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.

Smallholder farmers to gain from targeted CRISPR-Cas9 crop breeding

Written by on October 31, 2017. Posted in Features.

Speakers on panel "How Can CRISPR-Cas Technology Assist Small Holder Farmers Around the World?" at the 2017 Borlaug Dialogue in Des Moines Iowa. L-R: Kevin Pixley, leader of the Seeds of Discovery project and the Genetic Resources Program at CIMMYT; Feng Zhang, core member of Broad Institute; Neal Gutterson, a member of CIMMYT’s board of trustees and vice president of research and development at DuPont Pioneer, part of the agriculture division at DowDuPont; Nigel Taylor, interim director of the Institute for International Crop Improvement at Donald Danforth Plant Science Center. Picture credit: World Food Prize — Speakers on panel “How Can CRISPR-Cas Technology Assist Small Holder Farmers Around the World?” at 2017 Borlaug Dialogue in Des Moines Iowa. L-R: Kevin Pixley, leader of Seeds of Discovery and the Genetic Resources Program at CIMMYT; Feng Zhang, core member of Broad Institute; Neal Gutterson, member of CIMMYT’s board of trustees and vice president of research and development at DuPont Pioneer, in DowDuPont agriculture division; Nigel Taylor, interim director, Institute for International Crop Improvement, Donald Danforth Plant Science Center. Picture credit: World Food Prize

DES MOINES, Iowa (CIMMYT) – Gene editing technology could revolutionize the way scientists breed high-yielding drought, disease and pest resistant, quality plant seeds, greatly reducing the time it currently takes to develop new varieties, said a panel of expert scientists at the Borlaug Dialogue conference in Des Moines, Iowa.

Using CRISPR-Cas9 to select or suppress desired traits in a genome is almost as simple as editing a Microsoft Word document on a computer, said Feng Zhang, the originator of the technology who is a core member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard.

To edit genes, a protein called Cas9 is programmed to create an RNA search string, which can search and edit paired DNA to alter a genome to achieve desired effects in plants, Zheng said.

“There’s a lot of exciting opportunity to apply this technology in both human health and in agriculture,” he said.

Although the gene editing process itself is extremely fast, it will likely be several years before the benefits of the process for smallholder farmers begin to be realized, said Kevin Pixley, who leads the Seeds of Discovery project and the Genetic Resources Program at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).

CIMMYT scientists aim to use the breakthrough technology to help smallholder farmers in the developing world address food security, nutrition shortcomings and economic threats to their livelihoods caused by climate change, pests and disease. Additionally, they see the potential to reduce the use of pesticides, and to boost nutrition through bio-fortification of crops.

“We want sustainable agriculture that provides food and nutrition security for all, while enabling biodiversity conservation,” Pixley said. “CRISPR-Cas9 is an affordable technology that can help us close the technology gap between the resource rich and resource poor farmers of the world.”

CRISPR-Cas9 improved varieties could also reduce the risk of investing in fertilizers, grain storage or other technologies, thereby contributing to “double benefits” for smallholder farmers, Pixley said.

Poverty alleviation and improved livelihoods for farmers are part of the shared vision for CIMMYT and our research partners, and we see CRISPR-Cas9 as a technology that can make a significant contribution to achieving this aim, he added.

DELIVERING BENEFITS

“We think about this as being about bringing abundant potential to agriculture through this technology,” said Neal Gutterson, a member of CIMMYT’s board of trustees and vice president of research and development at DuPont Pioneer, part of the agriculture division at DowDuPont.

“For us, it’s part of the evolution of breeding systems, it’s targeted breeding that’s enabled by CRISPR-Cas9 technology,” he said, describing joint research projects with CIMMYT and the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center.

Currently, CIMMYT and DuPont Pioneer are researching the benefits of using CRISPR-Cas9 to combat maize lethal necrosis (MLN) disease in East Africa. MLN is caused by a combination of two viruses, which can only be treated by developing genetic resistance in the plant.

“We can ultimately accelerate the delivery of improved products that are really highly performing, high yielding, and also resistant to that viral disease,” Gutterson said, explaining how the technology would benefit smallholders. “Should the disease spread outside of Africa we’ll be poised to deliver solutions even faster.”

DuPont Pioneer and the Broad Institute have signed an agreement to allow universities and non-profit organizations to use the technology for agricultural research and product development.

The joint licensing relationship opens up democratic access to CRISPR-Cas9 for agriculture, Gutterson said, adding that research collaborations with CIMMYT and Donald Danforth Plant Science Center will facilitate access to the technology in the developing world, enriching the livelihoods of farmers.

The technology will also benefit non-commodity crops, known as “orphan crops,” said Nigel Taylor, interim director of the Institute for International Crop Improvement at Donald Danforth Plant Science Center.

“The exciting thing about them is that they have huge potential because they have not undergone the improvement maize or rice have gone through,” Taylor said.

Donald Danforth and DuPont Pioneer are conducting joint research using CRISPR Cas9 into cassava brown streak virus disease, which is projected to spread from East Africa to Nigeria, the largest producer of cassava in the world.

“We edited two of the genes, which means the virus cannot replicate properly in the plant,” Taylor said. “We’re seeing the viral load is completely reduced.”

Taylor also said he would like to develop improved varieties of teff, which is widely grown in Ethiopia and Eritrea, where the seeds are used to make the food staple “injera,” a sourdough flatbread.

REGULATORY FRAMEWORK

To ensure access to the technology, consumers, farmers and scientists in Africa must be involved, and questions about how new crops are regulated must be addressed, the scientists agreed.

“We must engage in regulatory work with stakeholders,” Taylor said. “African research centers and others around the world must be part of this conversation right now – communication and education about new technologies are essential.”

If scientists use CRISPR-Cas9 to rapidly convert popular varieties from, for example, MLN-susceptible to MLN-resistant, they will make a lasting contribution to farmer livelihoods in Africa, Pixley said.

“However, we can’t yet assume that the benefits of these technologies will reach smallholder farmers,” he said.

“Public opinion is largely unformed because few people know about CRISPR-Cas9, and since the regulatory framework is largely undefined, we have a great opportunity to help form it in a way to make the benefits of these technologies available to smallholder farmers.”

We need to begin by recognizing and respecting the sovereignty of every country to decide if, when and how they are going to use this technology, he added.

I think we have a great responsibility to provide accurate, complete and trustworthy information to the public as we bring this technology into the public domain and to the regulatory process, he said.

“We know that it’s not going to be a magic bullet because no technology is, but we also think that it’s unethical to dismiss any technology without responsibly considering its possible contributions,” Pixley said.

The Borlaug Dialogue conference is held each year in Des Moines to coincide with World Food Prize celebrations. This year delegates feted the 2017 laureate Akinwumi Adesina, president of the African Development Bank, thematically focused on “The Road out of Poverty.”

Seeds of Discovery website: http://seedsofdiscovery.org/

Al Jazeera: Crop Biodiversity the Key to Ending Hunger

Campaign against residue burning seeks to make India’s “food bowl” sustainable

Written by on October 27, 2017. Posted in News.

Progressive farmer sharing experience of using CSAPs and yielding higher gains. Photo: CIMMYT.

SAMBALI, India (CIMMYT) – In the 1960s, India became the center of the Green Revolution by adopting high-yielding crop varieties and new technologies and practices that staved off famine for millions.

Today, India needs a new Green Revolution.

The country’s combination of high greenhouse gas emissions, vulnerability to climate change and pressure to feed nearly 2 billion people by 2050 is driving farmers to find ways to grow more food in harsher environments.

Climate-smart agriculture is a new approach to farming that combines adaptation options that sustainably increase productivity, enhance resilience to climatic stresses and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This option is becoming increasingly popular among smallholder farmers, who make up nearly 80 percent of India’s farmers and produce more than 40 percent of its food.

Harynana is a north-western state in India, and part of the Indo-Gangetic Plain, which covers an area of over 2.5 million square kilometers and feeds 500 million people. The village of Sambali, in Haryana, is one of the first communities in India to officially become “climate-smart” as part of the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security project (CCAFS), which is helping smallholder farmers globally find practical adaptation options to improve food security and resilience to climate change effects like drought, flooding and other extreme weather events.

In Sambali, more than 60 percent of the population depends on agriculture for their livelihoods. For over 50 years, farmers from the village have worked with Indian Council of Agricultural Research-Central Soil Salinity Research Institute (ICAR-CSSRI), this long-term knowledge exchange and exposure has resulted in 45 percent of the farming community practicing climate smart farming.

However, residue burning – the burning of excess residue on fields after a crop is harvested, as a means to clear the area to plant the next crop – remains a common practice in highly cultivated regions in India. Sambali becoming a residue-burning free village is setting an example of a model village contributing towards a healthier environment.

Besides triggering costly respiratory ailments in humans and animals in farm regions and urban centers, burning rice residues has negative agricultural implications. For example, residue burning depletes soil nutrients, with estimated yearly losses in Punjab alone of 3.9 million tons of organic carbon, 59,000 tons of nitrogen, 20,000 tons of phosphorus and 34,000 tons of potassium, according to M.L. Jat, a principal scientist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), who leads CIMMYT’s contributions to CCAFS’ climate-smart villages in South Asia.

In response, a CIMMYT-CCAFS campaign was recently organized in Sambali to eliminate residue burning and combat its harmful effects to the environment, soil and human health.

It is advisable to have one percent organic matter in soil to assist conservation and increase productivity. According to Sunil Mann, the State Development Officer of the Department of Agriculture in Haryana, there has been a decline in organic matter in this region due to burning from one percent to less than half of one percent, highlighting a significant threat to soil health and productivity. The challenges of burning are exacerbated by the risk of areas turning into ‘dark zones,’ areas where groundwater has been over-exploited, due to the declining water table.

Hanuman Sahay Jat, a Scientist at CIMMYT, expressed concerns about the amount of chemicals released while burning crop residue and emphasized the need to stop this practice and adopt residue and nutrient management strategies. One way to achieve this is by using technologies like the GreenSeeker, a compact sensor that quickly assesses crop vigor and calculates optimal fertilizer dosages, to reduce dependency on chemical fertilizers and improve soil health.

Climate Smart Van launched to widespread knowledge and adoption. Photo: CIMMYT.

M.L. Jat also highlighted the need for all stakeholders to do cost-benefit analyses before adopting new technologies. Farmers should ensure that profits will be worth investments in new technologies and researchers should ensure the efficiency and environmental impact of new technologies. For example in Basmati rice growing areas, zero-till machines, which help farmers plant new seeds directly in the residue of their previous crop’s harvest, are half the cost of the traditionally used “turbo happy seeder,” saving farmers money.

A positive result from Sambali will gain political attention and is likely to contribute to the development of new policies favoring climate-smart agriculture and their efficient utilization.

A “Climate Smart Van” was also launched during the campaign, which will drive through villages to spread knowledge, garner support and clarify the aspects of climate smart agriculture.

Sambali and other villages are taking steps towards integrated farming, with stakeholders’ engagement focusing sustainable development and scaling climate-smart agriculture practices while including women in decision making and engaging youth with profit-making opportunities.

Project helps African farmers identify regional best practices

Written by on October 11, 2017. Posted in News.

MEXICO CITY (CIMMYT) – Traditional farming systems in Africa must be updated for today’s climate and market challenges, according to a new report by the University of Queensland.

The Sustainable Intensification of Maize-Legume Systems for Food Security in Eastern and Southern Africa (SIMLESA) is an international research-for-development project working directly with farmers to solve some of the challenges they face.

For example, the project has greatly improved food production in Mozambique since 2010. It is also promoting rotational cropping systems with legumes in Tanzania to improve soil fertility as well as dietary diversity, and in Malawi, rainfall erosion has been reduced by 80 percent as farmers leave plant residues on fields to improve stability.

“The exact details of best practice change everywhere you go in Africa,” said Caspar Roxburgh, a research officer at the University of Queensland who works with SIMLESA. “A lot of this research just hasn’t been done yet in Africa.”

SIMLESA seeks to have an open dialogue between farmers and scientists to identify what works best in individual areas and define best practices for the region.

“We find out who’s doing the best, learn from them, and then we do the science to back it all up,” explained Roxburgh.

Over the past seven years, SIMLESA has helped more than 200,000 farmers adopt sustainable technologies and practices, improving yields and income.

SIMLESA is funded by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) and implemented by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), the University of Queensland along with the governments of Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi and Mozambique.

Read more about how SIMLESA is changing how food is grown in Africa here.

New screening cycle for deadly MLN virus set to begin in Kenya

Written by on October 3, 2017. Posted in News.

The maize lethal necrosis (MLN) artificial inoculation screening site in Naivasha, Kenya will begin its second screening cycle of 2017 at the end of October, interested organizations from both the private and public sectors are invited to send maize germplasm for screening.

In 2013, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and the Kenya Agricultural & Livestock Research Organization (KALRO) jointly established the MLN screening facility at the KALRO Naivasha research station in Kenya’s Rift Valley with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture.

MLN was first discovered in Kenya in 2011 and quickly spread to other parts of eastern Africa; the disease causes premature plant death and unfilled, poorly formed maize cobs, and can lead to up to 100 percent yield loss in farmers’ fields.

CIMMYT and partners are dedicated to stopping the spread of this deadly maize disease by effectively managing the risk of MLN on maize production through screening and identifying MLN-resistant germplasm. The MLN screening facility supports countries in sub-Saharan Africa to screen maize germplasm (for hybrid, inbred and open pollinated varieties) against MLN in a quarantined environment.

This is the largest dedicated MLN screening facility in East Africa. Since its inception in 2013, the facility has evaluated more than 120,000 accessions from more than 15 multinational and national seed companies and national research programs.

More information about the disease and resources for farmers can be found on CIMMYT’s MLN portal.

Please note that it can take up to six weeks to process imports and clear shipments.

For assistance in obtaining import permits and necessary logistics for the upcoming screening, please contact:

L.M. Suresh
Tel: +254 20 7224600 (direct)

CIMMYT–Kenya, ICRAF House
United Nations Avenue, Gigiri
P.O. Box 1041–00621
Nairobi, Kenya.

Drought tolerant maize provides extra 9 months of food for farming families

Written by on September 29, 2017. Posted in News.

Farmer Joyce Mapeto shucks maize after harvesting her crop in in Pindukai village, Shamva district, Zimbabwe. Photo: Peter Lowe/CIMMYT

A new study from scientists with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) shows that drought tolerant (DT) maize varieties can provide farming families in Zimbabwe an extra 9 months of food at no additional cost. As climate change related weather events such as variable rainfall and drought continue to impact the southern African nation at an increasing rate, these varieties could provide a valuable safety net for farmers and consumers.

The study found that households that grew DT maize were able to harvest 617 kilograms more maize per hectare than households that did not grow DT maize varieties. This translates into $240 per hectare extra income for households that grow DT maize varieties, equivalent to 9 months’ worth of additional food security.

As 93 percent of households surveyed grow improved maize varieties using seed purchased from local markets, this shows that by switching to DT varieties local farmers could greatly improve their livelihoods and food security at no additional cost. Currently, only 30 percent of households surveyed grow DT varieties.

Drought susceptible maize variety devastated by drought in Mutoko district, Zimbabwe. Photo: Peter Lowe/CIMMYT — Drought susceptible maize variety devastated by drought in Zimbabwe. Photo: Peter Lowe/CIMMYT

Drought is a major limiting factor for maize production and can reduce maize yields by up to nearly 40 percent. In the past 10 years, most farmers in southern Africa have experienced around 1–3 drought years, potentially due to climate change. However, Zimbabwean farmers reported 4–5 years of drought in the past 10 years. Adoption of drought-tolerant maize varieties by farmers is crucial to maintaining food security in the region. Studies have shown that CIMMYT DT maize varieties can increase yields by 40 percent under severe drought conditions compared to local commercial varieties.

The production and productivity of maize in Zimbabwe have been decreasing since the early 1990s, taking the country from its role as a surplus producer of maize to a net food importer. Climate change is contributing significantly to this decline, as Zimbabwe is particularly vulnerable to climate change due to its dependence on rain-fed agriculture. The study’s authors recommend an increase in the promotion and production of DT maize in order to help reverse this trend and help smallholder farmers in Zimbabwe mitigate the effects of climate change while increasing maize production and yield.

Drought tolerant maize harvested in Zimbabwe. Photo: Peter Lowe/CIMMYT

This research was conducted under the Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa (DTMA) project. Jointly implemented by CIMMYT and the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) with funding from the CGIAR Research Program on Maize (MAIZE), the project worked to mitigate drought and other constraints to maize production in sub-Saharan Africa through improved drought-tolerant maize varieties. Millions of farmers in the region benefited from the outputs of this partnership, which included support and training for African seed producers and the promotion of vibrant, competitive seed markets. The project ended in 2015, but DTMA varieties continue to be promoted through the Stress Tolerant Maize for Africa (STMA) project, which will work to develop 70 additional new improved stress-tolerant varieties using innovative modern breeding technologies.

Read the full study here.

Impact of adoption of drought-tolerant maize varieties on total maize production in south Eastern Zimbabwe. 2017. Lunduka, R.W., Mateva, K.I., Magorokosho, C., Manjeru, P. In: Climate and Development, DOI: 10.1080/17565529.2017.1372269

Zimbabwe indicated its intentions to “promote the use of indigenous and scientific knowledge on drought tolerant crop types and varieties” as part of a national action plan on climate change submitted to the UN ahead of the Paris climate talks in 2015. As the next round of climate change negotiations gear up in Bonn this November, negotiators will need to decide how to support countries to take action on agriculture, a decision which was postponed at the May negotiations.

At this year’s UN Climate Talks, CIMMYT is highlighting innovations in wheat and maize that can help farmers overcome climate change. Follow @CIMMYT on Twitter and Facebook for the latest updates.

Delegates gather in Morocco to combat nematodes in agriculture

Written by on September 28, 2017. Posted in News.

Participants of the 6th International Cereal Nematode Symposium in Agadir, Morocco. Photo: Abdelfattah Dababat/ CIMMYT

AGADIR, Morocco (CIMMYT) – Eighty delegates from across the globe recently gathered at the 6^th International Cereal Nematode Symposium in Agadir, Morocco to discuss the spread of nematodes, what strategies can be used to lessen their impact on crops and boost international collaboration on research.

Plant–parasitic nematodes pose an enormous threat to global food security, destroying about 15 percent of global food production annually, a loss of more than $157 billion worldwide.

“Nematodes are the unseen enemy of our crops,” said Ricard Sikora, a professor at the University of Bonn in Germany who spoke at the symposium. “[They] attack the root of the crop…they are little worms that most people don’t even know exist, but they are having a devastating effect on our ability to feed ourselves properly now and in the future.”

During the opening speech of the symposium, which was held from September 11-16, the Director of Morocco’s National Institute for Agricultural Research’s (INRA) regional center in Agadir Abdelaziz Mimouni gave a general presentation about the different centers of INRA-Morocco as well as its research programs on cereals.

Turkish delegates at the 6th International Cereal Nematode Symposium. Photo: Abdelfattah Dababat/ CIMMYT

Fatih Ozdemir, director of the Bahri Dağdaş International Agricultural Research Institute and coordinator for the International Winter Wheat Improvement Program in Turkey, spoke about the importance of the soil borne diseases in Turkey and the region. Tadesse Wuletaw, wheat breeder at the International Center for Agricultural Research in Dry Areas (ICARDA), welcomed participants and spoke about the role of breeding programs to control diseases.

“We have so many common problems in each of our nations,” said Richard Smiley, a professor from Oregon State University who presented on cereal nematodes in the Pacific Northwest. “Our goal is to understand and describe the biology of those nematodes, but also to determine how they can best be managed economically by our farmers.”

Abdelfattah Dababat, leader of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center’s (CIMMYT) Soil Borne Pathogens Program, thanked CIMMYT and donors for supporting the Symposium as well as INRA for hosting this symposium. The conference was coordinated and organized by Dababat as part of the ICARDA-CIMMYT Wheat Improvement Program (ICWIP), and funded by CIMMYT, INRA, DuPont, Bisab, Labomine, Agrifuture, GRDC and Syngenta.

The 7^th International Cereal Nematode Symposium will be held in India in 2019. For more information, please contact Abdelfattah A. Dababat at a.dababat@cgiar.org or the local organizer for the 7^th Symposium in India Umarao at umanema@gmail.com.

Watch a video summary of the 6^th International Cereal Nematode Symposium in Agadir, Morocco below:

New Publications: Improving wheat breeding through modern genetic tools

Written by on September 13, 2017. Posted in Publications.

EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) – A new study shows how wheat breeders can more efficiently increase yield and improve their selections by using modern genetic tools.

Wheat is the most widely cultivated crop in the world, and provides one fifth of the protein and calories consumed globally. Demand for wheat by 2050 is predicted to increase by 70 percent from today’s levels due to population growth and dietary changes, but new diseases, diminishing resources and climate change are making it harder for farmers to meet future needs.

Researchers at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) recently found that spring wheat breeders can incorporate genetic testing with traditional methods to increase yield and quality faster than ever before.

The study’s authors examined the effects different environments had on spring wheat yield. By using genetic selection, they were able to predict complex traits more efficiently than if they had only used the traditional method of pedigree selection, where researchers choose the best plants from each generation to use for breeding the next generation.

According to the authors, developing genetic selection models is an important step to accelerate the rate of genetic gains and grain yields in plant breeding.

Read the full study “Genomic prediction with pedigree and Genotype X environment interaction in Spring Wheat grown in South and West Asia, North Africa, and Mexico ” and check out other recent publications from CIMMYT staff below.

Genome-wide association study in wheat identifies resistance to the cereal cyst nematode Heterodera Filipjevi. Pariyar, S.R., Dababat, A.A., Sannemann, W., Erginbas-Orakci, G., Elashry, A., Siddique, S., Morgounov, A.I., Leon, J., Grundler, F. In: Phytopathology, vol. 106, no.10, p.1128-1138.

Genomic characterization of phenylalanine ammonia lyase gene in buckwheat. Thiyagarajan, K., Vitali, F., Tolaini, V., Galeffi, P., Cantale, C., Vikram, P., Sukhwinder-Singh, De Rossi, P., Nobili, C., Procacci, S., Del Fiore, A., Antonin, A., Presenti, O., Brunori, A. In: PLoS One, vol.11, no.3: e0151187.

Genomic prediction models for grain yield of spring bread wheat in diverse agro-ecological zones. Saint Pierre, C., Burgueño, J., Fuentes Dávila, G., Figueroa López, P., Solís Moya, E., Ireta Moreno, J., Hernández Muela, V.M., Zamora Villa, V., Vikram, P., Mathews, K., Sansaloni, C.P., Sehgal, D., Jarquín, D., Wenzl, P., Sukhwinder-Singh, Crossa, J. In: Nature Scientific reports, vol.6, no. 27312.

Genomic prediction of genotype x environment interaction kernel regression models. Cuevas, J., Soberanis, V., Perez-Elizalde, S., Pérez-Rodríguez, P., De los Campos, G., Montesinos-Lopez, O.A., Burgueño, J., Crossa, J. In: The Plant Genome, vol.9, no.3, p.1-20.

Genomic prediction using phenotypes from pedigreed lines with no marker data. Ashraf, B., Edriss, V., Akdemir, D., Autrique, E., Bonnett, D.G., Janss, L., Singh, R.P., Jannink, J.L., Crossa, J. In: Crop Science, vol. 56, no. 3, p. 957-964.

Genetic gains in yield and yield related traits under drought stress and favorable environments in a maize population improved using marker assisted recurrent selection. Bankole, F., Menkir, A., Olaoye, G., Crossa, J., Hearne, S., Unachukwu, N., Gedil, M. In: Frontiers in Plant Science, v.8, no.808.

Genetic yield gains in CIMMYT’s international elite Spring Wheat yield trials by modeling the Genotype X environment interaction. Crespo-Herrera, L.A., Crossa, J., Huerta-Espino, J., Autrique, E., Mondal, S., Velu, G., Vargas, M., Braun, H.J., Singh, R.P. In: Crop Science, v. 57, p.789-801.

Genome-wide association mapping and genome-wide prediction of anther extrusion in CIMMYT spring wheat. Muqaddasi, Q.H., Reif, J.C., Zou Li, Basnet, B.R., Dreisigacker, S., Roder, M.S. In: Euphytica, v. 213, no. 73, p.1-7.

Genome-Wide prediction of metabolic enzymes, pathways, and gene clusters in plants. Schlapfer, P., Zhang, P., Chuan Wang, Taehyong Kim, Banf, M., Lee Chae, Dreher, K.A., Chavali, A.K., Nilo-Poyanco, R., Bernard, T., Kahn, D., Rhee, S.Y. In: Plant Physiology, v. 173, p. 2041-2059.

New evidence shows forests help reduce malnutrition

Written by on September 4, 2017. Posted in News.

Even in areas of high food security, vitamin and mineral deficiencies affect children in Southern Ethiopia. CIFOR Photo/Mokhamad Edliadi

EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) — A new study shows that dietary diversity is highest in areas close to forests, even when people don’t collect forest food and don’t generate income from forest products.

Dietary diversity reflects the variety of foods you eat and is strongly associated with adequate nutrition you receive. Increasing dietary diversity is a key element in combatting malnutrition. In areas near forests, people typically have high-producing home gardens, fed by manure from the livestock they let graze in the woods.

Throughout the world, and particularly in the tropics, remaining forests are cut down to make way for farmland in order to feed a growing global population. However, even in areas of high food availability, children may struggle to get enough vitamins and minerals if they only eat calorically dense, nutrient sparse cereal crops, a phenomenon called hidden hunger. The authors state that while cereal crops will no doubt remain crucial to meet the caloric needs of the global population, it is important to maintain – and restore in places – high dietary diversity when facing hidden hunger. They recommend taking a holistic approach to agricultural development that maintains landscape diversity, as opposed to the current trend toward mono-cropping – growing a single crop year after year – and landscape simplification.

Read the full study “Indirect contributions of forests to dietary diversity in Southern Ethiopia” and check out the blog published by the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR).

Zimbabwe enacts new strategy in fall armyworm fight

Written by on August 28, 2017. Posted in News.

CIMMYT maize breeder Thokozile Ndhlela (left, and farmer Otilia Chirova of Mutoko district in Mashonaland East province, identifying the fall armyworm in Chirova’s field in February. Chirova eventually lost almost half of her entire maize crop. Photo: J. Siamachira/CIMMYT.

HARARE, Zimbabwe (CIMMYT) — Smallholder farmers in Zimbabwe’s rural areas have grown maize for years both as a staple and as a resource to boost their economy.

However, Zimbabwean farmers rely predominately on rain-fed maize farming, making each planting season a gamble with nature as poor rainfall, pests and diseases constantly threaten this staple crop and farmer livelihoods.

As most smallholders tried to recover from the El Niño-induced drought in southern Africa, affecting 40 million people during the 2015-2016 farming season, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, nothing could have prepared them for the sudden invasion of the fall armyworm in September 2016 that caused irreversible damage on their maize crop.

“We first noticed it in December 2016,” said Elizabeth Chikono, a smallholder farmer from Mashonaland Central Province, whose maize crop was heavily infested by the fall armyworm. “We tried to control it through spraying with different pesticides, but to no avail. I had hoped to harvest 10 tons per hectare of maize, but only managed to harvest three tons.”

The fall armyworm has since caused significant damage on over 280,000 hectares of maize in Malawi, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe, and can cause up to 70 percent crop loss, or total loss in some cases if unmanaged, says FAO. The level of damage witnessed in the fields is likely to affect maize harvests across the region, which is expected to create more than 200 million food-insecure people who depend on maize for food, said Chimimba Phiri, head of FAO southern Africa sub-regional office.

It has so far been impossible to eradicate the pest, which is known to migrate quickly and breed quite fast, with an entire life cycle between 35 and 61 days.

Zimbabwe established a fall armyworm working group in July this year to bring all stakeholders together and find solutions to manage the impacts of the pest in the country.

Forty-five people representing government ministries, non-governmental organizations, private seed and chemical companies, agricultural research institutions, donors and academic institutions, recently resolved at a meeting to advocate a countrywide response as part of a regional program of integrated management of the fall armyworm. The group recommended strengthening awareness campaigns, building stakeholders’ capacity in the fight against the fall armyworm, raising funds, strengthening research and development as well as screening of germplasm.

Smallholder farmer Perkins Chimuriwo of Mashonaland East province inspects the fall army worm damage to his maize crop in March. “I had expected to harvest 14 tons of maize on my two-hectare plot, but due to the fall armyworm, I’ve only harvested eight tons,” said Chimuriwo. Photo: J. Siamachira/CIMMYT.

These recommendations have culminated in a new strategy to undertake national assessments to determine the impact of the pest on crop yields and how to manage it.

The FAO is also working to equip southern African countries with the tools to asses and improve understanding of the fall armyworm’s threat to the region.

“The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) will pull its germplasm resources as well as modern breeding platforms to produce maize varieties that are tolerant to fall armyworm,” said Cosmos Magorokosho, CIMMYT country representative for Zimbabwe. Similar efforts have been used by CIMMYT in the past to tackle the effects of Maize Lethal Necrosis in eastern Africa.

However, breeding for fall armyworm resistant elite maize hybrids adapted to sub-Saharan Africa is a lengthy process and would require intensive germplasm screening, working with public and private sector institutions.

To reduce the numbers of fall armyworms and their impact on agricultural production in Zimbabwe, a multi-pronged approach is required that ensures fast registration of appropriate chemicals, strategies to avoid chemical resistance, surveillance and early warning, monitoring, cultural management and breeding.

Acting head of plant protection at the government of Zimbabwe’s Department of Research and Specialist Services, Shingirayi Nyamutukwa, said the government had started training field extension staff on proper selection and handling of chemicals as well as raising awareness among the staff and smallholder farmers. Experiments were also underway to determine the best fall armyworm control methods. Nyamutukwa said all of Zimbabwe’s 10 provinces had been affected by the caterpillar. He said that no single method or product has been found to completely eradicate the fall armyworm.

Breeding for fall armyworm resistant elite maize hybrids adapted to sub-Saharan Africa was cited as an option but would require intensive germplasm screening, working with public and private sector institutions. Brazil, for example, spends an estimated US$600 million annually to control the fall armyworm.

Artificial inoculation of maize germplasm at the Naivasha MLN screening site, Kenya. (Photo: B.Wawa/CIMMYT)

New online portal offers information to curb maize lethal necrosis in Africa

Written by on July 24, 2017. Posted in News.

The new maize lethal necrosis (MLN) online portal provides up-to-date information and surveillance tools to help researchers control and stop the spread of the deadly disease.

MLN was first reported in Kenya in 2011 and has since then been reported in several countries in eastern Africa, especially the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda. The disease kills plants before they can grow, and the pathogens are transmitted by insects or contaminated seed. Serious damage to the region’s maize production from MLN has impacted household food security.

The online portal, found at mln.cimmyt.org, details the spread of MLN, where the disease has been managed and controlled, and how to identify it in the field. It also provides key MLN publications, surveillance software, MLN incidence maps, information on the MLN Screening Facility, and MLN-tolerant hybrids that are either released or in pipeline.

One tool on the portal is the MLN surveillance and monitoring system that provides real-time data to identify the presence and spread of the disease across five endemic countries in eastern Africa, and three selected non-endemic countries in southern Africa. The system was developed by scientists collaborating with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), with support from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

In 2016, MLN surveillance was successfully conducted in Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe – three major seed producing countries in Africa – and the data is presented in the portal, detailing MLN’s status across 652 surveyed maize fields. Future data gathered in other affected countries will also be uploaded to the portal as surveillance teams conduct fieldwork using Global Positioning System online survey tools, to assess the spread and severity of the disease in these countries. Ongoing surveillance in endemic countries allows stakeholders to see real-time updates on the spread of MLN.

MLN susceptible hybrids compared to a CIMMYT-derived MLN-tolerant hybrid. Photo: CIMMYT

Since the disease was first reported, collaborative efforts have resulted in the establishment of a MLN Screening Facility at the Kenya Agricultural & Livestock Research Organization (KALRO) center at Naivasha in 2013. The facility, managed by CIMMYT, has so far screened nearly 100,000 maize germplasm entries — 56 percent from CIMMYT — against MLN under artificial inoculation over the last four years.

Nine CIMMYT-derived MLN-tolerant hybrids have been already released in three countries – seven in Kenya, one in Uganda and one in Tanzania. Eleven second generation hybrids are currently in national performance trials in these countries. Intensive efforts are currently being made by seed companies in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda to expand the delivery of MLN-tolerant maize seed to the smallholders.

The MLN portal enables researchers to comprehensively assess the situation with regard to MLN, helps strengthen the national disease monitoring and diagnostic systems by providing faster and accurate data, and offers access to CIMMYT-offered MLN phenotyping services.

Breaking Ground: Dagne Wegary at a busy intersection on the maize value chain

Written by Mike Listman on July 19, 2017. Posted in Features.

Like many scientists at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) who grew up in smallholder farm households, Dagne Wegary draws inspiration from recollections of adversity and has found in science a way to make things better.

“I saw how my community struggled with traditional crop and livestock husbandry and, at an early age, started to wonder if there was a science or technology that might ease those hurdles,” Wegary said, referring to his childhood in a village in Wollega, a western Ethiopian province bordering South Sudan.

“I chose to study and work in agriculture,” Wegary explains. “Even though the farming system in my home village has not changed significantly, I am happy that the community is now among Ethiopia’s top maize producers and users of improved seed and other agricultural inputs.”

As a maize seed system specialist, Wegary works at the nexus between breeding science and actual delivery of improved seed to farmers. He interacts regularly with diverse experts, including CIMMYT and Ethiopia’s breeders and members of the national ministries of agriculture, the Ethiopia Agricultural Transformation Agency (ATA), non-governmental organizations including Sasakawa Global-2000 and World Vision, and especially public, private or community-based seed producers.

Quality seed is farmers’ principal means to improve productivity and secure food, according to Wegary, who calls it “the carrier of complementary production technologies, which in combination with improved agronomy can significantly increase crop yields.”

“I am most happy with Ethiopia’s increased maize productivity and self-sufficiency, which is due partly to the use of improved technologies to which we all contribute,” he said, noting that maize grain yields in Ethiopia had more than doubled since the 1990s, reaching 3.7 tons per hectare in 2016, a level second only to that of South Africa, in sub-Saharan Africa.

According to Wegary, these improvements are the result of strong government support for maize research and development, along with the strong partnership between CIMMYT and the national program that has led to the release of high-yielding, stress tolerant and nutritionally-enriched maize varieties. He said that farmers’ have also increased their use of improved technologies and that public, private and community-based companies now market seed.

“Supplying seed used to be highly-centralized, but farmers’ main sources of seed now are cooperatives that buy from seed companies or companies that market directly to farmers” Wegary explained. “Many companies have their own stockists and dealers who directly interact with farmers.”

Before joining CIMMYT, as a scientist with the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR), Wegary helped to implement a number of CIMMYT-led projects. “These allowed me to know CIMMYT very well and sparked my interest in joining the Center and working with its high-caliber and exemplary scientists.”

A plant breeder by training with a doctoral degree in breeding from the University of the Free State, South Africa, soon after joining CIMMYT Wegary began to contribute to projects to develop and disseminate seed of improved maize varieties with high levels of drought tolerance and enhanced protein quality.

He has been involved since the early 2000s in promoting quality protein maize (QPM). The grain of QPM features enhanced levels of lysine and tryptophan, amino acids that are essential for humans and certain farm animals. Wegary took part in a CIMMYT project that supported the release of five new QPM varieties.

“Many companies are now producing and marketing QPM in Ethiopia,” Wegary said. A 2009 study in the science journal Food Policy found that eating QPM instead of conventional maize resulted in 12 and 9 percent increases in growth rates for weight and height, respectively, in infants and young children with mild-to-moderate undernutrition and where maize constituted the major staple food.

Wegary believes sub-Saharan Africa’s biggest challenges include climate change-induced heat and drought, natural resource depletion, and pest and disease outbreaks, coupled with increasing populations. In combination these factors are significantly reducing food security and the availability of resources.

“I want to be a key player in the battle towards the realization of food and nutritional security, as well as the economic well-being of poor farmers, through sustainable and more productive maize farming systems.”

New Publications: Better post-harvest storage can raise vitamin A intake 25 percent in Zambia

Written by on July 13, 2017. Posted in Publications.

Provitamin A-enriched orange maize in Zambia. Photo: CIMMYT

EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) – Maize nutritionally enhanced with vitamin A can bring significant health benefits to deficient populations, but recent modeling studies in Zambia suggest that its impact is being cut short by the low retention of provitamin A carotenoids – a naturally occurring plant pigment also found in many orange foods that the body then converts into vitamin A – during storage and postharvest grain loss.

Up to 30 percent of grain is lost in African countries when maize is stored using common storage methods, such as artisanal silos or woven bags, due mostly to insect, rodent or fungi infestations and accumulation of poisonous chemical compounds called mycotoxins, which are produced by certain fungi.

A recent study evaluated the impact of carotenoid retention in orange maize using different storage methods to assess the most efficient way to store grain without losing vitamin A carotenoids. The researchers specifically evaluated how hammer and breakfast meal – the two most widely consumed grains in Zambia – age in metal silos, multilayer polyethylene and common woven bags, as well as single and multilayer polyethylene bags.

The researchers found significant differences between grain storage methods after 6 months of storage. Across all methods, hammer meal retained more carotenoid than breakfast meal after 4 months, though there was no difference in provitamin A carotenoid loss when using single and multilayer polyethylene bags.

Potential contribution of stored orange maize to the estimated average provitamin A requirement of children and women was around 25 percent – 26.5 and 24.3 percent for children and women, respectively – suggesting that orange maize meal can provide significant amounts of provitamin A to Zambian diets, even after 4 months of storage.

Read the full study “Carotenoid retention in biofortified maize using different post-harvest storage and packaging methods” and check out other recent publications from CIMMYT staff below.

Economic benefits of climate-smart agricultural practices to smallholder farmers in the Indo-Gangetic Plains of India. 2016. Khatri-Chhetri, A., Aryal, J.P., Sapkota, T.B., Khurana, R. In: Current Science, v. 110, no. 7, p. 1251-1256.
Effect of different mulching materials on maize growth and yield in conservation agriculture systems of sub-humid Zimbabwe. 2016. Mupangwa, W., Nyagumbo, I., Mutsamba, E.F. In: AIMS agriculture and food, v. 1, no. 1, p. 239-253.
Effect of in situ moisture conservation practices on environmental, energetics and economic comparisons on maize + blackgram cropping system in dryland ecosystem. 2016. Jat, M.L., Balyan, J.K., Shalander Kumar, Dadhich, S.K. In: Annals of biology, v. 32, no. 2, p. 158-163.
Effect of long-term tillage and diversified crop rotations on nutrient uptake, profitability and energetics of maize (Zea mays) in north-western India. 2016. Yadav, M.R., Parihar, C.M., Jat, S.L., Singh, A.K., Kumar, D., Pooniya, V., Parihar M.D., Saveipune, D., Parmar, H., Jat, M.L. In: Indian Journal of Agricultural Sciences, v. 86, no. 6, p. 743-749.
Effectiveness and economics of hermetic bags for maize storage: results of a randomized controlled trial in Kenya. 2016. Ndegwa, M.K., De Groote, H., Gitonga, Z., Bruce, A.Y. In: Crop Protection, v. 90, p. 17-26.
Carotenoid retention in biofortified maize using different post-harvest storage and packaging methods. 2017. Taleon, V., Mugode, L., Cabrera-Soto, L., Palacios-Rojas, N. In: Food chemistry, v. 232, p. 60-66.
Characteristics of maize cultivars in Africa: How modern are they and how many do smallholder farmers grow? 2017. Tsedeke Abate, Fisher, M., Abdoulaye, T., Kassie, G., Lunduka, R., Marenya, P., Asnake, W. In: Agriculture and food security, v. 6, no. 30.
CIMMYT Series on carbohydrates, wheat, grains, and health: carbohydrates, grains, and whole grains and disease prevention. Part IV. Cancer risk: lung, prostate, and stomach. 2017. Jones, J.M., Peña-Bautista, R.J., Korczack, R., Braun, H.J. In: Cereal Foods World, v. 62, no. 1, p. 12-22.
CIMMYT Series on carbohydrates, wheat, grains, and health: carbohydrates and vitamins from grains and their relationships to mild cognitive impairment, Alzheimer’s disease, and Parkinson’s disease. 2017. Jones, J.M., Korczack, R., Peña-Bautista, R.J., Braun, H.J. In: Cereal Foods World, v. 62, no. 2, p. 65-75.
Crossfire: ‘Private sector engagement in smallholder value chains’. 2017. Belt, J., Hellin, J. In: Practical Action Publishing, v. 28, no. 1-2.

Zimbabwe steps up food security with vitamin A maize

Written by on July 12, 2017. Posted in News.

Mary Sikirwayi of Murewa District in Zimbabwe showing her orange maize cobs in the field. Photo: R. Lunduka/CIMMYT.

HARARE, Zimbabwe (CIMMYT) – More farmers in Zimbabwe are demanding high-yielding, highly nutritious and drought tolerant provitamin A maize.

In Zimbabwe, nearly one in every five children under the age of five years are vitamin A deficient. These deficiencies can lead to lower IQ, stunting and blindness in children, and increased susceptibility to disease across all ages. While vitamin A is available from a variety of sources, such as fruit, green leafy vegetables and animal products, these are often too expensive or unavailable to the more than 10 million people living in Zimbabwe’s rural areas.

Zimbabwe’s ZS242 – an orange provitamin A maize variety released on the market by the government in October 2015 – is particularly popular with farmers due to its nice aroma and good taste. Consuming foods made from orange maize, which is rich in beta-carotene, can provide maize-dependent populations with up to half their daily vitamin A needs, according to HarvestPlus.

Orange vitamin A maize has been conventionally bred to provide higher levels of provitamin A carotenoids, a naturally occurring plant pigment also found in many orange foods such as mangoes, carrots and pumpkins, that the body then converts into vitamin A.

These varieties are also high-yielding, disease resistant and drought tolerant, presenting an opportunity for farmers to not only increase yields but also enhance the availability of vitamins and minerals for people whose diets are dominated by micronutrient-poor staple food crops.

Mary Sikirwayi, a farmer from Murewa District, Zimbabwe, bought provitamin orange maize seed during a seed fair organized by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), in collaboration with the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation.

The maize grew and matured so fast that by the time her family wanted to try the fresh cobs for cooking and roasting, they had already started to dry. After harvesting the grain, she decided to make sadza, a porridge-like staple food consumed in Zimbabwe. When her family ate the sadza, everyone was so excited about the good taste and flavor of the food.

In addition to the good taste of the sadza from the provitamin A maize, Sikirwayi said the yield from the orange maize is more than five times higher than the national maize average yield. In the coming year, she plans to double the planted area of orange maize, due to its high demand both on the market and in her household.

CIMMYT and HarvestPlus have been working with Zimbabwe’s Department of Research and Specialist Services, Ministry of Health and Child Care, universities, seed companies, processors, retailers and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, to demonstrate the benefits of orange maize since 2012. The Zimbabwe government has expressed strong support for enriching the micronutrient content of plants and other crops, including maize.

Increased investment needed to adapt Africa’s agriculture to climate change

Written by on July 5, 2017. Posted in News.

CIMMYT Director General, Martin Kropff delivers keynote address on “Climate smart resilient systems for Africa.” Photo: J. Siamachira/CIMMYT.

HARARE, Zimbabwe (CIMMYT) – Delegates at a conference in June called for a new focus and increase in investment to ensure eastern and southern Africa’s farming systems can withstand the impacts of climate change.

Africa is likely to be the continent most vulnerable to climate change, according to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. Smallholders produce around 80 percent of all food in sub-Saharan Africa, and rely primarily on rainfall for irrigation – a source that is becoming scarcer and unpredictable under climate change. Farming is also often practiced in marginal areas like flood plains or hillsides, where increasing and more intense weather shocks cause severe damage to soil and crops.

Tanzania’s Minister for Agriculture, Food Security and Cooperatives Charles Tizeba said during a conference on the future of the Sustainable Intensification of Maize-Legume Based Cropping Systems for Food Security in Eastern and Southern Africa (SIMLESA) project, an initiative led by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and funded by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR), that a paradigm shift in agricultural development is needed to enable smallholder farmers, especially those in rural areas, to produce enough to feed themselves and to sell.

Sustainable agricultural practices, improved seed varieties, use of fertilizers and better infrastructure are all technologies and practices that have been successfully tested by SIMLESA and have the potential to be expanded across the region, said Tizeba. He also called on governments in eastern and southern Africa to develop agricultural agendas based on farmer needs and opportunities SIMLESA identified through the project’s research efforts.

Over 100 people representing different governments, research institutions, development agencies and the private sector gathered in Tanzania to participate in the taking stock on sustainable intensification research for impact in eastern and southern Africa conference. Since 2010, SIMLESA has successfully tested locally-adapted sustainable farming systems throughout eastern and southern Africa. The project began its second phase in July 2014 and will focus on expanding climate-resilient technologies and practices throughout the region.

Delegates of the SIMLESA Sustainable Intensification Conference in Arusha, Tanzania. Photo: J. Siamachira/CIMMYT

To date, a total of 268 and 378 maize and legume on-farm participatory variety selections were conducted by SIMLESA, where best performing maize and legume varieties that met farmer preferences were selected and scaled up by partner seed companies. The project has influenced over 235,000 farmers who adopted at least one sustainable intensification technology or practice.

CIMMYT Director General Martin Kropff called for the adoption of “climate-smart agriculture” that will make crops more resilient to continuing extreme weather events.

“For our farmers to be productive and ensure food security, we need to build resilience to climate change…we need to invest in new agricultural innovation now,” said Kropff.

Andrew Campbell, ACIAR chief executive officer, said climate change has already had a powerful negative effect on agriculture and food security for the world’s most vulnerable, and that these effects will become even worse in the future.

“It’s critical to integrate research into development initiatives,” said Campbell. “In this regard, SIMLESA’s work, in partnership with national agricultural research systems, becomes even more critical.”

At the project level, SIMLESA will aim to scale its sustainable intensification technologies to 650,000 farm households by 2023 in eight target countries through different partnership arrangements.

Many of the speakers at last week’s event said smallholder farmers must be part of discussions on climate change and food security as they are often among those most touched by the impacts of climate change, and they play an integral role in global agriculture systems.

To achieve the best results, SIMLESA will channel its experiences and lessons learned since its inception in 2010 and scale out its work through shared analysis, common research questions and learning through the monitoring, evaluation and learning portfolio, communications and knowledge sharing and a lean project management structure.

SIMLESA’s positive assessment of conservation agriculture-based sustainable intensification in the region suggests that policies that strengthen national and local institutions, build infrastructure for sustainable farming, improve financial investment in agriculture and increase access for innovative private investors, play a key role in alleviating poverty and food insecurity in the region.

The Sustainable Intensification of Maize-Legume Based Cropping Systems for Food Security in Eastern and Southern Africa (SIMLESA) project was launched in 2010. Funded by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR), SIMLESA aims to improve the livelihoods of smallholder farming communities in Africa through productive and sustainable maize–legume systems and risk management strategies that conserve natural resources. It is managed by CIMMYT and implemented by partners in Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania.

Farmers at center of sustainable agriculture in Kenya

Written by on June 30, 2017. Posted in News.

Muli Mutiso, one of the trial host farmers based in Wote, Kenya, doubled his harvest of maize and beans, respectively, by intercropping. Photo: K. Kaimenyi/CIMMYT — Muli Mutiso, one of the trial host farmers based in Wote, Kenya, doubled his harvest of maize and beans by intercropping. Photo: K. Kaimenyi/CIMMYT

NAIROBI (CIMMYT) – Climate change’s impact in eastern and southern Africa has driven many farmers to seek new planting techniques that maintain or increase crop production, despite fewer resources.

The World Bank forecasts show that climate change will push Africa to surpass Asia as the most food insecure region in the world, inhabiting up to 50 percent of undernourished people globally in 2080. Variations in temperature and precipitation, coupled with prolonged droughts and floods during El Nino events is predicted to have a devastating impact in the region where 95 percent of all agriculture is dependent on rainfall.

Farmers in eastern and southern Africa are already feeling the impacts of climate change, and changing the way they make a living because of it through new agricultural adaptation strategies.

Sustainable practices like growing two or more crops among each other, or intercropping, have become popular with smallholder farmers in Africa who often plant multiple crops. When used in combination with improved seeds with traits like drought or disease resistance, these farmers are able to have successful harvests despite challenges imposed by climate change.

Knowing how to manage an intercropping system is vital to its success. Cereals and legumes in an intercrop system must have different growth habits and rooting patterns to reduce competition for nutrients, light and water.

According to Leonard Rusinamhodzi, an agronomist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), farmers also need to reduce herbicide use in intercropping systems.

“It’s difficult to apply selective herbicides in systems with both narrow and broad leaf crops,” said Rusinamhodzi, who is working with farmers to apply the best fertilizer practices to their intercropped plots. “Maize will require mostly nitrogen, phosphate and potassium basal fertilizer, while legumes will require mostly phosphate and potassium, and micronutrients such as zinc and boron. Proper rates and proportions for all fertilizers and nutrients is crucial to ensure both crops are properly nourished.”

Another major consideration of intercropping is arrangement of crops in the field. A common approach is to alternate one row of maize with one row of a legume, but in Kenya, two rows of a legume alternating with two rows of maize is preferred. This arrangement, known as the MBILI system (mbili meaning “two” in Kiswahili) in Kenya, reduces competition between the maize and legumes, which leads to higher yield for both crops.

Arrangements of intercrops: Left, the MBILI system characterized by two rows of a legume alternating with two rows of maize. On the right is the commonly used intercropping arrangement with alternating rows of component crops, that is, one row of maize followed by one row of the legume.

CIMMYT promotes the adoption of intercropping and other sustainable agriculture techniques through participatory farmer evaluations (PFEs) eastern and southern Africa. PFEs allow farmers to assess crops at demonstration plots and compare a range of improved seed products against local and traditional seed.

Participatory farmer evaluations allow farmers themselves to assess crops at demonstration plots, to compare a range of improved seed products against local/ traditional seed. Photo: K. Kaimenyi/CIMMYT

In Makueni County, Kenya, where most farmers grow cereals and legumes together, on-station intercropping trials comprising five drought tolerant maize varieties, six bean varieties and six pigeonpea varieties were set up in 2016 and replicated on several smallholder farmers’ plots. In 2017, the Participatory Evaluation and Application of Climate Smart Agriculture – PEACSA – project invited farmers to score and rate the performance of the crop varieties planted right before harvest time through a PFE.

By comparing crop performance, smallholder farmers are able to see first-hand that when used in combination with improved seed, sustainable techniques like intercropping are key to successful yields and quality seed. Because of this PFEs also create awareness of new products while simultaneously delivering detailed technical knowledge in a more convincing, hands-on manner.

About PEACSA:

Participatory Evaluation and Application of Climate Smart Agriculture (PEACSA) is a flagship project of the Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS), in collaboration with different agricultural research organizations, including CIMMYT. Through the PEACSA project a variety of best-bet CSA practices are applied at both on station and on farm levels, in an effort to test and evaluate appropriate technologies to increase agricultural productivity and enhance food security. With participatory evaluation, uptake and adoption of new technologies, especially improved seed varieties, is greatly increased because farmers take stock of the traits that matter to them. Cob size, kernel type, and length of maturity are just some of the characteristics farmers can rate in a participatory evaluation exercise.

About DTMASS:

Led by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa Seed Scaling (DTMASS) project works in six countries in eastern and southern Africa to produce and deploy affordable drought tolerant, stress resilient, and high-yielding maize varieties for smallholder farmers. In 2016, DTMASS conducted PFEs in Mozambique and Zambia in collaboration with partners, and aims to conduct dozens more in 2017, across all project target countries.