture or its appearance.
They are now gradually coming into the mainstream of maize breeding. Researchers are exploring the sensory characteristics consumers prefer and identifying the varieties under development which have the desired qualities. Breeders may then choose to incorporate specific traits that farmers or consumers value in future breeding work. This research is also helping to accelerate varietal turnover in the last mile, as farmers have additional reasons to adopt newer varieties.
In the last five years, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) has been conducting participatory variety evaluations across East Africa. First, researchers invited farmers and purchasers of improved seed in specific agro-ecologies to visit demonstration plots and share their preferences for plant traits they would like to grow in their own farms.
In 2019 and 2020, researchers also started to facilitate evaluations of the sensory aspects of varieties.
Fresh samples of green maize, from early- to late-maturing maize varieties, were boiled and roasted. Then, people assessed their taste and other qualities. The first evaluations of this kind were conducted in Kenya and Uganda in August and September 2019, and another exercise in Kenya’s Machakos County took place in January 2020.
Similar evaluations have looked at the sensory qualities of maize flour. In March 2020, up to 300 farmers in Kenya’s Kakamega County participated in an evaluation of ugali, or maize flour porridge. Participants assessed a wider range of factors, including the aroma, appearance, taste, texture on the hand, texture in the mouth and overall impression. After tasting each variety, they indicated how likely they would be to buy it.
Tastes differ
“Farmers not only consume maize in various forms but also sell the maize either at green or dry grain markets. What we initially found is green maize consumers prefer varieties that are sweet when roasted. We also noted that seed companies were including the sensory characteristics in the maize varieties’ product profiles,” explained Bernard Munyua, Research Associate with the Socioeconomics program at CIMMYT. “As breeders and socioeconomists engage more and more with farmers, consumers or end-users, it is apparent that varietal profiles for both plant and sensory aspects have become more significant than ever before, and have a role to play in the successful turnover of new varieties.”
For researchers, this is very useful information, to help determine if it is viable to bring a certain variety to market. The varieties shared in these evaluations include those that have passed through CIMMYT’s breeding pipeline and are allocated to partners for potential release after national performance trials, as well as CIMMYT varieties marketed by various seed companies. Popular commercial varieties regions were also included in the evaluations, for comparison.
A total of 819 people participated in the evaluation exercises in Kenya and Uganda, 54% of them female.
“Currently, there is increasing demand by breeders, donors, and other agricultural scientists to understand the modalities of trait preferences of crops by women and men farmers,” said Rahma Adam, Gender and Development Specialist at CIMMYT.
That’s the way I like it
For Gentrix Ligare, from Kakamega County, maize has always been a staple food in her family. They eat ugali almost daily. The one-acre farm that she and her husband own was one of the sites used to plant the varieties ahead of the evaluation exercise. Just like her husband, Fred Ligare, she prefers ugali that is soft but absorbs more water during preparation. “I also prefer ugali that is neither very sticky nor very sweet. Such ugali would be appropriate to eat with any type of vegetable or sauce,” she said.
Fernandes Ambani prefers ugali that emits a distinct aroma while being cooked and should neither be very sweet nor plain tasting. For him, ugali should not be too soft or too hard. While it should not be very sticky, it should also not have dark spots in it. “When I like the taste, smell, texture and appearance of a particular variety when cooked, I would definitely purchase it if I found it on the market,” he said.
While the task of incorporating all the desired or multiple traits in the breeding pipeline could prove complex and costly, giving consumers what they like is one of the essential steps in enhancing a variety’s commercial success in the market, argues Ludovicus Okitoi, Director of Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Organization’s (KALRO) Kakamega Center.
“Despite continuously breeding and releasing varieties every year, some farmers still buy some older varieties, possibly because they have a preference for a particular taste in some of the varieties they keep buying,” Okitoi said. “It is a good thing that socioeconomists and breeders are talking more and more with the farmers.”
Advancements in breeding techniques may help accelerate the integration of multiple traits, which could eventually contribute to quicker varietal turnover.
“Previously, we did not conduct this type of varietal evaluations at the consumer level. A breeder would, for instance, just breed on-station and conduct national performance trials at specific sites. The relevant authorities would then grant their approval and a variety would be released. Things are different now, as you have to go back to the farmer as an essential part of incorporating end-user feedback in a variety’s breeding process,” explained Hugo de Groote, Agricultural Economist at CIMMYT.
The Biofortified Maize for Improved Human Nutrition project conducts field research both at CIMMYT and with partners on breeding for increased pro-vitamin A and Zinc content in both Africa and Latin America. The project grant is renewed annually and has been in operation since 2004.
Key activities include supporting early and mid-late product development, evaluation and release in Mexico and target countries in southern Africa, food science and retention studies. Molecular breeding and biochemical analysis are key components for successful breeding, and the project also involves technical backstopping for partners in both regions.
Objectives
The name TELA is derived from the Latin word tutela, which means “protection.” The TELA Maize Project is a public-private partnership led by the African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF) working towards the commercialization of transgenic drought-tolerant and insect-protected (TELA®) maize varieties to enhance food security in sub-Saharan Africa. Launched in 2018, the TELA Maize Project builds on progress made from a decade of breeding work under the Water Efficient Maize for Africa (WEMA) Project.
Africa is a drought-prone continent, making farming risky for millions of smallholders who rely on rainfall to water their crops. Climate change will only worsen the problem. Identifying ways to mitigate drought risk, stabilize yields, and encourage small-scale farmers to adopt best management practices is fundamental to realizing food security and improved livelihoods for the continent. Drought is just one of the many challenges facing sub-Saharan African farmers. Insects pose additional challenges as farmers in the developing world have little or no resources to effectively manage them. Insect protection complements and protects yield made possible through research and development.
Through TELA, AATF and its partners are pursuing the regulatory approval and dissemination of new biotech/genetically-modified maize seeds containing either an insect-resistant trait or the stacked insect-resistant and drought-tolerant traits across seven target countries in Africa (Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda). The transgenic technology, including gene constructs, transformation and other recombinant DNA technologies, and other proprietary information and materials regarding the transgenes, owned by Bayer CropScience LP (formerly Monsanto Company), is licensed royalty-free to the partners for use in the project.
To the extent where their germplasm is transformed/incorporated into finished lines, Bayer and CIMMYT further grant AATF the license to commercially release the transgenic maize varieties within the partner countries, provided that no royalty fee shall be charged by AATF/its sublicensees, and subject to compliance with all regulatory, biosafety and stewardship requirements. CIMMYT’s non-transgenic parental lines which may be used for introgression in this project have been shared under the terms of the Standard Material Transfer Agreement (SMTA) of the Plant Treaty, and remain available to other third parties outside the project in the same way. The partner countries are in different stages of the approval process to test and commercialize TELA® hybrids, which will determine when farmers can access the improved TELA seeds.
Seed companies can receive license rights to produce and commercialize the new TELA® hybrids under their private brand from AATF in due course. Licensed seed companies will access the technology royalty-free for them to produce and sell the seeds to farmers at prevailing market prices. Better yield performance, combined with improved seed quality, will deliver more value to farmers and create more demand and potential for the seed brand.
Smallholder farmers benefit from TELA maize, as it provides better drought tolerance, protection against stem borers, and partial but significant protection against fall armyworm. As a result, smallholders will spend less money on insecticides and reduce their exposure to these chemicals, besides benefiting from improved yields and better grain quality.
Test plot in Malawi includes drought-tolerant maize varieties developed by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT); other maize varieties that are both drought-tolerant and high in vitamin A, developed by the HarvestPlus program and CIMMYT; and a high-iron bean variety developed by HarvestPlus and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT).
Through thirty of these test plots established in the current growing season, the Clinton Development Initative, HarvestPlus and CIMMYT partners are reaching 30 000 farmers in 10 districts of Malawi.
Read more here: https://www.mwnation.com/new-crop-varieties-set-to-address-drought-malnutrition/
When farmers in rural Kasungu, Malawi, are asked to list some of the challenges they face, much of what they say is to be expected. Crop pests, climate change, low soil fertility, and lack of improved seed and purchasing power — these are faced by smallholders across districts and the country as a whole.
But there is one surprising response. “Sometimes it’s difficult to get feedback from research centers on what does and doesn’t work,” says Maxwell Phiri.
Capacity building and knowledge transfer are key elements of agricultural development work, but there is often a gap between research, outreach and extension to farmers. New techniques and crop varieties tested at experimental stations can take a while to reach rural communities, who want solutions to the challenges they are facing in real time.
“But now it’s easier for us because the research is being done here.” Phiri points to the farmer field school in Msambafumu, a few hectares of communal land where 23 smallholders from the surrounding area meet regularly to learn about new technologies and farming techniques.
At the school they have been able to learn first-hand about improved and new agricultural practices and technologies. Following an introduction to climate-smart agriculture practices, they have moved on to agroforestry, learning about the benefits of intercropping drought-tolerant maize with pigeon peas and fruit trees. “We’ve even started practicing climate-smart agriculture in our own fields and planting agroforestry trees,” says Ntendeleza Mwale, a member of the field school in Msambafumu and chair of a network of 17 schools in the district. “Now everybody is growing fruit trees at home.”
Back to school
A farmer field school is a group of 25-30 farmers, led by a master trainer, who come together to solve common challenges faced in their local area, such as soil degradation or poor water availability. Since 2014, the Government of Malawi has been using this innovative approach to help farmers learn about and improve their production systems through the KULIMA project. With support from a CGIAR consortium led by the International Potato Center (CIP), 15 schools have been established across the districts of Kasungu, Mulanje and Mzuzu, including master training hubs and outreach centers run by NGOs.
The overall objective is to increase agricultural productivity and diversification by upscaling climate-smart technologies,” explains Mathinda Sopo, a monitoring and evaluation specialist and project manager at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT). “Master trainer candidates are selected in each district and then invited to sit down with researchers and identify their core production challenges. The plans are then developed collaboratively and based on agroecological zone.”
In February 2020, a new cohort of trainees arrived at the Lisasadizi Regional Training Center in Kasungu, where the Ministry of Agriculture coordinates trainings on four key topics — soil health, climate change, pests and diseases and nutrition — in collaboration with the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the CGIAR consortium, supported by the German development agency GIZ.
The 13-week residential course is mostly practical but does include some classroom-based study and a community outreach component. Guided by a facilitator — usually a researcher or extension worker — participants are encouraged to learn from their experiences as they conduct experiments in their own fields, make observations and evaluate results throughout the cropping season. Outside of the core curriculum, they are free to investigate additional topics of their own choice.
After completing the course, master trainers move back to their respective areas to help train facilitators, who are ultimately responsible for running the field schools with support from NGO extension staff.
“The CGIAR centers bring in technologies they want to promote like improved crop varieties, but there are ongoing evaluations throughout the process to respond to newly emerging challenges such as fall armyworm,” says Sopo. “There’s also a review at the end of each season to discuss lessons learned and knowledge gaps.”
CIMMYT, for example, is focusing on promoting drought-tolerant, quality protein maize (QPM), and provitamin A maize, as well as climate-smart agriculture practices. At Msambafumu, the group have been comparing five improved maize varieties with local ones. “So far we’ve seen that the new varieties have bigger yields and cob sizes,” says Mwale. “Varieties like Chitedze 2 QPM and MH43A are also early maturing and are more nutritious.”
Learning by doing
A few kilometers down the road, in Galika village, members of the Tiyese field school have been learning how to control a variety of pests and diseases. So far, they have been taught about different pesticides and the benefits of using inoculant on soya beans and ground nuts to improve soil fertility, and how to identify and mitigate disease in susceptible potato varieties. They have also been learning how to apply Aflasafe while crops are still in the field to reduce aflatoxins in maize and groundnuts.
But the most pressing challenge is fall armyworm, says Matolino Zimba, a member of the Tiyese field school. “We’ve been trying new methods for controlling it,” he explains. “Last year we planted mucuna beans in our banana orchard as a cover crop. Later we soaked mucuna leaves in water and poured the solution on the infested maize and noticed that the worms were dying.”
Zimba is satisfied with the learning methods at the field school. “This approach is better for us because we get to see the process, rather than just receiving an explanation.”
Emily Kaponda agrees. She first joined the group after noticing that participating farmers were getting higher yields by using new planting methods. “The school has a smaller plot of land than I do, but their bundles of maize were much larger,” she explains.
Since joining the field school, she has learned how to increase her yields, how to conserve moisture in the soil using zero-tillage farming and the importance of diversifying her family’s diets. “We’re learning how we can use cassava or sweet potato as a starch, instead of only using maize.”
Zimba and Kaponda are both excited to be trying out QPM and provitamin A maize varieties, as well as new varieties of cassava, orange-fleshed sweet potato, improved groundnuts, biofortified beans and bananas. Much like their peers at Msambafumu, they had not known that many of these could be grown in the area, and the group has already started planning to multiply planting materials to use in their own fields next year.
“These groups are really inspirational,” says Sopo. “Most members are already practicing things they’ve learned at their school and are getting positive results.”
Sopo is already seeing success stories from schools established one year ago, but collaboration will need to be sustained to ensure lasting progress. A new research initiative, Development-Smart Innovations through Research in Agriculture (DeSIRA), will help to maintain the positive feedback loop by investigating emerging issues raised during on-farm experiments. “We can take farmer observations from the study plots to DeSIRA for further research, and the outputs from that will complement KULIMA.”
KULIMA stands for ‘Kutukula Ulimi m’Malawi’, which means ‘promoting farming in Malawi’ in the country’s main local language, Chichewa. KULIMA aims to sustainably increase agricultural productivity and diversification of smallholder farmers based on market demand, while increasing income generation by farm enterprises and creating jobs through developing local value addition of raw agricultural products. It also seeks to stimulate better information supply on agricultural policy, investments and their outcomes to both government actors and the general public.
Within KULIMA Action, CGIAR Centers are working to make their expertise and technologies more easily available to more people. In coordination with GIZ and FAO, they provide guidance on the suitability of technologies and inputs in different agroecological zones in Malawi, successful agricultural practices, and the application of relevant innovations and technologies to address the issues affecting agricultural production systems in a holistic manner.
CIMMYT’s role within the project is to contribute towards increasing agricultural productivity and diversification through upscaling climate-smart agriculture technologies. To achieve this, CIMMYT supports production and utilization of drought tolerant and nutritious maize along with sustainable intensification practices that protect the soil and enhance soil fertility, commonly referred to as conservation agriculture. The focus is on creating demand for these technologies among smallholders by increasing awareness through farmer training, extension messaging and demonstrating the yield benefits of using drought tolerant versus unimproved non-drought tolerant varieties, and sustainable intensification practices versus conventional ones. CIMMYT is working in collaboration with NGOs and community-based organizations to train lead farmers and extension agents to reach out to smallholder farmers.
The project is financed under the 11th European Development Fund and is being implemented in ten districts of Chitipa, Chiradzulu, Karonga, Kasungu, Mzimba, Mulanje, Nkhata Bay, Nkhotakota, Salima and Thyolo.
Objectives
Walter Chivasa is CIMMYT’s maize seed systems coordinator for Africa. He is responsible for co-developing and executing CIMMYT’s maize seed scaling strategies, managing and developing strategic partnerships, and implementing activities to promote the effectiveness and impacts of CIMMYT products in sub-Saharan Africa. This entails driving and documenting the impact of CIMMYT-derived varieties, contributing to the sustainability, profitability, and growth of seed company partners, and ultimately bringing the benefits of improved and affordable maize seed to smallholder farmers, who face wide-ranging constraints in sub-Saharan Africa.
Chivasa supervises scientists working to improve maize seed systems efficiency through the generation of seed production data, assisting partners in the design and implementation of seed road maps, including inbred line maintenance, production of early generation seed of CIMMYT-derived varieties, and extensive on-farm testing through a network of partners in order to accelerate the deployment of improved varieties.