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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.

CRIL staff from IRRI working with CIMMYT-Zimbabwe

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William Eusebio and Warren Constantino, both from the IRRI CRIL office, are spending two weeks working with Vivek Bindiganavile at the CIMMYT-Zimbabwe station. They are planning the integration of the maize field book system with ICIS (International Crop Information System) and finalizing software tools for capturing maize pedigree information from the breeding program. Initial development resulted in a semi-automated user interface for inputting and analyzing pedigree information to ensure the correctness of entries. A work plan was drawn to build the bridge that would attach the maize field book to the ICIS databases. Though two weeks is a short time, the foundations have been laid to connect another isle of information into the growing ICIS community. In a related activity, former CIMMYT maize scientist Scott McLean is wrapping up a several-month consultancy to gather Global Maize Program trial data and render them in a usable storage and access format.

CIMMYT-Zimbabwe celebrated its year end party – and still going strong!

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The team also elected CIMMYT’s tallest and smallest staff while Martin Van Weerdenburg, Director for Corporate Services, was visiting the CIMMYT-Zimbabwe station. The party included staff from CIMMYT, CIAT and CIFOR and everybody enjoyed an excellent meal, great mood and a torrential rain – mostly above the leaking roof. In spite of the trying circumstances in Zimbabwe, the entire team proved their continued commitment and imagination to cope and succeed under the circumstances. Four NRS were recognized for their long years of service and dedication and received certificates.

The magic of CIMMYT: its people…live from Zimbabwe!

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Anne Wangalachi conveys heartfelt thanks to the CIMMYT-Zimbabwe team for sharing their time, experience, and expertise with her during her three-day visit this week. Wangalachi, a science writer and editor, was on a mission to orient herself about Zimbabwe operations in the region.

She said the team shows enthusiasm, dedication, competence and professionalism for both simple and complex aspects of their work. From variety development to seed shipment; leaf hopper multiplication; conservation agriculture and soil fertility management, to coordinating operations—all components seem to run like clockwork. “One feels right at home, regardless of where one is based within CIMMYT,” says Wangalachi.

A hearty Asanteni sana (thank you very much) goes to you all at CIMMYT-Zimbabwe!

Communicating agricultural biotechnology—back to basics

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This Wednesday, CIMMYT was represented at a Monsanto-sponsored informal media exchange dinner at Nairobi’s Norfolk Hotel for Kenyan and visiting South African journalists. The participants shared their respective experiences, challenges, and opportunities in reporting on developments in agricultural biotechnology over the years. While appreciating that much more needs to be done in Kenya, it emerged that fostering farmer-to-farmer technology transfers; working with agricultural biotechnology experts, and rewarding agricultural science journalists would greatly enhance developments in this area.

Other noteworthy recommendations were devising indigenous, low cost, and home-grown strategies for communicating developments to key end-users—the farmers themselves; likened to the age-old African custom of having discussions “around the fire.” The power of effective communication about innovations in science and technology, including agricultural biotechnology, is crucial to socioeconomic development for food and livelihood security and should be applied effectively in Africa.

International Symposium on the Green Revolution in Africa

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The African Network for Soil Biology and Fertility (AfNet) in collaboration with the Soil Fertility Consortium for Southern Africa (SOFECSA) held an International Symposium entitled “Innovations as Key to the Green Revolution in Africa: Exploring the Scientific Facts” in Arusha, Tanzania, under the auspices of the Tanzanian Ministry of Agriculture.

The symposium, held from 17 to 21 September, brought together scientists, agricultural extension staff, NGOs and policy makers from all over Africa to explore the scientific facts and share knowledge and experiences on the role of innovation in soil fertility replenishment as a key to a green revolution in Africa. More than 200 participants from the Soil fertility/agronomy fraternity attended. Financial support came from the Rockefeller Foundation, International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA), and the International Foundation for Science.

In his opening address, Dr. Akin Adesina, Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) Vice President for Policy and Partnerships acknowledged CIMMYT’s contribution in developing some of the drivers of the African Green revolution–drought tolerant and imidazoline-resistant maize. Moreover CIMMYT’s role in establishing Soil Fert Net for Maize based farming systems and now in hosting SOFECSA was appreciated.

SOFECSA members, Paul Mapfumo, Mulugetta Mekuria, and Florence Mtambanengwe presented papers. SOFECSA country teams had three poster presentations and also served as symposium rapporteurs and chair persons for the different sessions. SOFECSA and AfNet serve as hubs for coordinating integrated soil fertility management and policy related research and development activities in Southern, East, West, and Central Africa.

Getting our message to journalists

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Maize breeder, Dan Makumbi and writer-editor, Anne Wangalachi of CIMMYT in Nairobi, attended a workshop organized by the Reuters Foundation and CGIAR Media Unit on “Reporting Climate Change in Africa” this past Thursday. Thirteen journalists working in both print and electronic media participated in the training workshop. They came from Kenya, Malawi, Ethiopia and Uganda. The purpose was to sensitize and educate them about current issues surrounding climate change and particularly its implications for livelihoods and food security in sub-Saharan Africa.

Dan Makumbi gave a well-received presentation on Drought Tolerant Maize (DTM) which drew a lot of interest, particularly with respect to potential yield improvement and fertilizer x DTM interactions. Also the issue of who had responsibility for creating awareness of new DTM varieties with farmers was raised. It was agreed that the journalists can greatly help with this. Many of the journalists are expected to write stories based on what they learned at the workshop.

DTMA meeting

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The Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa (DTMA) team held its first project review and planning meeting from 3-7 September in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. During the first three days, staff from CIMMYT and the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), together with the project’s advisory board and representatives from the donor, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, documented work completed during the first 9 months of the project. The reports covered everything from breeding trials to molecular techniques, seed systems, and livelihoods surveys.

Maize is arguably sub-Saharan Africa’s most important food crop. Erratic and unpredictable rains in many maize-growing regions of Africa have resulted in major crop failures. The DTMA project is working to improve the performance of maize in low-rainfall seasons, giving resource-poor maize farmers a better chance during times of drought.

National project partners joined for the last two days of the meeting to discuss their accomplishments and help set future priorities. In total nearly 60 researchers from Africa and Mexico participated in the meeting. One thing that was clear was the close cooperation and coordination between the CIMMYT and IITA maize programs. In fact Paula Bramel, Deputy DG, Research for Development (shown in photo, left), thanked CIMMYT for inviting IITA to be a project partner and praised how well the partnership was working.

David Bergvinson, from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, called the DTMA a flagship project for the new agricultural development initiative of the Foundation.

News about CIMMYT staff

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Congratulations to Pat Wall (CIMMYT Zimbabwe). He has just been elected as chair of the international agronomy section of the American Society of Agronomy.

And Marilyn Warburton (GREU) is now the ANABAF/ REDBIO Mexico representative as CIMMYT is now part of RedBio Mexico. RedBio is a network for technical cooperation in agricultural biotechnology for Latin America and the Caribbean. It works under the auspices of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).

Advanced wheat improvement

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Eight breeders from developing countries arrived in El Batán this week to attend the Advanced Wheat Improvement course. They come from India, Pakistan, Sudan, Egypt, Ecuador and South Africa and will study wheat improvement techniques in Mexico for the next three months. The new course is currently the longest being offered in the CG system. On Saturday, participants move to Ciudad Obregón, where the real work begins.

Project 10 meetings in Zimbabwe showcase center work on sustainable systems

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During 30 January-03 February, members of CIMMYT Project 10, “Conservation agriculture for maize and wheat cropping systems,” held annual review and planning meetings in Harare, Zimbabwe.

“The work we reviewed furthers CIMMYT’s strong tradition of helping partners test and promote diverse resource-conserving practices with farmers, as well as backstopping those efforts with relevant research,” says John Dixon, Director of the Impacts Targeting and Assessment Unit, who presided over the meetings.

Scientists reporting on achievements, challenges, and plans included Pat Wall, who with the help of Christian Thierfelder is leading center projects on conservation agriculture in southern Africa; Paul Mapfumo and Mulugetta Mekuria, who work with partners through the Soil Fertility Consortium for Southern Africa (SOFECSA); Olaf Erenstein, who has coordinated surveys to assess the adoption and impacts of zero-tillage and other resource-conserving practices in South Asia; Mirjam Pulleman, who reported on her work and that of Bram Govaerts and Ken Sayre analyzing long-term conservation agriculture trials at El Batán and Ciudad Obregón; and Stephen Waddington, maize agronomist for many years in southern Africa and now leading CIMMYT efforts in Bangladesh.

Participants, in the company of extension and NGO partners, paid visits to farmers testing conservation agriculture practices in several villages of central and southern Zimbabwe. The region’s degraded and sandy soils and crop-and-animal farming systems are among the most challenging for efforts to keep protective, nourishing residues on the land, and work has been under way for only a few years—barely the blink of an eye for such initiatives. But farmer interest is evident and, particularly in Malawi, adoption of zero-tillage and residue retention for maize-based farming has begun.

Highland maize takes off in Ethiopia

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CIMMYT staff in Ethiopia recently participated in field days organized by the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR) showcasing newly-released highland maize varieties based on CIMMYT materials. The first, held near Ambo on 14 October, was attended by Strafford Twumasi-Afriyie, CIMMYT maize breeder based in Ethiopia. Some 1000 people attended the second field day near Bu’i on 21 October, including Twumasi and Dennis Friesen, agronomist and CIMMYT liaison officer in Ethiopia.

“There is great enthusiasm from farmers, especially those who could not believe that maize could be grown at their altitude [about 2,700 m]. There is strong demand to further expand the technology next year,” says Friesen.

These new varieties are the result of a program of collaborative research begun in 1998 by CIMMYT and EIAR to develop maize varieties suitable for the highlands of Ethiopia and other central and eastern African countries. Considerable investment from both partners led to the release in 2005 of one new hybrid variety, AMH800 (known locally as Arganne), and one open-pollinated variety, AMB02SYN1, known as Hora.

Around 550 farmers have participated with EIAR in scaling up, including around 60 who have planted demonstration plots in the Bu’i area and similar numbers near Ambo.

The field days were held to demonstrate the new highland maize varieties’ performance and potential to help lift farmers out of poverty. Farmers, researchers, cooperative and union members, administrators, educators, and development partners have all attended and shared their experiences. A number of dignitaries, including members of parliament, were also present.

First international meeting of the GRI

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The First International Workshop of the Global Rust Initiative (GRI), 9-11 October, ended in Alexandria, Egypt, with agreement that a tremendous coordinated effort is needed to combat the resurgence of wheat stem rust, a fungal disease that could place the entire world’s wheat production in serious jeopardy.

Ismail Serageldin, Director of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina and former Chairman of the CGIAR, made the library’s conference facilities available to the workshop. Fifty-six participants from 21 countries attended the three-day consultation to exchange research results to date and map out priority areas for the GRI activities.

“This is a global threat, and no single country can provide a solution; only by working together can we tackle it,” CIMMYT Director General Masa Iwanaga told the meeting.

“We have the world’s leading rust scientists here saying that we have a potentially explosive situation on our hands,” said the GRI Coordinator, CIMMYT wheat scientist Rick Ward. “And we basically have to replace all the wheat in the world.” “The caliber of scientists present and the terrific sense of urgency enabled us to address a great array of critical issues during the workshop. I believe all participants felt the event was a success,” said Ward.

Message from Masa: Kenya, Uganda and Ethiopia

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I visited Kenya, Uganda and Ethiopia this week. In Kenya I attended the IRMA Project Executive Committee (ExCo) meeting. We had interesting and critical negotiations to gain access to a new Bt event from a private company and thus enable the development of a robust insect management strategy for poor farmers based on a humanitarian use exception.

I visited the DGs of the three national agriculture research systems, Executive Secretary of ASARECA, and the Minister of Agriculture of Ethiopia. In addition to appreciating our past and on-going partnerships, I discussed with them ways we could work together on two specific projects—the Global Rust Initiative and Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa. Two multi-million dollar proposals have been requested by donor agencies and if they are accepted, swift implementation based on partnership will be extremely important.

These discussions demonstrated again that CIMMYT’s style of partnership is highly appreciated by our NARS partners. We are their preferred partner because:

  • We consult with them (as opposed to deciding unilaterally).
  • We give them due credit after working together (as opposed to over-claiming credit).
  • We deliver on the ground (as opposed to just talk and meetings).
  • We support their capacity building (as opposed to our taking over their role).
  • We engage in a continuous professional relationship as colleagues with former trainees (as opposed to one-shot training course).

Those elements are building blocks for long-term relationships based on trust and respect. We will continue to build our future and deliver our mission as the preferred partner. With this trip I was also able to complete my promised series of visits to all CIMMYT’s regional locations.

Quality protein maize awareness workshop held in Harare

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In an effort to promote quality protein maize (QPM), CIMMYT, in collaboration with the Agricultural Research and Extension Service (AREX) in Zimbabwe, recently held a workshop on QPM awareness. QPM contains enhanced levels of the amino acids lysine and tryptophan, which together with other amino acids in maize are essential for the production of protein in the human body. Protein malnutrition is a serious health problem in southern Africa.

In addition to promoting general awareness, the workshop concentrated on sensitizing and educating participants about the usefulness of QPM in both human and animal nutrition. It also stimulated discussion that organizers hoped would get people thinking about how to promote quality protein maize in Zimbabwe.

The workshop was attended by participants from the University of Zimbabwe, University of Midlands, poultry and livestock industry, departments of extension, researchers and NGOs. Presentations covered the development, utilization, and seed production of QPM. During the discussion it was clear that the participants saw the potential of QPM in mitigating malnutrition in Zimbabwe.

At present only one QPM openpollinated variety has been released in the country and there is a need to release more varieties. In the recent past the variety release committee has insisted on presentation of data from animal feeding trials for a variety to be released as a QPM variety.

However, during the course of the workshop (which was attended by several members of the variety release committee) it was agreed that a QPM variety could be released on the strength of its agronomic performance and high values of lysine and tryptophan from lab tests. High lysine and tryptophan in a QPM variety were seen as valueadded traits. It was agreed that feeding trials are no longer necessary as long as there is lab data to show that a candidate variety contains a high level of lysine and tryphtophan compared to non-QPM variety. At present QPM varieties have been released in Malawi, South Africa, Tanzania, Mozambique, and Zambia.

 

Published in 2006